Ghost Town - Page 2

... down the hallway, gripping the bat with the anticipation of swinging, inspite of the lump of fear clogging her throat...

...

It was the cold that stopped her. It had to be that, because fear had made her sure a monster was waiting for her. This was not her hallway. The hallway of a million tiny pitter-patters of stockinged feet, sneakered or sandled, dirty and barefoot, running and slipping, forever bumping within the close walls, still echoing with the distant memory of the laughs and tears of her disappeared children.

Rachel could have killed someone, but there was no one there.

Just the cold.

...

Hours later, morning arrived, and the wind was much kinder in the light of the new day. The teenager in the house down the street was still asleep. That is something that would not have surprised both his parents, if they had been around. The other day the boy woke up, just before noontime, surprised that no one had bothered him. It finally dawned on him after being alone for more than a day, that something was wrong.

He still hadn't reported them missing. He lay in his crumpled pile of sheets, the noiseless house giving him the creeps. He wondered....

... if there was any food in the fridge fit to eat. Bad enough his parents took off without a word. But to leave the fridge almost bare, too. He hoped he was waking up from a bad dream. The hunger pains made him groan. He was just going to have to get up. Go downstairs. Figure stuff out. He dropped his long gangly legs over the side of the bed, willing his feet to find the floor. He'd fallen asleep in his clothes, so getting dressed was already done. For some reason he felt like maybe he didn't want to leave his room, ever again. 

But he did. He ...

...found himself, staring at the truck keys he saw sitting on top of his mother's pocketbook. Usually a welcome sight, he became disturbed because he was not seeing his mother holding it. He went to the dresser, pocketed the keys, and began rummaging inside. His hand felt the bumpy, tooled leather and clasp of a wallet. He was staring at his mother's wallet. He opened it. Money. Plenty of money. He couldn't help but feel a bit of relief, suddenly picturing the Sunrise breakfast special at the local diner. 

Shaking his head in ... 

_____

Rachel was sitting on her front porch when she noticed the boy behind the steering wheel of her neighbor's truck. He drove right over the curb as he backed out onto the street. She wondered when did he get his license? He was just a little boy... seems like yesterday.

She thought of the son and daughter who wouldn't know her, even if they were sitting right next to her in the local Dairy Queen, eating a Blizzard ice cream. It was all her fault. She hated herself, everyday, because she made herself think of how it was all her fault. She saw in her mind's eye, like a movie re-run; Dan coming in, showing her the picture on his cell phone. It was her. With her lover, getting in his car at the No Tell Motel. It got real ugly after that.

....

....Why did she fall into temptation?  One day everything was going perfectly in her life, then she was so stupid and she let that blonde haired, blue eyed co-worker talk her into a one night stand!  Joe was so intoxicating; he enticed her with his seductive eyes.   Oh, why did she let him make her forget about her sweet Dan and her two wonderful kids!

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...Will sat in the truck as if in a daze.  He didn't even remember driving to the diner.  He felt so foggy.  Where were his parents?  They wouldn't leave him like this!  He rubbed his sleepy eyes and jumped out of the truck.  As he entered the diner, he brushed past a rough looking bearded man....

who was making his way out of the diner.  He shivered, one that went clear to his toes, the kind of feeling his mother used to say felt like someone walking on his grave. 

How did he get here he wondered, where were his parents, why did things feel so different.  Maybe he would feel better once he ate, maybe then he would call the sheriff to tell him about his parents. 

Suddenly he got a very scared feeling deep in his stomach, the strabger - the one he passed as he entered the diner - where did he know him from, when had he seen him before?



 

The bearded man leaving the diner seemed not to be in any particular hurry. He went South, strolling really, with a hot cup of coffee in his hand. He lowered his sunglasses over his eyes. His dark, roundish, eyes roved along the cumbling sidewalk and sleepy roadside, seeking and following any movement with an unaffected air. His stare though, if one could still see his eyes, gave away the intensity of his observations. He usually made people a bit uneasy, he knew that. He sometimes used that to his advantage, too.

He was headed to a most humble-looking house on the outskirts of town. He'd inherited it from his mother, when she'd passed away three years ago. When the money from the inheritance began to dry up, he decided to open shop on the first floor. He was a collector of sorts. Some antiquities, many peculiarites. And singularities were his absolute favorite. He was always looking for those. But he had to make a living and some things, for the right price he could let go.

He named his new shop:

DOOM & GLEAM
The ending is here.  
I have that perfect something,
Come inside and see!

.....

When Rachel thought of Dan now, she could hate him, too, just a little bit. After the big fight, he'd thrown her car keys in the bushes. Threw her phone in the toilet and grabbed the kids and took off to his mom's house. He'd taken them there before when they had a real bad row, one other time before, so she wasn't too worried, then. It was only when the police came knocking on her door two nights later, around 2 a.m., with the very, very bad, and final news that she became alarmed. Very alarmed. Dan had left the highway in his truck, and it had rolled. He hadn't survived. She had a tiny bit of hope and relief though, because there were no signs that the kids had been with him. She waited until the cop left before she called her mother-in-law, to tell her that her son was dead, he did not survive his accident.

The cry of anquish from her mother-in-law is a sound she'll never forget. And she still feels the cry in her head she made when her mother-in-law told her through her tears of pain and denial, that she did not know where the children were! They had been staying with her, but Dan had taken them to, "A friends, just for a little bit, until he could figure out a few things."

It's hard for her to remember what was said after that. And it doesn't matter because no one still knows where her kids are. It was beginning to drive her mad.

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We leave you with this picture until the children are located;