CHAPTER TEN
The lobby of Uncle Wayne’s building is guarded only by the bloody corpse of a scrawny, pimply boy in a private school uniform. My siblings and I just walk right in.
Despite the inherent dangers I’m momentarily tempted to use the elevator now. Just the thought of walking up six flights of stairs makes me feel tired. But common sense wins out. I lead the way to the stairs.
We make it to the sixth floor with no problems. In the narrow, stuffy grey hallway we find yet another corpse – this one the corpse of an obese Hispanic woman. There’s no blood on her and she has no visible injuries. Her lifeless hand grips a large claw hammer.
“I bet she had a heart attack,” Taylor speculates. “She chased after her kid to kill him and she had a heart attack.”
“And her kid kept on running,” Lynda adds.
I step over the corpse. “Wouldn’t you?”
“If I saw Mom or Dad collapse from a heart attack tonight? I don’t know.”
“Yeah, right.”
We reach the door to Uncle Wayne’s apartment. I turn to my brother and sister. “Look,” I whisper, “when I came here two years ago the place was a mess. Ever see that TV show about hoarders?”
“Eew!” Lynda whispers.
“Well it was like that. It might be better now, but I doubt it. Oh, and it might stink in there. It did the last time. He had a cat but didn’t clean the litter box.”
“Great,” Taylor mutters.
“Just thought I’d let you know.”
I ring the doorbell. Uncle Wayne must have heard us talking in the hallway, because he answers right away, and when he speaks it sounds like he’s right on the other side of the door.
“Who is it?”
“Caril Hallenbeck. Your niece.”
“Caril?”
I stand in front of the peephole so he can check me out.
“God, is that really you?”
“It’s me. Taylor and Lynda are here too. Can we come in?”
“Sure. Sure. Just hold on a second.”
Plodding, heavy footsteps recede into the apartment.
“I hope he cleaned the litterbox,” Lynda whispers.
The “second” turns out to last more than a minute. Finally, I hear a deadbolt being pulled back, a chain lock being undone, a second deadbolt. The door opens, with Uncle Wayne standing behind it, out of view.
“Come in. Quickly.”
Of course I enter first, holding my knife and Madison’s superspade at the ready, just in case Mom or Dad have found their way here ahead of us. Taylor and Lynda scoot in behind me, also brandishing their weapons.
Uncle Wayne slams the door shut, relocks the locks, and turns to face us. He looks exactly the same as he did that day two years ago when Mom and I went to see him. Stubble-faced, red-eyed, tall like Dad but paunchy from lack of exercise and an all take-out food diet. Even though it’s not all that warm in the apartment he’s sweating profusely. The sweatpants and sweatshirt he’s wearing are dirty and stained. It looks like he’s been wearing them for days. The tiny apartment looks the same too. Same ancient TV, same waist high stacks of old newspapers, same worn, cat-scratched furniture, same litter box smell.
“Hi Uncle,” I say.
“You don’t need knives. I’m not going to hurt you. It’s your mom and dad you have to worry about.”
“You know what’s going on?”
“Of course.”
“They’re not here, are they?”
“No. I wouldn’t have let you in if they were. You think I want to see my nieces and nephew killed?”
I lower my weapons. Taylor and Lynda do the same and stare rudely at this relative that they’ve never seen before.
“What the hell is that?” Uncle Wayne asks, pointing at Madison’s superspade.
“I don’t know exactly. Some kind of gardening tool. It belonged to a friend of mine.”
“A deceased friend?”
“Yeah. How do you know what’s going on? From the TV?”
“From what I heard going on out in the hallway. Any dead out there?”
“Yeah. One. A fat woman.”
“Score one for the kids.” Uncle Wayne gestures towards his worn, beat-up couch. “Sit down, sit down. Just throw your jackets – and weapons – anywhere.”
Taylor, Lynda, and I exchange uneasy looks.
“Sorry about all the clutter but I wasn’t expecting company.”
I start edging my way along a narrow path between the newspaper stacks, my siblings reluctantly following behind me. Uncle Wayne stays by the door. I wonder how he buys his newspapers if he never goes out. Maybe he pays the super to buy them for him.
“Don’t you ever throw your newspapers away?” Lynda asks.
“If I throw them away I’ll lose all the news in them.”
Lynda’s too polite – or maybe too smart – to question his logic. “Oh.”
We make it to the couch, which looks even worse up close than it did from across the room. I hate even the thought of sitting on it, but I have no choice. I’m certainly not going to stand the whole time I’m here. I’m too tired. I drop my knife and superspade on the nearest stack of newspapers – the one next to the coffee table – take off my jacket, and sit down. Taylor and Lynda do the same. We keep our jackets in our laps.
“Where’s Mark Junior?”
Taylor and Lynda both look at me. I don’t want to tell him, but since he was kind enough to let us in I figure I owe him an answer.
“He’s dead. At least, we’re pretty sure he’s dead. The last time we saw him Dad was trying to kill him. That was back at the house. Dad chased after us later on the street, so we assume . . . “ I can’t say the rest.
“Jesus. What about your mom? Where’s she?”
“We don’t know.”
Lynda takes a handkerchief out of her back pocket and covers her nose with it. I don’t blame her. The cat stink is really horrendous. But I don’t want Uncle Wayne to be offended. We can’t afford to get kicked out of here. I consider pulling her hand away from her face, but that might draw his attention to her.
“Would you like something to drink?” Uncle Wayne asks, still rooted by the door.
“Yes please,” Taylor answers quickly.
Uncle Wayne starts edging his way towards the kitchen alcove. “I have some orange soda. Is that okay?”
“Great.”
Uncle Wayne’s cat, a white cat with blue eyes, jumps up on one of the stacks of newspaper near the window and sits there like a sphinx blinking at us. I can’t remember its name but it’s definitely the same cat he had two years ago. Mom told me later that day that all white cats with blue eyes are deaf. I don’t know if she had her facts straight about that, but if she did I’m pretty sure this cat doesn’t mind not being able to hear its owner’s voice.
Uncle Wayne finally squeezes into the kitchen alcove. Even in there he has to maneuver through stacks of newspapers. When he turns his back to us to reach into a cabinet for glasses, I pull Lynda’s hand away from her face.
“It stinks in here,” she whispers.
“We have no place else to go and I don’t want him to get offended and kick us out,” I whisper back.
“I like that cat,” Taylor says. “I’ve never seen a white cat before.” He slaps his knee a few times in an attempt to summon it. “Here cat. Here kitty.”
The cat doesn’t budge.
“What’s your cat’s name?”
Uncle Wayne opens his refrigerator and takes out a bottle of orange soda. “Whitey.”
“Here Whitey.”
“He’s deaf,” I inform Taylor, keeping my eye on Uncle Wayne.
“Deaf? Cats can be deaf?”
“Sure. Just like people.”
Uncle Wayne fills four glasses with soda. “Who told you Whitey is deaf?”
“Mom. She told me all white cats with blue eyes are deaf.”
“Really.
I wonder where she learned that.”
“I thought she learned it from you.”
“No. I never told her that. She must have read it on the Internet.”
“I’m allergic to cats,” Lynda lies cleverly, covering her nose with her handkerchief again, “so I’m going to keep my face covered.”
Uncle Wayne puts the bottle of soda back in the refrigerator. “Good idea. Caril, can you help me with these glasses?”
Without thinking I get up, drop my jacket onto the coffee table, and slowly make my way to the kitchen alcove. There’s no way I can take the glasses from the living room side of the formica counter – too many newspapers are piled in front of it. I have to go into the alcove. Uncle Wayne waits patiently for me. As I approach I can only see him from the waist up, but I’m not concerned. As Uncle Wayne said himself, he’s not my father.
There are almost as many stacks of newspapers in the alcove as there are in the living room. I inch along a T-shaped pathway in the stacks to where Uncle Wayne stands at the counter. On either side of him, running three deep along the entire length of the counter, are more stacks of newspapers. Most come up to his waist, but some are a little shorter. As soon as I’m within arm’s reach he lowers his hand to the stack closest to him, the top of which is hidden by a taller stack. When his hand comes up again it’s holding a cleaver. A cleaver! He raises it and lunges at me, but fortunately for me he attacks too soon. From where I’m standing at the intersection of the “T” I’m able to dodge the cleaver by jumping to the side.
“Taylor! Lynda!” I scream, stumbling as I try to escape the alcove through the narrow pathway. I trip, fall, and look up just in time to see Madison’s superspade slam into the side of Uncle Wayne’s head like a spear. The blade penetrates about a half inch into his skull – not enough for the weird tool to stay imbedded. The weight of the long wooden handle causes it to fall to the floor. Uncle Wayne drops his cleaver and falls forward on top of me, blood spurting out of his head and onto the newspapers and my face.
I scream and, even though I’m not hurt, pass out.