Hoarder (20 page)

“Ooo, I love me some drive-thru cuisine!” Missy agreed, and Ian thought he heard her tummy growl in agreement.

“Do you collect these containers?” Ian asked. There were so many thousands of them; he really wanted to know.

Missy threw a look Ian’s way that said
Boy, are you stupid!
Ian didn’t like that look, it could lead to further disagreement. It was also insulting, to be called stupid by somebody as mentally deficient as Missy. He knew he had her beat in the IQ department by a wide margin.

“Of course!” Missy exclaimed, followed by an extended pause for an implied
Duhhh!
“All these are antique original packagings. They’re worth a lot of money to collectors. I can sell them on my Internet store.”

Ian found this an interesting tangent to pursue. It implied that she was wired for the Internet, and he just didn’t believe it. “You have an online store?”

“Yes,” Missy said with complete confidence, then she got a confused look on her face. Ian and his camera were in her direct sightline, but she was seeing something else. She spoke slowly at first, looking like she was reading a teleprompter that was out of focus. “Well, no, not yet, but I’m planning to. I’m gonna make a fortune selling my treasures. Everything is valuable to someone.”

Ian felt as though he could have written Missy’s script. She fit the hoarder profile to a T. Most hoarders thought their stockpiles of junk were worth money, lots and lots of money, and many of them thought they could sell some of it and make bank someday. Only most never did. Many of these perceived valuable hoards ended up in dumpsters in the end. Or in those enormous junk trucks that looked more like train cars, which could roll away garbage by the tons.

Ian knew Missy would never, ever get around to selling her shit online. For one thing, he didn’t think there was much of a market for used snot rags. It was a similar delusion to the hoarders who claimed they were really recycling. Recycling was work, just like selling was work. Letting garbage pile up to dangerous heights, usually through neglect and laziness, was not recycling by any definition Ian knew.

Missy and her type seemed to live by a different dictionary than everyone else, one where the definitions were based on self-serving falsehoods. Ian and Missy would never be on the same page, they belonged to entirely different libraries.

Ian decided to take Missy up on her claim about her treasures. He trained his camera on a greasy, deteriorated fast food bag, split open and spilling a half eaten cheeseburger and ketchup coated fries, sprinkled generously with rat butt seasoning, sitting on top of the television.

“Is this a collectible?”

Missy looked at the long abandoned meal with apprehension, like he might not understand. Desperate to prove herself right, she grabbed a few of the fries, shoving them greedily into her mouth. She chewed and talked at the same time, spraying crumbs of potato and poop.

“Mm-MMMM! These never go bad, you know. And they always taste good!” Proving her generous nature to him, Missy grabbed a few more fries and held them out to Ian.

“Want some?” Missy exclaimed way too excitedly. Ian saw the chunks of white potato and black feces stuck in her teeth. Those would be nice details in high definition.

“No!” Ian blurted out and drew back, fearing she might feed him the fries whether he wanted them or not. He couldn’t appear rude or unappreciative, so he needed a good reason. “Not while I’m working.”

Missy gave Ian a sassy look, like he was playing hard to get. “Okay, Chad, but you don’t know what you’re missing!”

Ian did know what he was missing, mold and fecal matter in his mouth.

Missy shoved the fossilized fries into her mouth. She looked like she had never eaten anything so delicious in her entire life. Ian could tell she was overacting for his and his camera’s benefit.

The sight of Missy smacking her snack was revolting enough, and then some of those tasty morsels flew out of Missy’s mouth and into Ian’s face. He stepped back out of spitting distance, and his right shoe came down on top of a blue Styrofoam cup, which burst with a crunch.

Missy screamed. She didn’t just spray spittle; her entire mouthful of fries was ejected in one massive, saliva slick gob, flying with surprising force.

The projectile splattered on Ian’s chin. He stood frozen in the path of her rancid shockwave scream.

“You! What have you done!?”

Ian looked down as the glob of French fries dropped off his chin. He considered her question, what had he done? He had stepped back onto garbage. That’s all there was to step onto, there certainly wasn’t any floor to walk on. Ian had no idea what his transgression had been.

Looking down, Ian didn’t see the impact coming. Missy’s fist rammed into his stomach with bruising force, perhaps enough force to rupture something inside. If she had hit a little higher, she would have certainly broken his ribs. Ian stumbled back breathless, stepping on another fast food bag, which ruptured and set the refuse and a rodent inside free. He also dropped the kitchen knife that he had been hiding behind his back. The camera he thankfully held. He thought it might be his most valuable tool for saving himself.

Ian had looked away from Missy for only a few seconds and had been caught totally off guard. She had lived up to her legend. She was as powerful as an MMA fighter. Ian knew his limitations, that he was skinny, short, and lacking muscles. He didn’t want to go three rounds in the ring with Missy. His brother hadn’t survived round two with her, and Keith was a lot stronger than he was.

“What did I do?!” Ian shouted. Now he was asking for direction, but he need to know right away what he had done wrong, so he wouldn’t do it again and get served another one of Missy’s knuckle sandwiches.

Missy crouched before Ian and picked up the blue Styrofoam cup that had been flattened by his shoe. She shook the ruptured cup at Ian, and now it was spittle she was spraying into his face.

“This was part of a set of collectible cups, red, white, and blue, released last July at Chickin Grillins! The red one is over there and the white one is over there!”

Missy pointed in the direction of her red cup as she spoke, then turned her pointing finger in the opposite direction for her white cup. Ian quickly followed her finger but saw all color cups in all directions. He couldn’t pick out her multi-colored Chickin Grillins’ cups among the clutter if his life depended on it, which unfortunately it might. He did not think it would help him to point out that most of the cheap cups in her collection were already broken and crushed. Pointing that fact out might get him hurt.

Ian didn’t doubt that Missy knew exactly what cups she was pointing at. She probably knew the layout of all of her garbage. Only where Missy saw sparkling china, Ian saw dusty turds. Part of her legend was that she spent all of her time in her house, except for her weekly terror shopping sprees and neighborhood porch raiding missions. She was always with her precious hoard. She was in love with every rotten square foot of it, and knew it all intimately.

“Now the set has lost a third of its value!” Missy seethed in Ian’s face. The broken cup was crushed further in Missy’s hand, and Ian saw her other hand clench into a fist. What he thought he was really seeing was a human tornado building before him.

Ian could not proceed with fear, he had to summon confidence and gain control of his star again. Not an easy task knowing his dead brother was lying outside the door, another victim destroyed and discarded by this human tornado.

“But that’s the price, remember? And you can buy ten sets of these cups with the money you’re making as a reality TV star.”

Missy’s fists stopped clenching. Ian could see her struggling with the concept, and then accepting his pitch, even though pay negotiations had never been a part of their discussion. Missy was instantly accepting of her mega-fame and fortune. And then her face soured again, into a kind of profound sadness. When she spoke, it was in the voice of a sniveling child.

“But Red Cup and White Cup will be lonely without Blue Cup.”

Ian had at first felt like he was matching wits with a cunning killer, and now he had to reason with her like a spoiled child. Missy was no criminal mastermind, but she was a lethal danger in her dumbness.

“You can buy more blue cups,” Ian assured her.

Ian said the right thing, as Missy’s childlike sadness evaporated, and he was faced with a woman who looked like she had just won the Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes, one who just might hug him to death in her excitement, or pop him like a celebratory balloon. Between her muscular thighs.

“I can!” Missy exclaimed in agreement. The loneliness of Red Cup and White Cup had been completely forgotten. “Buying is what I do best, and bargains are my specialty. You know I never buy only one, of anything! I can’t, because then that one thing would be lonely and sad, and I don’t want any sad-sads in Missy’s house!”

Too late for that
, Ian wanted to say. With Keith and Will dead, Ian definitely qualified as a sad-sad in Missy’s house. He suddenly wanted to teach Missy the true definition of things.

“What about your cats? Are they friends?” Ian asked.

“Of course they’re friends! But I’m besties with Booger-Snots, Albino Kitty, and Nigger-Toes.” Missy said the second part in a conspiratorial whisper to Ian, his camera, and the home audience. This was a secret only to her feline friends.

Ian was glad he hadn’t made a face when she rattled off the name Nigger-Toes.
Missy’s House
had just earned its first broadcast bleep. She might not consider the N-word a bad word, but her ignorance did not excuse its use. Ian remembered freeing a white cat with black paws earlier in the living room and figured he had already met Nigger-Toes. Ian was happy he had freed one of Missy’s besties. The rescued cat would not only benefit from a better diet, but also a new name outside of this house.

“Some of the cats I’ve seen are thin, and in small cages. They look sad-sad,” Ian informed her.

Missy gave Ian a look like he was crazy, then shared that look with his camera with a shake of her head, knowing the audience would be as exasperated with him as she was.

“Oh no! Are you kidding? My house is like the Hilton for cats! They get to eat people food, and there’s lots of mice-ies for them to play with. All the cats in town want to be at Missy’s house!”

Ian thought Dani’s cat Fiddlesticks might disagree. He spotted the movement of cockroaches swarming over a half eaten cheeseburger, exploring between the bun and patty. He nodded at the fattening feeding ground.

“I’ve noticed a few cockroaches. Are they friends?” Ian inquired.

Missy’s jaw dropped in offense before she vociferously replied, “Oh no no no! I don’t have roaches. Only dirty people got roaches, and I keep my house clean.”

Ian knew that Missy lived in a state of constant denial, but how could she deny what was directly in front of her? He nodded at the cockroaches on the cheeseburger again. “What are those?”

“Duh!” Missy exclaimed, throwing her head back and rolling her eyes up to the heavens, asking salvation for the fool boy before her. “Those are baby butterflies, you big silly! Their wings haven’t grown out yet. You can eat them, you know. They’re full of protein.” Missy’s dietary advice was delivered in a softer register for her audience, a secret recipe shared among close friends.

To emphasize her point, Missy plucked up one of her baby butterflies and popped it into her mouth. Ian could hear the crunch of the juicy morsel between her teeth. Ian thought Missy was on the wrong TV show, she would win
Fear Factor
in a heartbeat with an appetite like that. The roach eating made him ill, but he put on a smile for Missy’s sake. She was eating bugs to impress him, or anyone. It was such a pathetic sight, her desperation for acceptance.

“You want to meet them?” Missy asked.

“Meet who?”

“My friends.”

“I’ve met your cats.”

“Not my cats. My favorite collection in the whole house! My dolls! They have the biggest room to themselves, the master bedroom. You have to meet them!”

As Missy moved around Ian, she reached out to seize his left wrist. He pulled his arm away from her, and her heavy hand clenched only air. She was on a mission to show off her favorite collection, and she walked on without him, expecting him to follow. She was heading for the hallway door, and his brother’s body beyond it, exactly where he wanted to keep her from going.

“Is there another way we can go?” Ian asked.

“Yes, but why go all the way through the house, up and down and loop-de-loop, when the room is right over here? Come on!”

Missy waved Ian on and didn’t wait for him. Ian followed reluctantly. He gave another glance at the massive, skinned body on the floor and wondered if Tickles qualified as one of Missy’s friends.

Following Missy, Ian noticed for the first time that the lower back of Missy’s red dress was glistening wet with the same color. He spotted the tear in her dress and the pad of bloody cotton stuck on it, which looked like a sanitary napkin to him (he vetoed that guess even though he had guessed correctly).

With his brother newly dead, Ian figured Missy’s fresh wound could not be mere coincidence. He hoped his brother had driven the knife, or whatever weapon was responsible for Missy’s injury, deep, and taken satisfaction in her wounding.