Hellhole (30 page)

“DON'T MOVE,” SAID THE MAN.

Max did his best to obey, though he was sure every organ in his body had simultaneously liquefied. He tried to look at Lore out of the corner of his eye, but all he could make out was that she was relatively still, not shaking the way he was.

“What are you doing here?” the man asked.

Max tried to speak, but his mouth was too dry to work properly. He tried a second time. “We're sorry, sir. We—um, we got lost, and—”

“We broke into your house,” Lore said casually. “Sorry.”

“I called the police,” the man said. His aim was still trained on Max. “And you're going to sit down on that couch and wait until they get here.”

Max speedily uttered, “Yes, sir,” and scooted his butt onto the plaid sofa. Lore, on the other hand, yelled “Run!” and plowed right toward the man, knocking his rifle aside as she ducked around him and sprinted out the front door.

Max watched her go, baffled.

I have chosen poorly.

The man threw one last look at the open doorway through which Lore had made her escape, grunted, and aimed back at Max.

Furniture turned out to be just as terrifying as Max had initially thought. He clutched the fabric with clawed hands, trying to squeeze all his fear into it—yet he still had enough left over to ooze out of his sweaty pores. Blood pulsed through his ears in a steady hum. The man sat across from him in the rocking chair, gun pointing directly at Max's head.

“Sir, is there any chance you could just forget about this and let me go? I won't come back, I swear.”

The man shrugged. “Already called the police.”

Max slumped further into the sofa and looked at his hands, pale and lifeless beneath the stark black ash mark.

Ask him who he is,
Burg thundered.

Max inhaled sharply.

“What's wrong?” the man asked, tensing up.

“Nothing,” Max said evenly. “Just . . . scared.”

The man relaxed. “You should be. Some hard jail time will do a punk like you good.”

Max had been called many things in his life, but “punk” had never been one of them.

Go on,
Burg urged.
Ask him. The house belonged to that old guy, right? Maybe you're just encroaching on something that this guy already stole.

Max swallowed. Could that be possible?

“Beautiful home you've got here,” he said. “I like all the”—he gestured helplessly at the glassy-eyed animal heads—“death.”

The man snorted. “It's my father's place.
Was
my father's place.”

Shit.

“Oh?” Max said shakily.

“All he left me was this goddamn eyesore of a cabin.” The man spat onto the floor. “Soon as I sell it, I'm outta here.”

“You're selling it?” Max repeated for Burg's benefit.

“What'd I just say? Listed it last week.”

For a brief, insane moment, Max was hopeful.
He can sell it to me!
he thought. Then:
Wait, I don't have enough money to buy a mansion.
Then:
Even if I did, I'm only seventeen.
Then:
And it needs to be stolen, not bought.
And finally:
I really have to pee.

Max started fiddling with his hands again, tearing up hangnails until he bled. He wondered if Lore was off getting help. But what could she say? That she'd broken into a house and the owner had the gall to call the police and report it? Lore wasn't that brainless.

Make a run for it, Shovel
,
Burg said with—was it concern in his voice?

Max faked a cough. “No way,” he whispered in the midst of it.

What's he going to do, shoot you? No one's going to buy a house with bloodstained wood floors. He's just trying to scare you.

Max felt sick. Was Burg right? If the man had shot that carton of milk, he could have picked off both Max and Lore, real quick and easy. If he was going to shoot Max, he would have done it by now.

If he wanted to kill you,
Burg confirmed,
he would have done it already.

It still seemed like a risk. Max would have to be fast, graceful, and coordinated, three things he had never been all at the same time.

I'll talk you through it,
Burg said. Max had never heard him sound this serious before.
Listen carefully. Stand up fast, like you just remembered you have to be somewhere.

Max jumped to his feet, his body so wound up it couldn't sit still anymore. The man stood up just as fast. “What are you doing?” he demanded.

“Sorry,” said Max. “Leg cramp.”

Now inch slowly toward the deck. He should match your movements, like you're circling each other. You want him right in front of the fireplace—that's the best spot for him to be when you bolt, since the coffee table will be in his way.

Max inched another centimeter to his right.

The man inched another centimeter to
his
right.

Is he in front of the fireplace?

“Yeah,” Max whispered.

There were a series of grinding noises.

Then a loud
twang.

Max watched in shock as the large deer head above the fireplace came crashing to the floor, taking the man down with it.

For a moment, everything was still.

Then a groan sounded from the floor. Carefully stepping around the sofa, Max held his breath until the man came into view.

He was flat on his back. A dark stain slowly blossomed out from his chest, where Deerzilla's antlers had sunk in deep. His unseeing eyes stared up at the ceiling.

Oh God.

Max had never in his life been so utterly horrified. He trembled—his whole body shook, a chill furiously working its way up his spine, then back down again.

Did it work?
Burg asked gleefully.

It took Max a few seconds to respond. “Did what work?”

My Scooby-Dooby booby trap!

Max just stood there, stunned. It was impossible. Then again—if Burg could telekinetically lift Max and throw him across the room, why
couldn't
he do something like this?

Did it land on his head?
Burg asked.
Did he run around in a comical manner looking like a deer?

Max balled his hands into fists. “No!” he yelled. “He got impaled by the antlers!”

Burg paused.

Well, damn,
he said eventually.
That's not comical at all.

“No! It's not!”

Don't worry, I'll pull it off next time. The hardware probably just needs a few tweaks.

With that, the buzzing in Max's head went silent.

Swallowing the strangled lump in his throat, Max knelt down and felt for the man's pulse. Nothing. He put his head on the floor, careful to avoid the pooling blood, and tried to look beneath the body. The antlers had skewered him all the way through, poking a hole in the bearskin rug.

Max got up again and began pacing.

Oh my God. Oh my God. He's dead. A man is dead and it's all my fault.

Well,
the other side of his brain said,
not completely your fault.

But Burg never would have been in this house if it weren't for me!

And,
a smaller, meaner chunk of his brain said,
the police are coming. If all they find is you standing next to a dead body, that's kind of a dead giveaway, isn't it? And even if you leave, they'll know someone was here—the door was broken into, your fingerprints are all over the place . . .

But,
sniveled another, more sinister slice of his brain
, now Burg can stay in the house
indefinitely.
Everyone will think that this guy decided to keep the family home instead of selling it. That he took after his father and became a hermit, a solitary person who never went into town.

Because the house,
said the scabbiest, worst part of Max's brain,
is the key to it all.

No house, no cure. No anything.

You need to keep this house at all costs.

HIDE THE BODY.

Max was breathing harder and harder now. He felt like he was going to pass out.

Police sirens sounded in the distance.

He had to make a decision.

For Mom,
all parts of his brain chanted in unison, repeating it like a mantra as he dragged the corpse across the floor.
For Mom, for Mom, for Mom.

THE DOORBELL RANG.

Max unclutched his hands from the plaid sofa and stood up. He willed himself to stop shaking. Assured himself that the blood underneath his fingernails looked very plausibly like his own, as if it had come from a ripped hangnail.

He opened the front door, the very picture of calm.

Chief Gregory frowned. “Max? What are you doing here?”

Max let out a charming laugh. “Funny story, Chief G.”

Max proceeded to weave a tale of great deceit. He didn't even have to try. The words flowed from him as if preordained, as if he'd memorized an Oscar-winning script. He'd run into Mr. O'Connell Jr. at the pep rally, see, and the man had asked him for help because the moving company he'd hired had fallen through. It seemed Mr. O'Connell Jr. had a bad back, so he offered Max a hundred bucks to help him move some of his father's things out of the house.

Chief Gregory chuckled. “Well, you've always had strong arms,” he said. “All that digging.”

“Seems it's finally paying off, sir,” Max said humbly.

Chief Gregory's brows furrowed. “But the call we got from O'Connell was about someone breaking in. And the—” He twisted around in the rocking chair to look back at the foyer. “The doorjamb
is
chipped. Consistent with the use of a crowbar.”

Max shrugged. “I don't know anything about that, sir. I've been upstairs hauling boxes.”

Chief Gregory tapped his hat against the arm of the rocking chair. “Where'd you say Mr. O'Connell went again?”

“Hunting, he said.” Max indicated the empty space on the gun rack. “I came down for a glass of water and he was getting ready to leave. To be honest, sir, he seemed a little . . . well, drunk. He rearranged all the carpets, for some reason.” Max pointed at the series of Oriental rugs that now formed a trail to the deck, hiding the bloodstains. The bearskin rug, of course, was stashed in the basement, along with Deerzilla himself. “And when I went to pour myself a glass of water, I saw an empty whiskey bottle in the trash. It's still there, if you want to check,” he said, neglecting to add that he'd flushed the actual whiskey down the toilet.

Chief Gregory looked at the open liquor cabinet, which Max had artfully arranged to look as if it had been raided. “Still,” the chief said, drumming his fingers. “It's an oddly specific call.”

“You don't think he was going to try to frame me for something, do you?” Max said, mock horror on his face. “Calling you about a trespasser, then here I am, and he's gone?”

“Why would he do a thing like that?”

“I don't know. Like I said, he was hammered.”

Chief Gregory scratched his chin. “Odd ducks, the lot of them,” he said. “Threw a lot of money at the town, but they weren't the nicest people around.” He glanced at the gun rack. “Haven't seen the son in years. Hope he's not staying long.”

“Long enough to make a fake call and waste the police's resources, sir.”

The chief laughed, then stood up. “All right. We'll chalk this one up to idiocy and call it a night. I'll stop by tomorrow to check up on everything and give O'Connell a piece of my mind.”

“He'd be lucky to have it, sir.”

Chief Gregory walked to the sliding glass door, squinting outside. “On the other hand, maybe I should track him down. Out there at night, under the influence—could hurt himself.”

Max held his breath. The man's body lay outside on the deck, not ten feet from where they stood.

Chief Gregory's phone rang.

He took a few steps away from the door and answered it. “Hello? Hey, sweetie. No, I'm on a call—actually, Max is here—”

He listened for another few seconds, during which Max could hear Audie bubbling excitedly on the other end; then he said, “Sure, I'll be there in a few.” He hung up and looked at Max. “Audie wants me to pick her up from the pep rally, says she has some exciting news.”

Thank you, Audie,
Max thought.
Thank you thank you thank you.

“Bah.” Chief waved a hand and turned away from the window. “I'm sure O'Connell will be fine. What's he going to do, freeze to death? It's eighty degrees!”

Max smiled.