The Apocalypse Knocking

Chapter 5 ~Dakota's POV~

I arrive at the last light before you exit town and just like the rest of them, it's red. I turn toward the park that is off to the right. Children run and play on the equipment. Carefree children, I wish I had alittle longer like that. A few figures hover around the clusters of children, parents. A few parents sit on the benches that surround the equipment. I continue to scan the park. My eyes wander until they spot a glimes of ginger hair, familiar ginger hair, Jasmine. Her head is buried in a journal. She has her phone weighing a newspaper down on the bench next to her.

The light turns green and the line creeps forward. I am toward the back so I will not be making this light. It seems like everyone's leaving town today. I get about four car lengths up before we come to a halt again. I let out a growl and direct gaze back to Jasmine, who is now looking around. I guess she felt my stare. She finally lock eyes with me and examines my car. Her face says it all; she's in awe. My car is sexy and I know Jasmine thinks the same. She and I used to go on and on about older cars so I know she appreciates old cars just as I do but who am I kidding if you were driving a 51 year old car around, that has most of the original parts, who wouldn't be in awe. I say mostly original because the radio is new and so is the chrome.

Honking horns alert me back to the road ahead of me, the light is green and I am holding traffic up. I accelerate through the light and all the cars that were behind me get stuck for another 2 minutes on red. I chuckle as I watch a scruffy faced 20-something year old man tell me I am number 1 with a certain finger. I think I might have gone to school with him. He seems familiar.
I shrug off the resurfacing memories, and drive out of town. I need to get away for alittle while. This town gets me nostalgic. I want to forget, not remember. A single tear slides down my face as my mind takes me back 5 years, as my mind takes me back to the way my life was before.

I get home and change. I'm going to that shitty bar down in town, The Dead Rabbit. It's already 7:53 P.M. and I plan to head there at 9:00 P.M. I need to forget all the shit going on, all the memories trying to resurfacing, my shitty child-hood, all the bullying. Those memories I tried to forget, maybe even disown but are now torturing me. Dragging me back into the dark state of mind I was in before.

~~~^~~~^~~~

I check my phone as I roll up to the bar, 9:12. The bar itself is the cheapest option in town and I am out for some cheap liquor to keep me company tonight. The interior of the this shitty joint is your topical small town bar, crappy wooden tables and deer heads hanging on the walls. There are booths and tables with chairs so I decide to sit in the farthest booth from all the others here.

Almost as soon as I sit down a waitress comes over,

"Hey Dakota, haven't seen you here in awhile. The usual?" Betty asks.

"Yep." I respond shuffling threw my bag.

"Are you alright, hun? You seem down, is it boy issues?" Betty asks knowing very well that I don't speak to anyone let alone a member of the male population.

"No, I'm fine." I respond halfheartedly without meeting her gaze. She smiles and turns away to fill my order.

I return to shuffling threw my bag. I pull out the folder I have filed with information on the men's deaths, my journal and my laptop. I am such a frequent flier here that they allowed me on the WiFi. I start into my research.

By 10:20, I have already downed four of my usual choice of beer and have come to the conclusion that it has to be a Woman In White. A Woman In White is the ghost of a woman that killed her children and herself after finding out that her husband was unfaithful. These ghosts appear as beautiful women and try to seduce taken men in an attempt to make them unfaithful. If a men does in fact become unfaithful, the ghost kills them. Which makes since because according to the papers the only similarities between the men killed is that they all just got out of basic training but they neglect to realize they were killed on the same 20 mile stretch of road.