Evil Heights, Book II: Monster in the House

by Michael Swanson

  Lee nodded, thinking maybe Sunday school was finally going to pay off.

  "Well, I was sitting there, bored out of my skull, flapping with my fan and trying not to listen to Brother Luscious Pendrake rant and rave about all of us being such a bunch of horrible sinners, like those Egyptians. I swear that man was sweating like he'd been sprayed by a fire hose. I've seen people at the bottom of a swimming pool who were less damp. Anyway, I was sitting and waiting, really just counting the minutes until the thing really gets going, you know, near the end when the heat drives everybody nuts and people start speaking in tongues, rolling around on the floor, and flailing each other with snakes and stuff."

  Lee was grinning.

  "You've been to one?” she asked.

  Lee nodded. “Not with snakes, but my stepmom, Maggie, she likes to go whenever one comes to town. She drags me and my sister along. My dad won't go. He always says he has to work, but the truth is, he hates church. But really, I think the he road shows are actually entertaining. I've seen some pretty wild stuff. We had this one just a little while back with this big, fat lady instead of a regular preacher.” Lee spread out his arms and puffed out his cheeks. “She was enormous, at least this big.” When Phoebe laughed back appropriately, he dropped his arms and exhaled. “Near the end, like you said, when the things usually really get rolling, this blimp in a green dress was hollering out to the sinners. She was calling out to any who wanted to change their evil ways, telling them to shed their false pride and to come up to the pulpit and be cleansed.” Lee was half laughing and half talking. “And this one idiot comes crawling down the aisle on all fours, like some kind of dog. I swear, like a dog. People went crazy. Some were hollering at him, waving their crosses and stuff, and others were standing up on their chairs stomping their feet and yelling ‘Praise God,’ and ‘Lord have mercy!’ And here come this fool, bawling like a baby, and a string of drool hanging out of his mouth.” Lee shook his head. “When he gets to the pulpit, he's still on his hands and knees, and she reaches down and snatches him up, and starts shaking him every which way but loose, all the while screaming right in his face to confess his sins. But does she even give him a chance? No way! Of course, maybe he was confessing, but I couldn't hear him over all the other noise. Then suddenly, and without so much as a lick of warning at all, she comes down with both her fists right on his shoulders and knocks this guy to his knees. I'm telling you she knocked the crap out of that man. And sure enough, he goes down. By now, I'm standing on my chair, too, so I can see. The whole place was going nuts. She hands the microphone over to some other guy, and with one hand,” Lee was pantomiming everything, “crushes his face into her big, fat belly, and then with the other hand she balls up her fist again and starts beating hell out of his back. I bet she was at least three times his size. I'm talking a big woman. That other guy was holding the microphone in her face, and you could hear her over the microphone screaming: ‘Have you accepted Jesus?'” Lee stretched the pronunciation out to a long and rippling, Jayeeezus. “'Have you decided to bare your sins before God?'” And in a good imitation of a country preacher Lee's God became Gaawwd. “All the while she's coming down on his back, boom, boom, boom. That was the one thing you could hear without the microphone. She was hitting him so hard you could hear every thump echoing off his lungs like a drum. I bet he's still got bruises, and I'll never for the life of me figure out how he didn't suffocate with that headlock she had on him. I've never seen anything like it. When she let him go, I thought he was strangled, honest, I did. His face was pure scarlet, and he just lay there—"

  "I was just asking if you'd been to one,” Phoebe broke in a bit impatiently. “Sounds like you have. Anyway, that wasn't my point. The point is, that that's when I got this idea about the prank with the doors. I imagined the Egyptians got quite a stir when they got up the next morning and found their first born lying in their cribs dead, but the Israelites with the red X's on their doors, their kids were okay. So on Monday, I told my friend Raelene about what I'd come up with. She told me right off she thought my idea was a winner, and that she wanted to help me. So during the week we poked around, and we found a couple cans of red paint in her dad's workshop, and then helped ourselves to a couple of brushes, and we were set. The next Saturday night we arranged with our moms so I could have a sleep over at Raelene's.” Phoebe was beginning to shift back and forth from one foot the other and knotting her fingers with her thumbs hooked into the waist of her shorts; she was obviously becoming quite worked up with the telling. “Just after midnight, we snuck out. I love it outside at night. Sneaking out's the best. It's like a whole ‘nother world, so cool, so quiet.” She seemed to drift away momentarily, but came right back with a vengeance. “Guess what we did?” She didn't give Lee a chance to guess. “We went through the neighborhood painting red X's on some doors, but not on others. We had to be real quiet about it, too. If a house had a screen door we had to be extra careful to not let it squeak too loudly when we opened it or to let it slam when we were done. So we took turns at the doors. And Raelene, I know you don't know her, but she's what we call a giggle box. She always thinks everything is so funny. It's a wonder we didn't get caught."

  Listening, Lee could vividly imagine what Phoebe must have looked like running around in the middle of the night with her can of paint and a brush. For his purposes, he envisioned her flitting about in a nightie similar to the thing the sculpture of the near-sighted girl in the Ballard garden was wearing, though he knew in reality Phoebe had probably been wearing shorts or jeans. But, he could see her, nefariously slipping through the darkness, carrying her brush in one hand and the can of paint in the other, occasionally illuminated by the odd spackling of shadows thrown off by the glow of the streetlights seeping through the trees. Of course, he wasn't really even sure if they had streetlights in Phoebe's neighborhood, but they filled the bill for the picture he conjured up in his imagination.

  "The X's were great!” She swashed her arm back and forth. “They looked like real blood running down the doors. My heart was beating so fast. It was even more exciting than night sporting."

  "Night sporting?” Lee asked.

  "Don't get me off track,” she came back. “I'll tell you about that later.” She smiled coyly, and added, “That is if you ask me real nice, I might think about it. Anyway, painting the doors was only just the beginning. We ran back to Raelene's house and got cleaned up out back with some rags and turpentine. We were both so excited. Raelene was so worked up she had really wanted to sport, but I told her we couldn't risk it, least not this night. Of course, even then I wasn't really very sure how my plan would work out."

  "I bet people were hopping mad when they woke up and found someone had painted a big old X mark on their door,” Lee said seriously. In the back of his mind though, he was thinking this gag was a little too much for his tastes. Stealing someone's yard decorations and putting them on a neighbor's roof, or throwing an egg or two at Halloween wasn't really all so bad. But painting people's doors was what he'd have to call vandalism, the police would, too.

  "Oh, you have no idea,” she said laughing and leaning on him, holding on to his shoulder for support. “People went crazy! Crazy, I'm tellin’ you.” She backed off and slapped her thigh. “You see it wasn't so much the red X's that got people's dander in an uproar. It was the fact that everyone started blaming everyone else. What really set things off was that some people had an X and others didn't. Suspicions and accusations grew faster than weeds in a vacant lot. Some of the folks who'd gotten an X started fretting about maybe it was ‘cause somebody didn't like them, or that there might be an old grudge they thought was forgiven but was still hangin’ ‘round. And others, they were convinced it was some kind of work of the devil. A rumor even started that it was a warning from a motorcycle gang. People thought they were going to ride into town and start killing folks. Though no one could really get settled on whether having an X meant you were going to be killed or going to be left alone.” She slappe
d her leg again. “But that's not even the worst.” Phoebe put her hand back on Lee's shoulder and leaned in, dropping her voice. “The shit really hit the fan when folks started whispering it was the work of the Ku Klux Klan. They were going to get people who'd consorted with the coloreds. I'm telling you, people went crazy. It was wild."

  "And nobody ever figured out what really happened?"

  Phoebe shook her head. “No. But I've got to be careful no one ever does. It did get more than just a bit out of control. A couple of neighbors got into fist fights blaming each other, and there were windows broken, and someone burned up another guy's car out in his driveway."

  "Man, oh man!” Lee took a long step back and looked Phoebe up and down. “I do think that's about the wildest prank I ever heard of. And to think I felt a little guilty about putting a few lizards and snakes in Old Lady Ringle's mail slot.” He whistled, then quickly came back with, “What's that night sporting you were talking about?"

  That scathing grin grew clear across Phoebe's face. “Wouldn't you like to know?” She whipped around, turning her back on him and started walking, leaving Lee behind.

  "Hey come on,” he called out, catching up. “What's night sporting?"

  Phoebe ignored him and changed the subject. “What's the deal with these houses? I saw these when I was driving past with my dad.” Phoebe's earlier flippant attitude had become a bit more serious. “I mean, God almighty! What in hell happened through here? It looks like they dropped the H bomb or something."

  "It was a tornado,” Lee answered stepping quickly to keep up. “It happened when I was just a little kid, not too long after we first moved in to Pickford Acres. There'd been this monster hurricane that'd come straight up the Gulf and then just blew right up here, all the way in from the coast. The strange thing was that it wasn't the hurricane that did most of the damage, even though it was one heck of a storm. I remember it, even though I was just little. I can remember the trees bending and shingles flying. You ever been in a hurricane?"

  Phoebe shook her head. “Are you kidding? In Gatlinburg? We're in the mountains."

  "Well, sometimes we get ‘em here. Anyway, it was a tornado that did all this. A real shame too. This was a nice neighborhood. A developer had started building these houses and selling them to folks a couple of years after World War II. You can see there were quite a few houses here. It was growing. Even though I was little, I can still remember everyone had lots of Christmas lights. We used to drive in to see the decorations. It was part of the rules for living here. You had to put up lights. People would come from all over.” Lee shook his head, remembering. “All it took was one twister to do all this. We studied about it in school in our state and local history class. We saw pictures from the papers. It even made the national news.” Lee pointed to a house. “The family that lived in that house was killed hiding in their bathroom. I think the roof collapsed in on them. Bunches and bunches of people were killed, right here in all these houses.” Lee swept his arm around. “You see, people were all home because of the hurricane. It was real bad."

  "I guess they didn't know to Duck and Cover,” Phoebe offered.

  Lee stopped. “Do y'all do that, too?"

  "Oh sure,” Phoebe's light tone had come back to her voice. “Every Friday we have our weekly Civil Defense drill. All the sirens go off around town, and we have to get out of our chairs and crawl up under the desks and tuck into a ball.” Phoebe quickly walked over to a patch of grass and sat down, demonstrating the position. She tucked her knees up and put her head down to her knees covering the back of her neck with her hands.

  "We do the same thing,” Lee said, helping her up. “Except we don't get under the desks. We go out in the hall and sit facing the wall. I think it's kinda keen-o."

  "Try doin’ it wearing a dress, hon,” Phoebe came back.

  There was that “hon” again, biscuits and butter. Lee didn't even know what to reply to this, so he just let it go.

  It was easy to see Phoebe thought his lack of a reply was funny, as she gave him another little shove. “Never worn a dress, huh?” she teased.

  Lee shook his head. “I think I'd remember if I did."

  She posed with one hand on her hip and the other stretched out like a waitress carrying an invisible tray. She began sashaying, swinging her hips and walking in tight steps like she was tossing a skirt around. “See, this is how you have to walk,” she said, looking back at him, “that is if you want to attract boys."

  Leaving Lee standing and watching, she moved on, keeping up the act as she followed the edge of the road. Occasionally, she'd toss her head back and grin at Lee. When she was about twenty feet away, he went down in his three-point football stance and then suddenly bolted to catch up to her.

  She dropped the dress routine. “Whoa, you're fast."

  "You have to be to live around here,” he came back. “We get lots of practice running from those ghosts.” In the back of his mind he knew it seemed funny now, in the light of day, but it hadn't been so funny the other night. And why he had this sudden urge to show off for her he couldn't understand.

  "Gee, look at that house,” Phoebe pointed to a wreck that looked like it had exploded from the inside out. “It's ripped to shreds. Man, oh man, what a mess."

  "Sometimes the houses can't vent all the pressure inside quickly enough.” Lee was giving in and letting modesty fly to the winds. He made a model of a house, meshing his fingers like the old child's game of “Here's the church, here's the steeple."

  "When the tornado passes overhead, the barometric pressure inside lessens, and...” He burst his fingers apart. “Ka-bloowie, the house explodes."

  Phoebe was properly impressed. “Barometric pressure, huh?” She leaned back and again put one hand on her hip, just like a teacher who wants to get to the bottom of some mischief. “And how is it you know all this stuff? We don't have junk like field trips to art museums and tornado classes in my school. We just get the three R's: readin’ and writin’ for rednecks."

  Lee had to grin. “Rednecks, huh? I don't know.” He kicked at some gravel, not looking her in the eye. “I just pay attention to stuff."

  "Yeah? Now tell me. No fibbing. What kind of grades do you make Mr. Brainiac?"

  "A's, mostly.” He decided to let the cat out of the bag. “School's easy, a piece of cake."

  "Get out of here,” she came back. “Really?"

  Lee nodded.

  "All A's?"

  "Yeah."

  She shoved him again. “Who'd of thought I'd get showed around by an honor student?"

  Lee didn't know whether to smile or feel embarrassed, so he managed to do both.

  For a while they walked on in silence. But Phoebe was obviously thinking of something.

  "Then tell me, Einstein,” Phoebe suddenly stopped and confronted Lee. “Why didn't the people who owned these houses just rebuild? It's crazy for them to leave all these houses to rot. And there's some here that don't look like they were hardly touched at all."

  Lee knew this, too, and was happy to demonstrate his knowledge. “The government sent some inspectors down afterwards. They said the area was being affected by subsidence, being smack dab between the Yalahalla and Broaddus Marsh. They did some kind of tests and found out the land was sinking almost a foot a year. They said if there was ever a really big rain and the river came up all the homes would be flooded, actually in the river, so the whole neighborhood was condemned."

  "Well the Ballard house is still here,” Phoebe argued. “And the place Uncle Boyd is renting, and your house—"

  "I think that the land gets higher as you come up from the river.” Lee turned back to point over at the Ballard property. “You can see that the house sits up higher there, like it's on a little hill. See, you can just see the roof over the trees. As far as I know, I've never heard of our houses flooding. But these houses have gotten swamped a bunch of times."

  "If these houses get flooded and the road passes through here, how would we get out
if there was another flood? The road would flood too.” Phoebe stopped walking and crossed her arms defiantly. “Huh? What about that Mr. Smarty pants?"

  Lee passed her by. “I don't know. I guess we'd just wait for the water to go down. If Seminole Road were flooded, spit creek would flood too, so we couldn't get out that way. And of course, the river would be impossible, what with the falls downstream. I've seen the falls at high water before. It's quite a sight."

  Phoebe loped to catch up. “Once, on T.V., I saw some people who were trapped by a flood. They got air lifted out by helicopters."

  "That'd been keen-o,” Lee replied. “I've never been in a helicopter."

  "Something that you haven't done and don't know about, hmm. Oh!” She said, suddenly pointing at a particularly dismal wreck. “Look at that place!"

  The house they had walked in front of seemed to be turned inside out. A large section of its roof had been ripped away with great force, some of the beams and joists looked as though they had been chewed. They could recognize sections of the roof, identifiable by the reddish shingles, scattered around, some of it even visible down a side street. A large portion, a corner, was sticking out through front of another house, whose entire gray shingle roof had collapsed in folding the walls. The house they were in front of had also been cleaved straight down the middle leaving little doubt that the tornado must have touched down right here as it randomly bounced around. You could see into a child's room, which still had some shreds of wallpaper hanging down from the walls. The paper was printed with a pattern of a family of bears cavorting amongst a field of faded flowers.

  "It's kinda spooky here,” Phoebe said, looking back and forth. “I don't think I'd like to walk through here at night, at least not alone."

  Lee thought to tell her about his incident the other night, but out here in the bright light of day, it just seemed stupid. And the last thing he would ever do was to tell her about how scared he'd been, especially now that he had let the cat out of the bag about his grades. He was sure she'd think he was a real spaz. But he did conjure up a vision of walking down the road at night with Phoebe; she'd probably hang close. He knew he'd like that, even if he were scared.