Chapter 6
Steve
Do you ever feel like your entire life has just been knocked off the edge? That it's tumbling down a cliff and you've just lost complete control? If you said yes to any of these questions, I can relate. Ever since Pony was killed, everyone's life has just been knocked into chaos, with no control what so ever. Soda and I were walking to work in a dead silence, I glanced over at him, his head was down watching his feet, his dancing eyes were dead, and there had been no emotion in them since he found his brother dead in an alley.
I sighed; I had no idea what to say to him, none in the slightest, I mean how do you console a guy who just lost his brother? Even if he's your best friend there isn't much to say. I kicked a pebble; I guess Pony's death was taking its toll on me too. You don't just get use to fact that one of your gang members is dead overnight, even if you weren't the closest of friends. Pony and I had a basic understanding, I knew he would have my back in a rumble, and he knew I had his; however we did clash a lot. He and Soda were real close, and he wanted to spend time with his brother, but I didn't like it, he lived with Soda I didn't. As stupid as it sounds I wanted time with my buddy without his little brother tagging along. Still, I didn't realize I'd miss him so much, it was so bad I thought I could still hear his voice hollering to take care of Soda. I shook my head, it was just in my head, Pony was dead I wasn't hearing his voice; it was just my subconscious looking for something normal.
Soda and I got to work a little early, it was 8:55am, and we were supposed to clock in at 9:00am. I hated that we were early, even if it was by 5 minutes it just wasn't like us! Soda and I normally clocked in at 9:45am, bursting through the doors out of breath laughing our asses off. Our boss would just shake his head and us and tell us to get to work, and that we were staying 45 minutes later. And then we would run off to do our job, fixing cars, flirting with girls and having a good time.
Soda clocked in without a word, nodded at our boss, Riley and then walked into the auto shop to keep working on a car we had started a week ago. I saw Riley shake his head, sadly and looked back down to his paperwork, I checked in and then followed Soda into the shop. He had his head buried in his work, and didn't glance up when I stood beside him too see what he was doing. The car we were working on was a total wreck, some soc chick brought it in complaining that the car was making weird noises, and didn't move as smooth as it normally does. Soda and I had rolled our eyes when she walked in, you could tell she was a daddy's little princess who got whatever she wanted. We told her the car would be fixed in a week, when in reality we could have fixed it in two days; but hey she doesn't need to know that. I pulled out the crank and held the lid in place then leaned in and started helping my buddy fix the fancy car.
"It's going to get better buddy, I promise" I told him. He didn't reply but I saw gratitude flicker in his eyes.
Pony
A few minutes after Steve left, I walked down to our town's crummy library. It was connected to the high school, so it was filled with text books, reading books, yearbooks, and even in the back there were files on past students. A guy in my class had spread a rumor that the school kept all of their files in the back room of the library, because no student ever went in there; unless it was to impress a smart girl, or they were just desperate for information on a subject. I walked through the front doors, and as expected the library had two or three people in it. They were scattered through the cramped building, hunched over the metal tables reading and taking notes. The librarian was sitting at the counter reading a book of her own, her glasses were pushed to the bridge of her nose, her lips pressed together tight, her eyes locked on the pages. I think even if I wasn't a ghost, she wouldn't notice me walk right past her.
Behind her was a door being blocked by a shelf of books, clearly they were trying to prevent anyone from sneaking in overnight to do some research on someone's private life. I jiggled the lock and groaned when the door was locked.
"Of course it's locked stupid, use your head" I mumbled to myself.
I walked over to the oblivious librarian and began opening up drawers, I yanked hard on each door, and convinced with the effort I was putting in someone would notice. They were old oak drawers and scrapped across more wood when being opened. The splinters would get caught within themselves and wouldn't budge without a lot of effort. Finally the last drawer budged and flew open, I started flipping through papers, looking for a key when I didn't find it, and I started tracing the sides of the drawer with my fingers, pressing into the sides. When that didn't work I slammed the drawer with frustration. I ran my hand through my hair looking around the library. If I was trying to hide a key, where would I put it?
I sat on top of one of the selves behind the counter doing a scan of the small area. I looked at the walls, in carved into the wood were long rectangles that had books painted onto them. The floor boards were made of dark brown wood planks that creaked whenever someone stepped on them. Across the floors were tables that could fit four students, and of course there were about six or seven tall shelves covered in books. It was a small area with not many hiding places. I considered looking under the floorboards, but even that seemed extreme, then I thought about another little doorway in the walls, but again why would you put so much effort for student files?
Then I felt my gaze turn to the librarian. She her head was tilted down reading the pages carefully, trying to capture every little word. And I realized she was wearing a necklace, I felt my eyebrow rise, and slid off the counter and slowly lifted the chain. Sure enough, there was a key attached to it, I unclasped the necklace and quickly unlocked the door, placing a thick textbook in the way as a door stopper. I put the necklace back around her neck and ran into the back room. I flicked the light on and gasped, the room was long, and it stretched down a narrow hall filled with many selves and cabinets. The first cabinet I opened was stuffed with hundreds of papers, these files dated back to 1945. I rolled my eyes and began looking through the cabinets, happy for a brief second that I was dead and no one was expecting me home, this was going to take a long time.