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Author's Chapter Notes:

The mystery of Brian's creepy old house deepens the more he learns about it's history . . . Enjoy! TAG



Chapter 5 - Sweet Smiles.


Brian didn't get much more done on the unpacking of the garage boxes after his visit to Neighbor Penny. Strangely enough, the trip had inspired him to write, so he gave over the house clearing in favor of his computer for the next few days. The story of the missing boy seemed to fit in nicely with the mystery he had been planning to write, although it was turning into more of a crime fic than a mystery at this point. Brian also found that his ‘victim’ had somehow morphed from a streetwise, dark-haired ruffian into a slim, young, blond boy with a sweet smile. He thought it improved the story, though, so he just went with it.


By Wednesday, he was at the point where the handsome and dashing protagonist, police detective Brett Kimmel, was being led astray, chasing after a red herring in the guise of a homophobic high school jock who’d had an altercation with the victim shortly before the lad had gone missing. Brian thought it would be more touching if he detailed how much the detective was moved by looking at the photo of the slain boy given to him by the school counselor. Of course, being Brian Kinney, a man who wasn't really all that comfortable with emotion in his own life, he was having trouble making the scene believable. After staring at his computer for almost forty minutes, and writing then deleting at least five paragraphs of text, Brian decided to approach the situation a different way.


What he needed, Brian thought, was something tangible to inspire him. He had to get into Brett’s mindset. He had to experience what the Detective was seeing and doing before he could write it believably. Luckily, he knew just how to do that. He'd go get one of the pictures of young Justin Taylor and use that as a prop.


Brian rushed down two flights of stairs and made his way through the maze of boxes in the basement proper all the way into the attached garage. That's where the boxes with all the personal mementos from the house’s prior owners were - it was the stuff that had propelled him to go talk to Penny in the first place. But, when he’d made it through the labyrinth of junk to the middle of the space, he couldn't find the box he'd been unpacking just a few days before.


The entire box full of photo albums, trinkets, childhood mementos, and other sentimental collectibles was just gone. Even the items he'd already unpacked and set aside had disappeared. The other boxes piled up in the area we're still there, making it seem like nothing had moved, and making him doubt that he really had left the opened box there after all. The only things that reassured him he wasn't completely losing it were the presence of the box cutter he'd been using, now sitting on a neighboring tower of boxes, and a scrap of packing tape that he remembered pulling off the missing box, which lay crumpled up on the dirty cement floor.


“Shit! Damn, that's annoying . . . Fucking ghosts,” Brian ranted aloud to no one. “All I wanted was one fucking picture of the damned kid that I can use for my story. Is that too much to ask?”


Of course, the silence of the garage did not answer back.


Frustrated, Brian decided to give up. It was about time for lunch anyway, and he hadn't eaten all morning so it was past time. With that in mind, he started to wade back through the mess, heading for the kitchen in order to scrounge up something to eat. Unfortunately, when he got there, he discovered that the fridge was practically empty and so were the cupboards.


“Fucking, stupid, West Virginia . . .” he shouted, much more loudly than strictly necessary. "What the hell was I thinking moving to a place that doesn't have Thai delivery? Or, for that matter, ANY delivery."


He slammed the refrigerator door closed so hard that the stack of mail he'd picked up from the mailbox earlier in the day toppled over and several letters slid off the edge of the counter, falling into the space between the end of the cupboard and the nearby hutch. Brian was too annoyed and angry to bother to pick them up right then though. He’d deal with it later. Right then, he just needed to get out of that crazy house and go somewhere that was sane and rational and that didn't have disappearing boxes and weird noises in the walls. Preferably somewhere that had food. And alcohol. Lots of alcohol.


Turning his back resolutely on the annoying kitchen, Brian stomped out, stopping at the small table he’d set up next to the front door only long enough to grab his keys and wallet, and was out the door without any further thought for the aggravating house or it’s resident specters. Fifteen minutes later he’d made it to what passed for the local grocery store – a one room shack with a gas pump in the front, situated on the southeast corner of the busiest intersection within a five mile radius of Brian's house - which wasn’t saying much. Brian had passed by this place a dozen times or so, but never been desperate enough to go inside. He figured that now was as good a time as any, so he pulled the jeep up to a bare spot in the grass on the side of the building which looked like it might be considered a parking space, turned off the engine and sauntered in through the grease-smudged glass door.


The inside of the place looked like any other gas station food mart. It was dingy, poorly lit, and not the cleanest. Beside the entrance, there was a short counter manned by a clerk who was busy helping the only other customer by ringing up a carton of cigarettes at the dusty cash register. The walls were lined with refrigerated coolers and there were two islands of shelving in the middle of the floor stocked with an eclectic mix of food, housewares, auto accessories, motor oil, small electronic gizmos and random promotional crap for products that nobody in their right mind would ever want or need. The foodstuffs offered weren't exactly gourmet fare, but would suffice if all you needed were the bare essentials for human survival. Brian was too hungry to quibble about the decor of the place or the variety of goods.


Since there weren't any shopping carts, the hungry homeowner began to assemble his purchases on the far end of the battered and scratched linoleum counter. He started with a base comprised of two cases of beer – seeing as he’d been going through the damn stuff at an alarming rate lately, he figured he’d better stock up. On top of that he piled a loaf of bread and a jar peanut butter, another of jelly, a quart of milk, and, giving in to the junk-food-a-holic inside him, the biggest bag of tortilla chips they had in the entire building. He contemplated adding a couple of the less than appetizing looking frozen entrée boxes from the one freezer case in the farthest back corner, but decided against it at the last minute. Even as hungry as he was, he couldn't bring himself to eat that cardboard-tasting crap. The only other thing in that little shop that he thought he could stomach were the slightly wormy-looking red delicious apples piled in a bin at the back of one of the refrigerated coolers. He grabbed a plastic bag, loaded in a dozen pieces of the fruit, and then, after thinking about it for fifteen seconds, grabbed another bag for another dozen, just in case. And, once he had everything assembled, he turned his attention to the fifty-something-year-old clerk standing behind the ancient-looking cash register and nodded.


"Welcome . . . tall, dark, and handsome stranger,” teased the woman, who flashed a jovial smile his way. Brian must've looked surprised by this form of greeting, because the woman burst out laughing and then rushed to apologize. “We don't often get eye candy like you in here, so you'll have to forgive me if I swoon a little.” Brian huffed a little laugh and shook his head, but he wasn't really offended, so he didn't bother to respond. "How about we start over? I'm Sue Ann Little. And you are . . . ?”


“Brian Kinney," he held out his hand in greeting. "I just moved into town, which means you'll probably be seeing me here more often and can count on regular doses of eye candy in your future - lucky you.” The scamp even added a wink for the feisty older lady as a special treat.


“Oh, you must be the gent that moved into the old Taylor place. Penny said you were pleasant on the eyes. And quite handy around the house . . . Yeah, and such nice hands they are too,” she said, gazing longingly at Brian’s big, strong-looking hand, which she'd neglected to release after shaking it. Then she added playfully, "you know, if you ever have a free evening and nothing better to do, I have a few CHORES around my place you could see to . . .” she added a sexy wink to her statement, along with the naughty grin she was already gracing Brian with, and reluctantly let him take back his hand.


Brian burst out into a full, rolling, belly laugh. "I like you. You're feisty. But, alas, I'm not really into feisty women. I'm more into feisty MEN, if you get my drift . . . But if I ever decide to change teams, you, my dear, will be the first to know.”


“Damn! Just my luck. I should've known you were too pretty to be straight. Oh well. You can't blame a girl for trying right?”


“And an admirable try it was,” Brian responded with a smile. "So, how do you know Penny? And does everyone in town already know all about me . . . and my hands?”


“Oh, Penny and I are in the same quilting club. We’re old friends,” Sue Ann explained, still with that flirtatious tone of voice. “And, yes, since Penny told all us quilting ladies about you within three hours after you left her place the other day - and we all promptly told everyone we knew - I'm pretty sure the entire county knows who you are by now. But don't let that scare you off, Sweetcheeks. It's good for us to have a little fresh blood around here. All our old gossip was getting kind of stale. It was definitely time for some new material.”


“Well I'm happy to oblige," Brian laughed. “But, since I'm about to starve to death here, I think I'll take my food, hurry on back home now, and leave you to gossip at will.”


“No problem, Sugar,” Sue Ann replied as she started to bag up his purchases. “Gossiping usually goes better when the subject isn't there to correct you, anyways." Then she changed the subject, a note of curiosity edging into her voice. “How ARE you getting on in that big, old, creepy house anyway? I heard tell that Craig left it in quite a mess.”


“Yeah, there's a lot of junk in there. I'm still digging through it all. It'll probably take me another couple weeks, at least, just to clear it all out before I can even get started on the actual cleaning.”


“I can believe that. Taylor let that place go something awful near the end there." Then, as she hit the total key on the register and took Brian's proffered credit card, she couldn't resist voicing the real question she’d been dying to ask. “So, did you stumble across the body buried in the back yard yet?”


Brian found himself laughing again, even though the subject really was incredibly morbid. These people really had no boundaries. Of course, he probably would've asked the same thing.


“Sorry to disappoint yet again, but I haven't come across any bodies - in the backyard or otherwise.”


“Darn, we were all hoping you'd be able to find that poor boy. It's such a pity. He was so sweet and kind. He was always helping little old ladies like me carry their groceries home. Although, I suppose it doesn't matter anymore. Now that Craig's dead, any chance of getting justice died with him. That bastard really was a nasty piece of work though. He sure did have a temper. And the way he talked to that boy sometimes . . . It just wasn't right. It would be nice to find the body, though, and lay him to rest, proper like. I just can't abide the idea of that poor soul lying hidden somewhere without a proper grave."


Brian didn’t respond to that assertion, merely hoisting his two cases of beer and one bag of supplies, and heading towards the door.


Before he left though, he turned back towards his companion, and added, "well, if I do find him, I promise to call you first before I call the sheriff. How's that, Ms. Sue Ann?"


Sue Ann’s cackling laughter followed him out the door and almost all the way to his car.


Back at the house, Brian quickly unloaded all his groceries into the fridge, made himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, opened up the bag of chips, and popped open a beer. He decided not to worry about the extra calories from the beer and chips or even the kiddy sandwich he was eating - he figured he'd burn it all off in the afternoon when he tackled another pile of those boxes in the garage. After hearing yet another local commenting about the supposed tragedy that had occurred in his house, Brian was more eager than ever to finish clearing out the junk and make sure there really wasn't a body hiding down in his basement.


His simple meal didn’t take long to finish or to clean up. He quickly rinsed off the small plate he’d been using for his sandwich and put that, along with the peanut butter-covered knife, in the dishwasher. As he was putting away the rest of his sandwich fixings, he noticed the scattered pieces of mail still waiting at the end of the counter and remembered that some of the letters had fallen.


Moving to the end of the row of cupboards, Brian surveyed the gap between that and the big, solid-looking baking hutch. Unfortunately, the escaped mail had sailed clear back, almost underneath the hutch and Brian couldn’t reach it. There was a small space between the two - maybe about a foot wide at most - but it wasn’t enough for him to get his big body in there.


With a sigh, Brian went back to the broom closet on the other side of the kitchen, fished out the very old and ragged broom that he’d saved from the garage and which he’d been planning to replace, and took it back over to the corner. Kneeling down on the ground and using the broom to sweep out the letters, he managed to get most of them out of their hiding places. He had to bend over almost double, though, to get a good look under the heavy piece of furniture and make sure he’d got all the missing mail.


While he was down there, Brian noted through the gloom that the bottom of the wood wall panelling back behind the hutch seemed warped. The molding there seemed to be coming away from the wall and there was a noticeable gap between that panel and the next. Great. Yet another little task he’d have to take care of before he was done with the renovations on this monstrosity of a house. But that particular job would have to wait - he didn’t plan to start on the kitchen till last, and in the meantime, he still had to finish clearing out all the Taylors’ junk before he could do anything.


That thought brought back Brian’s sense of urgency and he decided there was no time like the present to get on with it. Before heading down to the basement again, though, Brian jogged up the stairs to his room, intending to change into his grungiest clothes. The dirt and dust down in the pit that was his garage was pretty bad and he wasn't about to ruin any of his precious clothes. Not even in the interest of finding the body of his resident ghost.


He paused at his desk on the way to the closet, in order to offload his wallet and cell phone. When he got there, however, he was stopped dead in his tracks, staring at the one item sitting on the desk that shouldn't be. An item that had definitely not been there earlier that morning when Brian had been sitting at his computer while writing.


It was a beautifully framed photo, showing what must've been a senior class picture, depicting a beautiful, happy, young, blond man, sporting a sweet, sunny smile.



Question Marks.pngQuestion Marks.pngQuestion Marks.png


Brian never did make it back downstairs to work in his garage.


Instead, he spent a good fifteen minutes staring at the picture of the missing boy before diving back into his writing. He was so inspired by the picture and the myriad of images that it elicited, that he found the words flowing out of his fingertips almost faster than he could type them. It was now easy to envision his Detective’s reaction to the picture of the murdered boy in his story. He could almost SEE the man, how he would stare at the picture of his victim, how obsessed he might become about the case and how persistent he would be in the pursuit of the criminal who had taken such a charming young man’s life out of sheer malevolence. Brian had no problem at all getting into Detective Kimmel’s mind set any more.


However, he did find that his story was changing as he wrote. His prior, vague, ideas about a psychopathic gym teacher who got angry when his advances weren’t returned, now seemed too convoluted. It seemed much more believable that the boy would have been killed by his sadistic, abusive father. Maybe after that father had had one too many drinks following a string of bad luck?


Hmmm. That seemed almost too obvious. But maybe Brian could work with that too? Make it so obvious that his detective wouldn’t believe it either?


In the end, Brian wasn’t sure how he’d end his epic or who would turn out to be his ultimate bad guy. He did find himself writing several more scenes that detailed the actions of the abusive father. It was a painful endeavor, full of some rather personal additions taken straight out of his own, unpleasant childhood. He hated writing that stuff, but was strangely relieved once it was out there, on the computer page. Reading it over once it was written, he knew it was really good writing, too. Maybe this catharsis was not only good for him, but for his story as well?

 

And all the while, the portrait of the sweetly smiling blond boy was sitting there next to his computer monitor, the image of the lost young man encouraging Brian with just that blindingly sunshiney smile.

Chapter End Notes:

9/14/17 - You guys are just too smart - I can't seem to get anything by you. But, are you SURE you have this story figured out? LOL. TAG

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