We’ve Been in Enough Places to Know
COREY FARRENKOPF
The condos’ septic failed. It was among the deficiencies that developed over the first two years of habitation. The paint job peeled around month two. The cellar’s cement walls cracked after month six. The HVAC system coughed acrid black smoke on the first cold day in November. The list went on, but the septic was what forced inhabitants out, what prompted the lawsuits over the shoddy construction, forged permits, and the outrageous price residents paid to inhabit the crumbling beachside villa.
The building had begun to lean toward the bay. High tide lapped through backyard decking, dragging the seawall away, speeding erosion. A red X was painted across the front door, situated between two boarded-up windows that Glen knew were Tiffany glass. He’d snapped cell phone shots of the ornate panes from within to show his girlfriend how misplaced the builder’s priorities were.
Glen worked for SeaSide Property Management. Twice a week, he walked through each condo looking for squatters. The owner believed he could salvage his business venture before the structure descended into the sea. Glen had his doubts, considering the amount of water in the basement and the veins of mold beneath the peeled paint. Then there was the thing swimming in the basement, drifting between steel Lally columns, the ridge of knotted spine pressing up through the water.
Glen’s boss said, If it’s not kids or homeless sleeping in there, best not mention it to the cops.
Every time Glen walked through the sagging halls, he considered more appropriate land usage. The six-point-two acres could have been left as protected wetland, breeding grounds for waterfowl, a sandy stretch of beach for turtles to lay their eggs. If it had to be housing, why not affordable housing? Fifteen units at several hundred thousand a pop could have been a hundred affordable units for working-class families.
Glen considered renting rooms to kids he went to high school with who griped about the housing shortage online. No one would know. He was the only employee checking the building. It would be easy to forge requests to have the power turned on. The septic leached only a negligible amount of fecal matter into the surrounding waters.
But Glen couldn’t do it. Beyond the environmental sin, the building was going to fall into the sea. He wouldn’t let even vague acquaintances drown in their beds.
There was also the creature living in the basement and its waterlogged birdcalls gurgling at all hours of the night. Glen didn’t know how it would take to having neighbors.
Glen only had to flash his pistol twice. Most squatters left peacefully once discovered. The first was a pair of heroin addicts shooting up in a second-story unit. The second was a man kneeling on the basement stairs, screaming at the creature below. The thing had grown restless, whipping the standing water into a froth, its three skeletal tails cracking against the sunken steps in abrasive rasps. It nosed out of the water, a collection of mouths and overlapping teeth worrying the air, biting down again and again on its own scaled flesh. Glen had grown protective of the aquatic being, so he was a little more gruff with the man than he had been with the addicts.
As he threw the man, still ranting, into the street, Glen managed to catch the end of his warning, That monster will be the death of us, mark my words. And Glen did. He jotted them down in the weekly report his boss continued to ignore.
Glen had grown lazy in his search for squatters, preferring to stand at the top of the basement stairs, watching the creature’s fins as it gracefully swam about. He’d throw food into the water: hot dogs and bread, chocolate bars and cheese sticks. But the creature never ate, its many mouths remaining shut. When the laughter of children filtered through the ceiling one night, he couldn’t make up an excuse not to look, even though he hated evicting families.
Shouldering through the condo’s door, he found three kids huddled around an electric lantern, reading knock-knock jokes from a library book in the dim light, the mother making sandwiches from Kraft Singles.
“I’m sorry, but you have to leave,” Glen said.
“I know,” the mother answered. “Could we just stay the night? The rain’s so heavy and there’s nowhere to go.”
“I want to say yes, but this building’s collapsing.”
“It won’t tonight.”
Glenn sighed. “There’s also this thing in the basement. I don’t know what it eats. You might find it on your doorstep instead of me next time.”
“I’m not worried about that. All houses like this have something in the basement, or the attic. Beneath the stairs, under the deck. We’ve been in enough places to know.”
“It’s your call. If you promise to be out by morning, I won’t call the cops,” Glenn said.
“We’ll be out before sunrise,” the mother replied, resignation tinting her words.
Glenn nodded and walked toward the door. The kids began reading jokes as he slipped around their lantern-lit semicircle. Before stepping into the hall, he turned to the woman. “Do you know what that thing eats? The creature downstairs?”
“I figured it ate whoever lived here first. Why would anyone abandon a house like this otherwise?” the woman said.
“I don’t think that’s what—” Glen began to say before the woman cut him off.
“No. I’m sure. People don’t abandon homes when they actually have them.”
Glen nodded, closing the door behind himself. From the woman’s wide-eyed look, the way her teeth clenched behind cracked lips, he knew he wouldn’t change her mind. The next morning, when he’d come back to check, he hoped he’d find the creature swimming in its usual pool, the condo’s walls clean and blood-free, and the children’s library books gone from the top floor.
Lifeline
J. S.
