Lyrics to You Make My Dreams Come True by Hall and Oates (1980)
Life is filled with mysteries. Why do people kill each other was one that endlessly fascinated the boy. Sometimes it's over money or a woman, but other times the answer is a little harder to find. The annals of criminal history are filled with men who killed for seemingly no reason at all, the John Wayne Gacys and Ted Bundys of the world, guys whose motives were known only to them. Serial killers were interesting characters, weren't they? Take Bundy. He was intelligent, good looking, women loved him, his future was bright - the guy had it made. But something dark and cold festered in his heart, and it demanded blood. He, like Gacy, was a sex slayer, his bloodlust entwined with his normal lust like two strands of DNA - inseparable and inextricable. The really interesting cases are the ones like Herb Mullin, though, a schizophrenic from California who believed that an apocalyptic earthquake would strike unless he killed a set number of victims. There was no sexual aspect to his crimes at all - he beat a hobo to death with a baseball bat, stabbed a priest, shot a bunch of teenagers at a campsite in the woods, and iced the guy who introduced him to pot and LSD because he believed it was part of a plot to destroy his mind.
Wild shit, huh?
The boy liked criminal psychology and had already decided that he wanted to work in the field...maybe as a criminal profiler for the FBI. He wasn't sure yet, but he was still ahead of the curve, right? He was sixteen, and at that age a lot of kids don't know what they want to do with their lives, then, as high school winds down, they go aw, shit and run around like chickens with their heads cut off. He'd seen it again and again - it didn't look fun.
Anyway, that was one mystery solved. The current and most pressing one remained, however.
Where was his iPod?
Standing in the middle of his barren bedroom with his hands on his hips and his lips pressed together in mild peturbment, he swept his gaze slowly back and forth as though he might catch it trying to make a break for the hall - a techno slave slinking away on the Underground (Digital) Railroad. Of course, he saw nothing: He and Dad packed everything in the moving truck yesterday, except for the mattress. And his bedding, some clothes - small stuff that went without saying. He specifically remembered leaving his iPod out but...yeah, it wasn't here.
Oh well. He could make it through the day without it.
Giving up, he pulled his white T-shirt over his head and dropped it into the hamper by the door, followed by his shorts. At the foot of the mattress, he stooped down and picked apart the stack of neatly folded clothes, first slipping on a pair of boxers, then a pair of black pants. The pants came with chains hanging off the sides, but he took those off because they kept snagging on everything. They looked cool, but, hey, looks can be deceiving.
Like with him. Standing at 6'1 and thin with wiery arms, long brown hair that fell to between his shoulder blades, and the fuzzy beginnings of a goatee, he wore black clothes and heavy metal band Ts more often than not, which might lead people to think he was some kind of devil worshipper who delighted in suffering...or a gloomy wrist cutter who hated life. That couldn't be further from the truth, he loved life - if he could, he'd give it a big, manly hug. He also liked people and, he thought, they liked him back. He wasn't what he thought of as one of the popular kids, but sometimes, walking down the hallway at school and catching heys and nods from everyone he met, he kind of wondered. He got along with everybody unless they were an outright dick: The country boys, the gangstas, the other metalheads, the nerds, the cheerleaders. People are like ice cream, so many different flavors and most of them are good in their own way.
His philosophy was: Why go through life with a shitty attitude? You're here and you're probably gonna be here a while, so relax. They say that it takes more muscles to frown than to smile, and while that was pretty cheesy, it was kind of true. Being mad, mopey, or sullen takes too much energy, at least for him it did. On the rare occasions he got pissed, he was always wiped when he came down. Screw that.
Then again, he realized that his life was pretty charmed when compared to a lot of other people's. His parents were cool, he never went without the things he needed, he was confident enough to talk to girls and get dates when he wanted them, he knew what he wanted from life and had the drive, he thought, to do it...when you got right down to it, he had it made. Which kind of bothered him sometimes. So many kids out there, his age and younger, go through shit everyday - abusive parents, poverty, bullying - and here he was, overflowing with the things they lacked...love, stability, God-only-knows-what-else. He saw something on the news a few weeks ago about this sex cult in California, a guy and his wife kept their fifteen daughters chained up and raped them and...man, it made him sick. Some of those girls were as young as six. Fucking six. How could someone do something like that to a child? He could understand being a pedophile and having urges, but when you have a little girl naked and crying and begging for you to stop, how can you actually go through with it?
He didn't know, and it was that not knowing that lead him to want to study criminals, to know how they thought...and to think faster, deeper, and to anticipate them and head off their crimes. When he was a little younger, he thought he might want to be a social worker and help kids, but he couldn't deal with it. Hearing what happened to them, seeing the pain in their eyes, hearing them cry...screw that. He might look like a tough guy (and that was a big might), but when it came to things like that, he was anything but.
Presently, he zipped his pants and threaded a studded belt through the loops. Next, he pulled on a black long sleeve T-shirt: AC/DC screamed across the chest in bold red while the cover of Highway to Hell clustered underneath: The band gathered 'round and ready to party, Angus Young with devil horns and Bon Scott, wearing a shit eating I-just-done-ur-sister-mate grin, sporting a pentagram necklace. He pushed the sleeves up his forearms and, catching sight of the design, he stopped a second. Wasn't I just complaining that people think I worship the devil?
No, not really. He didn't think people thought that, he just used that to illustrate his point, which was…
Someone rapped on the door. "You up?"
Mom.
"Yeah," he called. If she was knocking, he must be late. He dropped onto the mattress, pulled on his scuffed and dirty Adidas, and got up with a grunt. Before leaving, he looked around one final time, didn't see his iPod trying to escape, and sighed.
In the dining room, which was basically a corner of the living room, he sat across from his father, who pored over a flood of paperwork, head down and shoulders slumped. "Morning."
Dad looked up, his reading glasses perched on his nose and confusion in his eyes. I didn't hear you come in. "Oh, morning, Lugosi," he said absently and went back to studying his papers.
Lugosi leaned to one side to get a better view of them. "That all house stuff?" he asked.
"Yep," Dad drew unenthusiastically. "I had no idea buying a house would lead to this." He slapped one of the sheets with the backs of his fingers.
Normally, Dad was a grounded, practical kind of guy, but this house had him all hot and bothered; he was like a kid buying the candy store, salivating, eyes spiraling hypnotically round and round. To be fair, it was a nice house, and if he was the one buying it, he'd be excited too...even if something about it didn't sit right with him: The one time he went there with Mom and Dad he came out unsettled, and though he tried, he couldn't explain why. He recalled a case where a scientist working in his lab got the heebie jeebies and thought he was being haunted, but later discovered that a broken metal fan in the air duct was emitting a sound lower than 20 Hz that could not be perceived consciously. Lugosi wasn't exactly sure how it worked, but sounds of that frequency are thought to trigger feelings of fear and awe in human beings. Maybe that was his problem, only he didn't feel afraid, just...off.
"You didn't think they'd just give it to you, did you?" he asked, teasing.
Sighing, Dad sat back from the table and regarded the papers like a man who's bitten off more than he can chew. "I was hoping they would." He pushed away and got to his feet. "But you know what they say about hope."
"It springs eternal?" Lugosi asked even though he knew that's not what his father was going for.
"No," Dad said, "hope in one hand and shit in the other. See which one fills up first."
Lugosi snorted. "That's quitter talk," he said.
Rolling his eyes, Dad went off to be pessimistic somewhere else, and Lugosi checked the time on his phone. It was a little early, but what the hell, he didn't feel like sitting around. He got up, grabbed his backpack from its spot by the door, and started out, but stopped when his mother came in from the hallway. She wore a simple black dress and her hair down; she looked tired, but then again, she always looked that way. "I found this on the floor last night," she said and held something out. Lugosi looked at her hand, and lo and behold, his iPod.
"Oh, I was looking for this," he said and took it, "I thought I packed it up by accident." His smile fell when he saw the screen. It was cracked. "What happened to it?"
"I stepped on it."
Aw, man. He pushed the button and the screen lit up. He scrolled through his playlists, chose a song at random just to test it out, and hit play. Light, poppy music drifted from the speaker and Lugosi tensed a little. SECRET, SHAMEFUL PLAYLIST said the banner on top. He called it that as a joke because he wasn't really ashamed of liking Hall and Oates.
At least not much.
He hit the STOP button, but the music kept going.
What I want, you've got
And it might be hard to handle
But like the flame that burns the candle
The candle feeds the flame, yeah yeah
Mom favored him with a blank stare as he tapped the power button with his thumb to no avail. Damn it, turn off.
On a night when bad dreams become a screamer
When they're messin' with a dreamer
I can laugh it in the face
Sometimes you just have to admit defeat. "I like this song," he said and nodded deeply as if to say ya got me.
One corner of Mom's mouth turned up in a half-smile and she shook her head. "You're a dork," she said. She pushed up on her toes and he leaned down so that she could kiss his cheek. "I love you. Have a good day."
"You too."
Still blasting Hall and Oates, he went out the door and down the stairs. That was mildly embarrassing. At the bottom, he turned the volume all the way down and shoved the broken device into his hip pocket. The morning was sunny and cool, a light, blustery wind slipping through the trees and shaking brown leaves from the branches. The smell of wood smoke hung heavy in the air, and he took a deep breath through his nose then let it out slowly. Ahhh, he loved fall. The colors, the corny decorations, the chilly nights, and Halloween. Halloween was always fun: Haunted houses, costume parties, beating up little kids and taking their candy.
He didn't really do that last one. In fact, if he saw someone beating up a kid for their candy, he'd beat them up. See, when he was a kid, some older boys did that to him - circled him, shoved him around, then stole his bag - oh, and they called his Beetlejuice costume gay, too. He was nine when that happened and he cried all the way home. Life throws you lemons, but, in his opinion, holidays should be exempt; no one's Halloween or Christmas or birthday should be ruined because someone wants to be a dick.
Turning left, he crossed the parking lot and then a wide strip of grass separating the building from the street. He hung a right and followed the sidewalk past a strip mall and a McDonald's. At the intersection of Railroad and Main, he checked the time then leaned against a telephone pole. A BP sat across the street and other buildings surrounded the road - bank, Starbucks, doctor's office...normal suburban mush.
Five minutes after arriving, he glanced down Main and saw his friend Paul coming up the sidewalk, his head guardedly down and his shoulders hunched in a defensive posture. That's how a school shooter walks Lugosi teased him once, and it kind of was; it bespoke timidity, self-consciousness, and petulence. To be fair, Paul was not petulant, but he was timid and self-conscious. 5'5 and all of 110 pounds soaking wet, he wore thick glasses and his lank black hair practically dripped with grease. He looked like a stereotypical geek and, well, looks can be deceiving, but they aren't always.
Paul walked up and lifted his head. He looked just as tired Mom. "Sorry I'm late," he said, his voice high and reedy, "I was doing something."
Lugosi lifted his brow as they crossed the street. "I'm kind of scared to ask," he said.
"Not that," Paul blushed. "I was, uh, writing a letter."
"People still do that?" Lugosi asked. The universe apparently didn't like him messing with Paul, because a gust of wind blew his hair in his face. "Who's it to?" he asked as he brushed it from his eyes.
"Candy," Paul said.
"Ah."
Paul's crush to end all crushes was on a freshman girl named Candy - Lugosi was sure that had to be short for Candice because the only women he'd ever heard of named Candy were strippers. She was tall and skinny with lustreless brown hair, fish lips, braces, and a forest of zits on her too big face. He wasn't judging her appearance, but, see, Paul thought she was waaaay out of his league when, from where Lugosi stood, she wasn't. He acted like he didn't have a chance but he honestly did. Then again, Paul knew her better than Lugosi - Royal County High was a big school and he never even noticed her until Paul pointed her out in the cafeteria one day. She seemed to have a good personality, but that deduction was based on passing her in the hall and observing that she didn't go willy nilly treating people like crap so therefore wasn't a despicable human being.
Now, Paul nodded. They were walking past Friendly's, the school in sight on the opposite side of the street, its second story rising over the tops of the trees crowding its western wall. "Are you going to give it to her?" Lugosi asked. In addition to being madly in love with her, he was also terrified of her.
Paul took a deep breath and nodded determinedly. "Yeah. I am."
"Good," Lugosi said, "that's the first step to sucking her face off."
"I'm really nervous," Paul said, ignoring his joke. He turned to him and squinted against the glare of the sun. "How do you do it?" he asked with genuine curiosity. "I mean, you're confident and outgoing and stuff. What's your secret?"
Lugosi opened his mouth, then closed it again and scrunched his lips to one side in thought. "I don't know," he said at length. "I just...don't let things bother me too much, I guess. If I like a girl, I ask her out, and if she says no...okay, that's just how it is."
"What if you really, really like her? You don't get nervous?"
"Of course I get nervous, but what's the alternative, man? Sit around and look at her from afar like I'm window shopping?" He shook his head at the notion.
At the crosswalk, they hurried to the other side of the street and approached the school. "All she can do is say no," Lugosi told his friend. "And if she does, find another girl who won't." He grinned and tapped his temple with his index finger. "Simple advice is the best advice," he declared.
The closing was at 3pm that afternoon at the office of Barrow, Wheeler, and Stone in Chippewa Falls. Even with Google Maps, Lincoln had trouble finding the place - he knew Chippewa Falls, but only as a friend, not intimately the way he knew Royal Woods, or even Elk Park. He knew those both the way he knew Lucy: He could find his way around all three with his eyes closed.
He finally found the building at the end of a wooded lane set apart from the rest of town. He didn't know what he was expecting, but the antiquated Victorian with gingerbread trim sure wasn't it. As he parked, he found himself examining the house with the exacting criticism of a man in the market. Before he and Lucy started looking for their forever home (a term she used simply because she knew it he thought it was hopelessly cheesy), he knew next to nothing about houses - all of their features, such as dormers, eaves, and gables, were just that thing. Now he was so used to inspecting them and their fixings that he couldn't just walk up to one and knock on the door, he had to look at and consider everything.
They looked at a few Victorians and liked them enough, but the only one in their price range was so close to the railroad that it shook every time a train went by. Lucy was disappointed. I really liked that one, she said as they drove away, it looked like the house from Psycho. This one was nearly identical to the one they viewed, but with one major difference: It was painted pink. Lincoln wasn't against that color, but on a house? Yuck.
He killed the engine, and Lucy looked at him. "Here we are," she said.
"Here we are," he agreed.
"On the precipice of a new life."
He smiled, leaned forward, and kissed her. "You're too verbose sometimes."
"I know," she said, "I do it to mess with you."
They got out and went inside - a woman sat behind a big oaken reception desk and took their names with businesslike efficiency. They sat in a waiting room occupying a corner of the parlor, Lucy with her purse in her lap and Lincoln leaning forward with his hands clasped between his knees. He surged with nervous energy, and after five minutes, he got up and investigated the framed photos on the wall, black and white snapshots of the region's past, the oldest dating to 1892. One was of downtown Royal Woods during the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918-19; a cop in a coat with facing ranks of brass buttons stood in the middle of the desolate street with a white mask covering the lower half of his face. He seemed to be the only living thing in town, and Lincoln barely suppressed a shiver.
Twenty minutes after arriving, they were pushed into Frank Barrow's office, a wide, sunlit space filled with potted plants, filing cabinets, busts on marble pedestals, and a giant bookshelf stuffed with thin hardbacks, their spines forming a rainbow of knowledge that Lincoln's innate curiosity wanted to touch, see, and know.
Barrow, a big man with wavy brown hair and a sun baked face that reminded Lincoln of old leather, went over the closing paperwork with them point by point. An hour later, they signed, paid the closing fee, and collected the keys. "Enjoy your new home," Barrow said with a chiclet smile.
Outside, Lucy threw her arms around Lincoln and surprised him with a hug; he stumbled back and nearly fell, but she pulled him close, and he hugged her back. "We're homeowners now," she said, a hint of excitement in her voice.
Owning a home had been their dream since they moved out of their parents house nearly twenty years ago, and now, staring forty in the face, they had finally realized it. Warm happiness flowed through Lincoln and he hugged his sister tighter. "Do you wanna move in tonight?" he asked.
"Yes," she said instantly, "very much."
Lincoln kissed the tip of her nose. "Let's do it."
At lunch, Lugosi sat next to Paul at the cool kids table - at least that's what he called it. In actuality, it would probably be closer to the truth to call it the geek table. Shoved into an out of the way corner of the cafeteria like a shameful secret, it was home to the same six guys every afternoon. Seven if you counted Lugosi. There was Brian, a tall, gangly Pokemaster who claimed to know karate but for some reason never used it on his bullys; Harold, a chunky, four-eyed dweeb who wore a pocket protector in his shirt pocket and wrote strange, second-person poetry (you walk through the vaulted halls of Kal-Em, terror clutching your beating heart…); Parker, a black dude who wore a black trench coat and talked endlessly about Japanese anime; Paul; Kayden, who weighed a good three hundred pounds and drew really killer art, actually; and Benny, the Royal Woods' Raptors' esteemed waterboy. They were the school misfits, and despite their varied interests, they drew together because human beings need to be part of a community, whether they know it or not. We are social creatures; its deeply encoded in our DNA. When one is an outcast, they form their own society...or become bitter and alone.
Lugosi didn't think he was one of the popular kids, but he had an open invitation to sit with just about anybody - except the jocks, but those dudes are dicks anyway. He sat with Paul because Paul was his friend and a good friend doesn't bail on his bud to go sit with the skaters or the cheerleaders. At first, he was here strictly for Paul, but over time, he came to like the others too. They did their own thing and didn't dress a certain way or like certain things just because everyone else did, and that made them pretty cool in his book.
Presently, he picked up a chicken nugget and popped it into his mouth. It tasted like gloop but he ate it anyway because he was starved and beggars can't be choosers. "...that's why Goku is the best," Parker proclaimed and sat back from the table with a smug flourish.
"Naruto is better," Kayden huffed. A thin sheen of sweat stood out on his doughy face even though the most he'd exerted himself in the past ten minutes was reaching out to pick up his milk. Guys like these, when they aren't among their own kind, are notoriously shy and quiet. Here, Lugosi was the one who didn't talk much - because he didn't share their passions and anything he said would come directly from his ass. He had no idea who Goku was and while he thought he'd seen Naruto somewhere, he knew as much about him as he did the Middle Ages. Which wasn't much. Outside of Paul, the only one whose interests he could kind of align with was Harold: Lugosi dabbled in poetry and song lyrics from time to time, but let's face it, folks, he sucked. He once rhymed blood with HUD. You know, the government agency? Housing and Urban Development? Not his proudest moment.
Harold glanced up from his notebook, the autumn sunlight falling through the windows shimmering across the lenses of his glasses like quicksilver and setting the smattering of whiteheads on his forehead afire. "Both of them are lame."
"You're lame," Benny said. A thin, effeminate freshman with black hair and fair skin, Benny sported the most metallic smile Lugosi had ever seen. It was like his braces had braces. He wasn't into his lunch group's pastimes either: He nursed dreams of being a jock (and walking funny cuz they snapped him with wet towels in the locker room). Lugosi didn't know much about football, but he was pretty sure you had to weigh more than fifty pounds to qualify,
Reaching for another nugget, Lugosi caught a flash from the corner of his eye and froze. Everyone stopped talking and turned, the atmosphere going from light and happy to dark and tense like throwing a switch.
"You're a bunch of fags, you know that?" Ramona Santiago asked.
A tall, rail thin girl with black hair held up in ratty pigtails by thrift store butterfly clips, Ramona was, Lugosi had gathered, one of only two or three people in school who really deserved to be called a bully. She picked on everyone.
Being interested in psychology, Lugosi had already psychoanalyzed her and decided that hers was a simple and straightforward case of someone lashing out at others in the belief that if they didn't, they would lash out at them. Her clothes, a simple and dingy square neck dress over a pink T-shirt, told him that she was poor, and her crooked, snaggly teeth were a point of shame and social anxiety for her or his name was Pinky Tutu Pants (and thank goodness it wasn't). Ramona felt, he believed, that if she did not strike first, everyone else would; she'd probably been picked on her entire life, and despite her shitty attitude, Lugosi couldn't help feeling bad for her.
"Hi, Ramona," Benny said, his voice dripping sarcasm.
Sneering, Ramona put her hands on her hips and leaned forward, a stray shaft of sunlight catching and refracting on the tarnished heart-shaped locket hanging around her throat. Her unwashed smell - mold and sour sweat - pinched Lugosi's nostrils and his face crinkled in disgust. "Fuck you, railroad mouth," she said. She glanced at Lugosi and her dark eyes flashed at his expression - though he couldn't say why, he could sense not only her contempt, but something else as well...something like embarrassment. "Stop sniffing me, pervert." She took a step back and looked around the table, her head shaking in disapproval. "Homos."
With that, she spun in a swish of putrid air and stalked off, her hands balling into fists at her sides. Lugosi watched her go with a strange mixture of pity and disdain.
"I hate that bitch," Benny spat. He grabbed a roll from his tray and took a savage bite, reminding Lugosi of a bloodthirsty giant gnawing on the bones of an Englishman. Everyone else voiced their agreement except for Lugosi.
Sigh. She, like anyone else, could make at least one friend if only she wasn't so hostile. In fact, a friend would probably do wonders for her attitude and self-esteem. Remember, people are social creatures, and like Bob Ross once said while painting a tree next to another tree: Everyone needs a friend.
*Finger snap*
He could be her friend.
Turning his head left and right, he spotted her sitting alone at a table with her arms crossed sullenly over her chest and a deep scowl on her face - she looked like she hated life and everyone in it. He pictured himself getting up, going over, and sitting across from her. Hey, how's it -?
Then she bit his head off. Literally.
For a long moment, he stared at her with an indecisive frown. Sometimes, he felt things that he couldn't explain, and every so often, he just knew stuff that he had no right knowing, like where a lost comb was. The former happened more often than the latter, but they were both rare. Now, looking at Ramona Santiago, he felt and knew something: Sadness. Under that asshole facade, she was a seething pit of sadness, and that made him sad.
Yeah, you know what? I'm gonna be her friend.
Her sour expression, however, kept him in his seat.
Later. After lunch. Or tomorrow. Gotta...build myself up. He was confident and didn't let things bother him, but he was a normal dude and as such, he did get intimidated, especially by someone like her - if someone was a dick, he usually left them alone cuz, c'mon, he didn't like being bullied any more than the next guy.
His mind was made up, though.
His stomach grumbled, and pushing thoughts of Ramona Santiago aside, he went back to his lunch.
Lugosi sat in the passenger seat of the U-Haul and gripped the handhold, his elbow propped on the doorframe and his head slightly bent because the roof was too low to comfortably accommodate someone of his height. Dad drove as he always did, hands at ten and two on the wheel and eyes straight ahead. He reminded Lugosi of an animatron when he drove...or a guard at Buckingham Palace.
Oh, actually, no, he reminded him of Mom.
The sun was low over the treetops when they pulled into the U-shaped drive. The scarlet light danced on the rippling surface of the lake and the cold, dusky wind rustled the boughs of the trees screening the street. The house sat where Lugosi half suspected it had always sat from the dawn of time, its nooks and crannies filled with shadows and its window glinting like excited eyes. A sudden and inexplicable sense of unease came over him, and as they approached, the house drawing closer, he couldn't help dreading sundown.
He caught himself and shook his head. It's just a house, relax, he told himself. He was anxious about moving, that was all. The apartment on Railroad Ave wasn't much, but for the past five years, it was home. Five years might not mean much to an adult, but to a kid, it was a significant portion of their childhood. He was eleven when they moved in, and in that short amount of time he did a lot of growing, both physically and mentally. He didn't think he'd be sentimental over leaving, but he supposed he was, and he was transferring his negative feelings to the new house, which he saw as a hostile replacement to what he considered his real home...much the way a child might resent a stepparent.
Simple really.
Whether he liked it or not, this was home now, and he needed to get used to it. The funny thing was: He liked the house. He liked being right on the lake - it was too cold to swim now, but next spring he'd live in the water. He could have Paul and some other guys over, maybe some girls, and have a blast. The room he picked out on the second floor was bigger than his old one and had its own fireplace, which was great because he didn't do well in the winter. Like his father, he really dug the rustic aspect and the original fixtures. All in all, it was a cool house.
That didn't change the queasy feeling in his stomach, though, and as Dad pulled to a stop at the front door and killed the engine, it deepened to a nauseous rocking. "And there we are," Dad said with a flourish. He turned to Lugosi, and his smile faltered a little. "You okay? You look sick."
"Nah, I'm fine," Lugosi lied. He threw open the door and jumped out. "Just really looking forward to unpacking all this stuff."
Dad slammed the door and met his at the tailgate, his hands going to his hips. "Yeah...so am I," he said with a sigh. When Mom pulled into the drive, gravel crunching under the tires, they both turned and watched her. "We should get her to do it," Dad said and nodded toward the car as it passed.
"You think she would?" Lugosi asked.
Dad snorted. "No."
Mom got out and came over, her purse slung over her shoulder. She wore a long black coat over her black dress, the buttons undone and the hem swaying in the breeze. She looked up at the house, and her mask of neutrality cracked a little into a smile. They were both really stoked over this place, which is the main reason he didn't plan to say anything about his feelings. He didn't wanna rain on their parade with any poor pity me, I'm subconsciously upset we moved crap. They'd been talking about buying a house like this for years, and now they had it, and he was genuinely happy for them. They both worked long, thankless hours to get where they were in life and it was good to see it paying off.
Turning away when Mom and Dad started their lovey-dovey Eskimo-kisses-no-you-hang-up-first stuff, he put his hands on his hips and looked up at the house. There was no front porch, as was common with Dutch Colonials, and three dormers stared back at him from the roof. From the side, as you came up the driveway, the framing was shaped roughly like an A, lending it a barn-like appearance. Out front, though, it was flat and kind of drab. Until I go to college, he told the structure, you and me are gonna be pals. 'Kay?
As expected, the house did not reply.
Which was good.
If it did, he was losing it and heading for a career not as a criminal psychologist but a criminal psychologee.
Was that a word?
He cocked his head. He wasn't sure. He didn't think so, though. In fact -
"Come here," Dad said, and Lugosi glanced over his shoulder. He stood with his arm around Mom's shoulders and wearing a dopey expression.
How could he say no to a face like that?
He went over and stood between his parents, Mom's arm slipping around his waist and Dad reaching up to squeeze his shoulder. A cold rush of wind swept over them, whipping Mom's hair around her face and fanning Lugosi's out behind him. They stared at the house, a snapshot of familial unity. "We can save most of the unpacking for tomorrow," Dad said. "We'll just grab the sleeping bags. That sound okay?"
Lugosi shrugged. Fine by him.
While he and Dad opened the back of the U-Haul and rummaged around for the bare necessities in the rapidly fading light, Mom disappeared through the front door. Dad found the bags and handed two Lugosi, then sifted through a box for candles and flashlights. Lugosi couldn't say he was particularly hard over the idea of spending his first night in an unfamiliar place surrounded by darkness. That's like sex - you gotta get to know the lay of the land before you go that far. What if it was infested with possums or something? Those things are scary as fuck; if he saw a white face and shining yellow eyes watching him from the shadows, he'd scream like a little girl and probably dive out the window. See ya.
There was no power, though, so...what was he gonna do?
Oh, wait, hold up.
His room had a fireplace.
Although, he didn't know what kind of condition the chimney flue was in. It could be fine, or it could be choked with soot and home to small animals.
Darn. For a second there he thought he was doing good.
Oh well. Possums don't bite unless you bother them.
He thought.
Dad transferred all the little odds and ends they'd need for the night - flashlights and candles included - into a smaller box, then nodded that he was done. They hopped out and, standing on the tailgate, Dad pulled the door down with a metallic clack. "Your bag's in the car, right?"
Before leaving, each one of them packed a bag with toiletries, extra clothes, and miscellaneous things. In Lugosi's was a John Douglas paperback: Mindhunter. Douglas was one of the FBI's first criminal profilers and interviewed hundreds of serial killers, mass murderers, and other violent offenders, which lead him to spearhead the development of advanced preventative tactics aimed at luring killers into custody like flies into a spider web. Lugosi didn't think of him as his hero, but for all intents and purposes, he kind of was.
"Yeah, it's there," he said, his mind already lost in the world of killers and the nobles geniuses who stopped them. He went over to the car, opened the back passenger door, and grabbed his bag; it was red with a white Nike logo across the front.
As he made his way across the yard to the front door, open and filled with darkness, his dread, which had settled, stirred again like cold ashes in a wintery December wind, and his step faltered. His stomach rolled sickly and the coppery taste of blood flooded his mouth. He winced and spat onto the grass, but his saliva was clear.
This was ridiculous. He took a sharp breath and went inside, his lips turned down in an uncharacteristic scowl. As soon as he crossed the threshold, the atmosphere changed...became heavier, pressing down on his shoulders like phantom hands. The smell of mildew wafted into his nostrils and his nose crinkled.
The front door opened on a wide foyer with wood floors - to the right and through another door was the living room, and to the left a room that Lugosi had no name for so he settled on 'living room 2: return of the living room.' Ahead, the stairs hugged the west wall while a hall serviced the kitchen. Feeble white light spilled from the archway, telling him Mom was...doing something. They didn't have any food or cookware so she wasn't making dinner or putting anything away. Maybe she was summoning food from the Realm of Meals? That's like Meals on Wheels, only it's the Grim Reaper who delivers it, and each time you have him over he takes five minutes off your life.
Still too lazy to cook?
Going left, he climbed the stairs into the deeper shadows of the second floor, his skin starting to crawl and his mind racing with a thousand different images, every horror movie he'd ever seen coming back to him in painstaking and glorious detail. You know who was really scary? Zelda from Pet Sematary, all pale and hunched and moaning. I'm gonna twist your back like mine so you can never get out of bed again...NEVER GET OUT OF BED AGAIN! What if she rushed out of the dark and -
His heart slammed and suddenly, for the first time he could remember, he was truly, honestly afraid, his stomach knotted and his vision straining. He froze as every muscle in his body tensed and the air drained from his lungs in a rush. Stop being an ass, he told himself, there is no Zelda, Jesus, what's wrong with you?
He swallowed thickly. Whether Zelda from Pet Sematary existed or not, the corridor was filled with menace now, and the shadows swirled around him like living beings - demonic pagans dancing round a bonfire in hell, moving faster as faster as the tide of their satanic lust rose until they were spinning around in a vortex of damned wails and scratching claws. He squeezed his eyes closed, forced himself to take a deep, calming breath, and let it out slowly.
When he opened them again, he saw only the physical absence of light, nothing more and nothing less. The atmosphere was lighter and the shadows no longer hid shapeless monstrosities. He was a normal guy in the hallway of a normal house who felt normal misgivings about moving from his longtime home and they were manifesting as ill-ease and dark thoughts.
Right.
Unclenching his muscles, he went to his bedroom, the last door on the right and directly across from the bathroom. The hall continued in an L shape and turned into the back stairs which lead down into the kitchen: Voices drifted up...his parents, but he couldn't make out words. In his room, he dropped his bag to the floor and took out a flashlight he jammed into his belt. He clicked it on and carved the beam through the darkness; cobwebs fluttered in the corners and dust motes flowed through the light like driving snow. He went over to window, beyond which full night had fallen, and glanced out, scanning the backyard for nothing in particular, or so his brain told him.
Nothing moved save for the surface of the lake.
Setting the flashlight down, he knelt down, laid his sleeping bag out against one wall, then went through his bag, taking out his toothbrush, toothpaste, and deodorant and lining them up on the floor. Something moved in his periphery and he whipped around, bringing the light up and revealing his father. Dad winced and held his hand up to block out the brilliance. "My eyes," he said. Huh. I could have sworn I just heard him in the kitchen.
Relaxing, Lugosi lowered the beam. "Sorry."
"We're thinking of ordering a pizza," Dad said as he came into the room, his eyes darting curiously around.
"Cool," Lugosi said and tracked his father's movements. His gaze landed on the fireplace and he remembered. "What kind of condition are the, uh, fireplaces in?" he asked and nodded toward it.
"Excellent condition," he said, his tone indicating that he was quoting someone directly, probably the realtor. "You thinking of building a fire?"
Lugosi shrugged. He was sitting on his butt now with his knees drawn to his chest, forearms jutting out on top. He started to speak, but stopped when something occurred to him. "I don't have any wood," he said.
Dad bobbed his head to one side. "Yeah, that's a pretty big drawback."
"Yep," Lugosi said and prodded the inside of his bottom lip with his tongue as he thought. Maybe he could rip up the floorboards and use those.
Nah, Mom and Dad would whip his ass with one if he did.
Looks like he was just gonna have to rough it.
Dad cast one final look around and went to the door. "Alright, I'll call you -"
Lugosi was already getting up. "Nah, I'll come down," he said, "It's pretty lonely up here."
And spooky, he thought, but did not add.
The character Lugosi belongs to Salvo1985 AKA tmntfan85. Ramona's mine. Happy Halloween.