Chapter 4

"God, look at it. It's disgusting." Lisa shuddered. They peered through the darkness at Stanley Gruber's home.

The three of them huddled together across the street from the house, behind a sloped hill that overlooked the entire street, and what a horrible street it was. The fact that it wasn't all that far from Joe's own house made him feel self-conscious. All the homes were tiny things, more like tree-homes propped up on the dirt. Joe figured he could build a bigger fort from cardboard. They were all in horrible condition, dilapidated tenements, uncared for by the money-grubbing company that built the houses, nor by the tenants living in them.

Joe pictured rows of Stanley Grubers inside of each. Based on the trashy lots and slovenly homes, he understood how Devonshire could become so prejudiced towards Renters Alley.

Especially with Stanley’s place. It stuck out worst of the lot, a hard turd in a barrel of rotten apples. His lights were off, but the lack of light didn’t hide the greasy texture of the cheap aluminum siding, caked thick with soil as if a dirt storm had swirled through and accosted the place. The shutters were black with half of them missing or ready to fall off. Shingles dangled over the gutters and heaved up in spots atop the buckled roofline.

The yard was a mess. Wild grass and a variety of weeds filled what should have been a lawn, reaching several inches high in most places. Bushes grew unruly along the edge of the house with unkempt branches jutting up in thin spires. Joe observed one of the branches poking through a ratty screen, as if tapping on the window for entry.

It loomed before them, inspiring a general notion of dread. They had to go inside. Suppose they found a dead body within? What would they do? What if they found someone alive, trapped in the house? Sometimes Joe hated his overactive imagination.

He thought of his father again, and the ache returned to his stomach. Could his father have anything to do with the odd goings on? It couldn’t be a coincidence, unless Joe’s brain had gone and quit working right, leaving him up for crazy. But when he considered Stanley Gruber in terms of the murders, it seemed so…obvious…that he had something to do with it. How could he not? What was more likely, that a disgusting, reputedly violent man was the Devonshire killer, or that his father had returned from the grave to torture a slew of victims by burning them alive? It hurt to know he could see it both ways. But he had to know the truth.

Joe glanced down at his watch. It was already eight-fifteen. "We gotta move," he said. He turned to Lisa. “So what’s this thing you know about Stanley Gruber that I don't know?" He crossed him arms to let her know he meant business.

Lisa grinned, a bit too smug for Joe’s liking. "I thought you said we gotta move?"

"We do," he said, "but if it's something relevant that could affect the outcome of all this, then I want to know now before I stick my head in that ugly place."

Lisa flattened her body against the grass on the hill overlooking the house. The air was cool and moist.

Burt nudged him. "Let her tell you after. We don't have much time."

"What if it's important?" Joe said. "What if we realize, after something bad happens, that we should have known about this all along?"

Burt rolled his eyes. Joe leaned back in the grass, letting her know that they weren't going anywhere until she told him.

She propped up on her elbows. "It's no big deal, really," she said. "I mean, not for this anyway, but I wanted to tell you that Stanley Gruber has a secret place inside the school."

Joe greeted this with skepticism. Even it were true, it wouldn’t have surprised him, considering the bizarre nature of the man.

"So."

"So," she continued, "I know where it is. And I know what's in there."

"Okay, fine. Where is it, and what's in there?"

Lisa smirked. "Are you sure you want to know?"

"Come on," he said. "Just tell me."

She shrugged. "It's in the school boiler room, down in the basement. But that's not the big deal. Eddie Bishop went down there and saw something messed up."

"What was Eddie Bishop doing down there?" Joe asked. Eddie Bishop was a class clown, certainly not the adventuring type, and anything he had to say was immediately suspect of exaggeration or outright fabrication.

"He said he went down on a dare," she said. "It freaked him out. He said he went down through the door by the Science Lab and was supposed to come out the other end, you know, through the door by the English classes. He said they were going to give him five bucks if he made it. But when he got down there, he said he saw all these folders and stuff stacked along these pipes. He went to grab one and open it up, but someone yelled at him to leave it alone. It was Stanley Gruber, looking meaner than ever. And you guys know Stanley Gruber never says a thing to anyone."

"No way," Burt said.

"It’s true," Lisa said. "He ran out the way he came and never made it to the other end. Not many people know about this, but this was all about a week before…you know…his accident."

"No way!" the two boys said in unison.

Eddie Bishop’s “accident” was well-known. He was riding his bike through the forest preserve, innocent of anything that day, as far as they knew, when he was attacked. Whoever it was beat the snot out of him, including busting one of his ribs and a leg, then left him there to rot. The injuries weren't life-threatening, but bad all around. Eddie managed to prop himself up on his bike and coast most of the way home.

His mother found him and rushed him to the hospital. Chief MacGreggor investigated but couldn't get Eddie to say a word about what happened to him or who did it. He flat out refused to talk.

The Chief believed the attacker threatened Eddie with further violence to shut him up like that, because he was traumatized from the incident.

But now, the implication that he might have seen something he shouldn't have beneath the school, and the fact that Stanley Gruber might have been the one who taught him a lesson made Joe all the more afraid to go into the house. It also made him all the more determined.

He glanced at his watch again. "We've only got a half hour to look around, so let's go."

Joe hunkered down and took the first step. The others followed as he weaved his way through the darkness toward Stanley Gruber’s place.

They circled Stanley’s yard. Every now and then, Joe would hush, darting his head back and forth to listen.

"Come on, let's go."

They slipped toward the back of the house and peeked through the window wells leading into the basement, getting the lay of the place.

"There's one." Joe pointed to a particular window well. It poked out, jutting a half inch from the molding. “It might be open.”

As they approached it, Lisa cried out and fell. Joe rushed to her, his heart popping into his throat.

"Are you all right?" He fell to his knee beside her.

Lisa brushed the dirt from her pants. "I'm fine. I just tripped over something."

Joe noticed an old rusted shovel jutting through the scraggly grass nearby. It must have tripped her up.

"Here." He gave her his hand and helped her up. She smiled at him, but in a way she never had before.

"Thanks," she said.

Burt, meanwhile, took hold of the window well and gave it a hard tug. It took a few tries, but it finally gave way under his weight and yanked open with a rusty whine.

"I got it!" he cried.

Joe peered inside. "It's too dark. Hand me that flashlight." He panned it inside and waited for his eyes to adjust to the low light, but he could make out vague shapes within. "We'll to have to go in to see anything."

"I don't think I can fit through there," Burt said, and he was right. He was way too large to fit through the tiny window well.

“We need a lookout anyway,” Joe said.

Burt pouted. "Aw, man. I want to go inside. Can't you just open the front door or something?"

"I don't think we should risk it," Joe said. "There's a good chance we could get caught if we open the front door, and besides, what if there's an alarm on the front door?"

“Are you serious? An alarm in this rat hole? The guy can’t even afford a lawnmower.”

It was an unlikely scenario, but it was all Joe could think of.

"Look," Joe said. "You've got the most dangerous part of this whole thing, Burt. You have to be the lookout. If any of us gets caught, it will be you first."

For anyone else, this might have been a negative point, but for Burt Smith, it was all he needed.

"Okay, yeah," he said. "I'll be the lookout. If I hear or see anything that doesn't look right, I'll give you the signal." He proceeded to give a terrible imitation of a hoot owl.

"Sounds good," Lisa said. "Take care of us."

Joe slid through the window well first. It was a tight fit. He caught the edge of his shirt and his watch on the lip of the window. The shirt pulled up to his face, but snapped away from the catch as he dropped to the ground with a thud. His watch smacked against the side of the wall, but it kept on ticking.

The first thing he noticed was the smell. He tried not to cough but couldn’t help himself. "My God, what is that?"

Lisa began her descent, poking her legs through first, waiting for Joe to take hold of her and help her down. Burt held onto her as long as he could.

"Where are you?" she cried, wiggling her legs to find some footing.

Joe covered his nose with one hand and grabbed her leg with the other. The smell grew in intensity. It was a compilation of things, hard to pin down exactly. Old sweaty underwear, stale cigarette smoke, lingering grime. It loomed in the air, accosting his senses. There was a standing water smell, like rotten fruit sitting in stagnant barrel, perhaps an apple core, or a discarded pear. And garbage.

Lisa made her way to the floor and Joe watched her hands fly up to her nose. Her eyes watered.

"Disgusting." She winced. "It's worse than my Grandma's bedroom.

Maybe that was it, the smell of an old person that had forgotten to care for him or herself, or just didn't care anymore about the filth accumulated around them. Stanley Gruber wasn't that old, but he had a seedy quality about him, and it was easy to associate these putrid smells with him.

"What's wrong down there?" Burt called through the window.

"Nothing." Joe waved at the air around his nose. "We're just getting acclimated."

He produced the flashlight from his pocket and felt to make sure the screwdriver was still there. Its pointy side scraped his palm. Just in case he had to open something that was locked. He turned the flashlight on low.

"Aaah!" Lisa yelped and Joe nearly fell backward. The flashlight revealed a tall figure just in front of them. At first, it appeared to be a stranger wearing a dark coat, but when their eyes adjusted, they realized it was only a dark blue sheet hanging across a line.

"You okay?" Burt called down.

"We're fine," Lisa said. She exchanged a strained look with Joe. "Just laundry."

"Jeez," Burt said. "Come on. Hurry up!"

Joe panned the light around the basement. The walls were bare cement and sweating with moisture. Over the years the sweat had produced long stains that dripped down from the ceiling, like a chemical seeping into litmus paper.

Rusted paint-chipped metal poles jutted from the floor, propping up the ceiling. Stacks of boxes lined the walls, many falling over. Crumpled papers and junk squeezed out of them, spilling out of rips and cracks in the cardboard, leaving the place in disarray.

The basement exuded the same grim weariness as the outside, light choked and cancerous as black lung. Joe considered if he ran his fingers along the walls, the filth of this man's existence would rub off onto him. It gave him a chill.

He passed the flashlight over the stairs, revealing a door, five steps up. Loose paint hung in curls from it.

"We have to go through there," Joe said.

Lisa sighed. "Yeah."

As they negotiated the boxes, Joe stepped on something soft and wet. He shone the light down and found a pile of damp laundry. A stronger blast of the horrible smell rose up from the pile and slammed through his nostrils. He gagged. The old clothes were soaked through with Stanley Gruber’s excreted fluids and had gone to fester.

Lisa caught the whiff and retched. "I can't believe this guy," she said. “How can one human being be so disgusting?”

"Let's go."

They moved up the stairs. Joe tested the door handle. It turned easily. He paused and locked eyes with Lisa.

“You ready for this?” he asked.

She took a deep breath and nodded. He cracked the door open.

They entered Stanley Gruber's kitchen and Joe’s stomach lurched. Dirty dishes lined the countertops and filled the sink. What appeared to be cracks in the walls turned out to be multiple lines of ants crawling in unison from a rotted food source on the counter.

"Oh my God," Lisa breathed. "This guy is our janitor? I thought janitors were supposed to be clean?"

"Apparently not," Joe said.

The windows were bare. The moon shone through, casting a bluish hue over the room. Lisa reached for the refrigerator door, paused and considered, then covered her hand with her shirt.

"Disgusting," she said and pulled it open.

It was filled with liquor, a blackening head of lettuce or possibly cabbage, and leftover takeout food.

"Doesn't eat much, does he?" Lisa said.

Joe peeked into the fridge. "Does he look like he eats much? The guy isn’t much more than skin and bone.”

They rummaged through the cabinets and found stale graham crackers, old chips, cockroaches galore, stocks of canned spaghetti and ravioli, noodles, soups. Gross but nothing useful.

They slipped into the living room where a dusty couch sat before a thirteen-inch television like a discarded brick. The couch was a grayish red color, and what Lisa thought were patches turned out to be stains of some unknown liquid. Joe went to lean on the couch but Lisa shoved him.

"Don't touch it," she warned. "You don't know what you'll catch."

"Yeesh."

The television had been propped up onto an old aluminum TV tray and tilted at a precarious angle. A soft breeze might knock it over.

The walls were empty of pictures save for a "Big Bosoms" calendar turned to October, and a chintzy cuckoo clock that might have been beaten up with a baseball bat. Brown shag carpeting covered the floors, worn down to the threads. It lay flat and matted against their feet.

At the end of a short hallway, Joe spotted a door. He opened it and shined the light through. Towels and toiletries and junk peeked out at him.

"Let's go down there." Lisa pointed to a longer hallway with three doors. Joe followed.

Lisa popped open the first door. The odor slammed them with the power of a bulldozer. Lisa retched this time. She bent over and gripped her stomach, dry heaving. A string of spit dangled from her lips.

Joe spun away so fast he whacked his chin on the wall behind him.

"Damn, man." He covered his nose and mouth and forced himself back to the room. It was the bathroom. "Is there a dead body in there?"

"It sure smells like it." Lisa pointed to the bathroom floor. "Check it out."

Joe grimaced and aimed the flashlight. Black bugs scurried in and around the toilet, avoiding the light. Grime glistened from the tiles with a thick, greasy texture. Orange and brown stains marred the porcelain sink. Joe shone the light in the toilet and saw at least one possible source of the horrible smell.

Inside was one of the biggest piles of turds he had ever seen. It wasn't one of those long turds that coiled around the rim, but the wet and soggy kind that plops into a soft pile and congeals.

"This guy is seriously beyond disgusting." He closed the lid with his foot. “Doesn’t he know how to flush a toilet?”

He panned the light to the tub and to where a dark brown shower curtain hung limp.

“Should I open it?” Lisa asked.

“What if we find a body?”

“Would you quit with the body stuff?”

Lisa gripped his hand. A new warmth rushed through him.

“I’ll do it.” Joe approached the curtain.

This was his moment of truth. Maybe Stanley Gruber's dark secret was somehow tied up in his bathtub.

He ripped the curtain open to find nothing but years of built-up scum and grime. Joe deflated. They hurried out and slammed the door behind them.

“I’ve never been so disgusted in my life,” Lisa said.

Joe shone the light on the next door. “I think Burt would have been proud."

Lisa cringed. "How can you make jokes right now?"

Joe shrugged. "Who's joking?"

Lisa gripped the knob on the next door, feeling her way about as if she could sense what lay beyond. Her hand shook. Her nerves were getting to her, Joe could tell. He wondered if she’d make it through the rest of this.

"You okay?" He touched her shoulder, a simple gesture though it surprised him how it made him feel, closer to her, more in tune.

"I'm okay." She took a deep breath. "This place is giving me the willies. Let's just hurry so we can get the frick out of here."

Frick. That was Lisa’s word. “Frick” this and “frick” that. She always said it in school.

Joe glanced at his watch. "We've got time, but you're right. I don’t want to be in this filthy place any longer than we have to."

Lisa braced herself and pushed through the door. They found more stacks of overstuffed boxes. A tiny pathway led through the room with just enough space for a person to walk.

"We'll have to come back some time and see what he has in all these boxes," Joe said, "but for now let's just check out the rest of the place."

Lisa flipped the top of one of the boxes and looked inside. "It's all junk mail and stuff. It looks like he saves it all. And here, there's a bunch of newspapers. Weird."

"Yeah, weird." Joe slipped out of the room with Lisa behind him. Then, "Only one room left."

"Do we have time?" The way she asked it, practically pleading for a negative response, but Joe gripped the handle anyway.

“Let’s just get this done, right?” Joe took her hand again. Warmth.

“Right.”

He turned the knob on the last door and pushed it open. Another rush of that terrible smell.

Joe panned the light about the room, revealing a bed with a rumpled blanket and a chipped particle board dresser. Instead of curtains, old sheets covered the windows.

"Nice bedroom." Joe felt disappointed now. He had gone through the entire house, admittedly a cursory examination, but expected to find more than this. So far the only thing he learned about Stanley Gruber was that the man was a repulsive slob who sported a menagerie of terrible odors. Where were the ties to the Devonshire murders? There had to be something.

"Did you hear that?" Lisa asked.

"Hear what?"

"Shhh!" Lisa stood still. "I heard a cough."

"A cough?”

"Shhh," she said again. "Turn off the light."

Joe fumbled with the flashlight as Lisa tiptoed to the window. She pressed against the wall and moved the edge of the sheet a half inch to peek out. Her face went ashen.

"It’s him," she said.

"Him?" Joe sputtered.

"Stanley, it's Stanley Gruber!"

Joe glanced at his watch. It read eight-forty. He fought the urge to panic. Then, as if on cue, the ugly little cuckoo clock came to life and the little bird whistled out the first of nine cuckoos.

"Oh my God," Joe cried. "I must have screwed up my watch when I came through the window!"

They charged down the hallway, through the living room, the kitchen, through the basement door. Joe tried to close it quietly behind him, but the adrenaline got the best of him and the door pounded and vibrated the doorjambs.

They rushed down the stairs to the window. Burt already had his arms through.

"Where the hell were you guys?" he whispered as firmly as he could. "I was calling you for two minutes!"

"How the hell were we supposed to hear you?" Joe boosted Lisa up to his friend. Burt grabbed hold and tugged. With his strength, it only took one heave to get her up and out of there.

One to go.

Burt reached down and Joe gripped his huge hands. A mixture of relief and panic-filled adrenaline flushed through him in waves. They were almost out of there when suddenly, the basement door banged open and the light burst on.

"Crap!" Burt gave one tremendous tug that Joe wasn't ready for. He twisted when he shouldn’t have, catching the leg of his pants on the lip of the window.

"Hurry!" Joe strained his voice, desperate. "He's coming. I hear him!"

Stanley's heavy boots crashed onto the stairs, then onto the concrete, slapping toward him. There came a grumble, like an angry animal.

“Hurry!” Hands like steel clamped over Joe’s ankles.

Burt gave another tug but Joe didn't budge. "What the…?"

"He's got me!" Joe cried.

Burt panicked as Joe slipped backwards through the window, toward the inside of Stanley Gruber's basement. He almost lost his grip, but the terrified look on Joe's face stunned him enough to regain composure. He dug deep and gave another herculean tug.

"Come on!" Burt heaved and Joe popped out like a rag doll.

“Get back here!” Stanley shouted.

"Let's get out of here!" Lisa shook and tears formed in her eyes. Joe flew to his feet and they sprinted as fast as they could through Stanley's yard toward the alley.

Joe purposely avoided the direction of his home in case they were followed. He didn't want that psycho knowing who broke into his place. Instead, they ran through the park toward the forest preserve. Minutes later, they wound up at Joe's favorite tree stump hangout. They hid in the trees, eyes gaping into the darkness for any sign of a pursuer.

"Is he coming?" Lisa gasped. She fell to her knees and bent forward, searching out for movement.

"I don't hear anything." Burt grinned in triumph. He was enjoying every moment of this. "Man, that was crazy close. But we did it."

He punched Joe’s shoulder, trying to elicit a smile from him, but it didn’t work.

"What's the matter?" Burt asked.

Joe lifted his foot for their inspection. It was shoeless. "I think we might be in trouble.”

##

Stanley Gruber labored up the street with his hands thrust into his pockets. Ruthie’s little show tonight hadn’t done much for him and he wound up leaving earlier than anticipated. He limped along like a man trapped in depressed haze. He couldn’t live this way much longer.

He considered a stroll around the edge of the park to clear the dreck from his head when he caught a flicker of light from inside his house. Had he left a light on? It wouldn’t be the first time, addled as his brain had become, but then the light suddenly darkened and he froze.

Someone was inside his house.

He sprinted to the front door, adrenaline coursing, making his skin prick up with gooseflesh. In his rush he fumbled with unsteady fingers and dropped his keys. The key ring bounded off the stoop and into a gopher hole.

“Damn!” He dove for them and dug in with his hands, expecting something to bite the tip of his fingers off. He hooked a finger around the ring and scrambled up, shoved the key into the lock and twisted. The door flew open and he heard someone scrambling through the basement.

“Damn you!” He rushed to the basement door.

He bounded down the stairs too fast and slammed into the wall, just in time to see the legs of the prowler moving through his window. He leapt like a wild man, screaming, and dove head first. He caught the tips of the intruder’s shoes in his fingertips and fell, holding on with everything he had.

“Get back here!”

The intruder yelled something but Stanley couldn’t make it out over the pounding of his heart in his ears. His grip grew weak so he shifted to one foot and yanked. He jockeyed back to his feet and caught glimpse of the intruder. It wasn’t a man, but a kid, a familiar-looking kid, and he wasn’t alone. Someone was pulling him up, and there was a girl out there, too. He could smell her.

“I’m gonna get you!” He gave one last tug. The kid’s shoe came loose and Stanley flew back onto his rear. A sharp pain shot up through his lower back. The shoe sprung from his hand and disappeared to somewhere in the basement.

He climbed to his feet but now he was sluggish and weak. And pissed as hell. He made his way up and through the front door, then around the back of the house, but the effort was pointless. They were already gone.

“What the hell were they doing here?” He gritted his teeth, ground to sharp edges over the years.

It made no sense. He had nothing of value, nothing worth stealing. Probably vandalism. He knew the way the kids looked at him while he mopped up the halls after their fat, lazy carcasses. Some of the braver ones even said things to him, disrespectful things he might have bashed their heads in for, but he couldn’t act on such impulses. He couldn’t risk losing his job or being forced out of town. He could never leave Devonshire. If he left, he might never see her again. He would die without her. So he took the abuse, but it ticked through his brain constantly, the fantasy of taking some of those little idiots by the necks and squeezing until the bones cracked and their faces turned red and purple and their tongues bulged from their mouths.

He wished he could kill one of them.

This was going too far. Now they were invading his home. He wouldn’t risk taking action at the school, but if he were to find out who they were, he might have to do something about it outside of the school. Maybe pay one of them a visit in the nighttime, like she used to visit him, and do something to them, like the last time one of them invaded his sanctuary in the school basement. Years ago he might not have been capable of such a thing, but the years had changed him. She had changed him. He was capable of vile things now and he didn’t care if that made him a bad man.

Disgusted, he headed back to the basement to retrieve the boy’s shoe. He’d gotten a look at the kid’s face, but it wasn’t a close look. The kid’s face was all twisted up and he looked different, but Stanley still thought he looked familiar.

“Who the hell are you?” he said to himself, wracking his weak brain. “Damn it, I know you.”

He rifled through the catalog of faces his mind had recorded over the years, but nothing came up solid. There were a few possibilities, but no exact matches. His temper flared.

“Damn it!” He flung the shoe at the wall. It bounced off the cinderblock and flopped back toward him. Then he saw it, something poking out of the shoe. He bent over and picked it up, a folded piece of paper.

A note.

He unfolded it and read. There were two names written, and one those names brought a name to the intruder’s face. Joe.

Stanley knew Joe. Joe Miller or Joe Munson or something like that. He lived around here somewhere, didn’t he? He’d even seen the kid looking at him funny the last few weeks. He didn’t know why, but he saw him all the same. Now he knew why. The kid was planning on breaking into his house all along. He couldn’t figure that one out, but he knew one thing for sure. He was going to pay this kid a visit. He knew where the kid lived. He was another Renter’s Alley occupant. He crumpled the note in his fist. He wasn’t going to wait to make that visit. Then, after that, he’d find out who the other name belonged to.

Lisa.