Hey there! So, if you’ve been following along, Black House is all up and done. I’ve really come to enjoy putting up a book one chapter at a time, and I hope you’ve gotten a kick out of reading this one. Or, if you’ve been waiting for the full eBooks to be posted so you don’t have to wait around between chapters, your day has finally come!

I’ll be repeating the experiment here in 2025 — novel yet to be chosen — and hope y’all come back to check out another weekly dispatch of fiction from a writer who obviously has too much time on his hands. Until then, here are the download links for Black House: A Novel!

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As has become hallowed tradition, I’ll be posting my novel BLACK HOUSE on this blog one chapter per week in 2024.

44. The Starlight Motel

Motel life had become routine. Picking up his mail at the front desk, Marks waved at Dolores, who worked days behind the front desk. She was a stupid, elderly woman who required three repetitions to answer any question and who had exactly none of the physical skills required for any sort of property management job, but he’d come to regard her with affection because she had never once attempted to lure him into an endless maze of infinite identical rooms, or toyed with him about past sins he only half-remembered.

The motel grounds had become familiar, and he was dreading the day he would have to leave them. The money sewn into his jacket, miraculously still there when he’d checked after escaping the Black House with Dee, had funded a vacation, and he’d used it to rest. To truly rest, to sleep late and eat well (or as well as the bar’s limited menu offered) and not think about survival. He firmed up, his energy skyrocketed, and he no longer resembled a cadaver when he looked in the mirror.

He was down to his final few hundred dollars, though, and it had been months since he’d walked out of the Black House with Dee. He was finally sleeping through the night. It was time to get back to work, find a client, or a job, and re-enter the world. He was oddly at peace with this. As he sorted through his mail, he smiled, catching sight of Dee’s address. She’d written him a few times after discovering to her wide-eyed horror that he didn’t have a cell phone or even an email address. Her handwriting was huge and pressed deeply into the paper, as if writing things out longhand required immense effort.

He pushed his door open, reading how she was enjoying school (not very much) and life with her very distant cousins (not very much either). He could tell, though, that she was happy, or as happy as teen girls ever got, and he felt a sense of pride, and relief. There had been a moment when he feared he’d damned her, killed her—lost her. Several moments, he corrected himself, setting the mail down on the coffee table and kicking his door shut.

He didn’t fool himself that he’d managed to escape with Dee because he was smart. He’d been lucky. The Black House hadn’t really followed any coherent rules, but there had been just enough structure there to make some educated guesses. He wondered if it was normally much more organized, if it was his own muddled brain that had made the House muddled. Maybe people with clear memories and burning regrets experienced a much more tightly focused hell than he had. The only praise he allowed himself was that he’d simply kept at it, doggedly moving from room to room, refusing to just collapse and give up.

He’d rewarded himself by not thinking about Agnes. He hadn’t investigated his own past and identified her, or placed himself missing for several days or weeks at some point in the past. He refused to think about her. However he’d failed the woman who Agnes had been modeled on, he’d let her go, because he knew chasing after her would only result in suffering.

He undressed and ran the shower, shaving and luxuriating in the hot water. For the first time in years, he didn’t feel limited by his lost memories, his lost time. He felt like his brain was working again, firing on all cylinders. The Black House hadn’t been a victory—they’d failed to save Dee’s father, and that made two people Marks had failed to save from that place—but he hadn’t lost Dee, and that was the first thing that felt like a victory in a very, very long time.

He wrapped himself in the thin, itchy cheap robe the motel provided and sat down on the bed. Extracting the last bills from the lining of his coat, he emptied his pockets and did an accounting, down to the scattered pennies. Enough, he thought, for some new clothes, and then he was in the open again, but he’d been living about a sliver above homeless for so long he knew how to work that game. And he felt optimistic. He was sober, for one, and ready to work.

He got dressed. The thin, scratchy feel of his old, worn-out clothes was depressing.

He picked up the mail and extracted Dee’s letter, opening a drawer and placing it in with the others he’d saved. he wasn’t sure why he was keeping them, or what he planned to do with them when he didn’t have a permanent place to live or store anything. He just found he couldn’t simply toss them. He hadn’t read any of them more than once and Dee hadn’t said anything brilliant or notable in any of them, but he liked the fact that someone else in the world knew he existed and thought about him. And he felt like he needed physical evidence of the fact, too.

He knew that very soon she would stop writing. It was inevitable. She meant well, but the letters would start to space out, would become just a few lines saying nothing at all, and would then degenerate into annuals, and finally stop coming at all. He’d made an arrangement with Dolores to have the motel hold any mail that came for him, and he would dutifully take the bus once a month or so and collect any correspondence that came for him. But the fact was Dee was already part of his past, and he of hers, and time erased everything, rubbing its thumb against every line that linked you to someone else until it was gone.

He scanned the rest of the mail, amazed at how quickly you got onto junk mail—

He froze, holding a plain white envelope. The return address read PASSUS, INC., ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE. His hand trembled as he opened it, tearing it roughly. Inside was a standard invoice. It was blank except for a red stamp across the center of the page: OVERDUE. Attached by a single staple was a white business card:

THE BROKER

PASSUS, INC.

Marks closed his eyes and crumpled up the bill.

The Black House had invited him again.

THE END

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Well, kids, that’s it – that’s the end! I’ll post complete eBook files next week, and then try to figure out what in the world I’ll post here until it’s time for the free weekly book in 2025.

As has become hallowed tradition, I’ll be posting my novel BLACK HOUSE on this blog one chapter per week in 2024.

43. The Zelkova Room

“Mr. Marks, I swear to god you are unkillable!”

Marks opened his eyes. He was covered in white dust. He was on the floor. He was holding Dee’s hand; she lay next to him, pancaked in dust. She was facedown, turned towards him, and their eyes met for a second. She squeezed his hand, and then they let go and sat up.

They were in the empty shell of a building. The floor was wide-plank, old-school subflooring, the walls were stripped to the ancient red brick and furring strips. The dust was everywhere, swimming through the air, settling in infinite waves. Wires hung limply from the rafters above, furred with spider webs. It was dark, and cold. There was no sign of the stairs or the opening they’d pulled themselves up through.

In the center of the room was a large, dilapidated chair; an ornate wooden throne, the arms carved into incredibly detailed designs, the headrest an explosion of fine woodwork that had once been painted. The remnants of red cushions clung to the back and the seat. At one point, freshly stained and rubbed with oil, it must have been quite a sight.

Agnes was seated in it, slumped down, her long legs crossed under her skirt.

Marks thought she looked beautiful and finished, as if whatever transformation she’d been undergoing was finally complete. She only resembled the woman he remembered in the vaguest of ways, like a copy of a copy of a copy, each successive run through the cosmic copy machine rendering her lines less distinct, her edges softer, her legs longer.

Dee started coughing. The moment she did, he wanted to join in; his throat was suddenly dry and scratchy, filled with deep grooves and sand. He swallowed and struggled to his feet.

Standing, he could see there was something behind the chair: A small leafy tree, a miniature tree like a bonsai, growing out of the floorboards. It looked like a model of a tree: The thick, gnarled trunk, the delicate branches, the tiny leaves.

“Bravo, Mr. Marks,” Agnes said, miming applause. “It only took you two rounds, but you have succeeded at long last!” She leaned forward. “In the sense that you didn’t kill her this time.”

He looked around. A tiny flame of excitement bloomed; the place had the right dimensions, and looked normal, looked real, like an actual building. He pictured the place he’d stepped into with Dee. It matched up with a mental image of what it would look like gutted, torn out. “Why are you here?”

Agnes affected shock. “Why, to congratulate you, of course, Mr. Marks! And it is also only polite for your host and guide to see you out.” She lifted one elegant arm and indicated the door behind her. “There it is, the exit. Dearest Damnable Dee, please do go; there is much to do here and there is nothing worse than a lingering guest.”

He turned and looked at Dee, who stepped closer to him. After a moment he held out his hand, and she took it. “Worth a try, right?” he said, offering her a careful smile.

“Worth a try,” she said quietly. Then she frowned and turned to look at Agnes. “Marks, too, right?”

Agnes pouted, her face transforming into a mask of false sadness. “I’m injured,” she said. “This experience has hardened you, Delightful Dee, and made you cruel. You are free to go. You escaped the Black House before it collapsed, but now it must bloom again, it must be made ready for the next guest. You have my word, whatever that is worth, that you are free to go. Merrily Moribund Marks, however, has an obligation to remain.”

Marks looked down at his feet and his ruined shoes.

Dee reached up and grabbed his collar, trying to drag him down to her height. “Why? What does she mean?”

Agnes shrugged. “There are rules. That is the structure of the universe. Everything must obey rules, and this place is no exception.” She smiled, gorgeous, too many teeth, too white, too wide. “If it is any consolation, Mr. Marks, if you had been just a second or two slower, you both would have been crushed and trapped forever, as have thousands before you. So, bravo to you! BRAVO!”

“How many get out?” he asked, stalling for time. He looked at Dee. She peered up at him intensely, still clinging to his jacket.

“Not many. A few.” Agnes gestured again. “Go on, now, Dee. Don’t be like a beaten dog who refuses to leave out of pathetic loyalty.” She cocked her head at Marks and slowly settled again, smiling. “Ah, I see. You still do not fully remember her.”

He swallowed dust and stale air. “I remember enough.”

She winked. “But not all of it.” She sighed, prettily, and made a show of arranging her dress. “Did you love her? Did she love you? Did she trust you, as Dear Darling Dee does? You were a drunk, then, were you incompetent? Did you save yourself and let her rot?”

“Is she still in there?”

Agnes paused and looked at her lap. “You wish to know?” She looked up, impish. “Really? You will have the time to find out. Unencumbered by silly, empty-headed little girls like Delightful Dee. You will have nothing but time to seek the truth.”

He stared back at her for a few moments, then dropped his gaze. He pulled gently on Dee’s arm. “Go on,” he said.

She didn’t move for a moment, then let go of his jacket and took his hand in hers. “Don’t let go,” she whispered, and turned, pulling him after her.

The door looked right, too. He was surprised at how faded his memory of arriving at the place had become, but that was the way his memory worked, ever since his Lost Years, years spent in bars, drinking compulsively, obliterating days and weeks and months, all of it a blur. Nothing stuck, nothing stayed clear for long.

He turned and looked back at Agnes as Dee led him forward. “What happens to you?”

She smiled. He thought it was almost a sad smile. Almost.

“I will be here, of course, in a sense. I am your guide, Mr. Marks. You will leave and the Black House will reset, and I will still be here—but I will be different, in every way.”

“Do you remember?”

Her smiled faded. “Some.”

“So we have something in common.”

For a moment she looked disturbed by this, the slight downturn of her perfect features implying a frown. Then she recovered, laughing, throwing her head back. Her laugh was musical.

“Do not fret, Mild Mannered Marks. Do not worry for me. We shall see each other again. You will forget. You will forget. We will try again.”

Dee dragged him towards the door.

He swallowing hard, still looking at Agnes. “How many times have I been here?”

Agnes shook her head and looked away, as if preoccupied with something on the far wall. Marks stood his ground for a few moments, then allowed himself to be pulled towards the door, turning, his face ashen.

The door opened. Easily, naturally, and the street was beyond it, as it had been. It was raining, and cold.

Dee paused and for a moment they stood framed in it, holding hands.

“Go on,” he said. “I’ve got a debt to pay.”

Dee nodded. “Don’t let go,” she said again, and stepped forward.

Marks didn’t move, but he found himself dragged forward as if greased. As Dee marched through the doorway, he slid behind her, pulled along in her gravity well.

Behind them, he heard the rustle of skirts. “What? Mr. Marks! Mr. Marks you have an obligation! You have agreed to terms!”

As Dee pulled him through the doorway, he could feel heat and hear noise building up behind him, and he closed his eyes as they were replaced by the cold and the damp and the feeling of open space, infinite and exploding outwards in every direction at once, the smell of the city and the real world he’d thought he’d lost.

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