The House Read online

  "'Cos it was in the '70s when that kid went nuts up there and killed everybody with an ax. Killed two junkie flick chicks and two of Vinchetti's most balls-to-the-wall hit men. Chopped 'em up like they were a pile of sticks. And then the guy disappeared."

  More cogitation. "And your sister said she saw a ghost?"

  "They all did, shit. And not a ghost, ghosts, man. They'd see 'em walking around and hear them talking, the chicks that got chopped up."

  How could he not remember his nightmare last night? "How many women—er, chicks? Was it two?"

  "Yeah, man, I think it was. And, shit, they wrote shit on the walls or windows or some shit," Spooky said.

  And were they now writing "shit" on Melvin's laptop?

  Squirrelly lurched forward intently, placed a warm, dirty hand on Melvin's thigh. Now some mode of excitement was trying to glimmer through the pallid glaze in her eyes. "Shit, man, why you askin' me this shit? Have you seen 'em, too?"

  Melvin had difficulty calculating an answer. I do not believe in ghosts, he affirmed to himself. Ghosts are creations of human fancy and the primordial instinct to tell stories and make one appear more interesting by making the story sound more interesting. Ghosts are a contradiction of logic and all legitimate scientific theory. "Well," he said, "some weird things are happening, that's all. Things that seem strangely coincidental. I don't for a minute believe that there are ghosts in the house. I don't believe in ghosts, period."

  Squirrelly's brow rose.

  "Does the name Leonard D'arava mean anything to you?" he asked after the long pause.

  "Leonard who? Aw, fuck no, man. I don't know no Leonard and shit, if he's some john who told you I ripped him off, he's full'a fuckin' shit, man. I mean, I've ripped off johns a few times, sure, but only if they deserve it. Shit, man, you wouldn't believe some of the shit these sick creeps try to pull on a girl, like this one guy who wanted to fuck me with his little girl's Ken doll and then there was this fuckin' chump from Jersey—he wanted me to put gerbils up his ass and give him head while I'm wearing a Santa suit! So—"

  "No, no, Squirrelly, it's nothing like that. Nobody's told me anything about you. I just wondered if you'd heard the name."

  She scratched at a scab just under the lip of her top. "Naw, don't know no Leonard. Well, shit, one of Chopper's friends who rode with the D's was named Leonard, I think, but he got chainsawed by Mexicans for selling brown skag on some other dealer's turf. Couldn't be who you mean 'cos that happened a couple of years ago and it was down in fuckin' Florida, man. Chopper and the D's run dope on their Harleys from there to here all the time. But anyway, like you were saying, you don't believe in ghosts and that's cool, but maybe you will real soon 'cos, shit, the shit that went on in that house you're renting is some of the worst shit in the fuckin' world, man. Ask me, you're out'a your fuckin' mind to stay there. You there by yourself?"

  "No, I'm with, well," he hesitated. "A girl, but she's my fath—"

  "Fuck, man!" she laughed. "You got your girlfriend up in that horror house! It's like a fuckin' garbage can at a butcher shop! You got balls, man! That place is a fuckin' graveyard, man!"

  "What do you mean?"

  "It was a body-dump for the mob!" Squirrelly found the whole scene nervously hilarious. "Since way, way back. Vinch'd plant stoolies and snuff bodies there all the time. And those two scat chicks and hitters who got chopped up? They're buried there too, the pieces, I mean, plus a lot of the animals."

  Melvin gripped the wheel harder, enthused. "Animals?"

  "Oh, fuck, yeah. I told you yesterday, that place was a snuff-house, but they also made scats and wet-flicks, nek-flicks, and a whole motherfuckin' shitload of fuckin' animal movies, man. Dogs, goats, horses." She scratched her armpit. "Pigs."

  Pigs...

  That animal skull, he recalled. Gwyneth said it might be from a pig.

  Squirrelly's bare, white, and very bony shoulders hunched up; she hugged herself as if chilled. "All this fuckin' creepy spook-talk is fuckin' creepin' me out, man. Let's not talk about that gore-house any more..." An errant hand came to her fat-less midriff. "Hey, you got any food? I'm fuckin' seein' things I'm so hungry."

  "I'm sorry, I don't have anything in the truck, but I'll buy you a pizza. I'm going to that shopping center I picked you up at yesterday."

  "Oh, that fuckin' rocks, man, 'cos that's where I'm heading too!" She put her hand back on his thigh, inched it right to the crotch, and squeezed. "You want that blowjob now, for, like forty? I'll do your balls and everything, floss my teeth with your dick hair if you want, and you can come in my mouth and I'll even swallow. Some guys like me to play with it in my mouth or half-swallow and snort it out my nose. I can do that, too, no shit. Come in my face, come in my hair, come on my tits, come on my feet, whatever you want. Shit, man, there was this one guy used to pick me up in Utica who'd come in my ear! No shit!"

  Though these variations on a theme didn't interest Melvin, the distractions collapsed on his focus. An offer for oral sex, something he'd never experienced in his life, he'd only dreamed about. And for only forty dollars! That would definitely refurbish some of his spoiled mood. But then a question itched, a technical ponder so to speak. Melvin wanted to lose his male virginity like about as bad as the Japanese wanted to lose the U.S. Marines on Iwo Jima, but...would oral sex facilitate that? Would that count? Or could he only truly be deprived of the humiliating tag of male virginity by intercourse?

  "What about coitus?" he asked perkily.

  "Huh?"

  "Intercourse—you know?"

  Her eyebrows shot up. "Oh, you mean you wanna fuck? Fuck yeah, man, you can fuck the shit out of me for...fifty dollars? Or maybe even...sixty!"

  "Oh, let's do that!" Melvin said. He gave her a $100 bill.

  She skimmed off her top in a flash, giddy. "You rock, man! Shit, I'll fuck your balls out your dick-hole! And you can take all the time you want. And since you gave me so much extra you can even ass-fuck me!"

  Melvin squinted at the prospect. "Well, er, no, I think standard intercourse will be sufficient, but I'm grateful for the offer."

  She laughed, hitching her shorts down. "You talk funny, man, but that's cool. Shit, pull off somewhere in this cornfield."

  Melvin's penis felt more erect than it ever had in his life; it burgeoned in his pants.

  The HUM-V lumbered off the shoulder and cut into a service road lined densely with man-tall rows of corn stalks. Shade swallowed them—it was perfect. We're being cradled by the hands of the world! Melvin thought. Hidden, within the delicate cusp of nature, our natural desires summoning us together for this natural act!

  That's how Melvin chose to think of it, though they were actually just a john and a crack-whore about to fuck in a cornfield, a first-degree misdemeanor in most states.

  Melvin's excitement infused him with a woozy ethereal euphoria. Squirrelly's shorts were on the floor now; she lay back smudged and nude on the Hummer's big burgundy-leather bench seat, opening her legs as nonchalantly as someone opening a newspaper. Truly, her skin was the color of cooked egg whites. One leg draped over the seat-back, flip-flop hanging off a skinny foot; her breasts all but disappeared in this position, the chewed-jerky nipples puckered up like garden slugs sprinkled with salt. And as for the nexus of her womanhood...

  Several images might have occurred to Melvin: a woodchuck with an ax-mark in the middle, ground pork in a nest of steel wool, raw chicken livers squeezed through a hairy armpit, stacked corned beef. But to Melvin, this catastrophic mess of a vagina was a visual siren-song, a beautiful, blooming orchid of love.

  Squirrelly was so skinny that her pubic bone made a tent of the matt of hair, a steeple. Scarier was the suggestion of what existed beneath the hair, an explicit lippy groove of brown-pink meat. Anyone else would be assailed by the most horrendous question of all: How many dirty penises had ventured into this reproductive maw? Hundreds? Thousands? And what volume of semen had been emptied into it? Quarts? Gallons?

  Yet such
ungainly and indecorous notions did not occur to Melvin in the least. He was about to make love for the first time in his life.

  Squirrelly's hands reached out, beckoning him. "Come on, baby! Stick it in and give it to me!"

  I'm about to lose my virginity! Melvin thought in near-delirium.

  He'd barely gotten his shorts down before he ejaculated prematurely. The orgasm was so prompt that he didn't even feel it.

  "Oh, no!" he quailed.

  Squirrelly leaned up, brushing some greasy tresses off her brow. "What? You came? Shit, man, you didn't even get near me! You didn't even make it out of your seat!"

  Melvin slumped, disgraced, a useless loop of sperm laying like a garland in his pubic hair. "Damn it." What a ripoff! He could've cried.

  Squirrelly had her scant clothing back on before Melvin could even get his shorts back up over his dead dick.

  "Fuck, man, you come faster than any guy I've been with," Squirrelly calmly informed him. "Have you ever been laid?"

  "Of course! Lots of times!"

  She popped a brow. "Well, fuck, look, man, since you paid me so much, I'll give you a second chance later." She scratched her crotch again, and shimmied.

  "Thanks."

  Disappointment and embarrassment radiated off of Melvin's head like the heat from a fever as he got back on the road.

  "Don't feel bad, man," Squirrelly tried to console. "There was this one guy used to pick me up in Binghamton—he couldn't come at all unless he was looking at a picture of Sinatra! No shit!"

  Melvin didn't feel much better from the information. There it is, he thought with relief. The sign loomed: HERBSTER SHOPPING CENTER. I need a bottle of Snapple bad. The strip mall front lot was empty for its entire length but the end seemed to be crowded with over a dozen motorcycles. Then he noticed that the last storefront on the end was actually a tavern. CROSSROADS glowed the dull neon sign.

  "Oh, fuck, man," Squirrelly said quickly. "Pull around the side and drop me off. I don't want Chopper to see me."

  Chopper. Her psycho biker boyfriend. Alarm rang through Melvin's nervous system. "Chopper's here?"

  "Yeah, he's at that little shit-hole bar with the rest of the D's. They all just got up here from St. Pete with a big score of smack, crack, and meth. But don't worry, he won't see you."

  Jeez, what do I get myself into? Melvin pulled around the opposite end of the shopping center. I pay a hundred bucks to NOT get laid, and now I'm dropping the girl off a few hundred feet away from her boyfriend who's probably killed more people than the Hillside Stranglers. It doesn't get any better than this.

  "Look, I said I owe ya a fuck but I ain't got time now, man," Squirrelly apologized. "I'll get'cha next time, okay? I don't get in that bar soon, Chopper might get pissed and, like, cut off my fuckin' head or something!"

  "Understandable," Melvin said.

  "I like you!" Squirrelly chirped. She leaned over and gave him a big kiss, and even slipped him some tongue this time. When she gave his crotch a squeeze, Melvin pulled a spontaneous erection. "See ya!" She hopped out and scampered off.

  Great, another boner and she's gone... He parked out front. A big OPEN sign glowed in the pizzeria's window but when Melvin pulled on the door, he found it locked. Oh, man... Inside, though, he saw an old man peek out at him from behind an open door. He hobbled up quickly and let him in.

  "You want a pizza?"

  Melvin's bad mood ignited some uncharacteristic sarcasm. No, I want a basket of fruit and a copy of Gabriel Marquez' One Hundred Years of Solitude. Why else would I be walking into a pizza parlor? "I'd like three large with pepperoni and extra cheese, to go. How come you had the door locked?"

  "Those damn bikers, son," the old man complained. "They come up here five, six times a year with their drugs and loose women and carryin' on. Don't want 'em comin' in here. Come back in twenty minutes," and then the old man pushed Melvin back outside and locked the door.

  I wonder if I can think of a place where I WOULDN'T want to live more than this. The OPEN sign blared in the window of the little grocery store. The door was locked. Momentarily, a fat woman lumbered out and quickly unlocked.

  "Let me guess," Melvin posited. "The door's locked because of the motorcycle gang."

  "Oh, gracious, yes," the woman yammered. She looked like Aunt Bea on Andy Griffith. "They terrorize this town every time they're here. Make it quick, young man."

  Melvin grabbed a few bottles of Snapple out of the cooler and also bought bags of snacks. Aunt Bea all but shoved him out the door once he'd paid. Melvin put the goods in the truck, shaking his head. He stood around with his hands in his pocket, waiting, when an errant glance toward the bar showed him a lone automobile parked in the lot beyond the crowd of Harley-Davidsons.

  It was a brand-new candy-apple-red Corvette.

  That's not... It couldn't be.

  Why would Gwyneth drive all the way down here? It's just someone else with the same kind of car, Melvin reasoned; nevertheless, he walked cautiously forward, edging along the store fronts. When he got to the bar, he peeked into the dark window and saw...

  Gwyneth.

  Buck-naked, she leaned back, sitting up on the edge of a pool table. A blissful grin contorted her face as her nipples, gorged by excitement, stuck out precisely as coat pegs. The rabble of unshaven, leather-jacketed bikers stood round her, cackling, leering, rubbing their crotches. Sitting on a corner stool by herself was Squirrelly, a smirk of disapproval on her face. Somebody barked, "Hey, the bitch needs a tune-up!" The others hooted, clapping. Melvin could hear the rowdy revel from within, for the window stood opened an inch.

  "Would somebody SHOOT ME UP!" Gwyneth squealed.

  One of the fatter bikers stepped up, grinning through rotten teeth. Poised in his hand was a hypodermic needle.

  Gwyneth sat upright, both hands squeezing her left breast. "Right in the tit, lover. See the vein there?"

  "Sure do, Missy. I'll fix ya up," the biker assured.

  He carefully inserted the needle into a modest vein just under the nipple, and dumped the plunger.

  Gwyneth's head reeled back. "Aw, FUCK!" She fell back on the billiard table, shot her perfect legs up into the air, and spread them. "All aboard, boys!"

  More hooting and hollering as a line of bikers formed between Gwyneth's legs.

  "Just pretend I'm a car at the gas station!" she invited, "and FILL ME UP!"

  Melvin wasn't sure how long he watched. One by one, the bikers stepped between Gwyneth's legs, humped for a while, then stepped away, hitching up their jeans.

  Melvin gulped. She's going to have sex with every man in the bar! For a split-second it occurred to him that he should go in there and get her out, save her from this avalanche of ruffian debasement.

  To repeat: for a split-second.

  Melvin hurried back to the Hummer.

  My God, she really is out of control. Injecting heroin? Having sex with a dozen dirty bikers? And she was asking for it! he reminded himself in disbelief.

  Melvin didn't have a clue what to do. In fact the only thing he knew was what he most assuredly WAS NOT going to do: go in and get her. She's not my mother, she's my stepmother.

  Eventually, the old man in the pizza parlor, came outside, gave Melvin his pizzas, took the money, and locked the door back up. Melvin put the pizzas in the HUM-V, presumed he would simply leave but then...

  I have to look again.

  He snuck back to the window. His eyes couldn't be wider on the bizarre event unfolding before him.

  What in the world...

  The gang-bang was over, the sated bikers having retreated back to their spectator's half-circle, while Gwyneth remained the center of attention on the pool table.

  She was on hands and knees now. A small twist of what appeared to be human excrement sat on the table's felt just below Gwyneth's face. Frowning, Squirrelly lay on the table too and had impossibly managed to insert her right foot into Gwyneth's rectum to just past the ankle. Then Gwyneth, grinning like a mischievo
us schoolgirl, lowered her head and began to eat the—

  Melvin fled back to the Hummer. This is really screwed up! An understatement, but it was all his clogged mind could generate at the moment. A son's allegiance finally kicked in; Melvin knew he had no choice.

  I have to tell my father.

  He whipped out his cell phone and dialed.

  "Melvin! Great to hear from you," Dad greeted him. "How's that article coming?"

  "Uh, fine, Dad, but—"

  "Oh, and how's my beautiful wife?"

  "She's—"

  "Put her on, will you?"

  That would be a big negatory. "She's not...close by right now, Dad."

  "Oh, well how are things going up at the house?"

  Melvin could not conceive a way to frame an honest answer so he just said, "Fine, Dad, but look, there's something I have to tell you." He ground his teeth. "It's about Gwyneth—"

  "Ha, great set of tits, huh?"

  "Yes—"

  "I told you."

  "Yeah, but listen, Dad. There's something you need to know about her, and I'd be...remiss in not telling you, so I need you to get ready for a shock."

  Dad laughed over the line. "Son, son, I'm grateful for your concern, but relax. I know what you're going to say."