Homebody

There were more repairs to do, and it kept William busy. He was far from a handyman, but with the house to guide him where he needed to go and a garage full of tools and parts, the jobs became easier. The attic lightbulb was quickly replaced, and the light revealed the bare beams arching over the storage boxes. He gripped a truss as he stepped over the clutter.

“AH- DON’T TOUCH THOSE,” the house winced. “THEY’RE OLD, THEY NEED TO BE REPLACED.”

“That's gonna be hard to fix,” William said, letting go. He wiped the sweat from his brow. The sun had returned, and the attic was starting to get stuffy.

“WE’LL GET THERE. FOCUS ON THAT LEAK FOR NOW.”

Hours passed as William bounced from repair to repair across the whole house. Patch the leak in the attic. Re-attach the kitchen cabinet handle. Grease up the hinges on the basement door. Tighten the dripping faucet. Spackle over the holes in the living room wall. Each finished job came with a wave of relief, followed by a surge of anxiety when he remembered just how much there was left to do. As he kept chasing the relief with each new job, the dread of the looming attic repair kept growing. Will was halfway through replacing the weather stripping on the front door when Wade came to talk to him.

“Hey Will,” he said sheepishly. Will wasn’t used to that tone coming from him.

“Hey,” he replied, not looking up from his work.

“Can we talk?” he asked. That was even more unlike Wade to say. He vastly preferred getting straight to the point.

“I’m a little busy,” Will replied.

“I wanted to say that I’m sorry about last night.”

“NO YOU AREN’T,” the house spat from the vents.

“It’s fine,” William replied. An apology of his own itched at the back of his throat, wanting to come out, but he pushed it away. Wade stood there, scratching the back of his head and looking off in the distance. William tucked a strand of his hair behind his ear, feeling how it was slick with sweat. He kept working diligently on the weather stripping as his neck started to itch.

“Is that it?” Wade said, the blunt tone creeping back into his voice. “‘It’s fine?’”

“THAT’S MORE THAN YOU’RE OWED.”

“Yeah. It’s fine,” William mumbled.

“Seriously? You’re not going to apologize?”

“SEE? HE ONLY SAID SORRY BECAUSE HE EXPECTED IT IN RETURN. ALWAYS BEEN THAT WAY, ONLY BEING KIND WHEN IT STANDS TO BENEFIT HIM.”

“Hey, are you listening to me?” Wade snapped, waving his hand in front of Will’s face. He stared at it for a second before slowly pushing it away, annoyed.

“I’m in the middle of something,” Will replied tersely, “do you mind?”

Wade’s arms fell to his sides and his face twisted into a scowl. He sucked in a deep, long breath of late afternoon air.

“Alright,” Wade huffed. “I’m heading out.”

He left, and Will heard the sound of his car engine firing up. He didn’t really care where he was going, in fact he was almost relieved he’d finally left. He finished the weather stripping and moved on to the next job. Dissonant thoughts crashed into each other in his head. The apology he wanted to say was still stuck somewhere in him, but it slowly withered away as the sun set and Wade never came back. He didn’t see the point in waiting for him. He didn’t even see the point in making himself dinner. There was work to do.

The days blurred together as Will labored at the encouragement of the house. A dull ache spread across his ribs like damaged attic trusses. The exhaustion weighed him down, but he couldn’t stop. When he fixed one thing, three more repairs would pop up in its wake.

As the time passed, William became deeply familiar with the house’s internal structures. Shimmying into tight spaces between the walls, he could see the wires twist and wind like nerves through the insulation packed in between the beams. He could close his eyes and feel the pulse of electricity beating throughout the house, deft hands working their way into the fiberglass to find the circuitry. Pins and needles prickled at his legs as he grabbed hold of them in his fingers.

“THANK YOU WILLIAM,” the house would say as he would work, twisting wires together and sealing up the drywall cuts like he was suturing up a surgical wound. “YOU ARE SO WONDERFUL. SO MUCH LIKE YOUR OLD MAN. HARDWORKING, SKILLED, FAITHFUL.”

“Of course,” William always replied, then he would slip into a fond memory of him and his father in the home together. It kept him going.

He was back in the attic, armed with half the garage in tools and spare wooden boards. It would be the most difficult operation he’d have to perform, fixing the trusses. The fix wouldn’t be permanent, but it would buy some time. He started to saw away at the damaged sections of the truss.

“Will,” Wade’s voice filtered through the door to the closet. “What the hell are you doing?”

He didn’t answer, he just kept sawing. It felt like he was cutting into his own ribcage, the teeth of the saw grinding through the wood like it was bone. All along his back, he started to feel the crawling of insect legs.

“Will!” Wade yelled, grabbing his shoulder. His hand felt cold. And itchy. Will stopped sawing and stared at him.

“I’m fixing it,” he said flatly.

“No, you’re going to make the fucking house collapse! Stop it!”

“No.”

“You don’t have a choice. The lawyers settled the will. The house goes to me.”

William’s guts turned to ice, and the attic suddenly felt 10 degrees colder. The saw clattered to the ground and he looked at Wade through the wet strands of hair hanging in his eyes.

“I’m the eldest son, so I’m considered the next of kin,” Wade continued.

“NO!” the house roared. “HE’S NOTHING TO ME! HE’LL TEAR ME APART LIKE I’M WORTHLESS. HE’LL KILL ME. DON’T LET HIM KILL ME!”

William clutched his head, feeling himself spiraling. He grabbed the hammer by his feet and started pulling the nails out of the truss, continuing the repair. Wade heaved a frustrated sigh, and the words he wanted to say at the dinner table bubbled to the surface.

“Of course you’re gonna throw a fit about this. You know what Will? You can’t change the fact that you weren’t there,” Wade snarled. The words stuck like venomous barbs in William’s back.

“You weren’t fucking there when dad was sick. You weren’t there when he was getting worse,” his voice was a roar, years of rage getting dredged up in a single moment, “you didn’t even show up for the funeral! You just rolled up to the will reading hoping, no– expecting that dad left you the good stuff. The house. The car. The money. I helped take care of him for years, Will. Where the hell were you?”

“HE WAS ONLY THERE BECAUSE HE WANTED IT TOO. HE THOUGHT HE COULD EARN IT. TRYING TO INSERT HIMSELF WHEREVER HE COULD AT THE END, FLOATING UNWANTED AROUND THE HOUSE LIKE THE MISERABLE VIRUS HE IS.”

Virus. That was it. That was the source of the terrible sensation crawling up Will’s back. There was a virus here. A disease. Inside him, inside the house. His grip tightened around the hammer as he ripped another nail from the wood.

“DESTROY HIM. BEFORE HE KILLS US.”

“Go ahead, fix the place up all you like! It will NEVER make up for the FACT THAT YOU WEREN’T TH-”

The hammer slammed into Wade’s temple with a sickening crack. He fell to the ground and clutched his head, blood flowing between his fingers from the perfect circular indent it left in his skull. William brought the hammer down again and again, each blow driven by a blind, feverish rage. Wade cried out with each strike, helpless against the onslaught of his brother’s wrath, until all Will could hear was the sound of Wade’s bones breaking.

“WILLIAM, STOP. THAT’S ENOUGH.”

William complied, dropping to his knees next to Wade’s body, breathing heavily. Wade didn’t move. His battered arms limply covered his lifeless face, painted in rivulets of blood that flowed out of his broken nose and mouth. Will watched it drip onto the wooden floor next to Wade’s shattered glasses, his own arms and chest splattered with red.

“YOU HAVE FELT HIS BLOOD. IT’S NOT THE SAME THAT RUNS THROUGH YOU, OR THROUGH ME. YOU ALONE KNOW ME. WE ARE THE SAME.”

Every opening in the home felt like an open wound on his body. He grabbed the nails and boards and rushed to fasten them to the windows. His brother’s blood was smeared on the planks he carried. The virus was gone, but they were not safe. He drove nails into the wood with the bloodied hammer.

“ALL OTHERS ARE PATHOGEN.”

"KEEP THEM OUT.”