Harmony House - Nic Sheff Page 0,55

his head.

“If it’s solid gold, like you say, then it should be worth a lot.”

They start up the big winding staircase, the banister gray and greasy, with a thick layer of dust.

“I guess you’re gonna want a cut, huh?” Alex asks.

Colin chews on his bottom lip.

“No, man. It’s all you. This whole thing gives me the creeps.”

Alex laughs.

The two boys climb the rest of the way in silence.

When they reach the top floor, they walk down the creaking, dirty hallway to the room next to the upstairs bathroom—the storage room. The windows are caked with dust and dried mud, so the bright sunlight is dulled to a soft glowing yellow—casting long shadows across the piled furniture and boxes and sheets draped over the old player piano, bench, and sheet music.

“It’s in that desk drawer there,” Colin says.

Alex smiles.

“Good.”

He goes over to the rolltop desk and opens the side drawer. There among the black-and-white and color photographs is the monsignor’s ring.

Alex takes it up in his hand.

“Looks like real gold to me. Feel how heavy it is.”

He holds it out to Colin, but Colin backs away.

“Nah, man. I’m good.”

Alex laughs again.

“Fine with me,” he says.

He drops the ring in his front pants pocket.

“Let’s look around and see what else we can find,” he says.

A wave of nausea sweeps through Colin and he puts a hand over his mouth.

“I’m gonna be sick,” he manages to say before running out of the room, where he vomits on his knees in the hall.

“Jesus, you are a sensitive little flower, aren’t you?” he hears Alex say, laughing more.

Colin vomits again. He spits and vomits and clutches at his stomach.

“Ugh, I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” he says finally.

He spits again and gets up.

He doesn’t see Alex around, but goes to the next-door bathroom. Surprisingly, the water comes on when he turns the rusted faucet in the chipped and broken sink. He lets the brown, tepid water run for a minute before drinking from his cupped hands. Then he takes a pack of gum from his pocket, unwraps a piece, and pops it in his mouth. He breathes out.

“What the hell was that?” he says, out loud, to himself.

Stepping back out in the hall, he looks for Alex again but can’t see him anywhere.

“Alex!” he calls, not too loud, because he doesn’t want to make too much noise.

There’s no response.

He looks back into the storage room, where he found the ring a week earlier and where now Alex has taken it for himself. The room is empty.

So Colin begins to search through the house, going back down to the second floor and calling out for Alex, but not finding him anywhere. A cold feeling creeps over the back of his neck and he is dizzy and weak, but still he keeps searching. He makes his way through the many rooms.

“Alex, this isn’t funny, man,” he calls.

But, again, there is no answer.

He descends the stairs to the basement. Light filters in through the dirt-caked, narrow windows. Dust motes are visible drifting and circling through the rays of light.

Down on the damp concrete cellar floor, boxes are stacked ceiling-high and wooden wine barrels are knocked over on their sides and busted open.

“Alex!” he tries again.

A voice whispers back this time.

“Sinner.”

The word is spoken right in his ear.

“Jesus Christ,” he says, going for the stairs now, ready to just get the hell out of there.

But then Alex’s silhouette fills the doorframe at the top of the stairs. In his hand he holds a metal fire poker, the handle worked into the shape of a snake, coiling.

“Where the hell’d you go, man?” Colin asks, trying to hide the tremor in his voice.

Still Alex doesn’t answer. He raises the sharp, pointed metal rod up over his head, then he runs straight at Colin. He wields the poker and Colin steps back.

“What the hell?” he says lamely.

Alex brings the poker down and Colin is knocked to the floor. He holds his hand to his head, now wet and sticky with blood. Alex lets out a terrible, unearthly scream and brings the poker down again. But this time Colin is ready and he rolls out of the way. He leaps then at Alex, slamming his body into him and beating on him with his fists.

As Alex falls back, hitting the concrete, the ring—the monsignor’s ring—flies from his pocket and bounces off into a dark corner of the basement. Colin lunges at Alex again. Alex swings the poker across his own body, and