Gingerbread House & Joey's Undead Dog

by Kater Cheek



  Gingerbread House

  &

  Joey’s Undead Dog

  By Kater Cheek

  Gingerbread House

  &

  Joey’s Undead Dog

  Copyright Kater Cheek

  2011

  Table of Contents

  Gingerbread House

  Joey’s Undead Dog

  End

  Gingerbread House

  By Kater Cheek

  August 27th

  This house stinks of cinnamon and nutmeg and clove and ginger. The smell clings to everything, even to this journal. My hands are always sticky, and the walls are humming with bees both inside and out. We had a rainstorm last week and the water dripped down the windows, melting holes in the sugar-glass. I hate this house.

  It’s been three weeks since the missed shipment. Josh thinks they got delayed by a storm or something. Brian says that it’s probably a funding issue, like maybe the production company got bought by another company, and the show is up in the air right now. Craig doesn’t say anything, but he tore down one of the cameras to try to make a radio. He can probably do it, he’s geeky like that, but it’s a waste of time. Even if he can get it to work, it won’t mean anything. If they wanted to get us, they know where we are.

  Brian’s been talking about walking to civilization, but I was like, what civilization? We don't even know where we are, and anyway, it’s easy to get lost in the woods. Brian goes out anyway, to scout around he says, but he always comes back before dark. When it’s dark here, it’s really dark, and you can’t see your hand in front of your face. I haven’t gone farther than the outhouse. I’m not the outdoorsy type.

  I reread my journals from before the missing shipment. All those stupid competitions, the bake-offs, the architecture contests. I was so proud of myself that I’d outlasted all the others on account of my professional baking skills. Makes me want to take the earlier me and shake her, make her trade places with that lucky bitch Theresa who sprained her ankle and got a free ride home. Theresa cried when she left, because she wanted that prize money so badly. She can have it. I just want to get out of here.

  I ran out of tampons this week. It’s bad enough we have an outhouse and have to bathe at the stream, but now I have a colossal nuisance that’s mine alone. We all stink, and the house smells like a combination of gym socks and snickerdoodles.

  September 1st

  Spent most of this week baking loaves to wall off Josh’s bay window. He got mad at me; he’s so proud of it. I like Josh, and the window is pretty, but the sugar-glass is all melting in the humidity, and I’m tired of bees flying in. Josh and Brian were talking about allergies, and what they’d do if they got stung. Brian said he was allergic, and Josh wanted to know how you’d find out you were allergic if you’d never been stung. Craig, as usual, said nothing. He’s still fiddling with his radio.

  Josh wants to knock down some of the internal walls and open this place up. I agree that we hardly need seven bedrooms (well, six bedrooms and one room for storage) for the four of us. Josh kept going on about feng shui and open space. I think he still talks to the cameras, like he's going to win points for his architectural savvy. Brian said we need to make this house stronger, not tear it down, and since Josh does what Brian wants, he agreed.

  Usually Brian just paces around, complaining and smashing things when he gets frustrated. That and make forays into the woods. Now that we don't need him to heft heavy cake-panels anymore, he's decided to be Mr. Outdoorsman. Whatever. As long as he stops bothering me.

  September 4th

  Josh finally stopped using his bedroom and let me wall it up. Before the last shipment he’d been fixing it up with Florentine swirls of icing in pale pinks and blues, peppermint candy wainscoting, and mullions for the window formed out of red licorice. They’d photographed the hell out of it the last time the producers were here, said that was just the thing to boost ratings. Josh got to stay on past the third round on account of his bedroom. He’s still proud of it, even though that room is part of what kept him on. It’s like the thing with the bay window. He doesn’t care about the bugs flying in, he just wants to keep his art from getting destroyed. I told him he cared more about his art than his life, and he said he did. Freak.

  I stopped staying in my bedroom too. The nights are warm, and the smell of candy and spice gets overwhelmingly cloying when the door is shut. There was a gnawing sound, and when we pulled off some of the peppermint wainscoting we found nests of mice digging burrows for themselves in the outside wall. The house is alive. Crawling with mice by night, buzzing with bees by day. If it weren’t for the solid timber roof we’d be sleeping rough, because the mice and bees seem to eat the walls as fast as I can bake them. I tried whitewashing the outside with icing glue, but there isn’t enough meringue powder. There are dead bees stuck to the walls, embedded from when the sugar half melted.

  We’ve been living off the last of the stew packets and pancakes since you can’t make much else with egg powder and flour. The pancakes are kind of mealy and flavorless, since the flour is the cheapest crappiest stuff you can imagine. They warned us not to eat it, said it had some 'not for human consumption' preservatives in it, but what are we going to do? The pancakes tasted like papier mâché the first time, and they don’t taste any better the tenth day running, but we don’t have much else. Josh and Brian and Craig eat candy sometimes, but I never want to see candy again.

  September 12th

 

 

  The stew packets are all gone. Brian found some berries today. Josh didn’t want to eat them because he said we didn’t know what they were, but we ate them anyway. They were so sour they made our mouths pucker, but we’re sick of pancakes, and it’s not like we don’t have plenty of sugar to go with it. Brian made a bow and said he's going hunting later. I haven’t seen anything larger than a rabbit since we got here, but the thought of meat makes my mouth fill with spit. I’ve been taking my vitamins, but I still feel anemic.

  Craig can’t get a signal on his radio, probably because we’re too far away from any city. Josh thinks we're in Canada, but if we were in Canada, we’d at least see planes fly overhead, wouldn't we? None of us really know exactly where we are. So even if we had a car and drove all day, we’d still be in Podunk nowhere.

  I miss civilization. I even miss the smog. Here it’s always peppermint and gingerbread and fir and pine, which I’ll now associate with loneliness and hunger forever. This stupid show has ruined Christmas for me.

  Brian goes on and on about how he's going to sue their asses off, and how he bets that his dad has already hired a lawyer to make the producers rescue us. I told him he's smoking crack. It's obvious that something really bad happened, not just to the show but to everyone. Josh overheard me saying that and he got really upset, left in a huff. Brian told me to shut the fuck up, and it looked like he was going to hit me, but he left. I thought I saw Craig roll his eyes.

  Since then, Brian spends most of his days out wandering in the forest. I’m glad. When he’s around here, he just fights with everyone. Josh and Brian seem to have an alliance against me, even though we aren’t really competing any more. For me the game was over the first time they missed a shipment. I overheard Josh talking to the camera, reciting a poem for his girlfriend. I didn’t say anything, but Brian got on me for eavesdropping. Where am I supposed to go? We're in a 24' x 24' cake box with half of it walled off!

  I spend most of my days baking, trying to shore up the sagging walls. I tried using some of the soggy baked bricks as filler, reworking the crumbs into the loaves. Josh said it was disgusting, but it’s not like we’re going to eat t
he damn things. At least the storage room is still full: Seventeen kilos of egg powder, four hundred kilos of flour, eighty kilos of sugar, almost three kilos of baking soda. Twelve cans of artificial spice blend. Plenty of candy. Salt’s just about gone. More than enough to last us until the end of the month, but what if they don’t come by then? Today I started breaking my vitamins in half so they’ll last longer.

  Craig just started broadcasting S-O-S. The thing crackles like thunder every time he taps it, and it’s going to get real old, real fast. I haven’t said anything about it. We all have to do things to keep us occupied, keep us from remembering that we’re stuck in a gingerbread prison in the wilderness, as helpless as pets in a locked car.

  Josh took one of the paring knives and started chip carving the wooden furniture. He’s quite talented at this, too, and the medieval-looking flourishes make up for the fact that we can’t go in his tower anymore. He said he was thinking a--

  Brian just came home, and he has a leg of venison!

  September 16th

  Just reread the last journal entry, and started getting hungry again at the memory of the deer meat, even though it made us all sick. Brian said he shot the deer, but when I went out there later it was pretty obvious that he just found carrion. It must have been sitting there for a few days, because ravens and some kind of predator had carried off most of it. Honestly, I’d still eat more, if there were any left. I’m sick to death of pancakes and berries.

  September 19th

  Brian said all the berry bushes are gone. He claims that the bears ate them, however no one saw a bear but him. Maybe he just ate all the berries for himself. I could try to find some myself, but someone has to stay here and keep baking. Seems like every day there’s a new hole in the wall that has to be repaired.

  Josh isn't doing well. He cries a lot, shaking himself back and forth. Brian practically growls at me if I get near him. Those two make Craig seem normal. Craig has a paperback novel he brought, and he reads it all the time. I asked if I could read it when he was done, and he just shook his head. I decided not to push the issue. I have enough enemies in this house as it is.

  September 21st

  We had a storm last night, and the entire north wall collapsed on itself. The trees were closer on that side, and I think that the branches were sluicing rainwater against the wall. A rivulet of water undercut the foundation, and Brian says that’s what made the wall collapse, but he’s full of shit. It was just crappy building, that’s all.

  It was obvious, even to Brian, that we had to rebuild the wall and fast. Summer’s over, and the oven is the only source of heat. The producers didn’t give us any shovels or hoes, so we used baking sheets and loaf pans. One of the loaf pans got ruined, which meant I could only bake three at a time. Josh helped mortar them in, until I caught him making pastel curlicues and yelled at him. This crap is the only thing we have to build with, unless they can figure out how to make a log cabin with nothing but pocket knives, and Josh hasn’t gotten it through his head that no one cares about his artistic side anymore. Then Brian and even Craig got on my case, but they don’t understand how important it is not to waste. We had a big blowup. Finally I got fed up and went for a walk. I got a little turned around, and Brian took it upon himself to come and find me. Now he’s acting like he saved me, which makes him even more insufferable. Maybe Craig has the right idea. I should just not say anything.

 

  September 23rd

  The bees are gone, but there are more mice than ever. Craig made a mousetrap, and even though we bait it with candy, he gets about a mouse a day. Brian and I sharpened metal spatulas and take turns killing the ones we see. They’re fast little buggers, but there are so many of them that we kill at least three a day by luck alone. They gnaw through the walls at night, and sometimes they die and rot. Rotting mice, feces, gingerbread, and human stench. Sometimes we have to open a door just so we don’t suffocate on the reek.

  Craig started making beer, which means that, at some level, he has accepted that we’re trapped here. Josh still thinks they’re watching us through the cameras, that they’re doing all of this for ratings. Brian wants us to pack up and go, says that every day we stay here we play right into their hands. I told him he's full of it. He was up all night talking to Craig about it, but Craig's not stupid. Wander off in to the woods in autumn? Might as well slit our wrists now.

  I told them that we have to be patient, that they can't leave us here forever, but what are we going to do if they don’t get us before winter? The generator still works, enough to power the lights, and the gas line is strangely reliable, so we can keep the oven on to heat the house, but we have to keep the door open or we’ll suffocate.

  On the plus side, mice are tasty. We had mice soup with our pancakes tonight. Josh wouldn't eat any, but he'll change his mind eventually. I hate the bones, but it's nice to have meat.

  September 26th

  Craig over boiled the yeast, or it was the wrong kind of yeast, or something. So, no beer.

  The nights have been getting chillier. Josh wanted to run the oven all night, but I said we might suffocate from the gas. Craig backed me up. We pushed all the beds together, to conserve warmth. Brian still thinks we should all go, before winter hits. I thought he was done talking about it, but apparently not. He’s crazy. Where would we go, anyway? Brian says he thought he saw smoke to the south, but I haven’t seen anything. Josh doesn't sound like he wants to go, and I don't think Brian will go alone. Don’t know about Craig. Craig never says anything. He started taking apart another camera, fiddling with it. God knows what good he thinks its going to do.

  September 30th

  Josh and Brian left. They must have planned it in secret, because we didn't even hear them pack. Craig pointed out their tracks in the dust of the yard. I ran out to look for them, try to talk some sense into them, but you don’t have to go very far in the forest before it all starts to look the same.

  They took half the sheets and blankets, a kilo of flour each, and most of our egg powder. I thought they took the salt too, but I found it this afternoon. Brian can go fuck himself, but when I think of Josh, piping rosettes onto a shutter, or the way he’d peer out at you from behind his bangs, it makes me want to cry. I hope they come back, but it’s been a day and a half.

  Cold snap must have come through, because all of a sudden the temperatures are below freezing all day. The walls have swelled up in places from the ice, and the sugar-glass windows shattered, but except for that the house seems to be holding up. Craig and I took the extra mattresses and leaned them up against the walls.

  October 2nd

  As far as I’m concerned, it’s winter already. The pipes are only unfrozen for a couple hours a day, so I fill up every container we have with water, and store it as cubes just outside.

  Was thinking about Brian and Josh today. Maybe if Brian and I hadn’t fought, they’d still be here. Got really depressed and started crying, but I was outside so Craig didn’t see. The tears froze on my cheeks. I try not to go outside very often, because of the chilblains. Craig has a rash on his skin, little red dots at the base of his hairs, and he thinks its frostbite. I don’t know what frostbite looks like, but we’ll find out soon enough.

  I’m tired all the time. Even Craig’s been shuffling around like an old man, and he’s not even thirty.

  October 5th

  Craig and I decided to leave the oven running all night. Woke up and hadn’t suffocated, so that’s going to be the plan from now on. Half the pans are rusted and bent from being used to clear away the ruined wall, and we don’t have water unless we use the crème brûlée torch to heat the pipes, but the oven still works fine. Thank God for the oven.

  October 7th

  Craig went into a rage and destroyed all the cameras. Scared the shit out of me. I kept thinking of him as this quiet little geek, and his anger came out of nowhere. He was thrashing around, ripping up everything he saw. I got so scared I left, but outside it’s s
o cold that I felt like I was inhaling shards of glass, so I came back inside after an hour or so. Craig looked embarrassed, but of course he didn’t say anything. I didn’t say anything either. I'm still shaking. I don’t want to set him off again. Cameras are all busted for good, so even if Josh was right and they were still watching, they aren't anymore.

  It's colder than I ever thought possible. We’re wearing every piece of clothing we brought, and half the sheets too. One of the light bulbs burned out, so we moved into the kitchen, and put the extra mattresses against the wall to the common room. Now that the bulb is burned out, we can only see in the kitchen. I killed a couple of mice in there, but they’re getting wary. Maybe they’re hibernating or something. I wish I could hibernate.

  We took the largest mixing bowl and started using it as a chamber pot so we wouldn’t have to go outside. It’s still cold in the common room, so cold that ice forms on the top of the bowl, and your pee melts a hole in it. You have to be careful not to touch anything metal with your skin. I accidentally touched one of the baking sheets and Craig had to pour hot water on it to get it off me.

  Craig’s been nicer since he blew up. I think he feels guilty.

  October 11th

  Craig is sick. He threw up a couple times, and he doesn’t seem to know where he is, though he hasn’t got a fever or anything. I wonder if he’s been sick for a while and I just now noticed. He tried to get out of bed, to do what I don’t know, but he fell over and couldn’t climb up again. I’ve been heating up water for him to drink, and making sure he still eats, though there’s nothing but pancakes, candy, and gingerbread bricks.

  I don’t know if it’s catching or not.

  My period's a week late. Two, actually, come to think of it. Haven’t had sex, so it’s probably stress.

  October 16th

  Woke up last night unable to breathe. The mattress had fallen over the door to the common room, sealing us in. The mattress doesn’t stay up well, and there’s nothing to keep this from happening again, but we can’t turn the oven off or we’ll freeze to death. Sometimes I think we’ll freeze to death anyway. If the gas runs out, we'll be dead in hours.

  Craig hasn’t gotten out of bed. He doesn’t seem to know where he is or who I am, and he says he’s hungry but he won’t eat anything. No fever, so maybe it’s not a virus? I don’t really know what’s going on.

  We’re out of egg powder, so now the only thing to eat is flour and water. Even with good flour it would taste like crap, but this stuff is probably cut with chalk or something. It tastes like library paste.

  October 20th

  Craig’s been getting worse and worse. He’s got a sniffle now too, and seems to have trouble breathing, and while I was helping him go to the bathroom I saw he had that reddish rash all over his body. Even his gums are bleeding. It’s scary and horrible and the worst part is that I feel sorry for myself. Here he is, sick and maybe dying in some godforsaken forest out in the middle of nowhere, and all I can think of is how terrified I am that he’ll die and leave me here.

  October 28th

  Craig died. It took hours. He gasped and gasped until finally he stopped, and there were nothing I could do about it except hold his hand and wipe his forehead. I dragged his body outside, but I couldn’t get it very far because he’s heavy and it’s so cold I feel like I’m freezing solid. There isn’t even any winter gear, just fifteen tee shirts wrapped around my arms and three pair of jeans which make me walk like a robot. I dragged him maybe twenty feet, and tried to make a cairn or something but my hands wouldn’t work well in this cold so I had to go back inside every ten minutes. I put my hands inside the oven and when the feeling came back to my fingers I started screaming in agony. I don’t want to go outside again.

  I tried eating gingerbread, but it’s so hard to chew it makes my teeth feel like they’re going to fall out.

  This pen is almost out of ink. I ransacked Craig’s belongings, and found a paperback novel, but no pen. No vitamins either, not even an empty jar. He must not have brought any. I read the novel twice already. It sucks, but I’ll proably read it a third time.

  Craig’s driver’s license said he was only twenty four. Jesus, he was just a kid.

  Don't know what date it is. Lost track.

  I’ve read Craig’s paperback six times now. It’s one of the worst novels I’ve ever read, and now I’ve memorized whole passages from it. That’s pretty much my life right now. Sleep, read, sleep, eat. I can’t even bake anymore, not that there’s much left to bake, because the oven can't get hot enough. I leave it running all the time with the door open. It’s like a race between the oven’s ability to heat the house and the walls’ ability to steal the heat away.

  Not as much snow as I thought there’d be. It drifts up against the walls, but it’s more like beach sand than the wet flakes they have in Buffalo. Most of the wind comes from the side of the house near Josh’s bedroom, so I put an airhole in the opposite side, right next to his bay window. It’s too cold with the door left open. If Josh were here, he’d probably make a stained glass casement window out of sugar. There are still a few bottles of food coloring. Maybe I could do something like that. It’s better than wasting more time on that crappy novel.