The dogs fought on, savagely biting each others’ necks and yelping with grotesque desperation. Spinning into a frenzied climax, they shot up on their hind legs and twisted around each other in the air, seemingly in slow motion, like two snakes climbing an invisible cord.
Then, just as quickly as they had begun, Odin and Morrison stopped fighting. Squeaking with unease, they glanced at the open boiler room door and retreated to the opposite side of the basement.
“What the hell was that, you guys?” Casey said. “Odin and Morrison get along so well, and your stupid tiff made them almost kill each other.”
Gabe and Brad stood speechless.
“Holy crap, that was trippy,” said Birdman, his eyes bulging. “What kind of otherworldly shit did we just witness right there? That was like, I don’t know, like some kind of… dog double-helix infinity event.”
Nobody laughed or smiled.
Brad inhaled loudly through his nose. Pointing at the boiler room, he said to Gabe, “Use the strongest cleaning product you can find. Drench it in bleach if you have to. That shit has to go.”
* * *
The next day, Gabe bought two bags of cleaning supplies from the drug store. He hurried through town, unsmiling and grave, unmoved by the crisp, sunny weather.
When he returned, the house was deserted, his roommates probably out enjoying the beautiful fall afternoon. Gabe carried his bags down the basement stairs.
Even with the boiler room door shut, he could hear the unsleeping swarm of flies inside. He steeled himself and opened the door. The damp, sickly-sweet stench of decay washed over him.
A wave of dizziness and nausea hit him all at once, and he staggered back, nearly fainting. Intense anger and bitterness — stronger than his dread of cleaning the boiler room — flooded his mind.
Another swell of sickness hit him. Lightheaded, Gabe sat down on the concrete floor and put his head in his hands. The dark room lay open before him like a rotten mouth, its air too thick to penetrate.
He didn’t have the will to clean it, at least not now. Holding his breath, he stood up, tossed the bags of cleaning supplies inside, and slammed shut the metal door.
* * *
Birdman’s slender fingers fluttered over the keys, his long hair tossing in his face as he rocked to the meandering music. The sweaty drummer writhed behind his kit, the guitarist bobbed his head, and the bassist grooved with her eyes shut. In front, the wiry lead singer moaned into his microphone from a low, serpentine crouch, surrounded by a throng of people jerking to the beat. Gabe and Casey danced in the middle of the crowd, close but not touching, occasionally opening their eyes to steal furtive glances at each other.
At the back of the basement, by the closed boiler room door, a second group of people clustered around the keg. A tall, muscular kid in a baseball cap enthusiastically performed the bartender role, serving cup after cup throughout the night.
Upstairs, on the living room couch, Brad chatted up a cute girl who looked young enough to be a freshman. She blinked at him with bewilderment, the roar of the band below booming through the floor and the walls, rattling the floor lamp beside the couch. Out in the hall, a stream of wastrels and drunks shuffled by, some wandering into the living room and back out, half-aware of their surroundings.
On the living room wall to Brad’s left, a madcap, graffiti-like mural screamed in bright colors — maniacal caricatures, surreal renditions of flowers and trees, random words in kaleidoscopic text. Kneeling at the bottom of the mural, a young man with dirty blond braids painted additional shapes onto the patterns, each stroke timed to the beat of the basement band.
Brad was just about to say something cool and edgy to the girl sitting next to him when a kid ran into the living room.
“Brad! Brad!” the kid said, out of breath, “Come upstairs, quick!”
“What?”
“Just come on, hurry!”
“Damn it,” Brad grumbled, his ecstasy high collapsing. “I’ll be back,” he said to the girl and got up.
The kid led Brad upstairs and into Birdman’s room. A crowd of people followed them.
A girl in a T-shirt and jeans stood on the roof just outside the open window, her back turned. “John, I’m serious, don’t!” she cried.
Brad joined her on the roof. Standing at the edge, facing out, was the guy who had been serving beer all night in the basement.
“You know him?” Brad asked the girl.
“He’s my boyfriend,” she said, her pretty face contorted with worry. “He keeps saying he wants to jump.”
Brad looked at the man. “It’s not that far down,” he said to the girl. “Dumb idea, but he’ll be okay if he lands right.”
“No,” she said in a half-whisper, “he wants to hurt himself.”
“What? Why?”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head, “He’s never been like this before. I thought he was joking around at first, but he’s totally serious.”
“Is he drunk?”
“No! He’s not drinking at all this week because he’s trying to make weight for a wrestling match. I don’t know why he’s acting this way.”
“Hey, John,” Brad called out, “what’s going on, bud?”
The girl took a step forward, “John? Can you please just —”
“Stop!” John bellowed over his shoulder. “I can’t,” he said, his voice trembling with anguish. “I just can’t take it.”
“You can’t take what?” his girlfriend asked. “What’s wrong? Why are you doing this?”
About Chris W. Martinez
One Comment
I take it the gist of the story is that there is a prescence in the house taking over people and making them do things they nornally wouldn’t. At the end you are left with the spirit taking over the one friend and then taking over the other to cause him to hang himself. I like the concept. I wasn’t too particular taken by the beginning which moved slowly but once it got going it was good. I didn’t care too much about the golf seen and thought it was a good scene outside if this is building on something else for the future. That is my take on it. Otherwise I like the concept behind the story. Nice State College reference.