“Why does it have to be tonight?” I asked Billy, rubbing my hands together. We all stood underneath the abandoned bus stop on Clark Street. The rain was coming down in sheets, and it felt like splinters of ice hitting your skin. I looked down at Mikey. He just stared off, his breath turning to clouds, not caring that he was shivering. I knew he’d panic if he woke up and I wasn’t in my bed so I had to haul him along.
Billy rolled his eyes. “Because, Ralph, we are all getting together to hang out tomorrow. Jim got the new Pac-Man and a bootleg copy of the next Freddy Krueger movie. It doesn’t come out until next week.” Billy talked about horror movies like they cured acne, cancer, and AIDS.
“Doesn’t sound like a good time, man.” I looked towards home and ruffled Mikey’s hair. He didn’t like it, and he adjusted it, shooting me a frustrated look. Where Mikey lacked words, he said with his face.
Billy brought his voice down. “Alright—I was trying to keep it a surprise, but Jim’s older sister is going to be there.” He waggled his eyebrows.
Luanne. She was back from college for winter break already. My heart flushed a bit, and the cold lost its grip on me.
“Yeah, but she never—”
Billy held up a finger. “She was one of the first ones, and I didn’t want you to miss out on—” Billy pantomimed making out with someone, his tongue going everywhere.
I rolled my eyes—sure that would have been nice—but she read books, and watched Doctor Who. She was the only one who liked stuff like that in this backwater town.
We’d talk about all of it on the way home from school or sometime over by the creek. And she had these great ideas for movies involving aliens or books about forgotten castles.
Then she left.
I felt a tug on my sleeve. Mikey waved for me to bend down. He put his face next to my ear and said, “Home now?” His façade of not being miserable was starting to break down, and I noticed the rain had stopped, only the wind remained.
I stood up. “Tell me this isn’t a prank, man.”
Billy took the tone of a doctor telling you the shot wasn’t going to hurt a bit. “No, you just have to get to the basement and on the wall, there’s a word written in…” Billy mouthed the word “blood”—”and then you come out and tell me what the word is—that’s our password.”
“And you can’t just tell me the password.”
Billy glared. “No. We all have to do it. If anyone asks you about the house, and if you sound like an idiot, the person who vouched for you is out too. And that’s me. Hell, no.”
I pushed Luanne out of my mind. “If I get caught or something goes sideways, my parents are going to kill me—I brought home a B-plus in chemistry and my dad treated it like I committed a war crime.”
I picked up Mikey and held him, hoping to share some warmth with him.
“At least check out what you’re saying no to,” Billy said.
He led me down Clark Street—the forgotten side of town. A tornado blew through Laurence about thirty years ago and devastated this part of it. It was part of our history, and every third grader wound up doing a presentation on it. But none of us would actually come down here—and no one mentioned the Last House in their reports with a gray crayon tornado scribbled on the cover. The house that the tornado didn’t dare touch. The Last House.
We got to the house, and it wasn’t like the small houses of Laurence, with their tiny bedrooms and diminished backyards, all crammed together. The Last House bulged with room. It had massive clouded-over windows and stone steps leading up. Mikey was fascinated with it, pointing at it and mumbling as he did. He’d never seen a house like that before.
“Just go through the front door, and the stairs are just down the hall on the right. Head down and find the word. Then we can hang out.” Billy handed over a flashlight. His whole countenance got quiet.
“I need you there, man.” Billy said. “I miss having you around.”
Billy said it honestly—with no punchline following. It was no secret about Billy’s family—everyone knew. I realized he was like Mikey—needing me around to be an anchor, something dependable, and easily found.
“I’ll take Mikey with me—I can carry him. He’ll probably just fall—”
“No—only one person can go in,” Billy said heavily, like a confession. “I’ll watch him.”
Mikey liked Billy so it would be fine. I went to tell Mikey that Billy would just watch him for two minutes and we’d go home. Tomorrow was cartoon day, and I’d give him my Crunch Berries while we watched the Transformers.
But Mikey wasn’t there.
He was opening the door to the Last House. Billy and I sprinted up the stone steps, but the door closed like a click of teeth with Mikey on the other side.
I tried to open the door, but it was locked, and the doorknob chilled my hand to the bone.
“We have to wait until morning, Ralph, or he gets out on his own. It won’t let any else in.” Billy said with a thread of grief in his voice.
I pounded on the door and screamed Billy’s name until my voice gave out.
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