Fire Starter

Chapter Five

Which one was the right place? I asked myself sliding out of the vehicle.

What was strange is that the man didn't ask for his money regardless the fact that I was getting out the car. But after I closed the door, I leaned against the side of the car on the curb, rummaging in my half empty pockets for a decent bill. I think the ride was 20$ but all I found was a 50.

I tapped the window with my nails as the driver was back to looking down at his phone again that might as well had been a tablet considering the size.

He rolled down the window enough for us to communicate, but I didn't want to communicate, all I did was wanted to be in a warm atmosphere again. I wouldn't be surprised if it snowed tomorrow at all, to be honest.

I slipped the brunette the rolled up bill through the cracked window, hoping he wasn't the complicated type to be insistent of taking half of the money back, or even refusing it all together.

Please don't look at the bill until you drive off.

Before he even had the chance to look at how much I had handed him, I opened my mouth to ask which one was the house, or how I would even know.

"221B Baker Street." He said, pointing to a house at the end of the street.

Why the fuck couldn't he had dropped me off in front of it? Asshole.

I didn't even say thank you, because I was much too lazy to walk, and it was like he was forcing me to do just that. Four house down felt eternity, like running through water. The crazy part is that the street was almost vacant in terms of cars, so there isn't any excuse why he couldn't drop me the hell off in front of it.

What angered me more is that even when I marched up the porch steps of the old looking creepy house, the cab stayed there.

Nothing was strange about the street at all, as to why the driver held previous suspicions when I said "Baker." The only thing ironic about the street was the fact that you could have a row of beautiful modern day homes painted bright and beautiful, and the very last house on the end of the street, where I stood, 221B, threw it off with its broken window shudders, a porch with wooden squeaky boards, dead grass, a beat up gate that "guarded" the premises, a tree that was just dead bark with not a single leaf, and the house color must have been white at one point but had never ever been repainted staining it brown with chips in the paint. It's mailbox was a brown metal tin container on a piece of wood. 221B was painted sloppily above the door. The house looked like it stood through World War I and II.

But I think that's why I liked it. It was ugly on the outside, yet, if someone lived here, it must have been beautifully taken care of on the inside. The appearance is possibly the reason why people didn't bother teepeeing or egging it... It was to ward off intruders.

A great analogy would be; the ugliest girl with the most beautiful heart. Her appearance shuns off people from breaking what's inside.

I should be scared that I was stood in front of a haunted looking house, but I wasn't. The minor adrenaline that pulsed through my veins is what had powered my hand to push open the rusted gate, pushed my legs to walk across the old dirty lawn and up the porch, and made me grow the guts to knock on the paint chipped wooden door.

When I pulled my hand back, I was surprised not to have receive a splinter.

I looked back at the cab, that didn't move an inch, before facing the door, ready to be faced with an old traumatized ugly man who was psychotic, and was in his 80's, who may or may not have intentions of helping me get a job and apartment and so on. But I got the opposite.