Hellhole Read online

  The door exploded open. Granted, the thing was basically a piece of particle board, and his heroic display would have been a lot more impressive if the door had been made of a solid chunk of mahogany, but still. The door was open and he, Max Kilgore, had kicked it open. With his foot. HIS MIGHTY FOOT.

  He stopped to shoot a triumphant look at Lore, but she’d already stepped into the room, unmoved by his tremendous display of plywood butchery.

  Max’s secret projects had been relegated to the far corner of the table. In the center was a mess of his modeling plaster, with big, gloppy drips leading up to where Burg was sitting.

  Burg turned in his seat and promptly burst into laughter. “Check out Snow White over here!” he screeched, nudging Lore and pointing at Max’s chest. “Next time, warn me so I can put on my sunglasses—”

  “What . . . are you doing?” Max asked.

  Burg wiped his hands on a towel. Sitting before him were two perfect plaster replicas of his own horns—every stubby, ragged inch. “Thought I’d make some models of my own fine specimens. Why should Carmine get all the glory?”

  “Who’s Carmine?”

  Burg pointed to the far end of the table, where the model of the fossil from Ugly Hill lay. “The original owner of that horn over there. Well, the real horn, not your sucky fake one.”

  “Wait—the fossil is a devil horn?” Max asked, forgetting for a moment that he was supposed to be blindingly furious at the guy.

  “Yep. Recognized it immediately. Ole one-horned Carmine Sassafrass. Was up here, oh, back in the 1700s, I think? He’s a legend back home. Got into a tiff with a local mob and lost, breaking off his horn on the way back home. But not before taking out the better part of the village.”

  Max looked at Lore, who’d gone pale. “Well, thanks for the history lesson,” he said, “but don’t mess with my stuff anymore. Why did you come in here in the first place?”

  “I was booored,” Burg said, sauntering back into the den and plopping down on the sofa. “You have, like, two video games.”

  Max put his hands on his hips. “Oh, and cranking up the heat to unbearable levels wasn’t enough fun for one afternoon?”

  Burg chuckled to himself. “Well, yes, that was fun. But I required more.”

  “Well, guess what?” Max towered over Burg, blocking his view of the screaming hairdresser. “You are officially evicted! We found you a house, and you’re moving in tomorrow!”

  Burg looked at his fingernails, seemingly uninterested. “It’s not a trailer, is it? Because I specifically requested a full-fledged house. With a hot tub.”

  This stole the words right out of Max’s mouth, so he just stood there for a moment, huffing and puffing in a holding pattern. “How did you know it’s a trailer?” he eventually said.

  Burg let out a groan. “Ugh! I knew this was going to happen. This is exactly what Verm had to go through, isn’t it?” he said to Lore. “Well, I’m not a pushover like he is. I’m not going to settle.”

  Max looked at Lore. Her face had gone translucent. “What’s he talking about?” he asked her. “Who’s Verm?”

  Burg looked back and forth between the two. A smile doused with pity slipped onto his face. “Oh, sweetheart,” he said to Lore in a cloying voice. “You haven’t told him?”

  “Shut up!” Lore shot back, panicked. This was the most emotion Max had seen out of her since—well, since they met. “I’m not doing this again. Not for some lard-ass douchedonkey—”

  Max loudly cleared his throat and grabbed Lore by the elbow. “Lore? A word?”

  He pulled her up the stairs and closed the basement door behind them, resisting the urge to kick it shut with his mighty foot. “What is he talking about? And what are you talking about? You’re not doing this ‘again’?”

  Lore extricated herself from his grip. “You have no idea what you’re getting into here, Max.” Her voice was getting louder. “He’s just going to keep lying to you, manipulating you, and using you, and before you know it, someone’s going to get really hurt—”

  Max threw a nervous glance at his mother’s bedroom door. “Lore, shh—”

  “Don’t you get it? This is what they do. They get everyone else to do their dirty work, then drag even more people in, make them complicit—”

  His mom was going to emerge any moment, he knew it. “Come here,” he said, grabbing Lore’s hand. He led her outside and into the backyard, where she stopped in her tracks. Everyone always stopped in their tracks when they saw what was back there.

  “Why is there a killer whale in your yard?” she asked.

  Max sighed. This explanation never got any saner. “It came with the house. The previous owners were big on antiques, and they got it from an old water park that had gone out of business. My mom thought it was charming and insisted we keep it. It irritated some of the neighbors, which made her want to keep it even more.”

  “She wanted to keep it?”

  “Collecting random nonsense is kind of her thing.”

  The orca flashed a big fiberglass grin back at them. In one of its flippers was a cartoony-looking fishing pole, which really didn’t make much sense when you thought about it. The paint had chipped in some places, but overall it really did look as if Shamu had been frozen in time and unceremoniously dropped from the sky into a suburban backyard.

  Max climbed on top of the life-size creature, balancing himself with its dorsal fin. “Here.” He opened up a port on its back. “Step into my blowhole.”

  “Ew.”

  “Don’t worry, it’s clean,” said Max, pulling her up. “Mom sanitized it long ago. It was my playhouse when I was a kid. Like a tree house, but . . .”

  “But a whale.”

  “Right.”

  Lore lowered herself into the belly of the beast and sat on the floor. “Cozy.”

  Max joined her. “Wait, it gets better.” He reached up and pulled the blowhole closed. Sunlight from outside streamed in through the dozens of tiny rusted-out holes in the structure, creating a planetarium effect.

  She looked so entranced, Max almost forgot that five minutes ago she had been ripping him a new one. But then he thought about what had just transpired in the basement, and he remembered he was supposed to be suspicious/confused/mad at her. “Why do you know so much about this stuff, Lore?” he asked. “About breaking and entering? Why do you own a crowbar and know how to use it? Why—” Do it. Ask her. “Why did I see a streak of black ash on the side of that green trailer?”

  Lore spun her head toward him, her ponytail dancing across the wall. In the low light, her eyes looked even harder than usual. “What did you say?”

  “It’s the same as the one on my hand,” he said, holding it up to illustrate. “I just don’t get it. I mean, have you been there before?”

  Lore bit her lip, her face pained.

  “I live there.”

  Max blinked.

  “Not in the green trailer—in the yellow one, the one with the patio lights,” she said. “The green one was . . . his.”

  “Whose?”

  She sighed and started to stand up, but that didn’t work out too well. She sank back to the floor. “I lied to you, Max. Or—not lied, exactly. More like I left something out. A really big something.”

  She looked up at him. “I did the same thing you did. I summoned a devil.”

  “What? How?”

  She dug her fingernails into her hand, then laid her hands flat on the curved inside of the whale, as if to steady herself.

  In a small voice she said, “I told a lie.”

  “What kind of lie?”

  “That doesn’t matter. I just did, okay?” She twisted her lips, her mind only half present. “He came up out of that old well near my house. Vermillion Wackersham. He made me find him somewhere to live, too. He was fine with the trailer, but otherwise he wasn’t as easily satisfied.”

  “Lore—”

  “His Vice was beer,” she pressed on, as if stopping would hurt. “Couldn�
�t get enough of the stuff. He made me steal it for him, just like Burg makes you steal snacks. And let me tell you, alcohol is a lot harder to steal than Doritos. I had to raid my dad’s supply, then I had to go to a bunch of hateful senior parties just so I could sneak some into my bag, and finally I didn’t know where else to get it, so . . .”

  Max wasn’t catching on. “So?”

  She picked up Russell Crowebar and made a burgling gesture.

  “Get out,” said Max. “You’re the Booze Hound?”

  She nodded miserably. “He didn’t give me a choice! I broke into all the liquor stores in and around Eastville, then had to keep having to find new ones farther and farther away, had to sneak out, secretly borrow my dad’s car. Not that he ever noticed,” she muttered.

  Max was at once horrified and in total awe. “But the devil’s not here anymore, right? So you know how to get rid of him!”

  “Well, there’s the kicker,” she said with a look of despair. “You can’t get rid of them. All you can do is keep them happy until they go back to hell. If you don’t, they get mad. And if Burg gets mad—”

  Max sighed. “I know, I know. He’ll kill me.”

  “No.” Her hands were shaking. “He won’t kill you. He’ll kill someone else.”

  “What?”

  “Think about it, Max. Has he ever threatened you directly? Or just other people, like Audie and your mom?”

  “I—” A sour taste gathered on his tongue. “I don’t know. I just assumed . . .”

  She shook her head. “He won’t go after you. He’ll go after the ones you love, and then you’ll have to live with the guilt. That’s your ‘punishment for dealing in devilry,’ or so Verm liked to say.”

  Max jumped to his feet, ice freezing in his veins. “Then we have to get rid of him. Now.”

  He ran back into the house, clomping down into the basement with all the grace of an ornery hippo. “You are moving into that trailer,” he informed Burg, who was watching TV. “So pack up your snacks. Tomorrow, you’re GONE.”

  With a loud whoosh, Max felt his feet leave the ground. He didn’t realize he was soaring through the air until suddenly he wasn’t anymore, crashing into the wall and denting it soundly.

  At the same time, despite all the writhing and moaning he was doing, he could hear his mother upstairs, well into the throes of a coughing fit.

  He looked up at Burg, who calmly crossed his legs atop the coffee table.

  “House,” he said in a firm voice. “Hot tub.”

  Max scrambled to his feet and raced upstairs, practically knocking Lore aside in his haste. His mother was doubled over in her bed and holding a tissue to her mouth.

  “Mom? Are you okay?”

  “Yes, fine.” She gave her chest a tap and looked sheepish. “Yikes. Don’t know where that came from. The heat caught up with me, or the humidity—”

  “Here.” He grabbed a half-empty glass of water from her nightstand and shoved it into her fingers.

  She took a few sips and nodded. “Thanks, hon. I’m fine, really.”

  Once he’d determined that she really, definitely, positively was fine, Max left her room. He walked past Lore as if in a daze.

  “We have to find a house,” he said, his voice devoid of hope.

  Lore began to say something about researching real estate listings, but her voice receded into the background as Max sank into the living room sofa and put his fists to his eyes. A kaleidoscope of colors burst onto his eyelids as he pressed his fingers harder, but all he kept seeing were the splotches of blood on his mom’s tissue.

  Max’s stomach gurgled as he approached the parking lot of the Gas Bag, yet another location that struck fear into the heart of his very being. Just like home. Just like school. His life had turned into a giant haunted house, each room holding more potential terror and destruction than the last.

  Spotting the top of Stavroula’s hair bobbing above the shelves as she restocked the ramen noodles, Max darted behind the counter and threw on his vest. He checked his watch. Only an hour and a half late.

  Roula, strangely, did not say anything—though her subsequent sneeze did sound a bit like “headaches and scoundrels.” She peeked out from behind the shelf, gave him a curt nod, and went into her office.

  This didn’t make Max feel any better. It only put him more on edge. Once the after-work rush of customers subsided, Max opened his crossword puzzle book and stared at the jumble of words swirling before him. They didn’t make any sense. The stress of the day had robbed him of his wits, gnawing away one neuron at a time.

  My brain is broken, he thought, staring dumbly at clues he could normally answer in his sleep. Damaged. Ruined. Uh . . . shit. Only two synonyms?

  He closed the crossword puzzle book, dropped it into his backpack, and decided to henceforth tackle only the sorts of tasks his enfeebled mind could accomplish. He counted the pennies in the penny tray. He counted the Slim Jims. He started to read the ingredient list on a pack of mints, but it had too many big words.

  When the door jingled open around six, he jumped—but it was only Paul. “Hey, Paul.”

  “Hey yourself.” He started to root around the gum display, which Max had to imagine was a terrible idea. There wasn’t a gum on earth that wouldn’t get caught in those bear-trap braces of his. “I heard you ditched school after lunch and went smoking in the woods out back.”

  Oh, crap. Had people seen him and Lore skip out? “That second part isn’t true,” Max said. “Rumors of my juvenile delinquency have been greatly exaggerated.”

  “So have mine,” Paul muttered. “Have you talked to your boss yet about hiring me?”

  The guilt stung. Max had not talked to Roula, and he did not plan to. He wanted to help Paul, but he was on thin ice at work as it was; given the chance, Roula would almost definitely hire someone else, someone who wouldn’t keep showing up late, or not at all.

  “She’s . . . not hiring,” Max said, the words caustic in his mouth. “But—”

  He almost gasped as the idea came to him. It was perfect.

  “But I am!” Max finished.

  Paul stared at him, mouth agape as always. “Huh?”

  “Maybe you can help me out with something,” Max said, hoping this didn’t sound as if he were making it up on the spot, which he absolutely was. “I was digging up on Ugly Hill the other day—”

  “Looking for the Super Fossil?”

  “If that’s what you want to call it, sure. But—”

  “Did you find the Super Fossil?”

  “No. I ran into a problem. See, I went kind of nuts and ended up digging a big hole. Like, a really big hole. So big, a forest ranger caught me and told me that if I didn’t fill it back in, they were going to close the area down, and we’ll never be able to dig there again.”

  Paul made a weird snarfing sound. “Oh no!”

  “Right?” Max made an incredulous face, which was easy, because he couldn’t believe Paul was buying a word of this. Ugly Hill was not part of a state park and therefore would never be patrolled by a forest ranger. “I’ve been meaning to get back up there to fill in the hole, but I’ve been working so much lately, I haven’t had the time.”

  “I have the time!” Paul exclaimed.

  “You do! So here’s what I’m thinking: You go up there and fill the hole for me, and in return I’ll give you a cut of what I earn here at the store. You’d really be helping me out. Actually, not just me. All of us.” He paused for dramatic effect. “One small step for man, one giant leap for paleontology.”

  Max felt that this would have been a perfect moment for the Jurassic Park score to swell up beneath his stirring speech, but Paul had been won over without it. “Deal!” he said, pumping Max’s hand. “I’ll go tomorrow after school!”

  “Awesome. And speaking of school—let’s not talk about it there. In fact, let’s not speak of this at all unless we’re completely alone.” When Paul looked confused, he added, “In case any rival paleontologists are listeni
ng in.”

  What appeared to be a twinge of understanding passed over Paul’s face. “Right,” he said, nodding. “Good thinking.”

  He was almost at the door when Max thought of something else. “Oh, and Paul? If you see anything weird up there, let me know.”

  Paul hesitated at the door. “What do you mean, weird?”

  “Just, like, strange sounds or smells. Anything, really. It’s important to document all our findings. You know. For science.”

  “For science!”

  Paul gave him a strange salute and bounced out of the store.

  Max couldn’t believe that a positive development had just . . . developed. Who would have thought that he’d find an unwitting savior in Paul the goofball?

  Once the giddiness of his success subsided, though, the guilt crept back in. Nothing would happen to the guy, right? He was filling, not digging.

  Yeah, he’d be fine. Probably.

  Hopefully.

  But as the hours wore on, Max felt worse and worse about what he’d done. The risks were too great; there were too many unknowns at play here. Paul was innocent. He didn’t deserve to get roped into this.

  Next time I see him, I’ll tell him the deal’s off, Max resolved. In fact, I should call him right now.

  He looked at the phone but couldn’t will his hand to pick it up. Fantasies flew through his head, thoughts of his healthy mom laughing, eating dinner over at the Gregorys’ the way they used to.

  He’ll be fine.

  At eight o’clock, with two hours left in his shift, Max heard Stavroula’s office door click open. She sidled up to the counter and stared him down.

  “What is going on with you?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” Max answered in a high voice.

  “Problems at home? With your mother?”

  “No, she’s fine. I mean, considering.”

  She tapped a lacquered nail on the counter and looked at him. Max swallowed.

  “I know about the cat,” she said quietly.