the series of r/nosleep | volume one: the {smile} series

{K}eg

Story was too long so I had to post it in comments. Sorry.

The car pulled off a sideroad and down a dirt path that seemed to end in a tunnel of trees. "Is this the place?" I asked from the backseat. Neither Bo or Kaitlyn said anything. I took another sip from my beer and tried to not to grimace from the taste. I didn't do so well.

"Still being a little wuss, huh Farah?" Bo sneered into the rearview mirror.

Kaitlyn turned around and put a hand on my knee. "Y'know, you have to fake it if you don't like it, Far. How else will the boys ever like you?" She winked at me and put a hand in Bo's crotch. The Oldsmobile swerved off the road for a second, kicking up rocks and dirt.

"Maybe I don't care if they like me," I muttered.

"Huh?"

"Nothing." I stared out the window into eternal blackness. "I thought the country was supposed to have stars."

"Not when it's cloudy," Bo said. "Don't worry, they'll have a few gennys at the house. There will be lights and -"

"And music?" Kaitlyn asked. "'Cause I wanna dance!" She shouted the last part out the front window; the warm night air blew her hair back in a flag of blues and pinks. Sometimes I wondered how we were related.

"Sure," said Bo. "You can dance all you want. There it is." The one headlight of the Cutlass sliced dark shadows across a slanted structure. It was two stories high with the middle collapsing down on itself like a massive dimple. The exterior was charred to a charcoal finish, and reflected some of the light in a muted refraction of greys and blacks.

"Where are we?" I asked. The late spring air coming through the open window turned cold under the canopy of trees.

"I donnu," Bo said. "Some townie's house. Burned down a couple nights ago."

"But what about the cops?"

"But what about the cops?" Kaitlyn mimicked me. "God, you are so lame, Far." She pulled the handle on the door and kicked it open; her laugh harmonizing with the squeaking hinge.

Bo turned around in his seat. "It's going to be okay. The place was practically deserted before it burnt down. There was just some old guy living here. He set fire to the place himself. The cops came and went already. Steven said they're tearing it down next week."

"Steven?" I felt my face turn red.

"Yeah," said Bo with a wink. "He's here. This was his idea." He looked out the windshield to the front of the car where Kaitlyn was twirling in the single lamp's spotlight. Her 30 ft shadow danced on top of the house behind her. One white moth fluttered about her hair like a an escaped ash from a flame. "Let's go, okay? It's going to be fun, I promise." He kicked open the door and flipped off the headlight. Kaitlyn stopped twirling and pouted in the darkness.

"Fun. Right," I said to myself. I climbed out of the car and left my beer in the backseat. The interior light blinked out as I shut the door and I was immediately cast into a claustrophobic swath of blackness. I froze in my tracks, the damp air coating my bare legs and causing me to shiver. Gooseflesh rippled up my arms and I could feel something breathing on my neck. I was about to scream when a faint light flicked on from my right side.

"Hey, Farah," said a voice behind me. He was so close I could feel his lips move on the nape of my neck.The light flipped over revealing a cellphone that shone down and barely lit an overgrown dirt path. "You've gotta be careful out here in the dark."

"Hi, Steven," I said.

One arm wrapped around my chest from behind and pulled me into him. He kissed my cheek and then let me go. "I'm glad you came."