Chapter 14 Natalie #2
Natalie pointed down the hall toward the bedrooms and watched in horror as Steve scooped his son into his arms and hurried in that direction. The pair made it halfway to the bathroom before the little boy started to wail.
“I’m gonna take another look at the kitchen,” Mack said. “Maybe grab a cookie or two for the road.”
While Mack piled cookies onto a clean napkin, Natalie recited the key selling points of the house.
She had time to mention the school district and proximity to the beach before Mack cut her off. “My current buyers are looking
for something more modern, but I’ll keep this in mind for future clients. Nice to meet you, Nat. I’ll show myself out.”
Natalie swiped the crumbs off the counter and refolded the tea towel. When she turned around, Joan was standing in the doorway,
her finger pressed to the tip of her nose.
“Do they have dogs? There’s an odor in the master bedroom.”
“They do, but—”
“You might want to rent a carpet cleaning machine. If I can smell it, potential buyers can, too.” She waved a hand at the cookies. “This is a nice touch. Did you bake them?”
“My friend did. She can make anything. Cakes, cookies, pastries—you name it. These are her Polish cinnamon cookies. Please,
help yourself.”
Joan shrank back. “I never eat sweets.”
A wail echoed from down the hall. Joan murmured, “Oh, my,” and made a quick exit.
Natalie used the lull in action to pick up the cookie crumbs in the living room. She’d just deposited them in the trash when
she heard a toilet flush. This was followed by a rush of running water, which seemed to go on for a very long time.
Finally, Steve exited the bathroom, carrying his son in his arms. The little boy’s shorts were gone, and his face was streaked with tears and snot. He met Natalie’s eyes and then buried his head in his father’s chest.
Natalie glanced from the boy’s naked bottom to Steve’s red face. “Is everything okay?”
“I wanted to take a quick look at this place on the way to a birthday party for this guy’s best buddy, but I’m gonna have
to come back another time. My boy has a funny tummy, and I need to take him home. Sorry, um . . .”
“Natalie. Natalie Scott.”
“Nice touches here and there,” Steve said, bolting through the front door. “Love the flowerpots and the cinnamon air freshener.
Bye now.”
Natalie tried to focus on the compliments, but dread propelled her down the hall. She was ten feet from the bathroom when
she was assaulted by the smell of shit.
“Nononono,” she moaned.
At first glance, the bathroom seemed okay. But as her gaze sharpened, she noticed brown streaks on the hand towel. Smears
on the faucet.
“No.”
Natalie clamped her hand over her mouth and approached the toilet. Steeling herself, she used the tip of her pinkie finger
to raise the lid.
The toilet was stuffed with a mass of water-saturated paper. It pulsated at the bottom of the bowl like a nebula, barely visible
under the swirls of fecal flotsam. The seat and lid were shit-speckled.
Retching, Natalie raced back to the kitchen. She drank water straight from the tap and wiped her mouth on the tea towel. Sucking
in deep breaths of cinnamon-laced air, she looked out the window and watched the yellow balloons tied to the For Sale sign
straining against their tethers. As her nausea abated, her anger swelled.
“Bastard.”
She hurried out to her car for her bucket of cleaning supplies. If another agent showed up now, she’d never live it down.
Word would get back to Sid that the McCreedys’ house had smelled like cookies and diarrhea. Her career as a Gold Coast agent
would be over before it began.
“Asshole!” she growled as she yanked on her latex gloves.
Natalie had cleaned up plenty of shit in her lifetime. Dog shit. Cat shit. Diaper blowouts. Toilet training mishaps. It was
bad enough to clean up after her own kids. Cleaning up another child’s shit was a different level of nasty.
She cleaned the smears on the sink and toilet handle first. There was nothing she could do about the towel, so she shoved
it into the bottom of her bucket and started searching for a plunger.
She didn’t need to flush the toilet to know that it was clogged. Dipshit Steve had used half a roll of toilet paper wiping
his baby boy’s ass.
Finding no plunger under the sink, Natalie frantically dug through the cabinet in the master bath and then flung open the
door to the linen closet. There, crammed between a stack of old paint cans and a dust-coated box of maxi pads, was the plunger.
With the plunger in hand, Natalie stared down at the toilet bowl in dismay. If she tried to unclog it now, brown water would
cascade over the side and onto the floor.
She wished Steve was in the room with her right now. She’d like to use his face as a plunger.
“Asshole.”
Sweat gathered in Natalie’s armpits and dampened the hair at her temples. She dropped to her knees and, holding her breath,
reached into the water to grab a fistful of paper. She dumped the dripping mass into her bucket and went in for another handful.
The transfer was messy. Droplets of brown water dotted the seat. Toilet paper fragments floated in the bowl like loose fish
scales.
With the biggest obstacles gone, the water level dropped. Natalie prayed she could simply flush the rest.
It didn’t work.
Instead, the paper and poop remnants spiraled, rising higher and higher in the bowl.
“Please no. Please stop. Stopstopstopstop.”
To her immense relief, the muck stayed within the confines of the bowl.
And then, the doorbell rang.
Natalie let out the high-pitched squeak of a mouse squeezed between a cat’s jaws and shoved the plunger and bucket in the
cabinet under the sink. She slammed the toilet lid down and jogged to the front door.
When Natalie found the neighbors from across the street, Samir and Sarah Gupta, standing on the stoop, the smile she pasted
on looked slightly maniacal.
Samir waved around the foyer. “How goes the open house?”
“I’m having a bit of a problem in the bathroom, and I need to take care of it before another agent shows up.”
Sarah glanced over her shoulder as if a line of agents was forming behind her. “Want us to keep watch for you?”
“Please.” She ushered the Guptas into the kitchen and told them to help themselves to cookies.
Back in the bathroom, she waited another two minutes for the water level to fall before giving the plunger a try. When the
clog finally gave way, she squeezed her eyes shut in relief. Disaster had been averted.
Helping herself to the McCreedys’ bleach, Natalie poured some into the bowl, the sink, and the bathtub. By the time she was done, the bathroom smelled like a hospital ward. Like disinfectant and decay.
She returned the bleach to the laundry room and carried the bucket of rank water and toilet paper to the farthest corner of
the backyard. She tossed the contents into the vines and undergrowth on the other side of the fence.
“Eat shit, Mrs. Smith.”
As Natalie breathed in the fresh air, she congratulated herself for keeping cool during a crisis. It was over now, and she
was back in control. All she needed to do was run a comb through her hair and freshen up her lipstick, and she’d be ready
to welcome the next agent.
Only there weren’t any.
The Guptas hung around for fifteen minutes, but once their curiosity was sated, they took the rest of the cookies and left.
Natalie turned on the oven, arranged the rest of the cookie dough on the baking sheet, and waited.
The cookies turned golden brown, the ugly brass clock on the living room mantel ticked, and Natalie waited.
The oven timer rang, she took the cookies out of the oven, let them cool, and plated them.
Fifteen minutes later, she began to pace around the house.
No one else came.
The open house was over.
With the bitter taste of disappointment on her tongue, Natalie dumped the cookies into the Tupperware and turned off all the
lights.
The last thing she needed to do before leaving was lock the patio door, but as her fingers closed around the dead bolt, she
glanced across the yard to Mrs. Smith’s woods and froze.
“Impossible,” she whispered.
Natalie opened the door, crossed the brick patio, and stepped onto the grass.
She stood there, staring directly in front of her, as ants pole-vaulted off the grass blades onto her feet.
They marched over her bare skin and slipped down into her shoes.
Their tiny bodies tickled the soles of her feet and the sensitive flesh of her ankles.
Then they started to bite her.
She stomped her feet without looking down. She couldn’t stop staring at the fence line. At the vines Jill had cut.
She’d beat them back, revealing the weary wood of the fence. Natalie had seen the result of her daughter’s efforts. She’d
seen the tangle of vine cuttings Jill had shoved into garbage bags. She’d filled four giant bags. So, what Natalie was seeing
now made no sense.
The fence was no longer visible.
The vines had regrown, even thicker than before. They were a lush, green waterfall. A tsunami of leaves and berries spilling
into the McCreedys’ yard.
As Natalie gawked, a tendril near her shoe uncurled. She watched it wriggle like an inchworm, shuddering forward.
This thing from Mrs. Smith’s woods was alive, and it was reaching for her.
Natalie turned and ran.