The House That Death Built

by Michaelbrent Collings

  "Now's not the time," said Rob.

  A series of clicks sounded in the room. Not like before, when the nails had shredded their way up through the floor, this was a lighter sound. Not machinery moving, but something else….

  "There!" said Aaron.

  1:40….

  He pointed, and Kayla saw that a series of holes, each about two inches in circumference, had opened on the walls. Varying height, anywhere from one foot to six feet high, placed irregularly along every wall. She couldn't tell what was behind them, or what they were for, but they did not look good.

  Rob was spinning around. Looking for an exit in a place whose only way out was blocked by a blade.

  "What do we do?" he said. "What are we supposed to do?"

  No one answered.

  No one could.

  30

  Aaron saw the numbers –

  (1:28….

  1:27….)

  – but they didn't register the way they should. When he finally understood that it was a countdown, it jarred him. Another small shock to the system when the holes opened in all the walls. They reminded him of a nature show he'd seen once on deep sea life. There had been sharks, squid, deep sea jellyfish with stings that could paralyze.

  But by far the most frightening to him had been a small creature that barely moved. The sea cucumber looked like nothing so much as a deep-sea turd. But when attacked, when threatened by creatures that ventured too close to its domain, it was willing to literally tear itself apart. It had no teeth, no claws, but it had a mouth. And through that mouth it literally turned itself inside-out, expelling all its guts in a sticky mass that frightened larger predators and entangled smaller ones.

  Something willing to die time and again in order to live was something to be feared.

  And these holes made him think of that fact. Reminded him of a creature that would die to murder.

  1:26….

  They had come to this place as intruders. Predators.

  But what was behind the walls… it would die to kill them all.

  He felt panic welling up inside him. Veiled it with action. When threatened, there are two options: to curl up and accept the onrushing violence to body, to mind, to self; or to move. Sometimes that motion is careful, composed, thoughtful. Other times it is motion for movement's sake: a simple, last-ditch gesture of defiance.

  Aaron moved, and wasn't sure which kind of movement it was. It didn't matter, he guessed. It was better than simply waiting and accepting death.

  He grabbed the card from where Rob had tossed it. Same as the first card had been: a simple piece of thick, folded paper. Words on it in enraged scribbles:

  the robbed that smiles,

  steals something from the thief

  He turned the paper over, and saw something Rob had failed to notice in his rage. There was a bit of photo taped to the back. Like the first bit, it was a close-up: grays and whites and reds and blacks in angry swatches of color that made no sense at all.

  Aaron pulled at the photo gently, dimly aware that Kayla and Rob were screaming at each other in the background. Knowing they were spinning their wheels, leading themselves to death.

  The only thing that was important – the only thing that mattered at all – was right here in his hands. He felt it.

  The photo came away with the minute sucking of tape that has settled deep into paper. When it came free, he lifted it closer to his eyes, using the ambient lighting to peer at it for a moment.

  Still nothing. No sense to be found, no hope to be had.

  He turned the bit of photo over in his hand. Like the first –

  (1:16….)

  – it had a number on the back. "2," written in the same way as the cryptic message on the front of the card.

  He looked at it for a moment, then realized there was something else on the paper. It had been hidden by the photo, but now he could see it clearly.

  He absently shoved the bit of photo into one of his pockets, focusing on what had been beneath.

  An irregular shape had been drawn on the card. A rectangle with a shorter, thinner rectangle jutting from one side of it. The smaller rectangle was colored in red.

  Another corner of the shape, opposite the red rectangle, had a green "X" on it.

  Aaron felt something hot on his shoulder, and realized it was Rob, leaning over him and emitting a panicked heat that made Aaron's own pulse race a bit faster.

  "And what does that mean?" said Rob. Apparently he and Kayla had finally stopped fighting. Kayla was staring at her brother's body – what was left of it. She nudged it with her foot, as though he were only napping and would sit up and screw his head back on –

  (Maybe he'd get it on right this time, not crazy and broken like it has been.)

  – and yawn before rejoining them.

  Tommy kept being dead.

  Kayla turned and joined them.

  0:51….

  0:50….

  "What is that?" she said.

  Aaron frowned. "I don't know." He pulled the photo from his pocket again, then drew the first photo – the one they had found in the safe – and put both pieces next to the drawing. Nothing new. The drawing appeared to have nothing to do with the photo pieces, and the pieces themselves didn't fit together to create anything more understandable.

  "Gimme that." Rob grabbed the paper. Looked at it. His face creased into thought-lines, then relaxed back into a confused look.

  Snick-CHICK.

  The sound, again, came from the walls. From the holes in the walls. They made Aaron shiver, and visible shudders rolled through Rob and Kayla as well.

  A few sounds have made their way into human consciousness. Sounds that mean specific, primal things, and which cause specific, primal reactions: the rumble of an earthquake, the rattle at the end of a viper's tail. The gasp of someone in the throes of sex, the sounds of an infant's first cry.

  A sound much newer in human history, but no less powerful for its recent birth, was the cocking of a firearm. The cocking of a gun was a sound that immediately said: RUN, HIDE.

  The sound that had come from the walls was no mere handgun, not even a shotgun. It was something much heavier.

  Many somethings.

  And suddenly Aaron understood what the holes were. What would come from them.

  What would happen to the attic and everything still in it when the countdown reached zero.

  Rob moved the instant after the sound. He threw himself against the bloody guillotine at the window, intent on bashing his way out. Blood and thick clots of meat spattered between him and the blade, splashing in ever-wider designs each time Rob battered uselessly at the metal.

  Kayla was murmuring, "We're gonna die. We're all gonna die." She looked – what was it?

  Shocked. She's amazed that this could even be happening to her.

  Aaron had known Kayla was a sociopath. And what must it be like for someone who thought they were the only thing that mattered in the world to find out that the world actually didn't care at all. Or, worse, actively hated you?

  Rob yanked a small pry bar from a loop on his pants. He attacked the wood frame around the guillotine. Bits of wood splintered, but Aaron could see instantly that it wasn't enough. The guillotine wasn't going anywhere, and the wood was strong, sturdy.

  0:35….

  Aaron looked back at the card. Began walking around the room as his body began to realize something his mind had yet to grasp.

  0:33….

  He stopped suddenly.

  "It's a treasure map," he murmured.

  "To what?" Kayla's voice was so close he almost dropped the card. She was almost hanging off him.

  "To get out."

  0:30….

  0:29….

  "But what does it mean? I don't –

  "It's the attic." Aaron pointed at the small, red rectangle sticking out on the side. "This is the stairs. The red must mean the nail trap."

  "And the green?" Rob this time. He had left his fruit
less attack on the window, and like Kayla was hovering so close to Aaron it was oppressive.

  0:20….

  0:19….

  Aaron glanced at the numbers. The blood rushed away from his extremities, rendering them frozen while at the same time panic stoked painful fires in his chest.

  He looked back at the map. Spun it around in his hands until it was oriented at the same relative position as the room.

  He pointed at the far corner. "There."

  He started for it, but Rob grabbed his arm before he'd gone two steps. "That could be another trap!"

  0:10….

  Aaron yanked his arm away. "You got a better idea?"

  0:09….

  He turned and walked quickly but alertly. Ready for the air itself to come alive and try to kill him.

  Rob and Kayla fell into step. Rob was looking back and forth so fast Aaron could hear the other man's vertebrae popping and clicking.

  He's gonna feel that in the morning.

  If there is a morning.

  They got to the spot that corresponded to the green "X" on the map.

  Nothing was there. Nothing but floor and the intersection of two walls.

  "You sure –" Rob began.

  "Nothing's happening –" said Kayla.

  0:04….

  "I don't –" said Aaron.

  0:03….

  "Oh, dear God," said Rob. The words carried a fervent reverence that would have made any ordained priest blush at his own paltry prayers.

  0:02….

  The floor broke apart beneath their feet with the sound of shearing wood, the crackle of boards ripped asunder.

  They fell as one, dropping into the room below.

  Aaron hit the floor first, his feet hitting absolutely flat and then feeling like they drove right up through his shins. A fraction of a second later, Kayla and Rob plowed into him, the three of them driving downward in a mass so hard that Aaron thought it likely they would continue past this floor as well, just breaking through into whatever was below, then whatever was below that, and on and on forever until they finally fell to Hell itself.

  It'd be what I deserve.

  I could have stopped this. I could have stood up.

  I could have –

  The rest of his thoughts disappeared in the firestorm that erupted above. A storm of firepower shattered the world, so many bullets flying so fast they quickly ceased to be individual explosions and merged instead into a single rolling thunderclap. Dust and wood rained down through the hole he and the others had fallen through, coating their hair and skin and clothes and turning the blood that covered them to a thick brown sludge.

  The shots went on forever, and more. Eternity wasn't an afterlife, it was a prolonged moment cowering as the room above you disintegrated.

  Someone will come. Someone's going to hear that.

  But that was a lie. This house had no neighbors to speak of. The drive through Spurwing Green had been a gradual shift from mansions to mansions to estates, houses beside each other giving way to houses so far from one another they probably had their own zip codes.

  Worse, he suspected that even someone standing right outside the house wouldn't hear. These people – whoever they were – had thought of everything. They'd engineered a way to drop a bulletproof shield between them and their attackers, they'd trained magnificently deadly dogs to herd them into this maze of traps and maps. Would they forget to soundproof the place?

  No. Not likely. Impossible.

  We're on our own.

  The gunfire ended. The automatic weapons above ceased firing as one, the abrupt end of the noise sending yet another shock through Aaron's frame. His ears weren't ringing, they were shrieking. Rob was saying something, but he only knew that because he saw the other man's lips moving.

  Gradually, the shriek tapered off. It was replaced by a cacophonous tangle of bells and rings, then those eventually faded as well. Everything sounded like he had packed insulation in his ears, and he ached from head to foot. But he could hear, and he was alive.

  For now.

  Kayla was the first to stand, and she cursed suddenly. No anger in the sound, only dread.

  Aaron managed to get to his hands and knees, then looked around. They had fallen out of the range of the weapons above, but what had they fallen into?

  It was one of the rooms Aaron had noted on their way to the master bedroom. The one that didn't belong with the rest. The only one that, in and of itself, made him afraid.

  The one that was wrong.

  The empty room.

  Sawdust still sifted down from the wreckage above, and then something else fell. Kayla was standing directly below the hole, and a trio of thin streams trickled down and splashed trails against her forehead and cheeks. They were red.

  Tommy's blood, what was left of it draining from his perforated body and finding its way to the hole.

  How? He wasn't close to the hole. How could the blood get over here?

  And he knew. Just like the traps, just like everything else that had happened: this was planned. The floor of the attic wasn't the typical flat plane, it had been crafted at a gentle angle, sending anything liquid to the new drain Happyface and Sadface had known would open.

  They knew someone would die up there.

  Knew the others would fall.

  Knew they would see the blood of the dead rain down on them.

  The blood cut red trails through the grime on Kayla's face. She didn't shrink away, but instead turned her face upward so it splashed across her forehead, eyes, mouth. She seemed transfixed. Beyond grief, well on her way to madness.

  Aaron looked away. Anything would be better than watching her bathe in her brother's blood.

  But he was wrong.

  There was something worse.

  The empty room was empty no longer.

  31

  It had been empty, and that had chilled him. Now the room was not empty, and it turned out this version of the room was far worse. Still sparse, Spartan. But something new sat before the fireplace.

  A folding table.

  And a note.

  Aaron stared at the note, wondering what nonsense would be written on this one, and if there would be another treasure map beneath it.

  Not treasure. Survival.

  He thought of Dee. She was so frail in the hospital. She had always been a small woman – barely five-foot-five, and petite to boot. But when she was at her worst, her lowest, she had barely weighed seventy pounds. Her skull strained against the skin of her face, her few remaining wisps of hair hanging on with grim determination.

  Her eyes had sunk so deep into her face they were nothing but shadow sometimes. It made her look like she had already died.

  She whispered to him how sorry she was, how ashamed of the burden she had become. His words to her that she was never a burden, that she had nothing to be sorry about, fell on ears that had shriveled against her skull, and often he knew she wasn't even hearing him.

  But she had survived. Like he had to survive. Life had dealt them such terrible hands, over and over. He wasn't going to fold now. He was going to see her again. He was going to hold her close, and if Rob ever threatened her again he would kill him.

  Lies.

  We're all going to die here.

  Movement attracted his attention. Rob was striding toward a window on the far wall. Expensive draperies covered the window, and he held them aside and looked out the window.

  "What are you doing?" said Aaron.

  "Getting out of here."

  The stars were visible outside. Aaron realized that the lights that had dimly illuminated the grounds when they arrived had been extinguished.

  Nothing but starlight. A window leading to freedom.

  Rob started feeling along the edges of the window. Aaron almost asked him why he wanted to go out that way instead of trying the door to the hall. Then he thought of the four big dogs. What if they were waiting right outside the door?

  But the window hel
d its own dangers.

  "What about what happened to Tommy? What if –" he began.

  Rob waved him to silence. He wasn't touching the window, just looking at it. He leaned to the side, looking through the glass at a steep angle that wouldn't let him see much more than the casing. Then he shifted and looked at it from the opposite angle.

  "I don't see anything. I don't think there's anything out there."

  Rob hit the window with the gun butt. It didn't break. Just a low thud.

  Kayla moaned. Aaron hadn't even known she was paying attention, but now he saw that she had moved away from the still-streaming blood and was looking at Rob's futile attempts to get out.

  "Damn," said Rob. Then, louder, "Dammit, dammit, dammit!"

  Something gleamed around them. Again, Aaron couldn't tell where they came from, but red numbers flickered into being on all the walls.

  This time there was no pause between their appearance and the beginning of the laser countdown.

  2:00….

  1:59….

  Aaron grabbed the note off the table. He didn't want to be playing this game, but he didn't see much choice, either.

  Rob and Kayla hung back as he approached the card table and picked up the note. He glanced back at both and saw the same expressions on their faces: fear, confusion.

  Why is this happening to me?

  How is going to end?

  He picked up the card. Opened it.

  "What's it say?" asked Rob.

  "The worst thieves steal only time."

  For some reason, this one scared him more than the others. It was the word "thieves." He felt as though this card was calling him out specifically. Naming his greatest failing, his greatest sin, and so providing a hint of his final doom.

  He flipped the card over. Another scrap of photo. "5" on the back. Aaron put it on the card table, then removed the other two pieces from his pocket.

  They still didn't fit. They still didn't show anything he could make out.

  He put them in his pocket.

  "Thieves steal time?" said Kayla. "What does that even mean?"

  1:45….

  Kayla spoke again, and this time her voice was high and breathy. She sounded like a little girl who has looked up and discovered she is alone in an unfamiliar place. "What's happening to us?"