Chapter One
A Lifeless Town
A Lifeless Town
The moonlight pierced the empty and lonely streets of the small deserted town. There were no cars parked
jaggedly along the curbs this night, nor any night for the past many decades. The trees and shrubbery were drawing their final breaths of life for no water had quenched their thirst for months. There were no birds perched happily in their branches. Even the insects had ended their nightly singing. Life had ceased to exist in this town.Children used to run freely with their arms spread wide with smiles on their faces. Now all that remains is an abandoned playground. The swings blow carelessly back and forth in the momentary gusts of wind and then stop dead. The sandbox is full of metal buckets and shovels; a hopscotch course with half used pieces of chalk the roll freely across the pavement. Broken tree branches were the only things hanging from the monkey bars. There was no more playful laughter echoing from this park. Only silence and memories of what once was.
All that remains of the local pub is a sign that barely hangs on by one loose chain. The door wide open, dead leaves blowing inside. Bar stools tipped over, and some have lost their metal legs. The wood bar and tables, covered in dust and dirt. A few black and white photos of the good times had fallen from the walls and the glass smashed. Empty glasses and alcohol bottles had found new homes over the dirt ridden floor.
The houses that once supported families, are now shrouded in darkness. Mail boxes left open and some had cracked and fallen to the ground. The lawns were taken over by dead weeds. Tire swings hanging from trees blew depressingly in the wind. Windows were smashed, doors off their hinges. Cobwebs dangled from the ceilings. Dust had covered every inch of all the furniture. No more marriage quarrels. No more family nights. No barking dogs, no sneaky little kittens. The houses had become relics, as if they never really existed.
A long stretch of road left the hub of the town and led uphill to a very dilapidated hotel. It overlooked the gloom and the sadness. It used to be the life of the party. Weekly town meetings and parties were held in the ballroom. In 1950 the town's one hundredth anniversary gala was going to be held in this very hotel. People from all over the country were coming in to celebrate. It would have been the greatest event the town would have ever seen. It would have put it on the map. Food for close to four hundred people had been prepared. Everyone who was everyone was there. Husbands, wives, children, the sheriff, the mayor, everyone and anyone who lived there.
The party had started, people were having the time of their lives. For most, it would be the last moment of true happiness they would have ever experienced. Two weeks prior, a man named Adam Jacob's had been arrested for murdering his wife. He knew he didn't do it, he could even prove he didn't. The sheriff and mayor didn't care, because they were to concerned for impressing the people and politicians from out of town for the big event. Adam wasn't going to stand for their ignorance any longer. That night, he broke out of his jail cell and killed the two deputies standing guard. He walked up the long road, blood on his hands. He was now a killer.
It was the shortest walk of his life. He barged right through the front doors of the hotel and managed to barricade them. Adam was armed with two pistols and plenty of spare ammunition. Twenty feet away the entire town had forgotten he even existed. Not one of them cared that he was locked up for something he did not do. Most of them rallied to have him put away and it was him against them. Adam no longer had anything to live for. He had just killed two men, and everyone he used to think loved him, now thought he was capable of murdering his own wife.
The guns were loaded. The ballroom was full of people having the best night of their lives. Adam said a silent prayer. Then he walked right into the ballroom and shut the doors behind him. Gun fire and screams was the last thing this ballroom was ever going to remember. Sixty five men, women and children died that evening. The mayor and sheriff both lost their lives along with Adam Jacob's who had spared one bullet for himself. The remaining locals picked up and left the next day and by the end of the week not a single soul was left in the town. A single monster, in the form of Adam, destroyed the very existence of this place in one single night.
Now all that remained was the empty piece of land. All the memories wiped clean. Life could not go any longer for a place as evil as this. Not a laugh had been echoed for over fifty years. No weekly football match at the park had been played. No one had gone fishing at the lake. The town knew only deafening silence for more than half a century. Life would never come back to this place.
Until at the top of the hill, in the hotel that ended the town in tragedy, a light flickered on. A few moments later, a blood curdling scream shattered the silence. A scream like this building hadn't heard for over fifty years. It appeared a new tale was about to be told for the lifeless place and it began like this...it was a dark and quiet night, and all had been calm in the empty little town.
...TO BE CONTINUED.
--Mike--
