Mad Tales

Chapter 6 - The Neighborhood is Really Going to the Dead

CHAPTER 6 The Neighborhood is Really Going to the DeadGrossman’s house was a blight upon the neighborhood. The windows were all boarded up, the top of the chimney collapsed and overgrown with weeds, and cars littered the front and back lawns in a parody of a castle wall. It was impossible to navigate the front yard without getting snared in the makeshift wire fence he’d strung like a labyrinth across the grass, or stepping on the leftover rusty nails and screws, or getting tangled up in the hoses, or falling into the pits he’d dug for one abandoned project after another. Compared to the pristine gardens, the manicured Bermuda grass, the sealed driveways of the other houses on Swan Tail Lane, Grossman’s property was an embarrassment. An ear torn off a starlet; a gash on a baby.

It was Halloween, and the porches and mailboxes were decorated with paper skeletons or fanged pumpkins. A few of the yards even had blow-up goblins or ghosts, now deflated in the early morning sun. At night, bushes flickered with cheery orange and green lights, set on timers to turn on as soon as it got dark. All Grossman had by way of decoration was a crimson smear of a handprint splattered on his mailbox and door. It looked more like some kind of twisted religious symbol than it did a decoration, but then again, nobody ever recalled seeing him at church.

Robert had only been in the neighborhood for a few days, but to him, it was now home. He and Berenice had traveled hundreds of miles to get there, drawn to it by the quality of the people who lived there. And the amount. How could he forget the amount? There were so many, so many, and it first overwhelmed him to have to deal with them all. They were so healthy and strong and virile that it took him and Berenice (and Jimmy and Betty and some others) a long time to get the job done. Those first couple of days were heaven, a feast of introductions, at least until they came across Grossman’s house.

Robert and Berenice stood at the mailbox across the street, glaring at the hideous sight opposite them. Berenice’s mouth hung agape.

I can’t believe he thinks it’s okay to live that way, she muttered.

I know, Robert sighed. I mean, who leaves all that stuff on their lawn? Makes it so difficult to get to him.

We’re lucky we didn’t go to his house first.

Robert nodded. Their first few days were so easy. All they had to do was walk right up and introduce themselves. Nobody had pits in their lawns or shot at them. It was so easy that they’d become used to it, and after a while they didn’t even pause as they made their rounds.

His best friend, Jimmy, straggled up next to them. His overalls were savaged, and his long beard swung over his pendulous belly. Robert tried not to look at him. Jimmy and Betty had had a run in with Grossman a few hours before, and the former had clearly come out the worse for wear.

That damn Grossman’s pissed me off for the last time, Jimmy groaned.

Robert didn’t want to look at him.

Is it really that bad?

Jimmy let his head loll and stared madly at Grossman’s house. His tongue popped out in concentration.

Never mind that. He cast a furtive glance them. Both were still staring at Grossman’s house, trying not to look at him. But Betty ain’t gonna be walkin’ no more.

Robert finally let himself look at his friend, and his mouth dropped. Jimmy’s face was peppered with black marks, shotgun pellets from look of it. Then out of the corner of his eye, something in Grossman’s house caught his attention, some kind of movement, but it was gone before he could bring his head back around, and all that remained was a twitching curtain in an upstairs window.

Durnit all, Jimmy muttered. They’s in there, mockin’ us. He turned to Robert and Berenice. I’ve had it. C’mon. Let’s get him.

Robert tried to reach out to stop him, but Jimmy had already lurched out into the street and stumbled over to Grossman’s lawn. Wait! was all he could get out.

He wanted to remind Jimmy of the pits and the traps, the wire and the screws, but Jimmy was new, fresh, and much too fast. He was already in the yard by the time Robert stepped off the curb. He managed to side step the first tangle of hoses and even avoided two of the pits. Robert thought he might actually have a chance. Jimmy groaned, Comin’ to get you! but in doing so, he didn’t watch where he was going. His right foot slipped into one of the smaller holes, and his ankle twisted. Robert heard it snap, and then Jimmy pin-wheeled into the razor wire, his feet suddenly caught in a nest of hose.

Aargh! My feet is all tangled up!

Robert started for him. Don’t move. You’ll only make it worse.

He didn’t want to rush out into the open. A few days before, Grossman had appeared on his roof for the first time in a while. Mrs. Gouger, seeing her opportunity to confront him personally, started up the street. Grossman watched her calmly pick her way through the cars parked pell-mell in his driveway, then, right when she reached the last one (opening her mouth to hiss and curse at him), he pulled a shotgun out from behind his back and—well, there were still parts of her scattered on the lawn, hanging from the tree limbs.

So Robert pulled himself up behind one of the vehicles at the end of the driveway, then slowly, as slow as he could manage, he wheeled around the edge.

The sight he beheld made his stomach drop.

Jimmy’s legs were entirely wrapped up in the green garden hose. He spun slowly on his good leg, groaning in frustration. Something flashed in the morning sun, and Robert saw the nails and screws protruding from his friend’s feet. One of Jimmy’s arms was caught in the coiled wire, and it cut into his flesh. His eyes rolled in his head.

Then Grossman appeared on his roof.

He was dressed as much as Robert expected. A wife beater, stained light brown with sweat and armpit, hung from his skinny little shoulders. Crusty old blue corduroys slumped on his narrow hips. His feet were shod in clunky, black boots. His hair was lank and greasy, and it drooped in his eyes. He smiled a brown smile at them, and pulled his rifle from behind his back.

Jimmy, Robert moaned.

Grossman put the rifle up to his shoulder, closed one eye, took aim.

Robert pulled behind to the safety of the car just as the first shot rang out. He heard another, and another, too many to count, followed by the sick splat of Jimmy’s body parts as they rained all over the lawn. There was a pause, and Robert thought it was over, but then the firing resumed and he realized Grossman was just reloading his weapon.

“That’ll teach you, you freaks!” Grossman screamed. “Stay the hell off my property!”

Berenice growled in response, a combination of pain, horror, and mourning. Grossman glared at her, re-shouldered his rifle, aimed, and squeezed the trigger. Robert clenched his eyes shut. The first bullet pinged off a mailbox, but the second hit her directly in the forehead. She stood still, her eyes wide, before finally falling backward onto the pavement.

When Robert finally opened his eyes, more new neighbors from the surrounding properties had appeared on their lawns, all of them facing Grossman’s house. Many wore dazed, puzzled expressions on their faces. Some glared. More poured in from the feeder streets, attracted by the noise. He recognized a few from his trip to his new home, others were just arrived, and some appeared to have lived there for quite some time. The sheer number of witnesses seemed to frighten Grossman. He shot a panicked look around him, uttered a foul word, and disappeared down behind his house again.

Robert waited until he was sure the murderer wouldn’t come back before turning around the car. The rest of the neighbors shuffled at the edge of the property, unsure of what to do next. Something had to be done, that was clear, but they were too afraid to begin. A few of them stared, lips twisted, eyes goggled. They were looking at Jimmy’s remains, or Berenice’s brains. Robert knew some of them were thinking of Betty, sitting on the lawn of her new home, waiting for Jimmy. And he knew some of them were thinking of Mrs. Gouger. But all of them, all of them, were thinking the same thing: What if I’m next?

Some kind of tacit agreement shuddered through the crowd, and they started forward, seventy-five strong, and started for the monster, started for Grossman’s front door. Nobody cared if he showed up on his roof. Nobody cared about the traps and the hoses. Nobody cared about the wire and the nails. He couldn’t catch them all. He couldn’t shoot them all. Robert tried to lead them, wanted to be the first in the hoses, the first to take the nails and the screws, the first to be cut by the wire. But the others were new like Jimmy had been, and they lurched onto the lawn in front of him.

Grossman! they wailed. Grossman!

The curtains on the upstairs windows twitched. Three neighbors went down in the hoses. The rest trampled over them, Robert included, unable to stop the wave of flesh.

Grossman!

Lights behind the boarded up downstairs windows flashed. Another line of them was cut down by the wires. A handful disappeared into a pit, their surprised moans cut off by an ugly thud as they landed on the spikes below. They were down to nearly one third their original number, all in an instant. Still, they crested and poured into the garden.

Grossman! Grossman!

Robert couldn’t believe it. They were almost to the door! Over thirty of them, spread out in a line on the lawn. He reached out for the house, they all did, moaning his name in unison, moaning the name of the evil thing that waited just on the other side of the door, waited for them to tear him apart.

Grossman! Grosssssman! Gross—

Suddenly, Robert’s ears felt like they’d been plugged with cotton. A fantastic roar swallowed the air all around him, the ground disappeared beneath his feet, and he felt himself falling, falling into dirt and darkness.

Grossman’s house was dim and dank inside. The boarded up windows disallowed much light from entering, and he rarely allowed them to turn on the oil lamps for fear of attracting any attention. Even so, it was clear the house had been in foul condition for some time. Ashtrays overflowed with cigarette butts, plates of stale food sat on every available surface, and the mantle of the fireplace was lined with whiskey bottles, beer bottles, vodka bottles. Even worse was the carpet, which was tacky and stained with gruesome brown and red splotches, acned where cigarettes had been hastily ground out.

Grossman himself paced back and forth in front of the door, weaving between the unopened boxes of computer gear, a new electric guitar on a stand, and three large screen televisions. An array of weapons—shot guns, 30 06’s, boxes of ammunition, chainsaws and gas cans—lined the walls. He let the toggle for the C4 he’d buried under the garden dangle from his hand.

“Yes! Yes!” he cried, punching the air. “Got the bastards! I got them gotdamn sons-a-bitches!”

The three women on the sagging couch flinched with each punch. They were dirty and sallow, each dressed in the flimsy clothes they’d worn during their flight from whatever respective horror they’d managed to escape. One was dressed only in a nightgown, another in jeans and a tee shirt but no shoes, and the third in a brown leather bomber’s jacket and panties and flip flops. They sat with their feet curled up beneath them, cowering against each other for comfort.

Grossman swiped a half-empty bottle of Jameson’s from the coffee table, up-turned it and swallowed greedily, wiping his lips with the back of his hand when he was done. They’d seen it a million times. He set the bottle down with a clunk, and swayed, woozy, staring at them. Then he flung a finger at the woman on the right-hand side of the couch.

“You,” he snarled. “Your turn.”