My heart rate picked up again as I made a soft right into the town. This was quite an adventure for me after so long in the depressed isolation of my apartment. I had expected there to be a gas station or rest stop soon following the ramp, but I found myself driving several miles further before I finally reached anything, which happened to be a small convenience store. 

I drove into the gravel lot and parked just in front of the wooden shop where there was room for perhaps five vehicles in total though there was only one present besides me. I quickly hopped out to study the area around. The road for as far as I could see in either direction was barren save for sparing greenery.

Although I wasn't completely into the place yet, I was getting serious ghost town vibes. Standing in position momentarily, taking in the new atmosphere, I witnessed a quiet which greatly added to that feeling. Eyes darting around nervously, I commanded my heart to calm so that I could face whoever I might with strength.

Having collected myself, I stepped toward the door and began pushing, finding it a harder task than anticipated for such an old building. It was made of a steel frame and glass so thick it must have been bulletproof. Guess it had been updated recently. Stepping through the threshold, I caught the attention of the shopkeep.

He was an older gentleman sitting low behind the counter, reading a newspaper. He glanced up and nodded a 'hello' to which I smiled and nodded back directly before he returned to his reading.

At the rear of the store, I found a soda behind a raggedy fridge door, then on my way back, grabbed a bag of original flavored potato chips. Outside of the entrance, it seemed that the building was at least as ancient as its owner. The inside structures were entirely wooden as were the shelves.

The freezers at the back were bulky and one was apparently leaking. When I reached the front counter, I was surprised to see that the man had remained on the short stool, face barely level with the counter before him.

"Good afternoon," I smiled, hoping to get his attention.

Lazily tilting his head backward, he looked up at me and cleared his throat. I couldn't tell if he was scowling or if age had just settled into the lines on his face. I kept my pleasant demeanor as he folded the newspaper and set it to the side. The moment I put my items down, he began to type into the register.

"Six-eighty-one," the man came to the total quickly.

For one fucking can of soda and a snack pack of chips? I complained to myself, pulling out my wallet, "Do you take cards?"

He pursed his lips, vision narrowed as if he were deciding in that instant if he was alright with debit, "Ten dollar minimum," he said at last.

I glanced to the side, spotting a display of lighters without a price posted, "Will one of these do it?"

"You smoke?" he wondered abruptly.

"N-no," I stammered awkwardly.

Another purse while he cocked his head to the side with a studious expression as if waiting for elaboration. Nonetheless, he clicked a few more keys on his machine without me giving more information.

"You're new," he stated, holding out a hand for payment.

"Yeah," I agreed, passing my card, "I'm a few towns away, actually. I just drove in to-"

"You been watching TV," he slid the card into his reader.

I smirked, retrieving it when he finished, "Yeah."

"You'll be wanting to talk to Ames then," he stated while the receipt printed.

"Who?" my brow furrowed.

There was a pause as he silently stuffed the receipt and my purchase into a bag and pushed it across the counter to me, "963 North Terrace Street."

"Oh, Um," I picked up the sack, "Nine six three; got it. Thank you."

"Mm," the man dismissed me, returning to his reading.

It wasn't until my hand touched the glass of the exit that my brain caught up with another thought that had me twisting at the waist to inquire of the shopkeep, "Who exactly are they?"

"A nutjob," he muttered under his breath, not lifting his sights.

"What?"

With a gruff sound, he raised his voice, changing from his previous answer, "McGraff' s daughter."

Since he never bothered to look at me, I didn't trouble him any more and simply left. I did another visual sweep of the outside before loading into my car and taking a generous guzzle from my pop. Would she even speak to me?

Personally, I'd be pissed if random strangers showed up asking about such a horrific event from my past. Furthermore, I'd be furious with the guy giving out my address.

Maybe I had it wrong. This could just be some sort of business or other public venue where I could find her. Since I was strange to this place, I wouldn't know without going there so with much difficulty, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and tapped the numbers into the GPS.

Every page took an annoying amount of time to load, but I tried not to get frustrated. I should have been used to it by now, what with never wanting to pay for more than basic data. When I did manage to venture towards my new destination, I realized that I hadn't been far off in calling Daytonsville a ghost town.

Except for the presence of more buildings, everything was equally bare as the area around the convenience store. It also seemed that nothing had been updated in years. Cracks and potholes could be seen on all the roads and each building appeared to either be falling apart or abandoned.

I didn't come across any people either, other than a small group of teenagers loitering about a boarded up school. It was quite odd for so early on a Saturday afternoon, but then again there didn't appear to be many options for recreation here.

As I drove closer by the kids, one of them strolled into the street, stopping when he was in the middle of my path. He was fairly tall. Must have been at least seventeen and he wore a long black trench coat, sleek hair past his shoulders to match.

I pulled to a halt, rolling down my window as the boy grinned at me, not leaving his spot. It was then I noticed he was carrying a baseball bat held low to his side. Great. That's how I'll die- mugged by angsty teens...

The rest of the troupe, two more boys and a girl, stood from their seats, the girl in the lead. She had brown hair cut so short that I almost mistook her for another guy, but under her dark band shirt, she was very developed. She paced nearer to me, swaying her hips in a short goth-style skirt with chains attached to it

"Hey," my tone was clearly unimpressed despite my efforts not to be antagonistic.

She continued on her stroll, finally resting her arms above her head on the roof of my car as she peered in at me, "Where you going?"

I became perplexed. She couldn't have been maybe fifteen, yet spoke with a confidence that most adults lacked. "North Terrace Street," I finally gave.

The girl's lips curled at one corner as she looked over at the boy with the bat and nodded her head upward once. He, in turn, lifted his weapon, resting it on his shoulders before moving out of the road and joining his friend at my side.

"He's going to the demon house," she told him.

The boy laughed, "And the fucking show hasn't even aired! You people really are thirsty, huh?"

At some point while I was focused on these two, the other boys had begun walking around my car. They too were dressed in black. Not really anything fancy, just plain shirts; one wore shorts and the other, pants.

I wondered if they were looking to see if I had anything to steal or if they were just trying to intimidate me; possibly both. I admit that it would have set me at unease if I didn't already have a deathwish.

"Hey-" the girl smacked me lightly on the shoulder, pulling my attention from her companions and back to her. "It's just down that way," she pointed in the direction I'd been headed.

"Oh, ok," I mumbled, "The interweb was right then."

She frowned so I pulled my phone from my lap where the map was still displayed. Before I realized what was happening, she had yanked the device out of my hand and trotted away from me while staring at its screen.

"HEY!" I yelled, grabbing the handle of the door to let myself out.

However, just as I opened it, the tall guy pushed it back closed, dropping his bat to his side and glaring at me. Instead of fighting the delinquent, I sat back in my seat. Furrowing my brow and attempting to steady my breathing, I did my best to peer around him at the girl.

He didn't do anything to stop me from looking at her and actually moved to the side a bit which allowed for a better view. She was walking in uneven circles, pushing buttons on the phone. It looked like she was sending a text or something. At last, she returned.

"This phone is a piece of shit," she declared, throwing the device inside my window.

I leaned back in time to keep from getting hit. The tiny machine flew into the passenger seat, bouncing off it and landing in the floor.

"Yeah, well," I said with an obviously aggravated tone, "Does it look like I'm rolling in dough?"

The girl stopped in her tracks, expression seemingly softened as she studied me for a few seconds. Then suddenly she was grinning again, "Send the crazy lady my regards," she put her fingertips to her head in the shape of a gun before 'pulling the trigger.' The three boys immediately burst into laughter as she led the group back to their perches on the old school steps.

Releasing an audible sigh, I rolled up my window. I continued on past the school and into the neighborhoods beyond. Once I was out of view of the teenagers, I shook my head. I tried not to let the events bother me since I knew they were just young. They also probably had their fair share of problems.

I was a teen not too long ago myself and, I looked up and down the rows of decrepit houses, if I had to live here with so few people and nothing really to do, I'd probably have a bad attitude as well.

I drove as far as I could remember was the right way before halfway coming to a stop long enough to reach down and grab my phone. Looking back up, I clicked a button on the side of the device to illuminate the screen and then glanced down to see she had closed out the GPS app. A low growl emanated from me as my eyes left it, mind realizing I had already reached a cross-section to North Terrace Street.

Relaxing, I stopped and looked for the house numbers on either side of the stop sign. The ones on the left started with 950 and on the other side, with 952 so I took the right. After 961, I came to another stop sign. Nobody was around; huge surprise there...so I kept going. My vision had already locked on the corner house. Surely enough, I pulled up to the curb and read 963 in neat golden characters on the bright red door.

It was the first decent looking home I had seen since arriving. The two-story residence was painted a light gray with shingles and shutters in a darker hue of the same color. There were two large columns holding up the porch ceiling that gave the place an air of wealth, like a mini-mansion almost.

However, the steel bars covering all the windows, including the small outlook pane on the door, in addition to the decrepit nature of the rest of the neighborhood told a different story. In the driveway was a dark blue town car older than even mine, though it was obviously better kept.

I slipped into park and began deliberating on whether I should go and knock or leave rather than chance on upsetting whoever lived there. My brain started to rerun the reason I was here in the first place, thoughts of kissing Tyler's cold, dead forehead prompting me to get out of the car and march toward the house.

My first knock sounded without conviction so I took a deep breath and repeated the action more loudly. Another moment passed before I saw a face appear behind the tiny, barred window at the top of of the door. I smiled at whomever it was and they quickly disappeared. I then heard a chain rustling just inside, followed by the sound of several locks being undone.

Taking a step backward off the porch just as the door creaked open, I was greeted to the sight of a middle-aged woman standing just a bit shorter than I, with dark hair cut into a job that framed her face. She was plump and didn't wear her age well; her eyes were bloodshot like she hadn't slept in quite some time and her face was fixed in the same discontent expression as the man at the store.

"Yes?" she began, surprisingly politely.

"Hi. Uh, my name is Mark," I introduced, "Are you Ames?"

The woman squinted as she took another step outside and scanned the area before returning them to me, speaking in a tone that I couldn't tell if it was annoyance or worry, "Can I help you?"

"I-yeah, I just...I was wondering if I could talk to you about Lloyd McGraff?" I choked out.

It was then abundantly clear she was annoyed, "Look, buddy, I've talked about this as much as I'm going to. You can watch that goddamn TV show just like everyone else. I swear to god," she said this part more to herself than to me, "If one more person talks about me, getting people to think I have some grand story for them..." she trailed off.

I threw my hands up in apology, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bother you. I-I'll go. Sorry..."

Right as I began to leave, I noticed her staring at my arms. Shit. I pulled them close to me, quickly turning and dashing toward my vehicle. I had forgotten to cover my wounds. No doubt she had seen both the fresh ones from the other night and the bigger scars from ones past. Now not only had I approached a strange woman at her home, but I had proven myself a wacko too.

"WAIT!" her voice sounded strongly just as I had reached the sidewalk before the curb.

At first, I stopped and simply stood there in another internal debate on how I should respond. Gradually, however, I slowly spun around to see she had come outside completely. She was wearing navy blue pajamas with a fluffy purple robe over them and her feet were bare, save for neon nail polish.

"I didn't mean to snap at you," she offered softly, her lips curling upward slightly, "Mark, you said?"

I nodded, still holding my arms against my body to hide their cuts.

"Did you drive here?" she wondered, trying not to let her vision dip toward my wounds.

"I live about an hour away," I answered meekly.

"Look," she took one more friendly pace forward, "I know I look like shit, but I think I still have some coffee made if you'd like to come in for a cup."

I took in the sight of the woman standing there on the sidewalk feeling sorry for me. I didn't want her to talk to me just because she pitied me, but at the same time, I did still want to investigate this mess and figure out why it had called out to me as it had.

Carefully releasing my arms to my sides, I smiled, "That sounds nice. Thank you."