Chapter 03: Cobwebs and Dust (still no sex)

Sonja woke up slowly the next morning. The darkness of her room was comforting as she just rested there. She couldn’t recall her dreams and, for some reason, she thought the strange flashes of memory were somehow important. After a half hour of stretching out languidly, unwilling to escape the warmth of her blankets, nature finally forced her out of bed. She gasped as her bare feet pressed on the concrete and hopped over to the rug on the floor. Sighing, she raced over to the bathroom and did her business. Turning on the heater, she basked in the sudden warmth that filled room.

“Oh, there is a god,” she whispered.

Trying to remember her dreams, she headed up the stairs. The hem of her soot-ruined shirt whispered against her thighs as she reached the top. The handle to the door was ice-cold. She jerked her hand back for a moment, surprised. When she reached for it again, the handle was only cool to her trembling touch.

Cracking open the door, her eyes watered from the sunlight that streamed into the kitchen, almost blinding her. Summer-warmed air swirled around her as she stepped into the kitchen, wiping the tears from her eyes. Yellowed walls glowed as she padded to the fridge, cracking it open. Inside, the stark white walls was blinding. New fridge smell poured out on the floor, enhanced by the bright yellow tag right on the inside. Money was good for some things, including new appliances, but it didn’t fill it with healthy food, at least not on the first day. In the door, she spotted a bottle of sparkling water from the trip and grabbed it. It claimed that it was cherry-flavored but it just tasted like chemicals and tap water.

Pulling a face at the taste, she padded down the hall.

“Mom?”

No answer came from upstairs. She climbed up the stairs and peered into her mother’s office first. The computer was still on, but the screen had animated pipes spinning around on the screen. A cup of coffee sat next to the black and silver mouse. Sonja reached down and stroked the edge---it was cold.

Frowning, she leaned out of her mother’s office and glared at the bedroom door. It was shut, but she padded over to it and tried the handle. It squealed open and the musty stench of the upstairs room washed against her senses. Inside, she could see the messy tangle of her mother’s blankets, her scent already heavy in the air.

Sonja spotted a suitcase thrown into a corner and her mood dropped a few temperatures. A report of some sort dangled out from one corner of the case. Carefully stepping over dirty and discarded clothes, she knelt down next to the suitcase and pulled the report out. Paging through it, she saw at least three variants of the same report, all with her mother’s name on the bottom. Ignoring the “CONFIDENTIAL” and “DRAFT” notices, she finally found an agenda.

She had to read it twice before she blew up.

“New York! You fucking bitch went to New York!? This morning!?”

Standing up, she kicked the suitcase into the closet, then threw the report in for good measure.

“When were you going to fucking tell me!?”

The report flopped to the ground, drunken and broken, exposing the “changes” page. Reading it from outside the closet, she almost below up again as she realized her mother worked on the report for almost a month. She tried to scream out again, but the words wouldn’t come out. Instead, she just fumed as she stared at the report and the suitcase.

The telephone in her mother’s office rang. Sonja stormed out of the bedroom and into the office. Her hand reached down to yank up the phone, but the caller ID flashed up her mother’s mobile number. Her hand froze, inches away from the bright white handle. The golden glow of the phone stared up at her as it rang out again.

Sonja pulled her hand back and walked away. Her bare feet padded down the stairs, ignoring the phones that rang throughout the house. Moving slowly, she just focused on each step. The ringing finally stopped as her bare feet touched the bottom step. Still fuming, she unbolted the door and cracked it open.

Standing out on the porch, some of her anger slipped away. Out front on the ruined porch, there was a little more life to her new home. There were two other houses on the street, but otherwise the neighborhood was very isolated from the others. A stark difference from the cookie-cutter home she lived in a few weeks before.

A car drove by, a Mercedes from from the looks of it, and honked its horn. She saw an older man wave to her and she automatically waved back. The flash of her shirt flashed in the side of her vision and she blushed fiercely when she realized she forgot to wear underwear. Clutching her arm against her breasts, she spun around and started to return to the house. On an impulse, she checked the a bronze mailbox by the front door. Spying a bundle of letters and ads, she grabbed them before going inside.

Sonja started to drop the letters on a small antique table near the door when she spotted a note, with her name on her mother’s handwriting. Snarling, she dropped the letters violently on the note and stormed down the hall.

Twenty minutes later, she finished pulling on a fresh outfit and climbed up the stairs. Her shorts and t-shirt were sloppy and baggy, something she would never wear at school or to one of her mother’s stupid formals, but it felt better than flashing the neighbors with her ass or bush.

Her sneakers rapped against the hallway floor as she wandered back to the front door. Idly paging through the mail, she found a letter from the local school district. Being reminded of school starting in a few weeks did nothing to improve her mood. She finally flipped up her mother’s note and read it. It was a rather lengthy list of things to do, mainly the long, tedious cleaning bits that she talked about doing herself.

Sonja scoffed, “Fucking bitch.”

Despite her annoyance, she still found the cleaning supplies and started on the first room she found. Hours later, she was sick and tired of spiderwebs, egg sacks, and dust that stuck like glue. Her back and legs ached with every movement as she crawled on her hands and knees, trying to work the last of the wood polish into a table that her mother claimed was over a century old. Sweat soaked her clothes, but no nightmares came from this one. Just good, clean work.

Finally, she was done. Grabbing a tepid bottle of water, she drained in and stood up. The living room was cleaned, from ceiling to floor. Everything shone with furniture polish and sparkled with ammonia. The smells of cleaning liquids stung her eyes, but the sight of doing something productive just brought a smile to her lips.

Still admiring the room, Sonja stepped out into the hall. Around her, the house was gentle creaking and shifting, muting the buzz of insects that called outside. She smiled for a moment, then looked down.

Her t-shirt was soaked with sweat, along with her pants. Smears of furniture polish highlighted some of her curves, but nothing any boy would be interested in. Except boys were always interested, at least in Illinois. Wondering if boys in California would be different, she returned to the kitchen. Out back, the yard was peaceful, serene. She barely remembered the night before and a morbid curiosity filled her. Scratching the cut on her palm, she unbolted the kitchen door and stepped on the back porch.

Outside, the insects were almost thundering as they called out in their tiny, pointless lives. The oven, a monstrosity of brick and soot, stared out from the corner of the yard, filling her with dread.

Behind it, the trees and bushes were still torn up and knocked aside, but it looked like storm damage instead of some spectral horror.

She considered going back inside, to flee the backyard. But, a tiny part of her resisted. After a moment, she hopped down to the ground.

“Fuck it, I’m not going to be afraid of a stupid backyard.”

Wandering through the grass, feeling the warm blades caressing her ankles, Sonja made her way to the oven. In the sunlight, it was less imposing, less scary. Her fingers trailed on the heavy iron door, shivering with the sensations. Deep inside, she felt a warmth growing inside her. Her lips parted slightly as she stroked along the handle, feeling the sheared off end.

Then, she realized she was getting excited over an oven and she shook her head, clearing it.

“What the...?”

Her rhetorical question trailed off as she noticed a small shed buried beyond the trees. Her eyes focused on a bright orange stick next to it; the shed was still on their property. Looking around and seeing no one, she pushed her way into the underbrush, trying to find a path to the shed. There was none, but the gaps between the trees gave her something to follow.

As she crept closer, the scents of rotting leaves and moist earth filled her, swirling around her with the smells of nature. She was forced to walk around the shed to find the door, which was not visible from the house. On the door, a massive padlock, rusted with age, hung there. Curious, she pushed at it and, to her surprise, it refused to move. Wrapping her fingers around it, she yanked it and a large chuck of rusted metal snapped off and dropped to the ground with a thud. Twisting it, she managed to break off more chucks of rust until the shank was exposed for the first time in many years. Seeing where the metal was almost rusted through, Sonja braced herself and twisted hard on the padlock.

A chunk of the door tore out as rotted wood finally gave out from the stress. Smells of old wood washed over her as she peered at the dark hole in the door, the padlock dangling from her fingers. The shattered remains that came off twisted in a faint summer breeze, barely touching her naked thigh.

A faint shiver rippled down her spine, but she reached out with her free hand and pulled open the door. The first impression she got while peering in was darkness and tools. Thousands of handles or metal pipes were tossed into a pile, along with rotting burlap bags of other things.

The padlock and fragment of the door dropped to the ground as Sonja pushed the door open completely, watching the frame as it twisted with the movement. Holding her breath, she stepped inside to inspect the shed.

The pipes in the back were all tall, taller than her by two or three feet. The tips were hidden in the darkness of the shed, but the light that did filter in sparkled on the smooth, rust-free metal. Stepping carefully over the bags and piles on the ground, she reached for one of the poles. It was warm in her hand, almost hot despite being left in the darkness of the shed. The metal was smooth, very smooth as it slipped into her hand. Her thumb felt something on the back, an opening of some sort. Turning it, she saw a line of holes drilled along the entire edge. Caressing one, she felt no sharp edges, only perfectly smooth openings. Still curious, she stroked another one, almost enjoying the feel of the slick metal in her hand.

Lifting it, she was surprised at the light weight. The pole was about an inch across in diameter, but felt almost as light as a straw. Grabbing it with both hands, she rotated it down to inspect the neat line of drilled holes. The tip caught the sunlight and she idly glanced at it, before making a double-take.

The tip was sharp, like a point.

Dropping it, she stepped back in shock. Her foot caught on one of the piles and she screamed out as she fell. Hands flailing, she hit a pile of something hard and it shifted under the impact. Cutting off her scream, she scrambled to her feet, turning around to stare down at the pile with growing fear.

Her fall tore the burlap bag and shifted a pile of metal... things inside it. Some of the metal glinted in the sunlight from the door. Bending down, she pulled one of them out. It clung to the edge and she was surprised that the metal was warm, almost hot. When she tugged harder, the canvas tore and the piece of metal snapped up.

Sonja had a brief image of rings before she realized she was backing up too quickly. Her back slapped into the pile of poles behind her and she felt the entire mass shudder from the impact. One of the piles teetered for a moment, then fell down. She saw more of the smooth holes on this one and a sharp point at the end.

Then, everything fell.

Her entire body tensed as she watched the entire wall of poles cascade down around her. Some of them slapped into her back before rolling off. The sound of them hitting the ground was deafening inside the tiny shed and she clapped her hands on her ears. One elbow caught a thin pole and she found herself staring at it as the last of the poles impacted the ground. Like the first, the one she caught was tipped with a long, narrow spike of some sort. The metal was hot, almost burning, but smooth and rust-free like the others. She felt a strange twisting in her stomach as she slowly looked down, to the hundreds of spikes poles scattered across the ground of the shed. Almost every one was a spike, but some of them had holes while most did not. To her surprise, the thickness ranged from her finger to an immense one that was almost as thick as a pickle jar.

Sonja stared at the thick one, wondering what creature would need something so thick to hold them up. Her eyes trailed down to a strange cross-bar near the bottom, where a few frays of burnt rope clung. Just below the cross-bar, she saw a mounting bracket of some sort. Her mind flew back to the grill, next to the outdoor grill. The same type of bracket was there and she realized it was for grilling something. But, the size of the pole surprised her, as did a strange twisting deep inside, of a warmth that reminded her of the oven door.

A soft whimper escaped her throat as she shook her head violently to clear it. Her hand reached down for the side of the shed as her head slowly cleared. Specks of dust rose up into the air as she leaned against the wood, ignoring a sliver that threatened to impale her.

Looking away from the spits, she glanced down to see one of the burlap bags that was stored behind the poles. Inside it, she saw more metal, curiously rusty compared to the rest of the rust-free metal in the abandoned shed. Frowning, she knelt down and pulled it out. It came free after a second and she lifted it up into the sunlight.

Manacles. It was a pair of old-style manacles with a modern padlock hanging open from one ring. The metal was cool, like the rest should have been, but she was shaking as she realized that the rest of the shed might be for something more than just a pig... or a horse. Animals didn't need manacles, humans did.

Realization came to a point as she peered down as saw more handcuffs, and something that looked like a ring attached to a strap. A long whimper escaped her as she knelt there, shaking more and more violently. Fear coursed through her veins and Sonja suddenly needed to run.

Scrambling over the spits and spikes, she threw herself out of the shed. Slamming the door as hard as she could, she sprinted for the kitchen, and the rest of the normal house.