by Mark Parker
“Look at all this junk,” I hear one of them murmur. We are all, I think, too amazed to realize how frightened we should be. The tunnel winds through the stacks, branching here and there. It is not a house so much as a maze of mystery. It is unclear which is the right way—if, in fact, there is a right way—but Trevor is taking the lead, as always. Along the one wall that I can see, the windows are completely blocked, turning away any moonglow or streetlight before it can gain entry.
There is the occasional piece of furniture to be seen—a chair, a sofa, an end table—but they are all smothered beneath piles that occupy every square inch of their surface. One end of the couch is jammed with boxes of damaged, naked dolls, many missing arms or legs or hair or eyes; next to them lolls a giant stuffed bear, mortally wounded, its stuffing leaking out in frothy trails.
The Draeger house is very large. I am wondering if the entire structure could possibly be so packed with clutter. I am struck by the notion that I should start leaving a trail of something behind us; gingerbread crumbs, perhaps. I stifle a giggle that seems on the edge of hysteria.
The wind moans slightly in the eaves, but no other sounds travel through the thick stacks; the deathly quiet makes me think of an abandoned library. Ahead, Trevor turns to the right and stops, a doorway framing him in the gloom. Beyond, I can make out a large kitchen, cast in hues of faded, flickering yellow; diseased and mottled. As I step closer, a wave of odor hits me and I almost gag. I cannot keep my doubts to myself any longer.
“Trev, are you sure we should be doing this?” I whisper. “What if old man Draeger finds us? Isn’t this, like, breaking and entering or something?”
“The door was open,” points out Trevor. “I’m just worried about his safety.” He winks, the quick movement swallowed up by the darkness. “Besides,” he adds, “this is too wild. C’mon.”
I start to plead my case further, but realize there is no point. There is mystery to be investigated here and none of us are likely to be able to turn away from it, not even me.
With that, Trevor turns and leaves the kitchen behind, venturing down a true corridor this time, but one made ever narrower by the stacks that line its walls. In places, the passage narrows down to only a foot or so, forcing us to turn sideways to get through. In the strata around me, I see bottles, cans, candy wrappers, packing material, leaves, and more, all festooned with dust and cobwebs and mouse shit. I have never experienced claustrophobia, but I think I now have some sense of what it must be like.
We pass through what was once a wide archway, now packed with refuse and reduced to little more than a crevice, into what seems to be a large room, originally perhaps a parlor or family room. The tunnel diverges here, splitting off in three directions.
“Anybody want to make the choice?” asks Trevor. He is maintaining his bravado, but I notice that he is whispering now, too.
“Left,” says Jenny, “always go left.”
“Left it is.”
We have to duck a bit to enter this branch. There are some sort of shelves rigged across the top of the tunnel, stuffed with books and papers. I see some shoes shoved in haphazardly as well, along with a couple suitcases wedged in sideways at the end.
After a couple steps forward, a rustling sound comes from somewhere off to our right.
“What the hell was that?” hisses Jenny.
“Probably a rat,” says Trevor, sounding as if he really believes it.
I want to say no, that the noise was too big for a rat; that we need to go now; but I know my show of fear would disappoint Trevor. I suspect Jenny may harbor the same thoughts. So we bear our doubts, watching Trevor hunch forward, dropping to his hands and knees after a couple more steps, as the path draws down to a true tunnel.
“Trev? You’re not going under there, are you?” There is true fear in Jenny’s voice.
“Sure. It’s only like this for a few feet. I can see where it comes out.”
“Trev…”
It’s too late, he is already scrambling through the passageway. There is no choice but to follow.
Jenny drops in front of me, inching forward more cautiously. The wooden floor is sticky, gritty beneath my hands. Her heel swings past my face in the darkness, inches away. There is even less visibility under here, but I can make out stacks of bald tires on both sides of me, along with other, less-identifiable items. The reality of the situation registers briefly, between a hundred strobing thoughts, and I can hardly believe where I am at this moment, what I am doing. At the same time, part of me would not trade this experience for anything. It is a world away from being sprawled on the couch in front of bad TV shows.
Trevor was right. The tunnel is brief. I crawl forward, brushing past stacks of scrap wood, more newspapers, and God knows what else, and then the low ceiling lifts. Rising to my feet, I see another juncture ahead, with Trevor already entering the left branch and Jenny following. She looks back briefly, confirming my presence, then continues on. Lagging as I try to absorb the details of everything around me, I am falling behind. I take one last, long look around, seeking to record a mental snapshot of it all. Little do I realize that retaining memories of this experience will be the least of my worries. I am hurrying to catch up when I hear Jenny scream.
“Jesus Christ! Did you see that?” I hear her say. “It moved!”
Turning a corner, I see her cowering, arms raised protectively over her head. Above her in the gloom, an impossibly old woman squats, naked, withered and skeletal, atop one of the artificial walls. As I watch, unable to move, she swings a claw-like arm at Jen, accompanied by a noise something like a croak. Jen ducks further and the blow glances off, her long red hair fanning out as the gnarled hand swings through.
Now I see Trevor, a little further up the corridor, coming to her rescue. Just as he is coiling to launch himself at the old woman, a baseball bat comes swinging down out of the darkness, from a higher perch on the opposite stack-wall. The bat strikes Trevor in the temple, dropping him like a stone.
I look up. High above, squatting with his back almost up against the ten-foot ceiling, is old man Draeger. He cackles as he continues to swing the bat back and forth like a pendulum. The cadaver-like old woman, older even than Draeger, joins in the laughter, stringy hair hanging over her face as her bony shoulders shake.
The sound of the two laughing gargoyles pushes Jen over the edge. She turns and flees, abandoning Trevor, who is struggling to rise; she is heading deeper into the maze, down yet another branching corridor. I hear Trevor say “wait…” and then there is a loud snapping sound. Another scream comes from Jen, but it is cut off very quickly.
A rumbling sounds rolls through the house. I hear the sound, and feel it in my feet, before I see the corridor down which Jen ran disappear as the two walls collapse, burying the aisle beneath massive waves of trash.
Things are happening so fast at this point that it is hard to keep the details straight. But I remember Trevor rising, blood streaming down his face, shouting Jenny’s name. He ignores his attackers, even as the bat swings down again, barely missing him, and he dives on the collapsed rubble, digging desperately with bare hands. The sight breaks me, at last, from my paralysis. I take a couple steps forward, but the bat swings menacingly in my direction. I hesitate, then drop to the floor, figuring I can wriggle past them, lower than the bat can swing. I do not know what I will do if they abandon their perches to jump down on me. I cannot think that far ahead.
It is right about then that I smell the smoke, and realize the sound I am hearing is that of crackling flames. The collapse has sent one or more of the precariously-perched candles down into the stacks of tinder-dry fuel. The two guardians abandon their posts and scrabble away across the tops of the stacks, making enraged croaking noises.
The smoke is already getting thick as I grab my brother’s shoulders, trying to pull him away from his desperate excavation. He fights me, pushing me off with one hand while continuing to paw at the pile with the other. I can hear him continuing to
say her name, over and over, like a chant, or perhaps a mantra. He is much bigger and stronger, and would have easily outlasted me in this contest, but he inhales a lungful of smoke, leaving him coughing and helpless. I manage to drag him a few feet away before he catches his breath. By then, I think he has realized the futility of his efforts, for he allows me to lead him back toward the front of the house. We make one wrong turn, but manage to retrace our steps and get out before it is too late.
Kneeling on the sidewalk, crying, coughing, panting, I hear a voice saying “What happened? What happened?” and realize it is my own. Soon it is drowned out by the sound of approaching sirens.
***
The fire department arrives on the scene quickly and prevents the fire from getting completely out of control. Nonetheless, the damage is severe, burning most of the back of the house, both first and second stories. It is quite something to see, before they take me away.
By the time the salvage crew is done, weeks later, they’ve hauled away more than one hundred tons of festering debris. I ride by once while they are still cleaning up. All the workers wear protective coveralls, rubber boots, and breathing masks. It takes them three days to find Jen’s body. The fire never reached her, but she had smothered before it even got started, crushed by a booby-trap. There are other such traps set throughout the house. One almost kills one of the salvage workers; after that, they are more careful. It’s sheer luck that Trevor and I didn’t fall victim to one.
Excessive hoarding, the media calls it, or pack-rat syndrome, a condition wherein virtually everything an individual uses or comes in contact with—newspapers, mail, food packages, even urine and used toilet paper—is attributed an unnatural value, and deemed something worth saving. I sometimes overhear people talking about it, wondering how Draeger ever could have accumulated so much junk without being noticed. It was clearly his life’s work, a collection patiently and painstakingly accumulated.
Psychologists quoted in the news reports say that, like alcoholism, the hoarding syndrome is a progressive disease, worsening with the passing years. Eventually the refuse takes over every available bit of space, along with the owner’s life. They say the problem appears most common among those who lived through the Great Depression of the ‘30s and the rationing of World War II. The reporters choose to put a sympathetic spin on the story, portraying Mr. Draeger as a lonely man victimized by his obsession. It makes me angry, but there is nothing I can do.
It takes them more than a week to find old man Draeger’s body. He had apparently retreated to the cellar before the upper floor collapsed upon him. They find the old woman there, too. She was Draeger’s mother.
But the police tell Trevor and I that we must have hallucinated that part of it (in the course of their investigation, they have found out about the acid). “She couldn’t have moved,” they tell us, “she’s been dead for a long time.” The forensics report says she may have been dead for several years. Her corpse was a dry, desiccated husk, nearly mummified.
I do not think much, anymore, about this. There are no answers to be found.
***
Many pages of many calendars have turned since that night. I have gone off to college myself, and ultimately returned. There are things in this town that I can never forget, and rather than be haunted by them, I have chosen to live among them.
Jen is buried in the town cemetery. I live in an apartment overlooking the west side of the cemetery, near where she is buried. Trevor stays with me sometimes. He has good days and bad, although more of the latter, I must admit. Jen’s parents never forgave Trevor for her death, and he never forgave himself.
I try to get him to move in with me, but he refuses to do so. My parents are ashamed of him, I am sure. They have moved away, my father finding a position at a small college in Ohio, the two of them unwilling to face the frequent reminders of what happened here. The town doesn’t know what to do with Trevor. The homeless are generally an urban concern, not found in small towns such as this. He will not tell me where he stays when he is not with me. I have my suspicions.
The Draeger house, never rebuilt, has long been abandoned. The first floor doors and windows are boarded up, but there have been break-ins over the years—most often, I am sure, by thrill-seeking kids, much as we once were.
When I drove by last night, I saw candlelight flickering through a second-story window. I cannot bring myself to investigate. I have my suspicions.
UNDER THE TUTELAGE
OF MR. TRUEHEART
Ronald Malfi
It’s time, and I have secrets to tell, says Mr. Trueheart one sunny afternoon, still some months before Halloween night. I’ll tell them to you if you think you’re ready, Warren.
Warren does not have to think about it.
Warren is ready.
***
His mother said he looked pale but didn’t pay him much mind after that. This was before he put on the makeup, which was supposed to make him look pale, look like a ghost. It was white greasepaint, the stuff clowns used, and he’d bought it a few days earlier at Strumsky’s for ten bucks. It was expensive but he’d taken the money out of his mother’s purse, just as Mr. Trueheart has instructed.
That evening, he dressed first so he wouldn’t get greasepaint on his clothes, pulling the black sweatshirt over his head while staring at his reflection in the bathroom mirror.
In the den, his mother was sprawled out on the loveseat watching some old black-and-white movie on the TV, the shiny white helmet of one knee poking from the parted curtain of her bathrobe. In her lap was Laddie, a thing of silken black-and-brown hair with moist, runny eyes and, whenever someone came to the door (which was infrequent), a shrill bark.
She kept the liquor bottles in the kitchen, a whole legion of them. Earlier that day, Warren had emptied his school backpack, and now he stood peering into the cupboard at the assortment of bottles. At ten years old, Warren Enck knew nothing about alcohol, so he selected a bottle of amber liquid because it had a bright red turkey on the label. It was as good as any. In the den, the TV was loud enough to cover the sound of the cupboard door squealing closed, followed by the zeeeet sound of his backpack zipper after he’d shoved the bottle inside. Would the backpack raise his mother’s suspicion? Who brings a backpack with them on Halloween? But no: she wouldn’t be that perceptive. She was dancing at the back of her mind tonight.
Before leaving the kitchen, he paused and gazed at the block of wood on the counter with the handles of long carving knives jutting up from it. He thought about taking one. She would never notice. Even on a good day, she would never notice.
In the den, a creaky voice on the TV said, “Morgan is a savage. I must apologize...”
The sound of a glass bottle followed, clinkity clinking into another, then the dull thud of its heavy bottom striking the carpeted floor. His mother made a sound of frustration. Laddie yipped.
“Oh hush, now,” said his mother.
He watched her for a time in the kitchen doorway, unobserved. He was small for his age, which accounted for the ease with which he could keep out of her periphery when he so desired, but tonight his stature had little to do with it. He watched her slouch forward, that ever-widening split in her robe exposing a flash of thick white thigh marbled with spidery veins and a patch of discoloration high up on the dimpled flesh. She groped for a bottle that spun in lazy revolutions on the carpet.
Laddie spotted him, let out a squeak.
His mother looked up sharply with a face comprised of right angles, her hair a spiky nest that fanned out like a peacock’s tail at the nape of her neck. It took a second for her eyes to settle on him. “What’s this?” she said, meaning his costume—the white greasepaint on his face, the black sweatshirt and cargo pants, no doubt the backpack strapped to his shoulders.
“It’s Halloween,” said Warren.
“Is that so? Is that what this is?”
He nodded.
“Where’s my Warren?”
“Right here
,” he said.
She leveled an unsteady arm in his direction, finger pointing accusingly at him. “That,” she said, “could be a lie.”
“It’s not,” he said.
“It’s your trickery,” she said. “That’s why you’ve got your face covered up in that paint.”
“It’s a costume.”
“Yeah? What are you supposed to be?”
“The negative of myself,” he said.
His mother didn’t so much frown as her face seemed to tighten, all the parts pulling together as if by wires, forming creases along the rough contours. He had once heard a classmate’s mother refer to his own mother as “unsightly,” and then another mother responded with, “She has problems.” Warren knew she had problems. He knew better than most. He certainly knew better than his classmates’ mothers.
“Come here,” she said. She wasn’t an overly large woman, but she seemed twice as big when she was drunk, in the way her body seemed to move and reposition itself with great labored starts and stops: a car that kept stalling out in cold weather. Warren watched that single white knee roll like the pendulum of a clock, and he could see—or imagined he could see—from where he stood in the kitchen doorway the mad designs that made up her flesh, the permanent creases that reminded him of elephant hide, the shiny tautness of the knee that shimmered like a crystal ball in the TV’s light.
