Broken Dynamite

TNT makes explosions, but how can it be so deadly when it’s not in the form of dynamite?

Thiago, Nolan, and Trystan Melrose (TNT) are swallowed by boredom while they lounge in the basement. 

Light, spaced-out banging fills the room as Thiago’s ping pong ball bounces back and forth from the wall- now propped up. Nolan lay on the sofa, fiery mischief coursing through his eyes, and he bounces a ball off the scraped ceiling. And Trystan, sitting with locked shoulders at the desk, scrunches his eyebrows more and more with each SAT practice test page he turns. 

“I got a 1430,” he says, outraged. “Can you believe that?”

Thiago turns and his ping pong ball falls to the carpet and rolls underneath the couch. 

“Oh, stop your whining,” Nolan scoffs; the hint of Italian in his voice reminds Thiago of dad. “It’s better than my score from last year.”

Trystan faces Nolan. “That’s because you’re stupid,” he says.

Thiago almost lets out a chuckle but pushes it down his throat once he sees Nolan’s lips that flourish with seriousness. 

“I’m sure it’s not that bad,” Thiago interjects, trying to release some of the tension contaminating the space. “And plus, you’ve only been studying for a week.”

“It’s good compared to . . . some people,” he eyes Nolan who’s now popping a pimple on his chin. “And it’s not even like I’m failing all around,” he flips through the sheets one more time. “790 in Evidence-Based Reading & Writing and a freaking 640 in Math. For UPenn to accept me, especially as a pre-med,” Trystan adds before burying his face in his hands, “I’m going to have to boost my math score by at least 70 points. 

Nolan coughs, slipping a “nerd” in the middle. 

Trystan shifts angrily in his chair, a yell being conjured in his throat. “Can you-” he starts but is cut off by a loud screech. 

“What was that?” Nolan asks with hesitancy and turns his head in all directions, as though the sound was born within the house. “Did someone break in?”

“Chill out,” Thiago laughs, not sure whether he should be afraid or amused. “I think it came from outside,” he says while pointing to the second basement door leading outside. “It must’ve been a car.”

Barely two seconds after Thiago speaks, N0lan jumps up from the couch and runs to the shaft stairs. “Let’s go check it out,” he says, not as a request but an order. 

“Whatever. I’m in,” Trystan accesses, neatly stacking his pages against the wall and letting out a sigh. Thiago’s confident the only reason Trystan’s agreed to the excursion is so he can have an excuse to stop studying. 

As he stands there as his two older brothers make their way to the shaft, he wants to escape; he wants to run upstairs and never look back, but his feet seem to be stuck, plastered to the carpet in between his toes. 

“Ugh, Not this again,” Nolan complains after he looks back to see Thiago in the same spot he was in five seconds ago. 

“I always hate this part,” Trystan adds, almost as annoyed as Nolan which sits wrong with Thiago for some reason. 

“I don’t want to go,” Thiago says firmly, knowing his words mean nothing as Nolan approaches him. 

Nolan towers over him, his blue eyes flashing while a menacing grin spreads across his face. He’s intimidating Thiago, and it’s working- just like it did before. Barely moments before Thiago feels like his skin will melt off, Nolan looks back to Trystan and laughs. 

“Ok. Your loss,” he says, still cackling, and then runs over the shaft and climbs up the stairs, Trystan following. 

How long will he be able to put up this front?

How long before he gives in?

If only he wasn’t so afraid of this house and the things hiding within it

He stammers in his shoes like his lips are just dying to burst open and spew words. 

He bites his lip, and bursts out, “Fine!” his anger being visible in the air. “I’ll come.”

Nolan smiles wickedly. “Now that’s better. I knew you wouldn’t want to be left with . . . them.”

Thiago looks up at the ceiling and he can feel the stomach acid bubbling inside of him. Before he has a chance to take a breath, he’s climbing up the stairs so fast his hands rub against Nolan and Trystan’s sneakers.

~

They go out on the lawn, the sun blaring in their faces, and crouch behind a bush. 

They all look around, especially Thiago since the sooner they find the noise, the sooner they can all relax and go back inside. 

“Hey, guys! I think it came from there,” Trystan points to the house at the top of the cul de sac. The house is white, but could be considered tan by all the rust forming on the deck. The windows are stained and the porch stairs seem uneasy, like wind could finish them off. 

An old man with falling hair, maybe mid-70s, stands out on the lawn, looking at something or someone behind the tall trees in his backyard. 

No one’s been in that house for decades. It all started off as childish rumors that it was haunted, but people soon realized no one was scared of the house as much as they were appalled by how run-down it looks. 

What could a guy like that want with this house?

A big moving truck stands in the driveway. 

“Holy shit!” Nolan says, all three of them thinking the same thing.

He’s moving in.

“Let’s go check it out,” Nolan grins, coming out from under the bush, but hauled back down by Thiago’s arm dragging him.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Thiago whispers through gritted teeth. 

“We’re gonna go in the house,” he responds seriously.

Thiago looks over at Trystan who matches his expression.

“Yeah, Nolan, I’m not too sure about this one. He’s just trying to move in,” Trystan says, not taking his eyes off the house. 

“Exactly!” Nolan snaps back. “Which is why this is the perfect chance to go in and see the place. Do you know how cool it’d be to say we went in there?”

A few moments pass where Thiago holds onto faith that Trystan will back down so at least both of them could go back inside with or without Nolan, but I already see his answer through his eyes of contemplation.

“Whatever. Let’s go,” Trystan gives in, popping out from the bush too. 

Before he knows it, Thiago has risen as well and is following them while an invisible weight pulls at him. 

~

“Let’s just be quick,” Thiago says, trying to sound confident but it comes out deflated.

He feels a shiver rush through him as they stand at the side of the house, the white, rusty exterior more gruesome up close. 

Thoughts flood Thiago’s mind and freeze the edges of his skull. It’s like his own brain wants him to leave. 

What if the man catches them?

What if he calls the police?

They’ll be able to get away with this for so long until one fun idea turns catastrophic.

Could this be the one? Thiago asks himself. 

“How do you actually plan to get into this dump?” Trystan asks, squinting at the matted dirt that might have been a garden by the random, inconsistent holes. There’s also a random indent shaped like an “x” etched into the soil.

Odd, Thiago thinks.

“Up there,” Nolan answers with pride. They all look up at the second-floor window Nolan’s hand is pointed at. 

What if he falls? 

What if the man catches them as they try to climb?

What if the window’s locked and all of this has been a waste?

“You first,” Nolan orders, both Trystan and Nolan now staring at him which snaps Thiago out of his trance, but the crippling fear still erupts inside of him. 

“Why me?!’ 

“You’re the lightest, and when you’re through the window, you’ll be able to lift Trystan with me, and then both of you will pick me up,” says Nolan. 

~

The Melrose brothers stand in a room filled with old antiques. A queen-sized bed stands next to them, covered in a whole, country-side duvet, and a dresser is situated to their right, filled with Russian nesting dolls. 

As Trystan and Nolan are already searching through the drawers for valuables, Thiago notices a Russian flag and the same “x” from the garden plastered on the dresser corner.

The man must be Russian, he assumes. 

“Nothing in here,” Nolan says, frustrated, and closes the drawers while Trystan- who already gave up searching five minutes ago- leans against the door to keep lookout. “You know the drill,” he says, “Next room.”

~

The hallway wallpaper seems to crack with each step they take. The next room, to their surprise, contains a Swedish flag on the ceiling along with toy baguettes that you might give to a dog. 

“I thought he was Russian,” Trystan whispers, looking around in half-disgust and half-admiration. 

“Maybe he’s from both places,” Nolan suggests.

But Thiago doesn’t say anything. It’s as though the room is sucking all the words and air from his throat. 

~

After what seems like hours of searching, the brothers don’t find anything within the room. At least nothing that’s a Swedish valuable. 

“Basement next,” Nolan says. 

They creep down the stairs, the floor below as dark as Thiago’s insides. The feeling he felt within the Russian room and the Swedish room has only intensified, and he thinks for a moment that his intestines are being squeezed and thrown around by an invisible hand. 

On the way down, he manages to sneak a glimpse out the window where the old man was still standing, except his view has now shifted from the trees to the garden Thiago and his brothers were standing over just a few minutes ago. 

As Thiago steps off the final step, he and Trystan have to squint their eyes to see, but Nolan doesn’t seem to notice the lack of light in the room.

A wretched smell overtakes his nostrils and sends him sprawling five feet back. 

“What is that smell?!” Nolan screams, covering his nose. 

“Shhh!” Thiago and Trystan rush simultaneously and look up at the ceiling, hoping the man can’t hear them. 

“Maybe we should just leave. I don’t think anything worth stealing would be down here with this smell.” Thiago says, rubbing his chilly elbows. 

Nolan’s eyes flash across the room while speculation fills his face. “Okay, okay. We can leave after we check this place out a little bit more.”

“How can you even do that with the smell. I feel like the air is punching us or something,” Trystan says as he wafts the space in front of him. 

Nolan doesn’t respond. He sniffs and walks in the direction of what Thiago assumes is wherever the smell is coming from. Thiago and Trystan tail him, not sure how far he and his brother should venture into the depths of the basement.

They turn right of the stairs, and next to Nolan, a thin, string-like cord hangs. 

It must be a light switch 

But something about the chord prickles the hairs on Thiago’s arm. He looks toward the circular peal that sticks to the bottom end of the chord, and there, before his eyes, lies a black “x”.

As Nolan goes to pull it, Thiago looks up at the ceiling and sees the other end of the string connected to a wooden shaft the size of the window the three of them squeezed into. 

That isn’t a light, the thought echoes inside of him. 

“NOLAN! NO!” Thiago screams, reaching out.

But it’s too late. Nolan pulls the shaft and looks back at Thiago with confusion. 

All Thiago can do is stare at it as it unravels before him, with eyes of deepest regret. The shaft flies open and gallons of dirt fall into the small basement and flood their feet. 

At the last second, something else falls and a feeling of deep hollowness fills Thiago’s chest, as though he’s been stabbed. 

Someone, dirty and rugged, effortlessly tumbles from the opening and scrambles across the floor, with loose limbs. 

The brothers don't move, each petrified with what they just saw, despite this not being the first time they’ve seen a dead body. Thiago doesn’t even have to stare into the eyes of the woman- whose skin is pale and eerie- because he knows they’ll be blank and foggy. 

“We need to leave,” Nolan commands, friction in his voice like flames are rising up his esophagus. 

Before they take another step, another body falls- a man this time. Then another, and another, until the basement is littered with dead men and women. 

“What is that?” Trystan says shakily, his words barely understandable. He points to one of the bodies: a fairly decomposed man who looks like he was in his late-30s around the time of death. 

Thiago squints, trying to see what Trystan’s pointing out while limiting how much of the corpse he has to view. 

There, on the man’s wrists, lies faint marker lines: white red, and blue.

The Russian flag. 

Less fear inside of him, but more bewilderment, Thiago glances through each body, a different European country’s flag on every individual wrist. He soon spots the Swedish flag and it dawns on him. 

He voices it aloud, not even aware he’s speaking. “The man isn’t Russian or Swedish. Each room in the house is dedicated to someone he’s murdered.”

And in that moment, with Nolan and Trystan’s terror-struck eyes on him, he has a feeling they’ll be next. 

Upstairs, he hears the front door slam open, then shut. Without hesitation, the three brothers start for the stairs, Nolan leading. 

Hot, white ice rushes through Thiago’s brain. 

How could he have let this happen?

How will they make it out?

They get to the bottom of the stairs where the door opens and the old man, with eyes of cold murder and age, stares upon them. In his right arm, a knife, and in his left a gun. 

In a second, not enough for one of them to take a breath, the man raises the gun and all Thiago can do is close his eyes. The bullet blares in his ears, everything ringing, and he looks up to see Nolan, eyes oddly familiar, staring into nothing as a red pool spreads through his chest. 

His brother is dead. 

And they would be next.

Maybe it’s the universe’s payback. For what they did two months ago. Despite the crippling horror filling Thiago’s stomach, he knows they deserve it. He knows this is the only way to make it right. 

The man points the pistol towards Thiago, then falters before aiming it at a new target: Trystan. He shoots, Thiago’s ears now vibrating so violently, he feels as though his skull will rip in half. 

He can’t recall what happens next, except for deep pain radiating in his stomach before petrifying darkness consumes him. 

###

2 months have passed since that day. The October Colorado air is still, leaves of yellow and brown floating across yards. The neighbors still wonder what happened to the three brothers due to the cul de sac’s sudden tranquility that felt like a curse. 

Little do they know, four months ago, Mr. and Mrs. Melrose had been murdered by their own sons, their bodies stashed in the house attic. A fight broke out between Nolan and Mr. Melrose which ended with the boys’ father tumbling over the banister and cracking his skull below. Nolan swore it was an accident, but the brothers only helped him kill their mother because they were scared if it wasn’t her, it would be them. 

And little do they know, only 2 months ago, on a late summer afternoon, the three brothers were murdered inside a foreign, run-down house the neighborhood feels reluctant to talk about, their bodies concealed in the basement shaft but first buried in the side garden the Melrose br0thers had entered through. 

It took the old man barely any time before he constructed a room just for them, the Italian flag soaring over a Tower of Pisa replica. He always loved European culture. 

The old man hated how much guilt he felt for finally putting an end to the Melrose bloodline. He sometimes visited them in the garden, spoke to them, but never once did he apologize. 

Why he did this?

Who’s to say?

That’s for your own interpretation.

But as the man watched Nolan, then Trystan, and finally, Thiago wither away in front of him, he slept in the Italian room. 

The souls of the three brothers cursed at him, similar in hate, but divided in death, just like they were in life.