Timbers Consumed

Nobody ever complained about the Thompson’s lawn. The HOA did not come after them for putting garish cement ornaments all over the place, like they did Miss Battie, or for leaving their yard un-mowed for weeks at a time like Greg Mills. They didn’t blast AC/DC late into the night. Their immediate neighbors, the Roths and the McMillians found them pleasant to live beside. They were young, attractive, and they had no children to cause problems.

They were good people, Alex and Penelope Thompson.

So no one particularly thought about them when within six months of them moving in, there was a string of burglaries. Anyway, the Thompsons were also hit; Penelope said someone had taken a few of her more valuable pieces of jewelry. She got a little teary eyed about it and was very sweet, blushing and murmuring that they were from her Grandma and that’s really why she was so worried. Tracy McMillan was charmed by her young neighbor and invited her to a friend’s house for a chemical free cleaning products party.

The friend then came home two weeks later to find her security system had been disabled and her television, iPad and other expensive electronics gone, every drawer in the house rummaged through, and a few things smashed. But nobody thought about Penelope Thompson.

When a house four doors down from the Thompson’s had a car stolen right out of their own driveway, no one considered that the hoodie-wearing man captured on the security camera driving it away had only driven it four doors down and hidden it in his own garage to sell at his leisure. And if they’d ever had the idea suggested to them, they would have looked at Alex Thompson’s broad smile, All-American good looks, and dismissed him as a possibility. It was clearly some hoodlum, they would say. Crime is bad around this town. 

The Thompsons were completely safe.

Penelope woke to the beeping of her alarm one morning, stretched, and snuggled in next to her husband. “Morning,” she murmured, sleepily. “Pretty sure I’m never going to sleep in a bed without silk sheets ever again. This is incredible.”

“Thank the Newcome’s BMW,” Alex murmured into his pillow. He rolled over and wrapped his arms around her. “How I’d ever be able to afford your expensive tastes without the generosity of our neighbors, I don’t know….”

 “You never want anything expensive, though,” Penelope cooed, curling her hand into his. “Why don’t you get yourself something nice?”

“If the stuff makes you happy, I’m happy,” Alex said into the back of her neck. “I just like….getting it.” They lay there in companionable silence. Then Alex said, his voice clearer, “Actually, I’ve been thinking. Why don’t we upgrade a little bit?”

“What do you mean upgrade? BMWs are about as nice as you can get. I mean, for this area, anyway. They’re so stuffily middle class around here. I mean, would it kill them to buy a Lamborghini or something really valuable?”

“Less ostentatious is better.” Alex corrected, “Nobody overlooks a Lambo driving down the street. But I don’t mean upgrade in sale price. I mean…in difficulty.”

She turned around to look at him, an eyebrow raised.

“I just noticed as I was casing the Newcome’s,” he said with a shrug, “that that kid of theirs is home alone for two hours every weekday. He’s friendly, and I don’t think I’d even have to be in range of a security camera to convince him to go somewhere with me.”

Penelope’s eyes widened. “You mean kidnapping? I don’t know, Alex…”

He shrugged again. “I mean, if you want the big money, those people pay big money for kids, especially cute little boys. I could quit my job, stay home all day…” His fingers caressed her waist, her hips.

Penelope looked away, rubbed a finger meditatively on her silk sheets. “I guess it’s not like we would be harming him…I don’t know, babe, let me think about it. We need to get going, anyway.”

They got up. Penelope walked into the bathroom, sniffed, and groaned. “I cannot get this mildew smell out! And yesterday, I smelled the same smell in the basement! And in the pantry! It’s getting worse!”

“Downside of my profession, love,” her husband said, “We have to do a lot of careful work before we let some tradesman waltz into this house.”

“It’s getting so bad. What’s the use of all this money if we can’t bear to live in our own house?”

Alex did not say anything, but he had not missed the stench slowly overtaking the house. To call it “mildew” was charitable. It was a putrid smell, and it seemed to seep into the rooms that were closed—open any closet, or the guest bedroom, and the smell would hit you in the face. Something died in the vents, probably, he thought. I’ll check today after I get home.

That evening, Alex scrambled into the attic crawlspace. The air was hot and fetid. He gagged, covered his mouth and forged forward. He was no HVAC guy, but he was an expert in the nooks and crannies of a house for a different profession, so he efficiently made his way to the places he thought might be problems. And he found something.

In the corner of the attic, where the wall met the roof, something was eating away at the boards. A rust-colored sliminess. It didn’t smell like mold. The attic was as hot and dry as an attic should be. It was not the kind of place you’d ever dream of mold growing. Alex poked at the rotten bit and the wood indented under his finger. He flinched back. He’d never in his life smelled mold that reeked so badly. Coughing and retching, he crawled out of the attic. That smell would stay with him for a long time. But that section of wooden wall…it had nearly been mush.

With less aplomb and more real concern, he took his flashlight to the vents in the basement and began investigating the lower HVAC system. And there, in one of the tubes, he found the same rusty sliminess. It had eaten a hole in the tube. This thing ate plastic and wood?

Flashlight in hand he ran from place to place in his house. The slime was under the kitchen sink, eating away at the plumbing; in the back of the storage closet; sliding along the ground behind the TV in the basement. And it wasn’t just coating those surfaces, it was destroying them like nothing he’d ever seen before.

It was serious enough to risk a real expert. Penelope and Alex hid everything that a court might term “evidence” in their attic crawlspace. They had a trapdoor hiding place in the basement but when Alex opened that up, he found the entire thing slick and shiny with the putrid slime. He’d shut it, put a rug over it so Penelope wouldn’t notice, and then run to the bathroom to vomit.

But Dave from Mildew Repair and Cleaning was flummoxed. He tried to spray the stuff, but when the slime died, it took whatever surface it was on with it. After seeing an entire HVAC tube disintegrate before his eyes after being sprayed, Alex swore at the man and sent him away, threatening a lawsuit.

Through all of this, they continued their plans to lure Dustin Newcome away from his house to capture him. Alex had contacted a buyer. Penelope had befriended Dustin’s mom to find out more about the family’s habits. The plans were falling into place. And anyway, Penelope had decided, with the house in such shape, they’d need extra money for a down payment on a nicer house.

The day of the kidnapping dawned. Alex had been on the phone late the night before setting up a drop-off place with the traffickers. After getting home from school, Dustin was going to leave the house of his own free will, meet Alex at the skate park, and then after an appropriate amount of time, Penelope would go over to the Newcomes to “check on him.”

She had arranged to do this with Dustin’s mom, who didn’t know that she was inviting someone into her house to destroy any evidence that might give a clue about where Dustin had gone. It was a flawless plan, and so easy Penelope was considering giving up theft of items and focusing entirely on kidnapping. “I mean,” she said, “You can’t exactly convince someone’s television set to walk out of the house and meet you somewhere.”

But the plan began to unravel the moment Alex got home from work that afternoon. He walked into the house and reeled backwards, gagging. Rusty slime was creeping up the walls, seeping out over the floors. The whole house was rotting. Penny drove up a moment later and found him in a panic. She shrugged. “Just leave it and go on with the plan. You have to meet Alex in fifteen minutes. We don’t have time to deal with this.”

“You don’t understand!” Alex hissed, glancing over his shoulder at their neighbors’ house. “It’s on everything. Everything, meaning everything that we’ve, uh, collected.” He glanced around again, his face red. “If we don’t get that stuff out now, it’s going to just disintegrate! We’re talking thousands and thousands of dollars!”

A small voice piped up from beside them. “Hey Mr. Alex. What’s gonna cost thousands and thousands of dollars?”

Alex stared down at Dustin with pure horror on his face. “Y-you’re not supposed to—I mean, what? Nothing. Nothing. Just a boring adult thing. What are you doing here, buddy? Weren’t we going to meet to surprise your parents over at the park?”

Dustin shrugged. “Yeah but I saw you out here in your lawn staring at your house and I wondered what the problem was. We can just go from here, I don’t need to play on the playground or anything.”

Alex gave him a frozen smile. “You know what? I forgot…something. I’m going to go…do it.” He gave Penelope a wide-eyed Do something! look and hurried away with his phone in hand.

Penelope was just as aware of the disaster of Dustin being seen on their yard, stammered in a falsely cheerful voice, “Oh my, Dustin, I didn’t expect you…how about you…come inside? I was just going to go make…pancakes…”

“Pancakes? At five o’clock?” Dustin laughed. “I love breakfast for dinner!” He skipped after her.

--

At 6 o’ clock, Mr. Newcome unlocked his front door and stepped into the house. “Dustin! I’m home!”

There was no answer. By the time Mrs. Newcome was home fifteen minutes later, he was outside, shouting for Dustin in the woods. He ran up to her, his face pale. “He’s not in the house.”

“Dustin? Why? He knows he’s not supposed to go out alone!”

“Maybe he wasn’t alone.” He held up a note written in round, crooked child’s handwriting. “Deer Mom and Dad I went out but I’m safe it’s a serprise—just wait!”

“I asked Penelope to look in on him.” Mrs. Newcome said. “From four doors down. Maybe she took him somewhere? I can’t imagine she would have…”

They both turned to look towards the Thompson’s house. And at that moment, a shutter fell off the house.

“Goodness,” Mrs. Newcome blinked, momentarily distracted. “I didn’t think their house was in that poor of repair.”

Another shutter fell off. There was a slushy liquid sound, and one of the windows melted, dribbling down the siding in a glassy sludge. The Newcomes, drawn by horrified fascination, started walking down the street to get a closer look. The shingles began popping off the Thompson’s roof and dropping to the ground.

“Look at the foundation,” Mr. Newscome pointed, and they saw liquid leaking out from under the edges of the house. A gooey looking reddish stuff began creeping up the outside siding and everywhere it touched, the boards disintegrated. The house groaned, listing to the left. By this point a few other people had come out of the their houses and were watching with their mouths open.

“Their cars are in the driveway,” Somone asked. “Should someone go in and make sure they can get out?”

But then the house lurched and dropped down a good half foot where the red mold had destroyed the base of the house.

“I think it’s too late,” Mrs. Newscome replied, not taking her eyes off the house. And then, with an abrupt roar of crashing timbers and falling sludge, the house collapsed. It made a wet splat sound as it landed, and bits of house goo splashed all over the watching neighbors. Mrs. Newscome shrieked and tried to brush it off, but even as it landed on her it dried up and blew away.

Nobody was paying attention, anyway, because the falling house had revealed three figures standing in the pile of goo. On one side was Alex Thompson, coated in house sludge, shouting at his wife. “Why did you take him inside, you idiot?”

“Oh, you were a lot of help!” Penelope shrieked back at him. “Just walk off and phone someone, and dump it all in my lap! I panicked, okay!?”

And standing in between them looking very small and overwhelmed, was Dustin Newscome. He spotted his parents and, unnoticed by the furious couple, waded through the sludge and ran to them. His mother threw her arms around him. “What happened?! What were you doing in the Thompson’s house? What just happened?!”

“They were kidnapping me,” he said, matter of factly, into her hug. “But they weren’t very good at it. And something was going wrong with their house.”

“No kidding,” said Greg Mills looking over at the Thompsons. “Hey…is that my lawn mower?”

“That’s definitely my car.” Mr. Newcome said, squinting at the sludge-covered black BMW in their garage.

Slowly, the neighbors began to walk towards the Thompsons. Alex Thompson, his face red, his hair sodden, his nice polo stained, saw them, and fear made his boyish good looks ugly. As ugly as the reality of the house rotted around his feet.