Zero Worship: Confessions of a Fake Psychic Detective #6

Chapter 1 - Heroisch

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"We can stay here. It's my grandma's house," Chad says after shimming the front door of the house open with a piece of mail he found in a ditch. Bexley and a damp Zandra slip inside under the cover of night. It's a long walk back from Devil's Hole to this old, core neighborhood in Stevens Point.

Which is why we didn't walk it. Still can't believe people will stop for hitchhikers. They're begging to be murdered by some transient psychopath. Someone ought to, honestly, to send a warning to the other good Samaritans. In life, no good deed goes unpunished.

The fact the house is the only one on the block without any lights on outside isn't lost on Zandra. Neither are the graffiti and trash inside. A plate of curled lunch meat sits atop a television with a cracked screen.

"Your grandma lives here?" Zandra says. Still dressed in her underwear, she steps into what could be called a living room in the same way fertilizer could be called a corpse.

Chad picks up a slice of lunchmeat and sniffs it. He puts it back down on the plate and says, "Well, OK, it used to be my grandma's house."

"She must've left in a hurry," Zandra says.

Bexley whispers to Zandra, "His grandma died three years ago."

That checks out, given the age of the lunchmeat.

This is one of those places you'd want to run a carpet cleaner through just to see the filth that it pulls up. Satisfying.

"OK, fine. It was my grandma's, and then it was my cousin's until he moved out, and then some guy bought it to rent out, and then I don't know what happened. Now it's like this," Chad says and waves at a couch that must've caught fire at some point. The arm on one side is missing, cauterized by char. "It's no big deal. Lots of houses like this on this street. Free rent."

So I noticed. It's amazing how quickly they turned into four-walled landfills after the bottom fell out of Stevens Point. The largest employer finally goes under, it was bound to happen eventually, right? All that shit, all that fraud, all that rot waiting to pounce. I'm a victim of circumstance, just like anyone else. Right place, right time, to put Gene and his company and all that collusion in the dirt. Right?

Zandra itches her scalp. Grease packs beneath her fingernails. Her hair is so dirty she can smell it.

This city was destined to boil in its own shit. If not me, it would've been someone else.

Bexley flicks on another light, bringing the sloppy wreckage into full resolution. She hunches over the couch and runs her hand along what remains of the cushions.

"Right where I left it," Bexley says. She pulls out a glass pipe.

Chad drags a chair over to a tall bookshelf next to the couch. The books are all on the floor, replaced on the shelves by shoelaces, candles, empty soda cans, balls of tinfoil, dirty disinfecting wipes, pacifiers, and cigarettes. He grabs a pocket torch from the top of the bookshelf.

Wait. Are those cigarettes still good?

"Help yourself," Chad says to Zandra after hopping off the chair.

"I will," Zandra says and grabs a loose, full cigarette off the bookshelf.

I don't care how old this cigarette is, I don't have any other options. I've still got the lawnmower knife in the sheath on my wrist and that bottle of nifedipine pills, but everything else is gone. Can't believe this is still the same day the Curd Queen sank. Long fucking day. Ivy and Jade, they'll be OK, or so they said. No refunds. My kind of people.