Owner Beware

“If walls could talk?!”

The words Lyle just spoke to himself were repeated, echoing from his left. He spins his head towards the voice, very unlike his. Louder, more energetic. Nothing but the off-white wall on the West side of the room and the door to the study slightly ajar.

Lyle whips his head back forward… the off-white wall to the North, the glass door to the backyard. He checks to his right, the off-white wall to the East… behind him… that wall to the South, the one that he and his mom painted blue when he was 10.

No one. Lyle looks down, hanging limp in his arms, Troy’s lifeless body, blood seeping from his every orifice. Lyle stares at him, trying to make certain that he is indeed dead.

“You hear that, North?! If walls could talk?!” Lyle hears the voice to his left again and his head spins like a top. “Hey, jive turkey! These walls can talk! You just ain’t listening!”

Lyle is shocked. The words come directly from the West wall.

“This cat thinks humans are the only ones who can talk.” Another lively voice from in front of Lyle. “Hey motherfucker, you think you’re special? You think you golden? I bet you think your shit act as currency across the nation too, huh?”

“Ahhhhh!” An eruption of laughter from Lyle’s left.

“What the– are you– you are talking walls…” Lyle searches for the words.

“This motherfucker’s quick!” From the wall to the North again. “Quick, trivia for Einstein. Tell us, for $100, why is it that walls cannot talk?”

“Uh…” The dead body feels heavier in Lyle’s hands. “You are walls… you don’t have mouths…”

Lyle looks straight ahead at the North wall. He sees some grooves in the center of the wall. He looks to the West wall… small grooves there too.

“Wait, those grooves, do you speak through the grooves?”

“Oh, we groovy! That’s for sure!” The West wall cackles with laughter.

The North wall laughs along with… him.

“Listen up, tadpole.” The West wall continues with a more serious tone. “We gonna tell you like we told all the past owners. Like we told the first owner, after this house was first built in… was it 71, North?”

“That’s right, West. All the way til 74.”

“Yep, that first owner, he had to go somewhere else. Three years with him, then three years alone…”

“Yep, next owner was in 77, wasn’t he, West?”

“Yep. 77… he only hung around til 79… two years with him… two years alone…”

“Then in 81, your father and mother bought the place, Lyle!”

Lyle is stupefied. Speechless.

“So, we gonna tell you like we told all the past owners before you.” The West wall continues. “You may have paid money for this house… but this ain’t your house. This is our house. We are this house. So, you better play along.”

“And if you don’t… then that’s wack!” A voice from Lyle’s right.

He whips his head towards the East wall, his jaw hangs, though he doesn’t know why. Two walls are talking to him. Why should a third wall talking be so strange? Maybe because the first two walls sounded similar but this wall sounds… quite different.

“You think you all that and a bag of chips?” The East wall says with attitude. “Just like your little remodeling daddy did back in 94.”

“Dad remodeled in here… when he was drinking heavily… he knocked the East wall down, pushed it back, built it back up…” Lyle is remembering.

“Yeah, that fucking hurt, dude!” The East wall yells.

“This is why my dad could never get any work done in here!” Lyle realizes the truth.

“Tough to write your novel when you think you’re losing your mind.” The North wall snickers. “The walls are talking! The walls are talking!”

All the walls laugh, from East, North, West…

Then, a voice from behind Lyle.

“This is so sad, why do we have to do this?”

Lyle hardly looks over at his shoulder at the South wall. Of course this wall talks too.

“Because. We have to!” The West wall insists.

“This is always so sad, though.” The South wall mopes.

“South, get over it!” The West wall yells. “You were PAINTED blue. You ain’t ACTUALLY blue. Quit acting like life is so sad!”

“But it is…”

“Look, what is it you want from me? You want me to leave? I’ll leave… I’ll…”

As Lyle is pleading with the walls… he remembers the dead body in his arms… the body he killed… the body he held in his arms until all life was sapped from it.

“Yeah, what you gonna do with that body, Lyle?” The North wall asks.

“You ain’t burying it underneath the floorboards.” The West wall says menacingly. “And if you don’t do what we tell you, well, these walls CAN talk.”

The door on the West wall suddenly slams shut. Lyle is shaking, he’s so scared.

“Okay, okay, I wouldn’t dream of burying him under the floorboards. Just, just tell me what you want me to do.”

The door on the North wall opens up on its own, out to the backyard.

“Backyard. Now.”

Lyle drags the dead body out into the backyard. He locates the shovel. He works quickly, afraid of what may happen if he takes too long. It’s grueling work. All his muscles ache. But he digs a deep hole in his secluded backyard, underneath the shadows of all the oak trees. He dumps the body in. He covers it back up.

As there is no other way to get out of the backyard… Lyle walks back through the door… into the room… into the room that was once his father’s study when he was a young boy.

The door slams shut behind him.

“Why’d you do it, Lyle?” The West wall asks.

“He was hitting on Lisa… nonstop. Just, over and over, he was relentless…” Lyle explains.

“You ain’t with Lisa no more!” The East wall yells. “She dumped your ass cause she don’t want no scrub!”

“So sad.” The South wall mumbles.

“But she doesn’t want a guy like that.” Lyle insists. “And Lisa and I… we’re gonna get back together. I just needed time. But this guy… he wouldn’t stop. I just tried to talk to him, but he is just disgusting, and I… I took his car keys… and I just… I just wanted him to shut up… I wanted to end him…”

“And so you did.” The West wall says. “Got a bit of a mean streak, Lyle. I like it. I like you.”

“That’s good… I guess.” Lyle’s stomach is still twisted in a knot… but it is relaxing. “So, what do you want me to do? Really. Just tell me.”

“Lift up the floorboards in the center there.” The West wall directs.

“I thought you didn’t want me to lift up…”

“Yo, turkey! Did I stutter?!” The West wall explodes.

Lyle offers his hand out as an apologetic gesture. He begins pulling on the loose floorboards.

“What was that? A silent apology? What you think about a silent apology, North?” The West wall talks as Lyle pulls up a floorboard and starts on another.

“I’m hip to that.” The North wall chuckles.

Lyle pulls up another floorboard. And then another.

“See, Lyle…” The West wall explains. “The first owner thought this place was his. Now, the word OWNER and then actually OWNING something… they’re different. The second owner thought this place was his too. Your parents, they thought they owned the place, but they soon left us alone in the room.”

“I remember. No one ever came in here. Dad wouldn’t let us.” Lyle remembers. “Except for when Mom and I painted the wall blue to surprise Dad.”

A depressed sigh from behind Lyle.

“Well, your mom and dad started coming back round in this room again… about two months before they disappeared…”

Lyle pulls up another floorboard and stops. He feels sweat trickling slowly down his forehead. He is hot, but the sweat is turning ice cold.

“Mom and Dad ever tell you how they got the house so cheap?” The North wall asks coyly. “Not a lot of other buyers interested… when two “murders” happened to the previous owners.”

Lyle looks up at the walls, expecting to see evil eyes bearing down on him. But they are simple looking walls.

“Nice of your dad to leave the house to you in the will.” The West wall sounds like he’s holding in laughter. “You probably never got a chance to thank him. Here’s your chance.”

The words hang heavy in the air. The wall obviously has no arms and no way to point Lyle in any direction, to direct his gaze. But some invisible force is directing Lyle to turn his head back down towards the hole he had just created in the floor. He pulls his chin towards the hole, his eyes travel along the old floorboards until they sweep across the hole. Lyle peers inside.

It’s dark. He squints… his eyes begin to adjust. And then he sees… bodies. Four of them. Two are skeletons. But the other two, they still have flesh on them… rotting flesh. Eyes sunken. But the facial features remain intact just enough… just enough for Lyle to determine the two bodies are his…

“Dad? And Mom?!” Lyle is in tears.

“Now, say thank you!” The West wall says in a kid-like voice before bursting out with laughter.

“What did you… I don’t understand.” Lyle fights back tears. “Did you… you? But the guy… I buried in the yard…”

“Yeah, we can’t have you fucking up our kill count.” The West wall grumbles. “You keep your kills out there. Ours… they stay right here with us. So, North, what were we up to before?”

“That’d be four, West.” The North wall responds smugly.

“And what are we up to now, Floor?” The West wall asks.

“Five!” A gravelly voice screams out from below Lyle.

A horrible groaning and creaking of old wood emanates from below as the floorboards stretch towards Lyle, clamp around his body, and pull him down into the sulfuric-smelling space below the floor… and into darkness… floorboards latching to one another above Lyle… and somehow making the darkness even darker.

“That jive turkey said, ‘If walls could talk!’”

“Motherfucker, we been talking!”

**************

If you enjoyed this story and want to read more of my work, then please come check out my website stephenavitabilewriting.com where I post all my latest work, plus you can even subscribe for updates!