Hall Of Nightmares

Shoulder Blade

A single bike rolled down the street, passing the shops on either side with a gleefully slow pace. The front wheel wobbled as the drivers arms navigated the handlebar from around a slender waist clad in a summer dress of peach. His wavy blonde haired head peered over her shoulder smiling at the road. Her little pink lips moved rapidly telling a story of sorts about some incident that had happened earlier in the day. At the end of it, her laugh rang through the empty street, mingling with his.

A shabby, thin street it was. Random pieces of paper floated across the grass at the storefronts and the call of a crow resounded from the top of a flickering streetlight. It turned on and off. On and off. On and off. And finally it stayed on as the natural light began to disappear under the horizon. The bike rolled on.

Her long dark hair blew into his sparkling green eyes as a lazy breeze passed through the street. For a  second he lost control of the bike and cost them dearly. She let out a small exclamation; an “oh!” as the bike slowly tilted to the side. At some point when he recognized the danger of the situation he tried to put his leg out to the side but the bike was too far gone to prevent the meeting of the bike and concrete. He pushed her off the bike into the grass on the side. His dark jeans met the street in a rugged fashion and the handlebars of the bike scraped the concrete. He retracted his leg from under the tire and pushed it to the other side. The bike lay on its side one wheel spinning in the air.

She got up and asked him if he was ok. He said yes and smiled. She giggled and held out a hand clad with a fingerless glove. He took it and tugged her down onto him. Her eyes widened in surprise at the sudden change in her balance and she fell forward onto him. His laughter rang through the area.

The wheel spun in an endless circle. Round and round. Round and round. Round and round and behind it sat a squat old gas station with a car wash. The two teenagers on the street had not chosen the best place to linger. Their bubble of color barely drained into the drab black and white surroundings. A gas pump hung uncapped waiting for a dry spell to ignite it.

He kissed her cute button nose and she pushed away from him and rolled off. She ran from him, her brown boots colliding with the concrete in the direction of the desolate gas station. He chased after her.

She entered the gas station bringing color to a meager portion of her surroundings and the color ran with her as she went past the thick plastic blinds of the car wash. His Nike soles pounded toward her. She ran past an abandoned car with a smashed window resting under the soap sprayers and out the other side of the car wash.

A long, black, thick wire rested upon the concrete floor of the gas station. It stood in between her and the other half of the gas station unnoticed. Her foot caught on the wire and her body tipped over its equilibrium and she fell. Her hands came flying out in front to break the fall. She landed safely on the palms on her hands and the caps of her knees.

He ran through the carwash only to come face to face with a rush of cold air as her body fell forward. Her name ripped from his lips while his toned arms reached out to catch her but caught only thin air. He tripped forward, the momentum his arms had built when they extended finally released. But his feet stopped him short of a flat fall.

She looked behind her with an expression of surprise and dismay. He had almost caught her. But that thought lasted only a brief second before it morphed into concern as he tripped forward. Her little mouth formed an "o" but was quickly replaced with a silent giggle as he wheeled forward and caught himself. She turned back around about to stand as a girl entered her vision.

She stalked forward in white shorts and a purple tee. Her long legs loped forward until they stood a few feet away, confidently. A leer rested on her face shadowed by the dark hair around it as she surveyed the scene before her. He stood behind the girl. A fragile thing she looked to be laying on the gray cement in a flighty dress. This observation brought a sneer to her reddened lips. She shot a sickeningly sweet smile at the boy as a greeting.

He stood once again in control of himself and was faced with a smile on a face he wished he had never seen. She stood there hands behind her back as if she were holding something. He looked down at the ground towards the one he had been chasing. When he looked up again his face commanded a sort of controlled anger. His tight voice asked her to leave him alone. His words earned him a sneer and a sharp laugh that rang throughout the empty gas station.

The laughter rang shrilly in her ears as she tried to stand. She managed to get to her knees only to collapse once again. Her ankle lay trapped in a circle of the thick wire. As she reached back to unsnare her foot she heard the other girl scream in rage. Her hands went to her ears as the girls scream filled her head. She let out a yelp of her own, now frantically yanking her ankle around in hopes of getting untangled from the black cord.

He shouted at her fighting the girls accusations. She flung accusation after accusation at him as she stalked ever so slowly forward. Her words changed into actions and her hands flung forward holding a knife.

The sky shone a bloody orange and the last bit of sunlight hit the edge of the blade as it swung down.

She looked up tears streaming down her pale smooth face, arms kissing the pavement and ankle still trapped. She looked akin to a caged animal: wild eyed and frantic. Her eyes met a stare filled with something only the devil could have spawned. She let out a blood curdling scream as a blade swung into her view.

He trembled with rage and fear as she accused him of leaving her for the girl on the ground, the girl she called a too pretty, bitch whore. He closed his eyes for five quick seconds attempting to clamp down his emotions. His eyes slammed open to a blood curdling scream.

The blade swung smoothly down in an arc puncturing her skin to the inside of her shoulder. It swept downwards tracing the shape of a slit where a wing should grow upon an angel. The hand that held it became ashen and faded into the black and grays of the background and the body it had struck flickered in and out of color. In and out. In and out. In and out. The boy receded as well drained of all color. The blade stood glinting in the last ray of sunlight. Then the sun dropped below the horizon and the blade turned white bleached of its color.