Page 24

The screen door, half-cocked on its hinges, creaks when I open it with steady hands. Sometimes, I wish my pulse would race, that my body would tremble at the thought of facing so many horrific memories. At least then I’d feel human. When a man has lived his entire life as a monster, though, nothing really scares him anymore. Not even the darkest demons from his past.

The open, empty parlor beyond the front door stirs my blood like ghosts rousing from dormancy to greet me. I can damn near taste the copper on my tongue, as I move deeper into the house, the stench of death still clinging to the air. Moonlight casts lines on the wooden floors, cutting through the metal bars across the windows. Security bars, thought to keep intruders from getting it, but I knew better, even back then. They were placed there to keep anyone inside from getting out.

The kitchen stands equally empty, its cupboards open with broken panels, which suggest it’s been raided at one time. I’m not sure what happened to the sparse furniture that once decorated the shithole, but it’s gone, including my mother’s upright piano—the only thing I regret leaving behind.

I’m surprised the place still stands after all these years. I’d have thought the neighbors would’ve burned it down, with all the negative gossip surrounding it.

Down the hall stands a closet, one I remember more intimately than I care to. A faded brass knob squeals with a slow turn, and I peel back the first layer of my fucked up childhood.

Pressure beats inside my skull, into my sinuses, like a water balloon about to pop. Everything is black, and the thin twine of rope bites into my wrists, dangling over my head. On the other side of the door, Carl keeps count. Six hundred twenty-three, six hundred twenty-four, six hundred twenty-five … My punishment for tattling about the dead cat in the shed is three thousand seconds upside down in the closet, blindfolded with my hands tied.

I hate when my mother leaves me home alone with him. I dread the nights she ventures into the city with grandfather until late, and I become Carl’s little guinea pig.

Six hundred thirty-nine, six hundred forty … he keeps on, ticking off the seconds of my life that don’t matter to him. Everyone says there’s something wrong with him, but Mother doesn’t care. He’s her baby brother, but only a few years older than me, which means I know more than my mom about what he does when no one else is around. How he skinned that cat alive and burned it with grandpa’s blowtorch. I can still hear it screaming inside my head, even now, over the irritating sound of Carl’s counting.

I only hope grandfather doesn’t come home soon, because if he finds me this way, he’ll beat Carl, which will only mean more torture for me the next time mother leaves. Carl’s afraid of grandfather. I am, too, the way he smacks my mom around. Makes me wish I was bigger, so I could punch him right into the wall. I’d punch Carl, too, since he tells me someday he’s going to kill all of us and burn the house down.

Not if I kill him first.

On the top shelf sits the old, dust-coated album, filled with the only baby pictures my mother ever took of me. Some nights, they were my bedtime stories, and she’d sit flipping through them, telling me stories behind each one. Her favorite was the Navy picture of my dad, who apparently died during one of his tours overseas. She told me of the letters she wrote to him, and continued to write even after he died, detailing my childhood milestones. She kept them tucked away in a shoebox, until my grandfather found them and tossed them into a burn barrel out back. I remember her sobbing over the small bits of ash and embers, cursing her own father for destroying her life.

Halfway through the book, I pause at the place where the image of my mother sitting on the crushed velvet couch should be. In its place is a pack of matches for a motel up on Kedzie that I slide out of the yellowing plastic sheath. Flipping it open reveals a number—room number, at a guess—and I tuck the matches into my back pocket.

Clue Number 1.

I should leave at this point, but the door at the end of the hallway taunts me to open it.

Don’t leave me here, a soft voice chimes in my ear, and I feel the first chill wind down my spine.

Album tucked beneath my arm, I stride toward it, the view flipping before my eyes, from the ruined and peeling paint, to the smooth dark brown that almost looked like a void there when I was a kid.

I can hear Carl’s record player, Master of Puppets by Metallica, one of his favorites that he only played when grandfather wasn’t around.

I keep my eyes on the door, praying he doesn’t catch me before I reach it. Turning the knob opens the void to the staircase that leads to the cellar of the house. I click my flashlight on, letting the arc of light slice through the darkness below, and close the door behind me as I begin my descent. Only Carl ever ventures down here, guarding the cellar as if he’s got the secrets to the universe locked away. Grandfather doesn’t bother with the stairs since his knees have gone out on him. Not like anyone in this house would call for help, if he happened to fall down the staircase.

The air is colder, musty and thick with the scent of rot. My breaths arrive faster, sucking it into my lungs, as I fear what lies on the other side of the concrete wall ahead of me. With careful steps, I approach, but pause at a clinking sound, before rounding the wall brings me to a dark open pantry, where grandpa used to store his paint and tools.

Mostly empty shelves line the walls, and I scan the flashlight down to a silver bowl on the floor to the left of me, filled with water. Like a dog’s bowl. The concrete around it’s wet. My heart pounds inside my chest, more so when I lift my flashlight to the face of a girl, maybe eighteen or nineteen, judging by her size. She’s propped against the wall, wearing what looks like my dead mother’s favorite dress. Over her eyes is a black blindfold, and I watch as her lip quivers, as though she might cry.

“Who are you?” I whisper in the darkness.

“Please. I want to go home. Please, let me go home.”

Whoever she is, she doesn’t deserve to be kept down here like some kind of animal “Sure. Just … follow me.”

“I can’t.”

“I’ll remove your blindfold.”

“It’s not just my blindfold.”

It’s then I notice her arms resting at her side and her legs twisted oddly beneath her. “Are they broken?”

“I don’t think so. I can’t move them, though.” Her lip quivers beneath the blindfold. “I think … I think he gave me some kind of … drug, or something.”

I edge closer until crouching in front of her, and her trembling heightens. A small streak of red peeks out from the blindfold, and when I attempt to lift it from her eyes, she flinches, turning her head away.

“It’s okay. I’m just going to remove it.”