Hoarder Read online

  Keith waved at Ian to hurry on without them, then that hand grabbed a rolling bottle. They made it off of the cushions and had to crawl over a landscape of constantly shifting boxes. At least these boxes were full and didn’t collapse. It felt to Keith like they were filled with books. He looked nervously back.

  Missy’s high hair rose into view over the mountain of junk at the living room entrance. She was seconds from seeing them, and they had some distance to go to get out of the living room.

  Keith spotted Will’s fallen backpack, lying uncovered near the shrouded body. There was nothing they could do about it now, and he hoped it would go unnoticed by Missy, or be accepted as more garbage or treasure in her house.

  Ian had nearly reached the edge of the slope down to the dining room when he risked another glance back.

  Keith and Dani were completely out of sight. Meanwhile, Missy rose across the room, carrying multiple shopping bags. She was looking down at her feet as she climbed, so she hadn’t seen him yet.

  Ian dropped down behind stacks of newspapers and tall speakers with torn covers. He could not risk moving through her field of vision now. He hoped she wasn’t making a beeline to the kitchen, but since she was carrying so many groceries, he knew it was a fool’s hope. He was glad Keith and Dani had made it into hiding, but he was stuck in a seriously screwed position. Escape down the slope into the dining room was so close it was within spitting distance. Only so close was still too far.

  Ian saw the twitching, beady snout of a rat protruding from a tear in the speaker next to his nose. He could deal with it. Having Missy’s snout in his face would be a lot worse.

  Keith and Dani were not out of the living room. They were deep in it, down inside Missy’s nest. They were hidden for the moment, but they couldn’t risk being out in the open in case she came their way.

  Keith grabbed onto a tall wall mirror and tilted it over him, crouched down between the reflective side and mangy cushions. Glancing into the mirror, he was startled at the wild-eyed teen staring back at him and he quickly averted his eyes.

  Seven feet away and facing Keith’s hiding place, Dani crouched against the side cushions and pulled up a food and fecal stained sheet as a smelly shroud.

  Missy did not head for the dining room or her nest. She headed for her fallen television. There was no rush. The television was obviously past the point of rescue.

  “Poor, poor TV! Why’d you jump?”

  Missy crouched over the busted television with some sadness. She had lost a great many TVs over the years, which wasn’t a surprise considering once they went on they never went off. It always made her sad-sad. Every TV she had ever lost remained in the house, most in this room within the layers beneath her feet.

  Hearing that Missy was distracted with the television’s demise, Ian risked a peek. His eyes rose over the stack of newspapers yellowed by time and urine.

  Ian’s risk was rewarded with a view of Missy’s backside. She was across the living room, turned away as she observed the television that was suicidal to her and lethal to his friend. He saw with alarm that Missy was positioned directly against the mound that hid Will. Missy bumped the empty pizza box that sat over Will’s head, jostling it. Little did she know that she was pressed up against a not yet room temperature teenager who was less than three minutes dead and still bleeding out. Ian hoped that the blood from Will’s fatal wound would not saturate through the shroud and reveal his whereabouts.

  Ian could do nothing more to hide Will. He knew this was his chance, and he used the moment of Missy’s distraction to crawl down into the dining room.

  “You’re no Humpty Dumpty. I can’t put you back together again,” Missy told her TV. “R.I.P. TV!” She guffawed. Missy was full of funnies like that, and she always cracked herself up.

  There were no more sparks from the broken television, but wisps of white and black smoke continued to rise in thin corkscrews. It never occurred to Missy to unplug the busted appliance. Little insignificant things like safety precautions rarely entered Missy’s mind. Those things were boring, and Missy only had room for fun things in her life.

  Missy turned away from the fallen TV, and her eyes fell on Will’s camera cap, sitting on a nearby box. Will’s backpack was also in her field of vision, but went unnoticed.

  “Well look at that funny hat! I don’t think I’ve worn you before!”

  Truth be told, Missy could not remember buying this particular hat, which had a device on the bill that looked like a camera. How cool was that? While she couldn’t remember the purchase, it gave her the giddies and was something she would purchase if the sale price was right. She didn’t question its placement in her house.

  Missy picked up Will’s cap. The adjustable band on the back was set on the furthest snap, and the cap just fit onto Missy’s big head, flattening her high hair. She was unaware that the camera on the bill was on. Missy’s POV was being recorded onto a drive inside Will’s backpack.

  Missy looked at the brown and white cat that had taken a seat on top of the box where the cap was found.

  “You like it, Cookies-N-Cream?”

  Cookies-N-Cream meowed, demanding food. Missy squealed in response, taking the meow as a vote of approval.

  “I like it, too!”

  Missy turned around, the dining room entrance passing her view. Ian was no longer visible as he made his way through the kitchen.

  Missy stopped turning when her nest was directly ahead. It was a good thing that Ian was gone and Keith and Dani couldn’t see her, for they would have screamed if they’d seen what happened next. Grocery bags in hand, Missy climbed over the pizza box and blanket covering Will’s head and upper body, knocking the pizza box askew. There was a moist crunch underneath the cardboard, but Missy was used to such sounds coming from the lower levels of her hoard, and she took no notice.

  When Missy climbed off of the body, the pizza box remained dented. The corpse was left behind as Missy climbed forward. The shroud saturated with blood where she had crawled over it. The bloodstain took the shape of a face.

  Hiding in the nest, Keith and Dani could hear the rustling of the hoard as Missy headed their way. They looked at each other, frozen in fear. Three plastic bags full of snacks and soft drinks dropped near the center of the nest, startling them.

  Dani’s eyes opened wide, afraid to even blink. More junk food bombs landed in the trench. A shadow fell over the nest momentarily, and Missy followed, climbing down backward, with her ass to the center. Dani closed her eyes, not wanting to see her approaching doom’s descending backside.

  Keith gulped and hoped that Missy couldn’t hear it. It sounded as loud as a toilet flush to his ears. The tall mirror shielding Keith bowed toward him as pressure was applied on the other side. He pressed himself into the skanky cushions he was leaning against. The mirror pushed in further until it pressed against the side of Keith’s face. He closed his eyes, hoping he wasn’t about to suffer the same fate as Will and get a shard shoved into his skull.

  When the mirror broke against Keith’s left cheek, the sound in his ear was sharp and like a lance to his brain. Over a dozen cracks in the mirror extended like a web around his head. Despite cracking, the mirror did not shatter or reveal Keith’s whereabouts to the hoardowner leaning against the other side.

  Keith and Dani silenced their breathing while they heard Missy’s breathing loud and clear, heavy from the exertion of climbing her hoard. Then they heard rustling from a plastic shopping bag, followed by the crinkling of foil or cellophane packaging. There was a moment where Missy and her movements went completely silent. Even her horse-heavy breathing seemed to stop.

  POP! The sound of the potato chip bag being slapped open was unmistakable, and severely startling to the hidden kids.

  Keith flinched hard from the sudden sound. His head hit the cracked mirror next to his face, making it bounce out an inch. The sheet shrouding Dani jerked, but made no sound.

  Missy was surprised at the sudden movement besi
de her.

  Keith’s eyes opened wide in fear and locked with one of Dani’s, as she peeked out from the side of her sheet.

  The cracked mirror was pulled away and Keith was revealed, cowering in Missy’s nest. He didn’t move from his spot, instead he cringed back against the cushions, in the hope he might be absorbed into them like a stain. Missy set the mirror aside with the broken side facing the center of the pit. She did not notice the cracks in the mirror. All of her attention, and surprise, was on her strange guest.

  As Missy leaned down over Keith, he noticed her face was spotted with bright red sores, at least a dozen, and many of them were seeping. These were the kind of sores that he would expect on a crack head, or somebody living a seriously toxic and unhealthy lifestyle. Will had been right about her horrid complexion, and its possible source. Crack had nothing to do with it. Cockroach shit did.

  Keith could not mask the fear that flushed his face. He did not know whether to reason with her, run from her, or attack her. He did know it was imperative to keep the attention on himself, and away from Dani, at all costs.

  Keith wasn’t prepared for Missy’s reaction. As her face hovered down over him, he was repulsed to recognize the camera cap on her head, and he felt a stab of pain in his heart that Will would never wear it again. He also saw that Missy wasn’t just smiling, she was ecstatic.

  Chapter Eleven

  The first thing Missy thought when she saw the boy behind her mirror was What a cutie-patootie! And it was a patootie she was familiar with, she just wasn’t sure where from. But she would remember soon. She never forgot a face, or a patootie! She didn’t see faces very often, unless she was shopping (her porch stealing she saw as nothing more than shopping outside of a store), so every face left an impression. And his was the kind of face you just wanted to eat up, if you had a taste for sweets.

  “Oooo! A playmate! Who are you?”

  “I… I’m Steve,” Keith lied on the spot.

  “What are you doing in my hidey-hole?”

  In ordinary circumstances, Missy’s phrase hidey-hole would have brought Keith to laughter. He wasn’t laughing now. He was trying to formulate a plan that would save his sweating skin.

  “I… my cat got loose. I chased him in here through a window. I have to find him.”

  Dani peeked carefully around her shrouding sheet, watching the exchange between delighted Missy and desperate Keith with one eye. Dani took the shallowest breaths she could, unable to move the tiniest bit or risk Missy’s detection. Dani was impressed with Keith’s improvised explanation for his entry into Missy’s house. Not only might he save himself a criminal charge, his fiction made finding her cat Fiddlesticks a priority.

  Missy’s joyful features twisted with suspicion, and she leaned in closer to Keith. The bills of their matching camera caps were nearly touching.

  “I don’t know. I think you might be fibbing me.”

  Keith looked up wide-eyed at Missy like an animal snared in a trap. His voice that replied was soft and vulnerable.

  “No, I don’t fib.”

  Missy’s suspicious face remained. “Are you sure you didn’t come here just to see me?”

  After an endless pause where all three occupants in the nest held their breath, Missy snorted laughter in Keith’s face. It was a wet chortle, spraying saliva.

  Keith released his breath in relief. He smiled back to indicate he was on her side. It took some effort. Even worse than her sores was her rotten breath, and his nose reflexively wrinkled in disgust. He made a mental note to ask Will if Missy ever bought toothpaste at the Mega-Mart, and then he tore up that note as he realized he’d never get to ask Will anything ever again.

  “I’m fibbing you!” she squealed.

  Missy reached down and tickled Keith’s midsection, startling him and forcing a laugh of tickle panic. His arms pulled in to block his sides from her wiggly sausage fingers. He suddenly felt like a small, weak child confronted by a dog that was bigger and stronger. It was going to slobber on him, and if it wanted to bite, it would bite hard while taking him down.

  Keith’s laugh became a cough as he choked on blood from his broken nose. He turned his head and spit out an alarming clot of blood onto one of the crusty side cushions, Missy’s cushions.

  “I’m sorry about that,” he apologized.

  Missy’s mirth was replaced with concern for Keith’s nose. Somehow she hadn’t noticed it until now, but it was easy for her to overlook when the boy behind the blood was so cute. “Oh, you poor thing.”

  Missy reached down and gave Keith’s nose a hard pinch. Keith yelped in pain and surprise. Why in the hell did she do that!?

  “Oh, that’s a smarty. How did that happen?”

  “I slipped, and a box hit me,” Keith replied. It was partially true. Missy’s hoard was responsible in Keith’s fact and fiction.

  “Well you have to be more careful, Mister Slip-N-Slide. Now hold still.”

  Missy grabbed Keith’s shoulders, holding him in place. Keith’s every instinct told him to fight against her and get loose, and then he thought of Ian getting out. It was better to keep her occupied, and stay on her good side for now.

  Missy leaned into Keith and took a big lick of the blood beneath his nose. Keith squealed in revulsion and recoiled.

  Missy grabbed the squirming boy harder. He was playing hard to get, as all young boys did in Missy’s experience. But boys were just like her cats; there wasn’t one she couldn’t control. This wild boy needed her to help him heal. Plus, this boy was so salty and delicious she had to have more!

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to eat you. Now let me clean you up. Saliva’s sterile, you know.”

  Keith did know. He knew Missy was full of shit about that. He closed his eyes and tensed up as Missy leaned into him. Her hot tongue, which Keith unfortunately saw had a large yellowish patch in the center and was spotted with its own sores, slapped onto his chin and licked upward, following the blood trail up onto his lips. He clamped his lips closed to deny Missy’s forceful tongue entry into his mouth. Her tongue nearly made it inside, until Keith bit into the inside of his lips to hold them closed. Apparently, his tangy blood wasn’t enough; now she wanted a different juice.

  Denied oral entry, Missy’s tongue continued over his upper lip and up to his nose. Keith cringed, but he could not close those orifices. The tip of Missy’s tongue probed up both of Keith’s bloody nostrils, digging for any tasty treats. Keith could not help but squeal from the violation. The pain he didn’t so much care about. It was the smell of Missy’s tongue that overwhelmed him. It was like a sewer slug trying to bore up into his brain.

  Keith thought of the big dog analogy again, but instead of a dog that wanted to bite, he thought of a dog that wanted to hump his leg. If the dog weighed over twice as much as him and stood a foot taller (on its hind legs), that dog could take him down and have its way with him. He feared Cuj-ette here was really after his bone.

  Missy pulled back from Keith with bloody lips of her own. “There! All better!”

  Keith’s face was cleaned of some of the blood, but was messy with Missy’s saliva. He would have preferred the former, and he was nauseated to see his blood on Missy’s lips. He did not believe her claim that she would not bite. Keith expected Missy could go cannibal on him at any moment. She was all impulse and appetite. He needed to figure his next move with this mad, happy, and hungry woman very carefully.

  Fighting past his fear and revulsion, Keith summoned his best manners and delivered a polite “Thank you.”

  Missy’s eyes lit up. The boy’s red sauce made her want more. Filling her belly was suddenly a priority, and she was happy to share. How often did she get to have a dinner guest? Not often enough. She was as hungry for company as she was for a meal.

  “Oh, I’m hungry! Are you hungry?”

  “No, I have to find…”

  Missy interrupted Keith. “We’ll find your kitty-kitty. But my tummy is rumbly, and we can’t do all that searching
until we eat!”

  Missy stood and offered Keith a hand. Keith was overwhelmed with relief to gain a bit of space from her. She had been suffocating him with her close proximity. He took note that he could lure Missy away with a carrot, or chips, or the promise of a yummy-yum. That was good to know. He also suspected that while she really was hungry, she was more famished for friendship.

  Keith took Missy’s hand, and she pulled him effortlessly up onto his feet. Keith’s right shoe stepped onto one of Missy’s plastic potty bags and sank down. He looked away from it, masking his disgust. He did not want Missy to see his bad reaction to her horrible habits.

  “You climb first,” Missy instructed.

  Keith did as he was told, turning toward the side of the nest. He gave one last glance down at Dani, which Missy missed. Dani’s wide, peeking eyeball watched his every move.

  Keith’s hands tried to find a hold on the side of the nest, testing it to find a safe spot. Missy grabbed Keith’s ass and gave him a shove upward. With such hot ham hocks in her hands, she couldn’t help herself, and she squeezed and fondled them excitedly.

  “Coochie-coo!”

  Keith hated that he had to laugh, hated to give her the satisfaction. He scurried up to the top edge of the nest, eager to get his ass out of Missy’s grabby hands. Missy the experienced climber, and groper, followed behind him.

  Keith felt relief once he was out of the hole. He figured Ian was long out by now, and he was leading Missy away and giving Dani a chance to escape the hole unnoticed. He took his first step away and was jerked to a stop by Missy’s hand around his wrist. It felt like an overly tight handcuff made of toughened flesh and bone.

  “The kitchen’s this way,” Missy informed him.

  Missy jerked Keith into motion, pulling him beside her. He would have easily followed her on his own, but she wouldn’t give him the chance. Keith knew this was what a puppy getting jerked along on a chain must feel like.

  Missy’s familiarity with the hoard made it easier for her to cross over it; she knew just where to step. Keith did not and he kept slipping and getting knocked roughly into things. He couldn’t follow in her footsteps because she kept yanking him off of his feet.