Hellhole

by Gina Damico

  “I’m already trying.”

  He uncapped a marker and wrote “IDEAS” at the top of the poster. “Now—”

  “Hey!” Burg bellowed from the basement. “Where’s my after-dinner snack?”

  Max gave Lore a tight smile. “Excuse me for just a moment.”

  He went into the kitchen, grabbed the bag of Combos, and chucked it down the stairs like a missile.

  “These come in pizza flavor?” Burg cried.

  Max returned to the easel and readied the marker. “Okay. Go.”

  Lore had evidently done some brainstorming of her own during her bike ride epiphany; she immediately started ticking off items on her fingers. “Okay. Ways to procure a house out of thin air: We buy one, we build one, we dupe a real estate agent into selling us one for no money, we find an abandoned one and take it for ourselves, we break into one and kill its owners—”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Max was aghast. “We can’t do that!”

  “Why not? I have a crowbar.”

  Max was getting all sweaty again. “Let’s just start with a list. Say them again, slowly.”

  She did so, and he copied them down in rickety lettering. “I can’t believe you just came up with these off the top of your head,” Max said, jokingly adding, “Have you done this before?”

  Lore clenched a pillow between her fists.

  “Just trying to lighten the—okay, let’s start with the first one,” he said, hastily tapping the word “buy.” “I, for one, am dirt-poor. You?”

  “Oh, I’m loaded. I only wear the same skirt every day to throw kids off the scent of my many walk-in closets.”

  “So buying is out.” He drew a thick line across the word. “What about building?”

  “Sure. What with your architecture degree and my easy access to large quantities of airplane glue, the sky’s the limit.”

  “Hardy-har,” he said in a doofus voice, something his mom always did when he told a bad joke. “I don’t suppose any of your immediate family members are contractors who do pro bono work on the side?”

  “Nope.”

  Max tapped the marker against his head. “How can we convince someone to build a house for us for free?”

  “How about Habitat for Humanity?”

  Max was about to bust out the ole hardy-har again when he realized she was being serious. “We can’t defraud a charity!”

  “Why not? They build houses for people who are in need. We are in need. Probably more so than any of the other people who get free digs. None of them are plagued by evil demons threatening to kill their loved ones.”

  As a sign of just how far he had fallen down the ladder of righteousness, Max actually considered this for a second. Just for a second, though. “No,” he said firmly, crossing out “building.” “We can’t get charities mixed up in all of this. That’s just wrong.”

  She rolled her eyes. “We’re stealing a house here, Max. There’s going to be a staggering amount of ‘wrong’ involved no matter how you do it.”

  He didn’t know what to say to this, so he went back to the board. “Real estate. You know any agents?”

  “Nope. You know anything about real estate law?”

  “No. Wait—I did play a lot of Monopoly when I was younger.” He bit his lip. “Could we buy a deed? Or a . . . mortgage?”

  “You don’t even know what you’re saying, do you.”

  Max crossed out “real estate.”

  A car pulled into the driveway next door, its tires swishing through the rain that had started to fall. Max hurriedly adjusted the curtains, making sure they covered the window completely.

  Lore snorted. “Afraid your popularity stock will go down if you’re seen with me?”

  Max made a flabbergasted noise. It sounded a lot like the word “flabbergasted.” “Me? I’m not popular.”

  Then came one of those rare instances in which Lore looked unsure of herself. “Aren’t you friends with that guy on the football team?”

  “Sort of. I mean, I’m really more friends with his girlfriend, Audie. She lives next door. We’ve known each other since we were two, and we kinda grew up together, and one time we touched tongues, but that was only part of an experiment to see if cooties were contagious—”

  “Okay,” Lore said, holding up her hands. “That’s all the information I require.”

  “But I’m not popular. They are. I’m just the sad third wheel.”

  “Have you told them about your new roommate yet?”

  “No.” Max was about to explain why he couldn’t—how Audie was bursting with happiness and puppies and rainbows, so he needed to protect her, while Lore was an abyss of misery and despair from which no joy could enter nor escape—but at the last second he decided that that might not be the sort of thing people like to hear about themselves.

  Luckily, Lore cut him off. “Good,” she said, fiddling with the seam of the pillow. “You should protect them. Don’t bring them into this.”

  There was that clouded-over look in her eyes again, the one Max desperately wanted to ask about, but she’d already started speaking again. “Any other friends?” she asked. “Who we should be protecting?”

  Max shrugged. “I mean, there’s Paul, I guess. But he’s mostly just the guy I sit with—”

  “At lunch,” Lore said, nodding. “Yeah. I know how that goes.”

  Max raised his eyebrows. “Yeah?”

  Lore had relieved the pillow of some of its stuffing. She rolled it between her fingers. “You know what happens when you transfer into a school in your junior year? You’re well and truly screwed. All cliques and friendships are solidified by then, and no vacancies are left. So I was this weird interloper who glommed on to the only group that would have me. They’re nice, but . . . yeah. I wouldn’t call them friends either.”

  Max felt an overwhelming urge to give her a hug, but he knew that acting on it would probably lead to more bodily harm. “You transferred from Westbury Prep, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why’d you come back?”

  “There was an incident that happened while I was there.”

  “Oh. What kind of incident?”

  She glared at him. “I killed a kid because he asked too many questions about my personal life.”

  Max coughed. “Gotcha.” He looked back at the easel, as if expecting it to burst into song to diffuse the tension. It did no such thing. “So . . . breaking in?”

  “Yeah.” Lore sank deeper into the couch and propped her legs up on the coffee table. “We find an abandoned house, we break in, make sure no one is living there, then squat.”

  Max stared at her. “Squat?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You mean, like . . . go to the bathroom?”

  Lore stared at him. “See, this is why you can’t rely on board games to teach you all you need to know about life.” She leaned forward, speaking slowly and brightly, as if hosting a bizarrely delinquent segment of Sesame Street. “Squatting is the term for when you live in a building that you don’t legally own or rent.”

  “Oh.”

  Max added “squat” to the board, wondering how he’d never heard of it before. It was a good crossword word. “Well, that’s out. We can’t break into a house.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because we’ll get in trouble! We’ll get caught!”

  She rolled her eyes. “Not if you do it right.”

  “We’re not breaking into a—”

  “Hey!” Burg again shouted from downstairs. “I’m still hungry!”

  Max plodded across the room and stuck his head in the door. “How can you still be hungry?”

  “I’m watching Iron Chef. Battle Scallop is making me salivate.”

  “Well, I’m all out of snacks.”

  “But there’s still a half-hour left! I’m dying!”

  Max wholeheartedly wished this were true, but he checked his anger and spoke in an even voice. “What do you want?”

  “Something with shel
lfish would be nice. Bobby Flay is making ceviche!”

  Max stormed into the kitchen, found a months-old box of fish sticks in the freezer, and tossed it down the stairs.

  This must have pleased Burg, because he began to sing the old commercial jingle. “Jeff, the Gooorton’s Fishermaaan!”

  “I think it’s ‘Trust the Gorton’s fisherman,’” Max shouted down.

  “You’re dead wrong there, pal!”

  Max didn’t think he was, but arguing further seemed pointless. “Hey,” he called out to Lore as he made his way back into the living room. “Do you know if it’s ‘Trust the Gorton’s Fisherman’ or ‘Jeff, the Gorton’s’—ahhh!”

  Lore had disappeared. Or rather, Lore had deftly ducked into the hallway closet, as evidenced by the small fingertips poking out to pull the door shut. Why she had ducked into the front hall closet Max couldn’t understand until he saw his mother squinting at the thermostat, looking washed-out and frail and highly annoyed for having to get out of bed.

  Mrs. Kilgore turned to her son. “I’m pretty sure it’s ‘trust,’” she said. “Not ‘Jeff.’” Her brow furrowed. “Who are you talking to? And what’s with the easel?”

  Max’s expression had frozen into an expression not unlike that of the fish Jeff had caught for his sticks, open-mouthed and frozen. “It’s a school project,” Max blabbed, then couldn’t stop himself from adding, “for calculus.”

  For the love of all that is holy, he thought. It’s like a sickness.

  His mother looked at the list of words on the board—buy, build, real estate, squat—and opened her mouth to ask a question, but Max butted in before she could. “Can I get you anything, Mom?”

  “I just came out to check on the thermostat,” she said. “It’s getting kind of hot in here—”

  “Hey,” a voice bellowed from the downstairs. “You got any tartar sauce up in this piece?”

  Max twisted around, but it was too late. Standing there in the basement doorway, crumbs in his beard, pants AWOL, and in full view of Max’s mother, was Burg.

  Kind of Party

  MAX EXPECTED HIS BRAIN TO REACT the way it had the last time Burg scared him into another plane of existence—with that high-pitched, screaming sound buzzing through his head. But this time he just stiffened and squeezed his eyes shut. His mom was going to be killed right in front of him, and there wasn’t anything he could do about it. He’d tried to protect her, and he’d failed.

  Then his mom spoke.

  “Hey, Audie,” she said, a tight smile in her voice. “Long time no see.”

  Max opened his eyes, thinking that dementia had finally begun to settle in his mother’s poor brain, but he was way off. For standing in the same spot Burg had been, holding the box of fish sticks, was unmistakably Audie. A perfect replica.

  Lore, poking her head out of the closet, shot a look at Max that silently but clearly stated, WHAT IN THE EVER-LOVING CRAP IS GOING ON?

  I DON’T KNOW, Max eye-yelled back, then glanced at his mom.

  She, in turn, was giving Max a look that said, I am SO mad at you but will maintain this pleasant charade in the presence of guests.

  Burg-Audie just smiled politely, twisting a finger through his newly acquired dreads.

  “I didn’t realize you had company, Max,” his mom said tersely. And then Max watched in horror as she crossed the room to lovingly embrace the unholy evil that had become the bane of his existence.

  After the hug, during which Max had to fight to keep his quiche down, his mother held Burg-Audie at an arm’s length. “You sure have sprouted up, girl,” she said in a tone that was at once cheerful, forced, apologetic, and embarrassed. “You taller than your dad yet?”

  Burg laughed in a way that was so identical to the way Audie laughed that Max couldn’t help but gag. How did he get it just right?

  “Not yet,” Burg replied with a shy smile. “And I’d better get home before he sends out a search party.”

  Max’s mom leaned against the wall to support herself. “Fair enough,” she said. “Hey, tell your parents I’m sorry that I haven’t—” She paused, a pained look pinching at her mouth. “Tell them I said hi.”

  “Yes, yes, she’ll tell them,” Max said, grabbing Burg by the elbow and dragging him toward the front door. “But for now I really have to concentrate on this project. Thanks for the video game you let me borrow, Audie,” he said, delivering the exposition as loudly and obviously as he could while simultaneously grabbing a video game off the shelf and handing it to him. He opened the front door. “I’ll see you tomorrow at school!”

  “Sure, Max,” Burg-as-Audie sang, giving Mrs. Kilgore a wink. “I guess the lovebirds want to be left alone, huh?”

  Max’s mom’s eyebrows shot up. “The what now?”

  An odd, forced laugh came out of Max’s throat. “Ha! BYE, AUDIE.” He shoved her outside and slammed the door.

  His mom gave him a horrible look. “What has gotten into you, Max?”

  “Nothing. I mean, I don’t know. I mean—” His brain began shuffling through the litany of plausible excuses: I’m overtired. I’m cranky because I haven’t eaten. I’m a dumb, self-conscious teenager who does dumb, self-conscious teenagery things—that’s the one!

  “Uh, the thing is,” he said, arranging his face in an abashed expression. “There’s a girl coming over soon. To work on the calc project with me. That’s what Audie meant by lovebirds, but ha-ha, it’s not like that! It’s just for school. She’ll be here any minute.”

  His mom frowned. “Isn’t it kind of late?”

  Max shook his head. “Nope.”

  He left it at that.

  “Okay.” She smiled uncomfortably. “Well then, work hard. Have fun. Other momly advice.”

  “Thanks! We’ll try to keep it down.”

  She went back to her room and closed the door. Max watched her go, then, remembering that he’d just casually deposited a being of the underworld on his front stoop, dragged the fake Audie back inside the house. As he did, the air around her blurred, as if she were being censored for television. Max stared, trying to figure out how this was happening, but found that his eyes couldn’t quite focus. But it was all over within a couple of seconds anyway; when the fuzziness cleared, Burg was back to his regular oafish self.

  “Dude,” he said. “Your mom is hot.”

  Max let go of him.

  “At least I think she’s hot,” Burg continued. “It all happened so fast. Further observation is required.”

  “No, it is absolutely not. And what—how did you—why did you turn into Audie?”

  “Would you rather I appeared to your mother in my natural form? Give her that heart attack you seem so intent on not delivering?”

  “No. I just . . .” Max looked to Lore, but she was no help at all, emerging from the closet and watching Burg with wide eyes. “I just didn’t know you could do that.”

  “Well, I can. And I did. Because the sooner I got rid of her, the sooner I could get back to Battle Scallop—though the judging is probably over by now, thank you very much—and the sooner my fish sticks could . . . wait a minute.” He leaned in to Max and whispered. “Those fish sticks weren’t for the cat, were they?”

  “No,” said Max. “Cat food is for the cat.”

  “Really? You don’t prepare fresh-caught fillets for him for every meal? Served in a goblet? With a festive garnish?”

  “Uh, no.”

  Burg looked at him in disbelief. “Whatever, Shove. When the feline uprising begins, it’s your head on a spike.” He crossed to the basement door. “Now, then. As I was saying, I will require some tasty condiments to go with my tasty fish sticks. Tartar sauce, chop-chop!”

  “We don’t have any,” said Max.

  Burg sauntered over to the fireplace poker, which Max had put back in its rightful place after his failed spearing attempt. Without a second’s hesitation Burg picked up the poker and hurled it at Max. It stuck in the wall behind him, ripping a couple of hairs out of hi
s scalp as it landed mere millimeters above his head.

  Before Max knew it, Burg was in his face. “How are we coming on that house of mine?” he growled, instantly furious.

  Max could only squeak out a whisper. “Working on it.”

  “Better be.”

  With a snort that expelled a cloud of black smoke, Burg pivoted and headed down the stairs, humming a sinister version of the Gorton fisherman song as he closed the door behind him.

  Shaken, Max crossed to the posterboard and drew a wobbly circle around the last words he’d written.

  “Breaking in it is.”

  Audie banged on Max’s front door eighteen times the next morning. He counted them off as he hid in the hallway, just out of view. Next, she moved on to the window; he heard a couple of taps on the glass, then a pause, as if she were peering in. He cowered further, not emerging even when the microwave dinged.

  Finally, after making absolutely sure that Audie was gone, he slunk into the kitchen, grabbed the (by now cold) oatmeal he’d microwaved, and carried it to his mother’s doorway.

  “Mom?” he whispered into the dark room. “You awake?”

  No response.

  Max thought nothing of this; sometimes she slept until noon. He crept inside and, expertly navigating through the room using only the scant amount of light the heavy curtains allowed, set the bowl down on a stand.

  But as he straightened up, he paused. The shadows on the walls were falling just a little bit differently than they normally did. Something felt weird.

  He switched on the light—

  And clapped his hand over his mouth to keep from shouting.

  Burg sat in the armchair, staring at Max’s mother. His face mere inches from hers, he took almost no notice of Max, glancing up only when Max started to make a choking sound.

  “What are you DOING?” Max silently mouthed.

  “Watching her sleep,” Burg whispered casually, as if this were a totally normal, not horrendously creepy thing to say. “Further observation confirmed: she is hot.”

  Fueled by adrenaline, Max wordlessly grabbed Burg and dragged him out of the room. “That’s it!” he half shouted once they were at the top of the basement stairs. “You are grounded, mister!”