Hollowgast

Chapter 1

  It was a beautiful spring day so there was no reason not to go paint Ms. Myers house. Which I told her I would do but kept postponing it. So I trudged out of bed in my little camper and threw on a pair of already paint splattered pants and a shirt. Ms. Myers said she would have the paint and rollers and was giving me good pay. Ms. Myers's husband died a while back and her only grandson lived in California. It was only 8 o'clock and I had time to get a bite to eat. I walked into the cafe and Clive and Anna waved me down to come sit by them. The cafe walls are a soft blue with vintage posters and a vinyl floor with more stains then I can count.

"Hey Abe, finally going over to paint Ms. Myers house?" Anna said.

"Or did you just get dressed in the dark?" Clive said laughing. Anna shot him a dirty look but then starting laughing with him.

"I'm actually going to do it today," I say with an exasperated sigh.

"Oh yeah like we haven't heard that before," Anna said rolling her eyes.

Clive has dark brown hair and unusually blue eyes. Anna has long wavy blonde hair and dark brown eyes. She is pretty, but my heart is already taken by another girl.

"Hey Robbie, can I have the usual?" I say to the cook whom I have come to know in my 2 years of living here in Minnesota.

"Comin' right up," he shouted under the hood of the stove. By the time I inhaled my breakfast, paid, and said goodbye to Clive and Anna, who were going to see our other friend James, it was already 9:30 a.m.

I knocked on the door to get the supplies and tell Ms. Myers I'm here. I hear her walker squeaking, then I hear what I assume is eight locks twisting and unlocking, and then the door opens, "Hi, dearie!" She excitedly exclaimed like she hasn't seen a person since I last time I saw her. Which I don't doubt. I try to make it quick because if I don't, she will talk until she has a heart attack.

"Hi, Ms. Myers! Do you have the paint?"

"Oh yes dear, it's in the garage," she says pointing to a shed that barely qualifies as a garage. Once she realizes I don't want to talk, she looks both ways out of her door and slams it shut so hard I swear I heard the pictures on the wall fall.

I am just about open the paint can when I hear someone shouting my name. It's Anna. "Abe! Abe!" I meet her on the sidewalk outside of Ms. Myers house and I climb the two-foot high fence she uses as decoration. Once I get there I see Clive out of breath and trailing behind Anna.

"What!" I exclaim my eyes darting across her body to see if she has blood on her, "Are you okay!? Is everything okay!?"

"James is gone," she says with no difficulty. Unlike Clive who is trying to take even breaths and failing.

"What do you mean he's gone?" I say my eyebrows knitting together in confusion.

" He's not at his house and he is always at his house... and we saw a shadow running into the woods" The color drains in my face. I run down the sidewalk but stop, I can't just abandon Ms. Myers, I search all six of my pockets before I find what I am looking for.

"Come on! What are you doing!?" Screams Anna as she is trying to help Clive run again. He is skinny but out of shape.

"I will meet you at the camper!" I yell back. Then I finally find what I am looking for. I write that I will come back and finish later and that something came up for Ms. Myers. I write it as fast as I can to still be legible and slide it under her door.