Hellhole (21 page)

Just the sight of the jaunty strawberry sprinkles made Max's stomach lurch. “Oh God. Water.”

She practically dumped the tray onto his bed. “Come on, Max, what's going on with you? I've never seen you like this. I mean, you're always weird, but not
this
weird.”

“I know. I'm sorry.” He took a sip of water, but this, too, proved to be painful. “I've just had a lot of things to take care of lately. We should hang out soon, once they're . . . done.”

She gave him a sly grin. “You could come to the homecoming game on Friday.”

“Sorry, still can't do Fridays. But—oh, hey,” he said, attempting to inject some brightness into his voice. “I'll come to the pep rally tomorrow. How about that?”

Audie lit up. “Really?”

“Yeah. Promise.”

Audie smiled widely. Though the whiteness of her teeth was making his eyes water, Max forced a grin back.

Until—

“Wait a sec,” he said, trying to keep the fear out of his voice as a delayed snippet of their conversation finally caught up to him. “Aud, how did you know how much beer I drank?”

“Are you kidding me? The cans were all over the basement. You could barely see the floor.”

Oh, no.

Audie was a good person. She was a good, good person, coming here at the crack of dawn to take care of him, toast Pop-Tarts, and remain relatively upbeat throughout. If what Burg said was true—that he appreciated a “challenge,” relished the opportunity to ruin her future . . .

Max reeled as he realized how close she'd gotten to the guy. He'd probably just been working on his plaster horns in the next room, only that thin, propped-up door separating her from lord knows what terrible fate . . .

“Aud, listen to me.” Knives slashed at Max's throat as he swallowed. “You have to stay out of the basement.”

She cocked her head. “Why?”

“Because—” Max licked his lips, the taste of sick still smudged into the corner of his mouth. “Because I, uh, peed down there. On the wall, or the carpet somewhere. Gotta clean it up.”

Audie stared at him.

“You're lying,” she said.

Max tried to recall. “I don't think I am, actually—”

“Okay, fine, but that's not the real reason you want to keep me out of there. You're hiding something.”

He looked away.

“I knew it!” she said vindictively. “I knew something was up. Something that would explain all of this. Come on, Max. Fess up. Fess up fess up fess up!”

Well, there it was. She'd resorted to the same tactics that had tricked his eight-year-old self into confessing that he'd stolen her Paleontologist Barbie. And her little plastic shovel, too.

As it had worked then, it was working now. Maybe if Max had been at a hundred percent, he could have kept up the charade. Maybe if his spleen weren't trying to force its way up his trachea, he could have formulated just one more little lie.

But he couldn't.

And hey,
a nasty, foreign part of his brain added
, if you get in trouble with any of these break-ins, don't you think it would help to have the daughter of the chief of police on your side? Don't you think he'd be a little more willing to look the other way if there was a chance his daughter's bright, shiny future might be ruined?

It was an evil thought. A devious, immoral, horrible thought . . . that sounded perfectly reasonable to Max, thanks to the vast amounts of alcohol still chugging through his system.

“—fess up fess up fess up—”

“But we're gonna be late for school!”

“—fess up—whatever, I'll tell my mom it was an emergency—fess up fess up—”

“Fine!”

Audie smiled. She won. As usual.

Pale, shaking, and woozy, Max careened out of bed and began to pace, but the room was tilting. “Wait.” He grabbed the coffee from the tray and downed it all in one gulp. “Okay. Um, I don't know how to start.” He folded his hands. “Please,” he said charitably, “have a Pop-Tart.”

She humored him with a bite. “Delicious. Go.”

Max nodded, though that just angered the hangover further. His head felt like a bag of microwave popcorn, ready to pop and explode and shower the room in a lively array of brain kernels. “Okay. The other night I couldn't sleep, so I went up to Ugly Hill to do some digging. Actually, wait—the day before, I stole a cat.”

“You . . . stole a cat.”

“Not a real cat. A fake cat.”

“You stole a fake cat.”

“Yes. For my mom. And then, because I was digging up on the hill—well, really, it was just a coincidence—although
really,
he'd sort of been planning it all along, I was just the hapless victim—”

“Victim of what?” Audie was lost. “Who's ‘he'?”

Max sighed. This was never going to work. She was never going to believe him.

Not without a visual aid.

Slowly, so as not to agitate the delicate brain kernels, he wobbled toward the hallway. “Stay here,” he said. “I'll be right back. Eat more tart.”

Unable to even look at his mother's door without reeling from guilt, he stumbled down the hallway, punting Ruckus halfway across the living room when he got underfoot. “Dammit, Ruckus—I mean, nice job, Ruckus,” he said, sparing a chin scratch for the irritated cat. “You kept him downstairs. Good initiative.”

Devils evidently didn't suffer hangovers. Burg was as spry as a bunny, watching
Scooby-Doo
and laughing like a lunatic. “Dude,” he said, pointing at the television, “the old caretaker of the spooky mansion booby-trapped a stuffed deer head to drop onto the intruder's head, and he ran around looking like a deer until he crashed through the wall, and now there's a hole in the wall in the shape of a deer!”

“Hilarious.”

“It
is,
man!” Burg said in a pitch-perfect imitation of Shaggy. And as he tipped a bag of popcorn over his face and it cascaded across his mouth, beard, and chest, Max was struck by the eerie similarity.

He gladly muted the television. He'd always hated
Scooby-Doo.
“Listen—”

“Oh hey,” Burg said, “did we pee down here last night? Because I gotta tell you, this room is developing a distinctive funk.”

“We did. And it is. And I'll clean it up later. But right now I need you to come upstairs for a sec.”

“Come upstairs?” Burg cried, dramatically putting a hand on his chest in mock horror. “But that is a
flagrant
violation of rule number one!”

“And rule number four,” Max said, indicating Burg's lack of pants, “but whatever. I want you to meet my friend Audie.”

Burg sat straight up. “The next-door hottie?”

“Yes. And I am
trusting
you to be on your best behavior. She can help us get you a house, I think. Or at least make sure we don't all end up in prison once we do. But since she'll only be involved in a very tangential way, you have to
promise
not to rope her into any of this, okay? Promise me.”

“Sure, sure,” Burg said, turning off the TV. “I promise.” He smoothed out his sweatshirt, brushed the crumbs from his beard, and, after a moment's thought, put on pants. “How do I look?”

“Sporty. Come on.”

They walked up the stairs. “Audie?” Max called through his bedroom door, pausing. “I'm gonna come in. Please don't scream or anything. I don't want to wake my mom up.”

He heard her say, “Uh, okay—”

“Remember,” Max whispered to Burg. “Best behavior.”

Burg burped. “Dude. Obviously.”

Max opened the door and walked ahead of Burg into the room. “Okay, Audie. This is—”

He stopped. Audie had paused with a Pop-Tart halfway to her mouth.

“Max,” she said slowly, “why did Tom Brady just walk into your bedroom?”

“Huh?”

Max whirled around. Burg had indeed transformed into Tom Brady, famed New England Patriots quarterback. He flashed Max a winning smile, then turned back to Audie and gave her a wink.

She jumped up from the couch and ran to Max's side, smacking his shoulder with each word. “You! Kidnapped! Tom! Brady?”

Tom Brady let out a hearty laugh. Then, shimmering like a mirage, he switched back to his regular Burg form, albeit a little taller, more strapping, and with a slightly more chiseled jaw. “Nah, just kidding,” he said, the tips of his horns grating across the ceiling. He extended his hand to Audie. “Satan,” he boomed in a robust, manly voice. “Nice to meet you.”

This time she did start to scream, but Max managed to clap a hand over her mouth before it got too loud. “Calm down, Aud,” he said, hugging her head. “I promised to tell you what's been freaking me out.
This
is what's been freaking me out. I think you can see why.”

Wide-eyed, Audie nodded.

“Now, Burg here is going to go back down to the basement, and I will proceed to explain everything to you. Everything. Okay?”

Audie nodded again.

Burg laughed again and wiped his eyes. “Good times, good times. Ooh, Pop-Tarts!” He grabbed the plate and pounded back downstairs. “Until we meet again, sweetheart!”

Max kicked the door shut, escorted Audie back to his bed, and sat her down.

“Okay,” he began. “So, Ugly Hill.”

 

Somewhere in the middle of what had to be second period, Audie got up from the bed and handed her empty water glass to Max.

“You are so boned,” she told him.

“I'm aware,” Max said, hoarse from talking for a solid hour, “of my boned-ness. But that's where we're at. It's the best we've been able to figure out. Now all we have to do is find him an abandoned house, and—”

“And steal it?”

“Yeah. And I was kinda hoping that if we got caught, or if we got in any trouble, you could maybe . . .”

He trailed off, hoping she'd be able to deduce the rest of that sentence. When she did, she was not pleased.

“Max!” she shouted.

Max clapped his hands over his ears. “The shouting,” he said, wincing. “Good heavens, stop with the shouting.”

She reduced her volume, but not her ire. “I cannot get you out of trouble with the
police!
What kind of sway do you think I have?”

“Okay, none, but if your dad ever got suspicious of anything, you could at least try to throw him off the trail. Maybe someone calls to report a disturbance in their neighborhood, so you casually mention that you saw some big raccoons around the area. You know, poking through the garbage cans. Or maybe, like, a gust of wind or something.”

“A gust of wind.” She stared at him. “‘No need to do your job, Dad, it's probably nothing because I saw a gust of wind.'”

“Or whatever you want,” Max said. “Be creative.”

Audie rubbed her eyes. “All right. I'll do what I can. As for looking for houses—”

“No, no, no.” Max held up his hands. “I don't want you to get involved in that. You need to stay as far off to the side on all this as possible. Wall, too.”

“Why?”

“Because you've got better lives for Burg to ruin.” Max rubbed his thumb over the ash smudge on his hand. “More dreams for him to crush. He doesn't get much fulfillment from torturing me or Lore. Our lives are already too crappy.”

Audie frowned. “Max, your life isn't crappy.”

“Compared to yours it is. Believe me, all your future plans—college, ESPN—and Wall's, he'll take absolute delight in dismantling them, making them disappear before your very eyes. Seriously, Aud. You have to stay out of this.”

Audie's expression was one he'd never seen on her before. It wasn't jubilant, it wasn't less than jubilant, it was—upset. Worried.

“Okay,” she said. “I'll stay out of it. But I'll also—I'll help you where I can.”

Max sighed. “Thank you, Audie.”

They hugged.

“Max?”

“Yeah?”

“Have you been sleeping with a T. rex femur at night?”

Max cleared his throat. “We're going to be late for third period.”

MAX LEARNED MANY THINGS IN SCHOOL THAT DAY.
He learned to calculate how many seconds it took to run to the nearest bathroom and position his head over a toilet. He learned that the school nurse was able to recognize the telltale signs of a hangover no matter how many granola bars one tried to bribe her with. And he'd come to the conclusion, without a doubt in his mind, that he was never drinking again.

“I'm never drinking again,” he said to Lore after lunch, which he had spent not in the cafeteria, but on the floor of the men's room, hugging his new porcelain best friend. “This is agony. Is a hangover supposed to last this long?” He pressed his forehead against the cool metal while Lore dug through her locker. “I thought it went away after a few hours or so.”