"Mel, I love you... you're my best friend. Practically my sister. But, sometimes — sometimes I really hate you," I grumble out as I trudge down the sidewalk. It almost feels like I'm trudging through two feet of thick snow. Like it's impossible to walk down the sidewalk.

I blink a few times as Mel pats me on the shoulder. "I'm sorry Morrgie. What's wrong?"

"I dunno," I muse. "I think all of that stuff from last night spooked me pretty bad. I had nightmares all night. You didn't notice?"

The girl's eyes have a glint of sympathy in them. "I'm sorry. I couldn't sleep and put my headphones in last night." She gives me a small smile. "If I knew, I wouldn't have dragged you out. But, Rodger texted and asked if we could check on the bar today. Just in case."

I nod. "It's fine. I'll just blame it on Rodger then."

Mel snickers as she shakes her head at me.

"But, honestly, I wouldn't have gotten much sleep anyways. So, I suppose taking a nice — chilly as all hell — walk in the morning is a pretty good distraction. No need to worry about any crazy murders or anything like that."

Mel takes a few steps in front of me and does a little twirl, the skirt of her knee-length dress flairs up as she does so. A few laughs leaving her lips. "Yup, taking a walk early in the morning is enough to get your mind off anything."

"Yup." I look around the empty streets. There literally isn't anyone here. Like at all. It almost seems strange that there weren't people out when I'm pretty sure people do in fact go to work somewhere in the vicinity of four and five in the morning or at least come home around then. So at five fifteen you could maybe see someone out. Hell, the people in some of the apartments usually took their dogs out around now. So what was the deal? The bus doesn't even seem to be running right now. That's a little creepy.

"Hey, Mel," I start.

The girl turns to me, walking backwards without a single problem. "What?"

"Did Rodger ask why he wanted us to check in on the bar?"

It's almost odd that he would ask us to do so when he knows we already do so before school. Besides, even if we didn't, Robbie was his actual employee. Then again, Rodge was always a bit odd sometimes.

My friend shakes her head. "He didn't say anything about it. Maybe he heard about what happened and thought to have us check it out. I mean, spirit activity tends to tick up after bad things like that... don't they?"

"Yeah... Yeah, that has to be what it was," I muse as we get to the corner of Forest and Baskerville. For some reason, as we wait for the walk sign, it seems to grow colder at Baskervill. It could have been because of the fact that we aren't shielded by the buildings anymore. It feels different though.

There's almost a heaviness to the air, and I wasn't the only one who notices as Mel falls back to my side. "It feels funny around here, don't you think?"

"It does."

But, the feeling hadn't been here when we left last night.

"We'll be at the bar soon, let's just be happy about that." I mutter as we cut diagonally down the street. Not like someone's around to grumble about a pair of jaywalkers. A frown settles across my features as we get closer to the bar.

Mel's pace slows significantly, almost to the point that it feels like I'm dragging a body around. "Hey, I'm sure it'll be fine," I say, looking to my friend who shakes her head. As we pass the entrance to the alleyway, we see a beat up looking fifties car sitting there abandoned. It isn't uncommon to see a old car just abandoned in an alleyway, but it doesn't really sit right in this case. Like this particular car just doesn't seem to fit around here for some reason.

What am I thinking, it's just a car?

Mel tugs at my arms as she lets out a small whimper. I frown at the girl as she tugs me away from the car, and we walk a few buildings down. As we get closer to the bar I can faintly make out the light shining on the steps leading up to the bar. Robbie turned the lights off when we left last night... so, what the hell happened?

I detach myself from Mel and rush up the stairs. She follows me as well, both of us stand at the top of the steps, peering through the glass pane in the wooden door.

The bar is completely trashed. Two tables are completely broken, a few of the other tables and chairs lay in random spots and positions. Some are even stacked up. Around that, garbage litters the floors and almost any surface that could be covered.

"Woah, it looks like a weird garbage tornado went through the bar!" Mel muses.

"Well, the 'weird' cleaning tornado could've made a round through the bar too..." I grumble as I dig through my pocket for our spare key and unlock the door. "Probably, another ghost spooked by the murders. Still could've been nice enough to clean up after itself."

Mel slowly wanders in first. Her features contorting as she steps on a dark brown banana peel. "Eww... that's gross."

As I walk in, a scowl stretches across my features. I don't know how, but standing in the middle of the wreckage makes everything look ten times worse than it had previously. And what is worse is that it smells like death or maybe that's just all the rotten food scrapes littering the floor.

"Is that paint on the TV?" Mel says as she tiptoes up to one of the chairs next to the TV, climbing up to stand closer to the device. She drags her pointer across the screen. "Yeah, it's paint. Did we have paint in the basement or something? And why black."

I squint my eyes at the object, thinking for a few minutes. I remember seeing white paint down in the basement, not any black. Then again it could have been something from a previous occupant that we just didn't notice... I suppose it doesn't matter. I don't think that we'll be able to salvage the TV. But, that's for Rodger or Robbie to figure out.

As she gets down from the chair, my eyes move to the strange puddle on the ground beside the couter. The faint shimmer of glass makes me sigh as I round the corner. Glass and liquor is everwhere back here.

"Well, that looks like most of the glassware. And about five to ten bottles of liquor. Jesus Christ, they really did a number on this place."

Mel peeks over the side of the counter and then wanders over to the supply closet at the opposite corner of the room from me. Even from where I'm standing I can see that it's also a mess. Brooms and mops are thrown to the ground, a few bottles are laying on their side, thankfully still closed.

This is more poltergeist-y than a normal ghost. Maybe I should ask Ms. Johnson if she had any unexpected activity last night. Usually when one place gets hit like this someone else does too. I shake my head as Mel hands me a broom and dustpan.

"Should I call Rodger? Or Robbie? We should probably tell one of them, right?"

"Call Rodger, he'll be in after he gets done with — whatever job he's doing now," I muse as I begin sweeping. The annoying noise of glass scratching at the wooden floors makes me cringe.

Not that clanking of the buttons on the barely used wall phone makes me feel any better. Especially not when Mel keeps muttering out ewws as she touches them. Within moments, the man's rough voice, though almost incomprehensible for the most part, booms through the receiver.

They speak for a little bit as I finish sweeping up the glass by the bar. However, by the time I throw the last dustpan of glass into the garbage, I tune into the conversation. Rodger's voice isn't as loud anymore, but I notice Mel's once dower voice, becomes a little happier. "You can give us a ride? That'd be nice. Thank you!"

Well, that's good news.

🐾

As soon as I finish mopping and sweeping the floor, Mel pulls the full garbage bag out and ties it up. A soft hum leaves her lips as she then moves to fix one of the chairs back into place before looking at me. "I think we got this place pretty nice considering how bad it looked." She tries to pull a small smile, but it comes out very sad.

"Hey," I muse. "Are you doing okay? You just seem so different all of a sudden."

She looks down, a frown on her features as she shrugs. "I'm fine. I'm just worried a little bit... you know."

She takes a seat at one of the tables and slumps forward. "It's just been so crazy. Like do you think that someone we actually know could be targeted. I sat up for a while thinking about that and... It's stupid honestly."

I smile and walk over to her, my arms wide open. After a few seconds she pulls me in and lets out a small sigh. "It isn't stupid. I'm pretty sure that everyones worried about things like that."

She lets out a small laugh as I stand back up and look up to the clock. "It's six, we should probably finish cleaning up. Before the old man gets here."

"How did you—"

"I overheard you."

She shakes her head. "I'm gonna go take the garbage out."

"You want me to go with you?

"No, I got it," she says, dragging the three bags towards the back door. Being that she isn't the strongest girl around, she barely has them above the ground as she walks toward the back door.

I shake my head as I look out the window to see Ms. Johnson walk out of her apartment building. I frown for a moment and then look back to see Mel just barely walking out of the door. "Hey, I'm gonna go talk to the neighbor real quick."

A "yeah, sure" echoes from the back door as it slams shut.

I walk out and lean on the railing of the steps, waiting for the black-haired woman to finish locking up the door. Her lips twitch into a scowl as she mutters some colorful words at the door as she attempts to pull the key from the keyhole.

After she gets the key out and turns swiftly to walk away, I speak out loud enough to grab her attention..

"Ms. Johnson."

The woman lets out a sigh, her posture becomes rigid as she turns on her heel to look at me. Her blank grey eyes narrow on me for a moment, and then slowly her posture relaxes just a bit as she seems to realize who I am. "If you want to ask about the BD Murders there isn't anything I can tell you. It's an Association case. I'm not allowed to share anything"

I shake my head and walk towards her. "No, I wanted to ask you if you'd been experiencing strange phenomena before or after the broadcast yesterday."

The woman's lips thin out into a small line. As if someone had simply pinched them shut at both ends.

"I was just wondering because, well, we had a — god, it sounds kinda lame... A glass broke without reason last night and this morning the bar was trashed. Me and Mel were kinda freaked out about it and I figured the most likely thing was another uptick in ghost activity after the..."

She holds up her hand to stop me. "Alright, once you and your friend get to school expect a meeting with me and one of the Association members. They'll probably want to hear about this from the horses' mouths."

A loud thump echoes from the back alley, Ms. Johnson instantly stalks down the small walkway between her apartment building and the bar. There is a faint sound of shuffling, then the sound of cans crunching before a cat darts past us growling.

I watch the scruffy animal disappear before catching up to Ms. Johnson who is staring at Mel with a raised brow. "Were you the one that made that thump, kid?"

I rush over to the older girl and bend down to look for any wounds, but she looks fine. "Are you okay?"

"Y-yeah. I'm... good." She winces as she attempts to move her foot. "A cat jumped out the dumpster and scared me. And I fell. I might have sprained my ankle — it kinda hurts."

Ms. Johnson rolls her eyes and places her briefcase onto the steps before taking the three bags and throwing them into the garbage. "I never thought you were scared of cats. You always seemed to like the strays." She walks back over and helps Mel to her feet.

"It looked rabid!"