Scary Out There

by Jonathan Maberry

  “You’re up there,” he said, going back to his brownish, fluffy chair. “Second room. Don’t go poking around in mine, yeah? Mind your business and we can be all right.”

  That was the most encouragement I was going to get, obviously. I went up, parked my things in the little empty room, and sat on the bed for a while. It had a mattress but no sheets and peeling wallpaper that looked damp and sad at the edges. I wondered if maybe the social worker lady was supposed to look in on all these things. Make sure Sid had blankets and food and the like, things a girl needs to live. Groaner—he probably had no idea that I’d need tampons. I’d stuffed a few at the bottom of my duffel, but that wouldn’t last me even a month.

  At least that gave me something to do. I didn’t tell any of this to the pig, okay? Wasn’t going to tell him about tampons or whatever, not “relevant,” like they say on those crime shows, and anyway, adults get so weird whenever you talk about a period, like it’s the worst thing you could do, like you got naked and waggled all your bits at them.

  I had a little cash saved up from writing essays for the dumb shits in my class back in the old neighborhood. I had a way with words when I wanted to. Never told the twits I’d nicked most of the essays off other Internet people. Like it mattered. Everyone got what they wanted. I took the cash and went real quiet down the stairs—you learn to do that, tiptoe everywhere, when you don’t know what you’ll find in the next room. Maybe it’s your dad passed out on the floor, maybe it’s him and his latest girly slobbering all over each other.

  Point is, you learn to get stealthy.

  But Sid had only moved once, I think, to get up and grab a beer and then flop back down into his chair. There was a sofa on the bottom floor too, pushed up against the windows near the door. The walls were empty, a few nails here and there, like there had been posters or pictures put up and taken down. Carpeting, swirly and orange like a calico cat, had been worn down to prickly nubs. For some reason Sid parked the TV in the middle of the room, just an arm’s length from the archway that led to the kitchen. Prat.

  It was like he was floating out there in the sea of orange carpet, away from the windows and away from the walls.

  An old Eurovision tape was on, and he didn’t take his eyes off the screen, probably because some Swedish girls were jiggling their tits all over the place and trying to sing. The VCR looked about as up to technological snuff as the miserable old television set.

  “Going out,” I said. “Need some things, toothpaste and whatever.”

  “You going to cause trouble for me?” He hadn’t turned around, but I stopped anyway. “Place ain’t what it used to be. Gangs of kids everywhere. Can’t go anywhere in peace with those bastards just waiting to get in your face. You ain’t one of them, eh? You best not be one of them.”

  I rolled my eyes at the back of his balding head. “I need tampons, like for my monthly time, all right?”

  Worked like magic, like it always does.

  “Go on, then.”

  It’s weird how when you’re in a place you don’t like, you kind of shrivel up when you’re there. You don’t know until you’re away from it and you feel your shoulders get loose and comfortable again. That’s how it felt leaving Sid’s, like he was that big eye thing in those shit nerd movies with all the elves and wizards, like he could see everything I was doing even when I was just sitting in my new room staring at the sad, molding wallpaper.

  He was the eye thing, red and splotchy, but now he couldn’t see me, so it felt much better.

  Problem was, I didn’t have any idea where to get anything in the new neighborhood. Sid’s van with all his builder junk was parked by the curb. The sky was still gray, solid, unbroken gray, and every house in both directions looked more or less the same.

  Except for one.

  I’d pulled out my mobile, because that’s what you do when you need to find a place. But I forgot all about searching. Suppose I must have been nervous pulling up to the house before, because I hadn’t noticed that the house directly next door looked weird. Nobody lived there, and someone had made an attempt to board over the windows, only it looked like they’d given up halfway through. A real estate agent’s sign stuck at a crooked angle out of the dirt patch near the sidewalk, but the phone number to ring had been graffitied over in black.

  I couldn’t help but think the house looked like a corpse, like what Sid’s dump would look like if all the insides had been scooped out. Hollow. The door was dark, dark brown, and in this shit weather looked even darker—a big, open mouth, like the house was screaming or maybe trying to swallow someone whole.

  “You’re new, aren’t you?”

  His voice was odd. Nice odd. Much posher than me or Sid. I turned to find a kid maybe my age or a year older peering at me. He was darker than most of the people I’d seen on the ride in. I’d known plenty of Pakistani and black kids and all sorts else of mixed and Indian and Asian back in the old neighborhood. Here though I’d only seen white folks in their cars or on the sidewalk.

  He was watching me close. Studying me sort of, from behind a thick fringe of black hair that he kept shaking out of his face and tucking behind his ears.

  “Just moved in with my uncle,” I said, shrugging. Cool, yeah. Whatever. He was nice to look at, but Jenny in the year above had taught me that you can’t just come out and act like a boy is fit. You have to pretend you don’t even notice. I shoved my hands in my pockets and kicked at nothing on the pavement. “I’m Lauren.”

  “Tash. Welcome to the madhouse.”

  “Madhouse?” I had to laugh and shake my head at this kid. “This is nothing, man.”

  He wouldn’t last ten whole seconds in Moss Side, not if he was in the habit of just rolling up to randos on the street and making conversation.

  “You just got here,” he pointed out, pushing the dark hair back from his eyes again. “Give it time.”

  His eyes were dark, too, black but not black black, because you could see colors and shapes shifting inside. Maybe that was taking it a bit far, but look, most of the kids in Moss Side have gotten in so many fistfights they look like stomped lumps of clay.

  “Suppose that house is a bit creepy,” I said. Well creepy. Maybe he had a point. “And I am living with my uncle, and he’s the worst, so.”

  “Sid Fry?” he asked. He was taller than me by a few inches, but that wasn’t saying much. I wasn’t growing up to be a supermodel, that was for damn sure.

  “Yeah, that’s him. Fat, grunty bloke with the red face?”

  “I know him.”

  “Yeah? Where do you live, then?” At some point we had started walking. Just seemed like the thing to do. Felt good to get away from the empty house and Sid’s and just put some mileage on the shoes. I like the cold weather too. I hate feeling too hot and then getting sweaty.

  “Better you not find out,” Tash said with a sigh. He put his hands in his pockets too, but he walked with his head up and straight, his shoulders and all the rest of him tilted back, leading with his belt buckle.

  “How’s that?”

  “I don’t think your uncle’s too keen on immigrants.”

  I nodded. That sounded about right. Uncle Sid had stopped coming round for holidays ages ago, but I still have a vivid memory or two of him cursing at the dinner table (a half-broken card table, really, but Dad had gone to the effort to put real china plates down on it, so) about the disgusting Pakis that had moved in next door.

  Area’s gone to shit.

  “Maybe I like the idea of hanging around you,” I said, giving him a smile. “Maybe I like the idea of giving that old pillock an aneurysm.”

  Tash made a soft sound like a snort. “You and me both.”

  We walked and walked. No place in mind. Maybe a mile on I remembered my actual reason for going out and asked about the closest shop. There was one down the road a way, and the place next door did an okay kebab, so that became the plan.

  The houses got nicer. Much nicer.

  “Bit weir
d here,” I said when the conversation dried up. Tash had finished telling me about what to expect at school, what teachers to avoid, what the general population was like. He wouldn’t be there to help, since his mum paid for him to go to Cheadle Hulme, but other kids had told him the lay of things.

  “Weird how?” he asked.

  “Like, all the buildings in this part, right? They’re all Jane Eyre and whatever,” I said, taking out a smoke. Tash didn’t want one. Didn’t strike me as a smoker anyway. Nice boys with accents like his and ironed shirts didn’t bum smokes off the social services girl. “I mean, we had a few of those with, like, the chapel and town hall, but everything here looks like it came out of a fairy tale.”

  Tash was quiet for a minute, and when I looked over, he was staring back, lips pursed like he was trying to hold in a fart.

  “What?” I blew my smoke down and away from his face, even if he was being really irritating with that look.

  “Have you read Jane Eyre?” he asked quietly.

  “Obviously.” He wouldn’t give up the look, and it made me want to come clean. “Skimmed it.”

  “I don’t blame you,” he said with a laugh. “It’s practically a million pages long. I think the Bible is more of a page-turner.”

  “You’ve read the Bible?” It was out of my mouth before I could really think about it. Shit.

  “Well, yes.”

  Right, good job, you racist.

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” I added real quickly, though I kind of did, I suppose. “I haven’t read it. I’ve got a rude mouth on me sometimes. Sorry.”

  He wasn’t frowning at me—in fact he seemed weirdly pleased with himself. An old lady with a tartan scarf wrapped around her head glanced at us as we went by. She squinted, staring like I had food stuck all over my face. I wiped at my chin and nose, just in case.

  Tash waited outside while I went into the shop, which was all well and good because I didn’t need him staring at me while I got my tampons sorted. On a whim I bought him a Kinder and one for myself. I’d half finished the chocolate by the time I was back on the pavement—and I paid for it all, okay, I know what you’re thinking.

  Anyway.

  “Here,” I said, holding out the candy for him. “Chocolate?”

  “Not for me.”

  I shrugged. “More for me, then. Definitely not giving it to Sid. Wanker.”

  Tash laughed loudly, like, too loudly for in public. But that was a nice change. He didn’t seem to care, I guess, so I tried not to care too. “If you hate him so much, why are you here?”

  “No choice, really. Unhealthy family environment, I think that’s what Lydia called it.”

  “Who’s Lydia?”

  “The child protection lady.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, I’m one of them,” I said, not like it took a mind reader. “Dad’s a mess. Sid’s worse, right? I can already tell he’s going to be a pain. At least Dad didn’t notice what I was up to.” Sigh. Running my stupid, fat mouth. “Way too much information, I’m sure. This kebab place is all right?”

  We were right outside it, and the spicy meat wind wafting out the doors was making my stomach rumble even after the chocolate.

  “For around here, yeah.”

  I held the door and we went in, and weirdly, somehow, I’d managed to make a friend. Day one. Me. Fancy that.

  • • •

  Tash was waiting on the pavement for me after school hours were over, and he was ready with a sympathetic look.

  First days are always trouble, especially when you’re dropping in midsemester and everyone’s already got their friends and alliances and favorite spots to sneak a smoke. It was sorta easier though, I guess, knowing I might see Tash when it was all over and done with. And he was there, like right there, just waiting for me, so that gave me a breather.

  He was there the next day too, and the next, and by Thursday I just expected to see him.

  “Aren’t you worried about Sid seeing you?” I asked. “Crusty bastard’s not exactly forward thinking when it comes to the mingling of the races, yeah?”

  Tash shrugged, a cute half smile making him look younger and more dangerous at the same time. But he wasn’t actually dangerous, not to me, couldn’t be. “I checked for his van.”

  “Clever.”

  “I do try.”

  It looked like he was trying to grow a mustache. He had the shadow of one over his lip and some scruffy whiskers on his chin. I wondered if maybe that made him a bad sort at his posh private school. Ha. Him a bad boy. That was a laugh. But I liked it, liked that I was the kind of girl he shouldn’t be hanging around, but he did it anyway.

  “Shops today?” I asked.

  “I had something else in mind.” His black eyes danced and he looked over my shoulder to the corpse house next door. Yes, I’d actually begun thinking of it as Corpse House. Not very cheery, I know, but it fit, and it gave me something to spook the idiots at school with.

  “We could go inside,” he said, inching toward the wide steps leading from the sidewalk to the front door.

  “What, now? Cheeky. It’s midday. Someone will see us.”

  “Then we’ll go in through the back. Come on . . .”

  Right. So. First thing’s first—I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want to, but impressing this fit boy with pretty hair and an almost-mustache was getting high on my To Do list. In maths I’d been sleepy and let my brain and eyes go fuzzy, just dazing out, and wham—out of nowhere—I think of Tash putting his lips on mine. Kissing. That never happens and it probably should. I started to think I was maybe broken or something because I never really thought much about kissing boys. I was always in trouble for skipping class or smoking, not for sneaking off for a quick grope.

  We go around to the back.

  Like every day before this one, the sky is flat, sad gray and it’s half dark even though it should still be light out. I’ve got my school bag and decent clothes on, not the type of getup you’d want for sneaking around. But Tash is in charge and I’m following, and the more I think about it, the more I wonder if he’s trying to get me alone. Sneaking around is exciting. Gets your heart going.

  And I get it now—he’s, like, seducing me.

  Holy. Tits.

  The house is brick, like Sid’s, and the real estate agent hasn’t been by in ages to do the lawn. There’s a tree in the back, just one, gone wild, branches thrusting over the privacy fence toward Sid’s place, and toward the back, and every which way. A tire swing hangs lopsided from the lowest branch.

  “Who lived here?” I whisper, keeping an eye out for anyone peeping at us.

  “We’ll find out, won’t we?”

  “But their stuff must be cleared out . . .”

  There’s a tiled overhang above the back door and a few windows with loose boarding that look prime for breaking in. So we do it. We break in. Really, I do it, prying a rotting board loose with my fingertips and then swearing when it clatters loudly to the ground at my feet.

  A dog barks, but then the neighborhood is silent. The window doesn’t put up much of a fight, the lock rusted and useless. It goes up with a sigh, and then I’m in, panting, holding the thing open for Tash to cram inside. Tougher for him, seeing as how he’s a big wiry fellow, but he gets all his limbs in. We’re in the kitchen, and it’s . . . wrong.

  The stuff’s not cleared out, but it’s not messy either. It’s still. Calm. Like the family just picked up and left. A fine layer of dust has settled over everything, making the stacked china and cereal boxes and bread bin look fuzzy, like I’m looking at the world through a series of old photographs.

  “Creepy,” I mumble, turning a circle where I stand. My shoes leave trails in the dust on the floor. “Why would they just leave?”

  Tash is quiet, looking at me with these weird, intense eyes, and it makes me feel naked to the bones.

  “Maybe they didn’t.”

  “Maybe they didn’t what? Leave? Then, where are they, geniu
s?” I laugh, shaking my head. “Just nipped out for a drink? No one’s been in this place for years.”

  I wander to the sink. A dirty mixing bowl is in the basin, furry with mold. I turn and go toward the refrigerator, but Tash calls my name—he’s already gone down the hall and into the sitting room. That room’s worse. Spookier. You always think a creepy old house will be cold inside, but it’s warm, like bodies have only just been there, taking up room and sucking down air.

  “All right,” I say in a tiny, tiny voice. “I officially cannot stand it in here.”

  One of the chairs in here is knocked over. The coffee table is crooked. Something went wrong, and I don’t know if Tash knows what it is, but I want to be out. Now.

  “Hey.” His eyes are normal again, not intense, and he starts back toward the kitchen. “We can go. Just thought it might be a laugh to explore.”

  “Maybe some other time, yeah? Just . . . need to get away from here is all.”

  • • •

  We go back the next day.

  It’s partly Tash’s fault, partly mine. I can’t stop thinking about it. The dishes in the sink. The open cereal box on the countertop. The knocked over furniture. I might not be the cleverest girl around, but it feels like a mystery, like a story but all of the chapters are jumbled. I want to put it in order.

  It even distracts me through Sid. Through the shouting. Through sitting at the dinner table with his bloody Eurovision tapes blaring in the background, eating crap bacon sandwiches he made with the single knife in the whole place, his on a normal plate, mine on paper, and if I have to hear those minging Swedish tarts and their pop song one more time . . .

  So we go back. Tash doesn’t even ask about the bruise on my cheek. I ain’t exactly Houdini with makeup, but I think I covered it up all right. Still, I see his eyes catch on it, and the look I give back says: Don’t ask.

  And he doesn’t.

  Guess I shouldn’t have complained about the perky Swedish girls and their stupid song.

  We make it upstairs that time. I wander the bedrooms. This was a nice family, I think. The parents kept the little paintings and art projects their kids had done, didn’t just toss them in the bin like my dad might. There were two kids, seems like, a girl and a boy. I stand in the boy’s room for a long time while Tash rummages somewhere else. There are Manchester United pennants on the wall and shelves with DVDs, video games, poetry books, a Bible, Superman comic books. It gets too strange again and I have to go, right then, and that time I run down the stairs and hurl myself out the broken window.