Tattle-Tellers Beware

756 words
                  While underneath my cozy blankets and waiting for my sleeping pill to kick in, I hear that darn racket and whisper to myself, "I'm gonna have'ta tell their mamas this time". I pull on my robe and blindly head outside to yell at the garage band across the street playing with their amps all the way up and their scream-o singer yelling into the microphone. I head toward the front door, about to give Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence the advice I should have told them a year ago. In my path stands little Lexie Smith, the girl from next door, holding her doll and blankly gazing toward the loud noise. Her doll lays on the ground, tattered and torn, with one remaining arm and red thread piecing her body together. I head towards Lexie, worried and concerned, but aware that she has always been “different”. Everyone knows her mother had issues that landed her in the state mental facility.
         I ask Lexie, “What’s wrong honey?”, and she remains still. The clouds darken above us and a loud thunder erupts. Her head shifts upward and smiles at the sky in anticipation. Lightning strikes around us and I tell her, “Get out of this storm before you catch a cold”. She stands in ignorance grinning like her mother used to, that kind of grin that send shivers up arms and a cold breeze through the soul. I open the screen door to her house, the “Eeeaaaakkk” sound barely audible through the thunder. My shaking hand knocks on the door and I yell, “Mr. Smith you better come out here”. Lexie’s head turns stare right at me, and the sharpness of her movement resembles that of a possessed child. I knock harder, and Mr. Lawrence says, “Come inside, Lexie there is fine, she likes the storms you now, just like her Mama”. He hands me a glass of whiskey and I know I should decline but my nerves are making me shake and I no longer care how alcohol is going to react with my sleeping pill. I chug the glass.
         The sun shines through the window. Bottles of Beer and a whiskey bottle lies next to me. I realize I don’t have a hangover, so the pill must have knocked me out cold. I figured Mr. Lawrence must have drunk too much. I cautiously walk on the loose floorboards to his bedroom and sure enough he is out cold on his bed. I look into Lexie’s room and her bed is still made. She didn’t sleep her last night. Her room looks like a Civil War hospital for stuffed animal and dolls. Stuffed heads and arms lay around the room and odd creatures sewn from random parts decorate the room. I run out of the house and see policemen and yellow tape across the street at the Smith’s.
         I push through the crowd to get a better look, make my way to the caution tape, but the policewomen firmly states, “No access. Step Back”. I look into the garage and see four dead bodies littered with instruments. Those boys always made too much noise but they never deserved anything bad. Tears form in my eyes. I feel a breeze. My eyes move instinctively toward a blue piece of fabric on top of one of the bodies, and I realize at that my robe is missing and I am only in my pajamas. My robe covers the body of Joe Huff, the scream-o singer. Next to Will Brown lays a small object that I can’t make clear. I see a small doll with one arm. My sight begins to narrow, my heart beats, my hands sweat, and I run inside Mr. Lawrence’s house to make sure Lexie isn’t dead inside there.
         I attempt to wake Mr. Lawrence, but he refuses to budge. His skin is cold and gray. I shake his shoulder and his head moves to the right revealing a large blood stain soaking into the sheets. I let out a panicked breath and on his corpse I notice a piece of long red thread… the same color from Lexie’s doll. I run to my house wondering if I had done something, if I had killed these people in a moment of unkown insanity. I come up with a theory- Mr. Lawrence drank too much, killed the boys across the street out of anger, and then killed himself the next morning after realizing what he did. I go to my door and a white piece of paper with red crayon reads:
                          “Nobody likes a tattle-teller…Especially not Lexie”.