Working Title: I Hate Dogs
A short story in progress
“Nah, she said they have dogs. I’m sure that’s it.”
Lizzie diced the cucumbers with heartbeat thocks.
“Okay but that’s a really weird housewarming gift.”
“There was also a pie.”
Yes, there was also a pie. But laid on top of the pie box, fixed with a bobby pin, had been a coupon for earplugs from Walgreens. Not earplugs themselves, just a coupon for earplugs. I didn’t even want to eat a pie a stranger had made.
“She’s just a weird,” Lizzie waved the knife, “old boomer lady. Coupons are exciting to them.”
“I guess.”
#
We did eat Willa’s pie. Rhubarb bled all over my favorite Phish t-shirt, so I stumbled down to the basement to throw it into the washing machine. The day we closed on this house Lizzie bought a new washer, said she couldn’t imagine touching the dead skin and hairballs of the strangers we’d given our life savings to. I tried to figure out how to make the thing go on as a clarion beam shone into the dark laundry room, a fluorescent light from Willa’s living room.
The old woman vanished between windows, pacing as though she’d lost a fingertip.
#
When I turned the laundry, she was watching TV. Blue shadows spilled over her ceiling; the penetrating white light from the living room was off. I pictured her sunken into some ancient lounger with a threadbare floral print that was nearly indecipherable. She struck me as someone who had trouble breathing so I imagined her sort of snoring or gurgling.
As I shook out and hung the articles Lizzie hated going through the dryer, I felt something out the basement window, a cold breeze I think—the windows were old. Reflexively, I looked. Willa’s TV was off, her home dark. Except for a single yellow light blinking at me.
#
“It was okay.”
Lizzie frowned. “Yeah? What was wrong?”
“I just didn’t sleep well.” I rubbed the crick in my neck that’d been bugging me all day.
“Was it the dogs? They woke me up at like six.”
“Really? No. I don’t know what it was. I think I just ate too much pie. I still feel full.”
“Oh! That reminds me: when I returned Willa’s dish on my way out she asked if we’d eaten it all already. And I was like, ‘uh excuse me we are not complete fatasses. I just put it into my own tupperware.’ ”
“Hah.”
“I just thought that was weird. —but anyway, she offered to have us over for dinner Friday. I guess her downstairs neighbor will be in town too so we can meet him.”
“And the dogs.”
“And the dogs,” Lizzie snorted.
#
“Ah, I don’t know,” Lizzie growled. She was dashing around our bedroom, ripping open boxes, scattering their contents.
“Well it’s not like I’m the one who said we’d go to this,” I grumbled.
“What?”
“Never mind. Nothing. I’ll just wear something I’d wear to work.”
She found the earrings she’d been apparently searching for. “Really?” She was pinning them in while she appraised me, but not in the way I liked. She looked beautiful in a yellow cocktail-type dress. “You don’t think you should—”
“That’s why I asked!”
“Okay, well I’m not your mother! Dress however you want to I don’t care! Come on, I don’t want to be late. Did you go get wine?”
“Fuck.”
A hound growled in my wife’s belly. “Jesus Christ, John.” Her heels pierced each gorgeous step of our curling Victorian staircase.
#
“Bertie canceled,” Willa said as she wrenched open her front door with sudden force. Shadows filled the vestibule, and cobwebs of dog hair. The staircase could have been a mile long, Willa took it so damn slow. Every step moaned.
“We owe you a bottle of whine,” Lizzie gleamed, adding, “I meant to grab you one after work and it completely slipped my mind.” I watched my hand on the broad bannister.
“That’s all right dearie,” Willa ribbited. Her voice was much brighter than I expected. Still cracked and gravely. “Boxes to unpack. Your husband’s home all day, I don’t see why he doesn’t do it for you.”
“Oh he’s working, he works from home. Lots to do.”
“Mmm,” Willa retorted and I suspected she was frowning.
“Oh shut up,” she added when we finally reached the top. A scraping clawed through the door; a whining leaked under the crack.
I hate dogs.
#
“What kind of work gets done from home? You’re no businessman.” Willa levitated a spoonful of split pea soup in one hand. A glob dripped, missing her placemat. With the other arm she was defending her lap from the grotesque terrier-ish thing that screamed whenever I looked at it called Augustus. A record was playing, but too quietly so it sounded like the lamp and armchair were having a conversation. The real oriental rug beneath the long, scuffed table was as soft as if only ghosts had ever crossed it. The wallpapered walls were crowded with shelves, the shelves crowded with bibelots, gewgaws and gimcracks and the air reeked. Willa herself reeked.
Another dog, Caligula, was breathing at my feet. “I’m a podcaster.” I answered. My studio in the attic was almost fully set up.
Willa sighed, waggled her head at Lizzie, said, “men these days are such eunuchs. What a sissy career.” Lizzie smiled tinily. “At least radio used to be live.”
“Frankly, Willa, I’m just surprised to hear you know what podcasting is.”
She stared at me. More green soup globbed onto the table. Eventually, her wooden teeth showed, her skin bunched up into a smile, and she wheezed.
#
“It’s just a new house,” Lizzie gave me another cup. She was about to head off to work. I’m always the one up first, making coffee, warming up the house, but I slept in by accident. I’ve been sleeping terrible since we moved. “New smells, traffic lights outside, foreign sounds.”
“Yeah, you heard that too?”
“Hm?”
“Oh, nothing. I’ve just been hearing this odd audio buzzing at night, like an amp that’s been left on.”
“Could be tinnitus.”
“I don’t have tinnitus.”
“I’ve been saying for years…”
“I don’t have tinnitus.”
Lizzie grabbed her keys. Our cat Calcifer rubbed up against her. “I didn’t realize this used to be her house. Isn’t that weird?”
We’d learned that at dinner. She’d sold it to the people who’d sold it to us.
“Weird.”
#
With the studio finally soundproofed and organized I was relieved to get back to recording. Lizzie would be working late tonight, her job was the reason we’d moved here, so that would be good, a chance for me to work late too, I hated working when someone else was home.
A college friend, Asher, and I hosted a podcast about how to survive the end of the world and he’d been texting me about recording another episode. I also did a movie review podcast with a revolving mass of people I’d come to know through my third show, Story Time, where I played DnD with my friends.
“Hey Ash.”
“Johnny! How’s the new setup? You sound great.”
“What are we doing tonight?”
There was a narrow window, the width of a book and the length of the room, just above eye level at my desk. The glass was stained, tiny finger-widths of red and yellow alternating. When I craned my neck I could make out Willa, pacing her living room.
“You know that riddle, about being the last person on Earth, and so you decide to jump out a window, but as you jump, behind you a phone rings?”
“So?”
“We’re doing that.”
#
“John,” Lizzie using my first name was never a good sign. What had I forgotten to do this time?
The sound of my studio door opening and closing was likely to become a harbinger of this—“honey, did you take out the compost?” “honey, what did you do with the baking sheets?”—but “John” had been the most ominous of calls since our relationship was young.
“Yeah?” I crept down the stairs.
She stood in the kitchen in a soft under-cabinet light, staring at the stove which cast its own light on her legs. “Did you do this? This was very thoughtful.”
“What? I didn’t do anything.”
There was a dish in the oven, which was on and set to 450. A timer had 14:07 left. On the countertop there was a note in Lizzie’s stationery. I picked it up.
Made too much. Please enjoy. -W
“That is so sweet,” Lizzie beamed at me. Lizzie always beamed.
I was far from beaming. “I didn’t hear her come in. I didn’t let her in or anything, I was upstairs all day. I could have sworn I locked the back door behind you.”
“Oh, I gave her a key.”
#
We fought so I slept on the couch.
Well, no; I didn’t sleep. I could not believe my wife gave a key to our house to a complete stranger. I found a locksmith on Yelp, submitted a request for an appointment as soon as available, did the same on Yelp’s #2 locksmith’s site also.
After an hour of flipping through distractions on my phone, the battery was at 1% and my charger was upstairs. In our old place, Lizzie kept one in the junk drawer. I got up to see if she’d finished unpacking the kitchen yet.
I struggled to find a lightswitch, gave up. That same pale light that always came from Willa’s glowed into the room. Between that and my phone screen there was enough light. Until my phone died. I yanked open drawer, drawer, drawer: utensils, oddly-shaped gadgets, empty, pencils, post-its, zipties; no charger.
After I sighed, slid the drawers shut—they had those fancy whisper-closed hinge thingies our realtor loved—I realized I’d been hearing the buzzing again.
Softer than the white noise of a fan, like a stereo system left on without any input.
Louder downstairs—not tinnitus.
Off the kitchen gaped the staircase to the basement, the laundry room, and there the noise came louder, too, more mechanical, a gear meeting resistance, not the nothing-sound of electronics playing in a void.
The furnace? The water heater? I wondered as each wooden step ached underfoot. Neither should be running yet the sound grew louder, grating, screaming…
I started writing this piece to enter into a “polite horror” anthology because I found the idea of such a genre amusing. I missed the deadline, but I’m quite taken with the piece. It’s obviously not done yet, but I thought you would get some value out of seeing a piece of fiction in progress. Thanks.
Ok this is good. When do we get more?