The Ghosts of Melbrew [1/12]

Chapter 4) Murder at a Mansion

      "Oh! No, you're fine!" She said, and proceeded to welcome me to the town apon discovering I'm new. She said she's not surprised we became friends so quickly, due to the three of us and our social, outgoing personalities.

       The three of them then talked about where they lived, and where they lived was an apartment building down that road I saw the day before. They both met each other there when they were young, and also became friends in school. They saw each other everyday. We arrived at the building and I observed it.

      It was a rather big building that lay at the end of a little street in the woods, seeming very out of place. There were a few houses around, but not too much. I noticed while driving there was an entrance to an abandoned looking nature trail and park. The building looked to be on its last legs, and it wasn't exactly the nicest, but hey, it was still standing, which I guess counts for something.

      "Don't judge a book by its cover, Emmy." Cameron said to me as he and Dominik pushed open the doors, "This place might not look too nice, but boy oh boy, do I get some good activity here! Do you know how many people have died in this building? Spoiler alert, It’s a whole lot, and that makes it a spirit gold mine!"

      "Oh, Cameron," His mom said, "I don't want to hear anymore about these ghosts, especially with your new friend here! It just drives me crazy, and I’m sure this nice girl doesn’t wanna hear it, either."

      "Sure, mom." He said, and mouthed, "Non-believer." to me, and smiled a bit.

      We walked up the stairs to the third floor, Cameron's room number was 26, down near the end of the hallway. We all went inside, and it looked just about how I expected it to. You walk right into the living room, and there's a small hallway straight ahead.

      "The bathroom is the door right next to the couch." Cameron's mom explained, "The kitchen area is through the doors to the left, and our rooms are down the hall to the right."

      "Thank you, Mrs...."

      "Mrs. Johnson." She said, smiling.

     "Right, thank you, Mrs. Johnson!" I said, and followed Cameron and Dominik into a room, which was his, shutting it behind myself.

      The walls and ceiling of his room were painted like a dark night-sky, with shades of blue and black. He had star, moon, and planet stickers covering every surface, and as I looked closer, I saw that there were some streams of spray on glitter to add to the atmospheric aesthetic. He had supernatural themed posters of ghosts, aliens, and cryptids, paper ghosts were hanging from the ceiling, bookshelves filled with books on conspiracies, a blow-up alien, and even a full plastic skeleton by his bed! He turned off the lights, and all the stickers lit up, they glowed in the dark. He then went and turned on a ghost lamp. Domink turned the lights back on.

      "Pretty cool, right?" Cameron said.

     "Hell yeah," I said. "Aesthetic on point, dude. I just have one question."

      "Ask away!"

      "Don't you rent this place?"

      "Yeah, why?"

      "Then how are your walls painted?"

      "Oh!" Cameron scoffed, "Lou doesn't care, that's why! They're the landlord. They're super chill and let us do whatever."

       "Ah, I see. One more question, though. Why is there a random apartment building at the end of a dead-end street in the woods?"

      Dominik fell back onto a green beanbag chair and said, "We're not sure. We think there might've been another town here a while ago, or something, and this is a really old building. That's just a theory, though. It is really odd." He agreed.