Badlands

The Shadow Before Chapter Sixteen

This Chapter is dedicated to: Antisocial_idiot because ssssaaammmmeee I am an internet. Definitely not an outernet

Badlands

Part Two: The Shadow Before

Chapter Sixteen// The Shack

1991

The summer swings into fall as if it is meant to be that way every year. Every year the leaves fall of the trees of the towns that share them. The fog rolls in every morning and distracts a person because it is indeed the end of summer and is the begining of fall. For more up north people would put on snow tires or chains that help them travel through snow easier.

However Interior and the whole Badlands area doesn't get snow. It doesn't get fog until at night and even then it is so thin that you can see the next door neighbor's dog doing it's buiness on the person across from you's lawn.

Interior doesn't get that much at all for anything when it comes to summer going into fall. The only really cold days you get is those of Thanksgiving and Christmas. If there ever was snow it would be gone by New Years along with anything you want to get rid of in the first place.

There was a spot for those things you don't want. This place was never closed because of New Years Eve. It was never closed because it had to much shit. No. It would only grow wider or not that it would grow higher.

Lucas Randolph thought it was the most fascinating place. Despite the oder and the crummy looking residue on a beat up Cadillac it was his playground. He knew that area with the back of his hand.

Some would hate the term dumpster diver. But Lucas thought of it with way more passion and interest than a stupid dumping site. He saw it as a graveyard of unbroken dreams. Some dreams he would assume can become better than the previous owner had it on.

He knew where to go and where not to go at this place. He knew if you went to the left of the fork it was the dump. The pil of pigsty that everyone calls all of it regardless where the fork goes to. On the right it takes you to all the metals. All the cars and unwanted items like refrigerators, dish washers, and dryers.

It was his palace and Lucas was the king. He called it The Shack.

Gregory on the other hand didn't mind The Shack but it was more like his mother didn't want him to have any buisness to go down there and poke around in the big rubbish pile.

His best friend was the king though and he wanted royality too. When they were younger. Much younger as they were probably just twelve. They played cops and robbers. Lucas being the cop and Greg being the robber. They would run around and Greg would hide in the most unbelieable spots to not get caught against the cop.

It was their game. And sadly they really never grew out of it. Instead they added on to the big story and got creative. The robber is actually a great middle class man who wants to date the princess of the land but Lucas is the cop and the father of the princess. He doesn't like him and so the chase starts. There was a loop after the Shack and this loop got you back to the first road of Interior.

That's how they got home most nights.

This particular night they were setting foot on the trail and Greg was laughing as he got a stick to walk with.

"What are you laughing at Gamer Greg," Lucas laughs along though as they both make thier way.

"It's just no matter how much we use our imaginations down here and play down here even though our momma's don't tell us to. Like I always thought if our imaginations actually let the best out of us and we see something crazy," Greg pokes the stick into the ground and Lucas stops.