No More Ice Cream

Unanswered Questions

I'm gonna die. Haisley shuffled the shelf full of boxes and pushed it against the door, not caring if any of its contents fell. Dents in the door began to form, startling Haisley, and fumbling forward from where she was sat. She stood up gazing at how weak the door was becoming, with the numerous blows. It was a miracle that the door even scarcely held its place. The shelf rocked precariously, struggling to keep its balance with every sway. Eventually, the shelf toppled over, impacting the floor with a solid thud which pulsed beneath Haisley's feet. Soon enough, the door came fully off its hinges. The creature flung it out of the way as if it had no weight at all. The ticking of gears and rustling of fur filled the room with an ominous ambience, apart from the heavy deliberate clank of its feet moving around the room, searching. The blinding beams that glowed from its eyes flicked around the room sporadically until they eventually landed on the box Haisley was behind. Its slow heavy footsteps thunked louder as it gradually got closer, stopping right in front of the shelf. She could still hear movement but its feet did not move. Its fabric fur was twisting and shuffling, then she realised, it was leaning down. Haisley slowly scooted to her right, trying to keep out of its eye line. The thing had scooped the rest of the boxes away, and it stared blankly at her with its frustrated expression. Before she could move, its hand was already reaching out to grab her...

The sun seeped through the glass windows, burning through Haisley's black ripped jeans. She didn't take much notice though. She balanced her elbow on the car's door and rested her head in her palm as she gazed at the surrounding scenery.

Red Moor was a nice town. Sometimes a little quiet but overall, it was a nice area. It was a small, built up town, with a couple parks here and there, and plenty of shops embedded within the clumped together houses. But for Haisley and her family, they lived quite far apart from the people. Haisley could make friends easily in school, and enjoyed everyone's company, yet they lived further away from other houses. This did have its benefits of course, they were closer to the school, and she could comfortably ride her bike their too, though she preferred her mum's car rides in the morning.

There was an ice cream shop, oddly located outside of the main town, that Haisley used to go to a lot when she was younger. She always said she was going to miss it, as her parents were contemplating moving again quite soon.

"We should have stayed in the other area." She remembered her mum say. Haisley was always "too young" to understand what was happening. Her mum always reassured her that she would tell her when she's older, but now that her 14th birthday is in a week, she's hoping that she'll get an explanation soon. Sometimes her dad would tell her snippets of information that she'd need to put together on her own. He always had an uncomfortable expression on his face when trying to explain, even when he poorly attempted to smile. He'd always stop at a random point and just go off track. That's why Haisley always wrote notes down of everything. It became a habit. Any useful information she could pick up, she'd jot it down on sticky notes, in books, even on her hand if there was no paper available.

Anyway, the ice cream parlour was about 20 minutes away from where they lived, and each year on Haisley's birthday, they would go there to celebrate it. On a couple occasions though, her dad wouldn't attend. Again, she never knew why, but her mum always said that he was working, yet when they got home, he would be slouched over in his chair in the living room. Haisley always wondered why he couldn't go there after work, but she'd always shook it off. The times he did however, every few minutes or perhaps an hour he would say he "needed air" and would go outside for a good 10 minutes or so. Most of the time Haisley was distracted by playing with her friends, so she didn't notice an awful lot. She absolutely adored the animatronic mascots there. It was the main reason she went every year.

"Hey Nan?" Haisley started. Surprised that she even began talking herself.

"Yes, Hais?" Her Nan responded with her usual soft, gentle and almost intrigued tone.

"Um... what happened back then?" She asked vaguely. She knew what she wanted to ask but, couldn't really find the right words.

"What do you mean, honey?"

"Like, what happened in '87 and '02?" Haisley said, cutting straight to the point. She knew her Nan wasn't going to answer properly, no one ever did. But, she tried anyway.

"Um," she started, clutching her hands tighter around the steering wheel. "you'll have to get your mum to answer-"

"She won't though! She never does," Haisley interrupted with an abrupt frustration. All she wanted to know was what happened. "Sorry." she apologised instantly after, feeling a sudden harsh pang of guilt.

"It's okay. I understand" her Nan said sympathetically, quickly glancing at her with a wholesome smile before returning her attention to the road ahead. "Perhaps when you're older."

"That's what mum keeps saying, but I am older. I'm nearly 14 Nan. I understand more now, I can handle whatever happened." She said with confidence, though she was lying to herself. She knew that it must have been pretty serious if even adults couldn't handle it. But she stuck with what she said.

"I know Hais, but the time will come." her Nan reassured. Haisley let out a huff and focused back on her window and watched outside. But when will that time come? She wondered.

No one knew why Haisley was so curious about it, she didn't even know why herself, but something was just nagging at her to get answers. She asked every family member, some neighbours but, nothing. Some of their acting was pretty convincing to her however. They would just simply reply:

"I don't remember anything interesting happening then." or "I don't know. Sorry." and would scurry back inside their homes as if they were afraid of her. She felt... out of place. Every one seemed to know what went on but her. Her friends were also some of the few people that didn't know so that did comfort her.

Just a quick note: some of these chapters (for me) are kinda boring so you can either wait until like chapter 5 or just read it anyway. Thank you and I apologise lol