Hellhole

  “So?” Max gestured to the television. “We can still keep watching. The runway’s coming up.”

  Burg was already slumping over, his lids half closed. “Beer bye-bye. Sleepytime now.”

  “But it’s not over!” Max insisted. “Plenty of sideboob still to come!”

  Burg emitted a snore-burp.

  Max looked at his watch. The T. rex skeleton informed him that it was after two in the morning. “It’s late. I should probably go to bed.” Self-narrating was yet another one of Drunk Max’s finer qualities. “I have a history quiz tomorrow. I should go study for that.”

  This must have struck him as hilarious, because laughter bubbled up as he stood and tottered to the stairs. “Night,” he called out, grabbing the banister for support. “See you tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, buddy, tomorrow,” Burg answered. “Unless, of course, you slipped a Mickey into my drink.”

  It took a full minute, but Burg’s words eventually slogged their way through to Max’s brain. “Huh?” he said, stumbling back to the couch. “Whadyu say?”

  Burg opened one eye and looked at Max, his gaze steady and strong. “If you attempt to drug me,” he said evenly, his words no longer slurred, “if you engage in any deceit or fraudulence or injurious advances whatsoever, I will not hesitate to do something very unfortunate to you.”

  Max had always heard that drunk people sobered up immediately in the face of trauma, but that wasn’t happening for him. He was finding it even harder to concentrate; in fact, he couldn’t even be sure he wasn’t currently passed out on the floor, drooling and dreaming that his drinking buddy had improbably gone from hammered to evil in five seconds flat.

  But he wasn’t imagining it. Burg was still staring at him with that one cold, lifeless eye. A chill pounded through Max’s body. He knows.

  He knew that Max and Lore had talked about drugging him. But how?

  A numbness came over Max as he staggered up the stairs, accidentally banging his elbow into his mom’s bedroom door as he tried to sneak down the hallway.

  “Max!” she called out in a harsh whisper.

  He gave the door a shove. It opened a couple of inches, creaking quietly.

  “Yeah?” he said into the darkness.

  “What time is it? What are you doing up?”

  A burp escaped his throat—he tried to let it out quietly, but it insisted on making its presence loudly known. “I wasjus—I hadta pee.”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Max,” she said after a moment, “come here.”

  “Nah, I’m turnin’ in. Go back to sleep.”

  “Max.” Her voice had a sharpness to it. “Come in here. Right now.”

  He didn’t know how or why it happened, but the stupor he’d felt moments earlier swiftly turned to rage. It consumed him, took hold of his muscles and his voice, which rose to a deafening volume. “No!” he bellowed. “Every damn day it’s something else with you! My toothbrush fell! The heat’s too hot! Can’t you just leave me alone? For five friggin’ minutes?”

  When she spoke again, her voice was quivering. “Max?”

  “Just shut the hell up and go to bed!”

  With that, he slammed her door shut and stalked down the hallway to his room. He fell into bed, and if any thoughts of regret flickered through his inebriated mind before unconsciousness took him, they weren’t strong enough to make him get up and apologize.

  Hot Spot

  MAX AWOKE TO FIND that someone had replaced his organs with water balloons, his mouth with a sandbox, and his head with a train track mid-construction, repeatedly being punctured by railroad spikes.

  “Guuuggghhhhhh,” he moaned.

  “Get up,” someone said.

  Max unsealed his eyes—producing, unsettlingly, a wet, smacking noise—then slammed them shut again. Whoever had done all of these terrible things to his body had also placed him in the center of a sun or a star or some other gaseous body capable of producing an unfathomable amount of light.

  He fumbled with his pillow until it covered most of his head. It didn’t stop the railroad spikes pounding through his brain—those workers were highly industrious—but at least the light was dimmed.

  He felt a tap on his elbow. It hurt.

  “Owwww,” he said to verify this.

  “Max, get up.”

  Max’s stomach roiled. His skin broke out in goosebumps as a chill coursed through his body. The pungent smell of vomit wafted up from his sheets, providing Max with the strong desire to produce another batch.

  He permitted a single eyelid to flutter open, seared retinas be damned. A puffy smudge of darkness sat to his left.

  “Ew,” said the smudge. “You smell even worse than you look.”

  “Audie? What are you doing here?” he asked, though it came out more like “Whayudunear?”

  She was sitting on the edge of his bed and staring at him as if he were an endangered tiger, rare and dangerous. “I’m going to assume you don’t remember opening your window last night around three a.m. and yelling ‘That neckline is a fashion disaster!’ in a German accent, but that is what happened. Since you left your window wide open, I took it upon myself to sneak in this morning to find out what’s going on.” She sniffed again and made a disgusted face. “And since my nose is in working order, I think I’ve figured it out.”

  “It was an accident,” Max mumbled into his sheets. “I didn’t mean to.”

  “Didn’t mean to drink an entire case of beer?” Audie countered. “You could have gotten alcohol poisoning and died in your sleep! What were you thinking?”

  Max felt as if he were processing this conversation on a thirty-second delay. “Wait, did you say I yelled out the window? Did I wake your parents up?”

  “Uh, yeah, Max. You woke the whole neighborhood up.”

  He groaned. He tried to sift through his memories of the previous evening, but none of them included being a public nuisance. They were all so jumbled together, with lots of holes . . . Burg was there, but so was Heidi Klum, somehow, and beer cans . . . and sequins . . .

  And Mom, he realized with a lurch. Yelling at his mom. Being quite, quite rude to his mom.

  He groaned again.

  Audie poked him harder. “Max. What happened?”

  The urgency in her voice brought him back to his senses. He sat up in bed, every atom of his body screaming in pain. “I, um—” He pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets, which seemed to help both with the pain and with avoiding Audie’s eyes as he lied to her. “That fugue state—it was really stressful and humiliating, and I just thought I could—”

  “Ease the pain with alcohol? How’d that work out for you?”

  An extra-long railroad spike gleefully clobbered Max’s cerebellum. “Not well.”

  “And I see you’re still sticking with the fugue state thing. Great.” She retrieved a tray from the floor; it held two mugs and a plate of steaming pastries. “Coffee, water, or Pop-Tarts?”

  Just the sight of the jaunty strawberry sprinkles made Max’s stomach lurch. “Oh God. Water.”

  She practically dumped the tray onto his bed. “Come on, Max, what’s going on with you? I’ve never seen you like this. I mean, you’re always weird, but not this weird.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.” He took a sip of water, but this, too, proved to be painful. “I’ve just had a lot of things to take care of lately. We should hang out soon, once they’re . . . done.”

  She gave him a sly grin. “You could come to the homecoming game on Friday.”

  “Sorry, still can’t do Fridays. But—oh, hey,” he said, attempting to inject some brightness into his voice. “I’ll come to the pep rally tomorrow. How about that?”

  Audie lit up. “Really?”

  “Yeah. Promise.”

  Audie smiled widely. Though the whiteness of her teeth was making his eyes water, Max forced a grin back.

  Until—

  “Wait a sec,” he said, trying to keep the fear out of his voi
ce as a delayed snippet of their conversation finally caught up to him. “Aud, how did you know how much beer I drank?”

  “Are you kidding me? The cans were all over the basement. You could barely see the floor.”

  Oh, no.

  Audie was a good person. She was a good, good person, coming here at the crack of dawn to take care of him, toast Pop-Tarts, and remain relatively upbeat throughout. If what Burg said was true—that he appreciated a “challenge,” relished the opportunity to ruin her future . . .

  Max reeled as he realized how close she’d gotten to the guy. He’d probably just been working on his plaster horns in the next room, only that thin, propped-up door separating her from lord knows what terrible fate . . .

  “Aud, listen to me.” Knives slashed at Max’s throat as he swallowed. “You have to stay out of the basement.”

  She cocked her head. “Why?”

  “Because—” Max licked his lips, the taste of sick still smudged into the corner of his mouth. “Because I, uh, peed down there. On the wall, or the carpet somewhere. Gotta clean it up.”

  Audie stared at him.

  “You’re lying,” she said.

  Max tried to recall. “I don’t think I am, actually—”

  “Okay, fine, but that’s not the real reason you want to keep me out of there. You’re hiding something.”

  He looked away.

  “I knew it!” she said vindictively. “I knew something was up. Something that would explain all of this. Come on, Max. Fess up. Fess up fess up fess up!”

  Well, there it was. She’d resorted to the same tactics that had tricked his eight-year-old self into confessing that he’d stolen her Paleontologist Barbie. And her little plastic shovel, too.

  As it had worked then, it was working now. Maybe if Max had been at a hundred percent, he could have kept up the charade. Maybe if his spleen weren’t trying to force its way up his trachea, he could have formulated just one more little lie.

  But he couldn’t.

  And hey, a nasty, foreign part of his brain added, if you get in trouble with any of these break-ins, don’t you think it would help to have the daughter of the chief of police on your side? Don’t you think he’d be a little more willing to look the other way if there was a chance his daughter’s bright, shiny future might be ruined?

  It was an evil thought. A devious, immoral, horrible thought . . . that sounded perfectly reasonable to Max, thanks to the vast amounts of alcohol still chugging through his system.

  “—fess up fess up fess up—”

  “But we’re gonna be late for school!”

  “—fess up—whatever, I’ll tell my mom it was an emergency—fess up fess up—”

  “Fine!”

  Audie smiled. She won. As usual.

  Pale, shaking, and woozy, Max careened out of bed and began to pace, but the room was tilting. “Wait.” He grabbed the coffee from the tray and downed it all in one gulp. “Okay. Um, I don’t know how to start.” He folded his hands. “Please,” he said charitably, “have a Pop-Tart.”

  She humored him with a bite. “Delicious. Go.”

  Max nodded, though that just angered the hangover further. His head felt like a bag of microwave popcorn, ready to pop and explode and shower the room in a lively array of brain kernels. “Okay. The other night I couldn’t sleep, so I went up to Ugly Hill to do some digging. Actually, wait—the day before, I stole a cat.”

  “You . . . stole a cat.”

  “Not a real cat. A fake cat.”

  “You stole a fake cat.”

  “Yes. For my mom. And then, because I was digging up on the hill—well, really, it was just a coincidence—although really, he’d sort of been planning it all along, I was just the hapless victim—”

  “Victim of what?” Audie was lost. “Who’s ‘he’?”

  Max sighed. This was never going to work. She was never going to believe him.

  Not without a visual aid.

  Slowly, so as not to agitate the delicate brain kernels, he wobbled toward the hallway. “Stay here,” he said. “I’ll be right back. Eat more tart.”

  Unable to even look at his mother’s door without reeling from guilt, he stumbled down the hallway, punting Ruckus halfway across the living room when he got underfoot. “Dammit, Ruckus—I mean, nice job, Ruckus,” he said, sparing a chin scratch for the irritated cat. “You kept him downstairs. Good initiative.”

  Devils evidently didn’t suffer hangovers. Burg was as spry as a bunny, watching Scooby-Doo and laughing like a lunatic. “Dude,” he said, pointing at the television, “the old caretaker of the spooky mansion booby-trapped a stuffed deer head to drop onto the intruder’s head, and he ran around looking like a deer until he crashed through the wall, and now there’s a hole in the wall in the shape of a deer!”

  “Hilarious.”

  “It is, man!” Burg said in a pitch-perfect imitation of Shaggy. And as he tipped a bag of popcorn over his face and it cascaded across his mouth, beard, and chest, Max was struck by the eerie similarity.

  He gladly muted the television. He’d always hated Scooby-Doo. “Listen—”

  “Oh hey,” Burg said, “did we pee down here last night? Because I gotta tell you, this room is developing a distinctive funk.”

  “We did. And it is. And I’ll clean it up later. But right now I need you to come upstairs for a sec.”

  “Come upstairs?” Burg cried, dramatically putting a hand on his chest in mock horror. “But that is a flagrant violation of rule number one!”

  “And rule number four,” Max said, indicating Burg’s lack of pants, “but whatever. I want you to meet my friend Audie.”

  Burg sat straight up. “The next-door hottie?”

  “Yes. And I am trusting you to be on your best behavior. She can help us get you a house, I think. Or at least make sure we don’t all end up in prison once we do. But since she’ll only be involved in a very tangential way, you have to promise not to rope her into any of this, okay? Promise me.”

  “Sure, sure,” Burg said, turning off the TV. “I promise.” He smoothed out his sweatshirt, brushed the crumbs from his beard, and, after a moment’s thought, put on pants. “How do I look?”

  “Sporty. Come on.”

  They walked up the stairs. “Audie?” Max called through his bedroom door, pausing. “I’m gonna come in. Please don’t scream or anything. I don’t want to wake my mom up.”

  He heard her say, “Uh, okay—”

  “Remember,” Max whispered to Burg. “Best behavior.”

  Burg burped. “Dude. Obviously.”

  Max opened the door and walked ahead of Burg into the room. “Okay, Audie. This is—”

  He stopped. Audie had paused with a Pop-Tart halfway to her mouth.

  “Max,” she said slowly, “why did Tom Brady just walk into your bedroom?”

  “Huh?”

  Max whirled around. Burg had indeed transformed into Tom Brady, famed New England Patriots quarterback. He flashed Max a winning smile, then turned back to Audie and gave her a wink.

  She jumped up from the couch and ran to Max’s side, smacking his shoulder with each word. “You! Kidnapped! Tom! Brady?”

  Tom Brady let out a hearty laugh. Then, shimmering like a mirage, he switched back to his regular Burg form, albeit a little taller, more strapping, and with a slightly more chiseled jaw. “Nah, just kidding,” he said, the tips of his horns grating across the ceiling. He extended his hand to Audie. “Satan,” he boomed in a robust, manly voice. “Nice to meet you.”

  This time she did start to scream, but Max managed to clap a hand over her mouth before it got too loud. “Calm down, Aud,” he said, hugging her head. “I promised to tell you what’s been freaking me out. This is what’s been freaking me out. I think you can see why.”

  Wide-eyed, Audie nodded.

  “Now, Burg here is going to go back down to the basement, and I will proceed to explain everything to you. Everything. Okay?”

  Audie nodded again. br />
  Burg laughed again and wiped his eyes. “Good times, good times. Ooh, Pop-Tarts!” He grabbed the plate and pounded back downstairs. “Until we meet again, sweetheart!”

  Max kicked the door shut, escorted Audie back to his bed, and sat her down.

  “Okay,” he began. “So, Ugly Hill.”

  Somewhere in the middle of what had to be second period, Audie got up from the bed and handed her empty water glass to Max.

  “You are so boned,” she told him.

  “I’m aware,” Max said, hoarse from talking for a solid hour, “of my boned-ness. But that’s where we’re at. It’s the best we’ve been able to figure out. Now all we have to do is find him an abandoned house, and—”

  “And steal it?”

  “Yeah. And I was kinda hoping that if we got caught, or if we got in any trouble, you could maybe . . .”

  He trailed off, hoping she’d be able to deduce the rest of that sentence. When she did, she was not pleased.

  “Max!” she shouted.

  Max clapped his hands over his ears. “The shouting,” he said, wincing. “Good heavens, stop with the shouting.”

  She reduced her volume, but not her ire. “I cannot get you out of trouble with the police! What kind of sway do you think I have?”

  “Okay, none, but if your dad ever got suspicious of anything, you could at least try to throw him off the trail. Maybe someone calls to report a disturbance in their neighborhood, so you casually mention that you saw some big raccoons around the area. You know, poking through the garbage cans. Or maybe, like, a gust of wind or something.”

  “A gust of wind.” She stared at him. “‘No need to do your job, Dad, it’s probably nothing because I saw a gust of wind.’”

  “Or whatever you want,” Max said. “Be creative.”

  Audie rubbed her eyes. “All right. I’ll do what I can. As for looking for houses—”

  “No, no, no.” Max held up his hands. “I don’t want you to get involved in that. You need to stay as far off to the side on all this as possible. Wall, too.”

  “Why?”