The Dead Friends Society, page 23
Rose turned to Drew, who nodded back I’m ready before Rose could even ask. Rose moved to Eli next. She sized him up. He was practically shaking. Rose and Drew were ready to take a step into the deep, dark unknown. Eli wasn’t. He’d only be carried through by their confidence. Rose knew she needed to give him a boost.
“Oh, Eli. Eli, Eli, Eli.” Rose said, a sly smile curling her lips.
“What?” he asked, blushing.
“When you see what things are like in there, what we can do in there, I am going to blow your fucking mind.”
Rose took her first full step out of the basement and into the darkness. She looked over her shoulder. Drew followed first, and then Eli. After just a few steps, the three of them were completely swallowed in darkness. Rose looked back toward the basement. The entrance already looked hundreds of feet away. The impossible geography of this place was sinking in faster than she thought it would.
Drew and Eli both put a hand on Rose’s shoulder like they were kindergartners following a line leader. She could feel Eli’s hand shaking, his nerves threatening to overpower him. His anxiety was surprisingly infectious. The blackness around them was so oppressive it started to feel physical, like it was pressing down on Rose from all sides, filling her eyes and ears and lungs, and for a moment she wondered if it was possible to drown from pure despair.
But then she saw it.
A small, familiar rectangle of orange light grew on the horizon. Rose smiled at the sight. She started jogging toward the beacon in the darkness. But as they arrived, Rose’s heart sank. Her confidence imploded.
She’d been so sure she could lead them to The Fireman’s happy place, but that door was gone, replaced by another all-too-familiar door that filled Rose with a sickening dread. Rose searched around, desperate for another rectangle of light on the horizon, but there was nothing. They’d found the only island of light in an ocean of darkness, and it was the wrong door.
Chapter 31
Drew, Eli, and Rose stood slack-jawed outside the front door of Greywood House. The hand-made, wrought-iron number one stared back, taunting them. Drew had once marveled at the custom metalwork that went into it. Now she wanted to rip it off the door.
After all that running through the infinite darkness of the hollow side, they ended up back at the front door of goddamned Greywood House? Was this some kind of cruel, cosmic joke?
“I don’t understand,” Rose said, voice quaking. “Last time it was a different door, and it certainly wasn’t the door to our house.”
“It’s not our house,” Eli said matter-of-factly. “Look closer at the address. It’s not all rusted.”
Drew had to squint in the darkness to see, but sure enough Eli was right. When she’d first toured the house with her mom, there’d been a thin layer of orange rust on the metal. Two decades later, when Abbey and Javier moved in, the rust had spread from the brackets to the hinges of the door knocker. But right now, there was barely a hint of rust. In fact, the entire door looked… younger?
“Do you hear that?” Rose asked.
All three of them pressed their ears against the door. There was a dull thump of rock music coming from within. Rose reached for the doorknob but hesitated to turn it. She glanced at Drew and Eli, looking for permission. Both nodded. The door to Greywood House swept open effortlessly, as if its hinges had just been oiled.
As they stepped in, Drew was hit with a sense of Deja-vu so profound it felt like an out-of-body experience. This was indeed the same Greywood House they knew — the same foyer, the same hour-glass shaped living room, the same railing leading to the second floor — and yet, it was all wrong.
“What the hell’s going on?” Drew asked, though it was clear the others were also wondering. The first floor was filled with furniture that reminded Drew of her grandma’s house from the 1970s. She was a stubborn old lady whose refusal to update anything turned her house into a living time capsule. Every time she visited; Drew couldn’t help but marvel at how retro everything was. Unlike Grandma’s, however, this house was filthy. Beer cans were all over and a potent smell of weed hung in the air. A record player in the living room blasted Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy. It was on Side B, early on in “No Quarter,” near the end of the record, filling the house with drums and guitars.
“So, am I going to be the asshole who has to say it?” Eli asked, positively giddy. “We just fucking time traveled!”
His grin grew. Eli was loving whatever the hell was going on. Drew just wanted it to be over.
“It’s not time travel,” Rose said sharply. “We’re inside a memory.”
Eli scoffed, like Rose might as well have just said they were on the moon. It didn’t sound too crazy to Drew, though. She glanced out the open front door to the crushing horizon of hollow darkness that stretched off into infinity. Nothing seemed off the table at this point.
Drew closed the door.
Eli laughed. He couldn’t help himself. Every time he thought he had a handle on this whole afterlife thing, something insane came along to add new wrinkles. By the looks on their faces, though, laughter was the last thing on Drew and Rose’s minds.
“It’s just…” Eli motioned all around the foyer. “I thought when you died, you died. That was it. End of line. No heaven, no hell, just… nada. Zip. And here we are, motherfucking ghosts motherfucking Quantum Leaping our way through the afterlife.”
Both Drew and Rose laughed; polite, quiet chuckles that made him feel a little less insane for finding it all so absurd. “I mean, why wasn’t any of this shit in the bible? I’d have gone to church way more often if the priest said, ‘Before you get to heaven, you’ll be a time-traveling ghost.’” Eli said as he got a closer look at the ‘70s furniture in the living room. Then his entire body locked up in fear.
The Fireman was pacing back and forth on the far side of the living room.
“He’s here!” Eli whispered.
Drew and Rose huddled next to him in the foyer, as if that would somehow protect them. Eli became acutely aware of the hammer in his hand. Back in the real world, it seemed like a decent enough weapon. Holding it now, he felt like an idiot. What good would a hammer be against him?
But The Fireman didn’t attack. He didn’t even notice them. He paced back and forth on the far side of the living room, constantly readjusting the grip on his axe. He looked like a nervous batter waiting to step up to the plate.
“He can’t see us,” Drew whispered. Then why the hell are you whispering, Eli wanted to snap back, but stopped himself. They’d been standing in the foyer for a good minute before any of them even realized The Fireman was twenty feet away. He had the element of surprise the entire time, so why hadn’t he attacked? Was Rose right? Was this just a memory?
That’s when Eli noticed differences between this Fireman and their Fireman. Like the front door, this ‘70s version looked younger, newer? There were no bullet holes in his coat. His mask wasn’t shattered. There wasn’t a drop of blood on that damned axe.
“It’s not him,” either Drew or Rose said. Eli couldn’t be sure; his mind was too fried by the time travel to keep up.
“I mean, it’s him, but it isn’t, you know?” Eli said.
“He hasn’t killed anyone,” Drew guessed.
“Yet.” Rose said what they were all thinking.
Rose clutched her crystal so tightly its sharp edges stabbed into her palm. She knew in her gut the axe-wielding man stalking back and forth at the end of the living room wasn’t their fireman. Not yet. Tonight, was the night he was going to become The Fireman. The thought sent a chill up her spine.
Rose led them into the hollow side expecting to find his rotten soul hiding out in that Norman Rockwell family memory. She felt stupid for assuming that fireside vista was the only good memory someone like The Fireman would cling to. Of course a psychopath would come back to this, what she assumed was his first night of carnage. Rose didn’t know how many people he’d killed in the ‘70s, or even why, but she feared they were about to learn it all firsthand.
As if reading her mind, the ‘70s Fireman stopped pacing. He set his sights on the front door directly behind them. He marched toward it, his heavy steps sounding like another set of drums on the Zeppelin record. Drew and Eli moved out of the way, but Rose stood her ground. He’s just a memory, she told herself, but knew she had to prove it to the others.
“Rose! Hide!” Eli whisper-yelled, but Rose didn’t budge. She stood in the path of the ‘70s Fireman. And he walked right through Rose, passing through her as if she didn’t even exist. She was perversely proud to be right, even though she knew that being right about this being a memory also meant things were about to get very, very violent.
Right on cue, the ‘70s Fireman used his axe to smash the front doorknob clean off. The massacre was about to begin. The group huddled at the back of the foyer, watching with bated breath. Rose suspected the people in the house heard The Fireman’s axe break the doorknob and would come running.
But no one came. Even ‘70s Fireman seemed a bit surprised. He gripped his axe tighter, waiting for a fight that wasn’t coming.
“Where is he? Where’s the real Fireman?” Drew asked.
Rose took her eyes off the ‘70s Fireman and scanned the rest of the first floor. When she’d (accidentally) entered his memories the first time, The Fireman had been standing in the shadows of his own basement, watching his family. Rose became suddenly aware of every shadow in Greywood House. There were dark nooks and crannies all over the place. He could be in any one of them, re-living the memories of his first kills.
“He’s somewhere in the house, I just know it,” Rose said. She sensed The Fireman was a peeping Tom, only instead of creeping through some neighbor’s window, he was lurking in the shadows, getting off on his own memories. Right now, the memory wasn’t juicy enough to lure him in. Rose figured that once the killing started, the real Fireman would reveal himself.
And once again, as if reading Rose’s mind, the ‘70s Fireman sprung to action. He’d grown impatient waiting for his prey to show up and pounded the head of his axe against the floor over and over, creating the THUD-THUD-THUD the three of them knew all too well. He hit the ground hard enough to shake the record player. The needle scratched out of its groove and there was no more Houses of the Holy, only the quiet stillness of Greywood House.
Until the footsteps started.
The ‘70s folks hadn't heard him smashing the doorknob, but they’d definitely heard him banging on the floor. “What the hell are you doing?” A woman’s voice shouted from upstairs.
Drew’s heart raced when a woman appeared at the top of the stairs. She had feathered blonde hair and a pair of bell bottom jeans that looked uncomfortably tight around the waist. The woman buttoned her blouse up as she bounced down the stairs. She had the glow of someone who’d either just finished or just started having sex. Whichever it was, she looked pissed about being interrupted.
Right behind Bell Bottoms came a shirtless, muscular man with a mustache that would make Tom Selleck jealous. The Mustache man was grinning ear to ear. They’d definitely been fooling around right when ‘70s Fireman rang the proverbial bell. Drew felt even worse for them. They looked like such a bubbly, happy couple. They didn’t deserve what was bound to happen next.
Bell and Mustache slowed down on the steps when they spotted ‘70s Fireman, but they were more bemused than outright angry. “Hey buddy, ain’t no fire here.” Bell said. ‘70s Fireman stood at the front door, his breath quickening as they approached.
“I think one of your pole pals sent ya’ to the wrong house, Jack.” Mustache joked. Bell Bottoms giggled. ‘70s Fireman didn’t laugh. He stared at the two of them, sizing them up. He looked disappointed. Drew suspected they weren’t who he came here for. ‘70s Fireman thudded his axe against the floor a few more times.
“What’s your malfunction?” Mustache shouted, placing himself between Bell and The Fireman.
“What’s all the goddamned racket?” another man shouted from the kitchen. “You two better not be fucking out there.” The man trotted in through the dining room, head tilted back as he chugged a Pabst Blue Ribbon. He looked like Mustache’s brother, only with a thinner head of hair and a shaggy pair of mutton chops that reminded Drew of Quint from Jaws.
Not-Quint wasn’t nearly as bemused by the interloper as the others. He skidded to a stop in the dining room and jabbed an angry finger at his brother. “Did you let this motherfucker in here?’
“Do you know this guy?” Mustache fired back.
“What, are you too fucking stoned to put it together? He’s the guy!”
“What guy?” Mustache asked.
“What guy?” Not-Quint repeated, shocked his brother could be so clueless. “He’s the guy, numbnuts. He’s the fucking husband.”
Mustache’s brain caught up and in a second his entire body tensed and he held his hands defensively in the air to show how unarmed they were.
“Hey, hey, hey, buddy. That wasn’t our fault.”
What the fuck is going on? Drew thought.
“What wasn’t your fault?” Bell asked nervously, though the men ignored her.
“The cops cleared us, man. They got no proof we had anything to do with any of that.”
“No proof!” Not-Quint shouted.
“I’m sorry about your family, man, I am, but—”
“Don’t say another fucking word to this asshole.” Not-Quint interrupted. “He’s just trying to trick us into saying something we shouldn’t, because he knows they’ve got—” Not-Quint stepped toward ‘70s Fireman, all drunken bravado “—No Proof!”
Not-Quint threw the can of PBR at ‘70s Fireman.
But ‘70s Fireman was done listening.
He raised his axe high.
Bell screamed.
Eli felt like he’d Last Action Hero’ed his way into a movie. He was too embarrassed to admit it to Rose or Drew, but he was kind of enjoying it. Eli blamed the part of him that could never quite divorce the real world from the movies constantly looping in his pop-culture addled brain.
Until ‘70s Fireman raised his axe and the screaming started and slammed Eli back to reality real fast.
‘70s Fireman swung at Not-Quint but missed. His axe lodged in the floorboard at the drunk man’s feet. Not-Quint shouted to his brother to get the hell out, but ‘70s Fireman was blocking the path to both the front door and the dining room. Mustache and Bell had no exit.
“Where’s your gun?” Mustache shouted.
“I don’t fucking know!” Not-Quint yelled back.
Mustache slapped the wall in frustration. He grabbed Bell and took off for the second floor of the house. Eli presumed he was going to go look for the gun, which was when he remembered their Fireman was riddled with bullet holes and found himself excited at the prospect at least one of these yokels was going to blast the hell out of The Fireman. Eli couldn’t wait to see that happen.
“Does anyone see him? Does anyone see the real Fireman?” Drew asked.
“He’s not here,” Rose said, drawing Eli back to the reason they came. If he wasn’t there, why the hell did they even come?
“He’s not here because no one’s died yet. I’ll bet you anything he’s somewhere, waiting for the real murders to happen.” Rose theorized.
Eli watched Not-Quint run from ‘70s Fireman into the kitchen. ‘70s Fireman dislodged his axe and pursued. Rose followed the pair of them, but Drew and Eli hesitated. Rose shouted, “Come on!” over her shoulder as she headed toward the kitchen and—
FFFFFWWWTT
Rose disappeared into thin air.
Drew and Eli both screamed.
Rose was running into the dining room one second and the next she was falling into the basement. The sensation of teleporting made her want to vomit, but she was too overwhelmed to even manage that basic bodily function. Her head was spinning. This journey into the hollow side was nothing she expected. Her trip to The Fireman’s happy place was linear, this was anything but; then again, Rose admitted to herself, memories themselves are rarely linear. They were more dreamlike, crashing into one another without much reason.
There did appear to be a reason for her sudden teleportation, though. Rose hadn’t merely been teleported to the basement of Greywood House, she’d been brought to the precise moment Not-Quint was stumbling away from ‘70s Fireman, begging for his life.
Upstairs, Not-Quint had been all drunken bluster, but down here, alone, he was as scared as they’d all been in the face of death. Curiously, he wasn’t the only one who looked nervous. The axe was shaking in ‘70s Fireman’s hands, and Rose’s gut told her this was the moment of his first kill. This was when he went from being a man who could hypothetically kill someone to being a killer. That’s a Rubicon that, when crossed, tears a person’s soul apart. And Rose was about to see it happen.
Not-Quint held up his hands. His face was a blubbering mess. Rose couldn’t make out the precise words, but he was saying something about how it was all an accident, how they honestly didn’t know anyone was in that house, how they’d never kill those little kids on purpose. Rose believed him. Nobody could lie like that in the face of death. But ‘70s Fireman was too rage-filled to care.
He swung the axe. Rose wanted to look away, but something was telling her not to. She clutched her crystal and squinted her eyes as the blade penetrated the crying man’s neck and travelled halfway through his collarbone. Not-Quint stumbled backward into the center wall of the basement. As ‘70s Fireman yanked his axe out of the dying man’s neck, a geyser of blood erupted, painting the wall a deep, dark crimson. Rose gasped at the sight. The blood spray covered the exact spot the rot had formed back in their world.
