I stared at my mirror self, focusing on the bags underneath my eyes. My nerves never really settled down from that dream, and every now and then, it would flash through my mind. The blood, the bodies, that figure and the laugh. My eyes would play tricks on me every now and then and I would see spots of blood on my hands. I had to shake the images from my head to keep myself from freaking out more than I already was.
There was a beeping noise coming from outside that distracted me from my thoughts and I headed over to my window. Parting the blinds with two fingers, my eyes wandered over the street and landed on a moving van that was backing up in front of the house next door.
“What the heck?” I headed out of my room and didn’t make it even a third of the way down the hall when my mom popped out of nowhere and startled me. “Mom! Geez, you scared the living daylights out of me!” She tutted at my outburst and shook her head momentarily. I held my chest in hopes of slowing my heart beat. “Did you see the truck next door?”
“That is actually what I was coming up here to tell you!” She looked a little overly happy about this whole thing. “I heard rumours that someone was going to be moving in and renovating that old house, but I thought that was just gossip. We’re going over there in a few to introduce ourselves, so get dressed.”
“Do I have to go? I mean, it’s not like I’ll ever want to talk to these neighbors either. What’s the point?”
“Molly DeMeo you are going to be polite and civil, and you are going to go next door and introduce yourself to our new neighbors.” I slumped my shoulders forward and let out an exaggerated sigh.
“Ugh, fine.”
* * *
I dragged my feet leaving the house with Zach hopping out behind me. I didn’t really put in an effort to look nice for this visit, I didn’t see the point. My mom had went and gotten all dressed up and even put on make-up. I threw my hair up in a messy ponytail and just threw on whatever was sitting on my floor at the time.
Zach reached out and tugged on my jacket, hard. I stopped walking and looked at him. His cheeks were already rosy from the cold, the tip of his nose too. I forgot sometimes how much he looked like me when I was his age, only he was a boy. The way he looked at me made it really hard not to smile.
“What’s up, Zach?” He wiped his nose on the back of his hand and then grabbed my hand. I cringed slightly when I saw that he had taken my hand with the one he had just gotten snot all over.
“I don’t want to go to that scary house.” I laughed quietly, tussling his amber hair gently.
“Neither do I, but mom says we have to be nice.” I glanced over my shoulder at the door, which was standing open. “Speaking of mom,” I rolled my eyes. “Mom! Hurry up or I’m coming back inside and not doing this!” She walked out, locking the door behind her. “How long are we going to have to talk to these people for?”
“I don’t know, Molly. Can’t you just put aside the fact that you hate the world for one day?” I glared at here for a moment before starting to walk towards the house. There were quite a few people already standing around, talking amongst themselves.
“Curious about the new addition to the neighborhood?” I stopped in my tracks, rolling my head back and groaning up to the sky.
“Why do you hate me so much, universe? Why?” Zach’s hand slipped from mine and he ran over to Carson, attaching himself to his leg. I turned a little and stuffed my hands in my sweatshirt pockets. My mom was already smiling ear to ear and walking over to exchange hellos with Carson. They started walking towards the house, leaving me to trail behind them-but I took my time.
Carson fell back as my mom and Zach got closer to the house. I tried to slow down even more, to avoid being stuck with him alone, but he just walked backwards until he was walking with me. I kept my gaze away from him, waiting for him to say something but he never did. Eventually, I caved and looked over at him. He was just staring straight ahead. My eyes followed his gaze and I caught site of my mom talking to someone who was blocked from my view by a tree.
“You’re awfully quiet today.” I glanced up at Carson again, before focusing on the sidewalk in front of me.
“Ah, see. I knew I could get you to talk to me first.” He was grinning towards me when I looked back up at him. I frowned a little and pushed on his arm.
“I was just pointing something out, that doesn’t mean I was talking to you.” He didn’t say anything in return, just smiled at me and then picked his pace up. I stood out front, between the two massive trees that marked the start of the gravel drive up to the house. From here, the house loomed over all the people sprawled out around it. My mom had moved from where I was standing, closer to the house now.
I swallowed hard and marched up the gravel towards where everyone was sort of gathering. Carson wound up next to me again. It was odd not having him talking my ear off or making awkward remarks towards me. I was looking for my mom when Carson grabbed my hand and started to drag me away from everyone.
“Ah, hey!” I tried to pull my hand away from his.
“Calm down, kitten. I found your mom.” He let his hand slip away from mine as we came up to my mom. She was talking to a man who appeared to only be a few years older than Carson was. He looked at me with a smile, his hands resting on his hips as he said something to my mom. He ran a hand through his thick, dark hair and laughed. I felt Zach run past me and my mom let out a sigh.
“Zachary! Get back here!” She started after him, but paused as she came up to me. “Introduce yourself and be nice about it. I won’t tolerate you being rude this time.” I nodded, not entirely able to take my eyes away from the green ones that were focused on me. She ran off and left me and Carson alone with this strange man.
“So, you’re the guy who bought this old place?” Carson moved toward the man and held out his hand. They shook hands and the man’s gaze left mine. I felt my cheeks burn a little as I listened to them talk.
“Actually, my grandparents left it to me in their will. But looking at it now I think it might have been a better idea to just sell this place. It’s going to cost me more money to fix it up than what it’s worth.” The two of them laughed and I chimed in awkwardly. “Oh, how rude of me.” He held his hand out to me and I hesitantly put him in it. His dark skin made me look like a ghost in comparison. “Vincent Vladminck.”
“Molly,” I managed to sputter out. He hit me with his smile again, following it up with a laugh.
“Lovely name.” I felt my cheeks flush with colour again and I pulled my hand away from his.
“Thanks.” Carson cleared his throat to get our attention and raised an eyebrow.
“I’m Carson.” Vincent laughed once more and ran his fingers through his hair again.
“Sorry. So you two are a couple then, yes?” One of his eyebrows flicked up and he rested his hands on his hips again. I dropped my jaw and shook my head quickly.
“No, oh God no.” I glanced up at Carson, who was looking away from the two of us. “We’re just neighbors.” I poked his arm and arched my eyebrows at him. “Right, Carson?”
“Yeah,” He grinned and let out a laugh that sounded a bit forced as he turned to look at us again, “We’re just neighbors. I live on the opposite side of her.” He gestured to the left, towards his house.
“Just neighbors? What a shame.” He eyed me, making my ears heat up in embarrassment. I glanced around, not sure what to say to Vincent, or Carson for that matter.
“I guess you could see it like that.” Carson was giving Vincent a rather subtly distasteful look when I looked over at him. I furrowed my eyebrows slightly. Vincent just smiled at the two of us and things got extremely awkward.
“Um, well, I should actually get going and see where my mom went.” I rocked back and forth on the balls and heels of my feet slowly. Vincent smiled at me and I caught myself biting my bottom lip. I released it and shook my head a little.
“It was nice meeting you, both of you.” Carson muttered something I couldn’t quite catch and forced his mouth up into a smile.
“Yeah, it was cool. We’ll have to do this again.”
“Yes, I’d love to have you over sometime after I get the house cleaned up a bit.” Vincent eyed me again. “I hope we see more of each other.” I knew he was talking to both of us, but I couldn’t help but feel like that last remark was directed more in my direction than Carson’s. Apparently, Carson was picking up on that also.
“Come on, kitten. I’ll walk you home.” Carson took my hand again and pulled me away from Vincent. I looked over my shoulder and waved at him.
“It was nice to meet you, Vincent!” He waved at me and I saw another smile creep across his face. My attention turned to Carson and my eyebrow flicked up curiously. “So I take it that you don’t like him?” He glanced over at me, his face serious.
“No.” He glanced back, his mouth turning down into a frown. “Not one bit. Something about him irks me. He definitely fits that house.”
“What do you mean?”
“Creepy house, equally creepy guy. Did you see him making eyes at you?” He made a fake gagging noise. I pulled my hand away from his and stuffed it into my pocket.
“What, so it’s okay for you to be all over me but not Vincent?” I pushed my eyebrows together. I thought I saw Carson’s face go red for a moment, but it was fine after I blinked.
“That’s different.” He looked off in a different direction. “Besides, he’s got to be like seven years older than you.” I scoffed and rolled my eyes.
“Why would that even matter? You’re like four years older than me. If it’s not a big deal for you to have a pet name for me and flirt with me all the time, then how is it different?” I looked at him from the corner of my eye and waited for his response.
“I-” He paused, his pace slowing to a stop. I looked over and noticed that we were actually now standing in front of his house. “It just is, okay?” He stood directly in front of me and held onto my shoulders. “Look, something seriously feels off about this guy. I know that we just met him and it could just be a bad first impression or the fact that the house is just way too creepy, but-”
“Christ, Carson. You’re talking as if I’m getting ready to screw him or something.” My brow creased and I crossed my arms over my chest. “You know, I don’t think it’s very fair of you to assume that I can’t control myself around an attractive guy. Just because you saw me with one guy, does not make it okay for you to label me that type of girl in your mind.”
He started to say something to me, but I had already started to walk away from him. He didn’t try to follow me. While I walked up the path to my front door, I thought I saw someone standing near the edge of my lawn, but there wasn’t anyone there when I looked over.
“Mom, are you home?”
