Hoarder (22 page)

“How do you know who we are?” Ian asked, although he had a clue. It would have been from the first of their family who encountered her.

Missy climbed past the crib toward Roland’s corpse. Ian had to restrain the urge to lunge at her and push her away from his father. He didn’t want her to touch him again, but what was one more defiling now? It would be Missy’s last time; she just didn’t know it yet. It also wasn’t the right time to play his hand against her. Besides, he really wanted an answer to his question.

Missy leaned over Roland’s corpse and stuck her hand into his front right pant pocket. Ian cringed as Missy struggled to pull his father’s wallet out, joggling the corpse. Bugs crawled out of Roland’s head in alarm.

With the wallet removed, Missy worked her way back toward Ian. She flipped the wallet open, went directly to the pictures in clear plastic sleeves, and flipped it to her favorite, which she held out so Ian could see. The wallet size snapshot showed Roland, Keith, and Ian together, at a back yard barbeque in happier times.

“He has your names on the back,” Missy explained, flipping the picture over so the back was revealed. Ian could read their names, and recognized his father’s handwriting. He hadn’t even known that his father carried a picture of his sons with him, but it was a touching fact to know, and painful in hindsight.

“I have a confession to make,” Missy admitted.

Ian wanted to hear her confession. Missy’s behavior had been so offensive and shocking already, he couldn’t imagine what other transgression she could possibly confess to. Once he heard it, he wished he had plugged his ears and shouted “
Lalalala! I can’t hear you!
”

“For years I’ve had the hotsies for Rollie, he’s just the most adorable man in the neighborhood!” Missy’s cheeks rose in redness as she spoke, her blushing complicit with her overly made up lips to make her face completely red. Ian thought it was only appropriate, they painted her as the devil she was.

“So imagine my surprise that day when he finally came calling! He wanted to see my house, and he was so amazed, he never wanted to leave! We’ve been so happy, and now his cute-as-buttons boys have come to join us! I feel like a new woman. A new mommy!”

Missy’s last word stung Ian. His mother had been a new mommy too over the past six months, one devastated by loss and daily pushed beyond her limits to cope and provide for her sons. Missy thought a family was something she could just take, like a sale item off the store shelves or a cool looking bike swiped off a porch. Missy had a lot of backwards definitions of things, but her misunderstanding of the word family was her most erroneous of all. The only family Missy deserved was her shit and mold, but she didn’t even deserve those. Her shit made her happy, and she did not deserve the satisfaction of a shitty, moldy home anymore.

Ian looked back at his dead father. His plan was set. In fact, it was already in motion.

The tone of Missy’s voice shifted, got a bit quieter, which made Ian nervous. “You and Keith surprised me though.”

“How?”

“I didn’t know you boys worked in TV land. My show will be bigger than
The Osbournes
!”

Ian almost laughed at that, but he knew better. He was lucky he hadn’t falsified his fiction about the show
Missy’s House
yet, and Missy was too eager for fame to let go of the fantasy. He was still the director.

“Bigger than the Manson trail,” Ian corrected her.

Missy didn’t see a difference between
The Osbournes
and Manson; ratings were ratings. Ian knew one other misconception Missy had about her show. She was happy to have him here to film it, but she’d never let him out to edit or release it. She had called him a part of her happy family, her happy hoard, and Missy was far too possessive of her happy things to let them out from behind her walls. She didn’t have to say it, and might not even know it, but she never intended to let him out of her house again. She would be fine with him alive or dead. Preferably dead, she had a lot more control over her things that way.

Ian saw that Missy was wiping her eyes again, but these were tears of joy. It wasn’t an act for the camera either. Missy was delivering another one of her honestly good performances.

“I’m just so happy today! I feel like my collection is practically complete. Until the next good sale that is!”

Missy snorted laughter, and once started, couldn’t stop. She didn’t see the glare that Ian was giving her, and good thing, because Ian had murder in his eyes. Ian’s ultimate horror was her ultimate elation. He couldn’t wait to wipe that smile off of her smug face.

Missy’s chortling devolved into a series of rattling coughs that Ian thought might be bronchitis, or pneumonia if he was lucky. She might never know and would certainly deny the fact that her hoard was slowly killing her, too. He and his friends were only unlucky that the hoard had not succeeded in ending her life before tonight.

Missy looked around at all of her wonderful things. She wasn’t done rubbing Ian’s face in all she had taken from him yet.

“There are just so many beautiful things in the world. I want to collect them all! Under my roof. In Missy’s house!”

Ian didn’t doubt that Missy desired every beautiful object in the world within her walls. Only she was done adding to her collections. No more disposable cup sets. No more clown
pitchers
. No more friends.

“Thanks for being so candid for the camera, Missy. Mind if we sit together?”

Ian pointed at the two beanbags ahead.

“Sure, Mister Director.”

Missy climbed with Ian toward the shiny seats. She pocketed Roland’s wallet along the way, only her tight dress didn’t have any real pockets, she just slipped it into a tear in her dress and the wallet remained pressed against her flesh. Ian made a mental note to take the wallet back before the night was through. He also noticed the slight grimace of pain on Missy’s face as she climbed over the stuffies. Ian hoped the leaking stab wound on her back was slowly sapping her of strength and life, and he could thank his brother, or Dani, for that. He hoped the injury hurt the bitch like a bitch.

Ian went to the blue beanbag and sat cross-legged on it. Missy dropped down onto the red beanbag facing him, but her muscular thighs prevented her from crossing her legs. She sat with her legs wide open, and Ian discovered, like his brother before him, that she was not wearing panties. He thought there might be a road kill kitty on her crotch, because he saw bloody, matted fur down there. Not a very flattering position for the camera in Ian’s opinion, but he kept that to himself. He wanted her to appear the fool she was. She was grinning at Ian, waiting for his direction.

This was when the show Ian was directing radically changed course. Reality was no longer the correct category for
Missy’s House
. The program had changed to snuff.

Chapter Twenty-Six

“So we’ve done our tour,” Ian started. “Now it’s time to begin the diagnosis part of the show. This is where I talk, and ask you candid questions. And you have to answer them honestly. Are you up for that, Missy?”

“Of course, it’s my show!” Missy replied with enthusiasm. She obviously thought she was a most fascinating interview.
So was Aileen Wuornos
, Ian thought but didn’t add.

Missy was all smiles as Ian’s diagnosis began. Her smiles did not last for long.

“Good,” Ian said. “You are a hoarder. Do you know what that is?”

“That’s somebody who likes to collect things,” Missy answered.

Ian wasn’t too surprised that Missy knew the word, but had assigned it no negative connotations. But this was the part of the show were fantasies would be shattered, and reality television would earn its name.

“Collections sometimes,” Ian corrected her, “but it’s usually just garbage, and huge amounts of useless waste. But you, Missy, have taken hoarding to horrific, obscene extremes. You are the first horror-der.”

Ian had never heard the term before, this mating of horror and hoarder, but it rolled naturally off of his tongue, as though a new word needed to be created to define Missy and her dreadful mess.

Some, but not all, of the joy had evaporated from Missy’s face. “I don’t get it.”

“I’m not surprised. You have had a complete break with reality, and I expect you’ve been that way for years, decades maybe. The skeletons in here are proof of that. In your mind, what you consider reality is actually the opposite. To you, garbage is treasure. Spoiled is fresh. Neglect is nurture. Murder is friendship. Dead is alive.”

It felt so good for Ian to say these things out loud to Missy, to call her out on her lunacy.

“You’re confusing me,” Missy stated, and it was clear on her face.

Ian needed to spell things out for his simple subject. He wanted her to understand. “You don’t even seem to notice the stink around here. I don’t know how that’s humanly possible.”

Missy looked defensive. “My place don’t stink. It smells like roses.” Missy took a deep breath to verify her claim. From the look of pleasure on her face, Ian didn’t doubt that the profound reek smelled like roses to her.

“You’re not confused, you’re delusional,” Ian clarified to Missy. “Life is not like the tabloid reality shows you watch.”

“Sure it is. That’s why they call it reality. Your show is reality,” Missy countered.

Missy had a point he had to admit. “Mine is. You’re right. You know, I’m not here to say you can’t be a hoarder, or watch reality TV, or believe what you want about it. The issue I have with you is you’re psychotic.”

Missy could not comprehend Ian’s diagnosis. He noticed that these moments of confusion were the rare occasions where Missy’s voice dropped down out of a sing-songy shout.

“I can’t be. I’m happy and nice. I have lots of friends. Just ask them.” Missy looked around at her dolls, her friends. She knew from their smiles that they agreed with her. She looked justified in her defense.

Ian looked around at the same doll collection and saw the corpses. The silently screaming cadavers could offer no opinion, although Ian was certain they would voice their disapproval if they could.

“Dolls and corpses can’t talk,” Ian said.

Missy leaned forward and shouted in Ian’s face. “My dollies do!”

Ian wouldn’t let Missy’s building anger derail him from the truth. In the rage department, he thought he had Missy beat.

“And I’ve heard firsthand, from those who work at the store where you shop, that you are such an insufferable bitch to deal with, the employees dread your arrival. You’re their legendary worst customer.”

Missy thought about that for a moment, but didn’t appear bothered by the information. “That’s their job,” Missy informed him.

“It is,” Ian agreed, and then countered, “but you can drop the idea that you’re nice. You’re a terror, and a bully.”

There was an uncomfortable moment of silence. Ian was surprised he was still being allowed to grill her. She appeared puzzled, like she didn’t know who or where she was. When her speech returned, she softly said, “You’re not making me look very good.”

That’s the point
, Ian thought. He knew he was walking on a razor’s edge with Missy, and he also knew she needed a bit more coddling if he was going to proceed. He loved putting her in her place, but he also had to direct her a little more.

“It’s the diagnosis part of the show, so it’s part of the formula,” Ian informed her.

“Oh.”

Missy’s curious lack of emotion made Ian nervous, but he continued anyway. He had a lot left to say. This was his script.

“You have a big problem with stealing. You stole my brother’s bike, right off our porch. What gives you the right to take other people’s property?”

Missy didn’t answer Ian’s question, but she cooed about the bike. “It’s a pretty bike, with those cool blue stripes. I wanted it.”

Ian had to simplify his point for his dumb subject. “But it’s not yours.”

Ian saw both of Missy’s fists were clenching and unclenching in her lap.

“It is mine. I took it,” Missy corrected Ian, or so she thought.

“We took it back. My brother’s bike is out of your house. It’s not yours anymore,” Ian informed Missy for the first time.

Ironically, the one word that ignited in Missy’s mind in red neon was
THIEVES!

Ian expected some protest from Missy. He should have expected what happened instead. Missy leaned forward on her beanbag and punched him in the chest. Her fist felt like lead, and it rattled his heartbeat. Ian fell back against a stuffed Beagle almost as big as he was and leaned right back forward.

Missy’s response had been severe, but it was not a surprise. In fact, Missy’s behavior completely fit the formula of the hoarding shows he had seen. The hoarders, driven to the point of cleaning their homes to avoid eviction, always acted out once the cleaning commenced. Even the nice looking old ladies turned into vicious shrews who would attack any loved one or stranger who dared to help by tossing out a piece of garbage that was inevitably invaluable to them. Ian’s intervention would never be welcomed, and he knew he was putting himself in the path of attack.

They faced each other in silence. Ian tried to catch his breath, which wasn’t easy after his heart had skipped a beat. Missy put her non-punching hand back behind her, to press on the sanitary napkin and lessen her growing ache.

“Don’t cross me,” Missy warned.

“
Cross you? I’ll fucking kill you!
” Ian said, but only in his head. He tempered his actual response to, “We’re just talking, remember. This isn’t a hitting show like Springer’s.” Ian didn’t add that he wished there was a big referee like Steve Wilkos between them to shield him from her attacks.

“I want my bike back,” Missy demanded.

Ian ignored her demand and continued his diagnosis. “Not only do you steal property, you steal animals, and people, and lives. You neglect your cats.”

“I do not!” Missy interrupted indignantly.

“Your cats are starving and diseased. They’re stuffed in shit covered cages they can’t move in. There are dead cats all over this house. Neglect is too kind a word. Cruelty fits better. I’m sure you beat your cats, too.”

“I would never!” Missy denied, and believed completely.

“You would, you just don’t see it. You keep hitting me, your director, and I don’t think you even realize you’re doing it. Did your stay in that horrible facility you mentioned have anything to do with violent tendencies?”

Missy’s fists clenched, unclenched, clenched, unclenched.

Ian could see Missy’s steam building, and knew another violent outburst was imminent, but he couldn’t stop now. There were too many pages of his script left to cover.

“That person up here, Tickles, is dead or dying, and you could care less. You’re only worried about getting more camera time. You’re a selfish sociopath.”

“I… I don’t know what that means,” Missy said.

“Then let me spell it out for you. You killed my father, and took him from his wife and kids, who loved him more than you ever could. He did not have eyes for your open thighs. He was probably going to issue you a citation, because the whole city wants your house condemned. And then you killed my brother and my friends. And all of these other people unfortunate enough to stumble upon Missy’s house.”

Missy stared at Ian without reply, trying to process all of the kid’s crazy talk. She was a woman rarely criticized, at least to her face, and she did not know how to process it.

Ian felt like he was on a roll, but he was jolted to a stop when he saw a corpse’s foot, nearly skeletal, sticking up out of the mound of stuffed animals behind Missy. The foot confirmed another ugly reality. He had already accepted that there were numerous dead cats hidden under the house’s hoard. Who knew how many human cadavers they had been climbing over all this time? Just as Missy had crawled over Will’s covered body without realizing it. Like a dog, Missy buried her bones. Except for the ones she kept out to play with.

“Who knows how many more bodies are buried under this hoard. I guess we’ll find out when this house is finally cleaned out, starting tomorrow.”

Missy looked around nervously, looking for an excuse. “I’m… I’ve had a hard time dealing with my baby’s death.”

Who could argue with a grieving mother? Ian could.

“I’ve had some hard losses, too, thanks to you, but it’s never made me want to live in a garbage dump and keep the company of corpses. And by the way, they’re not laughing. They’re screaming!”

Missy was jolted by Ian’s shout, and then she looked around at her human dolls, the Girl Scout, the Mormon missionaries, the pizza delivery guy. Their mouths (some just skeletal jaws) were all open and laughing in Missy’s mind, which meant Ian was out of his mind. It was the kind of joyful laughter that always confirmed to Missy that there was nowhere else in the world that these human dolls would rather be.

Ian also looked at the human dolls, including his father, and Dani, and those too bloated and rotten to read their faces. In Ian’s mind, they were in purgatory and they were screaming. His dad was screaming. Dani was screaming. Keith was screaming from the hallway. Will was screaming from downstairs.

It was too easy to go mad inside Missy’s house. The mix of death, mold, stench, neglect, and loneliness would probably drive Ian mad like Missy over time.

Seeing Missy put into prison would make him happy. Seeing Missy put in the grave might make him happier. But neither seemed punishment enough for what she had done to him and so many others. He knew a way to make her suffer, a way to pierce her vampire heart the way she had pierced his.

It was time for Ian to stop the screaming of his loved ones, no matter the cost. He was going to end it right now.

Right fucking now!