Milk Carton Boys

Knock

We both stared at eachother for a moment after hearing someone knock at the door, loud and urgent and then sudden quiet. I stood up abruptly, helping Maria up from her seat and went down the hall to the main door. I twisted the handle and slowly opened the door to see an old man in a grey coat, his face aged and creases making patterns all over his skin, beside him stood another, turned away at the street. I squinted at the old man's face, trying to figure out who he was.

Kevin.

"Speak of the devil."

The first words that came from his mouth, still with the Irish accent he had but with the same rattle in his voice that Maria had. Maria stepped in front of me and greeted Kevin with a hug, muttering something to him before stepping away.

"S'funny you found Xavier, you'd never guess who almost gave me a heart attack this morning." He let out a chuckle and gestured for the figure to turn around to face us.

"Xavier?"

"Tyler!"

I practically jumped on him, hugging him around his massive jacket, he hugged back and burried his face into my neck. Unlike Kevin and Maria, Tyler hadn't aged.

After our new company was greeted, we all moved back into the house, sitting back down on the sofas, both Tyler and I explain what had happened, both of us somehow waking up this morning like nothing had happened.

"What happened that night?"

"Well for me, it felt like it was last night, I went out to the forest for a smoke, this morning I thought I'd just somehow made my way back home, I don't remember much.

"What about you, Xav? Do you remember getting home?" Kevin asked.

"Come to think of it, I don't remember it either, I was drinking like everyone else, when I woke up I thought I'd just forgotten."

"So somewhere on the way back home you both went missing, woke up sixty years later in your abandoned family houses and remember...nothing."

We were all stumped, it didn't seem right. There was no solid answer, both me and Tyler remembered nothing, gone without a trace and confirmed dead.

Never in a million years had I ever guessed experiencing a situation like this, sitting amoungst friends, where half are on their way to the grave or are already there, and the others still trying to grow decent facial hair. At least I wasn't obliged to finish school now.

"Apart from Xav and I, were there any other people that went missing? In the same circumstances, I mean"

"Not that I heard of" replied Maria, "it could be possible, Kevin could you check the cloud, we might find records of other missing people."

I looked over to Tyler who was sitting beside me, both of us looking at each other with confused expressions, I silently mouthed to him "cloud?" and he shrugged before hearing Maria laugh at the scene.

"It's odd seeing you two, the world sky rocketed in technology after you went missing. The cloud is what we call our 'computers', we can search up just about anything, it has the answers."

"You have a computer? Those are priceless!"

"So they were, now they're only a few hundred dollars. You two wouldn't believe it, the things we have now work faster than the technology they had for the moon landing back in '68!" Kevin piped up from across the room, he was controlling the 'cloud' which seemed to be the name for all the moving projecter lights on the wall, he was waving his arms around like he was conducting a symphony, writing words in the air that then appeared on the wall.

I was struck in awe at the lights, boxes started popping up with lists of options, videos, pictures and more, like an eletronic encyclopedia. God I'd missed a lot.

"Ah, here's a few others, all through from 1985 to 1989. Several people from ages fourteen to twenty-two were suspected kidnapped or to have commited suicide, gone without a trace from their hometowns, leaving one night and never returning." Kevin said, pulling up a picture of a news paper article from the 'Daily'.

"Maybe others who went missing have come back." Maria pointed out, "Kevin, could you find the towns where the missing people came from?"

"I've got a list of 'em here. Monroeville, Norington, Parsville, Summit and this town" Kevin responded, "you could try find others, hopefully someone else you find might remember something."

"Then it's settled, we'll drive around to the other towns and see if we find anyone" Tyler stated, I nodded in response "can we use a car?"

Maria laughed "how do you expect to drive? You're licenses are out of date."

Tyler groaned "I have to redo my learners test again."

I laughed "didn't you fail six times?" He nodded back sorrowfully.

After Kevin doing more research on the other missing persons, Maria went off to explain to the other woman of the arbitrary situation at hand. Tyler and I were left on the sofa, so I pulled out my walkman and tried to blast the music on maximum to try create some kind of stereo, Tyler had brought over a bag with Kevin, and inside he'd only packed his own walkman, a ukulele, dusty comic books, cigarettes and a rusted lighter, his wallet and the bottom of the bag was stacked with casettes.

"If you can still light those cigarettes, keep them. Prices are through the roof with them now. Do you still smoke, Kev?"

"Nah, gave up decades ago, prices got too high, not worth it. Everyone's obsessed with living, the whole health-craze has been in full throttle for years now."

It was weird how chill Kevin was with this whole thing, two of his friends had gone missing for sixty years, one turning up at his doorstep and finding the other one at a friends house looking like they'd used too much anti-aging cream. He was always like that though, like the one time we'd heard about a murderer dumping bodies in the river and he brought up the great idea to go out in a boat to see how many we could find. We actually did find one, a big lady, about fifty years old, it was pretty gross. Honestly, he wasn't really phased by anything, the dead body, the drugs, the cutting, he was self-destructive and pretty out of his head, even now in his seventies he was still the same at heart. Maria walked back into the main room, her relatives following behind her, the woman looking at me and Tyler like she'd seen a ghost.

"Where's the closest town, Kevin?"

"Monroeville, only a ninety minute drive, Hari and I aren't on the best terms at the moment, I have enough time to spare to get these two over there" He nodded back to Maria.

"It's settled then. Here's enough money for food and essentials. No cigarettes or beer, alright?" She chuckled as she handed over a wad of green bills.

"Thanks, Maria." I gave her a small smile and embraced her in a hug, it still hadn't fully registered that this was going to be my life now, this was my once-young girlfriend, Maria. The person who yesterday would look at me like I was her everything, and now was an aging woman with a family. Hopefully once it did click it would be as minimally scarring as possible. It didtnt take long before Tyler and I were piling into Kevin's car, with one last hug from Maria, who was now a blubbering mess, I kissed her forehead and made my way to the car, setting off to our first stop, Monroeville.