Day 15 - Breadcrumb Trail Part Two

Hey guys; we're halfway there! Grace Nask with Day 15 of the April Challenge. Today we have some more Breadcrumb Trail, a short story for teens and above. If you're just coming in, Lily, our main character, just learned about a terrible monster troubling her town, one the neighbor Hansel plans to stop. But that's just a child's rubbish...right? So let's get to it!

The afternoon ticked by with a slowness intended to mock me. I felt each minute when it passed, and every second couldn’t escape my gaze. Believe me, I tried to do other things. I finished my tea, pulled out a book, curled up on my bed, popped headphones in--nothing could calm me down. I ended up pacing in the living room, stepping on that stupid newspaper on the floor when I passed it.

Hours stretched by like that until I couldn’t take it anymore. Irritated at my own curiosity, I grabbed my binder of evidence from the court case thirteen years ago and sat in the living room, the same spot I sat in that morning when I read that Matilda died. Before judgment of the thousand and one better ways to spend my time could stop me, I pulled the heavy burden of destruction open and rifled through it.

I had been thorough in collecting evidence. Well of course I had! You couldn’t sue even strange, old-fashioned, dead Matilda without proper evidence and facts. So I had been thorough.

Pictures of my garden from every angle stared back at me, most barely recognizable as my yard. My garden, once beautiful and green, amounted to nothing but ash. In that ash, footprints couldn’t be found, but a trench had been dug through the middle of it as though a battalion of soldiers had passed. The grass around it had been emulsified into the dirt beneath it; only on the farthest edges of my property remained untouched with any hint of color.

The wood on the house had been scorched from its yellow color into a black, and in some places no wood at all. And in the fence, the white picket one leading from Matilda’s property and the wire one I put up myself merged together at an intersection, a hole had been created. Bigger than any hole a human might need for entry and exit.

At the time I had been certain Matilda was a crazed arsonist who hated the bright yellows of my daisies. Now, though, I couldn’t be sure. An array of burns and blood loss…. “They use the monster’s flames as energy to power the kingdom.” “...the monster’s roaming the streets and its going to kill more people tonight and lots of them will die….” What if...what Hansel had said was...true? Another thought filtered through my head. “...it gains power from the darkness.”

I checked my clock. It blinked 7:00 pm at me. Goodness gracious seven o’clock! I jerked my head to the window and stared out. The sun pulsed low in the sky, the first rays of red and orange bleeding into a sunset. Darkness was coming fast.

Curse me; curse Hansel; curse Matilda; curse everyone! Flipping to the back of the binder, I unclipped Matilda’s fingerprint scans out of it (if you don’t have any nice questions to ask don’t ask any at all) and raced to Hansel’s apartment complex.

I knocked on the door, three quick raps in frantic succession, waiting for Hansel as he’d had to wait for me. My feet bounced on the cement steps as thirty seconds passed, and I peeked through the window again. The curtains were drawn, and it seemed that the lights were out.

What was I doing here, standing on the doorstep of a grief-stricken weirdo with a wild imagination? I fell right into the little idiot’s prank! Now he’d show up and laugh at Nosy Lily who couldn’t stay where she belonged long enough to realize that she’d been duped.

But something stopped me from turning back or even leaving Matilda’s fingerprints on the doorstep. Something in the back of my mind couldn’t let go, not after I saw my garden, rampaged and destroyed, and imagined it to be a human body.

Where was Hansel? The kid sure took his time answering the main door of the apartment complex. I glanced to my right at the dying sun. The pulsing white orb sank lower. Layers of pink swirled into the reds and oranges, warning me of the dangers of dawdling. Soon purple would join into the mix, then dark blue. Then black, and nightfall would begin.

I knocked on the door again, harder this time. When no one answered, I glanced around the street. A car passed on the road, but otherwise, all was still. And the apartment complex didn’t yield any signs of life. With a grim smile, I tried the knob. And if it was open, and I walked inside unannounced, you don’t have any proof so back off.

In all the years I’d known Matilda, I’d never walked into her three-story apartment complex. (She didn’t like company. My company, that is.). I have to say, I wasn’t that impressed. Brown walls, white tile--you get the picture. The door I reached opened into a landing, and a set of carpeted stairs led up and down.

Shuddering at the thought of what might have lived underneath, I chose up. Taking the stairs two at a time, I entered the first apartment I came across. A bronze Number 6 announced its presence. Go figure.

The inside seemed a lot better than the outside, and, most importantly, it seemed lived in. Bookshelves lined the hallway, filled with knick-knacks of every variety and the occasional book in between. A small couch squeezed its way into the mayhem; a large flat screen TV sat opposite it. In the distance, a square table laid by itself, save the two chairs beside it and the remains of a hasty breakfast. One of the chairs remained upright, but the other had been flipped on its side in the rush.

Where was Hansel? This must be their place, but the kid couldn’t be found. Unease clawed through my stomach as I pondered a new question: where would Hansel have gone?

A hallway branched off the main living area. I followed it to three doors and chose one at random. It opened, revealing the room of a thirteen-year-old boy: blue and roughened and sweet. The curtains were drawn on the singular window, but a little light bled through. Good. We still had time. Though when this operation turned into a “we” job, I couldn’t say.

Few toys were to be found except for a couple of stuffed animals on the giant blue bed in the corner, like Hansel wanted to remember a past he could never revive. An oak dresser pressed itself against the wall, and in the corner of the room, as far away from the window as an object could get sat a desk and chair with a laptop on it. Jackpot.

Ignoring the rules of privacy, I sat in the chair and turned the laptop on, rubbing my hands together...and met the password screen. Fortunately for me, I got it on the fifth try: lesnah. And they called me nosy and a creep! The little idiot’s asking for it, with a weak password like that. Humming, I opened Google and checked Hansel’s search history.

What I found seemed a bit disturbing. Knots. Lots and lots and lots of videos on tying knots. Unnerved, I went back a bit further and found the purchase of a ladder and rope. Same day delivery.

What the heck was going on here? Could the kid not take it anymore? Next stop: email. Bingo. He’d sent one today. One and one only, to a person whose email was a string of numbers. With Hansel being his mother’s son, the message appeared to be a letter about four pages long.

I skimmed through it and got the gist. Whoever this person was, Hansel apologized (for like, a page) on letting the monster loose. Next, Hansel explained the situation and that he was going to attempt to take care of the monster himself first, but if he couldn’t he’d call for help before he died. He outlined the plan, which was absolute idiocy, not to mention suicidal. He wanted to tie himself onto a lamppost as bait for the monster and then use the weapon, which wouldn’t work without Matilda’s fingerprints, in the hand that wasn’t tied. Hansel finished the email by shouting about this person’s majesty and how he’d be pleased to die for him. So, by default, this King he’d spoken of.

And that wonderful, majestic, glorious King Hansel spoke about never bothered to email him back, even after Hansel promised his life for the energy source of Duskland.

Of course, the little idiot couldn’t be bothered to mention which lamppost he was tying himself to. Granted, Hansel couldn’t drive yet, but he’d had a couple hours to walk to whatever destination he so pleased. The kid could be anywhere at this point. I’d have to search every lamppost from here to Neverland to find him, but I had to reach him before the sun came down or the monster ate him, whichever came first. Great. Terrific! WONDERFUL!

I sank into the computer chair, hands lanced through my hair. This was it. Hansel was as good as dead.

Along the road, a woman’s scream erupted through my melancholy. It sounded loud enough to stimulate from the attack of a giant fire monster whose energy flourished as darkness approached. I strained my ears toward the sound, listening for the direction. It came from Holden Lane.

Huh. Well, that was as good a place to start my search as any.