Christmas Moon Read Free Page B

Anderson, it appeared, was a hoarder. The shelving theme from outside was extended to the inside. Shelves lined the walls, packed with plastic containers, themselves filled with computer parts, cables, and other electronic doodads. Interestingly, not a single book lined his book shelves. The floor was stacked with newspapers and speakers and car radios and old computer towers in various stages of disarray. Boxes were piled everywhere. And not neatly. Dog toys and old bones littered the floor. A huge TV sat in the far corner of the room, draped in a blanket, while a much smaller TV sat next to it, currently showing something science-fictiony. Zombies or robots, or both.
    I was just about to knock on the glass door when a fat little white terrier sprang from the couch and charged me, barking furiously. All teeth and chub. But at the door, it suddenly pulled up, stopped barking, and looked at me curiously. I looked back at it. It cocked its head to one side. I didn’t cock my head.
    Then it whimpered and dashed off.
    As it did so, I heard more movement…the sound of someone getting out of a recliner, followed by Charlie Anderson’s happy-go-lucky, round face.
    He let me in, asking if I’d found the place okay. I assured him I had. Once inside, I could fully appreciate just how much crap Charlie had. And yet…I had a sneaking suspicion that Charlie knew exactly where all his junk was.
    “ Nice place you have here.” I was speaking facetiously, and a little in awe, too.
    But Charlie took it as a real compliment, bless his heart.
    “ Thanks, but it’s just home. I used to worry about cleaning and stuff like that, but I figured what’s the point? My friends call me a hoarder, but I just like junk. I think there’s a difference.”
    “ Sure,” I said.
    He looked at me eagerly. “So, you agree there’s a difference?”
    I could tell he wanted me to agree, to confirm that he didn’t have a hoarding problem, that he was just another guy with thousands of glass jars stacked on a long shelf over his kitchen table. The jars, as far as I could tell, were filled with every conceivable nut and bolt known to man. Thank God they weren’t filled with human hearts. I leaned over. The jar cloest to me was filled with—and I had to do a double take here— bent nails.
    “ Yes,” I said. “There’s a huge difference.”
    Charlie exhaled, relieved. I think we might have just bonded a little. “I think so, too,” he said, nodding enthusiastically . “Would you like a Diet Pepsi?”
    “ I’m okay.”
    “ Water?”
    “ I’m fine. Maybe you can show me where you kept the safe, Charlie?”
    “ Oh, yes. Right this way.”
    He led me through his many stacks of random junk. We even stepped around an old car fender. A fender. Seriously? Laying next to the fender was the upper half of a desk, the half with the doors that no one ever uses. There was no sign of the lower half anywhere. Just the upper. Seriously?
    But there was more. So much more.
    The junk seemed eternal. I already felt lost, consumed. How anyone could live like this, I didn’t know. The junk almost seemed to take on a life of its own, as if it was the real inhabitant of the house, and we were the strangers, the trespassers. Indeed, I could even see the chaotic energy, bright and pulsating, swirling throughout the house. Crazy, frenetic energy that seemed trapped and still-connected to the many inanimate objects.
    Energy, I knew, could attach to an object, especially an object of great importance, and so, really, I wasn’t too surprised to see the spirit of the old woman hanging around an even older-looking piano. Granted, the piano itself was mostly covered in junk, but the old woman didn’t seem to care much about that.
    “ Where did you get this piano?” I asked.
    As I spoke, the old woman, who had mostly been ignoring us, turned and looked at me with some interest.
    Charlie, who was about to lead the way down a narrow hallway, paused, and looked back. “My