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GLOWING EYES, chapter nine.
⠀⠀⠀NEIBOLT WAS SOMETHING STRAIGHT OUT OF A HORROR MOVIE.⠀⠀⠀ The windows were boarded up with slender, rotting slats of wood, barely covering the cracks in the windows created by years of torment from Derry children and rocks thrown from dirt-covered hands. It was sagging as if it had a weight on its shoulders, like the air was too heavy with darkness and fear that it had slowly crumbled under the pressure. Ivy had grown up the walls and died; the corpses now brown and hanging limply, trying to cling onto the last threads of hope, not realising that all of it was gone.
Twisted, bare trees curved to the sky like the fingers of witches, pointing accusing fingers at the children stood just before the crooked fence. Swallowing her fear and planting her feet firmly on the concrete, Rue noticed the bold contrast of life against the bleak backdrop of death, Bill and his bright red flannel looking like a fishing boat in an unforgiving storm.
After riding on the back of Stan's bike the girl became disoriented, her limited vision making the house curve in the light of the afternoon. The trees were reaching for her, she saw them pointing and whispering and taunting - until the rest of her friends dropped their bikes to the floor and begun storming into the front lawn of the haunted house. Stumbling over her own feet, Stan was quick to hold her up.
"Bill, you can't go in there." Beverly called, "This is crazy."
"Look, you don't have to come in with me. But what happens when another Georgie goes missing? Or another Betty? Or another Ed Corcoran? Or one of us?" Bill gulped, eyes lingering on Rue for a second. She could see the fear in his eyes - the fear of her leaving him too. "Are you just going to pretend it isn't happening like everyone else in this town? Because I can't.
"I go home, and all I see is that Georgie isn't there. His clothes, his toys, his stupid stuffed animals, but... He isn't. So walking into this house, for me, it's easier than walking into my own."
That was a punch in the gut to Rue. It threw her back in time, to just after her accident. Her mother was gone, but her perfume was still everywhere. It lingered on her clothes, in her bed, in the living room, like her ghost was haunting the place she used to live, watching over her two broken daughters, unable to fix them. They both had scars, internal and external.
