But it’s hard with that something still out there. Waiting. Maybe just on the other side of the door, head pressed against the cold yellow paint, listening just like we are, ready to grab us as soon as we open it.
52. Rule 8: Don’t, under any circumstances, go down ANY of the basement hallways.
53. Rule 5: Don’t unlock locked doors.
Twenty-Third Entry
Awake now next to Alf. We’re on the floor with our sweaters balled up beneath our heads. He has his arm around me even though he never asked if he could do that and his pants are all pissy. But I guess it’s fine.
She’s here too. Sitting cross-legged on the mattress in the corner, staring at the wall so I can only see the back of her. Her dress is pulled up, thin thighs like rolled dough. Floury white. I want to slice them into biscuits, watch them rise in an oven. Her back moves as though her hands are busy.
And Sammy lies on the floor behind her, the way he was before, still breathing somehow, blood everywhere. I get up and walk towards him. I reach into the bucket that’d been next to the bed yesterday but is now at Sammy’s side. His food and his water, hidden beneath some old newspapers I’d found. I feed him a bit and dribble more water into his mouth, furry chin barely moving.
“We have to hide him,” says the floured woman.
Says Sibyl. Says Sibyl Groundwick. Says dead Sibyl Groundwick.
“You know he’s not allowed to see,” she continues and nods toward a sleeping Alf.
“But why?”
“Because then he’ll know. And he won’t wanna come back here.”
“Right.”
“Trust me, you don’t wanna be here all alone.”
“I know.”
“Pick up your baby.”
So I very delicately lift Sammy, wrap him in my sweater, his breathing rasping harder and faster, his throat wants to close and end the misery.
And I rock him back and forth and back and forth. I know I need to kill him. So I stroke his little face and it suddenly looks like a real little baby’s face. A little baby born and died, eyes like scoops of jelly in his little baby skull. I need to kill this baby. Because this isn’t a life. I need to kill it, the way that they should have killed me. Stupid Roberta and stupid fucking Herman.
I hate you, Herman. I hate you. I hate you for wishing me to life, you had no right goddamn you.
And I grab Sammy’s little throat and Sibyl says, “Don’t hurt the baby …” in a high-pitched voice, too soft. It makes me sick so I gag and think it should wake me up to gag but it doesn’t. And suddenly I can picture her soggy rotting dead throat so well, air passing through it, grating, pulling bits of her stinking flesh away with it, splatting against my cheek.
I press harder.
Or she’ll send her criminally insane son to kill you!
“Don’t, please,” says Sibyl. “Please don’t do it. Margaret will be very angry and we don’t wanna see her angry, please oh please oh please!”
And Sybil is shaking, flour puffing off of her skin.
“What do you care?” I ask.
“You don’t know what she can do.”
“But I can’t let him live like this!”
“Margaret says babies are precious.”
“She’s a murderer!”
“No. He was a murderer. He was a murderer. Not Margaret. Not Margaret. Not Margaret. Margaret says. Margaret says she opened me up but didn’t kill me.”
I have to kill him. I have to. He’s trapped in a living hell. And I’m the one who trapped him, like Herman trapped me. I can’t be like Herman, I can’t do this to Sammy. Then I dig my finger so hard into my scalp I think I feel my skull and it burns like fuck but it feels so good, like I’m growing somehow. Like this pain is progress.
And I squeeze Sammy’s little throat shut, harder and harder as I dig harder and harder into my head and he rattles with gratitude. And Sibyl is going wild in the corner of my eye, terrified but also excited, screaming but I can’t quite hear.
And I squeeze harder and harder but just before I feel the life leave little Sammy’s body I suddenly hear a loud BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG at the door. Dust explodes in puffs from the old hinges.
“Oh no no no no no no no no no!” Sibyl moans, sadness and terror mixed together. Alf is still sound asleep on the floor.
“What?”
“No no no no no no no no no no,” and she clawed at her hair and groaned.
“What is it?”
“Margaret.”
“Margaret?”
“Margaret is going to be very upset. She doesn’t like how you’re trying to kill this little baby. You better run. Run away. Don’t ever come back if you can get away.”
“But I didn’t kill him! I didn’t, see?” and I thrust out Sammy for her to look. “He’s not dead!”
And then Margaret pounds again.
Sybil gets up and walks over to the door.
“Don’t …” I say. “Look, he’s not dead, you don’t have to do this!”
“I have to let her in.”
“Please, no!”
“I have to or she’ll punish me.”
Sybil flings open the door and something massive and hot and powerful comes tumbling in and without thinking I drop Sammy’s still barely breathing body to the floor, the sound of his skull cracking on the ground, and then I plough through it, her, the big fat thing blocking our way, and I run for my life, and it follows me up the stairs, pounding pounding pounding, grunting, cold fingers just barely getting me but I can feel them and I might be screaming. And I escape out the front door and run run run for my life some more. Fuck you, Herman. Fuck you for wishing me to life. Run run run run run.
I’m going to show you. You lying piece of shit.
I’m going to show you why you should have killed me when you had the chance.54
54. This section takes up 18 pages in the diary.
Twenty-Fourth Entry
I woke up in the basement, outside the closed door at the end of the dark hallway. My hands gloved to the elbows in thick dry blood, my head throbbing, hair stiff as spider legs, the ache in my head so powerful I didn’t know what to do. I’d really gone to town on my sore spot. Fuck. My shoes were covered in mud. I must have been outside.
Alf couldn’t see me this way. I had to hide all the blood on my face, rub the mud off my shoes. I went over to the laundry sink and rinsed my hands, filled the basin almost to the top with cold water and dunked my head in. Eyes open I let myself drift into patterned space for as long as I could, hair swirling slow around my face. I held my breath for so long I thought my eyeballs were going to pop out but it felt good. It was relaxing me.
I dried myself off and snuck back into the room and read the last few pages of the diary. As I read them I felt as though all my bones were slowly fusing together, fused and frozen that way. I’d never be able to move again.
Sammy’s not here again now. So that stuff must not be real. But it feels so real. Oh god, maybe I’m crazy like Herman.
But the other cats really are gone. They’ve been gone for days. So maybe it’s the house that scared them away. Maybe it’s the house that’s making me see things.
And really, if it’s the house, everything’s fine. Really. When you think about it. Because at least I’m not crazy. And all that’s happening, I guess, is that the ghosts are tormenting me? Or trying to show me something? In movies ghosts always have some motive, to solve their murders or, like, dig up their bodies and put them to rest in consecrated ground. There aren’t really any unsolved mysteries here though. I think the house is just a fucking asshole.
But anyway, the most important thing is, there’s no cat here slowly dying. And you know what? I don’t think a cat could possibly survive being half-smashed for as long as Sammy’s been apparently half-smashed. So this is all bul
lshit.
It doesn’t matter.
“Keep it coming!” I whispered out loud to Margaret or Sybil or whoever was down here. And I meant it too. I wanted to see what else they would show me. If this was all they had to torture me they’d severely underestimated the hell I’d already been living in my whole life.
Alf was still sleeping. I would pretend that I didn’t leave him here. I can’t believe I did. At first I thought I was so lucky that whatever that hulking thing was didn’t fucking kill him. But now I think she probably couldn’t have if she tried. Big fat Margaret.
“Big fat Margaret,” again out loud because I’m not scared anymore. She can’t hurt us. Big fat ugly Margaret, all she can do is stomp around with her stupid red toenails, and the only people she can hurt, I guess, are the people she’s already killed. Like poor Sybil.
I guess she did hurt me once, when I was sleepwalking. She rammed her finger too hard into my sore head and then the diary entry ended. But I don’t remember it, I don’t remember the pain. Diary, maybe you just wrote it in there so that I’d feel scared of her. Probably she didn’t hurt me at all. Right?
Am I right, diary? Does any of this make sense?
They can’t hurt me. Or Alf.
Tell me, diary. TELL ME!
Whose side are you on anyway? Are you working with her, you dick? Don’t forget I’m your mother and your father. So you’ve gotta do whatever I say, otherwise I’ll cripple you with guilt.
So much gore beneath my nails. So much digging in my head. It hurt so bad today and it felt hot and sticky under my fingers. Sticky hot syrup. A smooth spot in the middle. Maybe my skull. My skull? Is that really possible?
I didn’t wanna look at it.
My face was buried in the dairy, reading and re-reading when Alf spoke and startled me.
“Hey,” he said. He was sitting up. Pale as paper. “Why is your hair all wet?” He sounded so serious.
“I—I—” I started. I’d forgotten to come up with a lie for this.
“Your hair is wet, Noelle. Your hair is wet. Did you? No. I can’t even say it because if it’s true I’ll kill you. Did you fucking LEAVE ME DOWN HERE alone in the goddamn basement to take a shower?”
“No! No I swear I didn’t. I just, I rinsed my hair a bit in the, in the laundry sink because it’s just really dirty down here.”
I had no idea what else to say. He still wouldn’t like that. That I’d left him alone in here at all. But I’d rather admit to that than admit to having woken up in the hallway covered in blood from my own ravaged head, with no memory of how I got there, a new fucked-up entry in my diary.
“Um, really? Is it dirty down here? And scary and terrible? I hadn’t noticed!”
“You—just—looked—so—peaceful! I didn’t want to disturb you, we’d had such a crazy night, I just—”
“Noelle, I don’t even know what to say. You left me in a dangerous haunted basement room all alone. You’re the fucking WORST!”
“I’m sorry! Alfred, I’m sorry, please don’t be mad at me. I just, I’m an idiot, I fucked up. I didn’t think it was as scary during the day, but I’m a fool.”
“I’m going home.”
“Okay, yes, go home, sleep.”
“I don’t think I can come back tonight.”
“Alfred, you have to! It’s the party!”
“Yeah, I know it’s the party, Noelle. I’m just, I don’t know what to think about last night.”
“Alf, please! Come on. We knew that something like this might happen. We both knew this coming into the job. Last night you were all about this. Last night you wanted something like this to happen. You took a goddamn Ouija board into the suite for christsake! I’m the one who told you not to!”
“Oh, fuck you, Noelle, you left me down a goddamn hallway!”
Then we stood there for a minute.
“Aren’t you going to storm out?” I asked.
“I don’t wanna go alone.”
“Aw, Alf. Please don’t be mad at me. I’m an idiot, I’m a jerk, I’m sorry. Okay, how about this. I’ll go get the beer for tonight. I’ll go. Okay?”
“Um, Noelle, I don’t think you get it. I pissed my fucking pants last night. In terror. That’s never happened to me before.”
“So you’re just going to leave me alone with the party tonight?”
“Let’s just cancel it!”
“Yeah, cancel it, that’s gonna look REALLY cool. Everyone will hate us, Alf!”
“Oh, they will not.”
“They will too!”
“Well, who cares?”
“You want to tell a group of high school kids in this town that the reason we can’t throw the most terrifying Anniversary party of all time in the most perfect place for it is because we actually literally SAW a ghost? Maybe saw fucking Margaret? Who the Anniversary is FOR in the first place?”
And I could see his shoulders slump. It was a stupid reason to do something that you think might be scary and dangerous, yeah. Really stupid. But bad reputations are as real as ghosts.
“I’m scared, Noelle.”
“It’ll be fine, okay? Nothing really even happened last night.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Well, before we saw that person, that figure or whatever, nothing really happened, right?”
“No, lots of things happened. The Ouija board, all that stuff you told me about.”
“Okay, fine, but like, as it turns out, there’s no cat down here, right? So that stuff wasn’t true. And really, nothing hurt us. It probably couldn’t hurt us if it wanted to.”
“What do you mean?”
“What I mean is, this house is just, it’s got a lot of impressions on it, I guess, from being so old and having so much happen here, right? That doesn’t mean that those, those impressions, that doesn’t mean that they can hurt you. Nothing happened last night, and maybe it could have, but it didn’t. Which makes me think that maybe nothing CAN actually happen. Do you know what I mean? We were safe in here, nothing got in. Maybe that’s because they’re not that powerful, you know? Or not powerful at all. Just scary. We’re really lucky, Alf. We saw a real live ghost, okay? Isn’t that pretty amazing?”
“I guess that’s true. Nothing really happened. Except that it was fucking scary.”
“Exactly, and honestly, we wanted to get scared last night. You did, remember? Alf, you wanted to see something. You said it would make you feel better.”
I’m rotten, I’m rotten and evil bringing up his sister like that, but I kept going. “Would you just”—and I grabbed his hands—“think about it? Think about coming tonight? This could honestly be the best Anniversary party of all time. I know you’ll regret missing it.”
And he held my hands tight. They were so cold and shaking. I felt like an asshole. Why was I making him do this? I didn’t even wanna come back here. Ever again. Sybil told me to run away and keep running. Who decides not to heed the warning of a goddamn ghost? And why would I keep coming back to a house that was trying to torture me? It’s crazy and stupid and definitely dangerous. I don’t wanna come back. I don’t wanna come back. But that isn’t true. I’m writing it but it isn’t true. Something in me wants to come back. Something in me never wants to leave.
What will the house do next, diary? What is it really capable of? You better tell me, diary. Otherwise I’ll send you to bed without dinner. I’ll lock you in the closet and make you think about what you’ve done. I’ll spank you. I’ll kill you.
I led Alf slowly out of the basement, then out the front door and we walked the part of the walk home that we shared.
When it was time to part ways, I asked, “Do you want me to walk you home?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“I’ll get the beers, okay?”
“Okay.”
“You just sleep.”
And I leaned in and I kissed him again. Slow on the mouth. And I liked it. It felt good. I didn’t want to upset Alf and I didn’t want this to have happened this way. But I wanted him to come tonight. And this is the way to get boys to do what you want. Because they’re stupid.
Twenty-Fifth Entry
When I got home the chair in the living room was empty, which meant that my father was still sleeping.
And usually I wouldn’t do this, but this morning I felt the need to go up to his room to make sure. Make sure he was there, in bed, and make sure he was sleeping and not, you know. I don’t know.
He was there. A big fat lump under the cheap covers. I didn’t want to get too close. Close enough that he feels someone lingering around and wakes up and then I have to talk to him.
I felt relieved but also kind of disappointed. But I don’t want to tell you why, diary.
No.
No no no.
Why do you want to know so bad? What difference does it make?
I’m sure you can guess, okay? I’m sure you know why I felt that way.
Because! Jesus. I can’t believe you’re making me write this down. You’re a fool. If I go down, you’re going down with me, you know that? I shouldn’t write this down in here.
Okay, okay. I thought maybe, from what I wrote, what I wrote when I was sleepwalking or whatever, I thought that I’d maybe … that I’d killed Herman. That I ran home here and killed him.
And I know this is terrible but when I thought he might be dead and finally out of my life for good, it made me feel really relieved, okay? I was hoping sort of (BUT NOT REALLY) that when I came in there would be a carcass arranged in an undeniably DEAD way in the center of a glistening red pool of way more blood than I’d ever seen in my life.
But no. Here he is. Big lazy sleeping lump. Who’d never know what hit him if his throat just started closing in his sleep.
I don’t want him dead, okay diary? So stop making me write that stuff down.
The Boy Meets Girl Massacre (Annotated) Page 14
