The dark foyer smelled of mildew and rot. A hallway and multiple closed doors led off from it into other parts of the house. The walls were covered with peeling yellow wallpaper and splotches of black mold. Rat holes riddled the baseboards. The floorboards were warped, and chunks of plaster dangled from the ceiling. Also hanging overhead was a string of construction lights, rigged together with an extension cord. They weren’t on. Perry wondered idly if they were still functional.
The house was utterly silent. No voices. Nothing attracted by their noisy entrance. Not even the ever-present sound of rats or insects scurrying in the walls—something each of them would have expected. Even the distant sounds of traffic and other noises from up the block seemed nonexistent despite the open doorway out to the street, as if the house was muffling all outside sounds.
The soles of their feet stuck to the floor. When Dookie shined his light onto the floorboards, they saw why. They were standing in the middle of a large brown stain. It looked like somebody had dragged something across the floor. Perry knelt, trying to figure out what the stain was. He touched it with his index finger.
“Shit.”
“It’s shit?” Dookie asked, his voice tinged with disgust and disbelief. “Fuck. I’m standing in it!”
“No,” Perry said. “It’s not shit. It’s blood. Still tacky, too. Fresh. Not quite dried yet.”
“Motherfucker . . .” Jamal stepped out of the bloodstain and wiped his feet on the wall. His shoe sank into the plaster.
“Hello,” Leo called. “Anybody here?”
His voice seemed oddly muffled, as if the walls were sucking it up.
“Hello,” he tried again. “We’re here to help you.”
“Hey, white kids,” Markus bellowed, grinning. “Where you at? Come on out!”
Chris elbowed him in the ribs. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Nothing.”
Still grinning, Markus approached one of the closed doors. The floorboards creaked as he crossed the foyer. He held the sledgehammer in one hand and opened the door with the other.
“Wait,” Perry warned. But before he could move, the door swung open, creaking on rusty hinges.
Markus peered inside the room and shrugged. “Ain’t nothing in there.”
“Let me see.” Perry moved past him, motioning at Dookie to follow him with the flashlight. They stepped inside the darkened room, and Dookie shined the flashlight into the corners, sweeping it around in a wide arc. The interior was desolate, just like the foyer. There was no furniture or appliances, just a few scraps of dirty cloth, crumpled pages from an old newspaper, and a crushed soda can. Otherwise, the room was barren. It smelled musty. Dust swirled in the flashlight beam. Perry wrinkled his nose.
“So what now?” Leo asked.
“We look around,” Perry said. “Try to find them. Judging from that blood out there, at least one of them is hurt.”
“We should split up,” Jamal suggested. “That would make things a lot easier.”
“Oh hell, no!” Chris shook his head. “Splitting up is the stupidest thing we can do. I say we go back outside and call the po-po again. Tell them about the blood and shit.”
“We’re not splitting up,” Perry agreed, stepping back into the foyer. “You go on back and call them again if you want. I’m gonna follow this blood trail. Hand me that flashlight, Dookie.”
Dookie clutched the light protectively. “If it’s all the same to you, Mr. Watkins, I’ll hold on to it. I’ll come with you, though.”
“Okay. Good. Anybody else coming?”
Leo stepped forward, as did Jamal. Markus shrugged and then nodded. Jamal and Chris looked at each other.
“You go ahead if you want,” Jamal told his friend. “I’m staying.”
Chris’s shoulders sagged. “Guess I’m staying, too. I ain’t no punk.”
They started down the hallway. Dookie was in the lead, with Perry just a few steps behind him. Markus and Chris followed them, while Jamal and Leo brought up the rear. Dookie kept his flashlight trained on the floor, and they followed the blood smear through numerous twists and turns. The house’s layout made no sense. To Perry, it seemed like someone had added walls and rooms and passageways at random. Doors opened into walls. Hallways terminated in dead ends. The whole thing was bewildering and disconcerting. Occasionally they called out, hoping for an answer to guide them in the right direction, but the house remained silent.
All six of them jumped when they heard a thunderous crash behind them. The echoes vibrated through the walls. Plaster and dust rained down on them. Perry’s finger jerked. If he’d had it on the trigger, the gun would have gone off. The crowbar slipped from Leo’s hand and clattered on the floor. Chris dropped his flashlight and it rolled away from him, coming to rest in the rust-colored blood slick.
“What the hell was that?” Jamal shouted.
“I think it was that metal door,” Perry said. “Come on. Let’s get back to the front.”
“But what about them kids?” Leo asked.
“Fuck them kids,” Markus said. “This place is a motherfucking death trap.”
For once, Perry agreed with the belligerent teen. He’d seen enough of the house’s interior to know that it was even more dangerous than he’d suspected. It would be too easy for them to lose their way in here, too easy to be injured in an accident—or worse. He grabbed Dookie’s arm and herded him past the others, then turned around and motioned at them to follow. Chris bent over and retrieved his flashlight, grimacing as he wiped the blood on his shirt. Leo picked up the crowbar.
“Come on,” Perry urged. “Let’s go.”
Before they could move, however, they heard footsteps. It was impossible to tell what direction they were coming from. They seemed to issue from everywhere at once. The walls shook with each thudding step, and the makeshift lighting system overhead swung back and forth.
Perry grabbed Dookie’s arm again and led him back the way they’d come. Leo and Chris followed him. Markus and Jamal hesitated. The footsteps grew louder.
“What are you doing?” Markus asked. “They’re coming from that way!”
“No, they’re not,” Perry argued. “They’re coming from down that hall.”
“The hell they are.”
“Listen.” Perry scowled. “We don’t have time for this. Now, let’s go.”
“I’m telling you,” Markus insisted, “they’re coming from that direction. Y’all heard that big crash. Whoever it was, they shut the fucking door on us. Come on, Chris.”
Perry stepped toward them. “Goddamn it, you get back here. I’m responsible for you!”
“Yo,” Dookie whispered, “do y’all smell that all of the sudden? It’s like something died up in here.”
“You ain’t responsible for shit,” Markus told Perry, turning away from the others and ignoring Dookie’s comment.
Perry started to respond, but he paused. Dookie was right. There was an ammoniacal stench in the air—shit, sulfur, sweat, and worse. Then he noticed that the footsteps had stopped, replaced by the sound of harsh, heavy breathing.
Oblivious to the noise or the stench, Markus and Chris started down the hall. Chris glanced back over his shoulder once. His eyes were haunted and pleading. Then he wrinkled his nose. He turned around, and Perry saw a massive, looming shadow fall over them both. As Perry and the others watched, Chris raised his flashlight. Reflected in the beam was the biggest man Perry had ever seen—if indeed it was a man. He had to be over seven feet tall; his bald, misshapen head brushed against the ceiling as he stood there staring at them. His shoulders and chest were bigger than any professional wrestler Perry had ever watched on television—easily the width of several men. He was almost naked, except for some garbage bags tied together with silver duct tape. His pale skin, while covered with sores and growths, rippled with slabs of thick muscle. Most disturbing was the creature’s genitals, which were obviously swollen and suppurated with some type of infection. Pus dripped from the tip of its penis like water from a leaky spigot.