Hellhole by Gina Damico

wouldn’t get too greedy, if I were you.” He balled up the empty Cheetos bag and hurled it at him.
    Max caught it, frowning. “Hey, where did you get all these snacks? We didn’t have any in the house.” He picked up one of the empty boxes on the table. “Devil Dogs?”
    Burg snickered. “Couldn’t resist. Been a while since I got my plunder on.”
    Max squeezed the box. “You stole these?”
    â€œYes. Fun fact: Your local grocery store doesn’t have any security cameras.”
    â€œYou just sauntered right in and took them?”
    â€œWell, I could have burst through the wall like the Kool-Aid Man, but I wouldn’t want to cause a scene, would I? Seems like word travels fast in this shithole town of yours.”
    â€œWhat is the matter with you? You can’t just go around stealing whatever you want!” Max shouted in a spectacular display of hypocrisy. “I suppose you expect my gift of a house to be stolen too?”
    â€œYep,” Burg said with no trace of sarcasm. He turned back to the television. “I can only utilize things obtained through ill-gotten means. Like this cable you’re pirating, for instance.”
    Max bristled. That had been his mom’s doing, and he’d always been uncomfortable with it. But the cable company hadn’t caught on for years—how could this guy tell after an hour? “But the TV and Xbox aren’t stolen!” Max countered. “I paid good money on Craigslist for those!”
    â€œWell, whoever you bought them from didn’t.”
    â€œSo? That shouldn’t count!”
    Burgundy held up his hand and tilted it back and forth. “We devils love dealing in gray areas. It’s kind of our thing.”
    Max clenched his fists to his sides and stormed out of the den into the unfinished area of the basement, the part used by his mom for storage and by him as a workshop for his dinosaur-related geekery. He needed to think.
    â€œThere has to be a way out of this,” he quietly said to himself. “How many
Law and Order
reruns have you watched with Mom? You just need to get him on a technicality, find a crack in his—”
    He stopped as his eyes fell on a dusty green lump in the corner.
    â€œYes,”
he whispered, doing that making-a-fist-and-pulling-the-elbow-downward move that is supposed to symbolize victory but only made him look like an eight-year-old.
    When he returned to the den, Burg was talking to the television again. “You used
frozen
scallops?” he shouted at the hapless chef on the screen. “Are you
trying
to lose?”
    â€œAhem,” Max said.
    Burg turned to look at him. “What do you want?”
    Max tossed the green nylon bag to the floor, where it landed with a metallic clang. “I found you a home.”
    Burg’s lip curled. “What is that?”
    â€œIt’s a Coleman Elite Sundome, complete with hinged-door system and rainfly.”
    â€œA what?”
    Max smirked. “A tent.”
    The smirk might have been too much, because Burg’s face abruptly changed into that of a full-fledged, terrifying demon. He stood up, the frame of his body stretching as he did. His chest got broader. The tips of his horns punctured the ceiling tiles, sending bits of crackled plaster to the floor.
    â€œA tent,” Burg growled, displaying a mouth full of sharp, sharklike teeth, “is not a house.”
    Max felt that he would very soon need to change his pants, but for the moment he stayed strong and maintained eye contact. “Well,” he said, his voice quivering, “you didn’t say ‘house.’ Not at first. You said, and I quote, ‘Until you find me some shelter of my own, you’re responsible for sharing yours.’
Shelter.
Which, according to Webster’s crossword dictionary, can mean habitat, abode, digs, or, um, tent.”
    Burg exhaled smoke.
    â€œ
And
it’s stolen,”