Chapter 4

Chapter 4: That Little Town Street

         The air was clean and fresh. Something this version of me had never felt. My toes sunk into the grass, relishing the feel of it.

         We were outside.

         A click sounded behind us. Lyla turned. I was still too busy breathing in the fresh air.

         “Where the hell did it go?” She sounded frantic and when her hand left mine, I was snapped back to reality.

         I turned. The house, that had been there literally thirty seconds ago, was gone. Just like that.

         “You saw the house too, right?” Lyla said, wrapping her arms around herself. “I’m not crazy. It was real…right?”

         I nodded, a deep shudder going through me. “Yeah…yeah, it was real. The carpet, the fridge, the wallpaper. I felt it all.”

         “Where are we?” Lyla whispered, staring straight ahead. “What the hell is this place?”

         I wanted to wrap my arms around her, to hold her together. I couldn’t have the only other person here falling apart. But she looked so shaken that I figured it would scare her if I touched her.

         “I…I don’t know,” is what I finally settled on.

         It was then that I clocked the lack of movement in the sky. The space was warm and bright but…no sun. No clouds. No birds. No wind. Nothing.

         There were no cars in the street at the bottom of this hill. No parents pushing baby carriages, no gardeners mowing lawns, no kids playing ball in the street.

         No sign of life at all.

         I gripped Lyla’s hand again. “Don’t let go of me, okay? I need…I need to know something’s real.”

         She nodded, eyes wide and vulnerable. “I’m real…I’m glad you are too.”

         Hand in hand, the two of us walked carefully down the hill, feet landing on the cracked asphalt of the street below.

         “Love that the Watchers didn’t give us shoes. I. Just. Love. That,” Lyla said bitterly.

         “They didn’t give us underwear,” I said. “Not sure they would’ve sprung for shoes.”

         She was right, though. The road extended as far as the eye could see. Our feet would end up raw and bloody by the end of this. If there was an end to this.

         She snorted. “Don’t remind me. Bunch of pervs.”

         “What did you call them again? Before pervs?”

         She looked at me, a little smile tugging at her thin pink lips. “The Watchers? The journal said they are always watching. The Watchers.”

         The thought made me shiver. That disembodied voice would be more than welcome now.

         “Maybe we should piss them off,” I suggested, a little grin tugging at my own lips.

         Lyla was smiling fully now, “How? Flipping them off and streaking down the street?”

         My cheeks warmed a little. “They already saw us naked. Not sure that’d affect them much. Besides, I kind of like having privacy now, thank you very much.”

         She shrugged, laughing a little as she pulled me along the road. “Maybe they’re in one of the houses.” Lyla nodded at the pristine, cookie-cutter houses on the hills.

         That made me shiver again. “Those give me the creeps.”

         “You’re just now getting the creeps?”

         I laughed at that. If we just kept talking to each other, we might just make it out of this hell hole. “Fair.”

         The lack of sun didn’t stop the neighborhood from being hot. After a few minutes, I was already sweating. But Lyla and I were keeping the conversation going—talking made it seem a little more normal. Like we were just two friends taking a stroll down the block.

         “Maybe we’re dead,” she threw out. “Maybe this is hell.”

         We’d been throwing out potential theories for a while now. I started with aliens abducting kids and using them as pawns in a sick version of Dungeons and Dragons.

         Lyla had laughed at that, saying that she was pretty sure DnD didn’t include white rooms and a neighborhood with no sun.

         The death theory was solid, but, “Isn’t hell supposed to be, like…a pit of fire or something?”

         She shrugged, “Who knows? Eternal suffering and punishment? Seems like we’re in the right place.”

         I laughed, “Sure…maybe we fell through a rip in the fabric of space-time. Could explain why nothing feels quite right.”

         “Did the other you have a thing for sci-fi or something?” She gave me a sideways look. “Maybe that’s why you’re here—you were such a geek that the second something sounded like a messed-up sci-fi movie you jumped on it.”

         I snorted, but it did give me a pause. I’d need parental consent to get into this sort of thing…right? A kid my age couldn’t do this on his own, right? Did my parents—whoever they are—put me here?

         I shook my head. “Maybe the Watchers are, like, effed-up rich people. Maybe this is their entertainment, being broadcast like a weird TV-special.”

         “Rich people get their kicks from watching kids be confused? They could walk into a public school for that.”

         It got me thinking again about the other Declan. Did he go to a public school? Private school? Homeschooled? Did he have friends? Were they looking for him?

         “Maybe we’re criminals and this is our punishment,” Lyla said, bringing me back to the moment.

         “What could a couple of kids do that was so bad that it warrants this?” I asked. The other Declan seemed like a bit of a jerk for getting me into this, but I didn’t want to think of him—think of me—as a criminal.

         She shrugged. “Maybe we killed someone.” Then she shook her head. “Nah, you don’t have the balls for that. I definitely killed someone. You probably stole something.”

         “Hey, I’ll take petty theft over murder any day.” I laughed. “What if we were a teenage Bonnie and Clyde?”

         I still couldn’t figure out why I knew stuff like that. Why I knew who Bonnie and Clyde were, but Declan Reed was a total mystery. Who went sifting through my brain for all the personal memories?

         “What? Like we were lovers sick in the head?”

         The idea of Lyla and me as “lovers” in another life makes my body heat up. And it has nothing to do with the warm air around us.

         I shrugged. “Might’ve been nice to meet in different circumstances.” It came out quietly, softly, like I didn’t want her to hear it. But I meant it. She was good company.

         Silence settled over us then and I wanted to kick myself. Without our voices filling the space, I was so very aware of the creepy atmosphere.

         We really hadn’t seen a single sign of life since we started walking. No overgrown lawns. No mailboxes or lawn décor or even numbers on the houses. Just rows and rows of identical houses stretched as far as the horizon would go.

         And I was getting tired. I didn’t feel steady on my feet anymore.

         What the hell?

         “Hey…you okay?”

         Lyla’s voice came through, but my head was in such a fog that I barely registered it.

         I nodded, that movement feeling like it took all my energy. “Yeah…

         “Dec? Dec!”

         It was the last thing I remembered before I blacked out.