Al Bruno III
Spook Hill was one street away. The town of Lake Wales was comprised of anemic side streets that branched off of the state and county Routes, bending back around themselves in grids and cul-de-sacs. Spook Hill was a local landmark and legend; long ago, a powerful Indian chief fought a giant alligator to their mutual deaths. Supposedly, if you parked your car in the right spot on North Wales Drive and put it in neutral, you would find yourself rolling uphill. Depending on who you asked, this was either an optical illusion, an anomaly of science, or the ghostly remnants of the great alligator and the Indian chief harassing passers-by. Thelma's father had tried two or three times to make it work, but they had just stayed at the base of the hill waiting.
Thelma and Brad turned off the county highway and walked along North Wales Drive. To their left were modest homes, most no more than a single floor and a handful of rooms. To their right was the dark water of North Lake Wales. "How old are you?" she asked.
"I'm not in high school." He paused and looked at the oval-shaped lake; the water was still, and it reflected the stars. The air was alive with the chirping of frogs and insects humming. Something pale and white fluttered past them; it might have been a very large moth or a very small bat. There hadn't been time to see. "When my Dad died, I became man of the house. I had to grow up fast."
"Oh, I'm sorry."
"It's all right," Brad started walking again, "he was sick, but he didn't suffer. That's all you can pray for."
"That's-" Thelma had to run to catch up with him again; his easy gate seemed to cover ground very quickly, "-that's pretty bleak."
"It's a pretty bleak world. That's why you've got to grab hold of the future and make it your own." They were halfway up North Wales Drive and optical illusion or not, Thelma felt an uneasy weight settle into her gut, like something was pulling her back. Who was this man? And what was she doing? Wasn't it crazy to go wandering off with him? How many lurid news stories and horror films had beginnings like this? Brad turned back to look at her; his smile was dazzling, "Almost there."
He pointed to a house on the corner of North Wales Drive and Kissimmee Avenue, a rare two-floor building. The lower level was dark, but the upstairs was brightly lit. The house was what Thelma's mom would have called 'a fixer-upper'. The front porch was a maze of cracked and broken boards, the gabled windows sagged ominously, and the roof was a checkerboard of tiles and exposed wood.
It was hard to turn away from that smile, but Thelma remembered another scrap of local legend. "Wasn't that place condemned because some crazy old lady was living in filth there?"
"That was my great aunt."
"Oh God!” Thelma cringed, I'm so sorry."
"Don't be. I never knew her. The whole family pretty much ignored her because of some stupid debate over religion that got out of control."
"That sucks." When he started walking towards the house, Thelma found she was following him again.
"I guess she got senile or something living by herself. She started throwing her garbage down in the basement instead of taking it out to the curb," Brad explained, "When the basement got too full, she started filling up the downstairs."
"That's awful." Thelma had heard the story a few times already at school, but Brad's spin on things was fascinating.
"A year or so later, when the smell and the vermin coming and going in packs got to be too much, the authorities got involved," the gravel driveway crunched underfoot, "they locked her in a sanitarium and cleared the place out. It wasn't until after she died under their care that I even knew she existed."
"What did you do?"
"I sued. I sued the city, the county, the department of mental health, anyone my lawyers could get in their crosshairs," he stood on the front steps of the old house, "I got the house, I got some very nice big checks, and I'll never have to work a day in my life."
Thelma stayed in the driveway; she could hear music and voices from inside the house. "So you spend your time visiting high schools?"
"I was out for a walk and I poked my head in. High school kids always sell their weed too cheap."
"Ah."
Brad’s expression became sly again, ”Then I saw you, and I just had to meet you."
"Look..." Thelma was torn; she wanted to follow him in there, but she'd already traveled farther than she should have at this hour of the night with a stranger.
He opened the door, "Come on in for a bit, and I'll drive you back home as soon as you ask. I promise."
She looked back to the road, to the oval mirror of North Lake Wales. Something disturbed its surface, and the ripples made the stars crash together and split apart.
What am I doing here? She wondered. What am I trying to prove?
"Come on." He said.
"Ok," She said, "but no funny business."
He caught her in the doorway and leaned in for a kiss. It was brief and chaste, but it left Thelma trembling. "Nothing will happen here that you don't want to happen."
The lower floor of the house was stripped bare; every click and shuffle of their footsteps echoed. The air was tinged with the aroma of mildew and something else- a thick, cloying odor that Thelma couldn't quite place.
"Come on," He closed the door behind them, "I'll introduce you to everyone."
"Everyone?" Thelma asked.
Kerosene lanterns filled the second floor with white glaring light; two of them were at the top of the stairwell, and more were placed in each one of the upper floor's four doorways. The lanterns were all at their maximum settings. Thelma could hear them hiss and feel their heat as she walked past them. At the end of the hallway, six girls huddled around a radio, playing cards with a handmade deck. Each girl was barefoot and dressed in faded, oversized clothes. When they saw Brad approaching, they all started talking at once.
"Your harem?" Thelma surveyed them with a worried scowl. None of the girls looked much older than her, but they all seemed haggard and sleepless.
"They had nowhere else to go." Brad said, "Ladies, this is Thelma. Thelma, this is Annie, Sara, Maureen, Jackie, Laurie, and Bonita."
"Nice to meet you all," Thelma waved, "I should be going."
"What?" Brad spread his arms, "What's the matter?”
"This is just getting too weird."
All the girls shared a conspiratorial giggle at that. Thelma shoved past Brad and headed back for the stairs. She no longer cared who these weirdos were or what they were all about. This is what I get for listening to something other than my brain. Let's hope I make it out of here alive...
Then, something in the last room on the left caught her eye. The light from another lantern lit the room, but the radiance was pale and quivering. It reminded Thelma of a dying campfire. A mattress was shoved against the far wall, and three corpulent figures crouched around it. There was someone stretched out on the mattress, pale and pink. Thelma couldn't make out the body on the mattress, but the gasping cries and choking grunts she heard were distinctly female.
...alive and unmolested.
Brad's hand settled onto her shoulder; his breath was quickening. There was something guileless in his voice. "What is she doing without me?"
"It started an hour ago." One of the other girls said, "Maybe it's a flashback or something?"
Another girl chimed in, "We tried to make her comfortable but I think she's waiting for you."
Slipping out of his jacket, Brad walked into the room; he murmured an apology to Thelma and begged her to stay. At the sound of his approach, the three hulking figures straightened and turned.
They were taller than Thelma had thought, at least as tall as her father, but their hunched postures made it hard to be sure. The sight of their faces set her running.
She blundered down the steps, falling and catching herself. No one called after her or gave chase, but Thelma didn't dare look back until she was almost to the school.
When she got there, she found the dance was wrapping up. Most of the larger groups had moved on to post-dance parties, but some couples remained, snuggling in quiet corners and doing their best to delay going home. The AV kids were breaking down the audio setup while the teachers supervised and commiserated. Thelma's bicycle was alone on the bike rack, but she begged a quarter from one of the teachers and called home. When her Dad answered, she told him a kind of truth: that it was too dark and she was too scared. He promised to be there in twenty minutes with ice cream sundaes for both of them.
As Thelma waited for him to arrive, she found her gaze wandering across the night sky to Vega and its twinkling emerald light.
