Flipped Off

A massive red pickup truck pulled in slowly in front of the rickety three-tier house on top of Claymore Hill. On the outside the house looked like it was used every Halloween to scare the shit out of little kids. Cobwebs, broken windows, loose doors, shoddy construction, basically this place looked like a nightmare to live in.

When Ivan Savage and his heavyset buddy Mickey Ryder got out of the truck dressed in blue jeans, stained white T-shirts, and black combat boots, that could have only meant one thing: it was time to go to work on this puppy.

Ivan ran his gloved hand through his messy brown hair and said, “This feels wrong. This feels very wrong.”

“What do you mean?” asked Mickey.

“What do you think I mean? Didn’t you hear on the news who this house used to belong to? Angelo Crockett. Not just any Angelo Crockett, but the same guy who used this house for a goddamn rape dungeon. He kept anywhere between twenty and thirty underage girls here. If I start talking about what he did to them, I’m going to vomit. We should just get back in the truck and get out of here.”

Mickey made a flat tire noise and said, “Dude, what did you expect? You bought this house sight unseen at a flea market. A flea market, for shit’s sake. Hell, there are probably a bunch of fleas living in there right now. But you know what? This is the kind of work we get paid to do. As flip men, we have certain obligations and though they may seem cruel and unusual, they do include flipping houses and getting them ready to be sold at a high price.”

“Hey, I have no illusions about what I do for a living. It’s just that this is the most disgusting assignment I’ve ever had to do.”

“You think I feel any better about it, Ivan? You think I condone what that bastard did to those kids? That’s why we owe it to those young girls to clean this place up. Trust me, buddy, by the time we’re finished, Angelo Crockett’s name will be long forgotten about. Let’s get inside and see what we’ve got to work with.”

Mickey waddled his fat ass up the stairs and into the house while Ivan shook his head and reluctantly trailed him inside. The outside and the urban legend surrounding this house was vomit-inducing enough. But the inside was a disaster. The floors were covered with blood, puke, and feces. The walls were covered in even more sickening bodily fluids. The kitchen was so caked in urine and dirt that eating anything from there would be certain death. The bathroom reeked so badly that stepping one foot could mean a gut-busting assault on the nose. The basement? Well, that was easily the most sickening part of the house since it was everything the above two tiers was multiplied by ten.

Despite the horrific condition of this lonely house, the stench of it all was something Ivan and Mickey were both used to. They were flip men after all and remodeled houses as bad as this all the time. In fact, Mickey was already on the attack when it came to his plans to fix this house up.

“Alright, so here’s what I’m thinking. The carpets and the linoleum both have to be ripped up from the ground. There’s no saving them. In their place will be wooden floors. We’ll have wooden floors all around the upper two tiers and even the staircase will be like that too. We’re also going to use wood paneling for the walls, which are going to be painted afterwards, probably in the neighborhood of greenish blue. The bathroom will be a different story; it’s going to have square tiles both on the floor and on the walls. The appliances will all have to go from the sinks to the oven to the refrigerator to the toilets to the tubs. We’re going to buy brand new appliances and put them in their respective places. The cupboards are also going to have to be replaced with new wood. And finally, those light fixtures above us are going to have to be replaced with ceiling fans. You think we can do all of this, Ivan?”

Ivan gave his friend an “Are you kidding me?” look and said, “That’s all fine and good, but did you forget that this place used to be a goddamn rape dungeon for small children?!”

If either flip man needed a reminder of that, all they had to do was look on the kitchen floor next to the burned out stove. Ivan knelt down and picked up what appeared to be a porn magazine. He dusted off the cover and gagged when he saw what the book was titled: “Sexy Teenagers Weekly”.

“I’m going to be sick! I’m going to be sick! I’m going to be sick!” Ivan kept saying to himself as he dropped the magazine, ran out the front door, and retched all over the lawn. He shook hard as he tasted his McDonald’s breakfast sandwich from earlier that day. His decade-long experience of being a flip man didn’t prepare him for this.

“I’m going to go ahead and survey the basement. You can feel free to join me once you’re done throwing up,” yelled Mickey from the inside. Ivan was huffing and puffing while struggling to make it to his feet. As soon as he wiped the vomit from his mouth, he heard his construction buddy let out a blood-curdling scream followed by the sounds of fire and shredding.

Ivan slowly turned his head around and said, “Oh dear lord, no…Mickey!” He bolted inside and visited all of the rooms in the house in search of his friend. No sign of him. The one place he hadn’t looked was the basement aka Satan’s port-a-potty. Ivan swallowed a glob of barf-flavored saliva and shakily ventured down the stairs into the dark basement.

He struggled to find a light switch, but eventually found one at the bottom of the world’s longest stairs. He flipped it on and saw the ashen and shredded remains of what was once his best friend Mickey Ryder. “What the fuck?!” yelled Ivan as he rushed to the middle of the dingy basement to check on his friend. Once on his knees, tears formed in Ivan Savage’s eyes.

His sadness would be blended with fear when he heard the whispers of small children all around him. There they were: the ones responsible for the soul-stealing death of Mickey Ryder. They were the ashen souls of the thirty raped girls, who were forming a large circle around Ivan by holding hands and dancing around him.

“Please!” begged Ivan. “Please let me out of here! I never wanted to be here in the first place! I don’t even want to be a flip man anymore!”

In demonic, unified voices, the ghosts of the girls said, “Your friend had to pay the price! He wanted to use our deaths as a way to make money! He wanted to exploit us just like Master Angelo did!”

Disturbed by the fact that these girls just called their rapist “Master Angelo”, more tears formed in Ivan’s eyes when he said, “Listen…that man will never hurt you or anyone else again. He’s behind bars and he’ll never get out. He’s probably being stabbed to death in the showers right now.”

The ghosts said, “As well he should be! But that doesn’t solve the problem of you, my friend. You came here for the same reason as that giant sack of protoplasm over there. You wanted to exploit us for some easy cash! We’re not going to let you nor anyone else get away with that!”

“Please! You have to believe me! I wanted no part of this! I’ll do whatever you girls want! Anything you want!”

“…Anything?”

“Anything you want! Name it and it’s yours!”

The ghosts stroked their chins in mock contemplation before dancing around in a circle again and closing in on Ivan, who was curled in a little ball waiting to be murdered. But then the girls picked him up off the ground and made their conditions known. “You want to live, money man? Then you set us free right now. You will not flip this house. You will instead burn it to the ground. No one shall make money off of us again! Nobody! Do you understand?!”

“I…I…I…” Ivan swallowed hard. “I have a gas can and some matches in my truck. As soon as you girls let me go, I’m burning this place to the ground. Just like we promised.”

The next time the girls danced, it was in a celebratory ballet style. They hugged each other and spun around in happiness while Ivan ran past them, up the stairs, and out to his truck to do what he promised.

He scrambled in the back of the pickup truck for that gasoline. He panicked when he almost didn’t find it, but there it was buried underneath the lumber. The matches he got from the glove box. Ivan took a few deep breaths and steadied his nerves before slowly approaching this former rape dungeon to do what he wanted to do all along. He splashed some gasoline on the walls, lit a match, and watched the fire consume the entire house.

Before the fire could get too out of hand, Ivan hopped in the truck and drove away in a hurry, easily doing 80 miles per hour. Sooner or later, someone would call the fire department and the rape dungeon would be nothing more than cooling ashes. Knowing it was all over gave Ivan a sense of relief, therefore he slowed down his driving speed and breathed a sigh of relief. All he needed to do at that point was come up with a little white lie to tell his superiors when they ask him about what happened to both the house and Mickey Ryder.