Author's Note: Dedicated to Nikki81395 for the banner! Thanks :)!
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“Well…you look like hell. I take it you slept horribly?” Alex teased before stuffing a fork full of waffles into his mouth.
“Shut up.”
I rubbed my eyes as I tried to remember the last time I woke up this dazed and still begging for sleep.
The Benadryl hadn’t done shit; I had awakened and checked the window at least six times last night only to find in closed from the inside with the curtains exactly where I left them.
You can imagine how that made me feel; absolutely crazy.
I have never felt like such an irrational, freaking lunatic in my entire existence.
Aunt Ebony smiled at me, “Sorry, I’m not much of a cook; it’s just waffles from the toaster and defrosted bacon. Hope you don’t mind.”
I grinned back at her, “Not at all. I love waffles and defrosted bacon.”
Truth was I just liked the idea of someone making me breakfast.
Mom always used to make me breakfast.
I missed her a lot. More than a daughter probably should miss her mother, but oh well, what can I say? I missed everything about her. I missed her voice, the way she smelt of maple syrup from her day job at the Diner, how she was always making me feel like everything was going to be okay even when it wasn’t, her big blue eyes and how they would always light up when she laughed, which in my opinion was the happiest, most pure laugh I’ve ever heard in entire life.
I wish I could laugh like that.
“Did you have a lot of trouble sleeping?” Ebony asked her dark eyes large with concern.
“No, not at all. I’m just not used to the bed.” I replied as I began to cut into my blueberry waffles.
“Well you’ll get over that eventually. I remember one time when I was around your age, maybe a year or two older; I stayed at this hotel in Paris. It was breathtaking, absolutely beautiful, crystal chandeliers all over the place, and some of the finest rugs and carpets I’ve ever seen in my life- to this day in fact. My room was gorgeous, and my bed was huge, and plush, but I couldn’t sleep a single night there, or at least not by myself.” She laughed and gave me a wink.
Aunt Ebony almost reminded me of an old fashioned movie star. Right down to the fact she was basically a professional man-eater. She told a lot of stories, all about sex, love, marriage, and her glamorous lifestyle. You could tell she loved to talk about herself too. I mean she was always talking about herself and the wondrous things she did in her youth.
Although it was a bit annoying at times, it was also really…intriguing. Like she was this Marilyn Monroe or Liz Taylor like character who had had lived this interesting life traveling the world and shattering the hearts of men under the soles of her 6 inch heels.
“Um…what’s up with that house across the street?” Alex asked while shoveling his food around his plate.
The house. I saw a girl there. Maybe…maybe he’d seen her too. Maybe that’s why he was asking. A million and three different possibilities began to swim through my brain.
That’s probably is why I jumped so high up in my chair when I heard the clatter of my fork against the hard, cool, tile.
I think I might’ve dropped it because my hand was shaking so hard, but I’m not entirely sure. Whatever it was, the sound of my fork hitting the floor bounced me back to reality from my dreadful bewilderment.
“Uh…I’ll get that.”
I stuck my head under the table like an idiot, feeling around the floor for my poor, fallen, fork.
“I really don’t know. It’s been abandoned for years, way before my brother and I showed up in Black Rock. It was already over- grown with plants when we got here. I just wished they’d knock the damn thing down already, it’s such an eye sore.”
I bounced up, slamming the fork on the table in a failed attempt to appear as natural as possible while in shock. You can probably imagine the bizarre stares from my brother and Aunt.
“I um…found the fork.”
“That’s uh…great Skylar...” Alex said, blinking his large brown eyes exactly twice before turning his attention back to his plate of waffles.
No one lived in the house.
The girl…she couldn’t have been real.
I decided to just stick with that, to put my mind at ease, which, in all honestly was a bit difficult.
My brain works very closely to the way flies swarm a rotting corpse, or bees flee their hive when it’s cut from a branch, frantically, quickly, and without a whole lot of order. I’m pretty much scatter-brained.
“Good morning. I’m assuming the two of you are my children that were supposed to arrive yesterday.”
We all turned in the direction of the voice, and I watched as my Aunts’ face lit up like a Christmas tree.
“Eli! You’re awake! Please sit down, I prepared breakfast for everybody.”
Everyone always told me I looked like my mother so I was quite surprised at how much I resembled my father. He was tall, with long dark hair, and dark eyes, extremely dark eyes. I mean, I’ve never seen eyes that black; they were insanely shadowy , and great with a type of sadness that makes your heart ache for whoever they belonged to, the type of pain they held…it just made you want to reach out, and take the man in your arms like he was a little lost boy. Everything about his facial features screamed chiseled, and intense, yet relaxed and…lonely. You could see it in his eyes, in his soul, he was so, so lonely.
“Hmm, well you’re certainly showing off for the kids. Last time you made breakfast was when I was twelve and you were only being nice because you killed my hamster. Heartless bitch doesn’t know how to care for anything alive. Thank God you don’t have children; you’d probably starve them too. “He sounded playful in a very dark, kind of smug way.
Ebony rolled her eyes. “I’d rather be a heartless bitch, than a sad drunk. Now sit your sloppy ass down and eat.”
I heard Alex stifle a laugh from across the table, and I couldn’t help but think how idiotic he sounded, watching two adults bicker like teenagers wasn’t all that amusing, I mean, if anything I felt like I was watching Alex and I in 30 years. It was kind of creepy.
“Um…is there a local library around here?” I asked, not making eye contact with anyone else at the table.
“Yes, I believe there is. It’s a bit far away, because honestly there’s not a whole lot around here, but I’d be happy to drive you.” Dad, or well, Eli replied. His eyes were blood shot and he was clearly nursing a bad hangover.
“Um…I don’t know. You see I’m really independent; I like to do things myself. Can I just borrow the car? ”
“Oh, okay, fine. It’s pretty over-cast though so just be careful when you’re driving back.”
I nodded, politely excusing myself to get ready.
When I went back down stairs, the scene had changed; the table was cleared off, and everyone had left but my father, who was sitting in the green, plush chair facing the T.V., watching was looked like Freddie Vs. Jason.
“I love horror movies.” I said with a smile.
He jumped at first; I guess he hadn’t expected me to be behind him, and probably thought I was some-type of axe murderer. The very minute he saw my face every muscle in his body seemed to relax.
“You must get that from me, your mother-“
“Detested them? Yeah, I know, she used to hate it when I watched the stuff in her house.” I finished the sentence for him, and I noticed a toothy grin creep unto his face then disappear in an instant.
For a single moment a glimmer of joy had been in his heart, but that smile was like Halley’s Comet, one minute it was there lighting up the sky, and the next minute it was gone and everything was dark again. His face was solemn, like showing emotion hurt somehow, and like that smile had never even existed.
It was almost like he couldn’t be really, truly, happy, as if the only “happiness” he could express would be satirical, sarcastic, mocking, ironic, and faux. He was a man of dark humor, and sorrow, one numb from pain, yet destroyed and empty from it at the same time.
He was the epitome of a shell of a human-being, a walking, talking corpse.
“Here are the keys and some MapQuest directions, have fun.”
He slid the keys, and a folded up piece of paper into the palm of my hand, closing my fingers over them before turning back to the television as if I wasn’t even there.
It was odd, but I didn’t question it. It was excruciatingly clear my father was a very troubled man.
I walked straight out of the house and into the car without giving him another glance.
He was right. Black Rock was upstate and the nearest library was pretty far away, but it was worth it. I wanted answers, and the library was usually where I found them.
I needed to look through the Town’s archives. Sometime yesterday, you know, when Aunt Ebony was telling Alex, and I her life story, she mentioned Dad and her moving here sometime during the mid- to late 90’s. This morning she has said the house across the street was already over-grown with plants, and had been abandoned for quite some time before she and Dad arrived. That meant I needed to look through all of the news articles from 1994 to 1980, then if nothing came up about the house I’d have to look through the articles from 1979 to 1960, although I highly doubted I’d have to go back that far.
“Hello miss,” I smiled at the salt and pepper haired woman with light eyes standing behind the front desk, “would you be able to point me in the direction of where you keep your archives?”
She refused to make eye-contact with me after she saw me; it was peculiar, like I was some type bad omen, a presence from her past come back to haunt her. She was…strange. Her name, which was messily sprawled in bright red pen on her name-tag, read Mrs. Porter. I’d remember her without much of a choice due to her bizarre behavior.
“Uh...um…m-may I ask what for?” She stuttered and tripped over her words, staring at the ground the entire time with shaking hands.
“Personal interest, I just moved here and I wanted to learn a bit more about where I’m going to be living. “
“Oh, okay then. You’ll find all the articles, year books, and town records on the far back wall, good luck.”
Mrs. Porter turned away from me as fast as she could, leaving me to scan the entire back wall, clueless and alone.
Article, after article, I searched for something, only to find the useless, typical, unadulterated shit you usually find in a Newspaper for an excruciatingly small town. I mean, I didn’t realize just how rural, and tiny Black Rock was until I saw the pointless, boring, crap they considered news. ‘High School Basketball Team Doesn’t Make Semi-Finals’, ‘Home Cleaning Advice: How to Properly Clean Your Porcelain Throne’, ‘Local Grandma Bernadette Wins Buffalo, New York’s Brownie Bake-off’, I mean seriously? What the hell! Did anything significant ever happen here?
“If you’re looking for anything important you’re not gonna find it here. Black Rock has everything locked up pretty well. Buffalo can’t afford for there to be any scandals this close to a national forest.”
I looked up to see a boy staring down at me. He was average height for a male around his age, (I was probably a good two or three inches shorter than him) and was extremely lanky, with brown hair that trailed into his light blue eyes. His childish face was friendly and huge dimples sat on both sides of his round cheeks, yet I felt he was an extremely mature and somber individual.
I could tell by the way he smiled, you see, there was this little glimmer in his eyes that wasn’t as happy as the rest of him. Within seconds of looking him over I could tell he’d felt real pain before.
“How would you know that?” I cocked an eyebrow at him, slightly annoyed with his sudden presence.
I mean, I was grateful for his “help” but at the same time I thought it was ridiculously irritating that he had just magically imposed himself unto what I was doing. I don’t know, maybe I was just being untrusting and negative, but oh well. I didn’t like it, and I didn’t know him.
“My dad’s town historian, he knows everything there is to know about Black Rock and most of its surrounding areas,” He paused, “my name’s Caile, Caile Blanch.”
His mom must’ve hated him if she named after a vegetable like kale.
“I’m Skylar.” I stuck out my hand and he firmly shook it.
“So, may I ask why you were snooping around old news articles?”
I turned to face him fully, “Look, I appreciate the help and all, and you seem like a nice guy, but it’s really none of your business what I’m doing, and I would prefer it if you didn’t get involved.”
He nodded considering this before waving and slowly beginning to walk away.
I exhaled sharply, opening yet another binder filled with old, cut out newspaper.
“Wait.” I heard his voice, and immediately I rolled my eyes in frustration. This guy really, couldn’t take a hint.
I looked at him rather blandly, my lips pursed together in a hard line.
“You’re curiosity in Black Rock wouldn’t have anything to do with the abandoned house on 32nd street, right? Because for some bizarre reason that’s all everybody seems to be interested in nowadays. ”
I felt my blood turn into ice in my veins, sending chills up my arms and down my back.
“Yes, actually it does. I live across the street from it.”
He nodded, “Oh okay.” And with that he turned and began to walk away (again).
What the fuck? You bother me, and waste my time then once you figure out what I’m doing you just walk away? What kind of reverse psychology bull shit was he trying to pull? I felt my face begin to turn rosy with rage and my fingers twitch as they became fists.
I stood up, mentally reminding myself that I was in a library before opening my mouth.
“That’s it? You’re going to bother me, find out what I’m doing, and then just walk away?”
He didn’t even stop to face me this time, no; he didn’t have the decency to face me this time. Instead he just called lightly over his shoulder, his deep voice now somewhere between talking and the whisper of a whisper.
“I have to if it involves that house. My mother was best friends with the girl who died there.”
I felt my heart jump out of my chest.
I closed the binder I was looking through rather dramatically as I hurried to catch up with Caile. Soon I was walking right behind him, my mind racing at the same speed my feet were as I tried to keep up with his hurried pace.
“A girl died there?”
“Yeah and her father.”
I didn’t understand how you could tell someone that people died in the house across the street from theirs so simply, without even looking them in the eyes.
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“What the fuck do you mean you don’t know?”
We were outside now, and rain drops where crashing against the gray pavement with some type of vengeance, that I guess only rain drops could have or know about.
He had stopped in his tracks and was staring down at me.
“I mean, I don’t know. That happened in the 80’s and the only way you know how and why is if you were alive and in Black Rock at the time. All the younger generations know is that a girl and her father died in that house, and it’s the reason we all have three locks on our front-doors, and the kids in town all go trick-or-treating while the sun is out. “
I looked him over for a second to see if he was being serious.
He was.
“This town is fucking weird.” It was all I could manage. I thought it sounded a bit crude, but he laughed so I felt a little bit better about being so blunt in front of someone I had just met.
I mean, I didn’t give a shit what this stranger thought about me, especially since I found him rather irritating, but my mother still taught me to have( some) manners.
“How long have you been here?”
“A day and a half.”
“I hate break this to you, but it’s not going to get any more normal.”
We stood, and then eventually sat, in front of that library talking, and waiting for the rain to stop.
It never did.
We talked for hours, laughing and chatting more by circumstance than choice. Or well, at least that’s how I felt. Eventually we exchanged numbers, and he said he’d save me a seat at lunch (we both had it 5th period), on the first day of school.
Who would’ve thought that in a town as tiny as Black Rock we’d be attending the exact same high school? (Sarcasm of course.)
“Well the rains not letting up, but I should probably get going.”
“Yeah…me too.” He said looking down at his feet.
“Bye.” I held my jacket around my shoulders securely by the front; rain splattering against my hair like gigantic tears, almost as if God was crying for his children.
I had just buckled my seat belt, and was putting the car in reverse when I noticed Caile walking with his bike.
He was going to ride home in the rain? What? If he needed a ride he could’ve just asked.
I lowered my window.
“Going somewhere?”
I noticed the strangest look in his light blue eyes, one that almost seemed shameful, and timid, almost like he felt bad that he couldn’t drive home in the rain himself.
“Yeah. Home.”
“Do you need a ride?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?” I raised an eyebrow at him, “I mean it’s raining pretty hard.”
“I’m positive, thanks but no thanks.”
I shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
I could’ve insisted, but what difference would that have really made? If he didn’t want to get into a car to save his pride, I couldn’t force him to. I mean, what was I supposed to do? Tie him to the passenger’s seat just so he didn’t get a cold from walking in the rain? He was nice and all, but it wasn’t my place to discipline him.
I drove away watching the scenery change from the library and a tar road, to the thick forest of Black Rock and a dirt path.
You can imagine my first thought as soon as I got home.
I wanted to take a nice, long, warm shower, and then unpack some more.
I don’t know why but something about the contrast between the warm water coming from the shower head and the cold, bone-chilling, rain water that was falling outside made me rather sad.
Like warmth could only be artificially made, and only cold could exist in a world like ours.
There’s something so bittersweet about how my mind words.
I found meanings to things without meaning, created symbolism where there wasn’t any; I made some things so much more special, and others so much more horrifying. Destroying and creating beauty in the simplest things with each passing day.
Over thinking is such a sin, such a curse, yet sometimes it could be kind of…nice.
I was wrapped up in my thoughts, too caught up in the butterflies in my brain to notice something.
A faint, yet very apparent dripping noise.
It was odd, I could hear it over the shower, yet for some strange reason it wasn’t any louder than a hiss to get someone’s attention.
Drip…
Drip…
Drip…
I turned the shower off, hoping it would stop.
Drip…
Drip…
Drip…
It didn’t.
If anything it just got louder sliding from a hiss to a noise, a regular sound, and from a regular sound to a shout, a boom, a nuisance.
I reached out and wrapped a pure white towel around my soaking wet body.
The dripping noise was pounding in my ears, driving me absolutely mad and I couldn’t even see, or understand why.
My right index finger suddenly felt…warm, and almost heavy, strangely…disturbed.
I looked down to see my finger bleeding severely unto the white towel I was holding to my body, leaving a surprisingly massive stain of scarlet on it.
“Shit!”
I didn’t think it was possible to bleed out through your finger but the amount of blood coming from it was incomprehensible.
It wasn’t oozing, it was gushing.
I started rummaging through the medicine cabinet with my good hand, ripping a box of strong adhesive bandages open with my teeth.
I rapidly and rather frantically began to wrap my hemorrhaging finger with one hand, praying and swearing under my breath for it to stop and this horrible nightmarish experience to be over.
Ironically I think that’s when I passed out.