The Abandoned - A Horror Novel (Horror, Thriller, Supernatural) (The Harrow Haunting Series) (17 page)

“It’s a joke, K-Z. It’s a joke. Nobody does that. People used to, maybe, but you don’t believe in the devil, do you? I mean not if your Slovak mama and papa don’t believe in God. You a commie?”

Kazi didn’t even quite understand the question. “A what?”

“A comm-a-nist,” the man said. “You believe in the Soviet dream? You a Havana buttboy? When I was a boy I used to know a lot of people who believed in it. All of them, godless. You godless like that? You taking calls from Castro and quoting Marx in the parks in the darks for the larks? What I mean to say, K-Z, is are you a patriot of the U.S. of A., or are you one of those immigrant leeches who comes over to take up all the welfare and medical suckage you can get and still you keep trying to knock ol’ Liberty down and make sure that God stays good and buried under your red, red feet?”

Kazi stared at the man, but all the while he was wondering if he could run fast enough back to his bike and jump on and get the hell out of there before the man could go running after him. The straw man was old, after all, older than Kazi’s mother, and Kazi could run really fast and he could bike faster.

The man seemed to leap forward—almost like a dog. He landed down on his haunches in front of Kazi so they were at eye level. Kazi held his breath and peed his pants when it happened.

“I told you my wife was in trouble and I need somebody to help. You gonna help?” the man said. Then he looked up at the sky. “You think it’s gonna rain later? Looks like a storm up there. Up there in heaven.”

2

“What kind of trouble?” Kazi asked. He hated the feeling in his underwear and trousers—that just-peed nasty stickiness and the smell. He hadn’t done this since he’d been in kindergarten, so he found that troubling, too.

The man had grabbed him by the left arm and locked his hand around his wrist in such a way that it felt like a handcuff. A powerful grip—and though Kazi didn’t struggle as much as he thought he should’ve, it would’ve been tough to pull away. Truth was, Kazi knew this from the schoolyard New Kid Test to any number of other tests that had been thrown at him in his eleven years, that sometimes struggling was worse than just playing along until you had a chance to run.

And something else, too. Something about the man, as soon as he touched Kazi, it scared him less. He didn’t know why he was less frightened than he had been just seconds before, but the man drawing him onto the property by the arm—it took away some sense of fear for the boy.

It’s not right. I should be running away. I should be screaming. But I feel... like I know him already. I feel like he’s all talk.

“What do you mean?” the man asked.

“Your wife. Mrs....”

“Mrs. Fly,” he said.

“Mrs. Fly. Like a housefly?”

“A little different,” the man said. “There are all kinds of flies in the world. Some sting. Some have big mandibles. You know what a mandible is?”

Kazi shook his head.

“Jaws, kid.” The man grinned. “Mrs. Fly’s jaws are so big she can’t seem to keep ‘em shut most of the time.”

“You said she’s in trouble,” Kazi said, his voice a whisper. He had the twin feelings of fear and curiosity. There was something about the man that was like a tickle along his spine—scary, but somehow it felt as if Kazi needed to go with him, and he felt as if he were picking at a scab to see what was underneath. “Is she in bad trouble?”

“Ah yes. This time of day, she gets that way,” the man said, still dragging Kazi along. They went up the long drive, with tall trees on each side of it, all full of gold and red and brown leaves, many of them having already fallen in drifts along the grass. As they rounded a corner, Kazi saw it at some distance.

The house.

Harrow.

He knew its name even though he’d never been there. All the kids told stories about it at one time or another. He had heard it was a castle. He had heard it was a fortress. One little girl told him that it was the biggest house, bigger than the Empire State Building; and a boy in school told him not to believe that girl. “She lies all the time,” the boy had said. “It’s not so big. It’s like any other house. It’s big. It’s just not so big.”

But Kazi’s first view and reaction to the house was not that it was big or monstrous or even creepy.

But that it looked a little sad.

It was like the picture of his grandmother from Prague— a little bit bigger than normal, a little bit older than you’d think, and a little bit on the edge of falling apart if you looked at her the wrong way, and a little bit pissed off that that she was stuck where she was. That was the house. It didn’t seem scary at all to him—any more than the image of his grandmother did—but it looked very sad and very much in need of fixing up.

It was bigger than any house he’d ever seen, and it looked like it had towers and windows that went off in the distance—as if it were as big as the village itself.

“See?” the man said, tugging him forward. “See the spires and the turrets? Oh, you little Commie boys probably don’t know about turrets on houses. It’s too budgie-wa. This is the kind of house rich people live in, K-Z. In America, if you work hard, you can own a place just like this.”

“I’m an American,” Kazi said too quietly.

“What’s that? You’re a what?”

“An American.”

“Ha. You don’t smell like an American, and you don’t look like any Americans I know, kid. You look a hundred percent Russkie to me. I bet you can even speak the Old Tongue. Can you?”

Kazi didn’t look up at him, but watched the house as they approached it. It began to loom as only old houses can—its dimensions seemed to grow from the pile of brick and stone and wood from the distance, into a mansion that looked as if it had been messed with by too many architects and too many people trying to tear it down.

“Je pozde litovat,”
the man said.

Kazi stopped in his tracks, and so did the man. The man grinned so broadly he was like a jack-o-lantern with all his teeth in place. “What?”

“You heard me,” the man said. “What, you think I can’t talk like your mama? I’m smarter than you’ll ever be, K-Z, and smarter than your mama and smarter than your daddy and you stink like you peed yourself. Did you? Did you?
Chlapec je jako obrazek.”

Kazi glanced up at him. “Who are you?”

“I’m the guy who takes care of this place. Also, handyman and sometimes the electrician and sometimes I get to pee my pants just like you did. Look at your crotch, K-Z, you really yellowed it. You get scared or something? It wasn’t me, was it?” the man said, tightening his grip. “I bet it chafes down there. Peeing your panties is what girls do, you better hope none of your friends sees you on the blacktop like that, K-Z the Commie, because if they do, they’re gonna laugh at you like there’s no tomorrow and • you’re just gonna have to sit there in your own filth and take it. Little pissy panties boy. And just remember, milk, milk, lemonade, ‘round the corner fudge is made.”

Kazi tugged hard to get his wrist out of the man’s hand, but he couldn’t. The man just held tight, and he leaned over and slapped Kazi hard on the side of the face.

For a second Kazi was about to cry, but the man snarled, “And don’t let me hear the big baby whimper, either. You pee your panties, don’t start being a little girl about discipline, K-Z. Crybaby. You a crybaby? Crybaby K-Z. You’re here to help. My wife’s in trouble.”

“Who are you?” Kazi whimpered, and as much as he hated to give the man the satisfaction, he couldn’t control the tears that had begun streaming down his cheeks. He had begun moving from hurt and confused and feeling bullied to suddenly feeling as if he were going to get killed if he did anything wrong. His mother had told him about kidnapping. Had told him about how little boys get taken off in the woods by ogres and strangers and how he had to be careful. “If you go where you’re not supposed to,” she had warned him, generally if she’d had a bit too much to drink and he hadn’t obeyed her, “I can’t help you. Bad people are everywhere. There are bad men in the world. Little boys go missing. Little boys die sometimes.”

Kazi had heard about the little boy they found up on this property.

Little boys go missing.

All the kids had been buzzing with it since school began—the story about the boy who was found all cut up at the graveyard near this house.

Little boys die sometimes.

Please, Mama, I won’t do this again. I won’t wander. I’ll come home right after school. I’ll say my prayers. I’ll wash my hands and face. I won’t wander ever again.
Kazi thought the prayer out, hoping his mother or God or someone would hear him.

“Who am I?” the man said. “My boy, my little foreign spy, I am Mr. Speederman, but most of my friends call me Mr. Snider, and I want you to do that, too. K-Z. Or you can call me Dadko. That’s my first name. You know Dadko? I bet you do, K-Z. I bet you know about how people burn the straw man and straw woman at harvest time. I hate that. It’s so silly and pagan, and pagan things are devil things and devil things are atheist things. But call me Dadko. Or Mr. Spider.”

“I have to go home. Now,” Kazi said.

“Oh poor little Czechie got to go see the babushka who can make his peed little panties all right,” Mr. Spider said. “And meanwhile, my wife is up there in pain and doubled over and all you think about is yourself, K-Z Slovak. I don’t like that one bit. Not one bit. Mind your betters, you hear me?
Jsou lide, kte n’ neve’ ri—je pozde litouat.”

Kazi understood this Czech phrase too well:

There are people who do not believe
—
it is too late to lament.

He didn’t know why Mr. Spider was saying this, but it was getting to the point where Kazi knew he had to either run or accept that Mr. Spider might never let go of his wrist and might, in fact, kill him. There are bad men in the world.

“I have to go,” Kazi said. “Mr. Spider.”

“Well, I understand you do, Kazi. Have I been scaring you? Lord knows, I don’t mean to frighten you, you sweet little kind kid of a kid. Gah, don’t listen to me. I’m an old man. I am. I’m older than I look. I look fifty. But I’m really fifty-seven. Fifty-seven is old, K-Z. And I guess I’m a little senile already. You know senile? It’s when all the old farts start to lose it. I was just havin’ you on, kid, really. Having fun. Sure, nobody gets my sense of humor,” Mr. Spider said, but this time, he tightened his grip on Kazi’s wrist and brought his other hand up behind the boy’s neck. It felt icy as it touched him, and if Kazi had any pee left in him, he was fairly sure it would have leaked out right then.

Why isn’t my mother here?
he thought.
Why can’t she protect me?

“Come on, it’s okay. Lighten up, kid. I just need you to crawl up on this window sill. I’ll be below you to catch you. You won’t fall, but I mean if you did.” Mr. Spider prattled on as he tugged and pushed at Kazi, and eventually they got up on the big front porch of the house. He said, “See, if I lift you up, you can reach that little balcony kind of thingy over there and you can just scramble up like a monkey and get to the window sill and slip in there—see how it’s open a bit? And then you just run downstairs and unlock the door for me.”

“Why can’t Mrs. Fly come to open the door?”

“Gah, she’s in pain, K-Z, now will you do it or not? I mean, you’re free to go. You are free as a
cub ci syn
—I promise. Oh Lord, I upset you. I’m sorry, dear boy. Dear one. You, who have always been so good to me,” Mr. Spider said, and then with one swift swooping motion, he hefted Kazi up on his shoulders. Mr. Spider was taller than he’d seemed, and Kazi felt as if it would be a long fall to the ground. “What you do is you just stand up, use my shoulders, see, stand up, and then when you stand, you can just reach the balcony. See? It’s not much of a balcony, but it’s enough for you to stand on, and if you go on tippy-toes you can get to that window ledge. I know you can do it.”

Kazi didn’t want to do anything to help Mr. Spider, but he was a little scared and a little afraid to do anything to upset Mr. Spider.
If I just do it, he’ll let me go. He’s crazy but he hasn’t hurt me. He’s just crazy. He’s like one of the teachers at school
—
they’re kind of mean, but maybe they don’t know how mean they sound. Maybe that’s all. Maybe.

CHAPTER TEN

1

“Two Guinness,” Bish said, sliding onto a barstool at the Ratty Dog Bar & Grille.

“Just one,” Luke said. “I’ll have a boilermaker.”

“Jeez, that sounds 1930s. Like Nick and Nora Charles.”

“It is. I just like ‘em.”

“Alcoholism runs in your family.”

“It better not run too fast or I’ll never catch up.”

The bartender, who was named Pete, leaned over and said, “We’re out.”

“Out?” Bish asked.

“Out of everything you want.”

Bish and Luke glanced at each other; one shrugged, the other smirked; and then Luke said, “Out of beer?”

He looked at the bartender’s face—hadn’t seen him before in town. Looked sort of like several people in the village, most of whom were probably related. He had that inbred kind of chin—recessive and with a bit of an overhang of skin beneath it. His eyes were bloodshot and squinty, and the curl of his lip went down instead of up.

“We got nothing you want,” the bartender said. “Couple-a-queers.”

For a second or two, it was as if time froze, and Luke Smithson felt a little shiver of something inside. Not like a memory or anything, more like a nightmare that he might’ve once had. But even then, he wasn’t sure of it.

Couple-a-queers.

The frozen moment broke into bits, and he looked at Bish.

“What the fuck,” Luke said, laughing, and making an
I
don’t fucking believe this
face.

“Should I tell him?” Bish said, jokingly putting his hand on Luke’s scalp and combing his fingers through his hair. But Luke pulled away. He didn’t like that kind of joke. Didn’t like it at all.

Luke felt his face flush; he felt as if he were peeing all over his own body. It was a strange heat inside him, and it felt closer to humiliation than he’d ever want to come.