#dead place

[nogodsonlygarages]

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

[dns-mcb]

Charming place

[maxkerwicktales-blog]

Excerpt from Dead Place Chapter 1 Draft 1

1

Entity

 “How do you feel?”

The walls are old, decaying, with weeds sprouting all over. The arches seem to be able to barely hold the weight above them. The school’s entrance has been barricaded. Ashley Miles tugs at the nailed in planks. Ashley is a tall brunette, known to be one of the most beautiful inside the walls of Eden. She’s approaching thirty and doesn’t enjoy that. Wrinkles haven’t begun to invade her flawless skin and yet she cries over the day they do. Watching her try and smash through the entrance is Tony Olson, a younger man of twenty five. Looking at his bold and curled beard as while as his messy pitch hair, one might expect him to be older. Unlike Ashley who has taken to wear her purple tank-top and jeans, Tony wears a heavy leather jacket and combat pants to keep heat in. Olson leans against a beaten up pickup truck with red coloring, though the red is badly faded.

“Why don’t we talk about what happened at the school?”

Ashley descends from the stone staircase and steps ever closer to Tony once on solid ground. She doesn’t notice his eyes examining her from toe to head. Even the way she walks with her right foot crossing the other leaves him with an unruly attraction. Her light green pupils meet his. It’s been so long since he has had the chance to show himself. Ash searches the back of the truck and comes up with a flask. Tony watches her drink, her narrow lips seemingly popping out. “You gonna drink that whole thing?” Ashley grins after she stops the action and twists the lid back on. “I asked when we were at that rest stop.” Tony lets his pupils stray from the beautiful woman and instead focuses on the high school long abandoned. He sighs. The high school was his own. Every inch of it he recalls perfectly. He could’ve got them in by now but he hadn’t. A growing laziness matched just right with his growing intolerance for other humans. “There’s a back way,” Tony finally admits. Ashley hops from the truck’s rear and onto shattered cement. “Why didn’t you say anything earlier?” Her expression is one of epic frustration. At that moment another voice can be heard, not from out but from within. Tony hears it between the borders of his mind as it prods and pokes at the edges of his brain. The man regarded himself no higher than the average immoral survivor, though the voice makes him seem to be in line for saint hood. Ashley continues to speak, however her words are drowned by the voice’s commentary. “You could just take whatever you find in there for yourself. You didn’t have to tell her.” The voice appears in a humanoid form beside its host. Tony’s eyes widen as it sees the spiteful reflection. The voice looks to be identical to him with different attire to fit its own personality. “Of course you would have to kill her. That might lead to questions.” The body of the voice moves a hand over the copied facial hair. “Then you would simply have to take out the entire camp.” At this point the imaginary friend speaks to itself. Tony can’t predict it and yet a pattern can sometimes emerge. “Maybe we’ll have to burn the camp down.” It slides its hands deep into his pants pockets. The joyful look across its face is telling.

“Tony!” Ashley roars from the bottom of her lungs and is successful in bringing Tony’s attention back. The voice and its body vanishes. The sky thunders and lightning strikes as if the voice’s disappearance had angered the heavens. “Now, you mind telling me how to get in?” Olson pulls his handgun from within the rear portion of his belt. “Follow me.” The storm sends rain down to impair the two survivors. Ashley uses both hands to grab her two biceps. Thunder ricochets. As Tony Olson leads to the school’s side, he hears the voice return. The building is three levels high with the width needed to contain the five thousand students who used to attend. Ashley shivers as she follows. The sky’s water pull both of their hair down and adds weight to their choice of clothing. “Before you say it, don’t.” The voice’s body sits with its back against a yellow school bus’s side and ass on the cold earth. The strange thing is, Tony Olson can almost feel the freezing concrete that the voice sits on. “You were going to offer her that really shiny coat of yours. I’m assuming you want to freeze to death then?” Tony halts his movements once he reaches the spot directly below a large window. The transparent glass looms over from a height of at least ten feet. “It’s high enough no one inside would think of barricading.”

Ashley sighs a labored breath and visible carbon is released. “How do we get up there?”

“You’re going to drive the pickup over here and then you’ll give me a boost.” As she gets on her way, Tony calls. “Hey.” He then takes off his jacket and presents it. A light smile can be seen on Ashley’s face before she takes it and vanishes around to the front. A sense of pride fills before the voice attacks. “A T-shirt won’t do much for protection.” Tony turns to face his evil twin with a disapproving frown. The figure sitting by the bus takes a moment to chuckle. “You said you would stay away.” The male survivor keeps his vocals low but even through silence the voice can read him. “I can’t go through this again.” The heated argument lays waste to any sense that could remind Tony of the cold. “Last time you made me…”

“What did he make you do, Tony?”

The glass breaks with a mere single smash of Tony’s right arm. He leaps in, standing on a row of bleachers peering down toward a repurposed gymnasium. His next move is to pull Ashley up and out from the raging storm. She is the first to adventure downward, each bleacher made of wood creaking as she steps down. Tony aims to follow when a flash of illusion covers his vision. Students, his dear friends from before, sit either side of him. The room has been lit up by the bulbs screwed into the ceiling. A boy in a fox costume dances in the center of the room while cheerleaders and football players alike jog into the gym. Once Olson blinks, the illusion is gone. The gym is dark and damp, the ceiling’s bulbs have all blown and water threatens to leak through the same area. There are sleeping bags, dozens actually. The beds are spread all over the floor and yet neither Tony nor Ashley can see a soul. Finally the survivors find the gym door through the lingering shadows. “You first,” Ash insists. The relatively wide and tall door is opened. Again Tony can see the ghosts of the past. A friend of his named Martha walks with two boys carrying textbooks. Two security guards stand by the school’s entrance beside the gymnasium. “Don’t do this,” he pleads in a whisper.

“What was that?” Ashley takes note of the panicked expression invading the man’s facial features. “You talking to someone I can’t see or what?” She laughs the question away.

“Just myself,” he responds. Closing both eyelids over and reopening them brings him to the nightmare of reality. They check the dust ridden counter and behind it before mapping out a plan. “Okay, there should be some canned goods left in the cafeteria if this place has stayed boarded up all this time. I suggest we split. You head to the café and I’ll head up to the supply rooms.”

“How do I find the café?”

Tony points toward a sign with the label and a direction. Ashley allows a miniature laugh. “I’ll see you back here?”

“Ten minutes,” Tony agrees.

[annieundead]

[moscowscum]

TK5 x TOY.D

from winter goes to summer..