townhouseofcards

The thing most movies forget to tell you about getting shot, is that time slows down. Your mind doesn’t really know how to process the sensation, so it can wander a bit. I remember many things from that afternoon, but there was a phrase that always stuck with me til this day:

 

You are a long way from Egypt.

 

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I wish I could tell you that I was the brightest and boldest of my class, or some outcast misfit with delusions of grandeur. Nope. Just a solid B- student in most areas. Most days in school I’d shoot for a scrap higher than a C just to keep the parents off my 

back. Went to a mid-tier state college and picked a major, Archaeology, that had the lowest math requirement and I thought Indiana Jones was a great movie.  Its safe to say many a beer was imbibed during college. But, to my luck, I thoroughly enjoyed my major of choice. While my housemates pulled their hair out over organic chemistry or statistics, I would transliterate hieroglyphics and throw the occasional pot off the roof for science experiments.

 

No real tragic pasts to speak of, and if you saw me in a crowd, I’d quickly fade from memory as neither handsome nor hideous. My only inherent flaw being that I don’t call my mother enough, something she brings up almost constantly. You know she means it when she addresses me by my full name: Leonard Augustus Carter. Most days I just go by Lee.

 

The only thing I truly excelled in was the art of making things up as I went along. Not for any noble reason mind you, but mostly just to get out of doing homework. Turns out that skill is something most people don’t tell you is highly desirable in the business world. Which was great for me because you can absolutely nothing with a degree in Archaeology save witty cocktail banter. With skills in hand, and strong desire to move out of my mother’s basement, I took the first job that accepted me: an executive assistant to a mortgage CEO.

 

It was the summer of 2006.

 

Its safe to say that I have never worked so hard for so little. I naively thought CEOs were CEOs because of their strong work ethic and high moral values. Turns out, its much more of an Ayn Rand world, at least in mortgage. He got to where he was by being utterly ruthless with his business, and driving any competitor (perceived or otherwise) into the ground. The onyl reason I had the job I had was because of the words I uttered in my interview, “I would step over my own mother for a paycheck right now sir”. All other experience and degrees were irrelevant. I would be his attack dog, and the word “no” shall never leave my mouth. Faced with the very real possibility of living in my mother’s basement for the next 20 years, I bit the bullet.

 

The next year was one of pure unadulterated rage on my part. While the CEO was the most feared person in the office, I had become a close second. If a person needed to be fired, I was there. If messages needed to be conveyed to competitors, I would be flown across the country to convey it to them. If a house needed to be bought at auction and its tenants thrown into the street, I did it with a smile. Days started at six in the morning and rarely ended before eight. I became an expert at anything the CEO fancied at the time. Antique nautical bells? Land Rover fuel pumps? Black mold remediation? Nineteenth century modern expressionism? The guy even offered to pay for my pilots license at one point.

 

And for these decisions, I was rewarded with a handsome sum of $27,000 per year, more than anyone has ever offered to pay me at the time. I lived in a rented house with 4 strangers who I rarely saw, ate ramen and whatever was left in the break room at the end of the day. Given how my other millennial peers were faring, things could have been significantly worse.

 

By 2007 I began to notice something was wrong. While I was in mortgage, I certainly had no time to track its news let alone understand its historical context. What I did notice is that the people the CEO had me fire were never replaced. By the fall, major lending institutions nearby had collapsed. What few employees remained furiously shredded their paperwork or simply cried at their desks. Then one Monday in September the office doors were simply locked. Some paychecks were left taped to the door. Mine was short about $100.

 

I had attempted to take my skills elsewhere, but everyone was being laid off en masse, not hired. My former rivals at the foreclosure auctions were unsympathetic. I sat in my room, a bag of saltines on my bed and can of cheese spread in my hand. I gave serious thought into moving back in with my parents like so many of my millennial brothers and sisters at the time. I had about three months of savings and that was about it. So it’s safe to say that after about a week of searching for work, I was thrilled to hear a call from a former contractor of mine looking to hire someone with foreclosure knowledge.

 

With all the chaos at the banks, foreclosures were piling up at the auctions. With no buyers to speak of, the simply reverted back to the banks. This happened by the thousands every day. Where an auction once took an hour on the courthouse steps, now the list of properties stretch long into the afternoon and evening. This pile of paperwork went…somewhere. None of the bidders had any concern where they went. If they weren’t deals, then why bother? Many mentioned that they were “bank owned”, but how they got from A to B was a bit of a mystery.

 

So naturally, when my contractor asked me if I had any experience with “bank owned homes” I said yes. Being fired for lying seemed a bit more reasonable than living with my parents at the time, and a paycheck is a paycheck. I spent the first week building a workable office in the back of some commercial park. I brought in an old computer of mine from home, as the contractor was still in the dark ages. Set up a simple 800-number through the internet and started calling some banks. In my mania, I had dug up an old Housing and Urban Development (HUD) manual on how to properly “secure and clean” and foreclosure, as well as state specific laws on eviction (of which I was already well acquainted). I had to physically mail a request for the manual, it was both that rare and existed behind government bureaucracy. It seemed to have been last updated some time when the first Bush was president.  It was at least detailed enough for me to bullshit my way through a conversation with someone at the bank. 

 

And bullshit I did.

 

Turns out, no one else had read that manual since I was in elementary school. So when I finally reached someone with the ability to give out a foreclosure management contract, we were both pleasantly surprised at the outcomes. Her name was Bonnie, and she worked for a large financial institution associated with America. Turns out she had a copy too, but one that was even older. She had been put in charge of a brand new foreclosure department. We were both in similar boats. Faced with being laid off, she had opted for a lateral transfer to a department she knew nothing about. While I never met her in person, you could hear the exhaustion in her voice whenever I’d call. Occasionally she mentioned a grandchild, so I guessed her to be about my mother’s age. Probably thought she’d retire this year. Now just happy to make the car payment.

 

“Do you have liability insurance?” Bonnie, asked.

 

“Sure do!” I lied.

 

“Do you have sufficient employees to run multiple evictions a day?”

 

“Just out in the yard ready to work” I lied again.

 

“Can you properly estimate damages and fix them for HUD compliance.”

 

“Its not a problem Bonnie, just send me everything you need done in Los Angeles. We’ll take it from there. A have a growing family to feed.” That wasn’t so much a lie as an extreme stretch of the truth. Yes, I could estimate damages, no I never did them remotely or in this volume. I had a contractor, 2 laborers and an office built out of furniture I found at the local dumpster. And if by family I mean me not wanting to eat Ramen well into my 30s, then that’s true. 

 

It was September of 2008 at that point,in Los Angeles, and air conditioning was a luxury not afforded to me. Much to everyone’s shock we made money. I worked about the same hours but at least I wasn’t getting paid like dirt. I even bought a car for myself, not new, but new to me. In a few short months we went from seat of our pants every day to writing manuals for contractors on how to do this sort of work. I had grown so frustrated at one point with my contractors that I put one of said manuals in an online forum for free. The more people I could call, the better. And no one else was calling contractors those days but us and our competitors. By luck, far across the country, an employee for HUD was also reading the same forum, desperately trying to update their paper manual from the days of Sega Genesis.

 

I don’t remember exactly who called, only that it was from Undersecretary so-and-so, and that they would like to meet at my earliest convenience. At that point we had two dozen employees, an office with actual air conditioning and a few of our own trucks. Hell we even had our own shirts. For someone still making things up as they went, I was happy to say it was going well even if it was an utter shit show most days. See, rather than paying someone to make a manual of their own, HUD wanted to buy mine. Even more, they wanted to pay my company a large sum to travel around the country training contractors on how to properly perform evictions and repair work on foreclosed homes.

 

By 2010 I’d seen most of America, just not the fun parts. Naturally HUD chose to send me to the places with the most foreclosures, and naturally these tended to not be the greatest parts to visit. Jacksonville, Cleveland, Detroit and countless small towns in between.

 

I’m sorry, I forget myself. By me, I mean we. I was accompanied by some trusty employees I usually referred to as Frick and Frack, a reference they never bothered to understand. There was Cristos, or at least that’s what everyone called him. I believe his real name was Hector, but he revelled in the nickname due to his constant need to spout Bible verses in both English and Spanish. I knew Cristos was from Guatemala and his last job was “guarding a field with an AK”. I decided not to push the matter further. Whatever had happened to him, he was a very devout Catholic with shades of Santa Maria worship. All he asked was to not be bothered on Sundays, and for that he was one of the hardest working people I’ve ever met. Never saw anyone scrub a toilet with a smile on their face like Cristos.

 

Then there was Manos. His name was Manuel, from Honduras, but everyone called him Manos on account of his freakishly large hands. He was a former member of the Honduran Army. I wasn’t sure of his job title, only that after a bad plane crash, he had left that country for greener pastures. But my god man, those hands. I still have nightmares about them. Guy walked around with catchers mitts for hands absolutely covered in calluses until I bought him some work gloves that fit. After that he never left me alone.

 

Did you know that Hondurans and Guatamalans don’t get along? That was certainly news for some wet behind the ears kid from the suburbs. Most of it was good fun, with the occasional ganging up on the guero, but sometimes it ended in fisticuffs if football was involved. Either way, the work truck was never quiet. Between Cristo’s sermons and Manos’ insistence on singing mariachi love songs, it was at least not a boring drive.

 

So there we were, a couple veritable angels of death, travelling from city to city, teaching neighbors how to evict each other legally. Reception varied from one city to the next. Some welcoming, some outright hostile. We are stilled banned from the city of Mobile to evicting a cousin of the sheriff; a fact I’m still proud of til this day. Most cities and towns didn’t know we were even there. We’d arrive, meet the local sheriff and team early on, and spend the day evicting and cleaning. Most people we worked with were handymen, contractors, or just day laborers. Real salt of the earth people. 

 

By that I don’t necessarily mean good, just accustomed to their lives in their towns. And their towns varied from simply crossroads with a downtown to smaller regional hubs. All depressed, depressing. Whatever financial shenanigans occured in 2008, it hit small towns much earlier. It wasn’t the flood of 2008, but a trickle for decades. As far as I could tell it started some time in the 1960s and 70s. Some industries simply boarded up their massive brick buildings and never came back. Some hung around like vultures for a few decades more before closing up shop in the 90s. With them, many people simply left the towns they grew up in for the larger cities and never looked back.

 

That left all of these secondary cities with more houses than people. You’ve heard of these places, at least in passing, though I doubt most people would ever visit. Peoria, South Bend, Syracuse to name a few. There was a word for the condition we encountered most of these properties:

 

Blight.

 

Most houses we evicted were simply empty, and had been for months if not years. Where we encountered occupants, most were squatters. Either homeless or some poor tenant that signed a bullshit lease for a house the owner knew was in foreclosure. For many people on this ragged edge of America, this was their final stop. 

 

You can’t really describe the smell of a dead body to anyone. Its not just a rotten smell, but something much more primal, like millions of years of evolution told you to run the other direction. A few were suicides. Finding a former occupant still swinging from a ceiling fan is a great way to re-taste your breakfast. Many simply didn’t survive the winter. January and February were prime frozen homeless spotting. Most just looked like they were still asleep, others clearly were aware of their impending deaths cuddled in balls underneath a pile of abandoned clothing. A few were murders, drug deals gone bad, or mysterious unknown deaths.

 

The most numerous, however were the drug overdoses. My god, the amount of heroin needles we found boggled the mind. In some cases it was easier (and safer) to just wrap the needles in the houses old carpet and haul it away in one piece. Every needle was a potential to catch any number of terrible and incurable diseases. Hepatitis A through Z, HIV, and any manner of terrible bacterial infections these junkies seemed to immune. However, what we found in a small city south of Indianapolis was something else entirely.

 

***

 

Its safe to say that the Sheriff of Scott County, Indiana didn’t take too kindly to our presence. Given that his county was smack in the middle of the largest drug trafficking highway in America, I wasn’t exactly surprised. Even if he weren’t a stop on Smack Highway, many sheriffs were never happy to see us, especially the rural ones. Most of them are elected in small off-year elections, and a town the size of Scottsburg only had about six thousand people. Most of the kin of some kind, all with long memories. Evict the wrong one and you’ll liable to be found running for the county line’s edge.

 

“Sheriff Sessions, friends call me Bill. You can call me Sheriff Sessions.” He glared with his bloodshot hazel eyes.

 

Small town life was always confusing from a kid who grew up in Los Angeles. Of what I could tell from the country songs on the radio, it was both the best place to live and the first place you want to leave. Without real world examples it leaves you confused. After a few years of this I was no longer confused at the juxtaposition.

 

“Lee Carter and my crew,” I pointed back at Cristos and Manos. They avoided eye contact mostly out of experience. Most of these backwoods places were about ninety-nine percent white. What they knew of latin Americans they got from the local news or talk radio. Neither of which were kindly to anyone with brown skin these days.

 

“I know, I heard. Some bigwig from Indianapolis said you’d be coming. Going to train the Cowland boys on how to evict our residents,” the sheriff added with poison.

 

He must of meant Cowland Bro’s Handyman service, our trainee. I nodded. I didn’t know there names.

 

“Shouldn’t take more than a few hours of your time, sir.” I added the honorific. Cops everywhere ate that shit up. Most authority figures did.

 

“Good because I’ve got about 35 bodies in the morgue and more on their way. More and more each day, god help them.” He didn’t mention who’s bodies or where, but we all knew about the elephant in the room: Heroin.

 

“You’ll be riding with James Atwell today. He’s a retired deputy, but all I have to spare for today. Give him all the respect you’d give me. If you don’t, I’ll hear about it.” The sheriff motioned to the door.

 

I met retired Deputy Atwell at the end of the hallway. He was a weathered man of his sixties, old piercing blue eyes and a stern face. Eyes equally bloodshot. Long hours or seasonal allergies, take your pick.

 

“You’re with me, wetbacks can follow.” You’d think you’d get used to the casual racism of small town America, but you’d be wrong. Its something you’ve got to be born into I suppose.

 

We piled into an old city-owned Ford Taurus. With many rural counties we had encountered, a reserve or retired deputy usually did the evictions, freeing up actual deputies for law enforcement. This had the unintended side effect of partnering you with someone who’d rather be somewhere else.

 

“Ah hell this damn hip of mine,” groaned deputy atwell at no one in particular. “Where we going?”

 

“Fifth Street. Number 143. You know it?” I asked.

 

“Finally evicted the Peacocks? Can’t say we’ll miss them much,” the deputy said.

 

“Why is that?” I asked.

 

“About five years ago old man Peacock walked into his corn field and blew his head off with a shotgun. Last crop failure did him in. Wife got into the pills soon after and passed. Daughters upstate doing time for bad checks. Haven’t seen Billy around much though, he’s their boy. Probably the only person living there. Last I saw, he was skin and bones. Track marks everywhere. If there was something stolen in town, it was probably Billy.” Atwell said. You can see the mom and dad right over there.

 

We rolled passed the town’s cemetery. For a small town, there were a ton of flowers.

 

“We are averaging about four funerals a week now. OD’s mostly, some suicides. Time’s tough.” the deputy said.

 

I nodded. I couldn’t disagree. I was supposed to be face down in an excavation in Egypt and he was probably supposed to be enjoying his retirement. Neither of us were supposed to ever meet.

 

“Here we are.”

 

The house was old. Very old. I’d made a habit of becoming well versed in architecture since I dealt with it all day. Judging by the turret and the extensive exterior finished carpentry, I guessed build somewhere in the 1880s. Larger than its surrounding neighbors, but clearly not as well kept. Some of the bottom windows had been boarded up, some of the top ones were open to the elements. A beat-up looking Pontiac Sunbird sat outside, windows equally open to the elements. Were it not for the car, you’d think the house already abandoned. 

 

Parked in front of the house was a late model white Ford F-150 with the words “Cowland Handyman Service” crudely stenciled on the side. One of the “e’s” was missing in “Service”.

 

The Cowland Brothers could be twins if one of them didn’t look like hell. They fit the standard Midwest build. Sandy blonde hair, medium physiques, denim and t-shirt. The older had a military look to him by the haircut, the other looked like he just rolled out of bed. Bloodshot eyes and disheveled hair, shorter, skinnier by far.

 

I stepped out of the deputies car and greeted them.

 

“Jake and Jared?” I asked.

 

The military looking one stepped forward.

 

“That’s us sir.” He said a little too enthusiastically.

 

“First time working for the banks?” I asked.

 

“That would be correct sir, just happy to get the work.” He talked as if he was typing out the words hitting every syllable as to not be misconstrued. His brother sat by the truck and avoided eye contact.

 

“Is that little Jake Cowland back from the Army? If you see you mother, tell her James says hello and he misses her baking.” Deputy Atwell said, clearly familiar with the family.

 

Jake chuckled, “I will Mr. Atwell!”

 

I went over the standard procedures with the Cowlands. They had their manuals so it wasn’t soo much work. Standard eviction, nothing special. We drill out the front lock. Deputy Atwell makes entry, clears the house of any potential hazards. They had already been notified, so everything goes to the curb. You get paid twenty dollars per lockset your replace and forty dollars per cubis yard of material removed so long as its all properly documented with photos.

 

“Can we keep anything we like?” The younger Cowland finally spoke.

 

“So long as its properly recorded and you take after photos of a clean house, the banks arent particular on where this stuff goes,” I said. That much was true, and this is why the business also employed any number of junkies and criminals. Some houses are ripe for the plunder. We’ve encountered anything from hoarder junk piles to bars of silver. You never know with these old houses. It was the most lucrative job you could have if you played your cards right.

 

“Are we ready? Lets go.” I said as I gathered the troops. Cristos and Manos slinked behind out of eye shot of the deputy.

 

Deputy Atwell pounded on the door three times.

 

“Billy! If you are in there you need to come to the door! We got a final eviction here! Come on out with anyone else in there!” Shouted the deputy. After a pregnant pause he sighed. “Alright, do your thing.”

 

At this point Cristos and Manos appeared with the brothers in tow. Some locksmiths picked and re-keyed locks, but we didn’t bother. You get paid by the set you install, so its more money. Titanium drill bit directly to the cylinder works most times. After a few seconds the handleset sat on the porch.

 

Deputy Atwell made entry first, as procedure dictates and immediately vomited, as well as one of the Cowland brothers behind me.

 

“Mascaras and gloves,” I said to Cristos and Manos. Months of travelling with them left me with some pigeon spanish. I wasn’t even sure if that was the correct word for masks or not.

 

A rush of air hit us all at once. The feeling was unforgettable once you encountered it: 

 

Black Mold.

 

First your eyes water uncontrollably. Your nose runs and you instinctively cough. Then your body feels like its bitten by a million fleas or mosquitoes all at once. Any exposed skin eventually turns into a nasty rash if you scratch it. Nasty stuff. In large enough quantities, and this house had it, it can cause all sorts of havoc to your body. Your lungs bleed, your joints ache, eventually you start showing signs of brain damage.

 

But this house had something dead in it too by the smell. The combination is liable to make anyone puke. I held my breath just long enough for Cristos to bring me a mask from the truck. Iraq war vintage, filters work great for this sort of stuff. Manos handed the deputy and Cowland brothers some spare 3M paper masks from the truck.

 

“You want us to clear it deputy? Seems empty to me.” I asked as Deputy Atwell was still bent over. He gestured for us to go inside. If we had any trouble, the deputy’s large revolver was just outside on his hip.

 

Cristos and Manos went in first. There was a loud crunch as we made entry.

 

“Agujas,” Manos said. “Needles.”

 

Across the main entry was a depressing sight. What was once a beautiful teak parquet floor was littered with a few hundred used medical syringes. Not the most I’ve ever seen, but way more than normal. This was a flophouse judging by the lack of open windows. Junkies usually liked their quiet dark places to shoot up. We should know, Manos and Cristos have cleared our fair share of them.

 

Debris was scattered amongst the needles. Couple take out boxes, scraps of clothes and various household goods. Not fully abandoned, but clearly not fully lived in either. Cristos and Manos went to work. Pictures of each room from opposing sides. They walked the brothers through what to record so they could get paid. 

 

I was itching through my suit though. Despite the coveralls I was wearing, gloves and mask, my skin was on fire. What little skin around my mask that was exposed was on fire. That was very much not normal. I couldn’t see the mold, but hell if I could feel it. I rounded the corner of the dining room when I encountered the bodies.

 

***

 

Like I said, I had encountered my fair share of bodies in this job. They consisted in many forms, from ice cubes to bloated corpses to some with almost mummy-like qualities. But these ones were far worse than anything I’d encountered.

 

Cristos rounded the corner and made the sign of the cross. Manos hung back in solemn silence like he usually did. I told one of the Cowland brothers to go get the sheriff. While I was confronted by the most disturbing thing I had ever seen.

 

In front of me, in what was once two old couches lay three bodies. Or at least I thought they were bodies. What it actually was was a large wet black mass with body parts sticking out of it. It started from what was once a beautiful floor and extended to the ceiling. Water from some broken pipe upstairs provided a steady stream of moisture. Everything in the room was wet to the touch. Between the black mass I spotted three heads, and a few arms. One had a needle still in it, old blood had streamed onto the floor.

 

I’m far from an expert on biology, but I’ve seen hundreds of cases of black mold. At worse, its a black coloring on a wall or room. At best its a few spots under a sink. I always thought the terror it causes the real estate industry was overblown. Its in every house in America. Its spores are there whether you like it or not. Its only when its concentrated does it become a problem. If this was black mold, its like something out of a John Carpenter movie.

 

Deputy Atwell rounded the corner and vomited again. I didn’t blame him, I was holding it down myself. We all were. I decided to clear out the rest of the crew.

 

I found Deputy James Atwell outside, radio in handle, uncontrollably shaking.

 

“I recognise those boots anywhere,” he said, half talking half sobbing.

 

We all looked at him half puzzled, half shocked at what we all just experienced.

 

“They hand them out to every deputy. Part of the uniform.” Atwell said.

 

He put the radio up to his mouth, hesitated, then pushed the call button.

 

“Connie, its James come back,” he said to what I assumed was dispatch.

 

“Go ahead James,” a congenial voice on the other end.

 

“I think you’d better call Gil at the flower shop and tell him to head on over to 143 5th Street,” Deputy Atwell said.

 

A sigh came back, clearly Connie had taken these calls before. “Did it happen again?”

 

“‘Fraid so.” Atwell said dejected. “And Connie, you’d better tell Bill we found his boy.”

 

After a long pause we heard her sobbing Connie come back, “Oh Lord I prayed he’d be alright. I’ll get them both over there.”

 

Deputy Atwell had filled us in while we waited. Like so many jobs in small town America, government ones suffered from rampant nepotism. It wasn’t always a bad thing. Sometimes a certain family was the only one in town with the required expertise. Sometimes it was a shear lack of options. Bill Sessions Jr, Deputy Sheriff had been hired right out of high school. A low block in a football game ruined any chances of him getting out of Scottsburg on a scholarship. It would be funny if it were so cliche and sad.

 

What wasn’t funny was the pill addiction he’d picked up after the injury. Getting hired on as a deputy made good sense. It was the only job that had a decent health care plan. Everyone knew what oxycontin was back then, because the doctors handed it out like candy. It wasn’t malicious. Drug reps said it was superior to vicodin for treating pain. What they didn’t say was that is was a hundred times more addictive. 

 

A pill a day for Junior graduated to ten. When the local doctor eventually cut him off, he had nowhere to go but heroin. He had used his new found authority to beat on dealers til they gave up their stashes, then put it straight up his veins. He got caught, suspended, but reinstated. They decided to keep his addiction in the family, treat it the old fashioned way: cold turkey.

 

“I thought he got through it. He was doing so much better.” Deputy Atwell said as the sheriff’s car pulled up.

 

I had unfortunately made the mistake of putting myself between a man and the corpse of his dead son, an armed man at that.

“Sir, you don’t want to do that. Its really bad in there.” I tried the honorific again, but that just seemed to piss him off.

 

I was answered with a punch to the face and a shove.

 

By the time I had picked myself up off the porch, a flower van rolled up along with a few more sheriff cars. Sheriff Sessions was inconsolable. His manic howls could be heard from the street. He had rushed in and ripped his son free of the black mass and sat cradling him on the floor. At least he ripped what came away. An arm had remained firmly embedded, now part of the couch. If this was indeed a crime scene, it was forever tainted. Eyes red, tears streaming down his cheeks, equal parts grief and the effects of the mold. He coughed as he screamed, blooded spittle all over his shirt. Where once stood a man carved out of wood now sat something broken entirely. It took three deputies to pull him away.

 

By the time the county coroner had arrived. Cristos and Manos had tried their best to clear a path for the stretchers, as did the Cowland brothers. In the end it was a useless endeavor. Attempts to remove the other bodies proved more difficult. The only things that could be easily removed were the exposed hands, feet, and heads. Everything else now belonged to the black mass that was the couch. What mass the sheriff had pulled away simply fell apart into a toxic sludge like substance, leaving only the upper torso and some feet.

 

“Pete Deitrich and Molly Pascal by the looks of them,” the coroner said as he zipped up the body bags in front of me. “Both parents had reported them missing last week, both known heroin addicts with wrap sheets.”

 

“I’d shake your hand but as you can see, I haven’t washed for supper, “ the coroner said. Every coroner I had ever met was an odd duck. Even more morbid that I was. “Steve McCormick, County Coroner. And you must be with the government by the looks of it. CDC I hope.”

 

He threw the bags in the back of the flower van unceremoniously. County morgue truck was in the shop, and the morgue itself was stacked with bodies. The local government had taken over the only other refrigerated storage in the town, the local florist. It also had the only refrigerated transport.

 

“Not smart enough to work for the centers for disease control unfortunately,” I said, “Housing and Urban Development.”

 

“Ah, that’s too bad. Well if you aren’t doing anything later, you should swing on by the local drinking hole. I’ll buy you a beer and we can talk. That is if you still have the stomach.” Steve said.

 

“After a long shower. Eight PM? I still have some work to…” the sentence never finished.

 

THUMP. THUD THUD. came from upstairs. 

 

In our confusing with the absolute chaos downstairs, it never occurred to any of us to check upstairs. The only known resident was conspicuously absent from the body count.

 

Deputy Atwell and the others had drawn their firearms. I reached for my low back and pulled mine as well. Carrying a firearm was part of the job unfortunately. Forty caliber Glock pistol. Old contractor had once told me that 9mm pistols wont take out a crackhead or someone strung out on PCP. You needed something bigger to get the job done. Never left home without it.

 

Three deputies slowly walked up the stairs, Atwell in the lead. After about five minutes of them being out of sight, we heard a “CLEAR” shouted down at us. No point in me being up there if it wasn’t safe. I was a HUD contractor, not some gung ho marine. 

 

I walked up the stairs to assess the upstairs damage. A long hallway separated me from the deputies. They gathered around a dark black spot on the floor. I was reaching for the digital camera in my pocket when my world exploded, both literally and figuratively. A hallway closet door the deputies missed exploded into splinters. 

 

What emerged was a thing of Lovecraftian horror. Dressed in what appeared to be an old trench coat, the owner of the house emerged. The entire left side of Billy Peacock was engulfed in a black tar-like substance. Either he had long hair to begin with, or the mold had added an extra few feet of oily dreadlock that dangled in front of him. The hair on his head and on his face had merged to give him an almost squid-like appearance. One eye a dark black, the other an intense red with blue in the center.

 

In his good hand held an old double barrel shotgun. Billy opened his mouth more than I thought capable of a human being and screamed.

 

“GET OUT.”

 

He then unloaded on me with his last full barrel at point blank range.

 

It should be noted at this point that my mother doesn’t approve of what I do. Not because of the nature of my job, but the fact that the stories I bring home terrify her. One Christmas I regaled a tail of being in a running gun battle in Detroit. I embellished a little, but the damage was done. My next visit home I was presented with a kevlar vest that my mother insisted that I wear. In her defense, I was thinking of purchasing one, I just never got around to it. So, if you are reading this mom, thank you. 

 

The shot was close enough that it didn’t spread much. What it did do was knock me down the hallway about ten feet. The kevlar took the bird shot mostly. It must have been an old round because all I got for the trouble was a few bruised ribs and an empty bladder. Billy, or whatever it was, took a few rounds from the deputies in the torso from the deputies before leaping through an upstairs window and into a field of corn out back. Whatever had happened to Billy Carter made him ungodly fast. By nightfall, there was no sign, and what little was left had made the dogs sick.

 

I awoke to Deputy James Atwell slapping me in the face. I’ve never been hit by two cops in one day. That’s a new record.

 

“Which one of you dipshits didn’t clear the hallway closet?” Atwell said turning to his deputies who hung their heads in shame.

 

Coughing, I tore off my mask, which may have been a bad idea. I coughed some more which made the ribs hurt even more.

 

“For fuck’s sake…” I croaked out as Atwell helped me to my feet.

 

I walked out to the truck. Cristos and Manos had missed the whole thing.

 

“You look like shit,” said Cristos.

 

“I’m a long way from Egypt,” I said. Both my assistants looked at me strangely.

 

***

 

We returned to the Holiday Inn Express. Only the finest for government work. Our rooms included a view of the town Pizza Hut and Waffle House. After what seemed like an hour, the shower seemed to finally get off all the mold spores to my satisfaction. Manos and Cristos had disappeared like they always did. I didn’t ask where they went, only that they showed up the next day. I was never disappointed. 

 

I gingerly put on my clothes and headed out for a drink.

 

The bar wasn’t too hard to find. There were only two in town, the other being about 20 miles outside the limits, and strictly for farm hands. Only a few blocks away, I decided to give Cristos and Manos the truck for the night and walk. I could use the fresh air.

 

These sorts of towns are dotted all over America. Layered in a grid with the courthouse in the center surrounded by small parks. Then comes the commercial district, or whats left of it. A handful of second hand stores and antique malls dotted with abandoned storefronts. A bank, maybe a doctor or lawyers shop, and a handful of fast food places. Rinse, repeat. The only real standout was the rather large burnt out 5 story hotel on one corner. Its only illumination coming from the bar catty-corner from it. It loomed out of the darkness, art deco sconces still dotting its weathered exterior. Its front door barred, windows boarded.

“I see you’ve met the shame of Scottsburg,” someone said catching my attention. It was McCormick, the county coroner and man who invited me here.

 

“Shame. Love these old buildings. What happened to it?” I asked.

 

“Come inside, I’ll buy you a drink. There’s some people I’d like you to meet,” said Steve.

 

Stepping into small town bars is like stepping into a time machine, only that time machine only goes back about 35 years or so. Neither the glitz of the 1960s, nor the polish of modern day bars, most small town establishment are stuck in the malaise period of the late 1970s. Oranges and browns throughout, what remains of matted floral carpet with old well used puke green bar stools. Smells like the 70s too, with wafts of cheap American lager, Indian cigarettes, and a musty smell coming from the ice machine behind the bar. I get the feeling there hasn’t been a health inspection around these parts in some time.

 

Behind the bar, a barmaid scowled at my escort, then to me.

 

“You the one that found Molly?” She asked. Her voice was raspy like she had one too many cigarettes.

 

“Afraid so. Did you know her?” I answered with a question, hoping not to be run out of town.

 

“Cousin on my mom’s side. Never could get her head straight. Shame. Name’s Sandy, first round is on me. But not you Steve, you need to pay your tab first.” Sandy said.

 

Steve dropped a $100 bill on the bar. “Will this cover it?”

 

She eyed it with suspicion, but eventually put it in the cash drawer. Sandy poured Steve a beer and we retired to a booth in the back. Two occupants were waiting for us.

 

“Lee Carter, this is Dr. Ron Quackenbush. He’s my counterpart one county over.” Steve pointed me to a gaunt fellow in his late 60s maybe who’s eyes looked like he was ten years past retirement. 

 

“And this is Dr. Mary Chambers, town physician.” She was a heavy set woman with rosey cheeks.” She took my hand and shook it a little too vigorously.

 

“Thank you for meeting us on such short notice,” she said excitedly. I was unaware I was late for a business meeting, but whatever. 

 

I took a seat next to Doctor Chambers per her request, setting my glass of whiskey down in front of me. Getting up and sitting down left me acutely aware I spent the last hour picking birdshot out of my kevlar. 

“What is it that I can do for the medical elite of Southern Indiana,” I asked mid sip. The brown liquor slightly dulling the pain in my torso.

 

“We take it you saw the scene over at the old Peacock place?” Ron asked, nursing a beer of his own.

 

“Hard to get it out of my head. Never seen anything like it come close, save maybe once in Hawaii, but that wasn’t black mold. That was some weird nasty tropical stuff, and it certainly didn’t infect humans.” I am lightyears away from a degree in Biology, but I know my molds at least. Prerequisite for the job. Some tropical molds were known to eat houses straight down to the foundations if you ignored it long enough.

 

“Tell ‘em about the Gaslamp, Steve.” Ron said.

 

“What you saw today wasn’t the first time this has happened in Scottsburg,” Steve said, “In fact, I’m not even really sure what the count is exactly.”

 

“It started with the old Gaslamp Hotel,” Steve continued, “Hasn’t been an actual hotel in decades. Some developer came here in the 80s and turned it into some apartments. Developer went under a few years later, eventually it ended up in county control.”

 

Steve took a long chug of his beer and sat it down. “County turned it into affordable housing. $200 a month for a unit, twenty units in total. Mostly started with retired folks, but eventually it was anyone in the county that needed a roof over their heads for cheap.”

 

“Make sense. I’ve seen a few like that around. Stayed in a few of them too. Not great.” I said.

 

“But by the 2000s I was getting a call there every week!” Doctor Chambers interjected. “Right out of med school and all I was doing was sticking people with narcan all day.”

 

Narcan is just as common as heroin in these parts. Don’t ask me how it works exactly. Something to do with receptors in the head. All I know is that when you are OD’ing on opiates, it brings you back to sober real quick. Most cops have a few emergency needles on them. Indiana didn’t, because this state sees drug use as a sin. One of the side effects of living in a Bible-thumping state.

 

“Anyways,” Steve continued, “One day in June people begin to notice no one coming and going from the place. Sheriff and a few deputies made it inside. Same scene as the Peacocks place. What was left of someone OD’d on the floor, and a dark black mold from floor to ceiling. They pulled the remains of fifteen people out of that place. Big state investigation and everything. Couldn’t get in there for a month.”

 

“Then one day it just went up in flames,” Ron said.

“It was a very sad day for Scottsburg,” Doctor Chambers said, finally looking slightly dejected. “It was such a beautiful building, now its just a shell.”

 

“I mean, that’s sort of strange but what exactly do you want me to d…” I didn’t get to finish the sentence.

 

“Then a few weeks later I started seeing people come in with some weird looking spots.” Mary said, “Most of them I knew. High school friends or around town ya know. Lot of them got into the heroin. But these black spots started appearing right around their track marks. You could brush them off, but they came back. Strangest thing. I didn’t really put it together ‘til Steve told me about your little encounter this afternoon.”

 

“See, there wasn’t much I could do. I thought maybe it was some weird form of ringworm. So I gave them some topical cream and sent them on their way,” Mary said. “Then they just never came back. Poof. Completely off grid disappeared-like.”

 

“Then one of them showed up in Salem,” Doctor Quackenbush quickly cut Mary off. “Pulled him out of an abandoned house. Same thing. Black shit up and down the walls and ceiling, needle sticking out of some kids arm in the middle. Couldn’t even identify the guy. State came in, sealed it off. Burned a few days later.”

 

“We thought since you worked for the government and all, maybe you could get some help higher up? CDC maybe? I don’t know.” Mary said.

 

“I hate to break it to you guys but I’m just a contractor for Housing and Urban Development. Most of the time they don’t even know I’m out here, let alone talk to a completely different agency,” I said, promptly crushing their hope. 

 

“I mean, maybe I could send this out to my superior at HUD? Or maybe even the State Department of Health?” I asked more than said.

 

With the mention of the State Department of Health, they all sort of grumbled under their breath.

 

“The DOH would probably be more hindrance than good,” said Doctor Chambers, “They’ve been out here a handful of times in my thirty years of being a coroner here. Always some pencil pusher unconcerned about our communities.”

 

That sort of made sense to me. While I never messed with health issues, any state-run government organization was next to useless in my experience. Even more so the further out from civilization you get.

 

Ron reached under the booth’s table and pulled out a stack of files. “We’ve compiled at least six deaths that are related to this stuff, plus the Gaslamp victims. But not all of them died from the mold. Some were just too crispy to properly identify the cause of death.”

 

I thumbed through the morbid tome. I did an internship at a county morgue for my archaeology degree, and I’ve seen my fair share of death out here on the road but the pictures in these files were nothing short of macabre. Half digested corpses on rotting beds, errant blackened body parts, some faces locked in some sort of death scream. Whatever killed these people was enough to overcome large doses of painkillers to cause them to die in this manner. None were good deaths.

 

“I don’t want to rock any boats, but every time I put in the death certs that mold was involved, the houses they are all found in are either burned or bulldozed to the ground overnight,” said Ron. “I’m going to mark the Peacock’s residence as just a regular overdose and see if it helps preserve the evidence.”

 

“Listen, I cant promise you anything. I may send this up the chain and it goes nowhere. Lord knows most of my reports do that.” I said. “I’m only in Indiana for the next two weeks. Then we are off to Ohio.”

 

“That’s all we can ask. There isn’t anyone out here that seems to give a shit about us,” Doctor Quackenbush said. He guzzled down his whiskey and motioned the bartender for another.

 

***

 

Twenty-five miles north of Scottsburg, what was left of Billy Peacock sucked down as much water as the cow trough contained. He caught a glimpse of himself and involuntarily flinched, but the thought was gone almost immediately. The trough he drank from immediately started to fill with the black spores that covered two thirds of his body now. In fact, anything he brushed up against or touched turned to a slimy black material. 

 

All he knew was a ravenous hunger and thirst. The water helped, but whatever was on and inside him demanded more than just simple food and liquid. He was familiar with the feeling:

 

Withdrawal.

 

Part of him knew it was too soon for heroin withdrawal, but it was drowned out by an insatiable need to put food in his bloodstream. He could see the shape and color of the thing he wanted, but the word was elusive to him. Heroin, oxycontin, fentanyl, even vicodin or percocet would do. 

 

He had the sensation of his legs moving once more. He was merely on for the ride at this point. Rows of cornfields whizzed past, far faster that he could ever recall running. Whatever the black substance was, it had gifts as well as curses.

His mind knew the shape that designated a pharmacy, even if his mind didn’t fully comprehend it. The next thing his mind comprehend was ripping the back door off its hinges, its loud metal screeching piercing the dark Indiana sky. 

 

Alarms blared, he thought. At least thats what was left of his mind could make out. He had done this before, at least when he was still human. He and his band of misfits smashed the front window of a CVS and pried the safe open with a crowbar to get into the sweet narcotics within. They had called in a home invasion robbery across town and were gone by the time sheriffs showed up. By the end of the week they had blown through the oxycontin and sold the rest for heroin. So instinctively, he knew the big heavy metal box contained the nectar he required. 

 

No tools needed this time. The safe door came off easier than the back door. He drained bottle after bottle down his black gullet. Pills took a bit longer than smack to take effect, but his body didn’t care anymore. Opiates settled in on pain receptors, causing euphoria. It was the equivalent of the strongest orgasm he’d ever had in his short life. His body shuddered and the black slime started to spread. By the time he was finished, it encompassed the entire counter, safe, and back room.

 

When the authorities finally showed up, Billy Peacock was miles away. The abandoned barn he found would do for the night. The sun hurt so much now. He curled up into a ball in the corner. As he started to sleep, the black mold began to spread.

 

***

 

Mary MacDougal had no soul, they said, and this wasn’t on account of her bright red hair. No, this was the opinion of a company mandated psych screen after her “incident”. She had gouged out a fellow lobbyist’s eye during a disagreement over a recent senate bill that had passed. Some unknown slight had caused the attack, she couldn’t even remember, but Ken deserved whatever was coming to him. It was only her ruthlessness and threats of lawsuits that had kept her job in public relations for Purdue Pharmaceuticals. 

 

They, in turn, banished someone to what any DC lobbyist considers hell: the Midwest.

 

She was now the “President” of “Indianans For Responsible Drug Policy”, or whatever bullshit firm name Purdue had cooked up. The only true part of that name was “Drug”. Her only job was to sell as much of Purdue Pharmaceuticals products as possible in the state of Indiana and she was damn good at it.

 

She hated everything about Indianapolis, especially its politicians. It was only an occupational hazard that caused her to constantly be around them. And most days it was like shooting fish in a barrel compared to DC. Her utter contempt for the Assembly Speaker’s presence caused a vein on her neck to bulge. 

 

There were two reasons she was invited to this gala: One, she ran the largest and newest “SuperPAC” in the city. And two, she’d probably slept with at least a dozen of the Speaker’s colleagues, including himself. One of these hicks was given an award to another. Just another circlejerk night in the capital.

 

SuperPACs were some fancy new entity, recently okayed by the Supreme Court. A little paperwork filing and the promise to be a good boy or girl, and you could funnel as much money to the candidates of your choice without the pesky restrictions of “laws”. Ten years of wasting her time fucking hicks for votes overturned in a day. Now she and Purdue bankrolled almost the entire Assembly’s re-election, plus the new governor and she fucked whoever she wanted to now.

 

She eyed her prey across the room and made her way towards him, making sure to hip check the Speaker’s wife on the way, spilling her drink on her dress. Pleasantries and apologies were exchanged, but the message was conveyed. Mary was good at putting on the mask of nicety. She couldn’t really feel sorrow, or happiness for that matter. The only real joy she felt was when she spent her obscene salary on the finer things in life. The only benefit of the midwest is that a seven figure salary goes much further in Indianapolis than it does in DC.

 

The new governor was her target. He was a godly man, known to pray before every bill and to be incredibly superstitious. He wasn’t supposed to be her tonight, but the governor’s limo had developed engine problems which may or may not have had to do with her or her team. Mary had extended an invitation to the gala because she just so happened to be walking by, and he accepted. 

 

He attended with his “mother”, or at least that’s what he called his wife. Creep. She hovered around him, and Governor Pence was never in the room with an opposite sex citizen without her. Its incredibly frustrating for a female lobbyist, because you never get a private meeting to lean on them, policy-wise or body-wise. There were always witnesses. So she leaned on him in different ways, completely funding attack ads for his opponent helped. But the idiot man kept falling for chance accidents that put her in his presence. A broken heel while walking past him in the rotunda, having an assistant accidently spill coffee onto her in his presence, car trouble. She even started dressing as conservative as possible, feigning interest in the governors sect of Christianity too. 

 

It infuriated her.

 

“Governor and Mrs. Pence, how good of you to come,” Mary said in the nicest voice she could conjure. 

 

“Mother” half scowled, half smiled, seeing every female as temptation. She was just as, if not more religious than her husband.

 

“Karen, so nice of you to come!” Mary said. “How goes the charity work?”

 

Mary didn’t listen to her answer. She didn’t care. The governors wife was amenable to her because Purdue funded all of her charities. The governor’s wife clearly wore the pants, so they had to keep her happy. Of course, Mary’s job was made easier by the fact that all of the residence’s phones and computers were bugged by her team. She knew their marriage better than they did themselves. Mrs. Pence and an affinity for cat pictures and Mr. Pence used “incognito mode” more times than he’d admit.

 

She did the dance she’d done a thousand times. Fake interest. Flatter. Let the men talk. Add quips and anecdotes but don’t challenge anyone directly. Repeat and so on. Government officials were the same everywhere, and these people were all the apex-predator jocks of their hick towns.

 

As people left the conversation, leaving only “mother” and the governor, she pounced.

 

“Governor, I was wondering if I could bend your ear for a moment. Its about HR 243.” Mary asked.

 

HR 243 was a bill that was stuck in the senate. It was a general funding for the states meager healthcare system. It was problematic to Purdue, and therefore, problematic to Mary.

 

“I know the assembly’s heart is in the right place, but I thought I might offer an alternative to the methadone clinics and needle exchanges,” said Mary.

 

The governor’s interest was peaked. So many corrupt deals were made in situations like these, and Mary always left a red wake in her path to get what she wanted. What Purdue wanted.

 

“I am heartened at these poor souls, addicted to drugs. But wouldn’t there be a more prudent way of curing them? A more Christian way?” Mary said, holding the vomit back on the word “Christian”.

 

That piqued Governor Pence’s interest. His only notable “victories” were slashing tax rates, banning abortion and putting a Ten Commandments statue in the capital. If it was godly, and cost the state government nothing in return, he was interested.

 

“Indianans for Responsible Drug Policy thinks a faith based rehab center would do our communities better than a government run facilities,” Mary said, “And a needle exchange program would only further embolden these wayward citizens. We have some programs set up that we’d love to share with you if you have the time.”

 

Governor Pence nodded and handed Mary his card. “Make an appointment and we will talk. If you’ll excuse me.” The governor moved toward the exit.

Mary pretended her organization was grass-roots and faith-based. It was all smoke and mirrors. There weren’t any members outside herself and her employees, but no one knew that. For all they knew, they were a bunch of Christian housewives concerned with their children. If a state representative crossed them, thousands of bot accounts would descend from cyberspace to voice their anger. Outrage attracted the local news, which reported on the displeasure, leading to actual Indianan’s calling their state representatives in anger. It was all delightfully predictable, and all controlled by the moods of a single person, Mary. As they spoke, Facebook bots were commenting about government overreach and demands to go back to “Christian Roots” on every post about HR 243.

 

While the effect was negligible, methadone clinics and needle exchanges were a threat to Purdue Pharmaceuticals. The former, being a great way to stop a person from using its best-selling drug oxycontin. The latter stopping the spread of needle-born illnesses. Healthy people don’t use hospitals and they certainly don’t need HIV or Hepatitis drugs, which Purdue also sells in vast quantities. A recent HIV outbreak in Southern Indiana did wonders for second quarter sales numbers.

 

As they spoke, her team was recruiting and screening dozens of local preachers, and funding their new “drug outreach programs”. These “centers” would help addicts pray away their addiction. This of course, almost never works. They did the same thing for abortion clinics last year. Faith-based centers did wonders to bring babies to term, but also had the side effect of using many of Purdue’s neonatal and pregnancy products.

 

No one consumed more Purdue products in the state of Indiana thanks to Mary MacDougal. But she was still blackballed from every lobbyist firm in DC due to her “incident”, so she stewed in Midwest-nice Hell.

 

Her phone rang, she glanced at the number and answered. If anyone from the office was calling her at this hour, something had gone terribly wrong.

 

“We need to talk. At the office. Now.” The voice said. It was her chief of staff, Clara. They were two psychopathic peas in a pod, which is why she tolerated the curtness of her tone.