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Another thing that happens a lot these days.
“Just texted him, said we were here,” she tells me. I notice her phone’s clenched in her bone-white hand. “He said they’re upstairs. Bathroom.”
A hard swallow works its way down my throat.
Without a word, I brush past her, heading for the house, dirt and slush kicking up around my black Chucks. My brain pings off with a belated reminder to lock my car doors—a leftover sign of life in what is now an otherwise wasteland—but like most nerve-firings in my brain, I ignore it. What’s the worst that could happen? Someone steals it?
The rain seems to have let up some, but I barely notice as icy droplets ping my face and dampen my hair, melding with the emptiness that clings to me like my very own impenetrable forcefield.
What it’s keeping out, what it’s protecting…
Well, I don’t want to think about that. Not if there’s any chance of me surviving what’s waiting inside for me.
Like two woefully unprepared civilians stepping into a battlefield, side by side Ivy and I weave through the maze of cars, bypassing the occasional group of onlookers smoking and drinking and chatting indistinguishably amongst themselves.
I can’t tell if I’m being stared at, or if it’s just my paranoia. Either is a good possibility.
Rock music thumps from inside the house, growing louder and more discernible the closer we get.
Our path narrows once we hit the stone walkway leading to the porch, and Ivy shifts behind me.
She’s too fucking young to be here. Not even sixteen. She doesn’t even have a driver’s permit, much less a license. I had offered to pick her up, like I try to remember to do when these things come up, but she just hung up on me, like she always does.
The first time this happened, it didn’t even cross my mind that she didn’t drive when I called her up to help. Not until she showed up in a fancy ass black Mercedes, and told me it’s a good thing Waylon taught her how to drive last summer.
Maybe before, I would’ve cared more. Did the right, responsible thing, and kept her out of this.
But this is now.
And now, it’s a miracle if I remember to brush my teeth every day.
The crowd draped across the steps easily parts for us, almost like they were expecting us. They probably were. It’s the usual people I find at these sorts of things. Location might change, but it’s all the same. They know why we’re here. Who we came for.
Their pity ekes out like toxic sludge, clogging the air, and making it hard to breathe. Even walking becomes cumbersome. The floorboards leading us inside, through the open doorway, might as well be quicksand, tugging us down. With every step forward, the crowd seems to thicken and draw closer, and their stares and knowingness from behind glazed, dilated stares as we pass are the hands pushing us under.
Ivy’s all but pressed against my back, and I reach an arm back, hooking it around her to keep her close.
Somewhere, a glass shatters, puncturing the heavy beat of “Rope” by 40 Below Summer blasting from the stereo in the far corner, and someone boos. “Party foul!”
I look around, peering over the sea of heads. There.
We have to cross the packed living room to get to the stairs. People stand and bob their heads along the wall. In the middle, there’s a dining room table stacked with liquor and beer bottles and red plastic cups. There seems to be a game of beer pong going on in the midst of the mess. A ball arcs across the room, and cheers go up, clashing with the bass shaking the walls, the floor, the windows…
I lead the way, shouldering my way through the tight throng of bodies. Ivy grips the bottom of my shirt, staying right on my heels. There’s some shoving. Drinks splash us. But we make it through, no worse for wear.
The banister creeks in my grip when we reach the steps, the soft, polished wood slick against my clammy hand.
At the top of the stairs, the hallway opens up before us like a great maw, dark and surprisingly empty.
It swallows us whole.
The music and noise from below fades some, or maybe it’s just that my heart’s beating that loud. It’s all I can hear now—a thunderous whooshing that fills my ears, making me feel like I’m underwater.
It’s a simple set-up—a straight and narrow hallway, with closed doors on either side of us that I presume lead to bedrooms. I don’t even bother checking to confirm it. Instinct carries me straight ahead, to the closed door dead ahead at the end of the hall.
Light fans out across the hardwood from the crack underneath. And the closer we draw, more things register—like the creaking pipes and running water.
The shower…
