by Stella Noir
Oh, no, Joey. You did not go in there, I thought as I made my way through the tall grass toward the stairs that led up to the back door.
I quietly walked up the small flight of stairs and onto the porch and knocked on the door. The hinges squeaked a little as the door opened up even further and I stepped forward and peaked my head in.
“Hello?” I said as I took a tentative step inside, the old wooden floors creaking underneath my weight.
“Hello? Is anybody home? I’m your neighbor, Avery, and I think my friend’s dog might have come in here.”
Even though it was the middle of the day the house was very dark, and I had to admit that I was beyond intrigued to see what it was like inside. I loved these old houses and I imagined that this one was probably furnished with really cool old antiques since Barbara told me that the same family had lived here for almost one hundred years.
The room I was standing in was some sort of an entryway or a mudroom, with coats on hooks and shoes lined up against the wall. The door into the next room was also open so I decided to continue into the house, even though I knew it wasn’t a very good idea. I called out again for Joey or for anyone else that might be in the house but I heard absolutely nothing.
“Joey, I hope you’re in here, but if you are I’m going to kill you,” I said as I walked into a room that looked like it might have been the storage room for the grocery store at the front of the building. There was a door straight ahead that lead to a flight of stairs going up to the second story and another open doorway that looked like it lead into the grocery store. I decided to check out the main floor first, hoping against hope that Joey didn’t go up the stairs. I really didn’t want to get caught snooping around this guy’s house and it would be really embarrassing if I wandered in on him when he was coming out of the bathroom or something.
I walked through the doorway and into grocery store and looked around before I went any further. Every wall of the store was made entirely of windows that were either covered up with paper or cardboard or were boarded up with plywood. The shelves were all still filled with canned goods and boxed food and bags of rice and beans and other dry goods, and by the looks of the packaging it had all been sitting there for a while. I picked up an old box of macaroni and cheese and there was a thick layer of dust all over it. In fact, there was a thick layer of dust all over everything.
I walked around a little more, picking up items off the shelves and out of bins. Everything looked like it was just sitting there waiting to be purchased. Like in an old Twilight Zone episode where time had stopped, and everything was frozen in place but as soon as it started up again people would walk in the door and start buying things off the shelves again.
I noticed that there were a number of freezers and refrigerated cases that had been emptied out and turned off and I was really relieved to see that. I kept imagining looking through a glass door and seeing old exploded gallons of milk covered in mold or bricks of cheese that had turned green.
I walked all the way around the store and wound up at the counter that held the cash register. I had never been behind a grocery store counter before and I figured since no one was around I might as well. It was silly but for some reason it was kind of exciting to be back there. There wasn’t a thing in the cash register, of course, and there really wasn’t much on the shelves underneath the counter either. Just some piles of paper bags and notepaper and an old paperback that had been pushed way back behind all of the bags. It had an image on the cover of a woman in an old fashioned nurses uniform with the title MALE NURSE IN HIGH HEELS across the top. I flipped through it and read the description on the back that said something about some nurses having a secret to their bedside manner, then stuck it at the back of the shelf where I had found it.
I heard a noise that sounded like something moving around upstairs, but I had no idea if it was the guy that lived here or Joey. I could see that Joey wasn’t in the store, so I headed back through the doorway and through the stockroom, then looked up the stairs to the second floor. While I stood there for a moment, hoping that Joey would just appear so I could get the hell out of there, I realized that there was another door right next to this one but it was closed. I really didn’t want to get caught snooping through this guy’s house and I was starting to get really nervous that he was going to come home, so I quickly headed up the stairs to find Joey.
“Joey! Will you come out please! I said in a stern whisper. I got up to the top of the stairs and pushed open another partially closed door that let out in a u-shaped hallway that looked exactly like the one on my floor. The room straight ahead on the right is where my room would be and I wondered if the two front rooms shared a balcony like mine and my neighbor’s. The room next to that looked like the kitchen and sunlight coming through those windows seemed to be the only source of light on the entire floor. The door on the left was open so I walked across the hall from the stairway to see what it looked like inside.
For some reason it took me a few seconds, but I eventually realized that this was the room across from mine where I kept seeing the guy in the window. This room did have the same French doors that lead onto a balcony that overlooked the street like mine. It also had the exact same trim around all of the windows and doors, only the furniture in this room was much more attractive than anything in my room. It was filled with old, ornate antiques that look like they were covered in their original fabric, but thankfully this room wasn’t anywhere near as dusty and musty as the main floor.
I pulled the drapes back and looked out the window and realized that almost my whole room was visible from here. The only thing you really couldn’t really see was the bed and the closet door since they were both close to the wall that the front door to the room was on. I shut the drapes and walked back out into the hall, and even though I wanted to find Joey and get out of that house, my curiosity got the better of me and I walked over to the door that was in the same place as my room and listened to see if I could hear anyone.
I didn’t hear a thing so I wrapped my hand around the cold metal of an ornate antique doorknob and turned it as slowly as possible. I was pretty sure that if there was someone in this house that they would have heard me and come out by now, but I was still terrified that someone was going to catch me snooping. Besides, it was actually really creepy in that house and I kept imagining some freaky old lady showing up behind me out of nowhere.
I pushed the door open and of course the hinges creaked like crazy and the sound seemed like it echoed throughout the whole house. I had a hard time seeing anything at first because the curtains were pulled shut in this room too, but eventually my eyes adjusted and my heart sank down into my stomach.
For split second I thought that the room was filled with people. People that were sitting in the room and were silently staring at the door, waiting for someone like me to open it so that they will have a reason for staring. But then I realize that the room was filled with a whole bunch of mannequins. I stepped inside and an overwhelming smell hit me like a ton of bricks. It was a mixture of something very sweet and musty and chemically, and all that mixed with the dust and the gloom almost made me want to vomit.
Every fiber of my being wanted to turn and run down the stairs, but for some reason I couldn’t move. I couldn’t stop staring at the heads. That’s what they were, they weren’t full mannequins they’re just necks and heads and they all seemed to have their faces heavily made up. A few of the heads were bald with only makeup on and no wig, but most of them did have wigs and those ranged from extremely long hair to short hair to hair that was done up in a fancy beehive and there was even one that had the hair done up in curlers. Suddenly behind me I heard the sound of nails scratching across the wooden floor and I turned to see Joey running from the kitchen and down the stairs.
“Oh my God, there you are you little asshole!”
I bolted down the stairs, making more noise than I realized. I still didn’t think anyone was in the house, but when I got to the b
ottom of the stairs I heard heavy footsteps that sounded like they were running up another flight of stairs. I didn’t know where the sound was coming from but Joey had already run out of the house so I ran for the back door and thought I was right behind him. But just before I made it to the porch an arm wrapped around my stomach, picked me up, slammed the door, and before I could scream, covered my mouth.
The room spun around in front of me as I was carried back towards the stairs but my body came to a complete stop before I went through the door that led upstairs. In a split second I realized where the sound of footsteps on stairs had come from as I looked at the second door that had been closed earlier. I struggled and kicked at the air and screamed futilely into the hand over my mouth as I watched a bloody hand and face pawing at the floor and attempting to crawl up another set of stairs that led down to a basement.
I heard the person behind me yell then kick the door shut and my stomach sank as I heard an agonizing scream on the other side. That scream was quickly drowned out by the one that the hand over my mouth was stifling, but that filled my head as I was being taken back up the stairs I had just run down. I couldn’t catch my breath with the hand over my mouth and when I saw where I was being taken I went into a full blown panic. The door opened up in front of me and I realized I was being laid down on the bed in the room full of mannequin heads. I clawed at the person in the dark who was holding me down but for the most part my hands were just moving through the air. Then before I could even focus on the face that was hovering over me I felt a rag over my mouth and everything went black.
11. Colin
Oh my God, no no no! No, this can’t be happening!
I held my head in my hands and paced back and forth between the kitchen and my bedroom, trying to figure out what the hell I was going to do. I couldn’t believe how much I’d fucked up. First of all, I didn’t understand how the hell she got in the house? Did I leave the back door open somehow? Seriously, I never leave any doors or windows open. Ever. And the one day I did Avery got in here somehow and saw everything. Everything!
What the hell was she doing in here? She fucking saw the girl in the basement. I can’t believe she fucking saw the goddamned bloody girl in the basement.
I swear to God I paced back and forth for an hour but I couldn’t stop shaking and I was nowhere near figuring out what I was going to do. I seriously thought that somehow I was going to stop doing all this. I really believed that things would mellow out and I would clean this place up, get rid of the heads and any traces of all this shit I’d been doing for years, and then Avery and I would meet again and she would see me for who I really was and everything would be perfect. She would never have to have known about any of this.
The girl I had in the basement was going to be it. I was going to get rid of everything. The girl, the cage, the bunk beds, the wig heads and all the junk in this goddamned house. I was going to clean and dust and open the curtains so that this place wasn’t so dark and dismal. I was going to do all of that. But what the hell was I going to do now? There was no way Avery was going to want me now. Not after what she saw. She wouldn’t want to look me in the face ever again.
Oh, and when she wakes up she’ll be in my mother’s bed surrounded by all of my fucking wig heads and she’s going to freak the fuck out even more. Great.
But I didn’t even know what the hell I was going to do with her even after I got rid of the girl. I still had to go to work at the salon, and she had seen everything so I couldn’t just let her go. It wasn’t even that I was afraid of her going to the police. I just didn’t want her to leave. If she left, I’d never see her again.
Jesus Christ, I’m going to have to put her in the basement.
I didn’t want it to be like this. I really, really didn’t want it to be like this.
But I knew what I had to do, and I had to do it while Avery was asleep. I had to get rid of the girl in the basement. Then I would figure out the rest.
I’ll just get rid of the body, even the parts that I already removed, and then I’ll just dump her, I thought as I made my way to my mother’s room.
I opened the door and Avery was still asleep right where I’d left her. She was so incredibly beautiful and looked so peaceful sleeping there on my mother’s bed and I wanted so badly for her to stay that way. But I knew that as soon as she opened her eyes she would look at me like the monster that I was.
I bent down and moved her hair back off of her face. I wanted to kiss her, I wanted to touch her face and her hair and feel her lips pressed up against mine. I wanted to but I couldn’t. I couldn’t take that away from her.
But I decided what I would do was move her to my own bed while I was taking care of the girl in the basement. The thought of Avery waking up in here all alone in this dark, dusty room surrounded by my collection made me sick. I didn’t want that for her. I wanted her to be happy here, and to feel safe with me, even though I knew that wasn’t going to be possible after what she saw. And I knew there was probably no way I was going to be able to convince her that I didn’t want that for her, that I had no intention of doing anything like that to her, ever.
I picked her up off the bed and her head fell backward over my arm. I had never held a girl like this before and it made me feel like I was in some kind of fairy tale. But I wasn’t the prince in the fairy tale, I was the evil troll under the bridge. The one that no one wanted to run into.
As I stared down at her I was hypnotized by the curve of her neck and the sharp line of her collarbone and as my eyes traveled further down her body I saw what it was that she had been burning into her forearm that night.
I carried her into my room and laid her out on my bed, then pulled up her sleeve and what I saw was breathtaking. There were swirls and concentric circles of different shades of brown that had been made by the heated head of a perfectly round pin. It looked like some of the scars were fading and some were darker, so I assumed it was an ongoing work of art. And it was a work of art. I had never seen anything as beautiful as what Avery had done to her own skin.
As I ran my fingers over the raised dots I thought about what Landen said to me the other night, about him seeing what I do as art. There was no way what I had hidden in that other room could compare to the work of art that Avery had accomplished on her arm, but it was another undeniable coincidence that I just couldn’t ignore.
As much as I didn’t want to, I decided it would probably be best to tie her up. I was going to be gone for quite some time while I was getting rid of the girl in the basement and I didn’t want her to do something crazy like jump off the balcony. I found some ties that I hardly ever wore in the closet and used them to secure her hands in front of her then did the same with her feet. I stood there and stared at her for a little while longer because I knew that when I got back she would most likely be awake and probably wouldn’t have that peaceful look on her face. I didn’t even want to think about the way she would be looking at me when she woke up.
I headed down to the basement and when I opened the door the girl was still there at the top of the stairs. I grabbed a towel and wiped off the blood that had pooled up on the stairs, then I picked her up and carried her the rest of the way down. She was unconscious and I could barely feel her pulse so I knew that it would be easy to finish her off. I wrapped my hands around her neck and watched her face as she made small jerking movements and then it was all over. And I didn’t feel a thing.
This is the last time. I swear to God, this is last time, I thought as I squeezed my eyes shut.
I put her body into one of the old laundry bags from the salon, as well as the towel I had used to clean up the blood and the parts I had cut off of her. Then I hoisted her over my shoulder and headed out into the tunnel, locking the basement door behind me. In the past, it had always taken me at least a half hour to get to the old pier where the tunnel came out, but I was in a hurry and I hoped I could get this whole thing taken care of in less time than that.
There used to b
e a loading dock entrance into the tunnel system at every street that lead down to the river but most of them had collapsed or had been bricked up at some point. But I knew of one entrance that still existed and I knew exactly how to get there. And because there were so many fences and walls and obstacles down at the old docks to keep people from accessing the tunnels, I never had to worry about anyone seeing me dump a body off the loading dock.
What used to be a bustling pier with merchants buying goods directly from the ship crews was now a wasteland of rotted wood, cesspools of muck and garbage and the occasional patch of quicksand and was the perfect hiding place for the bodies I needed to get rid of.
It was surprising to me that the police had never searched this area for any of the hundreds of people that had gone missing in the last century, and I was sure that I wasn’t the only one dumping bodies here. I had actually seen Landen for the first time, way before we met, dumping a bag over this dock. I was still a kid and I just happened to be checking out one of the abandoned buildings right on the docks one night and I looked out of one of the busted windows just behind him. As soon as he dropped the bag he turned around and looked right at me, then disappeared into the tunnel. I saw a glint of the moon in his eyes and even though I only saw him for a few seconds I never forgot his face or stopped wondering what was in the bag.
I watched the girl’s body sink into the thick murky cesspool thirty feet below me, then made my way back to the house as quickly as possible.
When I got back I set to work immediately cleaning the basement. I still wasn’t sure that I was going to be able to put Avery down there, especially after all of the horrible memories that still played out in my dreams of the cage and the bed and my mother, but I didn’t know what other choice I had.
I turned all the lights in the basement on, including the old lighted makeup mirror that my mother had put down there a long time ago, because those lights were the brightest, and I could actually see the entire basement for the first time in my life. The basement was divided into two halves and the section towards the front half of the house was filled with old furniture and stacks of boxes that lined the walls from the days when the basement was still used as a storeroom for the grocery store. I didn’t like going into that part of the basement and it had just become a big pile of furniture and boxes that were impossible to navigate through.
