Sharing Nightmares

Jesse Sprague || Unclean

Unclean by JesseSprague

Rust flaked off the fence onto Alice's palm and stuck to the sweat. She wiped it along her jeans leaving russet marks. She entered the yard only a few moments after Nick and Hashim.

"You guys are really going in there?" Sarah asked.

Alice didn't look but she could picture her friend, blond braids and low cut nurse costume, revealing little wisps of red lace from her bra. Sarah wasn't a curvy girl, not like Alice, but she projected a bad-girl vibe boys loved.

Boys like Nick. No. No point in thoughts like that. She'd given up any shot at love weeks ago when she first decided to bring her friends here. There was no going back.

Nick and Hashim turned, their gazes going right past Alice. She pursed her lips.

"You scared?" Hashim said.

"It's just a house." Alice shoved through the boys and stalked toward the house. Once in the house's shadow, each step was like pushing through thousands of years' worth of cobwebs. Much like a fly caught in a spider's web, it was too late to turn back. The web had her.

She could still save the others if she just spoke up. But her lips didn't part; they pressed together in a grimace of determination.

The house itself was a two story building, its porch half sunken into the ground. This house was no different from any other abandoned building to the naked eye, broken windows that stared like jagged grins, door once boarded shut but someone had pried the board loose.

"Alice, stop!" Sarah called. "Nick, bring her back. That place isn't safe...it's..."

Alice turned, hands motioning to the plot of land next door, which really had more to do with Sarah's complaint than the house. "The graveyard is over there, Sarah."

"The land is on the same deed." Sarah twiddled with the silver cross that hung between the lace edges of her bra. She dressed dirty, but as Alice had known for the past three years of watching boys chase Sarah, her friend was anything but bad.

"You got some place else to go?" Nick asked.

He knew she didn't. Alice had been talking them into this for the past twenty minutes, both the boys laden with backpacks weighed with booze.

"I'm not going home," Alice said. Her eyes flicked skyward, the moon stared down at her with the stars mostly hidden by clouds. She held her jacket together over her costume—some rayon version of a pirate.

Sarah huffed and stormed through the gate. Alice smiled.

The graveyard disappointed her eyes as she scanned it. Where had proper gravestones gone? Everything was flat now, making it look more like a field than a graveyard. Only in the back where the old plots were, sweeping out behind the house, had tall stones.

She couldn't even tell where her mom's grave was. Lost somewhere in the sea of identical stones.

The house tugged at her, and Alice turned back. Nick's footsteps, or maybe Hashim's, approached, and she hurried off. She had to reach the house first.

Her foot hit the broken wood of the porch, and she sprang up and the spongy wood sank under her foot like wet moss.

***

Nick gripped the shoulders of his backpack to lessen the weight. The girls' should have carried some of the party supplies. Especially Sarah...Everyone knew Alice was off. Ever since her mom died. But that didn't mean she couldn't carry a bottle.