Wallflower

by Lutzke, Chad

  _______

  "Lutzke has a way with words that merges horror and compassion in a single sentence. Reminiscent of Robert McCammon."

  ~ Joe Mynhardt, Crystal Lake Publishing

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  "Lutzke's rich, descriptive stories always leave me wanting more. He's a gifted wordsmith."

  ~J. Thorn, best-selling author

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  "Chad Lutzke has an awesome grasp of descriptive writing...Brilliant malevolence! He is a true master at his craft."

  ~Blaze McRob, Bram Stoker Award nominee

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  "Lutzke is a student of the horror genre with a rich voice that needs to be heard."

  ~ author, Terry M. West

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  "Lutzke's writing is personal, detailed and often heart breaking in a terrifying way."

  ~ Matt Molgaard, Horror Novel Reviews

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  "Chad Lutzke is an emerging and exciting dark author with a firm grasp on the genre. His shadows have drastically different heartbeats, unique souls, but are unified by their dark charm and bleak shrouds."

  ~Zachary Walters, The Eyes/Mouth of Madness

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  "Chad Lutzke is an excitingly fresh emerging voice in the horror scene. His writing pulls you in, and his stories are chilling and stay with you well after a thoroughly satisfying read!"

  ~Nicholas Grabowsky, Black Bed Sheet Books & author of HALLOWEEN IV

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  "This man is a genius when it comes to writing a book. He is not just an author. He is a storyteller in the truest form of the word."

  ~ Nev Murray, Confessions of a Reviewer

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  "Chad's writing is a trip to the buffet of horror. No stone left unturned."

  ~ Blaine Cook, vocalist for The Accused, Toe Tag, & The Fartz

  Wallflower

  by

  Chad Lutzke

  ebook edition

  Copyright © 2017 Chad Lutzke

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Cover design by Chad Lutzke

  To get some free reads and be included in all future giveaways, visit www.chadlutzke.com

  Dedicated to those who have tried filling a void.

  And to those who have never recovered.

  Prologue

  There are the curious, and then there are the dangerously inquisitive—those of us who reach beyond a morbid interest and into something morally questionable. Something that will pacify a nagging itch in our psyche if only we dive in head first. Without thinking. Without rationale, to experience for ourselves what we can’t understand by merely gawking at the ugliness from afar. Like a toddler to the seductive dance of a candle’s flame, the need to touch what we’re told not to. That’s the kind of dangerous curiosity I’m talking about. The kind that dumbs us down, allows us to reach out and take hold of that which will hurt us. No matter the cost.

  That was me. I needed to know.

  1: Temptation

  It was late summer and had barely rained all year. But Texas is like that so I can’t bitch. It comes with the territory. I’m not sure there’s anywhere on the planet you can have lush grass and authentic Mexican within a hundred miles of one another.

  I had just spent a few days away from home over at a friend’s place. Dad hated that. He’d made it pretty clear he never wanted me around but then would throw a fit when I stayed away for more than a day. So when I got home, Dad was ready to lay into me about everything and anything. He’d have these moments–quite a few of them, actually–where he’d remind me about my future, about having no job and about how he was going to charge me rent if I didn’t at least go to community college. “You’ll be just like that Miller kid,” he’d always say to me. Marcus Miller was a guy I went to school with. He ended up in prison for raping his cousin. Apparently Dad thinks not having a job fresh out of high school is a gateway to sexual deviancy and perversion.

  I usually just take it, let him mouth off, get it all out. But this time I spoke up. I told him that with any luck I’d be the complete opposite of him.

  “The hell is that supposed to mean?” he asked me.

  I told him it meant that if I ever did have kids I’d love them, not berate them. I’d support them, not ridicule them. And that if I ever had a wife that I’d love her too. And not cheat on her. Dad didn’t see it coming. He didn’t know I knew. When he left my room he slammed the door so hard it splintered the frame and cracked my bedroom window.

  Hanging around there the rest of the day wasn’t an option so I left for Boden’s, a pool hall the gang and I would frequent. The gang—myself, Eddie and Kent. We'd all just graduated and spent most of our first summer staying up night after night in drunken states, fueled with the cheapest beer Corpus Christi had to offer. It made for a helluva hangover but left money for the next time.

  We were still on our post-high school honeymoon. And with no job comes no responsibility, comes no money. Actually, Kent did have a part-time job at a pet store and had saved enough for a beater. Eddie had plans for college–or maybe the military, he hadn’t decided–and me, well my mind wasn’t made up just yet. Dad wanted college for me, of course. Mom didn’t care either way. She just wanted me gone and married, working somewhere, anywhere. Just so long as I was providing.

  But it’s not unheard of for someone my age to take a year off or so, to think things over. I wasn’t worried. I’d never been in any hurry to get to adulthood, so this next year I wanted to revel in my youth. In the meantime, I’d rely on Kent for rides. And for beer money.

  That summer, when we weren’t at Boden’s playing wannabe hustler, we spent a lot of time with urban exploration—venturing into abandoned buildings like houses, old theaters, factories or even the old folk's home on 20th Street. It made for fresh environments to linger for the day. And the sense of danger, that feeling of not wanting to get caught but knowing if you did you'd get nothing more than a scolding. I mean, who hasn't lifted a private fence and slithered under or climbed through the broken window of a deserted building? I've a hard time thinking any cop coming across us in the middle of one of our ventures wouldn’t just shoo us away, cracking a nostalgic smile, reflecting on days long past. But then again, a local boy in blue went and broke three of John Matthews’ ribs and an arm down at the 7-Eleven just for not turning his music down when asked—a scuffle I’ll never forget. The snap of John’s bones when he hit the pavement, all 250 pounds of Officer Ditmer crashing down on him.

  So, one afternoon, while losing hard to a drifter in the pool hall, Kent was handing the shark a ten from his malnourished wallet, when Eddie came back from the vending machines holding three bags of chips and three cokes.

  “Check this out,” Eddie said. “So, last night I’m talking to Jen’s friend Angela…”

  “The one with the tits?” Kent holds out his hands cupped over his chest.

  “Yeah, her. Anyway, she says her little brother and his friends went out to Limewood and ran into a squatter…some junkie living in one of the townhouses. Scared the piss out of them. They took off, thinking they’d get raped or something.”

  “Like Andrews,” Kent said, looking at the floor and shaking his head, giving Andrews condolences for his deflowered anus and the stitches that followed.

  “Yeah, like Andrews. Poor kid." Eddie paused and gave the same sympathy but with a wincing look of pain. “Anyway, we should head out there, check it out.”

  “And do what?” I asked. “I mean, we’ve been out there a hundred times. Eve
ry house is the same, gutted. What’s some vagrant gonna do for us?”

  “I dunno, man. I guess we’ll find out when we get there.”

  “Sounds fun,” Kent said, “but there’s like fifty houses out there."

  “Angela said the house was all the way in the back and the garage has a big black fly painted on it. Should be easy to spot."

  With zero idea on why we should head to Limewood, both Eddie and Kent were convinced it’d be a good idea, and by late that afternoon we were driving down I-37 with the last bit of Kent’s money sloshing around in the tank of his Honda Accord.

  ***

  Limewood was an abandoned housing development that lost its funding just before completion after the man in charge went to prison for defrauding. The bank caught on and things were shut down immediately. All the homes had already been built but the insides lacked electrical wiring, and only half held drywall; the other half nothing more than timber skeletons sporting attractive siding—alluring warts across the dried skin of Corpus Christi, Texas. Other than the tall meadow grass, from I-37 the houses looked livable. But lack of curtains on the windows—the ones still intact—and sporadic graffiti told those who visited that every building was indeed abandoned.

  Kent pulled the car off from the freeway and onto the cement drive, which ten feet later gave way to a faint path that ran throughout the development. The lack of trees added to the uninviting appearance, and the tall grass bowed low in the wind as though waving us away, that there was really nothing to see here.

  “All the way in the back somewhere,” Eddie said.

  Kent followed Eddie’s directions and drove slowly along the path.

  “Right there’s the one where those guys built the skateboard ramp inside." Eddie pointed to a house that contained more graffiti than the rest. A large circled “A” painted haphazardly in red spray paint took up most of the garage-door canvas, while various band logos surrounded it. I recognized some of them from patches I'd seen on the punk kids at school.

  Once at the end of the path, Kent stopped the car. “Left or right?”

  “I dunno. She didn’t say,” Eddie said.

  All three of us looked down each path, squinting, studying each townhouse.

  “Big black fly, right?” Kent asked. “That way, all the way down at the end, on the left."

  Kent turned and drove down the rugged path. The last house on the left sported a large fly with unusually straight edges as though done with a giant stencil. Kent parked right where a driveway would have been, as though he lived there. It seemed like the logical place to park. It’s not like parking on the path would make things any less obvious—that people were out exploring property they shouldn’t be on, maybe adding to the local artwork. Or like my friends and I, tossing a few back while gabbing on about school and girls. But this time we were there for something different. Something I’m not sure any of us really understood.

  Kent shut off the car and turned to Eddie and me. “Well?”

  Neither of us said anything. We all knew there was no reason to be here. To be in search of Bigfoot made more sense.

  “We should take a weapon, arm ourselves." Eddie said.

  “A weapon?” Kent said, a shocked look at Eddie. It surprised me a bit, too.

  “This guy's a junkie. Who knows what he’s capable of. He could knock you in the head with a brick, grab your wallet and do some funky business on you while he’s at it.”

  “At the risk of sounding paranoid, I think Eddie is right." I said. “Just for protection.”

  Kent sighed and grabbed the keys from the ignition. “There’s a tire iron in the trunk, maybe a bat, too”

  We got out of the car and Kent unlocked the trunk. He was right. There was a bat in there, an aluminum one. I grabbed it and Eddie grabbed the tire iron. I saw a hammer lying in there so I pointed it out to Kent. He said he didn’t want it, then called us pussies.

  We headed toward the back of the house. All the homes had sliders in the back. And from our experience, the ones that weren't busted out were all unlocked, which made for easy entry. As we walked along the home, a gust of wind penetrated the broken windows, creaking the gutted building and causing an unsettling whistle, like the whisper of a banshee.

  As we turned the corner to the back of the house, the three of us stopped. Someone had hung a black sheet over the sliding glass door from the inside. The thought of the squatter just feet from us on the other side of the glass was alarming—spread out on an old, holey mattress, a needle hanging from his arm, perhaps even dead; his skin cold and blue and stinking. Or maybe he stood in another room, a brick in hand, waiting for strangers to enter his home where raping and bludgeoning would commence.

  “Ready your weapons, men."

  “Seriously, Eddie?" Kent said, as he looked around nervously for last-minute protection, like a stone or a stick.

  As we crept closer to the slider, the wind died completely. There was an uncomfortable stillness and the rustle of the long grass fell dead. Our creep slowed to a near standstill.

  “This is gay." Eddie said. He moved forward quickly, grabbed the slider door and pulled. It didn’t budge. “It’s locked.”

  “Let’s try one of the windows." Kent said.

  At this point I really began to wonder about our motive, the attraction of seeing a rundown junkie caught in the act. They aren’t exactly anomalies. The world is full of addicts, and we’d seen our fair share of cachectic suspects lingering around the darker areas of town. I guess since it was all taking place on our old stomping grounds we thought we'd gained the right to witness the depravity within.

  We walked back around to the side of the house. The windows were all intact, except one that had been covered from the outside by a weathered piece of plywood. Without saying a word, Eddie stuck an end of the tire iron under the wood and started to pry it off the building. The wood over the iron split and cracked as Eddie continued to pry it away from the house. The noise was ridiculously loud under the circumstances and I ducked my head down as a result, as though trying to hide. If anyone was inside, they could definitely hear us now. I didn't like the idea of breaking in like that but found myself with my fingers scooped under the wood and tugging at it, adding to the impossibly loud cacophony of splintering wood and screeching nails.

  After Eddie pried at several areas around the sheet of wood, it hung like a flap by the nails above. I held the wood open enough for someone to slide through and waved for Eddie to enter. He took a peek inside first then hoisted himself up over the windowsill and into the room, the tire iron clanging on the wooden floor.

  Eddie stood with weapon in hand and waved us in. I went next. Once Kent had climbed in, we all stood silent for a few moments, listening. My body tingled, nerves shooting through me. I suddenly had to piss. It felt like the first time I’d ever done this. I guess in a way it was. Every building we’d ever entered we did it with the assumption they were empty. Now, here we are entering a house we’ve been told has an occupant. Not a legal one, but someone calling it home nonetheless. Someone quite possibly strung out on drugs, and maybe just desperate enough to mean us harm.

  Kent spotted an empty wine bottle on the floor and picked it up, holding it by the neck as a weapon.

  “Pussy,” Eddie said.

  Kent frowned and mouthed for him to shut up. Most of the walls in the house were finished except for paint. Drywall hung securely on all but one wall, which divided what was most likely the kitchen from the dining room. At first glance there was no sign of anyone living there, at least not on the bottom level. We crept through the house, being careful not to step on debris that lay on the floor—loose nails, scraps of wood, empty bottles and a few candy bar wrappers. We checked the living room and kitchen as well as a few closets that acted as nothing more than doorless alcoves.

  On the far end of the kitchen was a closed door. We stood quietly outside it and prepared to enter. I choked up on my bat while Kent raised the bottle above his head. Eddie play
ed around with the tire iron, trying to decide whether he should jab with the pointy end or treat it like a club with the socket end. He settled on the club. After what seemed like much too long, I reached for the door, turned the knob and opened it.

  The smell hit us before we saw it—the first sign that there was someone living there. Eddie stepped back while Kent ran, gagging along the way until he rested, covering his mouth on the far wall of the kitchen. A large five-gallon bucket, once filled with paint, evidenced by the thick, white drips on the outside of it, now half full of human feces and urine, sat at the end of a short closet-type room most likely what would have been the laundry room. There weren’t quite as many flies hanging around as you might think, considering it was summer. And there had to have been at least two to three weeks of bowel movements in there, assuming the user was feeling regular.

  Eddie started to laugh, holding it in the best he could, while Kent caught his breath against the wall.

  “And there we have it, folks. Five bucks in gas and an afternoon wasted so we could take a peek at Junkie Joe's john." Eddie said.

  I’ll admit, as disgusted as we were, it did help break the tension and would have had me laughing pretty hard had I not been scared of being heard.

  “You guys need to shut the hell up!" Kent said.

  “There’s nobody down here,” I said.

  “Well, if they’re upstairs they can probably hear you.”

  “Why dump in your own house when there's a whole field out there?" Eddie said.

  “Doesn't like the weeds tickling his balls?" Kent said.

  “Let’s get upstairs,” Eddie said. “And shut that door before we all get hepatitis.”

  I shut the door and we headed toward the staircase, which stuck out in the center of the living room, unfinished and without rails. Surprisingly, the stairs didn’t make a sound as we ascended them. Eddie moved first, then me, while Kent lingered on the first few steps. Once Eddie made it near the top he stopped. I think I heard him gasp, and I’m sure if I could've see his face I’d have taken off running, right behind Kent. Eddie stuck his arm out behind him, signaling me to hold off. He then waved us away and slowly stepped back down the stairs. When we reached the bottom, Kent and I were all ears to Eddie's frantic whispers.