The Flip (An Angel Hill novel)

by C. Dennis Moore

  “Okay, we’ll do all that later. What are we doing until then?

  “Just find somebody and help out where you can.”

  Chapter Nine

  The next day saw more progress, including the walls downstairs being finished and painted, then the carpet laid. They were down a man with Keith taking the day off to go to Michelle’s funeral, and Andrew hadn’t shown up that morning either. When Mike heard that, his first question was what happened, but Kevin said he’d just called him that morning and said he’d been up all night vomiting and thought it might be food poisoning.

  Good, Mike thought, he’s still living.

  “Hope he gets better,” he said to Kevin. “Are we gonna fall behind or anything with him gone?”

  “No,” Kevin said, “with you guys here as much as you are, and as much as we have done already, we’ve really got more bodies here than we need. I think we’re gonna knock off a couple hours early tonight, though, so we can make it to Paul’s viewing.”

  “Right,” Mike said. “That’s cool. Do you think we should come?”

  “That’s alright,” Kevin said, “you don’t have to do that. The funeral is tomorrow, but I’ll be here after that.”

  “If you want, just come later, after noon some time. Brian, our partner, is buying the place actually. He works at night and he wants to try to start sleeping here. His parents died last month and he has a hard time sleeping at his old house.”

  Kevin gave him a confused look and Mike said, “Yeah, I know, he still lived at home.”

  Kevin shrugged and said, “Okay, I can do that.”

  The next day, Kevin showed up precisely at one to find Brian had just woken up.

  He was set up in the bedroom with two blankets, one to sleep on and one to cover up with, a pillow and a duffel bag of clothes of toiletries, with his phone plugged in near his head to use as his alarm clock. He greeted Kevin, then disappeared into the bathroom. When he came out, Kevin asked, “Are your partners coming today?”

  “I’m guessing,” Brian said. “Is it gonna put everything too far behind if I’m here in the mornings?”

  “No,” Kevin said, “we can work around anything. We got most of the hard stuff out of the way.”

  Mike, Keith and Steven showed up an hour later with a delivery truck pulling up behind them. They all helped out and brought the cabinets up to the house, setting them in the dining room until they were ready to install.

  “That’s a lot of cabinets,” Kevin said when he saw them all together. “Are we ready to start installing, then?”

  “I think we’ll wait till tomorrow for this part,” Mike said. “I like to watch the professionals do it first, then step in and help later, so we can wait til the rest of your guys are here.”

  The next day, Mike and everyone showed up ready to get the cabinets installed to find Kevin was down to just Ed, the short one.

  “Man, you’re having a hell of a time here,” Brian commented when they showed up.

  Andrew was still out with whatever was wrong with him. After three days, food poisoning had been ruled out, but Kevin said he was still vomiting regularly and hadn’t been out of bed at all. Gary had called Kevin late last night from the emergency room and said he was temporarily out of commission too; a freak accident had sent a steak knife through his foot, requiring stitches on the top and bottom.

  Today was cabinet day and there were twelve of them to install, both uppers and lowers. Kevin said, “I’ve installed a few cabinets, but honestly it’s not something I like to do very often.”

  Mike and company found out why very quickly.

  They started with the uppers, Mike and Keith holding them in place--Ed wasn’t tall enough to be much help with this part--while Kevin leveled them and attached them to the wall. They were heavy, Mike noted, but as long as they worked fast it shouldn’t be a problem.

  Then they realized how off the house was from being square, at least the kitchen. The corner cabinet went up, but as they worked their way out from there, across the back wall over where the sink would be, they started having to shim the cabinets to keep them flush with each other, but still be able to attach them. The other wall was more of the same, and after three hours of back-breaking work, Mike and Keith had to tap out and let Brian and Steven--who wasn’t much taller than Ed--take over, then they stood aside and watched, constantly rubbing at the knots in their necks and shoulders, and trying to reach the places in their backs that were aching as well. They only had five cabinets up, the corner and two more on each side branching out from that, but that wasn’t even halfway done yet and already Mike was wishing they’d opted for fewer cabinets.

  “Okay,” Steven said when they took a break, “we’ll be hiring this out on the next house.”

  “Absolutely,” Keith said.

  “Ed and I can do the lowers tomorrow,” Kevin said. “Those are easier because we’re not trying to support them while working with these crazy walls. But you get that with these old houses.”

  “Then we need to move into newer homes,” Mike said, “because this is ridiculous. God really hates me for sure now.”

  “What’s it do to the timeline with just two of you here now?” Brian asked while they were all standing around, waiting until their bodies were ready to finish.

  “Not much,” Kevin said. “We might have a few delays, but I think we’re down to a point where we don’t need that many bodies here anymore. I think if it came down to it, once the cabinets are in, I could probably finish up the rest of it myself. If I had to. Not that I want to, Ed,” he said, nudging his friend. “But, yeah, we’re almost there, I think. We’re getting down to the point where it’s just paint and stuff, the switch plates and baseboards, finishing touches.”

  “I think instead of a rec room, I’d like a, like a theater room down there,” Brian said. “Put in a big screen TV, some nice chairs and a surround sound system.”

  “Hey now,” Steven said, “that’d be nice.”

  “That is one area we haven’t done much with,” Kevin said, “but, again, we’re nearly done with the big stuff. That part down there’s just gonna take leveling the floor like we did in the other rooms--”

  “I helped with all that, by the way,” Steven said, proud of his work.

  “Yeah, a moisture barrier, framing out the walls, insulation and drywall. And I think, for one it’s just one big room, but also it’s stuff at least Steven here knows how to do now, so it’s only gonna go faster next time. I think, give it a day for the floor to set, we can do the walls in another day, and the carpet on the third day and the basement’s finished.”

  “Hey,” Mike said to Kevin, “I didn’t ask yesterday. How was the funeral?”

  “It was bad,” Kevin said. “I really liked Paul, he was a good man and a hell of a worker. But he was my friend first, and I’m gonna miss him.”

  “We’re all really sorry.”

  “Yeah,” Keith said, which Brian and Steven echoed.

  Kevin nodded and said, “Thanks. I’m sorry I’m suddenly so short handed around here, I know that’s not what you guys hired us for.”

  “That’s not even your fault at all,” Mike said, “don’t sweat that for a second.”

  “I know, it’s just important to me that we do a good job, and that gets harder the fewer of us I have. I got here with a crew of five and look at it now, me and Ed.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Ed said.

  “From your lips to God’s ears,” Kevin said. Everyone chuckled, but Mike would have been lying if he’d said he wasn’t worried. But there was still work to do, hard work, and as he saw it, Ed and Kevin were both still needed. “Look, it’s been a really long day for us,” Kevin said, “I think Ed and I are gonna take off and get some rest. I’d like to run by and check on Andy and Gary, see how they’re doing.”

  “Should we be worried about Andrew?” Mike said. “He’s been puking for a couple days now.”

  “I know,” Kevin said. “I don’t know
about being worried, but that’s why I want to go by there. If he’s still stuck in bed I might have to help him get to the hospital.”

  “Well, good luck,” Brian said.

  “Yeah,” Keith said, “hope he’s alright.”

  “Me too,” Kevin said, then he and Ed packed up and left for the night.

  Mike stood up and stretched, popped his back and said, “I’m starving. Who wants pizza?”

  Everyone did, but no one wanted to wait for the delivery order, so Mike said, “I’ll go to Little Caesar’s, be back in a few minutes.”

  “Bring some beers,” Keith said.

  “They don’t sell beer, dunce.”

  “There’s a store across the street.” Keith dug out a twenty from his wallet and handed it over. “Beer’s my treat.”

  Mike pocketed the money and walked out the door.

  After Mike left, the rest of the guys spent a few minutes wandering around, looking at how different the house looked, how much better, and, in Steven’s case, beaming with secret inner pride at the parts he’d had a hand in, especially in the basement.

  She drew her pictures down here, he thought. This was where she came for that, it’s where she felt comfortable and safe. Now it’s better. Warmer, for one. She would like it down here now.

  I did all this for you, he thought, pulling out his phone and looking at the picture he had copied and set as his wallpaper, Amy’s NWAH ID photo.

  Obsessed much, he thought.

  Maybe just a little.

  When he first heard Brian wanted to buy the house, he was irritated, thinking it should be him who bought it, that he would take better care of the place, keeping it clean and maintained for Amy’s memory. Then he realized Brian being here would probably be ideal because he could still be here all the time since they all hung out together, and even being here sometimes was better than someone else buying it and then Steven could never be here.

  Brian buying it instead of Steven was just the better of two evils, he thought. And there was this second bedroom. If he was patient and started sowing the seeds early enough, Brian might just let him rent that bedroom if Steven offered to pay half the mortgage.

  That was something to think about.

  Keith stood in the kitchen looking at the cabinets that had been mounted so far and thought about Michelle. He had seen her at the funeral, and that was the last time he would ever see her, he thought. He would never run into her at another party, he would never run into anyone who said they’d seen her with so and so doing this or that. She was just gone.

  And no matter what Mike said, he couldn’t stop taking that blame on himself. Keith had spent so long ducking responsibilities and living for the fun of living, partying, drinking, fucking, that he never gave himself any quiet moments to just enjoy being himself.

  He’d built up the image of Ol’ Keith so long he had lost all other aspects of himself. Those were things about himself he couldn’t deny any longer. But Michelle dying had been the wakeup he needed and Keith knew he couldn’t let this opportunity for a change go by without trying to make some kind of effort. He hadn’t felt the same since that night and he didn’t know what to do with those feelings.

  He heard a creak and he looked over and watched with growing unease as the basement door opened on its own. He was pretty sure Steven had gone down there, but he could see clearly that Steven wasn’t opening the door. In fact, he wondered what Steven was doing down there at all because as far as Keith could tell, the lights down there were all out. Was he just wandering around in the dark by himself?

  The door swung open all the way, leaving the black emptiness of the doorway staring at him. He felt frozen in place, almost mesmerized by the darkness which seemed to suck up all the light spilling in from the living room. It wasn’t much, he had to admit.

  The switch for the kitchen light was across the room, too far out of reach.

  Something moved downstairs and he thought Good, Steven’s coming up. He’ll close the door and we’ll go into the living room and wait for the pizza and beer.

  But when the sound came again, he knew it wasn’t Steven. Like it or not, Michelle was climbing the stairs. He could smell her perfume.

  Even across the room, he could see her, in his mind’s eye, pulling herself up on dead arms, clutching the boards and hauling herself up one at a time while the crack in the back of her skull oozed blood and liquefied brain matter. She stared up the length of the stairs, her dead eyes locked on the doorway, which must have looked like the bright light of Heaven as seen from Hell, a sign of salvation however false.

  He heard her palms slap the boards, could almost hear the tension in her fingers as they tightened on the stairs, then her feet, followed by the weight of her body lifted up another few inches before her other hand came up to the next step and did it again.

  The anticipation drove him crazy, but he knew it wouldn’t last long because she’d started slow, plodding, struggling up each one, but by the third, the fourth step, he detected the increase of her pace, and by the time she reached the tenth step--there were sixteen--she was moving much quicker. He counted thirteen and she was just out of sight. Fourteen and she was almost there. Fifteen and he saw a flash of pale skin, her long, slender fingers reaching, grasping. Sixteen and her hand came fully into view, the fingers tightening, the wrist, the forearm, he saw the muscles flexing under her skin and there she was, her head lolling to the side, the eyes seeking him out.

  As her head emerged from the black doorway, the meager light from the living room barely adequate, her shoulders followed and he saw her back and she was naked and that terrified him even more.

  She crawled out of the doorway, into the kitchen, and approached him on all fours, coming to him like a cat, all lithe and graceful, but still very very dead.

  Her skin, which Keith had always imagined as pale anyway, was now nearly chalk white, and despite it all, he thought that kind of pale would almost be sexy on the right person, but this wasn’t it and he still couldn’t move.

  “You wanted me,” she said, and the sound of her voice nearly made him lose his mind. It was bad enough she was here, that she was naked, but please please, he begged, please don’t talk to me.

  “This was why you brought me here, wasn’t it?” she said.

  She crept closer, now taking her time approaching him.

  She breathed as if the effort of climbing the stairs had taken it out of her, but as he listened, Keith thought maybe that wasn’t exhaustion. Maybe, God help him, it was excitement.

  “You should have tried harder,” she said. “I would have let you, but you gave in too easy. I thought you liked the challenge. I was just playing hard to get.”

  “No,” he said.

  “Well, I’m out of options now,” she said. “Looks like it’s just you from now on. No one else is going to want me like this. And that’s your fault. If you’d just tried harder to get me into the bedroom. This is what you being a pussy gets you, and what it gets me.”

  She wasn’t trying to seduce him anymore, he realized. This was anger. What lengths will the dead go to for revenge? He didn’t want to find out.

  “I’ll never forgive you,” she said. “You owe me. Don’t ever forget that.”

  “I won’t,” he muttered.

  “You started this. You have to finish it. You owe that to me.”

  “I will. I promise.”

  “I wish you’d done it,” she said, the anger gone from her voice. “I wish you’d been the Keith I was expecting. I wish you’d fucked me. Just like this. I really wanted you to. You still can, you know. You should. Show me Angel Hill style, Keith. You owe me that, too. Come on. Please.”

  She knelt directly in front of him, rubbing her face like a cat against his legs, dipping her back to accentuate her ass.

  She sighed, moaned lightly.

  “No!” he said and found his legs and stepped back, away from her. When he looked down she was gone. He looked at the basement door, thinking
it would be closed and he would realize he’d imagined it, but the door stood wide open, that black maw of a doorway still daring him to deny it.

  He couldn’t. At the same time, though, it couldn’t have been real. Michelle was in the ground. This was guilt, he told himself. And he would have to deal with it for a long time. It was bad enough he had to be here every day, in the place where she’d died (No, he corrected. She didn’t die here. She died in the hospital.), but with Brian buying the place now, Keith couldn’t avoid it. But he just didn’t know if he could stand that constant reminder, every time he came over here.

  Steven stood in the doorway to what would be the guest room and saw Amy Smith sitting on the floor with her back to the door. She hunched over what Steven assumed was her sketch pad. He watched her body move, the way her shoulders rolled or the poke of an elbow as she sketched, and he loved her even more in that moment.

  This was how it should always have been. This was the sight he wanted to see every day. He should have found her sooner and he hated that he hadn’t, but to compensate, his mind had been playing out fantasies more and more frequently lately. He saw her sitting in the car next to him when he drove, he talked to her about things he’d imagined they had done together that day. He felt her presence in bed at night when he was falling asleep.

  When he worked on the house, he would catch glimpses of her out of the corner of his eye, watching him and smiling approvingly. And this was just another of those daydreams.

  He stepped into the room and although he felt the new carpet under his feet, his shoes made a sound like he was on concrete. She stiffened and he wanted to step back and disappear, to leave her undisturbed. She cocked her head, listening, then turned around and saw him and her face brightened and Steven’s heart melted at the sight.

  This was his dream come true.

  He stepped closer and Amy turned fully around, leaned back with her hands behind her and unfolded her left leg, planting her foot on the floor, knee in the air.