The Gray House

What was I thinking when I agreed to that? Is it that I’m compassionate, or simply stupid? It’s a great feeling when your worst enemy is dependent upon you for absolutely everything. When he lives the life of a lowly rodent, never seeing the light of day. There’s the answer, I guess. I’m enjoying it.

“Why the long face?” Ginger says. “You were looking much happier just now.”

“Thinking about my moral fiber.”

She nods. Not a single word to make me feel better. Is it because she agrees that there’s a reason for the face elongating? I guess. I should keep quiet, because whatever else, she’s going to give it to me straight if I ask. “Having your respect is all that matters.” I’m never telling her that. You just don’t say things like that out loud. Even to someone who’s a dozen times closer to you than a sister. I’m talking to her too much as it is. She knows everything about me, and I know almost nothing about her. Because she never discusses her business with anyone. Ever since the time that she was teaching me not to whine when it hurt. She is the older half of our tandem, and the older sisters do, of course, wipe the noses of the younger brothers, but when it’s time to cry on someone’s shoulder they run to others. It rankles immensely, but there’s nothing that can be done about that. She looked after me, so I am forever a baby to her, only grown up a little. The month in my favor that separates our birthdays is a silly joke of the calendar. Tyranny, if you think about it. I will probably never know if she cries on Noble’s shoulder or not. I’d like her to have a shoulder like that, for crying, and I’d like to know that Noble is not just another infant for her to care about, but whatever’s going on between them is none of my concern. Or I might start stomping my little feet in a jealous pique, pawing at her shorts, whining. Or whatever she imagines me doing. Heaven forbid I’d find out what that is.

“I’m off. Don’t sit in the Sepulcher chairs unless you want your backside kicked by the Spiders.”

She turns around and leaves. Wet like a squirrel out of water.

I shout after her, “Yes, chief!”

And rush in the Sepulchral door.

Spiders detest Rats, especially when the latter are wet and numerous. Which is why we get treated out of turn, and expeditiously.

Sheriff stomps and swears, “He golden teeth aflame.” I leave with my hand in a cast and a handful of pills in my pocket. I can feel them doing me good already, even before I’ve taken any. I’m the only such freak in the whole House, getting a cheerful boost out of the Sepulcher. Yes, I know I’m perverted, but what can I do? Not that I want to. My life, almost all of it, has been spent inside it. I sometimes even feel like I was born there. So all that high-minded stuff about blessed home and hearth—for me it’s always been more about the Sepulcher, not the House itself. I don’t exactly make it a point to come here often, but when it happens, it happens. I also heal quickly, so I have no fear of this place, unlike some who go to pieces every time they’re anywhere near it. It probably should have been the other way around, because there isn’t anyone who’s been split open and stitched back up more times than me, but human nature is a strange beast and logic doesn’t figure into it.

I’m not sure who’s staying for observations from the other packs, but we lose only Hybrid. Corpse and I are the first out the door. Must be our fame, that of the cheerful undead who are ready to party even in their graves, preceding us. Being an exceptional individual has its privileges.

We take a detour into the common crapper and compare the loot. His haul of pills is almost as big as mine. It’s not every day you get this many, even after a major surgery.

“Cheer up, man,” I tell him. “There’s an entire fortune here, if you spend it wisely.”

“But I’ve got nothing that hurts,” he says. “Strange, huh?”

I’m full of envy. Because I do have things that hurt, and how. I’m not sure I’ll be able to hold out.

“I’m surprised you haven’t stolen more,” Corpse says. “Oh, right, the hand.”

I don’t answer, because I’ve just noticed something really troubling. It’s lying in wait under one of the sinks. The Phoenix plastic bag. Sneaked behind the pipe and probably imagines itself well hidden. As if that acid-blue color could ever blend into the background. Those ghastly wadded bags hunt me constantly and everywhere. There is no more disgusting sound than the rustling of a bag that’s creeping after you. Supposedly it’s the wind pushing them. Yeah, right. Wind has nothing to do with it. I mean, if there is wind they behave even more brazenly, but they can ambush you even when it’s totally still. Ever since that time when a particularly dusty and sticky member of the species attacked me from above, parachuting onto my face and clinging to it in the manner of a carnival mask, I’ve been very touchy on the subject.