Down Town

Chapter 1

It started with a delivery trip. The Chinese food type.

I had never been to this part of town before. I shuddered and gulped as I looked at the shabby houses. The rotting wood was peeling and the tin roofs were brown from the rust which clung onto them. Hanging from the wood were tattered cloth pieces left to dry.

I marched up to the house in front of me and knocked on the makeshift door and hoped for it not to collapse. They would charge extra for that. A long eerie silence clung to the scary atmosphere.

A hairless cat crawled between my legs. I yelped and jumped to a side, wishing for a clean toilet I could pee at. I waited another couple of minutes then knocked again. If the owner of the house, (if you could call it a house), wouldn't come out, I would poop my pants or leave. I didn't like the idea of pooping in front of a hairless cat so I decided to leave.

Before I could take my second step, the door creaked open.

There was no one at the door so I asked, "Hello?"

That was usually the line that would be called out before someone was brutally murdered in a horror movie. My chances of survival was reaching a low zero.

Unfortunately, there was nothing better for me to do but step into the house. Inside the house was dark and it smelt funny, like a hairless cat peed everywhere. I tried not to breath through my nose but the air tasted terrible.

I tried another, "Hello?"

Suddenly, an arm grabbed my elbow. I slapped the arm away and jumped into a large pile of pots. Luckily, the Chine food was still safe in my arms. I quickly stood up and brushed myself off.

The figure stepped into the light. It was an old man with a fragile frame holding a crooked staff in one of his hands. He was dressed in dirty rags.

"Hi," I started. "I have your Chinese food?"

He didn't answer. Instead he grabbed my shoulders and started chanting. His eyes rolled back into his head and his grip tightened around my shoulders. For a frail old man he was pretty strong, I couldn't get away. A breeze flitted into the room, ruffling my hair and causing his robes to float.

I dropped the Chinese food and pushed the old man away. I scurried out the door and jumped onto my scooter seat. I revved the engine and pressed down the pedal. Unfortunately, the top speed my scooter could go was twenty kilometers per hour.

"Move stupid thing!" I kicked and screamed as tears started pouring down my face. I was petrified if you hadn't noticed already. I turned around to check if anyone was following me. It was only the weird hairless cat.

I 'sped' down the road and up hill towards the other side of town where our family restaurant was. My mum did all the cooking since she was the only full Asian person in the family and she actually knew how to cook. My dad was Caucasian so he didn't really know anything about Chinese cooking. The last time he tried to cook, he set fire to the kitchen and almost burned the building down.

I busted through the doors and sat down on one of the chairs. My dad was spreading out bowls on a table.

"How did the delivery go?" He asked. "Are you OK? You look a bit-"

My mum slammed the kitchen door open. "Fai!" No one ever said my first name apart from my mother. Everyone else used my last name, Gordon. My mum just really like to use my Asian name. "Did you get the money? Why you look like that? You poo your pants again? You wash them this time."

"Wha- what no!" I exclaimed. "There was this old man and he grabbed onto me and I dropped the food and ran. I'm OK though."

"You stupid boy," she shouted at me. "I tell you to do one thing, you can't even do it!" She grabbed onto one of my ears and dragged me to the kitchen. "You wash the dishes as your punishment!"