Sallow House

by Phil Malone

  Feeding nights were a rare exception to Sallow’s neglect of the dishes. He ignored a stack of plates beside the sink, but held the cup beneath the faucet and ran the water until it became almost scalding. He snatched a frayed wire brush from beneath the sink and scrubbed until all the gobbets of congealed blood worked themselves loose and disappeared down the drain. The same care and diligence went into the lid. Sallow held it up to the light, making sure the entire clog had cleared. He blew through it, and left it on a soiled dishtowel to dry.

  Most of the lights were off in the house, but Sallow had no trouble navigating by the dim glow of a single bulb in the kitchen. Even when he reached the darkened living room, he could make out the shapes of everything in its proper place. He paused, though, as he passed by the yawning opening onto the hallway.

  Sallow peered into the darkness, his eyes adjusting quickly. The doorway to his mother’s bedroom was open, just barely. He tried to remember the last time he’d gone in there. Not recently. Sallow wondered if he’d been sleepwalking.

  He flicked on the hall light on his way to the bedroom. Dusty, framed family photos lined the walls. Not only images of Sallow as a young boy, but old wedding photos, graduation pictures of his mother, his aunts and uncles, and one picture of his grandfather smiling outside the general store he once owned. Sallow plodded past without seeing; he hadn’t looked at them or thought about them in years.

  An antique wooden stand flanked one side of his mother’s bedroom door. She used to keep a glass vase of flowers on it, but the flowers had died and the vase shattered years ago. Sallow never bothered to move the stand. Sometimes he bumped into furniture during his restless, unconscious sojourns. At the moment, he had no unexplained bruises on his thighs. He edged around the stand and pushed the door all the way open.

  The light bulb popped and burnt out when he flicked the switch. There might be some more in a cabinet in the laundry room, Sallow knew, though he didn’t see much of a need for it. He never used his mother’s bedroom.

  Light from the hallway permeated the room’s darkened interior. He could see the bed, still made and untouched for twenty-five years. A big dresser and full-length mirror took up most of the opposite wall. Sallow could see his own shadowed reflection, silhouetted in the doorway. He took a few steps into the room, glancing around. The door to the bathroom was closed. The closet door as well.

  Sallow retreated into the hallway and closed the door behind him. He shook his head. Just one of those inexplicable things.

  As he returned to the kitchen, he felt a cold draft raising the hairs on his arm. Sallow followed the breeze to its source, through the dining room to the den. Heavy curtains covered a bank of tall windows and the sliding glass door that opened onto a screened in back porch. Heavy though they were, the breeze shifted the curtains slightly. They rumpled and deflated, then puffed out again with an audible patter, like sailcloth trying to catch the wind.

  Sallow doused the lights in the den and peeked through the curtains. Nothing on the back porch looked out of place. He saw the usual wicker chairs and plush cushions, dirty from the occasional rainstorm or dust cloud that managed to sleet in through the screens. He saw the charcoal grill, the empty tanks of propane, the long dormant bug zapper hanging from the ceiling. Nearer to hand sat the big storage freezer, unplugged and empty.

  One of the windows was open, though. Not much, maybe six inches. Sallow eased open the sliding door and went out onto the porch. His back yard opened onto a black, yawning tree line. At night, nothing could be seen out there, even if he’d bothered to turn on the porch light.

  He closed the window and crossed the porch to the screen door, just to make sure the latch was in place. For a few moments, he paused beside the door, resting his nose against the fine wire mesh of the screen, staring out into the blackness. Nothing out there moved, or even made a noise.

  When Sallow went back inside, he made sure the sliding door and all the windows were locked. He returned to the kitchen, rummaging through the cutlery drawers until he found a huge, mean looking meat cleaver. The blade was notched and spotted with rust, an aged bequest from his grandfather’s store that had worked its way into the family’s personal possession.

  He tucked the cleaver through his belt and pulled his shirt over the handle, hiding it from view. Sallow made his way back through the living room, to the entrance hall and the front door, where he snuffed out the lights.

  The street outside his door was quiet. He could hear insects buzzing in the grass. A dog barked somewhere in the distance. Everything was still, and dark. Midnight had come and gone.

  His lawn was a tangle of deep grass and knee high weeds sprouting from rutted, uneven ground. The cracked and filthy flagstones of his front walk were overgrown, practically submerged in places. Maples shaded the lawn, along with one huge oak tree whose spreading branches resembled petrified bolts of lightning, striking out in jagged and unpredictable directions. Some of those branches threatened to invade the upper floors of his house, but it would still be a couple of years before he had to deal with it.

  Closing the door behind him, Sallow started down the front walk, following the furrow through the grass. He had an old brick mailbox facing the street, which he seldom bothered to check. Most of the mail he received was junk. He got a few bills, too, but always paid those on time.

  Upon reaching the mailbox, Sallow paused to glance up and down the street. Only a couple of streetlights left intermittent pools of illumination to see by, and none of them touched his own front walk. A handful of cars were parked along the embankments, where the shoulders on either side of the road dipped down into weed choked runoff ditches. Sallow recognized the cars as belonging to neighbors he never spoke to.

  He yanked open the mailbox and emerged with a thick bundle of flyers, menus, credit card offers, and grocery store coupons. He should empty it more often, Sallow decided. It wouldn’t do to have the neighbors think that no one lived here.

  The night’s tranquility remained unbroken even as Sallow rolled up his useless haul of unsolicited correspondence. He detoured toward the garage, half hidden behind a couple of maple trees, and dumped the mail into a metal garbage can. He replaced the can’s lid and strolled back inside, relieved that he never needed to unholster that meat cleaver.

  Inside the garage, Dagobert remained fastened to the table. His pale eyes bulged and roamed the surroundings, though he scarcely turned his head. As soon as Sallow reentered, Dagobert’s gaze fixed on him. He always seemed more coherent at night, but that was no surprise.

  Sallow pulled the meat cleaver out of his belt and tried to find a little shelf space so he could set it down. “Don’t worry,” he told Dagobert, when he noticed the man following the cleaver’s movements. “This isn’t for you. It could do the job, I suppose, but it seems like a lot more work for me. I already have the tools I like to use, you know that.”

  Dagobert licked his lips. “My blood carries an infection,” he said. “You should be careful. It’s everywhere.”

  Once he finally found room for the meat cleaver, Sallow moved closer to Dagobert. He pulled open a couple of drawers in a big tool cabinet at the foot of the table, extracting rubber gloves and a heavy leather apron. He tied the apron around his waist and started working his hands into the gloves.

  “That’s what these are for. The right tools for the right job. It’s pretty much my whole philosophy.”

  Dagobert’s head dropped back against the table. He sighed. “Even so.”

  Sallow slapped a gloved hand against the stump of Dagobert’s wrist, making him wince with a sharp hiss. “What was it you said about my mother earlier? I already forgot.”

  With the cable tying him down, Dagobert couldn’t move his maimed arm, couldn’t shake off the pain shooting up from his wrist. “I don’t recall,” he groaned. “I used to love women. I had so many of them. What makes you think I remember your mother at all?”

  Sallow’s trusty hacksaw rested atop the cabinet w
here he found the apron and gloves. He snatched it up and went to work on Dagobert’s remaining elbow. The saw bit into pale flesh, raising a weal of blood so dark it looked almost black. Oblivious to the high pitched keening of his mutilated guest, Sallow sawed furiously. He swiftly struck bone, and put his weight behind the cut.

  Dagobert writhed in agony, but he didn’t pass out, and with the cables holding him down, he couldn’t go anywhere, either. The bones in his forearm just below the elbow crunched and ground together. One of them cracked as Sallow finished filing through it. He lacerated a little more tissue beneath it, then started in on the next bone.

  By the time he finished, Sallow was flushed and sweating, but the mania had passed. Dagobert had gone limp, though his eyes remained open. A trickle of blood ran from his lips that might not have been part of his dinner.

  Sallow wiped the hacksaw on his apron and set it aside. Breathing hard, he shrugged off one of the rubber gloves and reached beneath the table, where he kept a box of garbage bags. He shook one open and picked up the glistening severed forearm with his gloved hand. It landed with a smack in the bottom of the bag.

  “I’ll get some paper towels,” he said, turning toward the door.

  A man stood there, blocking the exit, his hand on the doorknob as if he’d just accidentally stumbled upon the scene. Sallow stopped short. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the hacksaw, plant shears, a garden hoe, a three pronged earth tiller, a hatchet, even a heavy rubber mallet, all more or less within reach.

  The stranger looked around the garage, taking in the entire tableau. He had pale, close set eyes, a coil of short, dark, tightly curled hair, and white, greasy skin. He seemed bewildered. “Does no one hear him screaming?” the man asked.

  “Are you a cop?" As soon as Sallow said it, he knew the man was nothing of the sort. Dagobert glanced at him and gasped, his eyes suddenly filling with tears.

  “I am Bleda.”

  Sallow pointed his thumb at the walls, all covered with a soft foam paneling that looked like the inside of an egg carton. “Soundproofing,” he said.

  “You’ve given this some thought. I’m impressed.”

  Even in his weakened state, Dagobert strained against the cables. “Bleda,” he croaked. “Don’t make me beg.”

  “Of course. What am I thinking?" He stepped aside, leaving the pathway to the door clear. “You were getting paper towels, Mr. Sallow.”

  “You know my name?" Sallow took a step toward the garden shears.

  “It’s the only thing I know for certain. But I’ve surmised a great deal more, just by wandering around in your home.”

  “Bleda,” Dagobert said. There was a little more urgency in his voice, that time.

  Sallow shook his hand until the glove loosened, then he swung his arm behind his back. The glove went flying and he snatched the shears off a tool chest in the same motion. He dropped his hand down by his hip, hiding them from Bleda’s view. “In that case,” he said, “maybe you can run and fetch the paper towels.”

  Bleda laughed but he didn’t move.

  The garbage bag crinkled noisily as Sallow balled up the open end in his palm. He started walking in Bleda’s direction, angling toward the open door. “I guess I’ll get them myself.”

  “Be careful with the body parts. There’s an infection in his blood.”

  “I’ll be sure not to catch it.”

  “Not from him, anyway.”

  A step away from Bleda, Sallow jabbed out with the shears. In an eye blink, Bleda shifted a few inches to the side. Sallow never even saw him move.

  Bleda’s hand shot out. Long, sharp fingernails stabbed into the back of Sallow’s wrist. His fingers spasmed, snapped open, dropping the garden shears. The garbage bag landed on the floor and the forearm rolled out, its raw, meaty end seeping.

  Sallow was on his knees, lights dancing in the corners of his eyes. His arm was twisted painfully behind his back. He smelled Bleda’s breath as the man leaned over him.

  “I actually wanted you for myself,” he said.

  “Your breath literally smells like shit.”

  Bleda laughed again. His mouth opened wide, brown teeth gaping beside Sallow’s face. The canines in his upper jaw jutted out, impossibly long and sharp.

  They clamped down on Sallow’s neck. He felt a sharp pinch, and then a tsunami of cold and dark washed over him.

  CHAPTER THREE

  On the second day after Melody Sanger’s father went missing, her mother picked her up from school. “I can catch the late bus,” Melody protested, as the other kids around her watched and smirked on their way out the doors. “I have choir practice, I can’t just skip.”

  Exasperated, her mother snapped at her. “Don’t argue with me. Get in the car, Melody!”

  Her voice carried, but of the two, only Melody felt completely mortified. She climbed into the car, feeling the eyes of her fellow students on her. She slammed the car door, hurled her backpack into the back seat, and slumped as low as she could go.

  “Seatbelt!” her mother barked.

  Of course. There was always something else.

  An eleven minute drive brought them to her brother’s middle school. Melody sighed. They still had to wait another forty minutes for Chase to get out before they could even go home. She could be in the music hall right now.

  Melody was a freshman. It didn’t matter much that she was pretty; freshmen still occupied the lowest rung of any high school’s social caste system. It was a ladder she could climb if she made all the right moves. Her parents remained oblivious, though. They were no help at all.

  A news van was parked outside their home when they finally arrived. Melody’s mother tried to usher her children inside before the reporter could reach them, but Melody had to fish her backpack from beneath the seat where her brother had kicked it during the ride, so only he got away clean.

  “Mrs. Sanger,” the reporter called, hurrying up the driveway with a cameraman in tow. “Is it usual for your husband to be unavailable during important sessions of Congress? I tried contacting his office but they said he wasn’t in. Are you aware he missed the vote on the highway bill that he cosponsored?”

  Melody’s mother ignored the woman. She snapped her fingers at her daughter, trying uselessly to hurry her along.

  “Is he at home? I can’t help but notice that yours is the only car that’s here.”

  Finally, Melody emerged from the car and her mother slammed the door, almost catching her daughter’s butt in it. She squeaked her displeasure.

  “I’m sorry to bother you at home with this, Mrs. Sanger, it’s just that no one seems to know where your husband is.”

  “If you were really sorry, then you wouldn’t bother me with it at all!" Her mother practically shoved Melody inside.

  Just before the door slammed shut, she heard the reporter say something about a domestic dispute. There was that smirk again, too. Everyone was always laughing at Melody, not quite behind her back.

  It was stupid. Her parents weren’t really fighting, but all the news anchors would probably say they were if her dad didn’t show up by the end of the day. Melody knew they weren’t fighting. She overheard her mother on the phone with the police that morning, telling them he hadn’t come home the night before.

  Safely inside the house, her mom ordered her in no uncertain terms not to venture outside, and definitely not to talk to reporters. Then she disappeared into the master bedroom. Melody could hear her crying through the door.

  She went upstairs, wandering the length of the hallway. Chase sat playing a video game, utterly absorbed. She backtracked past his open door, returning to her own room. Only after she closed her own door did she feel like she could breathe freely. She flung herself onto her bed. Her backpack landed on the floor, her purse on the bed beside her.

  Melody didn’t know where her dad was. She couldn’t do anything to help find him. Instead, she dug out her phone, picked a song she liked, and recorded a video of herself singing along.
Everyone always agreed that she had a lovely voice.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Damien Sanger remembered freezing. He remembered a cold that emanated from his bones and spread outward. It felt like the warmth would never return, like the cold would shatter him from the inside.

  He felt too weak to move, too weak to even open his eyes. Pain, cold, and dark. That was his entire world. He was afraid he’d never known anything else.

  “This is the most perilous time,” he heard someone say. “The body wants to die. All the old life is fled, replaced by something more like an echo of life.”

  Cold hands grasped him beneath the armpits. Rough concrete scraped against his skin as someone moved him. He was naked, he realized. Why wouldn’t they give him any clothes? With clothes, he could get warm.

  The dragging sensation ceased. Someone had propped him in a sitting position. His head fell back. There was no strength at all in his neck. His body rag-dolled into whatever pose they chose for him.

  An orange light glimmered beyond his closed eyelids. “Look,” the voice said again. Something pinched his arm near the shoulder, a sharp, icy spike, localized at first, that soon washed painfully across half his body. “It is as if the candle flame emits no heat. I can burn the flesh, but it prickles and shivers despite that.”

  A smell of burnt flesh reached Sanger’s nostrils, but the orange light diminished as his tormentor removed the candle flame. He felt the man’s hand on the back of his head, cradling him. Something pressed against his lips, a ceramic jar, perhaps.