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As they watched Lee ascend the cellar stairs, Angel felt already that they had reached the end of something. Something else could begin later, maybe, if they were fortunate and careful, but their acceptance of what had transpired down here couldn’t be taken back. They had might as well step off a cliff only to ask for a do-over halfway down. So they followed him, listened to the metronomic beat of his footsteps, and tried to prepare for whatever was next.
Then Lee’s footfalls grew faster. And faster. By the time he made it up the first flight and turned the corner he was practically sprinting. Angel stared after him, nonplussed, until they heard wet and enthusiastic heaving noises from the direction of his bathroom.
Angel peered in to see him bent double over the toilet, seat up, gripping the sides of the bowl like a life preserver. Under the buttery light of the single vanity bulb, he looked pale as wax. There was a sour aroma.
“You okay?” they asked.
“Fine. I’m sorry. I’m fine.” He coughed and spat, not meeting their gaze. “This hasn’t happened in a while. It’s not any more pleasant than I remember.”
They tried for levity. “I guess it’s been a stressful weekend.”
“Not that. Not most of it, I mean. I meant what I said, about not regretting what I’d done, but I was thinking about… well. A lot of things. Mostly about what might happen if you found that room. What I could say to keep you from leaving. If anything. It was always there, in the back of my mind. Running on loop. Now that it’s over, and the tension’s released…”
“I get it, sort of. Emotions and reactions don’t always work well together,” they said. “Now that you mention it, some of that stuff you said did sound a little rehearsed.”
Lee nodded and looked like he was about to speak again, but it came out as more retching. Angel turned back to the bedroom, saw the shrine, tried to focus on the opposite wall.
“I’m wasting all the food you made,” Lee said glumly.
“Oh my God, dude.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize.” They pinched the bridge of their nose. “Okay. Schedule for the morning. I’m going to cook breakfast. Something light on the stomach. While I’m doing that, you can get rid of all this.” They waved a hand in the shrine’s general direction, still not looking at it. “The pictures, the candles, everything. Then we talk about the rest.”
Lee mumbled something indistinct.
“What’d you say?” They rounded the corner back into the bathroom. Lee was still on the floor, on his knees, gaze down. Like someone in prayer.
“The doll, too?” he said, still barely audible.
“Lee, look at me.” He did, by inches, and Angel gestured to themself. “The real thing is here. It’s you and me now, for better or worse.”
They left Lee to clean himself up and made pancakes with the last of his antediluvian flour. Routine guided their hands, kept them steady. As they watched the batter darken and bubble, some part of them observed curiously that this was the most focused they’d felt in months. Anticipation and gnawing dread. A shame you couldn’t put that into a syringe.
Lee tottered downstairs shortly after they’d plated everything. He still looked off-color, but he ate, in delicate and regular bites. Angel waited until he made it through a full pancake before starting in on theirs. The only sounds were their clinking cutlery and the washing machine’s muffled churn.
“I bagged up all the… things,” Lee said. “Later today I’ll burn them. But you won’t have to look at them anymore.”
“Okay.” They glanced up at him. “It was a nice doll, though. Just, you know. The circumstances of it.”
“Thank you. I understand.”
“This shopping trip. Want me come with?”
“I don’t think you should.”
“You sure? You’re running off three days with no sleep. I’m kind of worried you’ll pass out behind the wheel or something.”
“I’ve dealt with it before. Med student, remember. Haven’t hit my limit quite yet.” He set his fork aside. “We should avoid being seen together now that your phone’s been pinged. And I probably don’t look great, but you’d stand out more. Especially in this area.”
They brushed aside a lock of blue-tinted hair. “Can’t argue with that.”
“I have a list. It’ll take some time to load up the truck. But I shouldn’t be gone more than two hours.”
“I’ll take care of the dishes.”
He nodded but carried his plate to the sink anyway. Angel stayed at the table, scritching the tines of their fork against the plate, as he went to the garage door, placed his hand on the knob. Then he stopped, angled his head toward them. Angel realized, or at least strongly suspected, what he was thinking. Two hours where they could grab their phone and hit the road.
“I’ll be here,” they said. “Drive safe.”
Slight guilty jerk of the shoulders. Slight nod. Then he opened the door and stepped through, and they heard the garage door open, the truck rumble and idle, and the garage door shut again. Then only the silence of the house.
They washed the dishes and checked their phone. No new messages in the past hour. Not surprising. They sat on the couch. They stood up and started to pace. Angel always had difficulty keeping still when they were nervous. This was one of many reasons why they’d had to leave home – not just because there was little room to move, but because when their mother became agitated, which was often, she could pick out and jab at their every tic and flinch like a hot auger. The skies outside were pearly gray, deepening to slate. Promises of rain. If they heard someone knock, they weren’t sure what they’d do.
The roommate would be the first link in the chain. His roommate, this vague and carroty-haired guy who’d stalked out of the house less than ten minutes after they’d arrived. He’d be the first one to get suspicious, and the other links would follow – to the restaurant (no show) then his family (no calls) and then to recent acquaintances. What about that coworker he was with? Nowhere to be seen either. Followed by calls to their roommates, their family, silence from both, pulling the phone records, finding the clinic, the trial records, nurse practitioner Lee Smith, home address, the knock at the door, the questions, the questions…
They were chewing their cuticles raw.
Angel pulled their fingers away and wiped their mouth. The washing machine had just gone silent. At least they’d have their drawstrings back soon, assuming the jacket had gotten clean. They’d missed it badly and still did, in spite of whatever Lee had done to it - and it should prove easier to clean up than the other messes around here.
Pointless to worry about it now. They’d worry anyway, but it was pointless. They had gone over the cliff and all that remained was gravity. Angel took their phone out again and opened the music player – its speakers were terrible and it didn’t have a headphone jack, but there were still a few mp3’s on here they’d sometimes listen to while drawing. They hit Play at random and held the phone to their chest, pacing again, but now they unconsciously bobbed and bent to the music, a slow, shambolic dance.
* * *
They were waiting at the garage entrance when Lee pulled in, and boggled at what they saw in the truck bed. It was so packed that the truck was visibly down on its tires as it settled to a halt. Lee jumped out and then stared, because Angel had recovered their jacket – they noticed how his eyes flicked to and fro, looking for suspicious stains. Thankfully, the wash cycle had scoured them off.
“It’s a lot,” they observed.
“It is. But we won’t need most of it for the first part.”
They noticed one contraption that looked like a cross between a pogo stick and an instrument of torture. “That’s…?”
“Electric mixer. The floor staff talked me into it. Everyone was very helpful. They like to see someone interested in home improvement.” Lee started to rummage through the heap, then paused. “First we bury the body. I can do this part myself, if you want. If you don’t want to see it.”
“I already saw it,” said Angel. “Now I want to bury it.”
“Okay. Then you should take off the jacket and put these on.” He proffered gloves, a dust mask, and a plastic poncho. “And bring the shovel downstairs with you. I’ll be down with the rest.”
“Just one shovel?”
“I have my own out back,” he said, straight-faced. “No home is complete without a shovel.”
They hesitated at the top of the steps, brandishing the shovel like a weapon. Angel wasn’t necessarily a horror fan, but they’d seen enough to entertain visions of a waxen and lolling corpse climbing up out of the dark, reaching with its raggedy-nailed hands. Then came the laborious thump of Lee pulling the wheelbarrow up the steps outside, and they breathed deep and made their way down.
As he’d said, Lee barely brought down any equipment at all. His own shovel jutted out the wheelbarrow; inside was a tape measure, tarp, pliers, plus-sized water bottles, and a roll of what looked like insulation tape. The body lay where it had been. Livid bruises and lacerations on its face, its fingertips all bloody. Likely that it had indeed tried to ascend those stairs, only to slip or be pushed back down. Uncertain how many times the process had repeated.
Lee measured the body, set down the tape, etched out a rough rectangle with the edge of his shovel. The scratching of metal on dirt seemed exceptionally loud.
“The six-feet-under rule is mostly anachronistic,” he said. “Between three and a half to four feet is sufficient. Closer to four if we can manage it.”
Angel stayed in the corner. “And we just… drop it in?”
“I considered disassembling it first, but in this small space it probably won’t be necessary.”
“You’re always going to have problems lifting a body in one piece,” they said.
“Yes. What?”
“It’s from a movie. Don’t worry about it.”
“All right.” The mask made his face more impassive than usual. “The best solution would be to dissolve it. Excuse the pun. But then we’d have to worry about fumes, and purchasing the materials would likely draw more suspicion. If we’re able to finish here, then I imagine anyone who finds the entrance, breaks down the wall, then breaks through the floor is going to find what they want regardless.” He took out and clacked the pliers. “I think I’ll remove the teeth, though. Police generally don’t check dental records without reasonable cause, but it’ll bring some peace of mind.”
“Sure. Pulling teeth. Very peaceful.” They’d tried to make it sound sarcastic but a giggle slipped out, and then another, like they were finding their own laughter funny, and it grew shrill and splintered and they hastily turned to face the corner, hands clamped over their mask. Stomach boiling, hot bile in the back of their throat. They could see Lee’s shadow on the wall, approaching cautiously, one hand outstretched.
“Forget it,” they said, and took up the shovel. “You pull. I’ll dig.”
“I bought some noiseblocking headphones. They’re in the truck. You could use them. The sound might be unpleasant.”
“I’ll take your word for it. I’m just going to get started.”
They got out less than a dozen shovelfuls before Lee returned, and they wordlessly put on the headphones and returned to work. As expected, digging a hole was difficult. They were used to working with their hands but this was hitting muscle groups that had been neglected since grade school, and it wasn’t long before it felt like their arms were made of wood and their joints were filled with glue. They’d avoided watching Lee throughout, but glimpsed him poised over the body with pliers in hand, or unfolding the tarp to lay it down. When the second shovel jammed into the earth beside them they nearly jumped out of their skin. They yanked the headphones off, wiped their forehead.
“All done?” they asked.
“Yes. I’ve covered up the body as well. Once this is dug out we can just give the tarp a good yank and it should tumble right in.” Lee gave the dirt a few more experimental stabs. “Not packed too tight, but at this depth we might hit clay. Hoping not. That stuff doesn’t come up easy.” He went to the wheelbarrow and offered a water bottle. “Please remember to stay hydrated.”
Again, Angel thought, it was strangely easy to focus on the task at hand. They didn’t normally lock in like this even when they were drawing. Murder coverup therapy. They would recommend it to anyone. Another giggle rose up in their chest and they forced it down, because any more laughter at this point could very well turn into a screaming fit. The two of them dug, Lee considerably faster, and the mound of dirt beside their hole grew. Eventually he got out the tape measure, snaked it down, and then shook his head and kept digging. The second check got a thumbs-up, and Angel gratefully dropped the shovel. They walked around to the other side of the tarp, and only then did they notice the clothes in the wheelbarrow. The shirt was a distinctive maroon.
“You stripped him, too?”
“Your work shirts are 100% polyester, which can take around six times longer to decompose than human bone.” Lee hoisted up the tarp’s edge. “Again, just for peace of mind. Let me know when you’re ready.”
The whole time they’d been working, Lee had avoided touching them. Angel had purposefully gotten within elbow-bumping distance once or twice and noticed him sidle away as though magnetically repulsed. Even now he awkwardly shuffled in place as they stepped up beside him.
“Ready,” they said.
“All right. One, two…”
They pulled up and out and there was a short series of meaty thuds. Angel put down the tarp and looked into the hole; the body had landed face-down, one arm bent. They saw the tangles of dark hair on its backside, the neat dark hole in its spine.
Whatever it was before is gone, they thought dimly. Now it’s just matter. And it doesn’t matter.
Filling the hole was easier. The body was obscured in minutes, and that gave Angel a second wind; they hauled in the rest of the earth and then Lee patted it down and scraped the excess into the wheelbarrow. Aside from the discoloration on the ground, it looked like no one besides the two of them had ever been here. They leaned on the shovel, shuddered with exertion. Lee, too, was unsteady, wavering on his feet.
“Regrettably, that was the easy part,” he said.
“We need to take a break. Maybe call it for the day, even.”
“If you’re tired, I can—”
“It’s not just me. You really look awful.”
Slow blink. His eyes were painted with circles so dark it was like they’d receded into his skull.
“I just have to take some measurements,” he said. “Then I’ll stop.”
“Think you can sleep tonight?”
“If I don’t, then I might be able to claim a place in medical textbooks. I said earlier that I knew what my limit was. This is it.” He let the shovel fall. “Thank you. Again. For everything.”
Angel trudged upstairs, peeling away the mask and gloves as they went. Only when they emerged into the bedroom did they finally check their phone. It was a quarter to four. Longer than expected. Still no messages. The bookcase was shut and a small black garbage bag squatted beside it, gleaming like oil. They turned away, folded up the gear beside the closet, went into the bathroom (now suffused by an eye-watering cloud of air freshener) and took a scalding shower. Rivulets of water coursed down their skin. Creeks, streams, rivers.
When they twisted off the water, there were two sharp raps at the door. Lee’s voice drifted through.
“I have fresh clothes,” he said. “You can just reach through and grab them.”
Bring them in here, they thought, but said, “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
No stripes this time, just more of his colorless and oversized hand-me-downs. The feeling of clean fabric was a relief nonetheless, and when they re-entered the bedroom they saw the trashbag was gone and their hoodie draped on the desk chair. They’d left it on the couch before; in a way, it was promising that Lee still felt comfortable touching it. They knotted their fingers around the drawstrings, breathed in and out.
Out the unsettling hallway, downstairs. The house had gone gray. Rain pattered an irregular tempo against the windows. They would have been soaked to the skin by now if they’d decided to leave. Lee was nowhere to be found but the back door was ajar and they peeked in to see him standing over a metal bucket, pouring in a pale amber liquid. They looked away and retreated to the kitchen, and when Lee came back in, smelling faintly of kerosene, they were already assembling ingredients.
“I’m amazed you have the energy to cook,” he said.
“It’s just going to be stir-fry. I could do that standing on my head. Also, I’m ridiculously hungry.” It was the truth; somewhere between the bathroom and the kitchen their appetite had roared up so fiercely it made their teeth itch.
“I should wash up first.”
“Go for it. This’ll be hot and ready by the time you’re out.”
They were plating up when he returned, clothes changed and the kerosene aroma replaced with sea-breeze shampoo, and the two of them inhaled their food. Lee had an interesting way of eating with gusto; he always took small and regular bites, but the hungrier he was, the closer he’d bend down over his plate, as if to minimize the distance between fork and mouth. Angel washed up and turned to see him on the couch, the latest documentary tape in his hands, eyebrows raised meaningfully. They nodded, he inserted the tape, and the VCR clattered as they took their seats, side-by-side, as it had been in the days before. They did not touch.
“That was the easy part, huh,” Angel said.
“Yes. Next is the gravel. We’ll spread it out and compress it, for a moisture barrier. Then comes the concrete. Bringing down the bags, mixing, spreading, planing. Then mixing again. And again. There will be a truly outrageous amount of mixing involved.”
“Hence the mixer.”
“Hence the mixer.”
“What about water? We’ll just be hauling buckets up and down those stairs?”
“I have a hose,” said Lee. “We can attach it to the bathroom faucet. It might leak and one of us will have to stay up there to turn it on and off, but it’s better than the alternative.”
“Have you done this before?” Angel asked. “Construction, I mean.”
“A little, during school. It stuck in my memory better than I thought.”
“So you’re a home improvement expert and a doctor.”
“Nurse practitioner.”
“Meanwhile I draw bunnies.”
“You can cook. And bake. You’re clearly not that bad with tech. And all that aside, the world needs people who draw bunnies. They give the rest of us a reason to.” Sudden pause. “To do those other things.”
Time passed. They scootched a fraction closer to him. This episode of the documentary was about the American Southwest. Small things crawling unseen through the sand.
“Did you have this one when you were a kid, too?” Angel asked.
“Yes. I liked animals. Still do.”
“When I was little it was Disney tapes. I went through some of them so many times it’s a wonder they didn’t break.”
“Do you want to watch something else?”
“No, this is fine,” they said. “You mentioned you had horror and true crime stuff before. I didn’t really take you for the type.”
“Something else I picked up in college. I thought it would be transgressive – my mother didn’t approve, of course – but most of it is just kind of comical. Especially when I had my classes to compare it against. Even 100-level anatomy courses can be far more lurid than the average slasher film.”
“Yeah, the slashers never did it for me either. I don’t mind being scared. In that way. But you watch the people in those movies and you just get exasperated at how stupid they’re being.”
“The contrivance. I couldn’t get past it either. Things get more interesting with arthouse and international films, but I don’t think either of us are in the mood for that material right now.”
“Guilty as charged.”
More silence. The television serenely informed them that the humble grasshopper mouse could dismember and devour venomous scorpions with ease. Angel glanced over and noticed the restless twitching of Lee’s hands, that unconscious urge to pluck away his fingertips.
“I got this idea in my head, a little while ago,” they said. “Sometime after I left home. About couples, the ones that last. Everyone’s different, but if you stick with someone long enough, then it’s like you eventually start to change as a unit instead. Tangling around each other.”
“I can see that.”
“So if you’re alone for too long. Change by yourself, for too long. Then you miss your chance to fit together with anybody that way. You become so different that no one else wants you.”
Lee clasped his hands together. Nails raking at the skin.
“If that were the case, then it wouldn’t be their fault,” he murmured. “And it’d be everyone else’s loss.”
Angel tilted over and rested their head against his arm. His muscles tensed up at the contact, but he didn’t try to move away. They felt his heat through his shirtsleeve.
“I know I said I had nothing else to hide from you,” he said. “But there is something you should know.”
Now it was Angel’s turn to tense up, a deck of awful possibilities flicking through their mind. But then, with bright and piercing clarity, they thought: he’s going to say that he snores.
“I might snore, a little,” Lee went on. “Apparently it’s a habit that can worsen when you’re living alone. If it bothers you, then— what? What’s so funny?”
Angel had straightened up again, cackling helplessly into their cupped palms. They lowered them, still grinning. “Forget it. Let’s just see how many of these tapes we can get through before one of us passes out.”
Lee was the first to go, just before sunset. He slumped over like someone dozing off on a bus, and sure enough, he did snore – but not loudly, a slight burr on his every exhale. Angel, who still felt wide awake despite everything, waited a little longer, and then got up and padded over to the linen closet, grabbing the pillow and blankets Lee had set out for them before. They laid down the pillow and gently took Lee by the shoulders and guided him to rest his head on it and draped the blanket over him. Then they stood there, unsmiling and staring down at him, the face strangely babyish in the grey half-light.
* * *
The stir-fry turned out to be an early dinner. Angel eventually nodded off on the far end of the couch and found Lee nudging them awake around midnight, and they both went upstairs and went to bed, so exhausted that not even thoughts of the shrine or the closet could keep them awake. At dawn Angel woke feeling like someone had taken a hammer and precisely struck every bone in their arms and upper back. They limped off to brush their teeth and came back to see Lee sitting on the edge of the bed, clutching his knees.
“Good morning,” he said.
“Morning.”
“About last night. Thank you for—”
“Don’t mention it.”
They made omelets and tried to stretch and flex out some of the soreness, and then it was time to work. None of the macabre novelty of yesterday; the morning passed in a hazy blur. The two of them hauled heavy sacks of gravel and cement down those hateful steps, Lee setting up the hose and running an extension cord from the bedroom. They spread out and tamped down the gravel, one laborious shovelful at a time, covering up that conspicuous dark patch where the earth had recently been upturned. Next was the concrete, and as Lee had promised, the mixing was endless. Angel took water duty, twisting the tap and returning to the closet so Lee could call up and tell them when it was enough (the loudest, in fact, they had ever heard him speak; there was a disorienting moment where they didn’t register it as his voice at all), then heading back down after the electric mixer’s racket had ended to shovel and rake out the gunk alongside him.
It was ridiculous how little ground a single one of those sacks covered. They stopped for lunch after three of them were emptied and the back wall of the cellar was barely done. Angel’s hand vibrated alarmingly when they raised their fork above chest level.
“I’ll be honest, Lee. I might not be up for cooking tonight.”
“Would takeout be okay?” Lee’s forehead was caked with grey dust.
“Takeout would be great. I just hope we have enough concrete.”
“We should. I certainly checked the measurements enough. But the more we can get done in one day, the better. Ideally all of it.”
“Why the hell not.” They grabbed their plate. “Daylight’s wasting.”
The march of wet cement covered up the hole, and continued further. Angel’s breaks became more frequent but they didn’t stop, though they could feel their body promising grim reprisals for what they were putting it through, and Lee carefully planed out the floor as they went, each section joined seamlessly with the next. The number of sacks piled in the corner dropped and dropped and were eventually moved entirely as their work approached the final row, and then at last Lee hoisted the wheelbarrow and the mixer upstairs and they raked and planed the final load into the corner. The cellar’s new floor gleamed under its single bulb.
Angel slumped onto the stairs halfway up the landing, limbs jellied. Their hair was matted with dust; they felt like they could stand in front of a pressure washer and still not get clean. They peeled off one glove and took out their phone. No new messages. Of course.
“I’m calling it,” they said. “Six twenty-seven pm. All done.”
“Not quite.” Lee was at the bottom step, a silhouette in the doorway. “In a few hours I’ll cut some control joints so it doesn’t crack. Then that’ll be it. Not bad at all for our first try.”
“I think I found my dream job.”
“You’re joking.”
“I’m joking,” they said dryly. “Then you block the place off?”
“I’ll install some plasterboard and insulation at the top of the steps and remove the hinges. It’ll just be a wall, behind another wall. I considered laying bricks, but it wouldn’t fit the house, plus I don’t have much experience with mortar.”
“Bricking it up, huh. Don’t you want to see the Amontillado?”
Lee blinked, then dropped his gaze, smiling. “For the love of God, Montresor.”
“You got the reference!”
“I said my mother didn’t allow horror stories. But I always read ahead in our school English textbooks. Poe stood out. The Telltale Heart, The Bells… anyway.” He glanced into the cellar. “We’re about done with this story. Then I’ll put the house on the market and we can get on with our lives.”
Angel said nothing to that. The silence rolled out long enough for Lee to look back at them. His mask was still on but they could see his forehead creased with concern.
“Angel? Are you okay?”
“I’m just wiped, is all.” They stood up. “But I’ll hang in there until you’re ready for bed. Dibs on the shower.”
The two of them cleaned up as best as they were able and Lee went out for dinner, which they once again demolished. At nine-thirty on the dot he carried up a circular saw and the house was briefly filled with its hellacious screech; even in the living room, Angel had to cover their ears. He showered again, longer, and left to find them already in bed, lit by the nightstand lamp. Their eyes followed him as he changed and slipped in beside them. The lamps switched off. Darkness. They lay side by side.
Lee said, “I understand if you’d prefer the couch. With everything that’s happened.”
“The mattress is worth it.” They turned to him. “When do you go back to work?”
“Thursday. I’d planned to get all this done in two days and use the third to recover. Then I’d seal up the entrance after clocking out. I don’t know what I was thinking. There’s no way I could have finished it this quickly if I was alone.”
“Well, you weren’t, so we did. And good. We both need the rest.” They stared back at the ceiling. “Been a long time since I went this long without going to work myself.”
“Sudden changes in routine can be destabilizing. Biologically, not just mentally. This project should have helped, but you might experience a loss of appetite. Be sure to eat.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
“Nurse practitioner.”
“Just remembered I technically have a thousand bucks in my wallet still,” they said. “Guess I can’t spend it now, though.”
“That would probably be best. I didn’t log your final entry. My substitute might have done it for me, but I tend to doubt it. If that’s the case, and the check is uncashed, it’d give us some deniability to the authorities.” A pause. “Though it’s looking less likely they’ll arrive.” Another pause. “Worst-case scenario, you could tell them I coerced you by withholding the money.”
“That won’t happen.”
“All right.”
They kneaded the sheets between their fingers. “No idea what I’d do with it, anyway. It was all going to be spent on rent. I’d tried to get myself used to not wanting things. Things you can buy, at least.”
He stayed silent on that. He’d spoken enough on the subject of want.
“Lee. Can I ask you a personal question?”
“Go ahead.”
“I’d be your first time, right?”
Interesting how they could feel him tense up without touching him. Like vibrations in a spiderweb.
“Yes, you would. I suppose that was obvious.” He cleared his throat. “And your… first time. I assume it wasn’t…?”
“God, no. It was in college. One of my classmates. He was nice, I guess, but we weren’t going steady or anything. Actually, thinking back, he liked to wear scarves indoors. That really annoyed me for some reason.”
“Maybe he was just cold.”
“Oh no, it’s absolutely an art-student affectation kind of thing. I’m sure he thought he was very cool.”
That got a guilty snort out of him, quickly stifled. “I just want to be clear. My feelings notwithstanding, we won’t do anything until you’re ready.”
“Definitely not tonight, at least. I ache all over.” They turned to him again. “Hey. Look this way for a second?”
He did, and then his eyes went wide as they cupped the side of his face with one hand. They gave him a moment to prepare before going in for the kiss, but he was still locked up; all they could really do was mash their lips against his teeth for a few seconds before breaking it off. Nevertheless, his breathing was a rapid whistle in the back of his throat, and they touched his neck and felt the thunder of his pulse.
“It’s beating pretty fast,” they said. “Sorry. I’ll give you more warning next time.”
“It’s okay,” he said, voice slightly strangled. “Good night.”
They withdrew their hand. “Good night.”
* * *
But Angel couldn’t sleep.
Despite the jolt they’d given him, it didn’t take long for Lee’s breathing to drop back into the same rhythm as last night, that faint burred vibrato on the exhale. It was soothing, really. They tried to close their eyes and let that sound wash them away, but their lids popped up like window-shades, and their thoughts fizzed and sparked through the bone-deep exhaustion. It could have been an hour, maybe two, before they slipped out between the covers, grabbing their phone off the nightstand as they left.
Back into this murky nightmare hallway, the jagged silhouette of the Jenny Haniver at its far end. Knowing what they did now, Angel was certain this hall’s atmosphere was deliberate – it would have been trivial for Lee to install some better bulbs. He’d gotten away from home, but even if that cellar had never been discovered, there was no way he’d have survived living in this house for long. Too much of his childhood was here. He would have asphyxiated on the vapors of it.
They went downstairs. Their hoodie was curled up on the couch again – they really needed to stop leaving it wherever it was convenient – and they put it on and zipped it up and opened the back door. It was a damp, chill night, alive with cricket song. The clouds had gone and the stars were clearer than they could ever remember seeing them. They stayed on the disused back patio, cracked concrete digging into their soles, and opened their phone. No messages. Still none.
Angel felt heat rising in their face. Almost a week now, and not a word from their roommates, not even a curt you still alive? Not from their siblings, with whom they’d tried to get along but still stood by as their mother tongue-lashed them raw and all but disowned them for trying to leave home. The police might have silenced them all, but then where were the police? The cellar floor was finished. The authorities were running out of time. Is this why everyone said that criminals wanted to get caught? Because it was worse to have committed the crime, this terrible thing, and realize that no one cared?
Absurdly, their breath started to hitch. The phone wavered and trebled before their eyes. They pressed it to their forehead, grinding against the skin.
“You fucking people,” they said, through grit teeth. “I deserve better than this.”
Nobody cared, not even about the ones who didn’t care. All the restaurant staff he’d laughed with and hi-fived all day, his roommate, whoever else he knew, whoever else they knew, someone dropped off the earth and their absence was barely noted, the laughter went on, the how-are-yous and I’m-fines, the bills to be paid, the rent, the conversation by reflex, all of it surface, everything a pleasantry, everyone a prop. How were people supposed to survive this way? But that wasn’t the worst thing. The worst thing was they could already feel it happening to themself and Lee.
They were here by choice. They’d justified their decision out loud, in front of him and the body, and they still cared about him, had learned more about him even through all this. It was nice. But the circumstances of it. Even when they’d kissed him tonight, the warmth was fading. What they had now was built on that body, and they could feel it coiling around whatever they chose to do from now on, choking it out, bleeding away the color. Lee could turn his back on it and move on because they were all he wanted, but Angel lacked his focus, their attention would wander. They knew, with dreadful certainty, that if they didn’t shake this off somehow and soon, it wouldn’t matter if they left the house; it would only be a matter of time before they left again, and turned themselves into the police or just walked into traffic. If they stood by and allowed Lee to seal up that cellar as if it was nothing but a job well-done, all of this was merely a stay of execution. They had to take control of the situation somehow and they couldn't find a solution.
They realized they’d started pacing again, then stopped. Their eyes widened a little; they brought up their phone again, scrolled through their playlists.
“I’ve lost my mind,” they said. But their voice wasn’t totally despairing.
They returned to the house and locked the door behind them. After the crickets’ din outside, the silent in here felt weighty, broken only by the drone of the refrigerator. They went to the kitchen for water and stopped at the fridge, the pale square of the drawing that Lee had stuck up on it. They’d been glossing over it in the past couple of days, trapped it in the corner of their vision, but now they stared, and after a minute they rested their palm against the fridge door and put their forehead to the paper, the compressor’s vibration transmitted through their skull.
* * *
If Lee was aware of their nighttime excursion, he didn’t show it that morning. Then again, for much of the day after waking, Angel might not have noticed if he’d set off a firecracker beside their face. They’d fallen asleep at last and their body had made good on its threats; it took until lunchtime before they stopped feeling like a single wrong movement would make them pop apart like an ill-used toy. Lee hid it better, but there was a certain invalid caution to the way he moved. He took small and shuffling steps, and wouldn’t raise his arms too high.
So the day passed in idleness. Not much different from the one before Angel had discovered the shrine, which had already begun to feel like it had happened to someone else. They played video games on Lee’s battered old console and Angel begrudgingly resorted to Lee’s backlog of frozen meals for lunch, waiting for their spine to become more cooperative before they could cook again. At one point they casually asked what he’d done with all the things he’d burned, and he casually replied he’d buried them as well, outside the property line. He promised the house would be up for sale by next weekend at the latest. Other than that, their conversation was trivial. The little statements of preference, the dry insights, the jokes. There was a thin line between warm familiarity and bloodless routine.
Daylight faded. The clock approached Lee’s bedtime, which he was grateful to start following again now that all the hard labor was done with. He told Angel they shouldn’t feel obligated to turn in at the same time with him but once the TV switched off they both went upstairs, showered and brushed their teeth separately, changed with their backs to each other. Only when they climbed into bed did Lee ask if they were feeling okay, the gentlest probing he could manage, and they touched his hand beneath the bedcovers and assured him they’d be better tomorrow.
Then came the waiting. First for Lee’s breath to turn guttural and slow, and then more to work up their nerve. Their thoughts were effervescent as last night and kept them awake as the hours rolled by. At half past eleven they rose and crept to the desk chair, where they’d been sure to leave their hoodie this time, and they pulled it on and went back to the nightstand for their phone, slipping it into the jacket pocket. Then around the bed where Lee still snored, to kneel down and grope blindly for the hole in the wall. Their questing fingers found the plastic oblong of that hidden switch, and they braced their thumb against the button and pushed.
The light clicked on. The latch clicked open. When they stood again, Lee was still in the same position, eyes closed, but the pattern of his breathing had already changed. Angel didn’t hesitate; they went to the closet and stepped through, to descend the stairs for the final time, in darkness.
They’d gone up and down these steps so much over the last two days that their movements were automatic. They held up a hand to gauge when they’d reached the first-flight landing and then turned and kept going. The vacancy of this space beneath the house was like a clenched fist around them. Finally there was cool, fresh stone under their bare feet, and they felt for the light switch and snapped it on, shielding their eyes against the glare.
The cellar was now a featureless cube awash in that off-yellow light. Its concrete floor had been cut into a neat four-square, and they stepped forward and found it solid. They stood in the middle of the room and turned back to the stairs, rubbing the phone through the pocket like a charm, as they listened to Lee follow them.
For all they’d said and done, to him, to themself, this was the truth: people could justify anything. No one deserved anything. There was no limit to the indignities that could occupy a life before it became unendurable. If there was anything they and Lee had in common now, it was that they’d both decided to draw their own limits. Cut the lines and navigate the territory, all that came with it – the tension and release, the occasional ugliness. All they could hope for now was that this next part wouldn’t be ugly.
“Angel?” Lee’s voice was querulous. Like someone in a dream.
“I’m here.”
He descended slowly, and then stood at the foot of the stairs, picking at his fingertips. Nothing rehearsed this time. He was at a loss. They wondered what they must look like to him right now, haloed by this bulb.
“I want to be honest about all this,” they said. “Whatever we have now, it started here, Lee. What you did. What I agreed to. And it’s not normal. We’re never going to be normal.”
“That doesn’t—”
“It’s alright. I don’t want normal anyway. But that means this,” they held out their aching arms, gestured at the room, “can’t end normally. I was treating it that way, to get through it. Just a big construction project. But if we just wrap it up like this and move on with our lives, I won’t be able to stop thinking about it. What’s underneath. It’ll drive me insane. So I need us to do something more.”
“Tell me what it is,” he said. Hushed, desperate. “I’ll do it. Just tell me.”
And he would. He’d do whatever they wanted, become whoever they wanted. For all his remorseless monotone as they’d stood over that body, Angel had, underneath their own numbed terror, been struck by the understanding that his life was in their hands from that moment on. Now they had it, but that didn’t mean they were apart from it. Maybe they could grow and tangle around each other.
“Come here,” they said. Lee approached, stiffly, wide-eyed. “Hold out your hand.” His arm swiveled up. “Not like that. Palm up, see?” They demonstrated, and he mimicked them. “That’s it. Now give me a sec.”
They got out their phone and turned the volume high as it would go, then opened the music player. They’d picked the song out already – something that would start slow, and a little sad. When they hit Play, the music was tinny and fuzzed, but still recognizable, even when they put it back into their pocket. They took Lee’s hand and pulled him in, put their own hands on his forearm and his hip. Lee’s face was a portrait of terrified incomprehension.
“I can’t dance,” he said.
“Neither can I. Let’s just try not to trip over each other.”
It was pitiful, at first. A crippled, shuffling gait, each of them afraid to move without knocking down the other. As the tempo picked up, Angel started giggling again, helplessly, first at the absurdity of it all but then at the sensation, the quickening pulse, the scuff of their feet against the new floor, and Lee’s face cracked into a shaky smile as well. Watch them now, listen close, the cheap music underscored by the electric buzz, their conjoined shadow and its tarantellasmic sway, Angel lurching out to arm’s length and falling back into Lee’s arms, Lee sweeping them into an awkward dip as they laughed into the ceiling, and at last they clutched Lee’s shirt collar in their fist and looped an arm around his neck, pulling him in close so their lips were to his ear, each ensnared in the other’s heartbeat and feverish warmth as the music played on.
“You and me,” said Angel. “For better or worse.”