Pest House

It was supposed to be fun. Just an overnight out with a few of my friends. With the corona virus and everything, it wasn’t like we could do the things we would normally do on Halloween like: collect candy, egg a few middle schoolers or toilet paper someone’s house. Well, in hindsight I guess we still could have but we would have stuck out when there were no other people roaming the streets. Our town was kind of a drag before the virus, but things got some much more boring. 

When Pete came up with the idea, I immediately had a bad feeling about it but peer pressure is a bitch. I went along with it because Bobby and Travis said they would go. I regret that decision now. Man, how I regret that decision. 

Pete thought it would be a great idea to go to Pest House Cemetery, a graveyard for 19th century smallpox victims. Built sometime in the 1800’s, people in Provincetown built the place to put the people who contracted the virus and added a small cemetery to hold the bodies of those who died from smallpox. They believed it would help to prevent the disease from spreading. Numbered markers being the only thing to identify the graves of the dead. 

Back in those days, these places were called pestilence houses or lovingly known as “pest houses”, were built far from the larger community and treated victims of the deadly disease. At this small Cape pest house, 14 people died from the disease.

The actual pest house is physically still standing but barely. After its use, no one bothered to concern themselves with upkeep or renovations. Makes sense though, I mean who in their right mind would want to keep an old home that housed smallpox patients? The cemetary was dilapidated too, overrun by weeds and foliage, especially in late October New England. 

We learned about all this in school this year. Remote learning was trash, but our history teacher recently gave a few lessons in the spirit of Halloween, telling us all about spooky and historic places that were scattered across New England.

A couple days passed before Pete suggested it.  He thought the connection between the corona virus and smallpox would only add to the creepiness. Travis and Bobby responded right away with a hell yeah! Text. 

I didn’t want to go but my phone kept buzzing, inundated with messages. 

Don’t be a bitch, bro!

You scared? 

Just tell your mom you’re sleeping over my house! 

Come on! 

Loser! 

Don’t be so lame. 

The text thread had over 40 messages before I finally -and reluctantly- agreed. 

We had a simple plan. Pete would tell his parents that he was spending the evening at my house, I’d say I was at Pete’s. Travis and Bobby would do the same. Pete was going to drive us there, which was only about a 30 minute drive to the location on the outer cape. We’d go and explore the grounds and find the 14 markers. Then we’d go inside the pestilence house, look around -carefully and with these super bright industrial flashlights Travis would bring from his father’s workshop- then sleep in Pete’s car. 

On Halloween day, we got a text from Travis. Can’t go. Sorry. 

He gave us no explanation and didn’t respond to our texts about why or if we could still use his flashlights so we had to get some from my little brother. The only thing he had were these lame FisherPrice lights that blinked and changed colors. That should have been a sign.

Then Bobby texted. I am not coming. 

Again, no explanation as to what or why he was backing out. I wanted to and was articulating to myself my excuses so that I could bail on Pete, but then Pete texted me separately, Glad you didn’t chicken out, too! Let’s do this bro. 

Maybe it’s my need to please or my fear of falling out of grace with the coolest guy in school. Nonetheless, I went with him. 

That was the biggest mistake of my entire life. 

We arrived just as the sun was setting. The air smelled like soil and leaves. There was something else too, but I couldn’t figure it out. In hindsight, I think it was the smell of death. 

We got out of Pete’s Honda Civic and walked around to this woodsy path that was engulfed in trees. A sign reading “KEEP OUT” was nailed to a tree and written in a brownish-red paint. About 50 yards in a wooden shack, barely erect, was at the corner of a small grass field. The field was littered with leaves, trees and these gnarly vines that looked more like serpent monsters coiled around the posts. The entire area was surrounded completely by forests. 

Pete hopped over a knee height wooden fence that cupped the grounds. “This is so dope!” Pete said walking carefully through the burial grounds. 

The vines had thorns that jutted out like tiny black blades. When I looked closer, the vines were covered in these fleshy bubbles, or what looked like pus-filled boils all over them. I told Pete, and he poked one with his finger. A slimy brown liquid splashed on his hand. It smelled like vomit mixed with human shit. It was pretty gross. 

Pete thought it was funny. “Smell my finger, bro!” 

I didn’t. 

We continued through the darkness, exploring all of the graves, which were in no type of order. They seemed to just be scattered all around in a random fashion with no rhyme or reason. 

Eventually, we found all 14 and then a 15th. 

“Dude, I thought Mrs. Planter said there were 14 graves?”

“She did.” Pete answered me, as he touched another pus bubble with his other finger. 

“That’s fifteen, dude.”

“No way. You must have counted wrong.” 

“Dude, I’m telling you, look.” 

I pointed out to him the other 14 which were easy to spot now that I knew where they were. 

The first 14 were just decomposed bits of wood, barely protruding from the ground. 

But the 15th was different. The wood looked newer, like only a couple of months old. Maybe years, but definitely not two centuries old.  And it was fashioned like a cross. The others could have been crosses too, at some point, but this one was still intact. The soil around it was especially soft and moist, as if it had rained recently but it hadn’t and it had that same smell as the bubbles on the thorny vines. 

Pete pressed his foot against the soil making a squishy sound. “Dude, it feels like wet playdoh.” He said laughing. 

“We should go.” I tried to sound like I was intelligent and brave, but I know it came out cowardly. 

“Why? This place is so cool. The sun is almost down. We can go inside and be freaked the fuck out, man. Let’s do this!”

I didn’t want to. I should have left even if it meant walking home. 

But I didn’t. 

The sun setting cast an eerie glow to the graveyard. The last bits of light struggled to push through the dense trees, providing us with only slivers of reds and yellows. The air temperature dropped just enough to make our hoodies feel underdressed. 

“Let’s go inside now!” Pete rushed toward the door, not being careful where he was running. 

His jeans snagged on a large thorn and it tore through them like a razor. “Oww!” 

He hopped a few steps and fell on the walkway to the front door of the pestilence house. He looked down and saw that the thorn had cut a thin slice from his shin to the back of his calf that was bleeding more than I thought it should. 

“We should really consider getting that checked out.” I said to him, hoping the injury would help me to convince him to leave. 

“What the fuck are you talking about, bro? It’s a scratch.” 

It wasn’t a scratch. 

He got to his feet, nursing his leg as he stepped up the rickety two steps that led to the door.

Pete grabbed the handle, and before I could object, he turned the knob and shoved his shoulder into the door forcing it open with a terrifying crack that sounded like the entire house was going to collapse on itself. A cloud of dust escaped from the room like it was waiting desperately for someone to open the door.

“Shit!” I said, stepping back. 

The smell of rotten wood, animal shit and dust filled my nostrils. I held my breath and followed him into the single floor wooden box. 

“Sick, bro.” 

The room was bare except for 15 wooden beds strategically placed around the perimeter of the room. Stained sheets still draped over the beds. Two high chests were on opposite ends of the room. The foggy, stained glass in the doors made it obvious that they were old fashioned medicine cabinets. Syringes and glass bottles were scattered inside covered in a thick layer of dust. 

“Ok. We can go now.” The room was giving me anxiety. The smell, low beams and darkness inside was beginning to make my heart race. 

“Relax,” Pete said, flicking the toy flashlight on. The color was set to red, which did absolutely nothing to make the space few better. Pete loved it. “Now we're talking.” 

Pete placed the light between his legs and reached into his pocket pulling out a pre-rolled joint. 

“Dude? Really?”

“Shit will be lit man! Come on.” He sparked it up and took a deep drag. “Shit!” 

He was looking at his hands.

“What?” I asked. 

“Look at my hand.” He said, extending his left hand to me and holding the light so I could examine it, joint dangling from his mouth. 

Small boils were forming at his finger and running down the back of his hands. 

“Dude we should get you to the hospital.” 

Pete took another drag ignoring my statement.  “They itch, bro.”

“Let’s get out of here.”

Pete looked at his other hand which was festering even worse. “Dude.” 

He finally showed fear. So was I. I stepped back. “Ok man. Let’s just go to the car and we can get you to a hospital. Probably just an infection.” 

“I don’t feel good.” He said, stumbling and falling to the ground. The light rolled in a circle, finally resting on his face. 

His face was covered in white, pus-filled blisters that were shaking and ready to burst. 

“Oh my God! We got to go, bro!”

“I can’t see anything man!” 

I grabbed the light and held it up to his face. The blisters were on his eyes. His skin was moving, bubbling all over like molten lava. A blister in his eye popped when he blinked. He screamed in agony as a brown slimy liquid oozed from the now open sore. 

“Help me bro! Please!” 

But I couldn’t touch him. I was too scared to touch him. I backed up slowly, as he clawed his way around the floor leaving a trail of brown slime everywhere he moved. 

“Help me! Michael! Please! God, please!!” 

He smelled like a sewer and his hair was peeling off his body. 

“I-I-I-I can’t! I can’t!” I cried. 

Pete’s body looked like a pile of bubbly nastiness, oozing and smelling rotten. 

He started to cough and vomit black mucus splashed onto the wooden floor.I turned, opened the door and ran. 

I’m not proud of that decision but I did it. I ran all the way to Pete’s car. I looked back once and fell scraping my knee on the walkway. I heard something drop but I didn’t care what it was. I got back to my feet and I never looked back. 

I reached his car, sweating and panting like I ran a marathon. My heart was pounding. I tried to open the doors but they were locked. Where were the keys? 

Pete had them.

I thought to myself should I go back and get them from him? 

Then I remembered my phone. I reached into my pocket but it wasn’t there. I must have dropped it. That was the noise I heard. 

I had to go back. Or run home, which I did seriously consider but without my phone, I wouldn’t even know which direction to start. 

Ultimately, I went back. For my phone or the keys whichever I found first. I came down the walkway, slowly, the darkness making it hard to see anything. When I reached the place I thought I fell, I looked around but couldn’t find the phone. I used the flashlight but there was nothing but debris. 

And a thorny, boil filled vine. 

Terrified, I looked down at my hands to check if I had cut myself on it or popped one of those disgusting bubbles. 

I looked ok but I was done with the Pest house. I ran inside the house and it smelled so awful I threw up all over the floor. In a pile of steaming pus, -what used to be- Pete took shallow breaths, dying in the center of the room. 

I went over to him slowly, and using the flashlight, tried to determine what wet pocket the keys were in. I figured in the front right. Sliding my hand into my sleeve, I reached down to grab the keys with my covered hand. 

As I entered his wet pocket, he moved and moaned. He reached for my arm but I grabbed the keys and pulled back barely avoiding his contact but it caused me to hit the floor on my ass. 

“H-h-h-help m-m-m-me.” He mumbled, his face a disfigured mess of bubbles and boiled leaking thick snot-textured brown fluids and what looked like oil from his mouth. 

“I-I-I-I can’t!” And I got to my feet and ran as fast as I could to his car. 

When I got there, I dropped the keys trying to unlock the door. I reached down to pick them up and noticed a smell coming from my knee. I pulled back the ripped part of my jeans and there they were. 

Boils pussing and bursting with a brown liquid. 

I got into the car in a panic. “No, no, no!” 

I check the visor mirror. The boils were on my cheek now and my hands were starting to itch and swell. 

“No!” I shoved the key into the ignition and drove as fast as I could to Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis, which took me forever without my phone for GPS.

I could barely walk by the time I walked into the ED. As soon as the nurse saw me, her eyes bulged and she screamed at me not to move...