Moist House by Kate Folk, 2022
The magic trick:
Blending the toxic modern male mentality with the old “real agent with a deal too good to be true” trope
A scary weekend double from Kate Folk’s excellently scary Out There collection.
These are not ghost stories or anything resembling traditional horror tales. They’re really just stories about what it’s like to be a young adult in the 2020s. Yes, there are some magical realism oddities. But, honestly, the 2020s are scary enough on their own without any drastic dashes of the macabre.
“Moist House” uses the “landlord with a real estate deal that seems too good to be true” trope to expert effect. It’s suspenseful and unsettling as you might expect that trope to be. But it also gets to the heart of the toxic modern male in a way I haven’t seen explored elsewhere in a short story.
And that’s quite a trick on Folk’s part.
The selection:
“I can keep the house moist.”
“You say that now.”
Karl shifted in his seat, noting that the office was cold. The room was empty, walls unadorned, scarred desktop bereft of computer or phone, and Karl wondered how long Franco had worked out of this space. He’d been referred here by his mother, who now lived in Argentina with her younger boyfriend, a retired soccer star who modeled in billboard ads for vitamin supplements and sweat-wicking sportswear. Karl’s mother had known Franco’s father in the seventies, in Berkeley, her radical days. When she and Karl last spoke on the phone, she referenced this man in the misty, oblique way she employed when recalling a former lover.
Franco had brought out a thin manila folder and was examining a document inside it. “I won’t charge you rent,” he said.
Karl was taken aback. “Thank you so much.”
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