Bitty Bang - "Boomtown" - Part II
Dec. 5th, 2008 06:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
raynedanserwrites May 3
This morning while I was preparing to make the morning walk to Baker’s store, Lissy Callahan came bursting in through the front door. Her boots and the hem of her dress were muddy and she was breathing hard – as though she’d run the whole way across town. Her hair was uncombed and her eyes were wild and I had to wonder what had scared her so much. Once I’d got her calmed down, I was able to learn that Tommy had taken a bad turn during the night and his family feared the worst. She also said that her grandmother had also taken ill and had not gotten out of her bed yet that day. I questioned Lissy about her own well being, but she insisted that she felt fine and that it was only her brother and grandmother that were ill. I sent Lissy home and now, instead of spending the morning visiting at the store, I’m going to have to check in with the Callahan’s first and see how things progress from there.
May 4
After spending almost the entire day with the Callahan’s, I am quite exhausted. I wish I had something more positive to report for my efforts, but I fear I do not. Tommy only grew weaker throughout the day. Shortly after dinner time, surrounded by his family, he passed away in his sleep. His grandmother’s condition continues to worsen and I am greatly concerned that at her age, it won’t be long until she follows him. Even after Mr. Wilkins came to remove the body, I couldn’t bring myself to leave and I spent the evening consoling Tommy’s family. I tried to reassure them that the same fate wouldn’t befall the grandmother, but it only felt like empty promises.
I need to get some sleep, and so I have come back to the house to sleep while I can. First thing in the morning, I’ll go back to the Callahan’s house to check on them before making any of the other calls that may have come up during the night. As time goes on, more people seem to start showing symptoms, though I am hoping that perhaps we can have a different outcome.
Some of the sidewalk planking still remained in front of the building and the aged planks looked as if they would splinter easily if Chris or Lance stepped on them. Chris laughed as Lance jumped over the weakened boards before holding his hand out to help Chris. Even on solid ground again, Chris held on as they walked down the middle of the dusty remains of the street. Chris realized that most of the buildings along this stretch were still in pretty decent condition. Every so often, there was a gap between buildings, as though something had once been there, but was now long gone. Sometimes, these plots were filled with overgrown grass and the remains of a wagon sat half buried in the tall prairie grasses. They peered in windows, but both of them thought that a lot of the buildings wouldn’t be stable enough for them to go inside.
Chris stopped in front of a house that listed dangerously to one side. “It’s a wonder this one is still standing,” he said quietly as he tilted his head to match the odd angle and studied it. Everything about it was slanted away from the building next to it and towards a vacant lot. Jagged shards of glass remained around the edges of some of the windows. Chris carefully leaned in close, mindful of where he placed his hands on the wall, and peeked in through the window frame as curiosity got the better of him, but this one was only a vacant shell. The walls were still covered with faded paper and plaster still clung to the ceiling in places, but the floorboards were bare and there was no furniture to be seen.
They passed several lots with no structures at all. Some were outlined with rotted fencing and filled with tall grass or had crumbled piles of lumber in them. The more they walked, hand in hand as though they were merely strolling along to pass the time, the closer nightfall came and the cooler it got. Chris wondered if Lance had grabbed a couple of sweatshirts from the car before they started walking.
The next house seemed in decent shape. It was a small rectangle, with a single window and door on the front. Chris was surprised to find that the window’s glass was only cracked, but still held in its frame. The glass was dingy and he could just make out the remains of tattered curtains still hanging inside. Steps led up to the beaten screen door and a solid wooden door behind it. Eventually, Chris’s curiosity got the better of him and he insistently tugged Lance’s hand toward the house.
The wooden boards of the steps turned out to be pretty solid and Chris pulled the screen door open, then leaned his shoulder against the main door and pushed it inward. The door opened into what had probably been the living room at one time, but like many other rooms they’d seen, it was now just an empty room with exposed boards on the floor and peeling layers of paper on its walls. As with the previous building, Chris tested the floor carefully as he stepped into the room. He touched the brittle, curling paper on the walls. There was an open doorway in the opposite wall and Chris waited as Lance walked through it. The paper had long ago lost its design and Chris couldn’t help but smooth a piece out and wonder what was on it long ago. In some places, he could see faint smudges of print, but mostly it was just grayed.
After a few minutes, when Lance didn’t come back out from the other room, Chris couldn’t help worry a little bit and he finally decided that maybe it was time to check on him. Chris found him in what had probably been the home’s kitchen. Paper hung from the ceiling in torn shreds, a small table was catty corner to one wall, a small pot belly stove on another. Oddly, a rusted, iron headboard was leaning against one wall. Miscellaneous bits of debris littered the room and dust covered everything. Lance stood in the middle of it, staring at the chaos around him.
“Lance?” Chris asked when Lance didn’t move. He twitched his nose as the dust tickled it.
Lance finally turned around. “Kind of makes you wonder what it would have liked like when it was lived in, huh?” he said as he backed out carefully.
There was only one room they hadn’t checked yet. Since the headboard was in the kitchen, the bedroom was nearly empty. A wooden chair and lone table were pushed into one corner, a battered trunk with its lid open in another. Hanging from a nail or hook in the wall were the tattered remains of a musty old men’s shirt. Lance took a quick glance at the room and left, leaving Chris alone. A moment later, Chris heard the door close as Lance left the house and went back out into the street, but when he heard footsteps on the bare boards, he called out, “Lance? I thought you left?”
No answer to his question came and still Chris could hear footsteps. He really doubted anyone else was in this town besides them and shivered as goose bumps raised up on his arms. “Lance, come on man. I’m spooked enough as it is without you fucking with me,” he said as he retraced his steps back through the building to the door. The small house was as empty as he’d expected it to be and the front door was closed tight. A quick glance out the dusty window revealed Lance out in the street waiting patiently for Chris. More than a little freaked out now, Chris opened the door quickly and began to skip down the steps to Lance. He’d made it down one, when his foot caught the edge of a weak board and crashed through, stopping his momentum and bringing a loud curse from his lips.
“Son of a bitch!” he yelled as he sat on the step above and tugged his foot back up through the jagged boards. He pulled his pant leg up and his sock down and examined his battered ankle. It was scraped and scratched, and a couple of deep gouges streaked down the outside of most of his calf. On top of that, when he’d finally struck something solid beneath the step, his ankle had twisted and he was sure he’d sprained it. He was only vaguely aware of Lance sitting on the step next to him as he gingerly pulled his sock back into place.
“What happened?” Lance asked.
Chris hurriedly pulled his pant leg back into place. “Nothing, nothing,” he grumbled as he put his foot on the ground and tried not to wince.
“That doesn’t look like nothing. Let me see.”
Chris kept his foot away from Lance. “No.”
“Chris. Let. Me. See,” Lance insisted.
The only reason Chris gave in, he told himself, was because it was the only way to shut Lance up when he was being all pushy and using what Chris referred to as “that tone.” It had nothing to do with the fact that propping his foot up on Lance’s leg for a minute felt good or that he liked the gentle care Lance took when he touched Chris’s leg and tried not to hurt him. It didn’t quite work, though, and Chris hissed as Lance’s fingertips grazed the bruised flesh. Lance examined it a minute, then held on to Chris’s leg with one and and began rooting around in the backpack that lay on the ground by his feet with the other. A moment later, he pulled out the first aid kit.
“What are you doing?” Chris asked as he tried unsuccessfully to pull his ankle back.
“Those scratches need to be cleaned,” Lance explained. He opened the first aid and took out some gauze and a small bottle of antiseptic as he continued to hold Chris’s leg firmly in his lap. “Stop being such a baby,” Lance snapped. “Do you really want this to get infected? Out here in the middle of nowhere?”
“Well, when you put it that way - ” Chris relented. He sucked in a breath through his teeth as Lance began dabbing gently at the scratches, cleaning out debris, then flushed it with the antiseptic wash. Lance let it air dry a moment, then squirted some antibiotic ointment onto a few band aids. He spread those into place, then put Chris’s clothes right again. After he’d snapped the first aid kit closed and tucked it back into the backpack, he stood up.
“Can you walk on it?” Lance asked. He held a hand out to Chris and slowly pulled him to his feet.
Chris tested his weight carefully on the injured ankle. Pain shot up his leg, but if he was careful- “Yeah, I can stand on it,” he finally answered through clenched teeth.
Lance released his hand, throwing off his balance a moment. “That’s not what I asked, Chris. Can you walk on it?” he repeated.
Chris took a couple of tentative steps ahead. It hurt like hell, the scratches burned the skin was pulled at the edges, but yeah, he could walk. Slowly. He finally nodded. “Yeah, if I don’t have to hurry or anything. Do you have some Tylenol in that bag of tricks of yours?”
“Yeah, hang on.” Lance dug around the bag, finally pulled out the bottle and shook three into his palm. He pulled out a bottle of water after that, opened it and then handed that and the tablets to Chris, who gulped them down greedily.
“Thanks,” Chris finally said when the bottle was nearly empty. “Now come on, let’s go,” Chris said hurriedly as he tried to pull Lance along with him.
Lance pulled his arm free. “Chris? What’s going on?”
“Nothing, nothing, but let’s go,” he insisted. He wasn’t saying anything else. He was pretty close to convincing himself he’d imagined it, but if he voiced it out loud, he might jinx it.
The next building they went into, they took one look at the large front room’s contents and went right back out. If Chris had only been slightly freaked out before, then this certainly didn’t help any. He was pretty sure they’d just found the town’s mortuary – the front room had held coffins in various sizes and states of build - and decay - stacked around the spacious workspace as well as a work table that still held wood working tools and the mortician’s last carving project. A chair was pushed up to the work table, still waiting for its owner to return and finish the project.
Back out in the street, they were met with the fading sun and long shadows as Chris and Lance looked both ways and tried to decide which way to go next. In one direction, the buildings continued for several more blocks before becoming more and more spaced out. In the other, the street quickly turned back into a dirt road that led up the hill and to what appeared to be an old mine hugging the hillside. They quickly made a decision and turned away from the end that led towards the mine. In this direction was a dress maker’s shop, the telegraph office, a small building whose sign declared it a brothel and a church. Chris couldn’t help but be amused at the situation of the last two. Visit the brothel and then attend confession? he wondered.
May 9
It has been several days since I have had a chance to sit and write. This illness is quickly spreading throughout the town. At first, it was families with children in our school, but it is quickly infecting the adults as well. Most of Tommy Callahan’s family has been buried by now and it looks like the Smiths will be joining them soon. Another couple, Lisa and Jamie Johnson, brought their young baby to the infirmary, but it was too late and the infant died shortly after their arrival.
One little boy, Easton Mills, disappeared sometime during the night last night and is presumed dead. We’re much too far away from any neighboring towns for him to have survived a cool night in early spring out there by himself. Even if the elements didn’t get to him, it is very likely that wild animals did. Townsfolk will search for him, but I think everyone realizes that the search is quite likely in vain.
I feel quite terrible for Easton’s family. As yet, they have managed to avoid becoming ill and I think perhaps it is because their home is on the edge of town and quite away from the steady flow of people and traffic. Perhaps this will work in their favor and they will not become ill. Perhaps the only tragedy of this will be their missing son.
The effects of this mysterious illness can’t help but be felt throughout the town as it continues to take its toll. So many children have become sick or have died that the school has been shut down as there aren’t enough students to fill its seats. One of the teachers has also gotten sick. I’ve enlisted the help of stout neighbors throughout the town as I can’t seem to keep up with everyone, but sooner or later everyone gets sick. It’s only a matter of time.
The streets are quiet. No one is out and about visiting or even driving around town anymore. There’s no more children, no pets playing in the streets and word is, the mill is going to shut down soon, too, with no men left healthy enough to work it.
I can’t help but worry about the long term effects of this illness upon the town. If we continue to get sick like this, who shall live here? Who shall carry the town into the future? I fear that soon there will be no one left to find that out.
After passing several more buildings, they turned down a side street that dead ended quickly. It stopped after only a few buildings with a large, rectangular two story building. There was a bell tower on top and after studying it a moment from the road, Chris looked at Lance thoughtfully.
“School?” he asked.
Lance nodded. “Probably.”
Chris indicated the door with a tilt of his head. “Wanna?” he asked. The pain medication had finally kicked in and his leg was feeling a bit better. At least now, he didn’t feel like screaming in pain every time he took a step. He wondered how it would be in the morning when he’d slept and it stiffened up, but for tonight, decided to take advantage of it.
“Might as well.”
Still a little shaken from before, Chris let Lance go first this time. Lance leaned against the door and pushed his shoulder against it to get it to open. Chris winced as it dragged across the floor. It opened into a small hall with stairs along the outside wall and another door on the opposite end. On their right was an open door that led into a spacious classroom.
“Jesus,” Lance whispered as he looked around the room. “It looks like it’s still waiting for the kids to come back. Creepy.”
Three rows of desks lined the room, with a large pot belly stove standing in the middle. Some of the desks had stacks of books on them, some still had paper and pencils, several dusty light bulbs hung from the ceiling. A faded, torn map of the United States was pulled down over a section of the black board at the front of the room. The book shelves that lined one corner of the room were filled neatly with books. In another corner of the room stood the teacher’s desk and Chris went over to it. A book was open to a half filled attendance sheet with a dried inkwell nearby. He carefully flipped through brittle pages and looked up at Lance.
“What the hell, Lance? What could make people just walk away from the town - ” he began. He glanced back down at the attendance sheet as though suddenly realizing that it held more answers than he’d first realized. The ink was faded, but still legible in very neat, precise handwriting. The list of names started out longer, then A’s were marked in the daily attendance columns. He shivered when many of the A’s eventually progressed into a straight line across the rest of the page and the student’s name carefully crossed out. Chris knew that could only mean one thing. It was beyond creepy. What remained of the town was frozen in time, permanently waiting for its residents to return. From the looks of things, Chris figured the town had been waiting a long time.
It was what he saw behind Lance that made him stop, though, not that he’d finished the question. He’d thought they were the only ones in the town, but now he wasn’t quite so sure. A little girl of about ten or eleven stood just inside the door. Her dark hair hung loosely around her shoulders and a long white nightdress with tiny eyelets around her neck hung to her ankles. A strand of narrow pink ribbon was woven through the eyelets. Her feet were bare. She stood still, watching Chris and Lance intently, before reaching one small hand up and holding it out flat, palm up.
Chris shook himself and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the girl was gone.
This time, Lance wasn’t letting it go so easily. “Chris, what’s going on?”
“I – There was a girl. Behind you, there was a girl,” Chris sputtered. He continued to stare at the spot where she’d been standing just seconds before.
Lance spun around and looked where Chris had been, then shrugged. “Chris, this town is abandoned. There’s nobody else here but us,” he said when he didn’t see anything.
Chris shook his head quickly. “No, no. I think she was a ghost,” he said finally, his voice barely above a whisper.
Lance took a cautious step closer to Chris. “Jesus,” he whispered when he took Chris in his arms. “You’re cold as ice,” he murmured against Chris’s hair. “It’s getting dark. Let’s get out of here, find a place to bunk down for the night and get you off that ankle, and then I think you better tell me exactly what is going on.”
But what if he didn’t know?
Chris let Lance guide him out of the school building and back into the street. The shadows stretched across the dirt road as the sun had nearly set. Chris wished the town still had electricity to drive back some of the darkness, but that was long gone. The skeletal remains of electrical poles dotted the landscape, but there few had wires that connected one to the next and he doubted anything ran out here anymore anyway.
How much longer until dark? Chris wondered. He wasn’t real eager to wander around in the dark all night, ghost or no ghost.
The last house they found themselves in front of was small, cozy looking with thin curtains still hanging inside intact windows. Chris hung back in the street with his arms wrapped tightly about himself. He was more than happy to let Lance go inside first to poke around. It was only when Lance stuck his head back out and gave Chris two thumbs up that he released a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.
The door opened into a small hall with a living room off to the left. He walked into the room, curious about what he’d find there and wondering where they’d sleep that night. Just inside the doorway was a chair with wooden arms and faded, threadbare upholstery. A couple more steps and there was a desk on the right. A ratty looking sofa was pushed against the back wall with a heavily carved coffee table in front of it. Another chair was near that, this time just a cushion and wooden frame. It had been pulled in front of the wood stove as though the last person to sit in it had been trying to warm up by the fire. Against the front wall was an open wardrobe with pegs for bonnets, hats and coats, and a bench to sit on as you put on your boots. The floor was bare, whatever coverings there may have been were long gone, and much of the wallpaper curled away from the walls. Everything in the room was covered in a thick layer of dust and the fabric looked as though it would tear with the slightest touch.
At one time, Chris thought, the room would have been beautiful with brightly colored upholstery and woodwork that had been polished until it gleamed.
Suddenly aware that he was alone in the room, Chris spun around and hobbled back into the hall. There was another small room across the way, but a quick glance assured him that Lance wasn’t in there and he slowly went deeper into the house. He found Lance in the kitchen and stopped, staring.
The kitchen was as eerie as the school had been. Just inside the door on the right was a wooden chair with something that reminded Chris of an old fashioned toddler’s booster seat. Just past that was a sideboard with a faded cloth spread across the top. On top of the sideboard were several rusted baking pans, a ceramic bowl and a metal whisk with a wooden handle. Above it, tucked against the corner, was an empty wooden cabinet without any doors. On the opposite wall was another cabinet with a few dusty tin dishes on its shelves. Below that was a drop leaf table pushed up against the wall. Two chairs had been pushed up to it and two place settings had been set out. A single oil lantern hung from the ceiling by a long leather cord tie to its handle and a deep, rusted sink was on the opposite wall. To Chris’s left, a wooden ice box stood against the wall and a wood cook stove was in the corner. Around the room, wood bead board lined the walls, painted what had probably been a bright, cheerful green at one time but was now just faded and chipped. Above it wallpaper had begun to pull away from the walls. The was a door in the back wall that Chris was pretty sure probably led to the back yard and an outhouse.
Lance apparently heard him enter the room. “This is just beyond creepy,” he asked quietly without turning around. “What the hell could have happened here, Chris, to make people leave their breakfast table?”
Chris wondered if Lance was even half as shaken as he sounded. He stepped up behind Lance and wrapped his arms around him, and then placed a quick kiss on Lance’s shoulder. “I don’t know, man,” he answered. “It had to be something major to pull people away from their lives like this.”
Lance stepped out of Chris’s hold, turned around and kissed his cheek lightly. “We should try to find a place to sleep tonight,” he said.
“I’m thinking there’s a nice spot of floor in the front room, myself,” Chris answered. “We can dust off a spot by the wall and use each other for pillows,” he continued.
“Why? Are you worried that the beds are nasty?” Lance teased.
Chris playfully punched Lance’s arm. “Dude. If there’s anything left to them besides the springs? You still couldn’t pay me enough to spend the night on one of those beds.”
Back in the front room, they found a patch of wall that was still pretty stable and didn’t have anything hanging down from it, like wallpaper or creepy crawlies, and did a quick dusting of the floor. They didn’t dare to do too much because neither of them were very eager to get splinters in their hands. Lance dropped the bag he’d been carting around all day onto the floor with a heavy thunk before they sat down with their backs against the wall.
“How’s your leg?” Lance asked quietly.
Chris flexed his leg, testing. It tugged and ached, but the instant fire that was there earlier was now gone. “Not bad,” he finally answered.
“Think you need some more Tylenol?”
Chris nodded. “Yeah, probably should.” After a few moments rustling, he was rewarded with a bottle of water being pushed into one hand and some more tablets being pressed into the other. He popped them into his mouth and drank some water.
Chris linked his fingers with Lance’s and leaned his head on Lance’s shoulder. He closed his eyes, ready to sleep and pretend today had just been some weird dream. But, the wood was hard underneath him and he could feel splinters digging into the backs of his thighs and his butt and his eyes itched from all the dust they’d been exposed to that day. Even though he was exhausted, sleep was a long time coming. He’d just started to drift off to sleep when Lance lightly placed a kiss to the top of his head and murmured something that he couldn’t quite make out.
This morning while I was preparing to make the morning walk to Baker’s store, Lissy Callahan came bursting in through the front door. Her boots and the hem of her dress were muddy and she was breathing hard – as though she’d run the whole way across town. Her hair was uncombed and her eyes were wild and I had to wonder what had scared her so much. Once I’d got her calmed down, I was able to learn that Tommy had taken a bad turn during the night and his family feared the worst. She also said that her grandmother had also taken ill and had not gotten out of her bed yet that day. I questioned Lissy about her own well being, but she insisted that she felt fine and that it was only her brother and grandmother that were ill. I sent Lissy home and now, instead of spending the morning visiting at the store, I’m going to have to check in with the Callahan’s first and see how things progress from there.
May 4
After spending almost the entire day with the Callahan’s, I am quite exhausted. I wish I had something more positive to report for my efforts, but I fear I do not. Tommy only grew weaker throughout the day. Shortly after dinner time, surrounded by his family, he passed away in his sleep. His grandmother’s condition continues to worsen and I am greatly concerned that at her age, it won’t be long until she follows him. Even after Mr. Wilkins came to remove the body, I couldn’t bring myself to leave and I spent the evening consoling Tommy’s family. I tried to reassure them that the same fate wouldn’t befall the grandmother, but it only felt like empty promises.
I need to get some sleep, and so I have come back to the house to sleep while I can. First thing in the morning, I’ll go back to the Callahan’s house to check on them before making any of the other calls that may have come up during the night. As time goes on, more people seem to start showing symptoms, though I am hoping that perhaps we can have a different outcome.
Some of the sidewalk planking still remained in front of the building and the aged planks looked as if they would splinter easily if Chris or Lance stepped on them. Chris laughed as Lance jumped over the weakened boards before holding his hand out to help Chris. Even on solid ground again, Chris held on as they walked down the middle of the dusty remains of the street. Chris realized that most of the buildings along this stretch were still in pretty decent condition. Every so often, there was a gap between buildings, as though something had once been there, but was now long gone. Sometimes, these plots were filled with overgrown grass and the remains of a wagon sat half buried in the tall prairie grasses. They peered in windows, but both of them thought that a lot of the buildings wouldn’t be stable enough for them to go inside.
Chris stopped in front of a house that listed dangerously to one side. “It’s a wonder this one is still standing,” he said quietly as he tilted his head to match the odd angle and studied it. Everything about it was slanted away from the building next to it and towards a vacant lot. Jagged shards of glass remained around the edges of some of the windows. Chris carefully leaned in close, mindful of where he placed his hands on the wall, and peeked in through the window frame as curiosity got the better of him, but this one was only a vacant shell. The walls were still covered with faded paper and plaster still clung to the ceiling in places, but the floorboards were bare and there was no furniture to be seen.
They passed several lots with no structures at all. Some were outlined with rotted fencing and filled with tall grass or had crumbled piles of lumber in them. The more they walked, hand in hand as though they were merely strolling along to pass the time, the closer nightfall came and the cooler it got. Chris wondered if Lance had grabbed a couple of sweatshirts from the car before they started walking.
The next house seemed in decent shape. It was a small rectangle, with a single window and door on the front. Chris was surprised to find that the window’s glass was only cracked, but still held in its frame. The glass was dingy and he could just make out the remains of tattered curtains still hanging inside. Steps led up to the beaten screen door and a solid wooden door behind it. Eventually, Chris’s curiosity got the better of him and he insistently tugged Lance’s hand toward the house.
The wooden boards of the steps turned out to be pretty solid and Chris pulled the screen door open, then leaned his shoulder against the main door and pushed it inward. The door opened into what had probably been the living room at one time, but like many other rooms they’d seen, it was now just an empty room with exposed boards on the floor and peeling layers of paper on its walls. As with the previous building, Chris tested the floor carefully as he stepped into the room. He touched the brittle, curling paper on the walls. There was an open doorway in the opposite wall and Chris waited as Lance walked through it. The paper had long ago lost its design and Chris couldn’t help but smooth a piece out and wonder what was on it long ago. In some places, he could see faint smudges of print, but mostly it was just grayed.
After a few minutes, when Lance didn’t come back out from the other room, Chris couldn’t help worry a little bit and he finally decided that maybe it was time to check on him. Chris found him in what had probably been the home’s kitchen. Paper hung from the ceiling in torn shreds, a small table was catty corner to one wall, a small pot belly stove on another. Oddly, a rusted, iron headboard was leaning against one wall. Miscellaneous bits of debris littered the room and dust covered everything. Lance stood in the middle of it, staring at the chaos around him.
“Lance?” Chris asked when Lance didn’t move. He twitched his nose as the dust tickled it.
Lance finally turned around. “Kind of makes you wonder what it would have liked like when it was lived in, huh?” he said as he backed out carefully.
There was only one room they hadn’t checked yet. Since the headboard was in the kitchen, the bedroom was nearly empty. A wooden chair and lone table were pushed into one corner, a battered trunk with its lid open in another. Hanging from a nail or hook in the wall were the tattered remains of a musty old men’s shirt. Lance took a quick glance at the room and left, leaving Chris alone. A moment later, Chris heard the door close as Lance left the house and went back out into the street, but when he heard footsteps on the bare boards, he called out, “Lance? I thought you left?”
No answer to his question came and still Chris could hear footsteps. He really doubted anyone else was in this town besides them and shivered as goose bumps raised up on his arms. “Lance, come on man. I’m spooked enough as it is without you fucking with me,” he said as he retraced his steps back through the building to the door. The small house was as empty as he’d expected it to be and the front door was closed tight. A quick glance out the dusty window revealed Lance out in the street waiting patiently for Chris. More than a little freaked out now, Chris opened the door quickly and began to skip down the steps to Lance. He’d made it down one, when his foot caught the edge of a weak board and crashed through, stopping his momentum and bringing a loud curse from his lips.
“Son of a bitch!” he yelled as he sat on the step above and tugged his foot back up through the jagged boards. He pulled his pant leg up and his sock down and examined his battered ankle. It was scraped and scratched, and a couple of deep gouges streaked down the outside of most of his calf. On top of that, when he’d finally struck something solid beneath the step, his ankle had twisted and he was sure he’d sprained it. He was only vaguely aware of Lance sitting on the step next to him as he gingerly pulled his sock back into place.
“What happened?” Lance asked.
Chris hurriedly pulled his pant leg back into place. “Nothing, nothing,” he grumbled as he put his foot on the ground and tried not to wince.
“That doesn’t look like nothing. Let me see.”
Chris kept his foot away from Lance. “No.”
“Chris. Let. Me. See,” Lance insisted.
The only reason Chris gave in, he told himself, was because it was the only way to shut Lance up when he was being all pushy and using what Chris referred to as “that tone.” It had nothing to do with the fact that propping his foot up on Lance’s leg for a minute felt good or that he liked the gentle care Lance took when he touched Chris’s leg and tried not to hurt him. It didn’t quite work, though, and Chris hissed as Lance’s fingertips grazed the bruised flesh. Lance examined it a minute, then held on to Chris’s leg with one and and began rooting around in the backpack that lay on the ground by his feet with the other. A moment later, he pulled out the first aid kit.
“What are you doing?” Chris asked as he tried unsuccessfully to pull his ankle back.
“Those scratches need to be cleaned,” Lance explained. He opened the first aid and took out some gauze and a small bottle of antiseptic as he continued to hold Chris’s leg firmly in his lap. “Stop being such a baby,” Lance snapped. “Do you really want this to get infected? Out here in the middle of nowhere?”
“Well, when you put it that way - ” Chris relented. He sucked in a breath through his teeth as Lance began dabbing gently at the scratches, cleaning out debris, then flushed it with the antiseptic wash. Lance let it air dry a moment, then squirted some antibiotic ointment onto a few band aids. He spread those into place, then put Chris’s clothes right again. After he’d snapped the first aid kit closed and tucked it back into the backpack, he stood up.
“Can you walk on it?” Lance asked. He held a hand out to Chris and slowly pulled him to his feet.
Chris tested his weight carefully on the injured ankle. Pain shot up his leg, but if he was careful- “Yeah, I can stand on it,” he finally answered through clenched teeth.
Lance released his hand, throwing off his balance a moment. “That’s not what I asked, Chris. Can you walk on it?” he repeated.
Chris took a couple of tentative steps ahead. It hurt like hell, the scratches burned the skin was pulled at the edges, but yeah, he could walk. Slowly. He finally nodded. “Yeah, if I don’t have to hurry or anything. Do you have some Tylenol in that bag of tricks of yours?”
“Yeah, hang on.” Lance dug around the bag, finally pulled out the bottle and shook three into his palm. He pulled out a bottle of water after that, opened it and then handed that and the tablets to Chris, who gulped them down greedily.
“Thanks,” Chris finally said when the bottle was nearly empty. “Now come on, let’s go,” Chris said hurriedly as he tried to pull Lance along with him.
Lance pulled his arm free. “Chris? What’s going on?”
“Nothing, nothing, but let’s go,” he insisted. He wasn’t saying anything else. He was pretty close to convincing himself he’d imagined it, but if he voiced it out loud, he might jinx it.
The next building they went into, they took one look at the large front room’s contents and went right back out. If Chris had only been slightly freaked out before, then this certainly didn’t help any. He was pretty sure they’d just found the town’s mortuary – the front room had held coffins in various sizes and states of build - and decay - stacked around the spacious workspace as well as a work table that still held wood working tools and the mortician’s last carving project. A chair was pushed up to the work table, still waiting for its owner to return and finish the project.
Back out in the street, they were met with the fading sun and long shadows as Chris and Lance looked both ways and tried to decide which way to go next. In one direction, the buildings continued for several more blocks before becoming more and more spaced out. In the other, the street quickly turned back into a dirt road that led up the hill and to what appeared to be an old mine hugging the hillside. They quickly made a decision and turned away from the end that led towards the mine. In this direction was a dress maker’s shop, the telegraph office, a small building whose sign declared it a brothel and a church. Chris couldn’t help but be amused at the situation of the last two. Visit the brothel and then attend confession? he wondered.
May 9
It has been several days since I have had a chance to sit and write. This illness is quickly spreading throughout the town. At first, it was families with children in our school, but it is quickly infecting the adults as well. Most of Tommy Callahan’s family has been buried by now and it looks like the Smiths will be joining them soon. Another couple, Lisa and Jamie Johnson, brought their young baby to the infirmary, but it was too late and the infant died shortly after their arrival.
One little boy, Easton Mills, disappeared sometime during the night last night and is presumed dead. We’re much too far away from any neighboring towns for him to have survived a cool night in early spring out there by himself. Even if the elements didn’t get to him, it is very likely that wild animals did. Townsfolk will search for him, but I think everyone realizes that the search is quite likely in vain.
I feel quite terrible for Easton’s family. As yet, they have managed to avoid becoming ill and I think perhaps it is because their home is on the edge of town and quite away from the steady flow of people and traffic. Perhaps this will work in their favor and they will not become ill. Perhaps the only tragedy of this will be their missing son.
The effects of this mysterious illness can’t help but be felt throughout the town as it continues to take its toll. So many children have become sick or have died that the school has been shut down as there aren’t enough students to fill its seats. One of the teachers has also gotten sick. I’ve enlisted the help of stout neighbors throughout the town as I can’t seem to keep up with everyone, but sooner or later everyone gets sick. It’s only a matter of time.
The streets are quiet. No one is out and about visiting or even driving around town anymore. There’s no more children, no pets playing in the streets and word is, the mill is going to shut down soon, too, with no men left healthy enough to work it.
I can’t help but worry about the long term effects of this illness upon the town. If we continue to get sick like this, who shall live here? Who shall carry the town into the future? I fear that soon there will be no one left to find that out.
After passing several more buildings, they turned down a side street that dead ended quickly. It stopped after only a few buildings with a large, rectangular two story building. There was a bell tower on top and after studying it a moment from the road, Chris looked at Lance thoughtfully.
“School?” he asked.
Lance nodded. “Probably.”
Chris indicated the door with a tilt of his head. “Wanna?” he asked. The pain medication had finally kicked in and his leg was feeling a bit better. At least now, he didn’t feel like screaming in pain every time he took a step. He wondered how it would be in the morning when he’d slept and it stiffened up, but for tonight, decided to take advantage of it.
“Might as well.”
Still a little shaken from before, Chris let Lance go first this time. Lance leaned against the door and pushed his shoulder against it to get it to open. Chris winced as it dragged across the floor. It opened into a small hall with stairs along the outside wall and another door on the opposite end. On their right was an open door that led into a spacious classroom.
“Jesus,” Lance whispered as he looked around the room. “It looks like it’s still waiting for the kids to come back. Creepy.”
Three rows of desks lined the room, with a large pot belly stove standing in the middle. Some of the desks had stacks of books on them, some still had paper and pencils, several dusty light bulbs hung from the ceiling. A faded, torn map of the United States was pulled down over a section of the black board at the front of the room. The book shelves that lined one corner of the room were filled neatly with books. In another corner of the room stood the teacher’s desk and Chris went over to it. A book was open to a half filled attendance sheet with a dried inkwell nearby. He carefully flipped through brittle pages and looked up at Lance.
“What the hell, Lance? What could make people just walk away from the town - ” he began. He glanced back down at the attendance sheet as though suddenly realizing that it held more answers than he’d first realized. The ink was faded, but still legible in very neat, precise handwriting. The list of names started out longer, then A’s were marked in the daily attendance columns. He shivered when many of the A’s eventually progressed into a straight line across the rest of the page and the student’s name carefully crossed out. Chris knew that could only mean one thing. It was beyond creepy. What remained of the town was frozen in time, permanently waiting for its residents to return. From the looks of things, Chris figured the town had been waiting a long time.
It was what he saw behind Lance that made him stop, though, not that he’d finished the question. He’d thought they were the only ones in the town, but now he wasn’t quite so sure. A little girl of about ten or eleven stood just inside the door. Her dark hair hung loosely around her shoulders and a long white nightdress with tiny eyelets around her neck hung to her ankles. A strand of narrow pink ribbon was woven through the eyelets. Her feet were bare. She stood still, watching Chris and Lance intently, before reaching one small hand up and holding it out flat, palm up.
Chris shook himself and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the girl was gone.
This time, Lance wasn’t letting it go so easily. “Chris, what’s going on?”
“I – There was a girl. Behind you, there was a girl,” Chris sputtered. He continued to stare at the spot where she’d been standing just seconds before.
Lance spun around and looked where Chris had been, then shrugged. “Chris, this town is abandoned. There’s nobody else here but us,” he said when he didn’t see anything.
Chris shook his head quickly. “No, no. I think she was a ghost,” he said finally, his voice barely above a whisper.
Lance took a cautious step closer to Chris. “Jesus,” he whispered when he took Chris in his arms. “You’re cold as ice,” he murmured against Chris’s hair. “It’s getting dark. Let’s get out of here, find a place to bunk down for the night and get you off that ankle, and then I think you better tell me exactly what is going on.”
But what if he didn’t know?
Chris let Lance guide him out of the school building and back into the street. The shadows stretched across the dirt road as the sun had nearly set. Chris wished the town still had electricity to drive back some of the darkness, but that was long gone. The skeletal remains of electrical poles dotted the landscape, but there few had wires that connected one to the next and he doubted anything ran out here anymore anyway.
How much longer until dark? Chris wondered. He wasn’t real eager to wander around in the dark all night, ghost or no ghost.
The last house they found themselves in front of was small, cozy looking with thin curtains still hanging inside intact windows. Chris hung back in the street with his arms wrapped tightly about himself. He was more than happy to let Lance go inside first to poke around. It was only when Lance stuck his head back out and gave Chris two thumbs up that he released a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.
The door opened into a small hall with a living room off to the left. He walked into the room, curious about what he’d find there and wondering where they’d sleep that night. Just inside the doorway was a chair with wooden arms and faded, threadbare upholstery. A couple more steps and there was a desk on the right. A ratty looking sofa was pushed against the back wall with a heavily carved coffee table in front of it. Another chair was near that, this time just a cushion and wooden frame. It had been pulled in front of the wood stove as though the last person to sit in it had been trying to warm up by the fire. Against the front wall was an open wardrobe with pegs for bonnets, hats and coats, and a bench to sit on as you put on your boots. The floor was bare, whatever coverings there may have been were long gone, and much of the wallpaper curled away from the walls. Everything in the room was covered in a thick layer of dust and the fabric looked as though it would tear with the slightest touch.
At one time, Chris thought, the room would have been beautiful with brightly colored upholstery and woodwork that had been polished until it gleamed.
Suddenly aware that he was alone in the room, Chris spun around and hobbled back into the hall. There was another small room across the way, but a quick glance assured him that Lance wasn’t in there and he slowly went deeper into the house. He found Lance in the kitchen and stopped, staring.
The kitchen was as eerie as the school had been. Just inside the door on the right was a wooden chair with something that reminded Chris of an old fashioned toddler’s booster seat. Just past that was a sideboard with a faded cloth spread across the top. On top of the sideboard were several rusted baking pans, a ceramic bowl and a metal whisk with a wooden handle. Above it, tucked against the corner, was an empty wooden cabinet without any doors. On the opposite wall was another cabinet with a few dusty tin dishes on its shelves. Below that was a drop leaf table pushed up against the wall. Two chairs had been pushed up to it and two place settings had been set out. A single oil lantern hung from the ceiling by a long leather cord tie to its handle and a deep, rusted sink was on the opposite wall. To Chris’s left, a wooden ice box stood against the wall and a wood cook stove was in the corner. Around the room, wood bead board lined the walls, painted what had probably been a bright, cheerful green at one time but was now just faded and chipped. Above it wallpaper had begun to pull away from the walls. The was a door in the back wall that Chris was pretty sure probably led to the back yard and an outhouse.
Lance apparently heard him enter the room. “This is just beyond creepy,” he asked quietly without turning around. “What the hell could have happened here, Chris, to make people leave their breakfast table?”
Chris wondered if Lance was even half as shaken as he sounded. He stepped up behind Lance and wrapped his arms around him, and then placed a quick kiss on Lance’s shoulder. “I don’t know, man,” he answered. “It had to be something major to pull people away from their lives like this.”
Lance stepped out of Chris’s hold, turned around and kissed his cheek lightly. “We should try to find a place to sleep tonight,” he said.
“I’m thinking there’s a nice spot of floor in the front room, myself,” Chris answered. “We can dust off a spot by the wall and use each other for pillows,” he continued.
“Why? Are you worried that the beds are nasty?” Lance teased.
Chris playfully punched Lance’s arm. “Dude. If there’s anything left to them besides the springs? You still couldn’t pay me enough to spend the night on one of those beds.”
Back in the front room, they found a patch of wall that was still pretty stable and didn’t have anything hanging down from it, like wallpaper or creepy crawlies, and did a quick dusting of the floor. They didn’t dare to do too much because neither of them were very eager to get splinters in their hands. Lance dropped the bag he’d been carting around all day onto the floor with a heavy thunk before they sat down with their backs against the wall.
“How’s your leg?” Lance asked quietly.
Chris flexed his leg, testing. It tugged and ached, but the instant fire that was there earlier was now gone. “Not bad,” he finally answered.
“Think you need some more Tylenol?”
Chris nodded. “Yeah, probably should.” After a few moments rustling, he was rewarded with a bottle of water being pushed into one hand and some more tablets being pressed into the other. He popped them into his mouth and drank some water.
Chris linked his fingers with Lance’s and leaned his head on Lance’s shoulder. He closed his eyes, ready to sleep and pretend today had just been some weird dream. But, the wood was hard underneath him and he could feel splinters digging into the backs of his thighs and his butt and his eyes itched from all the dust they’d been exposed to that day. Even though he was exhausted, sleep was a long time coming. He’d just started to drift off to sleep when Lance lightly placed a kiss to the top of his head and murmured something that he couldn’t quite make out.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-06 01:12 am (UTC)I like how you're weaving the past/present in together. It's not an easy task to pull off but you're doing it very well.