The House

Chapter 1: Charlie and Beth

My hands hurt like hell.

I am walking home from a long day in the fields. What am I annoyed at the most? I'm itchy, and hot. I accidentally broke the axe while chopping wood and Dad had a fit over that. Not because of my hands, blistered and bleeding, but because the axe was expensive. Now we have to go all the way to town for another one.

It's my fault, I guess. Expensive axes before blisters.

It's not that late, but the sky is already darkening. The air smells of cow waste and the breeze flowing in from the river. The fruit we gathered and cleaned from today's work hangs in buckets, slung on a pole that is wedged between my shoulders. It hurts my neck with each step. I could've gone home in the truck, except Dad had to fill up the gas. He left me at the orchards without a word, so here I am, trudging home. I would've kept walking right by the house had I not smelled the steak.

I immediately stand straight, my nose following the scent. I'm a sucker for steak; I'd eat it all day with potatoes and gravy if I could. Fried steak is definitely simmering somewhere. I sigh, my stomach growling, and that's when I see the house. Frowning, I hunch the pole higher on my shoulders and walk towards it. I've walked this road every day since I was five, and have never seen that house before.

This is weird, very weird.

The house is not built like the other buildings in the area either. It sits flat on the ground like a toad, with strange curling pillars, an old fashioned styling to the architecture, a chimney sticking out the red roof, and an old shiny door knob. I didn't even pull it, but the door opens, showing me the inside.

"Hello? Is anyone here?"

The weight of the buckets suddenly swings me forward, so I trip into the house, the door slamming shut behind me.

I whirl around, suddenly skittish. "Creepy."

Even as I take a look around, I know I am being watched.

The house is already full of photographs. Eyes, wide and unmoving, arms and bodies and necks in grainy black and white, standing underneath glassy picture frames, perched on cabinets and tables and cupboards. There has to be hundreds of photos in here.

Awed, I let the pole and buckets slide to the floor. I've completely forgotten about the steak, and the smell has given way to the smell of dust. I pick up one of the photographs, where in it a girl is grinning, crazy curls bouncing around her shoulders.

I set the picture down. There are more photographs, of boys in overalls and underwear and superhero costumes, girls with Chinese hats and colorful dresses, holding toys and ice cream and bicycles. They're all children, or teens. I can't find a single photograph of an adult.

"Must be some photographer's house," I say to myself. "Or a junkyard."

There's tons of stuff everywhere; just piles and piles of stuff. It's like the world scraped itself raw, emptied out every store and mall and dumped it out here. Towers of books on top of magazine stacks, plates balanced on silver bowls and Chinese pottery, doo hickeys and whatnots and board games and tea pots. It blocks up all the windows and buries the furniture. There's hardly any space to walk, and with each step I take, I'm afraid it's all going to tumble down on me.

That's when I hear the creak, from upstairs.

***

Carefully avoiding footballs and garden gloves, I walk up the stairs, nearly slipping on a stack of records. "Holy moly," I mutter, "and I thought my house was a disaster." No matter how many cockroaches I have in my room or how many dirty plates my dad piles in the kitchen, this house is worse.