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backup-skelenyxx · 5 years

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Teaser

Something was wrong.

Before we even went inside, I knew there was something wrong. We all did.

As we parked in front of the graffiti covered diner that was once the Killjoy Headquarters and our home, I felt all the previous moments' happiness and excitement of returning leech from my body. Despite the hot California midday sun, I felt as though the temperature had dropped to below freezing. The blood beneath my skin ran cold as we stared at the old building that once held so much fun.

The first sign was that the front door, paint peeling and faded, was wide open and partially unhinged. The door was never left open. Not in our time there. A few of the windows were shattered, the glass shards still strewn on the ground reflected the sun. There were no cars other than ours.

And worst of all, it was silent. It was dead. No life to be heard.

We filed out of our car without saying a word. The only sound was the crunch of the dry ground beneath our shoes.

We fell into old habits, following our unsaid orders and agreements. Party lead, followed by Kobra and Jet, then Ghoul and me in a compressed V formation. I pulled my ray gun, the cold metal that had once felt so familiar and comforting now felt foreign and unnerving. I glanced at Ghoul beside me and noticed that he too looked uncomfortable. We were out of practice. And out here in the Zones, that was a dangerous thing.

Party entered the diner first and we followed suit, guns pulled and senses alert. There was no doubt that something had happened here, but what dangers that might have lied inside we didn't know.

The inside looked even worse than the outside. Chairs were toppled and strewn everywhere. Glass littered the floor and crunched beneath our feet. The dust could've been an inch thick. The old radio that once sat at the old bar was on the floor, pieces scattered and a burnt hole in the main piece, a bullet hole. The radio had been shot by a ray gun.

There had been a fight here. And the outcome hadn't been good.

"What happened here?" I asked in a hushed voice.

"I don't know," Party replied, running his hand through his currently white hair. It was weird seeing him in his rebel gear with that white hair of his. "But it wasn't good. It looks as though no one has been here in a long time."

No shit, Sherlock, I thought sarcastically. I almost said it out loud, but thought better. Now was not the time for being a smart ass.

"We need to check the back. If Dr. D or Show Pony are still alive, then there has to be clues to where they might be at." If they were alive. Party looked back at us, waiting for our agreement. We each nodded our heads and we headed through the door that led to the back hallway.

The hallway wasn't in a much better condition than the front. The graffiti that we had painted had been scribbled out with black paint, making it nearly unreadable. The dust was just as thick on the floor as it had been in the other room.

As we passed the rooms that we had once slept in, we individually branched off to clear each room. Ghoul went first, and I was second. The room I was in used to belong to Party. Just as in the hallway, the drawings he had done on the wall had been crossed and scribbled out by black paint. The pictures that he once kept in here were absent. His bed and sheets had been overturned and strewn across the floor. It looked as though someone had been looking for something. And they had gone to extensive lengths to find it. There was only one person, one thing, that could do this.

Korse.

There had been no doubt in my mind that this was Korse's doing, but seeing the havoc wreaked on this place, and the hatred it seemed to convey, only enforced my belief. If I ever saw that bastard again, I would kill him with my bare hands.

I stepped outside the room into the hall. Kobra stepped out of the room opposite me and one look at his face told me all I needed to know. It was just as bad in there.

At that moment, I couldn't wait anymore. I had to know. Time seemed to slow as I ran to the door at the end of the hall. Each step closer to the door filled me with dread. What lie beyond that door couldn't be any better than out here. But I had to know. I had to confirm my suspicions. And I wouldn't wait any longer.

I could hear someone calling me, telling me to stop, but I didn't. I didn't hesitate as I reached the door and pushed it open. What I saw crushed my hopes of anything being okay.

Dr. D's room was in worse shape than any of the others I had been in. Papers were ripped and strewn across the floor, dusty and faded. The desk that he worked at had been ripped apart and the broadcasting equipment was destroyed. All the pictures and maps that had once covered the walls were gone. The American Flag with the black spider that used to hang over his desk was torn and trampled on. But in the corner of the room sat the worst thing. The thing that burned my last shred of hope.

In the corner of the abandoned room sat an over turned wheelchair that I recognized all too well. It was Dr. D's.

Our friends were gone. I collapsed to the ground, the dread weighing me down. They were gone. They were dead. And if Dr. D, who was basically the leader of the Killjoys, was gone, then what happened to the rest of the Killjoys? I knew the answer couldn't be good. We had been gone too long. The Killjoys would be lost without Dr. D and without us on top of it, God knows how many were left.

I was pretty sure I was crying, but I couldn't be sure anymore. The sadness was too familiar because of the events of the past couple years. My mind automatically numbed the pain. But I knew it was there. It always was. And whenever I lowered my walls, it came crashing into me, forcing me to put them back up.

Someone knelt beside and pulled me into a hug. I cried into their shoulder and recognized the familiar scent of Fun Ghoul. I didn't care that I wasn't supposed to cry. In the old days, I never let myself cry over a loss. Loss happened daily in the old days and you couldn't let it get to you. I never used to. But this was different and it was too personal. Dr. D and Show Pony were our closest friends out here in the Zones. We'd known them since before Korse and Battery City and the Killjoys. They'd helped us after the Fires of 2012 and after the accident. And we had abandoned them. We never came back. And now they were gone.

Guilt washed over me as I realized it was my fault. The guys had no control over what had happened the past couple years. That was Korse's doing. But I did. That night at the fire when Korse came, I could've done something to stop him from doing what he had to the guys. I could've refused to be taken away. I could've come back and been here to help. But I didn't. It was my fault.

"We should've been here," I heard Kobra say. I pulled away and looked at the guys who were standing around the destroyed room.

"Shoulda, woulda, coulda, didn't. We weren't here. And now they're gone," Party said as he leaned against the wall and slid down it, tilting his head back and staring at the ceiling.

"They could still be alive," Jet added, trying to cheer us up. "It's possible they got away. There's no bodies or blood. They might still be out there."

Ghoul shook his head. "And where could they have gone? This was the safe house. This was the only place Korse didn't know about."

I wiped the remaining tears from my cheeks and voiced my thoughts. "It's my fault. I should've done something that night-" I was cut off my Ghoul.

"Stop it, Star. Don't you even do that to yourself. It is no your fault. It's no one's fault. This is Korse's doing. That's what he wants, for us to feel guilty. You couldn't have done anything." He placed his hand over mine in comfort. "Star, please, don't blame yourself."

I nodded, but his words had no effect on me. I still felt incredibly guilty. I stood up and made my way to the door.

"Where are you going?" Kobra asked.

"I'm going to see if I can recover anything from my old room." That was at least partially true.

I made my way down the hall, fighting back the tears that still threatened to spill. My room looked like the others. Dusty, walls covered in black paint, and the torn remainders of pictures littering the floor. I sat on the overturned bed and thought through everything. Anything that could give us a hint as to where the rest of the Killjoys were or where Dr. D and Show Pony might be if they were still alive. I doubted they were, but I still tried to keep hope. I tried to keep my old notion of "the glass is half full."

I sat there for a long time, but time meant nothing to me. I was too lost in my thoughts to notice the dropping sun or the change of temperature. It was the sound of a chirping bird outside that drug me back to reality. As I came back to my senses, I took in the room I was in.

That's when I noticed it. A sole picture, unharmed, lying in the corner of the room. I walked over to it and picked it up. It was dusty and faded, but I knew the picture perfectly. The picture was of me, the guys, Dr. D and Show Pony. Ghoul was on Party's back, I was standing on top of Kobra and Jet who had dogpiled on the floor, Show Pony was doing a sort of pirouette on his skates and Dr. D looked as though he'd lost all hope on our sanity. We were all laughing and having fun. It was the days when we were carefree, when despite the constant loss and danger, we were happy.

I flipped over the picture to look at the date. But what I found there was not a date. It was a note. A note that gave me the hope that I desperately needed.

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