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  Keith considered himself lucky on one count. Missy had failed to notice the camera jutting out of his front hoodie pocket. It continued to record, and Keith thought that was good. Nobody would believe what Missy’s behavior was like unless they saw it for themselves.

  Keith kept his eyes mostly on his shoes, afraid of taking a tumble that would hurt or impale him like Will. He didn’t see the slope down into the dining room coming and wasn’t prepared when Missy dropped down over the edge. Keith gasped as his arm was pulled hard, almost enough to wrench it out of its socket. He was yanked down over the lip of the hoard.

  Left alone in the living room was Dani, out of sight inside Missy’s nest. She pulled off the sheet shrouding her, took a deep breath of air, and didn’t like the stink of it. Having limited air was bad, but in this hole, more air was worse.

  Dani looked to her left and was startled by her reflection in the cracked mirror that Missy had set aside. She didn’t like the fear plastered on her face. The plaster broke as resolve took fear’s place. Fear made her just as ineffectual as grief had. Having a goal helped her focus, and her goal was getting out of this hoardy-hole and Missy’s house. Freedom for the remaining cats would have to wait. Hopefully, Fiddlesticks would survive long enough for her to get an armada of animal control trucks here later tonight.

  Dani began a careful climb out of the nest, peeking over the edge before hoisting herself out. Having heard Missy’s mission for munchies, she looked in the direction of the dining room. Missy and Keith were out of her sight.

  A cat darted directly before Dani, running over her right hand, which had the furthermost grip over the nest’s edge. Dani pulled her hand back from the cat’s piercing claws, and realized too late that her right hand had been all that was holding her up. She immediately scolded herself for once again letting an animal startle her into letting go, just like in the basement.

  Dani fell backward off of the nest’s edge, dropping backward and landing on her back on the soft cushions and squishy caca bags. Dani’s sight went straight up, and she saw the dark Rorschach patterns of the mold-saturated ceiling. There was no sound to warn her about the standing, cracked mirror, which had been disturbed by the bounce of her landing.

  Dani had only a fraction of a second to register the broken mirror falling toward her head. The mirror met her face, and the number of cracks in the glass doubled.

  Chapter Twelve

  Missy led her guest through the dining room with delight. She pulled him hard since he was being such a slow poke. If he only knew what tasty treats she had in store, he’d be clawing over her head to get the first serving. But in Missy’s house, the chef got served first. It was only fair.

  “You want one of my special chocolate syrup and peanut butter sandwiches?”

  Keith thought Missy’s special sounded positively unappetizing. “No, I couldn’t.”

  “Oh, I got something better!”

  Missy figured her boy friend would get hungry once he set foot in her kitchen, and with one final heave, that’s where they arrived. Missy let Keith’s wrist go so she could get down to some home style cooking.

  Keith didn’t attempt to run, since running was not possible inside Missy’s house. Running required a floor or semi-flat surface. He looked at the sore, red ring Missy had left around his wrist. She didn’t know her own strength, or worse yet, didn’t care.

  Keith had to keep Missy’s company until Ian and Dani were out of the house. He’d give them five minutes, and then he’d find a way to follow, hopefully with Missy’s blessing. He had to get out before the rabid, horny bull in this made-in-China shop trampled him.

  Missy knew what she was looking for, but couldn’t locate it. She always knew where everything was, which was why she was so bewildered she couldn’t find her loaf of white bread. It was almost as if somebody else had been in her house and moved things around. She’d have to ask her boyfriend if he’d seen anyone strange inside today.

  Keith glanced toward the basement door where Ian had fled and was shocked to see his brother peeking in at him. He was instantly furious at Ian for sticking around when he had directly told him to go. There could not be a worse time for his brother to defy him, when their freedom depended on it.

  Missy gave up on finding the bread. If she gave herself a minute, she’d remember its placement. Instead, she reached behind the pile of plates and pulled out a half empty jar of peanut butter, setting it on a nearby box top, a mini makeshift counter. Next, she reached into the packed garbage on the counter to the right of the sink (which only Missy knew was there) and pulled out a bottle of chocolate syrup missing its cap, a raised trail of dried chocolate running down the side.

  Keith looked at Missy to make sure she hadn’t seen Ian. Missy’s back was to the boys as she gathered her menu. When Keith turned back to the basement, Ian waved him on his way. Keith shook his head subtly, but sternly, and shooed him away.

  Missy reached into the utensils pile and pulled out a butter knife caked with butter. Butter happened to be Missy’s favorite condiment, the one thing she could add to anything. Sometimes she’d get the knife heaping with soft, room temperature butter and spread it on her tongue, often followed with a dash of salt. She thought butter was the one condiment you could eat as a meal. Missy turned to Keith to see if he’d agree, and saw him looking to the right. Missy looked to the right at the basement door, which appeared empty.

  “What is it?” Missy inquired, making Keith jump.

  “I think I saw my cat.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Fiddlesticks.”

  Missy’s giddiness was so sudden and severe, Keith realized that making Missy happy carried as much risk as making her mad. Not that he’d been trying to please her with his answer. Anything he said could produce an unexpected, maniacal overreaction from her.

  “Fiddlesticks! I love that! I have a Mister Fittle Fattle! Wait here.”

  Missy pushed past Keith, nearly knocking him over, as she moved to the basement door. She didn’t see the alarm that seized Keith’s face, and didn’t recognize it in his voice either.

  “No, wait, I’ll call him!”

  “I’m already there.”

  Missy reached the half blocked basement doorway and stuck her head through the opening. Down below, she did not see any cats, or Ian. She also didn’t see Keith standing behind her holding his breath.

  It occurred to Keith that he could run forward and push Missy down the stairs, but she might not budge, and if she did, Ian could be in her path below. Plus, he could neither run nor sneak up quietly behind her. Any attempted murder of Missy would be complicated thanks to her hoard.

  “Fiddlesticks! Your papa wants to see you!”

  Ian watched Missy leaning into the basement. He was unseen above her, balanced on the high wooden ceiling beam, which was newly cleared after the storage avalanche. He had never been more focused and still in his life, afraid that one move would reveal him. This was more heart pounding than the time he had hidden behind the far side of Keith’s bed, interrupted in his search for his brother’s porno magazines (a suspenseful ordeal that had ended with the disappointing discovery of Keith’s Playboys; he preferred the far raunchier Hustler).

  Missy kept looking directly below Ian. “Come out! Don’t be a Fiddle-Stick-In-The-Mud!”

  The wait seemed endless to Ian. What was occupying her attention for so long? He feared that Missy might be considering the aftermath of the storage collapse, which would turn her attention up to his hiding spot soon after.

  What Missy said was a relief to Ian before her and Keith behind her. “Poor light, you went out! I’ll have to change you soon. Very, very soon.”

  Ian realized one important fact about Missy. She did not know the details of her hoard as much as she probably thought she did, not if the storage collapse with its relocated radiator and Frosty the Snowman failed to register with her.

  Missy turned away from the door, and for Ian it was just in time. Holdin
g his breath for so long had made him feel faint.

  Ian let out his long held air and wiped the sweat that had sprung out on his brow. That was too much movement to keep balanced, and he rolled off the beam to the left. Both of Ian’s hands caught the side of the beam, and his body dangled over the steep slope. If Missy turned back now, he’d be swinging before her like a slab of meat on the butcher’s hook.

  Missy’s tummy growled as she marched back toward Keith. Her priorities had changed. She mistook the relief on Keith’s face for hunger. “Don’t worry, your cat will come running when he smells our yummy-yums,” Missy reassured him.

  Keith saw Missy stomping directly at him and he shifted aside. She stormed past without slowing down, and he knew if he hadn’t moved, she would have plowed right over him. When Missy was on a mission, it was wise to get out of her way, and quickly.

  Missy stopped at her dishes pile and pulled out two filthy plates, caked in what looked like mashed potatoes, curdled gravy, and roach droppings. Her elbow brushed against a towel covered in rotten pumpkin guts, causing it to slide off of a loaf of bread.

  “There it is! My whitey-white bread!” Missy cried out. Keith winced at the high screech of her perpetually projected voice. It was as sharp and annoying as a dog’s yelp or a baby’s wail. Why in the hell did she have to scream everything she said, especially when the distance between her mouth and his ears was only a few feet? It was no wonder that Missy didn’t have any friends.

  “I hope you like white bread, it’s my favorite,” Missy said.

  Keith not only liked white bread, it was his favorite, too. However, the bread that Missy pulled out of the package was anything but white. The slices were gray and fuzzy around the crust, the sides a swirl of darker blues and lighter greens. Missy couldn’t possibly think that non-white bread was good to eat, could she? Keith didn’t know that what he called poisonous mold, she called flavor crystals.

  Missy made her sandwich in a jiffy. All of Missy’s meals were jiffy meals, their preparation from start to finish the length of a commercial break. She unscrewed the cap on the jar of peanut butter and stuck the butter caked knife inside. It took her only three heaping swipes to cover the blue/green bread with peanut butter. Keith noticed that the jar said the contents were of the creamy variety, but the product coming out of the jar was most definitely chunky.

  Next, Missy grabbed the bottle of chocolate syrup and squirted the goop on top of the peanut butter, and squirted, and squirted. Missy never skimped on the good stuff. More was always better. She applied the chocolate syrup until it was dripping off the edges of the bread onto her fingers. That was just enough. She slapped the other moldy slice of bread on top.

  Missy turned to Keith with her sloppy sandwich. He looked at the mess in her hand, which was held out toward him. He realized that the plates she had retrieved had been forgotten about, which was good because those plates had been filthy. Problem was, that sandwich was filthier. Plus, she hadn’t washed her hands before handling the ingredients.

  Keith had been compliant and falsely friendly with Missy since meeting her; he and his friends’ hides depended on it. But if Missy insisted that he consume that sick sandwich, there was only one reply he could imagine. No… fucking… way. The brown syrup had white chunks in it, and what could possibly be white in chocolate syrup? Keith saw the white specks were squirming. They were maggots. No fucking way!

  Missy held the sandwich for an extended moment, looking at her guest as he looked at her jiffy meal. She knew her steady Steve was hungry for it. Missy lifted the sandwich and took a big, messy bite. She was the chef, after all, so firsties were hers.

  Keith was simultaneously relieved that he didn’t have to eat that crap sandwich and nauseated that Missy could. He had seen more than enough of her house and living conditions to know that she must eat this way regularly, but as his stomach did cartwheels, he wondered how it was humanly possible. Had she become immune to salmonella and e-coli? Perhaps she was what she ate; Missy was foodborne illness made flesh. And her contaminated tongue had licked his face and probed up his nose. He certainly wasn’t immune to salmonella and e-coli, as evidenced by an unfortunate trip to the emergency room after eating an undercooked rotisserie chicken three years ago. Keith shuddered, and then he noticed that Missy had consumed nearly half of her sandwich. Was she even chewing it, or was she swallowing the squirming bites whole? She probably liked the tickling in her tummy. That’s what made it so rumbly.

  Missy set her sandwich down on the towel covered in pumpkin guts and licked the syrup off of her fingers. She looked at Keith with chocolaty lips and giggled. At least the chocolate covered his blood that had been her former lipstick. Keith grinned back, and Missy couldn’t tell it was forced.

  Missy bet that her honey-bunny was just as delicious as her chocolate and peanut butter sandwich, and she knew he was going to just love what she had in store for him. She had saved the best sandwich of all, just for him!

  Missy took two more moldy slices of bread from the loaf.

  Keith took in a sudden intake of air. If Missy heard his gasp, she didn’t acknowledge it.

  “No, thank you. I’m good,” Keith insisted.

  “You’re a growing boy, and growing boys need to eat,” Missy lectured him. Missy moved to the refrigerator and grabbed the sticky handle.

  “Don’t!” Keith shouted, and was ignored.

  Missy opened the refrigerator and reached into its noxious interior. Keith covered his nose, knowing a blast of stink was coming, and his hand did little to lessen it. She didn’t appear to notice the smell as she pulled out a wad of well-worn tin foil, followed by a crusty bottle of mustard. Missy closed the refrigerator door, and there was a peeling sound as her hand separated from the sticky handle.

  “Who doesn’t love ham?” Missy called out excitedly.

  “I don’t!”

  Missy heard Keith’s shout but didn’t comprehend his words, his exclamation mistaken for affirmation. She peeled open the tin foil. The ham slices inside were glistening with green slime and crawling with cockroaches. Missy unpeeled two slices (like her hand on the fridge handle, Keith could hear them separate) and placed them on the bread, green on green. Dr. Seuss didn’t seem so funny to Keith anymore. He knew the green eggs were still in the refrigerator.

  “No, that’s not good ham. There’re roaches on it,” Keith reasoned in a gentler voice.

  “Those are protein pellets, they’re good for you,” Missy said. Geez, he sure was being a silly-silly. She didn’t have roaches. How could she, when she kept such a clean and orderly house? She should have been offended, but how could she hate a lie when it came from such a pretty mouth? She was about to make his mouth and tummy so happy!

  Missy picked up the mustard bottle and squeezed it over the ham. Coming out of the bottle first was a watery squirt, followed by curdled yellow chunks, applied until it was running off the sides of the bread like the chocolate syrup. Missy slapped on the top slice of bread and held out the dripping, crawling sandwich to Keith.

  “Made with love!” Missy exclaimed, and her sentiment gave Keith more cause for concern. He recognized that Missy’s behavior was unpredictable and frequently inappropriate, and her gauge for self-control was long broken. She grabbed whatever she liked, whether to tickle or eat. She was rude and bossy to strangers (the Mega-Mart staff) and friends (himself) alike, but he feared most for those that Missy took an attraction to. She was a mentally stunted woman-child without boundaries or relationship experience, and he knew that issues like age and consent never crossed her mind. Keith didn’t fear death at Missy’s hands; he feared rape.

  Keith was reluctant to accept the food/love offering. It wasn’t just disgusting, it would solidify her bond to him to have her love inside his belly.

  “No, really, I can’t.”

  “Take it!”

  Missy’s outburst was so extreme, Keith knew he had better take what she offered. She might bite his head off otherwise, in a few big ch
omps like her sloppy sandwich. He reached out and took hold of the ham sandwich. Immediately, his hand was spotted with cockroaches seeking escape from their breaded prison. Keith shook his hand, some of the roaches falling off. It took all of his effort not to drop the sandwich.

  Missy picked up her half eaten sandwich. She didn’t see the pumpkin guts hanging off the bottom slice, but Keith did. He wasn’t about to say anything about it, though. “What do you say?”

  “Thank you?”

  “You’re welcome,” Missy replied in a soft voice Keith found uncharacteristic of her, dare he call her tone seductive. Of course it was followed by the expected shout. “Yummy-yum for your tummy-tum!”

  Missy took another big bite of her sandwich, now with an added hint of pumpkin. Her eyelids fluttered in sweet food bliss. “Mmm-mmmm!”

  Keith looked at Missy’s hoard-made sandwich in his hand, and it wasn’t mmm-mmmm he thought. It was barf-barf.

  As Keith was contemplating what to do with the ham sandwich in the kitchen, an escape attempt was in progress in the living room.

  Dani’s head peeked over the edge of the nest, in the same spot she had fallen from. There were two beads of blood on her cheek, a one-inch gash on her forehead that wasn’t deep enough to bleed, and a nick on her chin that was the deepest new injury.

  She considered herself lucky that only a mirror had landed on her face. Will had not been so lucky across this same room.

  Dani saw that the rocky coast was clear in the living room. She could hear the occasional squeals from Missy as Keith kept her occupied in the kitchen, but she couldn’t follow their conversation. This was her chance.

  Dani climbed out of Missy’s nest. There were no charging cats to trigger a fall this time. When Dani stood atop the living room hoard, she looked around for an escape.