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  Christmas 2002 – My Nintendo GameCube. Eight was great.

  Christmas 2003 – My Sega Dreamcast. Nine, there wasn’t enough time.

  Christmas 2004 – My Xbox. Ten. What can be said about this gem?

  Christmas 2005 – My Gameboy Advance. Eleven. No more rhymes. I got mad at my parents that year for getting me a shitty handheld, but it ended up being my second-favorite gaming system of all time, one of the few I took with me to college.

  From here, the pictures catalog both my growing waistline and my growing appreciation for porn:

  Christmas 2006 – My first PC. An important step in any young man’s masturbatory career. I was twelve.

  Christmas 2007 – My Xbox 360. Thirteen years old, with my first round of braces. Fat.

  Christmas 2008 – My PlayStation 3. Fourteen, with headgear. Fatter.

  Christmas 2009 – My second PC. Fifteen years old. No more headgear, but my teeth were still crooked. Huge.

  Christmas 2010 – My Nintendo Wii. Sixteen. I asked for an Acura RSX, but my dad thought that car was too sexy, so he gave me his twenty year-old BMW 5 Series instead, claiming it was safer. Another Christmas spent not talking to my parents. Also, my second round of braces. Also also, still fat.

  Christmas 2011 – My third PC. Seventeen, and now capable of viewing porn in glorious 1080p. Second round of braces off. Teeth finally straight, but they were the only part of me that was attractive. Fat and growing fatter every day.

  Christmas 2012 – My first iPad. Eighteen. Now capable of viewing porn on the go.

  Christmas 2013 – My fourth PC, the one I took with me to college. This is when my weight really started to balloon.

  Christmas 2014 – My second iPad. I was hooked. I could play games, read comics, watch Netflix, look at porn, and chat with Jay all on the same device.

  Christmas 2015 – My Xbox One. Pretty much what I look like now, except my hair was longer.

  Christmas 2016 – My PlayStation 4. Still what I look like now, but fatter than the year before.

  (There may be an iPad or Sega Something I’m forgetting in there somewhere.)

  I was an only child, and my parents were well off. I always got a sweet haul at Christmas.

  Those pictures are all in a box somewhere in my parents’ house, back in Little Hills. I doubt anyone, even my mom, still looks at them. Why would they? Who wants to see the flipbook of how a happy, video game-loving kid grew up to be a fat, celibate shit?

  ***

  A shoddy plaster wall was all that separated the basement from the garage. The door was so low you almost had to double over so you wouldn’t bump your head, as if it had been built for a child, or an abnormally small adult.

  I flicked on the light, but it didn’t do much. Our voices went lost in the darkness as they left the tawny sanctuary of the storage area’s single, hanging bulb, dying in shadows that were both vast, and terribly claustrophobic. You could barely stand up straight without your head scraping the raw ceiling boards. It felt like descending into a cave. Or a tomb.

  “You could grow a lot of weed down here,” Jay said, looking around. “Get some grow lights and an air filtration system, and as long as you pay the power bills, you’d have one of the best grow-rooms around.”

  “How you gonna get a filter down here, Jay?” Ry said.

  “If I can fit a system in an eight-by-ten bedroom, I can fit twenty of ‘em down here,” Jay said.

  Rob swatted the hanging bulb and said, “You could, but your weed will still be shwag.”

  Jay chuckled, but his eyes were fixed out beyond the moving pendulum of light, to the mountains of personal property that had been left behind by former tenants.

  “What is all that stuff?” Jay said.

  “That,” I told him, “is our magic hat. Like Bea said.”

  We all fell silent for a moment, eyes searching through the sepulchers of furniture and abandoned property.

  It was hard to tell where the basement ended and the trash dump began: couches, dressers, snowboards, hand-weights, broken laundry baskets... basically, anything the past generations of tenants didn't want to take with them when they moved out. You never knew what you might find under Sunny Hill.

  “You guys wanna see a trick?” Jay said.

  Before we could answer, he held up a bag of weed and his Star Trek lighter, then walked into one of the piles and hid them. When he returned, he knelt down and opened his hands to show Popeye they weren’t there. Jay petted the pug, voice melting with excitement. “Hey Popeye! Hey boy! Guess what?”

  Popeye did a jumping spin, panted, and sat.

  “Weed, Popeye! Go get the weed!”

  The pug raced into the piles, returning a few seconds later with the weed bag clamped in his teeth.

  Jay took the weed out of the pug’s mouth, said, “Good boy!”

  “Wow. That’s incredible.” Bea said.

  “You trained him to do that?” I said, genuinely impressed.

  “So I don’t have to get off the couch when I’m high,” Jay said.

  Bea gave him a golf clap. “Congratulations. You trained your dog to work for the T.S.A.”

  Jay knelt down again, lovingly rubbing Popeye under the chin. “That’s nothing. Wait ‘til you see this. Hey Popeye! Guess what? Fire, Popeye! Go get the fire!”

  Again Popeye scampered off into the shadows. His search took longer this time, but when he reappeared, sure enough, Jay’s Star Trek lighter was clamped between his teeth.

  Jay fished the lighter out of Popeye’s mouth and rubbed his head, chanting, “Good boy! Good boy.”

  “You're the man now, dog,” I said, but nobody caught the reference. Maybe I was too drunk to do a decent Sean Connery impression.

  Popeye ran away again. He came back, carrying someone’s forgotten, dirty boxing glove in his mouth. The boxing glove was bigger than he was. Jay tried to take it away from him, but Popeye dodged Jay’s hand, eyes rolling ecstatically, and started running in evasive circles, until Jay stopped chasing him.

  Jay swatted the air drunkenly. “Eh, whatever. Let him have it. It’s not the size of the dog in the dog, right? I mean… uh… shit.”

  “You mean it’s not the size of the dog in the fight,” Bea corrected him.

  Ry slapped Jay on the back. “So much for your grow-room, buddy. You’ll have to pay a team of guys a few thousand bucks just to clear the junk out of this place.”

  “You could make a fat wad of cash if you had a garage sale, though,” Rob said, poking at a pile of empty moving boxes.

  “As long as you cut the three of us in. Twenty-five percent. Even split,” Bea said.

  “Hello? There are five of us. What about me?” I said.

  “You still owe me for that sack last weekend,” Bea said.

  “Oh. Sorry. I forgot.”

  Jay wandered to the edge of the light. “Some of this stuff looks like it’s been here for twenty years.”

  “It probably has,” I said. “It’s been a student house for decades. The landlord – this fat old Columbian named Alfonso-”

  Bea chuckled.

  “He’s never done a full walkthrough.”

  “Alfonso,” Bea shook her head. “That guy. He manages the co-op, too.”

  Jay raised an eyebrow at me.

  “It’s true,” I said. “The girls who lived here before us said when they moved out, he barely even looked around upstairs, just peeked his head in the living room and said, 'Looks good.'”

  “He could be hiding dead bodies down here! Are you scared?” Jay said to Bea. He put his arm around her shoulder and squeezed slightly, causing a cold thing to rise in my gut.

  “No,” Bea said.

  Ry snorted. “So… you guys wanna take another shot?”

  ***

  After midnight, the rain really started coming down. The West Coast ball dropped, and we went upstairs to play board games. Most of our friends had gone home by then, and the ones who hadn’t were passed out on the couches and floor. T
here were maybe six or seven of us still awake when the games commenced. After ten minutes, they were all partially naked or wearing each other's clothes (no one else’s clothes fit me, due to my weight).

  I stumbled down to the garage to fix myself another drink. I wanted whiskey and a beer, but there were only empty plastic bottles behind the bar. I had to upend all of them just to find a few leftover ounces of vodka.

  I poured myself a cup of pure vodka and turned to head back upstairs, when I noticed a black crescent out of the corner of my eye. It was the basement door, standing ajar.

  I thought I heard someone crying on the other side of the wall, but the sound was muffled, far away, and I was drunk. I poked my head into the basement and listened. Nothing but silence, and that empty, ruddy darkness staring back at me. I shut the door and locked the latch.

  I thought I heard one final sob just outside the garage. It cut short this time, as if someone were struggling to choke it back. I balled my fists and went outside to look, but there was only rain.

  I went back in the garage and finished my drink. Bea’s face appeared from upstairs. Her cheeks were dry, and she was drunker than I’d ever seen her. She was wearing Jay’s shirt over her dress, and her curly mop of strawberry blonde hair was held back with a cord headband that I knew didn’t belong to her, either.

  Bea descended the stairs, reeling as she missed the bottom step, first one way, then the other as she tried to find her footing. I rushed to steady her.

  “Drew.” The word, almost indistinct.

  “What’s up Bumble? You want a shot?”

  “No. I am fugging drunk. Okay. Yeah. Less tagga shot.”

  “We’ve got vodka, and vodka.”

  She made a face and shook her head with comical exaggeration. “Vokka? Nodude. Okay fine. Drew. Everyone lef'. Omigod. Thaddog is sooo cute.”

  “Where are your roommates?”

  “Asleep.”

  I took the shot. I played it cool and didn’t cringe at all.

  Bea hesitated. “I’m so jealous of your… house,” Bea said. “You guys throw the fuggin' bes' parties.” She paused, swaying. The liquid in her hand sloshed perilously close to the rim of her glass. “How much do you pay feryer room, again?”

  “Seven-fifty.”

  She sauntered over to the basement door and leaned down to get a closer look. Her skirt rode up in the back when she bent over, giving me a peek at the black nylons and thong underneath.

  I blushed and looked away, but when she didn’t move, I stole a second look. I liked her, but I knew I didn’t stand a chance with Bea.

  “Hey,” she said, straightening up. “You don' think there’s anything relly weird back there, dooya?” She motioned to the basement door with her flip-flop.

  “Probably not. Just junk.”

  “But,” Bea pointed a finger at me, “but… I shouldennave teggen that las shot.”

  “Wanna have a look?”

  Bea’s eyes widened. “Les do it.”

  “Let me get a flashlight.”

  I took a heavy Maglite from the workbench in the garage, and we re-entered the basement.

  I’ve heard it said in horror movie fandom, “The essence of fear is a door half open.” But that isn’t entirely true. Adults aren’t usually scared of empty darkness. Darkness conceals, but it has no intent. Contained in that darkness must be the implication that there is something hostile to us. A good horror movie doesn’t scare us because it harnesses the feeling of being alone in the dark; it scares us because it harnesses the feeling of being alone with hostility. I would know. I’ve seen hundreds of them.

  As I walked in, a familiar sense of dread settled on me. I'd always felt uncomfortable down under Sunny Hill; it seemed that it was a little harder to breathe, and I was always aware of the thousands of pounds of earth pressing in around me. Passing through that tiny door into the impotent glow of that single hanging bulb gave a specific discomfort, like the regret after stuffing my face with a huge, unnecessary amount of junk food, which did not recede until I re-entered the light.

  The darkness swam around us. Bea tagged a few nearby piles of old clothes with her flashlight beam, moving quickly to the deeper sections outside the cone of light radiating from the weak hanging bulb, since those inside it were more likely to be picked-over.

  Bea’s intelligence was what I found most attractive about her. She was double majoring in math and chemistry, and was on the Dean’s List. She connected the dots faster than anyone else, and you often got the impression while hanging out with her that her brain was used to solving problems before most people had the chance to realize they were there.

  She was my polar opposite in that regard. I was studying film, and not much good at problem solving unless it involved the work of Stanley Kubrick, or tearing apart some piece of shit movie with sarcastic burns.

  A distant cacophony of voices echoed over our heads. Jay slurred loudly at someone that they were being a little bitch, his words almost clear through the cracks in the ceiling, between the muted notes of bass and the scattered quakes of footsteps.

  Bea sifted through some old posters leaning against the wall, all of it typical college stuff: Bob Marley smoking a joint, Hunter S. Thompson in sunglasses, the melting clocks of Dali’s Persistence of Memory. “Could these be any more cliché?” she said. “Where’s the cool stuff? I wanna finnan old camera.”

  “Look,” I said, pointing the beam of my flashlight further back into the darkness.

  The music changed upstairs. The bass thumped down through the ceiling boards. Bea’s eyes tracked vacantly upwards.

  “Ooh, I looove dis song.”

  ***

  I don’t know how long we were down there that New Year’s Eve. It’s easy to lose track of time when you’re under Sunny Hill. You tell yourself it’s only been a few minutes, when in fact it’s been hours…

  Days…

  Weeks…

  Years.

  ***

  It was close to four in the morning when we found the box of pictures.

  I felt the ground slip out from under me as I was walking towards the back of the basement. My ankle rolled over the edge of a deep hole I hadn’t seen, and I barely caught myself from falling in. I would’ve broken my leg. As it was, I only sprawled face-first in the dirt.

  The hole was three feet deep by three wide. It had been hidden by a piece of plywood covered with a few thin shovelfuls of soil.

  I got up with as much dignity as I could muster, dusted myself off, and probed the hole with my flashlight. There was an old, cardboard shoebox resting at the bottom.

  Bea’s flashlight beam fell into the hole alongside mine. “Wazzat?” she said.

  I slid into the hole and dug it out. The box came up easily. It felt heavy, and rattled as I pulled it from the soil. I handed it to Bea and climbed out of the hole.

  The top of the shoebox said College Memories in blue permanent marker.

  “Old pictures,” she said, looking inside.

  “Let me see.”

  Bea leaned over my shoulder, steadying the light as I sorted through them. I tried to focus on the pictures, and not the soft weight of her breasts on my arm.

  Polaroids. The box was filled to the brim with dusty, yellow Polaroids. I picked up the one at the very top of the pile. It depicted a muscle-bound man in his early twenties, standing next to the same hole I’d almost just broken my ankle falling into.

  The guy in the picture was wearing cut-off jean shorts, a tank top, and a backwards netback hat. He was soaked with sweat and leaning on a shovel, a vulpine grin thinly splitting his lips. He was tan, his hair bleached blonde by the sun. In the bottom margin of the picture, someone had scrawled a caption in blue ink:

  Andy digs.

  Bea’s voice stirred next to me. “Drew… what the fuggin' fug is this?”

  She handed me another Polaroid from the pile, black film with no picture. A message scrawled on the back read: They see you.

  Bea snatc
hed the picture out of my hand. “Waddafug? Who sees you?”

  “I dunno. This guy, maybe? He looks pretty bad ass.” I showed her the picture of Andy digging.

  She snorted. “Awesome style.”

  “This was taken exactly where we’re standing,” I said.

  Bea seemed to read my thoughts. She poked through a few of the other pictures. “Why would someone bury these? Drew, this is freagging me out.”

  “You’re just drunk." But to be honest, I was freaked out, too. I’d seen scenarios like this play out countless times in horror movies.

  Bea frowned, and blew out a Bea-sized cloud of pale breath. “Happy New Year to you too, dad.”

  “There are way too many of these to look at down here. Let’s take this upstairs,” I said. I gave the shoebox a gentle shake. It was so heavy I thought the bottom might fall out. There was my escape, my way back to the light. I didn’t think, didn’t know it was even possible, that we weren’t escaping at all, but taking that darkness with us, opening the hole that would let it out, and set it free.

  I wish we had left those pictures where we found them.

  ***

  Somewhere between the basement and the kitchen stairs, we heard someone having sex upstairs. Bea’s mouth formed an O and her eyes went wide.

  “…Oh yeah, baby. You like that…”

  “… Oh yeah, baby. Back it up. Just like that. You know I like that…”

  “Tha's in your kitchen!” Bea said, stifling a laugh. “Drew! Drew! Omigod!”

  “I know,” I said. “That’s disgusting.”

  “Lissen – you can hear everything! I feel perverted.”

  I shrugged. “Sound travels, I guess. I’m too tired to worry about it. I’ll disinfect the countertops in the morning.”

  ***

  Carter and Natalia were the only people awake by the time we got upstairs, sitting on the floor taking bong loads and watching Game of Thrones.

  I was always jealous of Carter’s looks. Carter was black, handsome, and fit. He had a bodybuilder’s physique from going to the gym five days a week, big arms, big legs, and a lean waist, like Arnold in his prime. You couldn’t help but notice his powerful charisma when he walked in a room like he owned the place, his pearl-white, slightly gap-toothed smile gleaming. Whenever we went to parties together, girls would inevitably ask me if he was single.