A Midnight Mind

Chapter 9: Suburban Legends

When Violet texted Ethan and asked if he wanted his tour, Ethan quickly snapped back to reality and agreed. 

He found her leaning against the wall next to the school entrance, playing with her phone. Her eyes flicked up as Ethan approached, but her head was still tilted down, giving her an uncharacteristically demure look. She quickly looked back down, but Ethan thought he saw a little smile playing at her lips.

"Hey," he said. He played it cool, but he was warm on the inside.

"Howdy, Mur-dock." She put her phone to sleep and stuffed it into her handbag. "Ready to bounce?"

"Word." 

She snorted at his attempt at matching her inconsistent lingo and cocked her head for him to follow her out the doors. "We'll hit the mall first."

As they walked, they chatted about small things like what they planned on doing after high school (Violet was thinking journalism, or private investigator), but Ethan couldn't help being distracted. He kept getting phantom buzzes against his leg, thinking he was getting texts from Neil, only to find he hadn't received any messages. 

At least I'm not getting psychic brain messages or whatever, he thought. Unless that's what the phantom buzzes are...? Shit, why am I suddenly taking this psychic nonsense seriously?

"Relax, dude," Violet eventually said. "You seem stressed. The mall's really not that bad. Except maybe the food court."

Ethan tried to laugh, but a strange squeaking noise came out instead. He cleared his throat with a forced, manly grunt, then said, "No, I just... No, I'm good."

"I'm not keeping you from something, am I? You keep checking your phone like you're expecting a call from your secret wife who's nine months pregnant and ready to blow."

"That's... oddly specific."

"They tell me I have an active imagination."

"Who's 'they'?"

"The voices in my head."

Again, Ethan wanted to laugh, but couldn't. Voices in heads was not a topic he wanted to think about.

Like most things in Shirewood, the mall was small and compact. It had a movie theatre, which was something, but otherwise there were several samey clothing stores, a video game store, a bookstore, and several out-of-business shops with shuttered windows--the usual mall fare in an increasingly online world. 

Even though Violet kept making jokes about how lame Shirewood Mall was, her cheeks were starting to burn the longer they spent wandering, like she was embarrassed about wasting Ethan's time. Ethan's attempts at forced enthusiasm just made her cringe more. 

"I get it, dude," she said. "You're from the city--sorry, a city--so this must be excruciatingly boring, eh?"

She happened to say it while he was checking his phone for messages, so when he said, "No, I'm having a good time," she gave him a flat look of disbelief.

He spotted a barbershop tucked away in one of the far corners of the mall, and pointed it out. "Is that the mafia place?"

Frowning, she looked where he was pointing. She laughed, then quickly changed to mock-seriousness and shushed him. "You wanna get whacked? Keep your voice down!"

They walked by the shop, pretending not to look inside. The place was unassuming, full of elderly customers, but the employees were all overweight olive-skinned guys with shiny slicked-back hair. A chalkboard sign said cuts were "cash only".