Page 7 - Breakdown

Their house was tiny. The windows—the
ones that weren’t boarded up—were covered in
a thick layer of dirt. There was a strong odor
of cat pee and mothballs. The woman led them

into a sitting room where a fluorescent light
flickered from above. She was a big woman
with huge arms and a thick waist. She wore an
old apron that looked like it was once pretty.
She looked like she was once pretty.
“Name’s LouAnn,” she said.

“I’m Maddy and this is my friend Owen.”
Owen looked at Maddy and raised an
eyebrow, as if to say, “I am a little more than
a friend.”
Maddy winked at him.

As they sat on a lumpy couch, they were
surrounded by eyes. There were twenty—
maybe more—dead, stuffed animals staring
at them. They looked so real. They once were
real, but each one of these animals had been
killed, skinned, and stuffed with plastic to

look like it was still alive. There were squirrels
permanently paused in the middle of gathering
acorns, a fawn forever folded up in its napping

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