The Only House on Chanticlair Lane

A Short Story from Horrormaxx Vol. 1 by H.T. Boyd

“Glazer residence,” I answer the phone, curling its pigtail wire around the first finger of a hand of freshly painted nails. 

I hear nothing. 

I put a li’l extra cheese on my voice just in case it’s a potential client. “Hello? — Glazer Residence, You’ve got Narcissa the Babysitter—”

No response. I’d hang up, but I hear snapping and clicking on the other end. Must be a phone booth or a long-distance call. No doubt Mr. Glazer would be pissed if I hung up on somebody important. 

“Hello, can I take a message?” 

More clicking. Some faraway muttering. Suddenly there’s a pop and a whir like a tape rewinding. 

I hear a pair of raspy lungs, they talk directly into the speaker, “I-need-you-to-listen-very-carefully.”

The voice is thick and guttural, this is the voice of a dead man, a body in a coffin. It’s flecked with dust and cobwebs.  

“Jeffery-and-Alouette Glazer-are-dead,” the voice says. 

“Oh—Shit!” I say. I smack my own forehead. “Oh shit— Oh my God that’s— that’s so-so-so-so fucked!”

There’s a hard pause, it’s filled with more static. 

I grab my forehead. “Shit—sorry—for the—for the language—that’s just—that’s so awful—was it a car accident?”

The Rot-Mouth huffs air. My mind wanders to what the rest of my night looks like; babysitting for an orphan. I wonder if I’ll still get paid. 

“Hello?”

“No.”

“No, what?”

“No. It-wasn’t-a-car-accident.”

I hold the telephone wire to my chest. “Oh. Okay. Well, what happened?”

“I-killed-them.”

It feels like someone’s tossed my heart into a deep fryer. My mouth falls open, my limbs are suddenly spread with Novocaine. 

“I’m—I’m sorry?”

Old Rot-Mouth really bides his time, keeps me at the edge of my couch cushion. 

He speaks fast, “I-killed-Jeffery-and-Allouette Glazer. I-need-you-to-listen-very-carefully. Failure-to-heed-the-following-instructions-properly-will-result-in-your immediate-death.” Now he speaks slowly, “Do   you  understand   me?”

“Oh, um—Yeah—tote—totally.” 

“We-do-not-wish-to-harm-an-innocent-person-such-as-yourself, but-if-at-any-moment-you-stray-from-the-tasks-assigned-of-you—or-if-you-in-any-way-impede-our-mission-tonight, you-will-be-terminated-by-my-associates-waiting-outside-the-Glazer home.”

I’m baffled. This is a prank, surely. Surely this isn’t real. This is some sick puppy with a crush on me— or a disgruntled sitter who used to work under me. It’s Butterfingers Ben. Or it’s Gabriel from Chemistry II. Or it’s a deranged talk radio prank. Whatever it is— It’s not this— it’s not really this. Jeff and Alouette aren’t dead. I’m not a hostage. No. This only happens in movies. 

The tension finally breaks and I laugh. “Who is this?”

“Ask-another-question-like-that-and-you-will-be-punished.” 

I uncurl the telephone wire from my finger. The TV turns over to a commercial break, an ad for tampons of all things. I watch a woman’s hand, clean, pale skin; it dunks a cotton stick into a cup of blue water. The tampon sucks it all up and transforms into this soggy blue cylinder.

“Do-you-and I-understand-one another?” Rot-Mouth asks.

“I—Sure—Yeah,” my ear gets hot. 

“My-associates-waiting-outside-the-house-are-in-possession-of-a-police-scanner. If-at-any-time-you-notify-the-authorities, we-will-know-and-he-will-rush-into-the-home-and-terminate-you-long-before-any-police-can-arrive—  Do   you   understand?”

“Yeah—terminate me—” 

Jesus. Someone just threatened to terminate me. I’ve never gotten that one before. 

“My-associates-are-closely-watching-the-exits-to-the-home. Should-you-attempt-to-flee-the-Glazer-residence-before-your tasks-are completed-they-will-see-and-you will be promptly terminated. Do  you  understand? — — —  I-need-to-hear-you-say-that-you-understand. I-need-your-word.”

“Yeah, I—”

The phone jumps out of my grip, tumbling hard onto the black marble floor—Shit. Fuck. Goddam it. Tits. Fuck. Ass shit. Fuck. Double goddam it. 

I squat to the ground to try to retrieve the phone but my hands aren’t my hands anymore; they’re covered in fear butter; they’re wrapped in these pudgy trauma oven mitts. I might as well have been stung by bees. 

—

Ever since I started babysitting, all anyone could say to me was how scary it must be. I have other babysitters who work under me too, and when they’re first starting out, all they will talk about is how scared they are for the first few gigs. After the kid goes to sleep, they’ll just sit around in the dark, driving themselves up a wall as they wait for the exact kind of phone call I just got. 

I specifically blame horror movies for this. Just like they ruined camping, clowns, ventriloquist dolls, summer camps and hotels— horror movies lent this undue creepiness to an entirely boring enterprise. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I love a good horror movie. Especially the ones that open with the ceremonial dismemberment of a babysitter—some young, innocent thing getting slashed to confetti and strawberry syrup in the shower — or thumbtacked to the wall by a machete—but, thus far, here, in the real world, babysitting has been an easy ride. Stressful, maybe, at times, but, like I said, boring more often than not, and, I haven’t been dismembered or disemboweled by boring— and I’ve been at this for a long time. Almost four years now. 

While everyone else from my graduating class went off to the coast to bury themselves in student loan debt, I expanded an already thriving ‘sitting-empire’. I sit houses. I sit kids. Occasionally I sit dogs and cats. I do these things for rich people mostly and in a week of sitting-on-my-ass, I probably make as much money as a plumber. And, like I said, I also pimp out a few high school girls who do sitting for me. I’ve been told maybe that’s the wrong word for it, pimping, but they sit, under my good name, and I collect twenty percent. It’s a rock solid hustle.

I’ve made great money; fantastic money, and talk about vacation time; I get paid to vacation, every summer and winter break, I get a handful of multi-day, or even multi-week housesitting gigs for people who use seasons as an adjective. That’s hundreds of dollars in my pocket to occupy an empty home. Money earned by taking baths in luxury bathrooms and meandering about gardens like some nineteenth century princess—or pilfering the all-you-can-eat snack pantries of the wealthy, which are, more often than not, better stocked with snacks than your standard 7-Eleven.

Up until this phone call I’ve had the sweetest gig in all existence; a no-horror-movie type experience. No kids possessed by the devil, no basement ghosts, no chainsaw wielding intruders. There’s the occasional creepy dad who’s a little too eager to walk me to my car, I guess, but that just comes with the territory.  

I mean, don’t get me wrong, some bad shit has happened here and there— Once Krystal Fishcher of 4045 Mockingbird choked on a grape, but I Heimlich maneuvered that shit. Another time I was cat-sitting for an old couple on Mulberry, and one of their cats died on my watch—but—that cat was, like, forty years old or something. I mean, it was nothing—like this—it wasn’t horror movie bullshit; a double homicide and a death threat from a man with worms in his Adam’s apple. 

—I guess the luck had to run out eventually. I’ve just had it too good for too long, and what a more fitting gig for it to all go shit than this one; the Glazers and their creepy glass mansion at 7109 Chanticlair Lane. The Only House on Chanticlair Lane, they call it. I’ve also heard kids call it The Dollhouse or The Glass House or the Mirror House. And I think some kids actually call it The Last House On Chanticlair Lane, but that name doesn’t make sense. I’m sure there’s even more ‘spooky-word’-hyphen-‘house’ names that I just haven’t encountered yet.

Point is: it’s a creepy-ass house.  

Some context: a few years back, a developer tried building a neighborhood of luxury houses out here on Chanticlair Hill. About thirty minutes west from civilization; over the river and through the woods kind of shit. 

The developer only built one house though. This one (the one I might be terminated in). It’s a spec house meant to draw investors into the neighborhood, and, well, it didn’t draw any investors. 

Now 7109 Chanticlair Lane is something of an oddity; a strange, abandoned place atop a hill. The road here is freshly paved asphalt, it winds upwards through thirteen plots of razed land where the neighboring homes were never, well, raised. 

Kids like to say—and believe me, I babysit, so I know every boogeyman local legend from the supposed serial killer who works at the Stovington’s meat department to the legends of the monkey man who walks the streets at 3 A.M.—that a Manson-sex-devil-cult lives here or, that the house is a front for an underground genetics laboratory creating super soldiers. None of these things are true (I pray), but of course, rumors persist because A) kids are stupid and B) this house is generally off-putting atop its empty hill in the otherwise vacant pinewoods.

—What eats me is: I wasn't even supposed to be here. Annabelle, one of my best and brightest sitters, is on the schedule for tonight, but she gets quote-unquote bad vibes from the long, woodsy drive out of town. So, here I am. 

The babysitter in the— fuckkkinngg— horror movie with a murderer outside and a dead man talking to me on the phone. 

—

It takes me a shamefully long time to pick the phone back up, and the longer it takes me the more nervous I get that someone is going to walk in the front door and splatter my brains onto the TV screen.

—But I manage to retrieve it. I pull the plastic brick back to my ear.

“Hello?” The Rot-Mouth asks.

“Sorry—I dropped the phone—you have to understand, mister—this is all—new to me, sir, this is my first time as a hostage, I am… I am scared totally shitless.”

“That’s-alright,” he says, strangely sweet. “We-do-not-wish-to-kill-you-Narcissa. You-are-unwanted-collateral. Follow-our-instructions-closely-and-you-will-walk-away-with-your-life.” 

I sink down into a black leather cushion. The TV is playing a promotion for a detective show now. A handsome, mustached cop fires a flashy silver magnum at a bad guy. God, I wish I had a big mustache and a gun or a detective with those things to hide behind. 

“I’m—uh—I’m listening,” I tell the man. 

“You-will-complete-these-tasks-in-the-exact-order-that-I-give-them-to-you. Task The First: You-will-go-into-the-private-bathroom-of-Mr.-And-Mrs.-Glazer; in-the-master-bath-vanity-you-should-discover-a-bottle-of-Zolixa. You-will-take-out-two-capsules-and-administer-them-to-the-Glazer’s-son, Tommy.  Do   you   understand?”

“Drug the baby, got it.”

“Should-you-need-to, you-may-take-half-of-a-Zolixa-yourself-to-calm-your-nerves, but-the-choice-is-entirely-yours.”

“Okay; glad you’re looking out for me.”

“Task-The-Second. You-will-go-to-the-laundry-room-and-you-will-tear-out-the-drywall-on-the-left-hand-side-adjacent to-the-home’s-rear-exit-door. Removing-this-drywall-will-reveal-a-hidden-safe. You-will-enter-the-following-combination. Commit-it-to-your-memory: Twelve—Twenty-Seven—Seventy-Nine.”

“Hold on—I’ve got a pen—let me—let me just—can you say the numbers again?—”

“Twelve – Twenty-seven – Seventy-Nine.” 

With a pen once used for tonight’s crossword puzzle, (well let’s be honest, the celebrity word search) I scribble the numbers onto my left hand, looping them around my thumb.

“Upon-opening-the-safe-you-will-take-its-contents-and-place-them-into-a-sack-or-bag.”

“Okay, okay. Super-duper.” 

I say this to a man, a crazed murderer, like I’m helping him plan a bake sale. Oh God, do I have Stockholm Syndrome? Already? Or have I just hardwired my brain to always talk in customer service voice? 

He stalls again, I guess he’s surprised at how well I’m taking things.

“This-brings-us-to-the-Third and final task. By-the-time-you-have-collected-the-contents-of-the safe, Tommy-Glazer-should-have-fallen-into-a-sedated-sleep-state. You-will-take-Tommy-and- the-safe’s-contents-and-bring-them-to-my-associate-waiting-outside-the-home. So-long-as-you-do-not-do-anything-outside-of-these-instructions, you-will-not be-harmed.”

I whistle air, a sound someone might make before they plunge into a cold pool. “Alright—So, drug the kid. Find the safe. Open it. Empty into a— into a— a bag or something. Bring the kid and the money bag to your— what did you call him? Your associate?”

“This-is-correct—”

I hear a second voice, another man with a rotten, guttural, fish-man voice.

“Did you tell her the time limit?” He asks. 

It’s only now I realize they’re talking through a voice modulator. Of course it’s a voice modulator. No one really sounds so organically demonic. 

“Oh! Yes,” The original Rot-Mouth says. “You-have-twenty-minutes. The-timer-will-begin-now. Fail-to-complete-these-tasks-in-time-and-my-associate-will-storm-the-home-to-complete-the-tasks-himself.”

“—And-and—kill me—also—sorry—I have to assume.”

“Yes—he  will  kill  you.”

“Okay—I just wanted to confirm that little detail—so—uh, wish me luck, then, I guess.”

I grab my own face in shame. ‘Wish me luck’? 

And the fucker actually says it. “Good-luck.”

The conversation ends with a hard click. 

—

The timer starts. But, first things first, I have to wake my feet up. They’re shocked white. It feels like they’re full of sand. The nails are freshly painted on the left, the right are unpainted with cotton balls between the toes. This is what I was doing when I received the call. Feels like centuries ago, now. 

My stomach hurts. My head is full of bubbles and static electricity— It feels like a dream. I hate it when people say that. They always say it when something bad happens. But damn it if it isn’t true. I feel like I’m dreaming, and, God, what I wouldn’t do to just perk up from a nap.

I manage to stand. I try to catch my breath. I try not to fall over. 

My bare feet sound like globs of playdough dropping on a basketball court as I lightly sprint around this unmercifully quiet house. 

So, s’more context: there’s a reason they call 7109 Chanticlair The Dollhouse and the Glass House and a few of the other nicknames. It’s not just that it’s in the middle of nowhere on a creepy hill. Whatever psychopath architect designed this place went for a weird art-deco-modernist design thingy (look; I’m a babysitter, not an architect, I don’t know the fancy philosophy of construction terms). The insides have no doors. It’s all open concept; and that concept consists mostly of swirling black marble floors and ultra-minimalist furniture that looks like anal probe devices straight off the bridge of a UFO. The art that hangs on these untextured walls is all fru-fru post-Jackson Pollock stuff; it’s blood splatter and yellow specks, a maroon cloud on empty gray dust. The portrait that hangs above the fireplace, where a family portrait might normally hang, is a lonely framed canvas offering nothing but a splash of blue water like from the tampon commercials. 

This whole place is a modern art museum-rat-maze—But really—it’s the exterior of 7109 that’s the spectacle. The house is composed of three sugar cube boxes of white stone; their collective front is one colossal glass window that spans every wing, every room. 

When you pull up on the house during the day it’s like a gigantic black mirror, but, by night, it’s a dissected plaything; a house cut in half. A toy. A, well, dollhouse. If there’s any lights on whatsoever, an outsider can see nearly everything in the front facing rooms, and I mean everything, every Edison light bulb, every bottle of liquor on the wet-bar shelves, every oblong, seventy dollar throw pillow.

So, now, I walk upon cold marble floors, trying to remember how to do it naturally. Heel to toe. Heel to toe, Narcissa. I arrive in a dining room where a chandelier that costs more than my car hangs over a dining table that probably costs more than my house. As I approach my own reflection in the wall-spanning window-mirror, I’m sure that, if Rot-Mouth is to be believed, whoever is parked at the end of the lawn can see every freckle and every eyebrow hair on my head. 

I have to squint and focus beyond my own eyeballs. Sure enough, beyond the slope of an immaculate emerald lawn, beyond a border of cubed hedges—there are two headlights on a beat up van; a painter’s van. A big gray thing with a square face and rust on the body— it’s the exact kind of thing you’d expect a killer/kidnapper to ride around in. I try to read the license plate but—dammit—I can’t read. I’m too terrified to read. I’ve been scared straight into illiteracy. 

The van flashes its brights.

It’s a message. A very clear one; get moving. They honk the horn. It’s the second half of the message— or we’ll kill you. 

I wave. I don’t know why I wave. But I wave. A little hello to the people who will shoot me in the head if I fuck up.  

I have to stop trying to make people like me. 

—

On terrified jelly legs, I head for the grand staircase at the home’s entrance. It doesn’t help me any that the staircase is made to look like hovering platforms of dark chocolate candy bars. It gives me vertigo. It makes me nauseous, even in non life or death scenarios. 

There’s no guard rail either, so I stumble upwards like a newborn baby deer, hurling my gangly legs to get to the Glazer’s bedroom door. 

Zolixa, I say to myself, Zolixa, Zolixa. 

Feed the pills to Tommy. 

Tear down the wall in the laundry room.

Find the safe. Enter the code. 12.27.68. 

No. I check my new temporary tattoo; Seventy-nine. It’s probably the Glazer’s anniversary. Oh, of course it is, today is December 27th and they’re out tonight for their anniversary dinner. Oh—and how sad is that?—I think; the Glazers getting murdered on their anniversary—and it’s so close to Christmas. Who wants to die so close to Christmas? 

Fuck. I stop as I put my hand on the door to the master.

It occurs to me that Jeff and Alouette are dead people. I mean, I already knew that, but I guess the fact of it finally sinks in through the shock. I had just seen Jeff and Alouette. They’d been two people, you know, humans, real alive human beings with skin and faces and buttholes and hopes and dreams. I’d watched them descend those very same hovering chocolate bar stairs, what was that? Three hours ago? A little less? 

Jeff was in a white jacket tuxedo and Alouette was in a sparkling blue ball gown. They were going into the city; to some sushi place where a plate of sashimi is like 8000 trillion dollars, and afterward some minimalist Philip Glass concerto in the park—and the two of them—they were so, well, not just alive, but so pretty and so rich, and they were so bubbly-shiny-young in that way rich people are always bubbly-shiny-young. And they were alive. They were alive, and now, they’re what, they’re dead? 

Made to be dead. Killed is the word, I have to remind myself. Murdered.

I have to wonder, what did the Rot-Mouth do to them? Run their town car off a bridge? Poison their dinner? Cut the cables on an elevator— No, it’s the real world, not a cartoon. Someone probably just shot them in their heads. God. That’s so horrible. I hope it didn’t hurt. They were such nice people. Alouette was so pretty. She was from South Africa and had a little French-African accent. I mean, let’s be clear, her family made their fortune on blood diamond mines, but, she was a nice lady!—and she was still somebody’s mom—and, I mean, Jeff was a total creep. Like, five alarm cleavage starer, sociopath, chuckling at his own creepy jokes, but, oh, he didn’t deserve to be capped like some dog with rabies. Oh no. Oh God and they paid me so much money! And I just know my brain is gonna be so fucked up if I survive this. 

—

I soldier forth. I regain control of the meat suit that is my body and I push into the Glazer’s bedroom.

The master bedroom of this house has always reminded me of a lair for an evil ice witch. It’s got these snow white carpets and the walls are this snow white sand-stone. A chandelier is composed of eight descending snow crystals, illuminated by bulbs at their bases; it hangs right over a bed hole. Yes, a bedhole. For reasons I cannot comprehend, instead of a regular furniture bed, there’s a square hole in the room’s center; a sort of subterranean bird’s nest. It’s filled with pink silk blankets and these strange fish-scale-patterned body pillows. I’ve never dwelled much on this. I once thought it was a weird sex thing, but, really, I just think rich people buy stupid things, like bedholes, to feel special. 

I move past this; there isn’t the time to consider a dead couple’s bed. I get to the bathroom and stumble to a place above a strange cylindrical-pot toilet where a medicine cabinet hangs. I rip it open, and as it was so foretold, there’s an amber bottle of Zolixa. I’m still shaking so bad I struggle to get past the child-proof locking, but when I do I salt-shaker out a handful of pills.

They’re an off-white baby blue, the color of sleep.

Old Rot-Mouth gave me permission to have one. I consider it. I really do. Some drugs sound absolutely amazing right now, but, no, I shouldn’t. I can’t. What if I faint? What will happen then? I’ll die in my sleep. That’s awful. I would die not even knowing I was dying. 

—

It doesn’t quite hit me what I’m doing until I’m opening the door to Tommy’s room. 

Here I am, some hideous arm of a criminal enterprise, an accomplice, with a handful of knock-you-out drugs, sneaking into the bedroom of a sleeping child. 

I don’t turn on the light. I don’t want to scare him. 

While everything else in this house is sterile and menacing like a doctor’s office, Tommy’s room is very much the opposite. It’s a technicolor daycare of toys and books; it’s all round corners and foam and smiling faces. I have to navigate carefully around wooden train tracks, rubber monsters, and stuffed animals whose voice boxes would surely talk if I stepped on them the wrong way. 

Tommy is too old for a crib, but he sleeps in one regardless. He has a mobile of spinning plastic dinosaurs. I find him in their trance, a lump in the dark, no clue in his little head what’s happened to his mom and dad. His hilariously long eyelashes wriggle softly as he adjusts into a new sleeping position. He’s already out cold.

I imagine it. I imagine my task. I imagine taking the pills in my palm and waking up this dreaming child and feeding him drugs so he can be easily transported and shipped off in the back of a creepy painter van. 

It’s all so totally ew. 

They’re kidnapping him, I assume, for the maternal grandparents’ ransom money. See; Jeff Glazer, he’s not poor by any means; him and his brother, Charlie, are orthodontists. They developed a new kind of minimally invasive headgear for braces. I mean, they’re not gonna buy their own island with braces money, but they’re quite comfortable. Alouette, on the other hand, is where the money really comes from—or rather came from, I guess. She’s dead now. I have to keep reminding myself this. 

Alouette Glazer, formerly Alouette Argestes, came from the Argestes family—(ever heard the expression, pawn your testes, buy Argestes?) – well, their company slogan is literally just THE BEST DIAMONDS if that gives you a hint about what they do. It was a big deal when Alouette came to our town, and, well, it shouldn’t surprise you to hear she does have private island money. I mean her family quite literally has a private island. Two, in fact. One is near Costa Rica and the other is off the coast of Maine (I think, I could be wrong, it might have been Virginia—but—but this really doesn’t matter right now). 

It's awful. It’s all so awful. Not the private island part, the kidnapping. I’m sure if they cut off little Tommy Glazer’s big toe and mailed it to Grandmama and Grandpapa Argestes in South Africa, they would pay the equivalent of Canada’s GDP for his safe return.

Gross. Wealth is gross. Money is gross. You know what I think? I think there probably wouldn’t be crimes like this if we just made it a little less terrible to be poor. If we just had nationalized healthcare, and better wages for teachers, and if we had food recycling programs that took all the food waste from restaurants and repurposed them for food banks. My friend Zara works at a restaurant and do you know how much edible food goes in the garbage every day?

Focus on the task, Narcissa. 

In the dark, I stand over Tommy with two Zolixa pills, their sugar skins smudging blue in my palm. 

The kid bites his lower lip. Little orphan. My little orphan. Just an hour ago I was reading him a book about a stuffed bear who came to life. My eyes swell up. 

Tommy is—well, he’s three. There’s not a lot to a three year old. He’s blonde. Pampered. He hates hairdryers. Hates the sound of a toilet flushing. Likes anything with dinosaurs, and he seems awful fond of pizza—or more accurately, he likes to smash pizzas with his tiny pink fists. 

I imagine force-feeding this sweet, spoiled, overgrown toddler a near lethal dose of benzos and it just—it just defiles the integrity of my babysitting empire. 

—I don’t do it. I don’t dose the kid. They won’t know, I promise myself. He’ll be confused. He’ll be sleepy. It’s not like they’re going to drug test him to confirm I did it. I mean, what if he dies? What if two pills is too many and he doesn’t wake up? That’s a dead kid on my hands. Not on the kidnappers. 

I kind of move my hands toward his mouth, you know, in case they can see. In case they’re watching, (certainly they can see me, one whole wall of this room is made of glass)—but it’s not like they can see a pill from two hundred feet away. So, when the act is over I toss the sleeping pills into a pile of stuffed animals and I flee.

—

“Step Two,” I say it out loud, now, “The safe—”

When I venture down the stairs I give a big goofy thumbs up to the van waiting outside. I really try to sell it—yep, I just gave that kid the pills! You could drop a brick on him and he wouldn’t even flinch! 

My mind’s eye is forced to imagine whoever it is that’s out there in the van. I hate to stereotype, but I imagine a guy in a wifebeater, and he’s probably got a gold chain necklace. Maybe he’s smoking a cigar and he’s got KID and NAP tattooed across his knuckles. Maybe he’s a professional kidnapper. Maybe he went to college at Kidnapping University where he majored in ransom letters and minored in ether rag soaking. 

Focus! Narcissa, Focus! 

I get to the laundry room, adjacent to the kitchen and rear exit.  

Even the Glazer’s laundry machines are these bizarre sci-fi warp engines with keyboards and digital displays. God, I just don’t get it—but, I focus on my mission. The sooner I empty the safe, the sooner I can hand the kid off and— if these thieves are to be believed— the sooner I can be done with this whole bullshit.

I hit the eye-level drywall by the rear exit door with my bare fist, but this hurts. Quite a lot, actually. Realizing a better strategy, I take a broom and I smash at the wall like it were a piñata. Once I’ve hit a decent hole, I begin to peel away at the chunks of drywall. It breaks off in big shards, the way a graham cracker breaks, and the dust forces me to sneeze. I pull more and more wall away and reveal the home’s ugly guts of electrical wires and framing wood and that pink cotton candy stuff that keeps the cold out. 

Sure as the Zolixa was predicted, I find a safe. It’s at my nose level, about two feet from the rear exit door frame. It’s a thin, beige box; a brown logo on the door reads, in italicized words: SAFE’N’SOUND PREMIUM. 

It’s an electric safe, one with a numerical keypad. How fancy, I think, how high tech. And thank God because my panicked hands could not manage a spinning dial right now. I put in the combination: 12. 27. 79. It beeps. A green light flashes. It clicks. I pull the handle. 

A small part of me can’t help but feel excited, hey, hidden wall treasure is still hidden wall treasure am-I-right? I dream of all the things that could be inside; documents from the CIA? A jar with alien eggs, maybe, like, a splinter of the cross they crucified Jesus with?

Of course, the safe’s contents consist of nothing but velvet black bags. I open one up and the inside shines like a glitter-soaked birthday card. It confirms my suspicion; it’s diamonds. Bags and bags and bags of diamonds. This is a safe in the house of an heir to the Argestes family, after all, it makes sense. 

I could pocket one, I think. The laundry room is mostly hidden behind the kitchen; it’s one of the few spots where I am totally obscured from the front yard van watcher. I could probably put a whole bag in my pocket and no one would notice—but—then again—the police might, and maybe they’ll think I was in on it—and they’d probably arrest me. And jail doesn’t sound very nice. 

So, with no reward for myself, I scramble for the kitchen and tear into a trash can where there’s a marinara stained shoe box (for a new pair of men’s ski boots). It’s kind of the perfect size, really, and the pizza sauce lends it an element of disguise. You know, who is gonna think there’s millions of dollars in diamonds contained in a sauce stained shoe box?

So, I go to the safe and dump in every diamond bag. It fits. Perfectly. Even in the chaos you have to appreciate the little things. It’s like the shoe box was made for the contents of that safe. I put the top back on. Tuck it under my arm.

A sound erupts behind me. It’s ear-splitting loud; a sound like—like a sneezing robot. It’s nothing short of a miracle that I don’t shit my pants then and there. It’s the phone. The damn Glazers couldn’t have a normal phone with a normal bell ringer. No. They have a rich people high-tech electronic phone that rings with a noise like a warbling ray-gun.

On pure instinct I go for the receiver before it can reach the second ring.

“Hello?” I beg.

“Good evening, this is Officer Weathers with the Trimbur County Sheriff’s Department.”

Do I hang up? Should I hang up? I should absolutely hang up. 

“Hello?” the officer asks again.

“Uhhh, hi,” I say, and then shake my head vapidly, trying to kickstart my brain. 

“Who, may I ask, am I speaking to?” the officer now says. 

I should hang up, but, my mouth just starts going off without my brain’s approval. “This is Narcissa Ruiz— I’m babysitting for the Glazer’s tonight.”

I dart my eyes at the gaping windows at the front of the house. There’s nothing to see there, only a mirror, but, there’re men, killers, lurking beyond that mirror and they’re watching my every move. No doubt they can see the colossal phone at my ear. 

I cover my mouth and bury my neck into my shoulders, I turn around and head back to the cover of the laundry room. 

I continue, “Is there—a—problem?””

“I’m afraid so, ma’am. There’s been an incident. We’re afraid Alouette and Jeffery Glazer are dead.”

I really do try to sound surprised, like this isn’t the second time I’m hearing this information,  “Oh.”

“We believe they have been the victim of a car bombing.”

“OH!” Now I really am surprised. 

“Aloutette died en route to the hospital, but Jeffery got the worst of it. He’s been marred beyond recognition—we’ll have to identify him with dental records—”

Those are some colorful details, officer Weathers, I think, but don’t say. 

He continues. “We’re sorry to do this to you, but we’ll be sending an investigation unit out to the Glazer residence in the next hour or so. Can you monitor the property until then?”

“Uh—yes, of course,” I stammer. “—An hour sounds fine, totally fine, but, could you maybe get here a little sooner? Like—immediately, maybe even?”

“Is there a problem?” The cop asks.

Oh, I should shut up. I should shut up. I should absolutely shut up the mouth that is on my face. 

But I don’t. “Yeah,” I nod. “There’s a pretty big problem out here.”

“Lock the doors we’ll send a—” 

POP! GEEEUUUSSHHH. 

Gunshot! Gunshot! GUNSHOT! It’s a gunshot I’m sure of it. Everything goes real bright and then everything goes completely black. 

The phone falls from my hand, the diamond box falls from my elbow crook. I let out a death-shriek. I feel around my chest for fresh and bleeding holes. Am I dead? I’m dead, aren’t I? Jesus, this isn’t the afterlife, is it? Just blackness and my own endless thoughts? Hell would be preferable to this. Is this hell? Just my own inner-monologue on a blank slate?  

My eyes adjust. I make the shape of a kitchen; the laundry, all shrouded in black and gray-blue. I guess it wasn’t a gunshot, it was the power shutting off. I’m relieved, but only for about the single second of realization that I’m not a corpse. Terror returns in the second following where I realize that someone has purposefully shut off the power. I peak my head out of cover. Beyond the foyer and dining room, where there was once a giant mirror, there is now a true, gaping view-hole into the night. Beyond it, framed by the stars and faraway black pinewoods, the kidnapper’s van sits beyond the hedges; its headlights off. Its driver’s seat empty.

Rot-Mouth and Rot Mouth’s associate, they’re coming for me. I can’t see them, but they’re out of their van and they could be anywhere. 

Shit. Fuck. Stupid. Fucking. Goddam. Rich. People. Spooky house. Shit gig. Shit Business. Fucking midnight movie bullshit. Fucking Annabelle canceling because she’s scared of the woods. Bullshit! 

Scrambling, I hide the box of diamonds in the washing machine, just to get them out of my hands. Then, maybe it’s out of some kind of maternal instinct, I don’t know, but I book it for Tommy’s room on the second floor, crawling up the stairs on all fours like a champion greyhound.

As soon as I get into his room I hear glass shatter downstairs. Something is coming. Something is coming to kill me, just like they promised. Now I’m going to die. I’m going to die two days after Christmas. My poor mom and dad, this is gonna ruin all their future Christmases. And mine too. Because I’m going to be dead for every Christmas! Fuck. Ew. 

I descend over Tommy’s crib. 

“Naw-cissa?” The little idiot asks as he comes awake with a strobing blink.

I manhandle the kid into my arms without any delicacy. 

“Shut up,” I swear. “Keep your mouth shut!”

I throw him and myself into the darkness of his walk-in closet (yes, he’s three years old and has a walk-in closet). It’s another mess of boxes and old clothes and stuffed animals. It’s dark here. It smells like mothballs, but it feels safe. 

His voice is small, it’s the way a cartoon mouse talks. “What happun?”

“Shut up. Just shut up. Keep your mouth shut!”

He squirms against my chest and kicks at me.

I listen. I listen over my own pounding heart and this fidgeting orphan.

There’s footsteps. They’re coming up the stairs. Is it one person or two? I can’t tell. I try listening for the feet, but I'm not a spy. I’m not a blind person with heightened hearing abilities—and Tommy keeps making this grunting noise. I shake him. I whisper scream into his ear to sit still. 

All I hear is movement. Maybe it’s one guy, maybe it’s ten guys. Maybe it’s the devil himself on goat hooves, I really don’t know. 

Whatever it is, it’s in the hallway. It’s getting closer and then it’s getting even closer. 

“Daddy said Unk’yl Chykgo’come?” Tommy mutters some stupid squealing bird-peep question and I don’t have the patience to translate. 

I can only shake him, and wrap my hand around his tiny lips. “Shsshhhuuttt up. Shut up. Shut up.”

I decide I need a weapon. This is it. God, they’re probably armed. I’ve never thought about how fucking terrifying a gun is until one was coming down the hallway for me. It’s always machetes and knives in the movies— I wish I was being attacked by someone with a machete or a knife. I’d have a chance at least. What is a gun if not just an off-switch for my circulatory system? 

Closer. Closer. Closer.

“Is’Ch—” Tommy peeps and I squeeze my hand around his stupid lips.

A weapon, I think. I reach around, quiet as I can. 

There’s a thin strip at the closet’s base. It glows yellow as a figure walks past with a flashlight. 

The invader is standing at the crib. He’ll be at the closet any second. God, why did I hide here? I reach for the nearest physical object I can find. It’s something wooden, boxy— nothing more than a toy. But—it’s heavy—it’s heavy and it’s something to smack with.

The closet handle jiggles. 

The door swings open, and on the other side there is only the blinding beam of a flashlight. 

Tommy shrieks, I close my eyes, I wildly stab with the caboose of what turns out to be a toy train. It strikes at the empty air in front of me. 

The invader shrieks himself, a low-winded, shocked grunt. His body moves. The flashlight moves. It all happens so slowly, I see a gloved hand struggling with a belt and then—silver— a tube with a hole and a hammer—is that a gun? It’s a gun!

‘Pop’. It makes a hollow noise— like a balloon or a tire popping—it’s—it’s followed by another shot. I watch the barrel ignite. I watch an explosion and a puff of smoke. This is the stuff that happens in nightmares, not real life. A gun is going off—at me. Three feet away. Impossible to stop. I see the cylinder spin. I see the muzzle flash. I smell the smoke. My hands try to catch bullets, but hands can’t catch bullets. 

He fires a third time and my body feels the hit. 

I’ve been shot! My hand! My finger! My head! But, again, most importantly, my head! It’s the last place you want to get shot. The bullet flew through my open hand and into my open mouth, it hit my lips, it struck my two front teeth, exploding them on impact! I have been shot with a bullet! It’s like getting stung by a bee, or maybe it’s more like getting fast work done by a clumsy dentist. I feel it, and I don’t feel it too. There’s no pain. Just a sentience of dead and burning nerves working their way into my gums and my throat. 

Tommy drops from my grip. My hands cover my mouth as if I’d just been caught saying a dirty word. 

The figure, this invader in black, he fires his gun a fourth time and I don’t feel it. I’m already dropping for the ground.

I’m dead aren’t I? Earlier was a fluke. Now, I’m really dead. For real this time. I saw the gun go off at my face. I saw a hole plop into my hand. I didn’t feel the final shot because I’m dead. These are the first moments of the afterlife. There’s a white ring, it builds around my peripheral vision. I’m a specter. I’m a phantom. Am I an angel? When I stand back up will I be standing over my expired corporeal form like Casper the friendly fucking ghost? 

In what I assume are my last moments as a living person, I see black boots encroach on a confused Tommy, they corner him in the closet. He makes a noise like a chimp being forced into a paper shredder as he’s scooped up by the black clad boogey man. 

Up into his arms, Tommy goes, he tantrums, but he is a twenty-eight pound toddler and his abductor is 300 raw pounds of muscle in a ski mask.

They leave. The two of them. The sounds of boots and toddler screams fade into the hall and then down the stairs where I hear the young boy leap from his captor and give chase. 

I feel the carpet against my face. I feel shattered teeth and blood gathering around my lips and chin. I taste it, I taste my mouth, it’s like dirty meat on a barbecue. Pennies and grimy quarters. There’s grit, like sand. It’s my exploded teeth and bits of bullet. My tongue feels around and the still hot kernels of what used to be teeth. 

I feel my heart—racing, ten thousand beats a second.

I guess it means I’m alive. 

—

I bleed. I lie. I taste nasty tastes. 

I hear the front door. 

I’m really alive, aren’t I? I’ve just taken a gunshot to the head and I’m alive. Is there a hole in my brain? Am I going to be like— what was that guy’s name? That guy who had a train-pole-thing running through his head. Phineas Cage? Phineas Gauge? I guess If I can remember the obscure story of Phineas Gauge I’m not brain damaged. So, that’s nice. 

I roll my tongue around. There’re missing teeth and a new hole in my face. I hold out my right hand. The hand I write with and also tried to catch a bullet with. From what I can see in the faint, gray light, the bullet went through the place where my pointer and middle finger meet. A weirdly thin blood oozes from a gnarly black hole here. I move my fingers and I see the little puppet string tendons that are supposed to be hidden by the skin. 

Oh! So totally gross!

I turn my attention upward; it’s hard to see in the dark, but, sure as my heart still beats, there’s three bullet holes in the drywall at the far side of the closet. He shot four times and I only got shot once and—Jesus, what a terrible aim he is—that was point-blank range!

I pick myself up and feel around my face with my left hand, my remaining, good hand. My top lip is split evenly into two pieces at the perfect center below the nose, and— my front two teeth are—Oh, I just need to see it. 

I get to my feet and race for the master bathroom. Like an idiot, I flicker the light-switch a dozen times before remembering the power’s been cut. Luckily, or maybe unluckily, there’s enough moonlight from the window to see my reflection in the mirror.

I’m honestly shocked there’s so little blood. I mean, don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of blood. There’s tons of the stuff, it drips down my chin and neck and ruins my favorite yellow jumper— but, the way it felt, I was expecting Overlook Hotel elevator levels of gore. I’m still quite disfigured. I might have only gotten one bullet, but damn, that bullet got me good. There’s a hole, it’s in my lips, and above it too, it’s a gorey absence of skin where Hitler’s mustache was. Beneath it are two exploded dud-teeth that lead to a small scab of scorched gums. Other teeth are chipped, the nose is freckled with burns the size of pepper flakes. I take my left hand and feel at my upper lip—I can move the two mouthy flesh hunks independent of one another. 

I won’t be kissing anyone again anytime soon, I think. That’s just a silly little joke. Just a joke to keep from fainting. 

“Fuck!” 

There’s nothing else to say, my voice is wet with blood. The sound misshapen by the tear at the center of my face.

There’s a noise. Downstairs. The front door opens. I squeal. 

I drop to the floor as soon as I hear it. He’s coming back for me.

I hear something— it’s talking— he’s talking. There’s more than one of them!

“—What was I supposed to do? She attacked me! It was self-defense!”

“She was part of the story, Chuck, the narrative— the babysitter was gonna keep us insulated—clean! Sell the story! You’re sure she’s dead?”

—Maybe that’s Rot-Mouth, the second voice, just without his scrambler—

“Four headshots, man—point-blank—God, it was terrible. I’m pretty sure I saw a part of her brain fly out! Man, her fucking brain!”

I don’t know what this guy thinks he saw but my brain is still in my head, thank you very much. 

“I feel awful. Aw, man, I didn’t want to kill her! She babysat for me once, man. She babysat Kevin. I gave her a ride home. She was just a kid! I popped her head, man! She spooked me and I popped her fucking head! I popped her fucking head!”

“Alright—alright—keep it together, alright? She’s gone! It happened. It’s done. Where’s Tommy?”

“I don’t know, man! He bit me! He ran off!”

“He bit you?”

“He bit me! I dropped him! He ran away!”

“Jesus Christ, Chuck! Where are the diamonds!”

“I don’t know!”

“Chuck!”

“I know! I know! I fucked it all up! I’m sorry!”

I don’t make a sound. I tip toe into the master bedroom and just—listen. They hurry through the house and make their way for the laundry room.

Their voices are more faint now, but, sound has a way of echoing on those hard marble floors. 

“Well, she got the safe open, but where’s the payload?”

“Is it not there?”

“Are you blind; It’s empty.Weren’t you watching her? Did you see what she put it in?”

“No— I-I-I- I couldn’t see her!”

“What do you mean— It’s a glass house!”

“Yeah, and the laundry room is hidden! I don’t have x-ray vision. I looked away for a second, just a second, when I looked back, she was on the phone. I thought you were in the backyard, why didn’t you see it?”

“I was at the fuse box in the cellar—Goddamit, Chuck!—“

“Just forget the diamonds, man, fuck it! Let’s find Tommy and we’ll get out of here before the cops show up. No doubt they’re already on the way!”

“There’s fifty million dollars in diamonds around here somewhere, Chuck—expat cash—start over cash.”  

I hear boxes clatter. I hear drawers slam open and shut. 

“I’ll find Tommy, you go back upstairs and check the babysitter.” 

“—Check the babysitter! Why?!—”

“She probably had the diamonds on her, moron. Go! Go look!“

“—But—”

“Chuck, it’s a dead body. She can’t hurt you anymore. She probably has the loot on her; go look! NOW!”

—

BirdShit. Dogshit, Pigshit. Giraffe-shit. Goddamit. Bigfoot shit. Tits. Antichrist. Fuck it all.

Chuck, my would be murderer works the stairs. They’re not easy for him either —(they really are, just, not ergonomically friendly stairs)— I try to remember all the Chucks I’ve babysat for. Maybe a few Charleses, a Carl here or there, a couple of Charlies, but I don’t remember a Chuck—or a Kevin, for that matter. I’ve done a lot of babysitting, I can’t remember everyone.

Either way, I watch from the shadows of the master door frame as this massive figure takes to the stairs. Puffy jacket and ski-mask, he bumbles over the high arch steps in bulky mountain boots. In ten seconds he’ll be back in that closet and see that I’ve disappeared like Mikey Myers and he’s gonna start looking for me. 

I could play dead, I think OR I could jump out the window and run like hell—but these don’t seem like smart options. They really just sound like ways to get shot again or break a limb. 

So, I’ll hide, I decide. I’ll hide real good and these two idiots will find their diamonds and leave the house— they’ll leave the house—with Tommy screaming in the back of their van. 

Goddamit. I can’t let a fresh orphan leave with these kidnappers. 

You know, doctors take a hippocrackaddict oath, or whatever, to first, do no harm. I wonder if there’s not a hippocrackaddict oath to babysitters. What’s Latin for “Do Not Let The Child Get Kidnapped”? 

I have to do something. Conquer while they’re divided. 

But what?

Chuck reaches the top of the stairs, I hear him return to Tommy’s room. He whimpers to himself when he sees the empty spot of carpet where my dead body is supposed to be.

“Oh shit,” he cries, under his breath. “Oh shit, oh, shit, oh shit.” 

Yeah, ‘oh shit’, Chuck. The feeling is mutual.  

I dive for the underside of the master bath sink. It opens with a soft squeak, but I don’t think anyone could hear it. Inside is a supply of toilet paper, soap and some cleaning products. A few candles (lemongrass scented, that sounds nice).

God, Jesus Christ, I know I haven’t been to Mass in eight years, but can you give a girl a revolver hidden underneath this sink? Maybe a bazooka? Or at least one of those tiny baseball bats?

I dig around. No gun. No tiny baseball bat. No bazooka. 

—I watch a lot of children’s programming. There’s this PSA they always run with this red puppet with googly eyes—and he sings a song about not drinking the stuff under the sink. But which stuff, little puppet? Toilet bowl cleaner? Drain declogger? Spray deodorant? Why couldn’t the puppet have explicitly stated which chemicals can be weaponized in an emergency situation? 

I hear Chuck in the guest bedroom down the hall. I panic and I can tell from his muttering and the way he’s throwing the doors that he’s panicking too. At least he’s too embarrassed to call for his accomplice. 

The two of us are on a collision course now and neither of us are particularly fond for committing murder. This is gonna be a shit show. 

C’mon. C’mon. I keep rearranging stuff in the sub sink shelves like a desperate gambler at a slot machine. Where is my assault rifle? Where is my katana?

Beside another scented candle, I find a measly plastic lighter, and with that, I grab the closest thing that says the word flammable on it. 

—

Chuck yells, right outside the master, “Hey! Have you found Tommy?”

“What?”

“Have you found Tommy?”

“No,” Rot-Mouth calls back. “Did you get the diamonds?”

“No— they weren’t on her. Should we go?—let’s just go man. Let’s go.”

“Two more minutes! Check the master!”

“Oh. Okay.”

Chuck creeps in, “Hello?”

His gun is drawn, he holds it beside his flashlight. The beam trembles. He’s more scared than I am.

“Um—Police! Uh—Police department! Please show yourself.” 

Yeah, nice try, what cop walks in with a ski mask, Chuck? Is this really the best you got? I watch him from my new hiding place behind an armoire as he carefully maneuvers around the bed-hole.

“Hello?”

He gently opens the door to the bathroom and whispers again, “He—Hello?”

I try to quiet my breathing. My mom made me take clarinet in middle school. I always hated it, but it taught me to inhale as I exhale; who knew Clarinet was training for guerilla warfare stealth operations. 

I pop up my head from behind a boxy armoire. Chuck is in the bathroom. He has his back to me. He flings the shower curtain open, revealing nothing but a criminally oversized bathtub. I then catch him staring at the floor. He’s studying something; It’s my blood. I left plenty of it over there as the new holes in my face and hand bled during my search for a weapon.

Sweet, innocent Chuck, not an ounce of killer instinct in his little head. He sets his flashlight down—and—then—truly a miracle—he sets his revolver down too. He removes a glove and dips it into my pool of mouth blood. He tastes it.

“Blood,” he says, to himself.

Yeah, Chuck, it’s red and stinks like pennies. It’s blood. Congratulations, you’re a regular Nosferatu. 

Hear me out, I’ve never wanted to kill someone before. It’s not something I’ve ever had the inclination to do; maybe I’ve wanted to wring the odd brat’s neck, but, I’ve never wanted to amputate someone’s soul from their mortal coil, especially not with fire–but, my hands are kinda tied here, and, I don’t want to do it half-assed like Chuck did me. I need to be confident, I remind myself—I need to be a warrior. I need to be a big mustached prime-time detective, and, now I sort of do have a big mustache, made of blood, so maybe I look the part. 

Now, if bad babysitting gigs have taught me anything, anything at all; it’s how to be scary. So, with clarinet trained lungs and five odd years of screaming at children mid-tantrum, I take a deep, powerful breath, I take in as much air as I can.

I firmly grasp my weapons and I storm Chuck’s backside. 

I release my breath first; I shout. Not an ordinary shout. Not a frightened girlie scream. It’s more of a roar; it’s a noise like a, well, like a girl who doesn’t want to die, but just got shot in the face might make. Blood, spit and little bits of lead fly out on a tremendous burst of sound. 

Chuck is too startled to go for his gun, but, he won’t have enough time anyways. With my right hand I squeeze a bottle of nail polish remover; a thin, stinking, alcohol concentrate soaks into his ski mask, the back of his jacket and the seat of his pants. 

Moving quick, I then pocket the nail polish remover, take a lighter and a bottle of spray deodorant. I learned this one from a brat named Lucas Marsh; the Terror of 6767 Branchland Court. Worst kid I ever sat. Who’d have thought his makeshift recipe for a flamethrower would go on to save my life.

Just as Lucas had tormented me when I was sixteen years old, I torment Chuck. With blood-wet and ripped up fingers, I snap the lighter while the other hand triggers a can of aerosol deodorant and runs the spray through the flame to make a persistent fireball. 

Fire kisses Chuck, but, it’s really the nail polish remover that does the job. It erupts into blue flames. Soaked wool and cotton catch fire in shades of glowing blue and green. The polyester melts. 

Chuck ignites like the last firework at a Fourth of July show, and he screams like one too. I jump away. I fall backwards out of the bathroom and tumble into the bedhole, nearly breaking my neck on the frame. I scramble back to a stand. Pull myself out of the bed. 

I hadn’t planned any further than this. I guess I had assumed that Chuck would just explode and be dead, but, Chuck is very much alive and he’s very much on fire and he’s very loud and angry as he comes thrashing out of the bathroom.

Fire is on his knees. His elbows. His hands. He makes this odd, masculine, elephantine roar as he bounces and sparks, and, as he flings himself around the master bedroom like a pinball he sets little fires all around the room. He sets fire to sections of the carpet. He throws himself against a north wall curtain and sets those on fire too. He begins to strip. A glove flies off. So does a jacket. He manages to take off his mask, where a semi-recognizable face and bald head are obscured by fire. He pats himself down as he throws himself against walls.

I back into a corner, my fire starter chemicals held over my heart.

Oh, God, I have to finish him. I have to finish him off or he’s going to put these fires out and choke me to death. 

The first time was pure adrenaline and self defense, kicking him while he’s down just feels—cruel. But I do it. I do it because I have to. Because if I don’t, he’ll eat me, or beat me, or rape me, or put me in his van and take me to another country. So, I meet him halfway as he flails towards the dresser. Before he’s even seen me; I douse him with the remainder of the nail polish remover, flinging the liquid like a pope flings an aspergillum (that’s the holy water flinging thing. It’s called an aspergillum. I was a Catholic. Sorry, that’s just what it’s called).

The remainder of the alcohol concentrate soaks into Chuck’s bare face flesh, sinking into his pores, getting into the corners of his eyes. I then ignite it with the aerosol flamethrower.

It doesn’t seem real; the way Chuck’s face melts into an overexcited Jack-O-Lantern; his eyes close, the mouth opens and sucks in fire. The skin melts off chunky cheeks, like rubber. The hair of his eyebrows and mustache fly upward to stinking black wires and then—dust, inside a cloud of smoke. He falls backwards, away from the fireball and into the bed pit. 

Now, I don’t know what kind of synthetic materials the Glazers were using to dress their bed, but, the whole pit goes up in flames. The air turns black. The room gets hot. Chuck’s body stops writhing and becomes nothing more than fuel. Where once was a bed hole and a man there is now a wicked pyre that cackles and spreads for the carpet, it kisses the crystal chandelier. 

The fire is loud. Movies never do it justice just how fucking loud fire can be. The cackling, the sucking, the roar. 

I cough. And coughing doesn’t feel nice with my face split in half and exposed nerve tissue at my missing teeth. 

A little late, but the fire alarm finally goes off. I guess they’re battery powered. If the fire is loud than this shit is a sonic weapon. A steady; YEEP YEEP YEEP! It rings from the ceilings and echoes off every hard surface. 

I make a move for the bathroom to grab the revolver, but, fire cuts me off. It crawls onto the carpet and vomits heat at me; I nearly lose an eyebrow.

I head the other direction, for the exit to the master. I escape the room just as another body comes dashing up the stairs. The Rot Mouth. We finally meet. 

He’s a wintery figure, anonymous in a ski mask with only slits for eyes. He is tall, he is wide. His body is formless in puffy jacket and puffy pants. 

“Narcissa?” He asks, oddly calm, oddly friendly considering how hectic this all is. 

I recognize his voice. I’m sure if I were at a grocery store I could place from where, but, at the moment my mind is focused on the squealing alarm and the fire at my ass and the black tornado of smoke and the presence of another attacker. 

Without much thought, I pull the flamethrower on him and just in time too, as he begins to rush me. I spray his ski mask with aerosol and hold up the lighter to bring it to flame. I snap the flint, once, twice, a third time—but, the fire never catches. Fuck it. What was supposed to be a flamethrower comes out as nothing but a Men’s-Sports-Performance-Scented-Blinding-Juice. While not flaming, the spray still temporarily confuses the Rot Mouth. He cowers away, swearing and coughing. 

I run past him. Through smoke; through ringing alarm. I jettison down the stairs, but I jettison too fast. These goddam hovering candybar stairs without a proper rail. There’s no way they’re up to code— my foot misses the third to last step. I go tumbling, flying into the open air, and long before I hit the ground, I know I’ve fucked up bad.

—

Somehow, this fall hurts so unimaginably worse than getting shot in the face. I land on the hard marble before the exit and it’s like when a cartoon character gets hit with a frying pan; I see yellow stars and tiny blue birds circling around my head tweeting. It winds me. Every organ churns into a knot. I swear a new swear word that hasn’t been invented yet, it’s a sort of pig squeal combined with a belch and a gasp. 

I hear it, I feel it, as a rib snaps into two pieces on impact, but it’s worst at my left ankle which tried to steady the fall. Holy fuck does it hurt. Holy fuck does it hurt even worse when I try to stand up. I’m forced to perch on my right bare foot while my left toes just barely grace the ground. It’s broken. It’s got to be broken. Shit! God damn it! A bullet to the mouth, a hole in the hand, now a busted ankle and a broken rib. There’s not going to be much left of me pretty soon here. 

It’s all so disorienting. The pain. The nightmare of this night and the house collapsing in on itself. Darkness. Fire. Smoke. The battery-powered alarms keep screaming. Up the staircase landing I see Rot-Mouth fighting his way into the master bedroom, he calls Chuck’s name.

—But Chuck’s dead, bitch. And, soon enough, you will be too. 

—

In shadow and red firelight, I hobble. 

Fire eats the second story. I don’t know if it’s a paint thing or an architecture thing, but this goddam house is a bundle of kindling.  

I glance out the front yard and see an indifferent night. A cold lawn and a quietly resting painter’s van. My own car, a yellow bug from 1964, sleeps quietly down the empty block. 

Where in God’s name are the cops, I wonder?

It might seem more intelligent to take my leave now from 7109 Chanticlair, but, I hop-skip-leg for the kitchen instead; I’m not going anywhere without a weapon. 

I make it to onyx quartzite counters and hobble for a rack of rich-person-stainless-steel-artisan-green-marble-handed-Russian steak knives in a wooden block. I take out the butcher knife. It’s practically two feet long with chrome mirrored blades. 

I think about those movies. Those movies where they dismember the babysitter. She always takes the butcher knife to defend herself—but—I swear, in every one of those movies she always drops it, and to be fair, I’ve dropped everything I’ve picked up tonight. I look at this knife, I look at my clammy, tremoring palms— and I wonder—how can I not drop it? How can I be the babysitter who does not drop the knife?

YEEP- YEEP – YEEP – YEEP. The fire alarm blares. 

I open up the Glazer’s utility drawer. Inside is a mess of batteries, trinkets, and Christmas cards. I open the drawer beneath it where there’s loose screws and a screwdriver, and beyond that, a roll of duct tape.

It’s genius, I think, maybe it’s not genius. Maybe it’s incredibly stupid. It doesn’t matter. There’s but seconds to spare before this place burns down and/or a demented killer pops out at me for a final confrontation. This is the strategy I’m going with. It’s settled. 

YEEP- YEEP – YEEP – YEEP 

I lean my upper body onto the kitchen counter to keep my broken ankle from howling. It puts pressure on my chest. Every inhale feels like I’m getting stabbed by a knife made of my own bones. But I move, my left hand wraps its fingers as tight as possible around the butcher knife handle while the right winds it all up with duct tape. 

I wrap until there’s no duct tape left, and I have a scorpion tail for a left arm. 

Whatever happens to me, whatever the final fight is, I will not drop my weapon. I will die with this blade in this palm. 

—

With broken ribs, split lip, shattered teeth, a dripping hole in my hand, the other hand duct taped to a knife, and a, at the very least sprained ankle, I walk/crawl/limp out the back door and then around the house. 

It’s cold out. It smells like Christmas. The stars twinkle. It might be a nice night if I wasn’t fighting for my goddam life.

It’s kind of a dumb thought, but I catch myself thinking it; it will be nice if I survive this. God, I won’t be cute for a very long time, I mean, I’ll be messed up, sure. Not just physically, but mentally, I have no doubt that there will be months of recovery and probably years of therapy— I mean, I just set a dude on fire, I saw his face melt off, I did that! But—it will be nice to be alive if I get the chance to keep doing it. 

A pizza sounds nice honestly; a big burned pizza with brown spots all over it. Really overdose that shit with the parmesan dust. Maybe a soda. Oh, and garlic knots. Christ, I hope I survive this, now I’m hungry too. Will I be able to eat with these split lips? Am I going to have to live on smoothies? 

I take sloppy, limping steps through perfectly manicured blades of grass. Bleeding, coughing, hurting all over. It hurts just to breathe. I think a broken rib is now firmly planted into my lungs like the sword in the stone. I retch once, so hard that I feel a tooth come loose and fly out onto the lawn like an unpopped popcorn kernel. 

Oh, I’m gonna have a hefty dentist bill if I make it through this, and the only dentist I know just got blown up by a car bomb.  

I wander out to the front yard. The long, deep, sloped hill. All that’s left now is to wait for the cops, and if the cops really can’t make it in time, then it’s up to me to stop The Rot-Mouth from leaving with Tommy.  

When I reach the front yard, I find 7109 Chanticlair is a flaming terrarium. It’s a lighthouse now. The harsh orange of the conflagration shines on the empty plots and the woods below the hill. It flows yellow and jumps red where the fire is hottest. 

The glass front exposes the fury of the flame as it eats the drywall and carpet of the second floor. Sections of attic are on fire. Rich, auburn flames speckled with black dust and ribbons of confetti fabric. They cut through patches of roof so they can lick the night with smoke.

The first floor, with all its marble and hard stone, does not offer much for the fire to eat. But spots of the ceiling collapse. Fire runs down the walls and drops sections of framing. The chandelier above the dining set comes crashing down and the crystals all scatter like cockroaches.

The wind blows through the house and toward me. It all stinks; that way fire stinks when it’s eating chemicals and plastic. 

A figure emerges within the glass house, out from the kitchen and into the living room; The Rot-Mouth. He carefully maneuvers a section of collapsed ceiling. He checks beneath the couch cushion; the place I was sitting when this whole mess got started. 

I hide, meekly, behind a cube bush, right at the side of the van. A knife trembling in hand. The Rot-Mouth is on his way. He walks out from the house, maniacally coughing. 

He removes his ski mask and I recognize him instantly. It’s—it’s Jeff Glazer.

He’s not just alive—he’s—here. He’s in front of me. He is The Rot-Mouth. I’m so surprised that I forget to hide. I stand at the walkway’s end, my head cocked like a curious dog.

An equally stunned Jeff Glazer leaves his house. His silhouette in flames as 7109 Chanticlair turns to ash and black fog in his wake. This is it, I think. That last part of the movie. The part where the babysitter either gets gutted or guts back. Nowhere to hide. Nowhere to run. I defiantly raise my blade/tapewad hand; I make the bravest stand I can make with one good foot. 

“Hello, Narcissa,” he says, so painfully casual.

I menace my duct-tape-butcher-knife arm, try to speak with my mouth transformed into three lips, “Thay back!”

He raises his hands. “I’m not gonna hurt you. It’s okay.” 

“Don’thyou have a gun?” I ask him.

“No.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t think I’d need one,” he admits. 

To my surprise, once he’s cleared from the house’s perimeter, he simply drops. He sits down beside the stone walkway, legs spread far apart. He rubs his deodorant-soaked eyes. His jacket is open now, ever so slightly, revealing a bow tie and white tuxedo collar.

Behind him, the house combusts. The glass face of the Only House on Chanticlair Lane explodes, beads and shards and car-sized sheets of glass go tumbling into the front garden. It’s a true dollhouse now, a home without a face, open to the night. Wind rushes inside to feed the fire. It takes to a grand piano, a couch. Liquor bottles explode in the bar. 

I keep my knife ever ready, it shakes wildly. Any second now, I promise myself, any second, Jeff will pop back to a stand and he’ll try to end things. 

He looks up at me, so calmly. So completely unfazed by this whole nightmare. He points at his upper lip, the place where I got shot. “Did Chuck do that? Did he shoot you in the face?”

My blade trembles, my voice is only a blood soaked, hoarse whisper, “Yeah.”

“What an idiot.”

I realize it now; Chuck, better known as Charlie to me, was Charlie Glazer. I did babysit for him once, years and years ago; back when I was first starting out. I remember Charlie was a nervous man without hair. I think I went to him once for a teeth-cleaning. Does that count as irony? No? I’m not sure. 

Jeff continues, his high-pitch rasp coming off as anything but threatening, “I know a good doctor. A plastic surgeon. He does cleft lip surgeries for babies. I bet he can make you look like new again.”

“That’s nice,” blood and drool fall from my chin in a long gooey string. 

A pause, punctuated with cackling fire.

“Whereth Thommy?” I ask him.

“The woods,” He shakes his head, nods his head toward the tree-line surrounding the house. “At least I hope that’s where he is.”

There’s the sound of police sirens, now. The sound sneaks in from beneath the fire. I’m hesitant to take my eyes off Jeff. But, a faint turn of the head finds alternating red and blue flashes glowing through faraway fog drifts. 

A section of housing collapses behind Jeff; the whole east wing sugar cube. Furniture of the guest and game room come crashing onto the lawn. A pool table scatters into a front yard tree, a bed flops face down beside it. 

“How?” I ask Jeff, it’s the only question I can think of to pass the time. “They thold me you got blowt up in a car bomb.” 

Jeff pulls on blades of grass with his fists; I’ve seen little boys do this when they’re about to cry.

“We left a homeless guy who kinda looked like me in the driver’s seat. Chuck was gonna fake the dental records down the line.”

“But-but- but why?”

He shrugs. He clicks his tongue before he rolls it around his cheeks.

He explains to me, “’Cause it’s hard.”

“Whath-hard?”

He’s so casual. He’s so droll and unashamed it makes me just want to rush him and start stabbing until there isn’t a face to stab anymore, but, I don’t. I stand there, bleeding and broken limbed, and listen to this private island dentist whine. 

“Oh, Narcissa—” he pauses to reflect. “This life. The wealth. The busy days. It seems easy but it’s not. Everybody’s always—they’re always gnawing at you. Alouette’s family, they were really quite insufferable. Didn’t think I was good enough for her. Alouette herself, she had expectations that were hard to meet—but—this wasn’t about her. I’ve spent my entire adult life in the mouths of other people. In their teeth and spit. And for what? For this house?”

He gazes back to 7109 Chanticlair. It burns. It screams. 

“Tonight was about—starting over. At least it was supposed to be. I think I just wanted to go somewhere else. Be somebody else.” 

“Couldn’t you have just gothen'a divorce? Or like gone part-thime, or bought a Porschth or thomething?”

“Yeah—” he trails off. “Yeah. Maybe. Maybe.” 

He turns to his former home again, the fire is working its way to the back now. The kitchen cabinets are ablaze. Waterlines burst and the bottom floor is now host to a flood of steaming gray sewage. One has to hope the little boy got out, otherwise, by now, he’s a well done cut of human veal. 

The police are coming up the hill. I can see the strobe lights, I can hear the sirens. Must be the whole force and a firetruck to boot. 

“I always hated this house,” Jeff tells me. “Alouette wanted it. She wanted to be away from everybody. I always thought it was too cold. Look at it now; it’s—it’s too hot,” he tells me, I think it might be a joke, he smiles ever so slightly. “To be honest with you; I’m happy to see it burn.”

I seethe. A thick string of blood mixed with spit drips off my chin, thick like maple syrup,“You could’thave just moved thomewhere elth, you know.”

He shakes his head at me, and laughs, once, one pitying bark of laughter. “You could never understand.”

No, I really couldn’t.