Unfinished Business

CHAPTER 6: I ENTER THE HAUNTED HOME AT THE END OF 300 WEST

Eventually, I lost the monster. I don't know what I was expecting. 

For a while, I followed the Eye For An Eye almost beat-for-beat until it distorted its body, slipped into the two-inches-wide alleyway between the drug store and a family-owned pizza shop. It disappeared. I tried to run around to the back parking lot-- the one the pizza shop shared with an old, closed-down-because-of-malpractice orthodontist's office-- but, by the time I got there, it was gone. 

I ran into Ethan by accident. Rather, I ran through him. It was an odd feeling. It was like my entire body had gone numb and completely rigid at the same time. It was like I was compelled to shudder. It was different from someone else walking through me, but it was close to the same. 

With everything that was happening, it was easy to make assumptions about what, exactly, I was. My body was clearly capable of interacting with objects and supernatural creatures, if my adventures with hay bales, and glowing fists were any indication. I was able to go through walls and living things, though. I didn't know what was happening to me (and the whole glowing fists thing wasn't helping). I was inclined to go with what Ms. Belladonna had said to me: undead. Just undead. 

Ethan seemed undisturbed by the fact that I had just fallen through his body and landed on my hands on the warm, rocky asphalt. He didn't even seem to see me there on the sidewalk, sitting on my ass with my arms bent, looking up at him. He was backed by the sun. It made most of him look like shadow.  

He looked the same as ever. He had always been a real beanpole of a guy. Back in 2016, there were at least three girls I knew who insisted he looked just like the Onceler from The Lorax (the new one, not the one based on the book). Except for his floppy hair and stature, Ethan very much did not resemble him. They could fool themselves, though. Tumblr girls always can.

The only thing that had changed about him was his hygiene. Back in junior high and sophomore year, he constantly looked like he had never heard of showering, or even of water. Now, his hair (dyed a shocking shade of blue) was a little less greasy, his shirt looked fairly clean, and he smelled faintly of rosemary and unscented bar soap. It was an improvement. 

It looked like he was reading normal books again, too, instead of just manga. He had a thick leather tome that looked like it came from the stacks at the school library. I knew it hadn't, though. I spent almost all my free time in there, avoiding everyone else and re-shelving books; I did it so often and found myself enjoying it so much that I ended up TA-ing there instead of taking a second-period class. I had touched just about every book in that place. That wasn't one of them.

The way I saw it, there was no point in running around to try and find it if I had no idea where to look. My town may have been small, but it was still way too big for that bullshit. School was out and we never had after-school detention (it was all early morning), so there was no point in going back to patrol the halls. I would try again in the morning, I decided, and I would avoid Willa at all costs. I would avoid MJ, too, while I was at it. Sure, she was cool, but I still couldn't believe she thought that I, of all people, was a supporter of Donald "Jenius" Trump. As if I would support that fascist! As if! 

It was mid-afternoon, somewhere around three or four, when I finally stopped there, in the middle of that nearly-empty parking lot. Ethan was gone. The Eye For An Eye was gone. I was alone. Now was as good a time as ever, I supposed, to go to the haunted house on 300 West. 

Like a lot of places in Utah, our town was set up based on a grid. At least, it started that way. Once more people started moving here (mostly from our neighboring town), and the boundaries of our town started to push toward the mountains, the streets began to sprawl and wind.