A Penny Down the Well: A Short Story Collection of Horrifying Events (2 page)

“
Alright, you just need to
sign here and here.” Emily pointed to two different places on the
long, complicated document. Jared signed. He signed away as he did
with the house and everything else he didn’t want. It was something
he thought he could do to show her how much he cared, to give her
everything that he had. Jared wanted Emily to see that. She didn’t.
Emily went through the documentation without skipping a beat. Her
disconnection confused him.

Emily took the papers and
nodded. “Thank you, Jared. I know this is hard for you.”

“
Is it hard for you?” He
asked.

Emily held the papers in
front of her chest like a shield made to repel Jared’s question.
“Of course it’s hard for me. I wish you understood.”

”
I wish I did, too.” He
replied. He looked down to the empty table. No eggs. No bacon. No
pancakes. No coffee. Nothing they loved.

“
What happened to your
hand?” Emily asked.

Jared shrugged. He lifted
his red hand and looked it over. “I don’t know.” His eyes focused
on the red ring around his finger where his ring was the day
before. The mark there was significantly worse than the irritation
on his palm, and he couldn’t help but think of the woman and her
metal allergy. The worst of the rash resembled the ring.

Jared stood and pulled his
coat back over his arms and back. “Anything else?”

“
No. No, that’s all. I
hope you feel better.” Emily said from behind her paper
shield.

Jared nodded. He stepped
to the door. He looked down to the doorknob and used his left hand
instead of his right to turn it and push his way out.

Jared returned to the old
apartment after a stop at the grocery store. He picked canned beans
and frozen vegetables to hold him over. Instead of the elevator, he
took the stairs. He was certain it was only a matter of time before
the elevator decided to become a death-trap with the way things
were maintained here. Jared returned to the rhythmic thump once he
reached the fourth floor and Matt popped out as Jared passed his
door, as if he had been waiting.

“
Hey, man.” Matt
said.

Jared halted for a moment
to see if Matt would say anything else. Matt was dressed the same.
He either hadn’t showered or put on the same clothes as the day
before. “Hey.” Jared said.

“
Just thought I’d let you
know that some maintenance guys were coming through the building
earlier. Stopped by my place, think they might have went into
yours, too.” Matt said, leaning against the threshold of his open
door, his words nearly inaudible behind the blaring
beat.

Jared’s eyes squinted as
the sound seemed overwhelming with the door open, and brought him
to wonder how Matt could endure it all day long. “Aren’t they
supposed to notify me beforehand or something?” A reasonable
question, he thought.

“
They’re supposed to do a
lot of things, dude. Have you seen this place?” Matt laughed, red
eyed narrowed in a strange surveying of Jared as he stood in the
hallway, holding his two grocery bags. He continued, “You bring
those so you can open your door, man?” Pointing to the bags. He
laughed.

Jared looked down at the
bag of canned goods and shook his head. “No, I’m going to use these
to stay alive. Thanks for the suggestion, though.” Jared headed
toward his door down the hall. Matt remained in his wake, bopping
his head to the rhythm. Jared stood in front of the door and stared
at the doorknob. Before turning it, Jared looked over his shoulder
to see if Matt was still watching, and he was. Matt’s head and neck
stiffened and revealed his attentiveness. Jared shook his head and
turned the knob with his right hand and pressed into the apartment.
He closed the door behind him.

Jared placed the groceries
on the counter partition between the living area and the kitchen.
Open windows aired out the room and allowed light to cast
inside.

Long streaks in the fresh
paint were missing, revealing the nasty, discolored paint below.
Jared shook his head in disbelief before he examined the room.
Similar streaks of missing paint were everywhere. “You have to be
kidding me.” He crouched beside the wall and examined one of the
wall’s streaks. It smelled of mold with a viscous residue coating.
Jared stood and looked around the room for a source. A clanking
sound came from the kitchen sink. He spun toward the sound. Nothing
obvious. He moved across the room and pulled the cabinets below the
sink open. Nothing. He stood. “Rats?”

As Jared put away his
groceries, he considered the maintenance personnel Matt mentioned
were responsible for the damaged walls. He considered that they may
have been careless while working. He decided not to worry. Emily
stayed on his mind.

That night, Jared
repainted the damaged spots on the wall. He made it right. He
assembled the dishes in the house in the sink and began washing
them quietly, or as quietly as he could, with the sound of Matt’s
music in the background. Through the horde of bubbles and water,
Jared could see his bare hand, stinging slightly from the
irritation. Again, he thought of Emily. He thought of how badly he
wished he could turn everything around. He thought of how he wished
that she wasn’t systematically removing him from her life, and
wished he wasn’t systematically going with it. He wanted a life
with her, like the one he shared with her in those five years. He
wanted to know what changed in her.

As Jared finished the
dishes and dried his hands, he stood over the sink and stared into
the empty basin. His shoved a hand into his pocket and pulled out
his wedding ring. Slowly he slipped it over the crest of his
finger, but he paused, feeling the pain start to kick in,
especially with how tightly the ring fit. He took a deep breath,
and as soon as he prepared to push the ring down onto his finger,
there was a knocking on the door that startled him. The ring that
was prepared to move back onto Jared’s finger slipped from him
entirely and first fell into the sink, then rolled, despite Jared’s
efforts to stop it, right down the drain.

“
No! Damn it!” He
scrambled, trying to reach into the drain as much as he could, but
his hand was too large to fit. The knocking came again. Jared
pulled open the cabinets beneath the sink and stared at the pipes.
The trap, he thought, would have stopped it. He’d just have to find
a way to get it out. The knocking came again. “I’m coming!” He
yelled, frustrated. Jared rose from the open cabinets and stepped
to the door.

Jared opened the door to
the fat, sweaty building manager. He seemed impatient and prepared
to knock again as the door opened.

Jared answered with an
irritated, “Yes?”

“
Ah, Jared. Hey! How’re
you? How are you liking the new place, huh?” The manager began with
small talk, peering a bit over Jared’s shoulder to see the new
paint. “Painted the place, huh? Looks better. Well, that’ll make my
job a little easier.”

“
I’m fine.” Jared wasn’t
fine. He could hardly pay attention to the building manager. He
thought about his wedding ring sitting in the old, murky trap of
the sink pipes, and he considered the irony of it all. “What job?”
He assumed the visit concerned the maintenance visit or the damaged
walls.

“
Well, seems to be some
apartments in the building that have, you know, some problems.” He
paused and scratched his hairy neck.

Jared grimaced as the
manager’s Vienna sausage fingers slid through damp, curly hair.
“Problems?” Jared looked back over the apartment. He thought there
were plenty of problems. “Like?”

“
Well, Jared—“ still
delaying, “—You know these damn Chinese bastards, always sending
out things with things in them that shouldn’t be and so.” The
manager said without saying much.

Jared stepped in. “Tell me
what’s wrong with the place. I don’t have time for this right now.”
More assertively.

“
Alright, kid, calm it
down. There’s some apartments that have lead-based paint in them.
Some cocky inspector came through and found some of it. So, we’re
gonna have to do some work to stay in ‘code.’” It’s gonna be a
hassle, but since you painted the place, I think we can wait a
while before we get into this one.” The manager said, as if the
paint rid the place of poison.

“
Lead-based paint?
Seriously?” Jared said in disbelief. He asked immediately, “I heard
there were some maintenance people in my apartment the other day.”
Jared kept quiet about the unexpected maintenance visit. “Did they
do anything? Tear away paint from the base of the wall?”

“
What? No. All I heard was
that they walked in, saw the place freshly painted and walked out.”
The manager said.

“
They didn’t do anything
at all?” Jared didn’t believe him.

The manager shook his
head. “Jared, we wouldn’t do anything to damage any of your stuff.
We’re respectable people, we like to take care of our community.
They’re like our family, you know?” The manager gave Jared a smile
seemed fake.

Jared rolled his eyes.
“Whatever. I have to get back to business.” He stepped back from
the door.

“
Listen, Jared, twenty
dollars off this month’s rent, for all of your trouble.” The smile
widened on the manager’s face.

Jared stared at the man in
his doorway and shut the door in his face. He left the manager
standing an inch or two from solid wood. Jared turned around and
looked the room over. “Lead-based paint. Pests. Creaking floors.
Loud neighbors. I fucking
feel
like family here, alright.” He pushed from the
door and head back into the kitchen sink.

Jared assessed the pipes
under the sink. He knocked on the curved trap and listened for
rattling metal. Nothing. Jared had no tools. He tugged with his
hands and tried to pull the pipes apart. They didn’t give. He
thought about kicking the pipes off but considered the damage it
could cause. He decided to wait until morning.

Jared took a long shower
that night and thought about the day. He was a day closer to
divorce. He thought about his wedding band sitting in the
disgusting drain of the decrepit apartment. He felt like he’d
abandoned a friend. He knew there was nothing he could do. He’d be
patient. As Jared got out of the shower, he heard his phone ring.
He wrapped a towel around his body and ran toward the sound.
Emily.

“
Hello?”

“
Jared?” Her voice
shook.

“
Yeah. What’s up?” He’d
known her well enough to understand something was wrong. There was
a hurt in her voice he knew. Jared loved this deep understanding of
her.

“
Jared.” Emily began to
cry. “Jared, I’m so sorry. I know this has been difficult. It’s
been difficult for me too. I wish things hadn’t turned out this
way. I just…” She paused.

“
What is it?” Jared asked.
He slid down against the wall.

“
Is this all a mistake?
Should we try harder to work this out? I think maybe I’m just
confused. This seems so dumb, you know? But…” She paused
again.

“
But?”

“
I don’t know. I just
don’t know what to do. How to make it right again.

Jared felt hope. “How
about you come over in a couple days? We’ll have dinner. I’ll show
you the new place? Maybe we can talk?” He suggested. Jared thought
that if she saw the place, she’d understand his capacity for
sacrifice. He wanted a chance to talk to her in person. It may have
been his last chance to fix their problems or to understand what
went wrong.

Emily whispered,
“Okay.”

“
Okay. Get some sleep.
Everything’s going to be alright.” Jared said. He thought of the
ring in the sink. “I’ll talk to you soon.”

“
Goodnight.” She
said.

“
Goodnight.”

That’s when something
unexpected occurred.

Clink. Clink
clink.

Jared sat up in bed. The
sound came from the kitchen.
He
threw his legs off of the bed and stood. He
rubbed his sleepy eyes and tried to make sense of the apartment in
darkness.

Clink clink.

Jared moved into the
kitchen. He picked up a hammer he’d bought in a few days earlier to
replace the sticky film with nails. “Alright, you little bastard.”
He expected a rat.
Jared moved around the
counter partition between the living area and the kitchen and
waited. There was silence for a long time before he heard it again,
from near the sink. He twisted and held the hammer high in his
hand. He crept toward the kitchen sink, one foot in front of
another. ‘Don’t worry, little guy.” He whispered as he neared the
sink. He stopped and waited. There was a different sound that came,
which sounded like a guttural grunt. Jared’s head cocked to the
side in bewilderment.

Clink clink
clink.

The sound came from the
sink. He thought about his ring. Jared sprung into action, afraid
that if he didn’t act quickly, the pest in the drain might try to
scurry off with his ring. He flipped on the kitchen light and
pulled open the cabinets under the sink. The drain trap was
dripping with what looked like water, but after quick inspection,
it was thicker. Jared took a deep breath and squeezed the hammer in
his hand, ready to kill. “Alright, fucker, time to die!” He smashed
the hammer across the trap pipe and knocked it clear off. Jared
shot backwards and crawled toward the refrigerator. His ring fell
from the broken pipe, but from the pipe that remained, a long,
salivating tongue rolled around in circles and searched for the
ring. Grunts came from the pipe.