Fungus of the Heart (3 page)

The Haunted House

Years ago, back when I could sleep, leviathans and other sea creatures infested my dreams. They never tried to eat me. But their mere presence in a lake or swimming pool or bathtub was always enough to ravage my psyche.

And so, as Rhianna speaks, I see barracuda swimming in and out of her mouth. They taunt me with knowing winks, because I failed in my last barracuda case. But I keep that to myself.

“Did you buy the cranberry sauce?” I say.

“I did,” Rhianna says. “And I bought you the crunchy peanut butter and the barbeque chips.”

“Rhianna. Those were only alternatives, in case they were out of cranberry sauce.”

“I know. But I wanted to make it up to you for calling you Monoxide all those times.”

“I’ve been called worse. And I already told you, I don’t take disbelief personally. You found out your water heater was malfunctioning, so it’s only natural to assume carbon monoxide poisoning.”

“That doesn’t excuse my behavior, Ash.”

“It does to me.”

Rhianna sighs. “Can’t we have one conversation that doesn’t end up as an argument?”

I rub my face. “I’m sorry. Thanks for all the food.”

“You’re welcome.”

“So, are you ready?”

“I don’t know. I think so. Do you think I’m ready?”

“Of course.”

“Are you just saying that to make me feel better?”

“You’re a strong woman, Rhianna. And I have complete confidence in you.”

“OK. I think I’m ready. I’m ready.” She lies back on the bed.

And for a few minutes, I try to work my way inside her. “Do you want me to stop?”

“I don’t know.”

“We don’t have to do this tonight. We’ve only known each other for a few weeks. And I understand if you’re not ready to trust me yet.”

“It’s not that, Ash. You’re one of the most caring people I ever met, and I want to give myself to you. I guess I’m afraid that once you experience the real me, you’ll run away screaming.”

“Most of my clients feel that way, but I promise you, that won’t happen.”

“What if I’m worse than everyone else? What if you can’t handle me?”

“I’ve been doing this for eight years, Rhianna. I’m a professional, and I’d rather die a second death than abandon you.”

She takes a deep breath. “OK.”

And a few seconds later, I’m alive.

I can almost hear the cranberry sauce, peanut butter, and barbeque chips calling out to me, but the first thing I do in Rhianna is strip off all my clothes in front of the full length mirror. Then I spend who knows how long caressing my curves, tracing my stretch marks, tapping my moles.

Rhianna doesn’t think of herself as beautiful, but I know better.

I’m perfect.

Downstairs, I eat the cranberry sauce right out of the can, and while Rhianna’s palate doesn’t appreciate the flavor the way mine used to, I still savor every bittersweet moment.

Before I can even open the peanut butter jar, the otherworld catches up to me. And I’m in two places at once, seeing with two pairs of eyes. I know this because a stuffed octopus hops onto the table.

“Rhianna,” the octopus says. “Watch this. Are you watching?”

“I’m watching,” I say.

Then the octopus leaps off the table, and twirls all the way to the floor.

“Did you see?” the octopus says.

“I saw,” I say. “That was excellent.”

“Do you want to try?”

“Maybe later. Right now I’m a little busy.”

“OK.”

When I open the fridge door to put away the cranberry sauce, a girl in a bloody white dress jumps out at me, waving a knife in my face. I stumble backwards into the table. And a cup falls onto the floor, and shatters.

Glass erupts everywhere.

I’ve seen girls in bloody white dresses before, of course, though this one’s somewhat unique. She’s wearing a mask over her face. A little girl mask. And so, I can’t be sure she’s really a little girl at all.

“Who are you?” I say.

The masked figure growls, tossing the knife from hand to hand.

“Whose blood is that?” I say.

The girl laughs, and runs into the living room, leaving a trail of bloody footprints behind.

I don’t know which shards of glass are real, and which aren’t. So I avoid them all.

In the living room, I find an enormous chunk of ice hovering above a leather recliner. And if I know one thing about ethereal ice, it’s that there’s almost always something frozen inside. I can’t see what, because the ice is too cloudy, but when I sniff the surface, I detect a faint scent of cinnamon.

“Do you want to play now?” the octopus says, sitting on the leather recliner.

“Not yet,” I say.

“Please?”

“Later.”

“Please?”

“Alright. We’ll play hide and seek. You hide.”

“Close your eyes and count to ten.”

“Alright.”

“Don’t peek, OK?”

“I won’t.”

The octopus scrambles for the kitchen.

And I head upstairs, because I can’t melt this hunk of ice on my own.

In the second floor hallway, the masked girl falls from the ceiling and throws a glass knife at me. My instincts kick in, causing me to dodge the weapon, without need. The glass breaks. And once again, the pieces erupt and cover the floor.

This time I know the glass isn’t real, because I didn’t touch anything, so I step on the shards.

“Who are you?” I say.

The girl runs into the guest bedroom, and I follow.

Inside, the girl’s approaching the Man in the Crate.

“Stay away from him,” I say. “He’s dangerous.”

But the girl doesn’t listen. She pokes at one of the holes in the crate, and he snatches the knife away from her.

The girl growls.

“Give that back to her,” I say.

“If you say so,” the Man says.

Then the knife flies out of the hole, and slices the girl’s shoulder. She barks at the man before sprinting out of the room.

“You have to stop impeding my investigations,” I say.

“I’ll stop when you let me out,” the Man says.

“That’s never going to happen.”

“Then I’m never going away.”

“You don’t belong here.”

“Of course not. I belong at home with my wife and son, but you locked me up in a fucking crate.”

Years ago, back when I lived with my parents, my father frequently received crates for his business. He opened them inside the house, and he held me up, so I could get the first look at the contents.

“What do you see?” my father said.

And I described the artwork as best I could.

But one day, I didn’t say a word. Because all my attention was on the dead possum at the bottom of the crate. I imagined myself trapped in the small space, starving, dying of thirst.

At the time, I cried, horrified by the thought. But now, I wish the Man could suffer the possum’s fate.

“You have two options,” the man says. “One. You can let me out now, and I’ll go easy on you. Or two. You can keep being a coward, and someday soon I’ll bust out of here. And I’ll rip your fucking head off.”

“You need to accept the fact that there’s no escape for you.”

“Yeah? Take a look at this.” He thrusts his muscular arm through one of the holes, and flexes his bicep. “I’ve been pumping iron in here nonstop.”

“That won’t help you.”

“We’ll see, won’t we?”

I try to laugh away the thought, but I’m still terrified he’s right. “You’ve wasted enough of my time. I’m leaving.”

“I’m not done with you yet.”

“I don’t care.” And I step over a crowbar.

“Come back here, you crazy bitch!”

I close the door behind me.

There’s no activity in the hallway, so I enter the master bedroom, where I discover a middle-aged woman strapped to what looks like a hospital bed. She struggles. And the masked girl tosses a glass vase at my feet.

“Please don’t do this,” the woman says.

The girl picks up a shard of glass, which transforms into a knife.

“Help me!” the woman says, looking at me.

“I can’t,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

The girl hops onto the table, and sits on the woman’s stomach. Then she begins cutting the woman’s wrists.

“Stop!” the woman says, flooding the room with blood.

The girl laughs.

“Who are you?” I say.

“You know who I am,” the woman says.

I wade through the blood and lean in close. “If you answer my questions, I’ll help you get away from her.”

“OK.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m your sister. Meghan.”

“Why are you in a hospital bed?”

“I tried to kill myself two years ago.”

“Who is this girl?”

“I don’t know, but she looks like you when you were a child.”

The blood level rises above my eyes, and everything’s red, and I smell cinnamon.

I turn to the girl. “I think it’s time we take off that mask.”

The girl swims away.

And I follow. Downstairs, the girl’s sitting on the leather recliner, switching her knife from hand to hand.

“You shouldn’t play with her,” the octopus says, on top of the TV. “She’s not nice. Why don’t we watch the princess movie instead?” He presses a tape into the VCR, and on the screen, there’s Rhianna in a white dress, riding on a unicorn.

I kneel in front of the recliner. “I’d like to see your face.”

The girl snarls, and points her weapon at me.

But I don’t move. “You need to show me.”

“No.”

“Please.”

“No!” The girl turns away from me. “I’m a monster.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You saw what I did to Meghan.”

“That wasn’t real, Rhianna. You’d never hurt your sister like that.”

“You don’t know what I’m capable of.”

“Actually, I do. I also know you’re uncomfortable in that mask. There aren’t any holes to see or breathe through. Why don’t you take it off for just a little while?”

“If I do, you’ll want to kill me.”

“I won’t. I promise.”

“You’re a liar.” She doesn’t sound too sure of herself.

Therefore, I take this opportunity to reach out.

She stabs my hand, over and over, but I don’t stop.

I can’t really touch her, of course, though part of her wants me to see her. And so, I’m able to pull off the mask.

“Don’t look at me!” the girl says, covering her face with her hands.

I pick up the hand mirror that appears on the coffee table. “Look, Rhianna.”

“No!”

“You’re not a monster, Rhianna. Look.”

She does. And she sees that underneath the mask of the little girl, there’s a little girl.

“I don’t understand,” Rhianna says.

“You will,” I say.

Without the mask obstructing her eyes, Rhianna cries, and the ice above her begins to melt.

“I think you should move,” I say.

Rhianna takes my advice just in time.

Because the chunk of ice splits in half, and an old man falls onto the recliner. The two pieces of ice shatter on the floor, while the man stands, carrying a snowball.

He heads upstairs.

I glance at the spot where Rhianna was standing, but she’s already gone.

So I follow the man.

And with every step, my terror intensifies, ravaging my psyche. In my last barracuda case, this is the point when I failed. I let the fear get the better of me, and my client forced me out of her prematurely, and she refused to let me back in.

I hug my chest. “Everything’s gonna be alright.”

When I reach the upstairs hallway, I sit on the floor and breathe, deep.

“Let’s play in the backyard,” the octopus says, beside me. “You can be the mommy, and I’ll be the baby.”

“I can’t play right now,” I say.

“OK.”

“Did you see which room the old man went into?”

“You shouldn’t play with him. He’s not nice. How about you be the baby, and I’ll be the mommy?”

I notice the frost on the doorknob of Rhianna’s childhood bedroom. I stand.

“You can’t go in there,” the octopus says.

“I have to,” I say.

Then the octopus opens his maw, and reveals barracuda-like teeth. He vomits out a cluster of slimy cobras and tarantulas. And while I’m not particularly frightened of these creatures, Rhianna’s a different story.

Out of instinct, I close my eyes, but of course this doesn’t help. Rhianna can still see with my perception, and nothing can block my vision.

I feel faint. “Don’t do this.”

The octopus upchucks another batch. “Play with me in the backyard and I’ll get rid of them.”

The bonds holding me and my body together are deteriorating fast, so I hurry toward the bedroom. But the door’s now coated with snakes and spiders.

I’m afraid touching the doorknob would push Rhianna over the edge.

So I face the octopus. “I know what you’re trying to do, and I appreciate your concern for your friend. But I’m not her. I’m a spiritual being named Ash.”

“You mean like a ghost?” the octopus says.