Black House

“First one hand, then the other. That’s how I do it.” There is a revolting complacency in his voice. The Taser presses between Ty’s shoulder blades hard enough to hurt. Grunting with effort, the old man leans over Ty’s left shoulder. Ty can smell sweat and blood and age. It is like “Hansel and Gretel,” he thinks, only he has no oven to push his tormentor into.

You know what to do, Judy tells him coldly. He may not give you a chance, and if he doesn’t, he doesn’t. But if he does . . .

A handcuff slips around his left wrist. Burny is grunting softly, repulsively, in Ty’s ear. The old man reaches . . . the Taser shifts . . . but not quite far enough. Ty holds still as Burny snaps the handcuff shut and tightens it down. Now Ty’s left hand is secured to the shed wall. Dangling down from his left wrist by its steel chain is the cuff Burny intends to put on his right wrist.

The old man, still panting effortfully, moves to the right. He reaches around Ty’s front, groping for the dangling cuff. The Taser is once more digging into Ty’s back. If the old man gets hold of the cuff, Ty’s goose is probably cooked (in more ways than one). And he almost does. But the cuff slips out of his grip, and instead of waiting for it to pendulum back to where he can grab it, Burny leans farther forward. The bony side of his face is planted against Ty’s right shoulder.

And when he leans to get the dangling handcuff, Ty feels the touch of the Taser first lighten, then disappear.

Now! Judy screams inside Ty’s head. Or perhaps it is Sophie. Or maybe it’s both of them together. Now, Ty! It’s your chance, there won’t be another!

Ty pistons his right arm downward, pulling free of the shackle. It would do him no good to try to shove Burny away from him—the old monster outweighs him by sixty pounds or more—and Ty doesn’t try. He pulls away to his left instead, putting excruciating pressure on his shoulder and on his left wrist, which has been locked into the shackle holding it.

“What—” Burny begins, and then Ty’s groping right hand has what it wants: the loose, dangling sac of the old man’s balls. He squeezes with all the force in his body. He feels the monster’s testicles squash toward each other; feels one of them rupture and deflate. Ty shouts, a sound of dismay and horror and savage triumph all mingled together.

Burny, caught entirely by surprise, howls. He tries to pull backward, but Ty has him in a harpy’s grip. His hand —so small, so incapable (or so you would think) of any serious defense—has turned into a claw. If ever there was a time to use the Taser, this is it . . . but in his surprise, Burny’s hand has sprung open. The Taser lies on the ancient, blood-impacted earth of the shed floor.

“Let go of me! That HURTS! That hur r —”

Before he can finish, Ty yanks forward on the spongy and deflating bag inside the old cotton pants; he yanks with all the force of panic, and something in there rips. Burny’s words dissolve in a liquid howl of agony. This is more pain than he has ever imagined . . . certainly never in connection with himself.

But it is not enough. Judy’s voice says it’s not, and Ty might know it, anyway. He has hurt the old man—has given him what Ebbie Wexler would undoubtedly call “a fuckin’ rupture”—but it’s not enough.

He lets go and turns to his left, pivoting on his shackled hand. He sees the old man swaying before him in the shadows. Beyond him, the golf cart stands in the open door, outlined against a sky filled with clouds and burning smoke. The old monster’s eyes are huge and disbelieving, bulging with tears. He gapes at the little boy who has done this.

Soon comprehension will return. When it does, Burny is apt to seize one of the knives from the wall—or perhaps one of the meat forks—and stab his chained prisoner to death, screaming curses and oaths at him as he does so, calling him a monkey, a bastard, a fucking asswipe. Any thought of Ty’s great talent will be gone. Any fear of what may happen to Burny himself if Mr. Munshun—and the abbalah—is robbed of his prize will also be gone. In truth, Burny is nothing but a psychotic animal, and in another moment his essential nature will break loose and vent itself on this tethered child.

Tyler Marshall, son of Fred and the formidable Judy, does not give Burny this chance. During the last part of the drive he has thought repeatedly of what the old man said about Mr. Munshun—he hurt me, he pulled my guts—and hoped he might get his own opportunity to do some pulling. Now it’s come. Hanging from the shackle with his left arm pulled cruelly up, he shoots his right hand forward. Through the hole in Burny’s shirt. Through the hole Henry has made with his switchblade knife. Suddenly Ty has hold of something ropy and wet. He seizes it and pulls a roll of Charles Burnside’s intestines out through the rip in his shirt.

Burny’s head turns up toward the shed’s ceiling. His jaw snaps convulsively, the cords on his wrinkled old neck stand out, and he voices a great, agonized bray. He tries to pull away, which may be the worst thing a man can do when someone has him by the liver and lights. A blue-gray fold of gut, as plump as a sausage and perhaps still trying to digest Burny’s last Maxton cafeteria meal, comes out with the audible pop of a champagne cork leaving the neck of its bottle.

Charles “Chummy” Burnside’s last words: “LET GO, YOU LITTLE PIIIIG!”

Tyler does not let go. Instead he shakes the loop of intestine furiously from side to side like a terrier with a rat in its jaws. Blood and yellowish fluid spray out of the hole in Burny’s midsection. “Die!” Tyler hears himself screaming. “Die, you old fuck, GO ON AND DIE!”

Burny staggers back another step. His mouth drops open, and part of an upper plate tumbles out and onto the dirt. He is staring down at two loops of his own innards, stretching like gristle from the gaping red-black front of his shirt to the awful child’s right hand. And he sees an even more terrible thing: a kind of white glow has surrounded the boy. It is feeding him more strength than he otherwise would have had. Feeding him the strength to pull Burny’s living guts right out of his body and how it hurt, how it hurt, how it dud dud dud hurrrrr—

“Die!” the boy screams in a shrill and breaking voice. “Oh please, WON’T YOU EVER DIE?”

And at last—at long, long last—Burny collapses to his knees. His dimming gaze fixes on the Taser and he reaches one trembling hand toward it. Before it can get far, the light of consciousness leaves Burny’s eyes. He hasn’t endured enough pain to equal even the hundredth part of the suffering he has inflicted, but it’s all his ancient body can take. He makes a harsh cawing sound deep in his throat, then tumbles over backward, more intestines