Hellhole (4 page)

Or to vent some pent-up frustration.

So it was from the top of Ugly Hill that Max planted his shovel, sank it deep into the ground, and dug. He went at it for a solid hour, muscles screaming, cones of dirt piling up around him as he tried out different spots. The wind stung at his sweaty face, but it felt amazing, and the aches in his arms were good aches—they took away his cares and worries, one knot at a time.

Max shone his keychain flashlight down into the hole he'd just made. Seeing nothing, he put the light back in his pocket, chose another spot, and started all over again. In, out, in, out, in—

In . . .

In . . . ?

The shovel kept right on going, swallowed by the earth. Max lost his balance and stumbled forward, catching himself at the last second—just before the ground started to collapse.

He let out a shout and wrenched his body backwards to keep from falling in. Landing flat on his butt, he scuttled back like a crab, hands and feet frantically scrambling away from the sinking dirt. The abyss grew and grew, all while a low rumble sounded through the air, as if the planet itself were growling.

Then: silence.

Max groped in his pocket for his flashlight, clicked it on, and pointed the beam into the darkness. The dirt had stopped falling, but the damage was done. Stretching out before him was a massive dark hole.

Shaking, Max got to his feet and started to make his way around the void, confusion growing with every step. It was a perfect circle, about six feet in diameter. Dust stung at his eyes; a sour stench choked his lungs. He could taste something awful on his tongue, like the gagfest that results from drinking orange juice right after brushing one's teeth. But other than an occasional, eerie clicking noise coming from deep within, he couldn't hear a thing.

Max took a cautious step up to the rim. He could see only blackness inside, the hole so deep his flashlight couldn't reach the bottom. A gentle pulse of warm air puffed up into his face, the smell of sulfur tickling his nostrils. And in that moment—he was sure he was imagining this, but that didn't make the sensation any less intense—an overwhelming
something
came over him, an emotion he'd never felt before that was sadness and terror and suffocation and grief all at the same time.

Max had been up on Ugly Hill hundreds of times, alone and in the dark, but this was the first time he'd ever been truly scared.

“What the hell?” his voice quivered.

Just then an air pulse sent up small fleck of ash—black, as light as air, a gothic snowflake. It floated out of the hole, then descended and landed on the back of Max's hand. He tried to wipe it off, but all that did was create a black smear across his skin.

And then, as abruptly as it had come, the strange fear began to fade. Sleep tugged at his body, and Max started to feel a little foolish. He hadn't been up this hill in months; maybe the gas company had done some faulty pipeline laying or someone had begun construction on a cell phone tower. Or something. He didn't know
why
a giant circular hole might have opened up out of nowhere, but Max was sure there was a reasonable, corporate, environmentally unfriendly explanation for all of this.

As an afterthought, he grabbed a nearby rock and tossed it into the hole, waiting for a thump to signify that it had hit the bottom.

A minute later he was still waiting.

But he was cold now, exhausted, and a sudden fear rose in his chest—what if his mother needed him? What if she was having an episode right now and was desperately calling out his name, dialing the number of a cell phone that he hadn't remembered to bring with him?

He sprinted home.

Only when he opened her door with fumbling hands and saw her lying there, safe and alive, did the panic stop ringing in his ears.

“You okay, Max?” she said blearily, through squinted eyes. “What's wrong?”

“Nothing,” he said, his voice cracking. He cleared his throat. “Nothing. Thirsty. Just getting some water.”

“You look sweaty, hon. Did you have a nightmare?”

He didn't know what to say to that.

Maybe?

THE NEXT MORNING, MAX SLEPT IN.
Only by five minutes, but those five minutes translated into five minutes late showering, five minutes late getting dressed, and, ultimately, five minutes late for the verbal beatdown Stavroula was all too willing to deliver.

“We open five minutes ago,” she scolded as he rushed in.

“I know, I know.” He pulled his blue vest out from under the counter and put it on, praying that she wouldn't notice the glitter shower that ensued. “I'm sorry.”

“
Five minutes ago.
And where is my cashier? Watching goats mate on the computer?”

“I—no! Why would you think that?”

“I don't know what you kids do on that box!” she said, throwing up her arms. “All I know is that you are late. Tell me why.”

Max's mouth was devoid of saliva. Even if it wasn't for the cat, he still hated being in trouble. And truth be told, he was still a bit shaken by what he'd seen up on Ugly Hill. If not for the dirt caked on his shoes, he might have thought he dreamed it.

“Last night, I—um, couldn't sleep, and—”

“And, and? I no sleep in six years since my husband die, bless his soul.”

Max joined her in making the sign of the cross. “It's just—I—”

He didn't want to do it. He hated trotting out this excuse, this despicable, manipulative excuse, but she was staring at him so hard he was willing to do anything to make her stop.

“It was my mom,” he said in a low voice, taking care to inject double doses of Sorrowful Despair and Soldiering On in the Face of Adversity.

Stavroula's scowl diminished, replaced by a look of sympathy, or perhaps disappointment at not being able to keep yelling at him. “Ah. Yes. Is she all right?”

He nodded and spoke in clipped words. “Yeah. Fine.”

“Good.” She waggled her finger at him as she walked back toward her office, but any anger was long gone. “Just don't let it happen again.”

The door slammed.

Max exhaled. After making sure that his resting heart rate had been restored, he reached for his book of crossword puzzles. Over the entirety of last Saturday's double shift, he'd solved twenty-one in fourteen hours, resulting in a rate of only 1.5 puzzles per hour, which simply would not do. Fatigue had set in. Fatigue was the enemy.

Determined to do better this time, and even more determined to put the Ugly Hill incident out of his mind, he set his watch for fourteen hours—his shift lasted fifteen, but he had to allow a spare one for lunch, dinner, and those pesky interrupting customers. He uncapped his pen, got to work, and didn't stop until halfway through puzzle number five, when the door jangled and Audie walked in.

“Greetings, hermit!” she said.

Audie had exactly two moods: exuberant and slightly less exuberant. Nothing in between. Today: a rare appearance by the latter.

Max hit the Stop button on his watch and gave her a withering smile. “I can make it up to you.”

“You damn well better.” Audie attempted to look stern but failed immediately, as her face just didn't bend that way. “With meats. Chop-chop!”

Max retrieved the box of Slim Jims he'd stashed and plopped it on the counter. “Today I've prepared for you a selection of plastic-wrapped charcuterie, featuring a rustic gastrique of artisanal pig anuses and a decadent mélange of mechanically separated chicken,” he said in the style of the chefs on all those cooking competition shows his mother complained about wasting her life watching, yet watched anyway.
“Bon appétit.”

“You're such a freak,” Audie said with a giggle, tossing a wad of money at him and attacking the wrapper. “But thanks.”

“How do you find the mouthfeel, ma'am?”

“Ew. Lifetime moratorium on that word.”

“What, ‘mouthfeel'?”

“Stop it!” she cried, giving him one of those fake smacks on the arm that she had perfected since the age of five.

Max dodged it with a smile. “What are you doing up and about so early on a Saturday?” he asked, taking a Slim Jim for himself.

Audie nodded toward the window. Her father was outside, pumping gas into the family car while her mother squeegeed the windshield. A third person was asleep in the back seat. “I'm giving Wall a ride to the airport. Which of course means we're
all
giving Wall a ride to the airport because Mom and Dad
insisted
on coming. Like they think I'm gonna be so heartbroken about him going away for the weekend that I'm gonna bang him right there atop the check-in kiosk.”

“That's a fun visual.”

“I agree. Little fantasy of mine.”

“Then maybe their suspicions aren't unfounded.”

“Hey, don't take their side.” She took another bite. “He's not even conscious, anyway. Killer game last night, not that
you'd
know.”

As they munched, Max toyed with the idea of telling her about what he'd seen up on Ugly Hill. Maybe she could—

—kindly inform me that I've lost my mind?
his brain butted in.
She'll think I'm bonkers. And if God forbid her father catches wind of it, he'll go up there to investigate, and then I'll lose my private digging spot, and if he God forbid decides to question me any further, I'll totally cave and confess the theft of Frankencat, and then I'll be arrested and go to jail and will almost certainly need to learn how to sharpen a toothbrush into a shiv to defend myself, which is a skill I should probably start honing now . . . I wonder if you can whittle a Slim Jim—

The door bells rattled as a human refrigerator walked into the store. It leaned on the counter and smiled at Audie with a mouth full of straight, achingly white teeth.

“Hey, girl.”

Audie's mood ramped right up into high gear.
Click!
Full steam exuberant. “You're awake!” Her face glowed as he grabbed her hand, twirled her around, then dipped her almost down to the floor, planting a big wet kiss on her laughing mouth.

The giant pulled her back up, then turned to Max. “Hey, hoss.”

“Hi, Wall,” Max replied in a voice as microscopic as he felt.

The real name of E'ville's star linebacker and Audie's boyfriend of three years was Emmanuel, but on the football field he basically turned into a concrete parking garage with a little helmet on top, so Wall was the nickname that stuck. He was a nice guy, yet Max still felt like the
Microceratus gobiensis
to Wall's
Brachiosaurus altithorax.
Max just didn't know how, as an athletically challenged and thoroughly unimpressive human being by comparison, he could ever find anything in common with the guy. Max didn't know a thing about football. He didn't know how to bridge the popularity gap. And he didn't know what a hoss was, either.

The office door pounded open. “No!” Stavroula yelled upon seeing Wall snap into a Slim Jim. “No more! You football brutes eat up all my meats!”

“Roula, Roula, Roula,” Wall said, propping a massive arm over her shoulder as she approached the counter. “You know I need my meats. I'm a growing boy.”

She made a
psff
noise. “You grow anymore, you hit head on ceiling, break sprinklers, flood store. Bah.” And she was off again, shuffling to the back room with a dismissive wave.

Max stuffed more Slim Jim into his mouth. Now that Wall was here, he didn't dare bring up Ugly Hill. “So, did you win the game?” he asked.

“Did we win the game?” Wall answered, his mouth full of nitrates. “He's asking if we
won the game!
” he shouted in disbelief to an invisible crowd, then let out a hearty laugh, followed instantly by a death glare, a combination that could be pulled off to perfection only by himself and a Mr. Denzel Washington.

Max genuinely feared for his life for a second there, but Wall had already started laughing and ruffling Max's hair. It went askew for a moment, then settled right back into its default golf visor position.

The door chimed yet again. Max stood a little taller, preparing for the double whammy of Audie's increasingly intimidating parents. There hadn't been anything too scary about growing up next door to a teacher and a policeman, but subsequent promotions in their respective fields had put them in a much more imposing light. It was that whole authority figure thing again. Something about them made him want to constantly smooth his shirt and glitter-precipitating vest in their presence.

“Max!” Audie's dad said. “Haven't seen much of you lately! How are you doing?”

“Fine, Chief Gregory.”

Audie's mom joined him at the counter, her smile frozen in place. “And how's your mom?”

“Fine, Principal Gregory. I mean, she's the same,” he added when she made a doubtful face. “Sleeps a lot.”