Disgusting

This flash fiction piece was written as a story companion to the day 11 drawing prompt Disgusting from the 2020 Inktober prompt list. Click here to see the drawing.

I've never much liked this neighborhood.

There's always piles of garbage on every corner, overflowing and oozing disgusting smells into the air. Walking down the road gives the unmistakable impression that someone's following after you. Every few steps, I have to stop just to make sure I don't hear any steps behind me. The shuffling of my bag against my body keeps tricking my ear.

To add to the creepy ambiance, a mist has rolled in around my ankles. I’m half expecting to see tumbleweeds rolling across the street in front of me, or a haunting scream in the distance. Suddenly, a dog howl breaks the solitude of my heels clicking on the pavement and I nearly jump out of my skin.

If anyone but Sandy had asked me to meet her here at the end of this road I would have scoffed in their face. But you do what you have to for your best friend.

As the fog clears, I can see her standing there in front of the creepy house that butts the end of the lane, like a scab on the nose of a flea-ridden dog. Only she’s facing it, her head turned up, and even when I call her name she doesn’t turn, as if she can’t keep her eyes off the ugly, old thing. I draw up next to her.

“Didn’t you hear me calling you?”

“Just look at it.”

“At what?”

“At this magnificent villa.”

My mouth makes a noise like a deflating whoopee cushion, but Sandy doesn’t flinch. I look up at the house and immediately regret the decision. What she just referred to as a villa is basically a gigantic shack at this point. Sure, it’s enormous, and even has enough yard surrounding it that you’d be accurate in referring to it as “grounds” but every single bit of it is in the most frightful disrepair. Shutters dangle from their hinges like hangnails and the wooden fence surrounding the places has more toppled posts than standing ones. I can’t find one window that hasn’t been broken by thrown rocks, and the entire left side of the roof is sagging so much the eves gives the impression of a lopsided smile. The yellow paint is peeling from every side of the house and I’m not even sure if it was yellow to begin with or if it merely degraded with time. The brown bits peeking through make the whole place look like it has some unsightly disease.

“Sandy it’s … it’s gross, Sandy.”

Her smile just gets bigger.

“And I think I can smell the inside of it from here,” I cover my nose with my hand thanks to a shift in the wind that brings the unmistakable smell of decay blowing in our faces.

“Isn’t it great?”

“What on Earth do you mean?”

She leans toward me without turning her head, as if to impart some confidence.

“They auctioned it off this morning.”

“Thank God. Hopefully whoever bought it owns bulldozers.”

Sandy opens her bag and retrieves a piece of paper, handing it over to me, still staring straight at the house, her smile unyielding. As I read what she handed me, my stomach turns over.

“This is a deed for this address with your name on it, Sandy.”

She finally turns to me, nodding like a lunatic.

“Tell me you didn’t.”

“I sure did.”

“But you don’t have any money.”

“No one wanted it. They opened the auction at $5 and I bid ten and now it’s mine!” She jumps onto me, wrapping her arms around my neck and spinning us, giggling the whole time.

“Sandy, there’s a reason no one wants this house.”

She holds me at arms length by each shoulder and smiles. “Yes, because the house is falling down and it’s surrounded by a disgusting neighborhood.”

“And you’re … happy … about this?”

More smiling and nodding.

“Can you just tell me what’s going on? Are you on drugs, like, what are you thinking?”

“I’m gonna turn it into a hotel.”

“Excuse me?”

Linking her arm through mine, she starts walking me closer to the filthy, decrepit mansion she just bought.

“It’s gonna be the greatest, grandest hotel in town, and people from all over will come just to stay in it, and we’ll end up on the cover of Fortune 500 because of our success.”

“We?”

“What, you think I can flip this place on my own?”

“Remind me why we’re friends again?”

“Because if it wasn’t for me, you’d die of boredom, surrounded by your shoe collection.”

“And how exactly are we gonna become the grandest hoteliers in Richmond, Virginia when neither you or me can barely afford the rent?”

“You’d be able to afford a lot more things if you stopped blowing money on those dumb things," she gestures toward my feet.

“Excuse me, these are not dumb, Louboutins are works of art.”

Sandy rolls her eyes and opens her bag again, pulling out a pair of tennis shoes. “Here, put these on so we can take a tour of the house. Your stilettos will go right through the rotted the floorboards.”

“The what? You think I’m actually going in there?”

“If you don’t, you won’t get to see the surprise!” She sets the shoes on the ground in front of me and takes off running toward the house. She knows I’ll follow, she knows I can’t stand suspense and that stupid word, surprise. You could get me to jump off a bridge just to settle my curiosity. I swear under my breath and I change from Loubotins to New Balance. I’ll never forgive my mother for being best friends with Sandy’s mother, otherwise we never would have met, grown up together, becoming bonded for life, and then I wouldn’t be standing outside this disgusting house putting on grandma sneakers.

Picking my way through the trash-scatteted yard up to the front of the house, I step gingerly on to the wrap-around porch, afraid it’s going to give way any minute. The boards creak and groan in protest as I creep forward.

“Sandy!” I call into the house. “Sandy, if I go through this porch like that scene in Money Pit, you’re gonna pay for it!”

“I’m in the kitchen!” Her muffled voice comes from the left, so I meander through the abandoned rooms that echo the appearance of the outside as, until I can smell rotted food and rust and hear Sandy shuffling.

“You know, when I saw the outside of this house, I thought it was a disaster, but the inside has changed my mind. It’s a complete disaster.”

Sandy’s on her hands on knees, her arm shoved shoulder deep inside an old fashioned wood stove.

“What are you doing?”

She grunts and a loud clunking noise fills the room. “Come see.”

“I shudder to think,” Bending down to look in the stove, expecting to see old ashes and dust, I just see a hole. “So the stove's broken, too? Cool.”

“It has a false bottom, I just slid it out of the way.” She hands me a flashlight.

“Sandy, if there’s a dead animal in here you’re trying to scare me with, I’m gonna kill you.”

She’s still smiling like a maniac. “Just look.”

I reluctantly shine the flashlight into the stove and there, in a hidden compartment beneath the nastiest house in the world is the biggest pile of cash I’ve ever seen. My mouth drops open and I look at Sandy.

“I found it this morning when I was trying to see if the stove still worked. Guess I don't have to beg the bank for a small business loan any more.” She smiles at me. “Glad we’re friends now?”

I pull Sandy into a hug around her neck and we start laughing. We don’t stop for a very, very long time.