The Collection

She sat on the dirty porcelain toilet, staring down at the wrinkled dress and panties which lay in a fallen heap around her ankles. She could see a worn patch in the crotch of the stained panties and a hem of tatters on the once bright green dress. Wind from somewhere outside blew into the bath­room, causing small pinprick goosepimples to assault her bare skin, and she looked up from the floor, her eyes focus­ing on the dilapidated boards which made up the opposite wall. There were holes in most of the planks-knotholes- and the edges of some of the boards had been eaten away by termites. Many of the boards had been used before, else­where, in other houses, other times, and vestiges of previous paint jobs, traces of former lives, could be seen in the thickly whorled patterns of the wood. Very few of the boards met properly, and there were gaps between individual planks and between roof and wall and wall and floor. Next to the toilet, the bathtub gurgled loudly, and a few thick globules of black viscous liquid splattered up from the drain onto the already grimy metal.

It's not coming, she thought. It's not going to happen. Then she felt the familiar rush of cold from inside the toilet bowl, the welcome pull of gentle arctic air. A wet slimy fin­ger reached upward from the stagnant water at the bottom of the bowl and caressed her sensitive skin. Other fingers followed, and she felt a mucilaginous hand lightly skim across the cheeks of her buttocks and slide slowly down the crack of her ass. She was already aroused, and she closed her eyes, relaxing her muscles, as first one cold finger then another entered her. She spread her legs a little and tried to press her body downward. Opening her eyes, she looked at the reflec­tion of her face in the single shard of mirror remaining on the wall above the broken sink. Her mouth was open, tongue pressed involuntarily between cheek and gums, and she was sweating, though cold wind continued to blow through the cracks between the boards.

There was another black gurgle from the bathtub.

A few minutes later the hand, working on its own time, withdrew, though she was far from finished, and she heard it plop back into the still water at the bottom of the toilet. She stood, pulling up her panties and then her dress. She was wet, and she felt a maddeningly unfulfilled tingling between her legs as she pulled the cotton material tight against her crotch.

She wanted to touch herself there, the way she had as a child, but»she dared not.

She opened the bathroom door and walked into the hall. A pale imitation of sunlight streamed in dust-filled pillars through holes in the roof, patchily illuminating the floor where weeds pushed up from between the tiles. She stepped across the hall and walked up the double brick steps into what used to be the living room, She ignored the cocoon and nodded curtly to the toothless old man, drooling and bab­bling to himself in his high chair next to the ruined chimney. Walking into the kitchen, she poured herself a cup of rusty water from the pail in the sink and stared out through the glassless window at the back yard. 'Hey! Anybody home?'

The voice, disembodied, its owner hidden behind the oversized growth of weeds on the side of the toolshed, sounded clearly in the now breezeless November air. There was a hint of panic in the voice, a trace of desperation. 'Anybody here?'

A man immaculately attired in an expensive gray busi­ness suit, holding a brown leather briefcase in front of him like a shield against the vegetation, emerged from the weeds looking lost and frail and scared. She could see by the path of the trail he had blazed that he had come through the for­est. He stopped at the edge of the clearing, taking in the house, then caught sight of her, dully staring out the kitchen window.

'Boy, am I glad to see somebody,' he said.

She dumped the rest of her water back into the pail and ambled over to the ripped screen door. She opened it, star­ing at him. She tried to speak, but all that came out was a high croaking sound. She cleared her throat, coughed, and tried again. 'Hello,' she said, her mouth forming the word from memory. Her voice sounded slow and awkward even

to herself.

The man put his briefcase down at the edge of the porch and looked up at her, wiping sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his jacket. 'My car stalled on me over on Old Pinewood Road,' he said, gesturing toward the forest. 'I was wondering if you'd let me use your phone.'

She cleared her throat again, coughed. 'No phone,' she said.

His lips formed the outline of a crude word he did not say, and he stomped his foot hard on the ground, sending up a small cloud of cold dust. 'You know where there is a phone I could use?'

She shook her head and started to retreat back into the kitchen.

The man took a step forward. 'Think I could just have a drink of water or something?' He pulled at the buttoned col­lar behind his tie. 'It's a long way back to the road, and my throat's really parched.'

She thought for a moment, then cleared her throat. 'Come in,' she said.

He walked up the series of warped wooden steps onto the porch, opened the screen, and stepped into the kitchen. He stopped just inside the door and stared. A three-legged table sat in the center of the room, piled high with hard bread-crusts and miniscule bones. Against the far wall was a rusted doorless refrigerator; he could see rotting vegetables lying on the appliance's backwardly slanting shelves. Through an­other doorway, he could see into the rest of the house. It looked gutted, abandoned, as though no one had lived there for years.

The woman dipped a tin cup into the dirty pail inside the sink, and he held up his hand. 'Fresh water,' he said. 'I'd like some fresh water.'

She did not seem to understand, and he let the matter drop, accepting the proffered cup. He was thirsty.

She watched him, her eyes following the measured bob­bing of his Adam's apple as he drank. From what used to be the living room she could hear the toothless old man's bab­ble moving upward in register, becoming a shrill whine. It was almost time for his supper and he was getting hungry. She walked over to the refrigerator and drew out an old wrinkled potato. She put it in a tin bowl and mashed it with a fork. She carried it in to the toothless old man, placing it on the shelf of his high chair. He cackled, drooling, and shoved his hands in the bowl. He licked the rotten potato from his fingers.

She turned back toward the kitchen and saw the man standing in the doorway, his empty cup dangling from his hand. 'You live here?' he asked, shocked. She nodded.

He looked to the ruined fireplace, at the toothless old man who was still shoving his hands in his mouth, babbling incoherently. He walked into the room, unbelieving, trying to take it all in. All the windows were boarded up, though not very well; light still sneaked through the cracks. The couch was slanting backward, its seats ripped, white wool stuffing billowing out through the torn material. Several broken chairs lay in a heap in the center of the room. 'Who is that?' he asked, pointing to the old man. She gave him a puzzled expression. 'Who is that man in the high chair?' She shrugged. She cleared her throat. 'Don't know.' His eyes moved over the rest of the room. He walked to­ward the couch, looking around. And he noticed the cocoon.

'What the hell is that?' He walked toward it, curious. 'No.¹' the women yelled, running past him. She stood in front of the cocoon and held her hands up to bar his way.

He stopped, suddenly apprehensive. He wasn't sure what he was doing there in the first place. His car had broken down and he'd been looking for a phone. The nearest town-no more than a store and gas station-was a good thirty miles away. He'd only come here for a drink of water. Now that he'd gotten his drink it was time for him to start heading back to the highway to see if he could flag down a ride. There was no reason for him to be looking through this house.

But the place was so damn strange....

He tried to look past the woman at the cocoon. She shifted her position, blocking his view. He could see a slight bluish glow emanating from the object behind her. 'I just want to look,' he said. 'I won't touch.'

'No,' she said. Her eyes bored into his, glaring.

From the back of the house someplace, from the depths of the dilapidated structure, came a strange mechanical whirring. It rose in pitch until it almost hurt his ears. He winced, looking up at the sound, staring at the bare wood wall though he couldn't see past it. 'What is that?' he asked.

She looked at him, uncomprehending, and he shook his head in frustration. He walked through the doorway nearest to him and found himself in what appeared to be a hallway. Brown weeds pushed up through the crumbling floor tiles, and moonlight streamed through large holes in the roof.

Moonlight!

He looked up. Through the holes, he could see darkness and the faint imprints of stars.