[4] The Ghost Town

[Piper Juunanagou]

“Whatever,” Piper threw back as she turned away from the obviously infuriated Orion. Putting the maniac’s musing behind her, she slowly started down the large, wide ride that ran down the middle of the town’s main stretch. She’d only gotten a few feet when she felt a hand fall on her shoulder. From the lack of force in the grip, she could already tell who had moved to stop her.

“Where are you going?” Kaden asked as the green-eyed woman looked over her shoulder at the handsome courier.

“I’m going to scope out the town,” Piper replied after a moment of silent deliberation. “There might be something of use hidden here,” she added as she picked up Kaden’s hand and slowly lifted it up off her shoulder. “This is, after all, supposed to be some type of television program,” she continued as she turned and pointed toward a large, dilapidated building with a brick tower that towered a few stories above its neighbors.

“If you need me, I’ll be around that structure,” she said as she drew her handgun and clicked off the safety. “I’m sure I’ll be able to hear if a convoy of gun-totting thugs is shooting the place up,” she added with a faint smile.

“Be careful,” Kaden shot back as he turned his attention back to Orion, who seemed to involved in his own frustration to pay attention to the two other hunters. “Orion and I will…pass the time?” He muttered as he shrugged his shoulders.

Keep an eye on him. Piper asked the courier telepathically as she cast one last fleeting glance at him. He still might be planning something… She added, her thoughts trailing off as she spun around and began to jog toward the decaying structure that lie down the road.

As Piper traversed the slowly eroding road that ran through the middle of the ghost town, she couldn’t help but smile inwardly. After the disaster in Central City that had nearly claimed the lives of her team, she was elated that she had managed to save Zena from the one-eyed warrior. Unfortunately, Piper knew she’d have to do a lot more work in order to make up for the losses she had been able to avert earlier in the day.

Szar… She thought with a frown as she stepped up the creaky wooden stairs that connected to the building front porch. And now that young kid. Outwardly, Piper was frowning as she lifted her eyes up to the heavy sign that still hung outside the towering structure. Despite the fact that years of intense sun and wind had almost completely peeled and faded the paint, the redhead was still able to discern the words ‘Sheriff’s Office’ emblazoned across the planks of wood.

Moving forward, Piper reached out and wrapped her hand around the rusted door knob. When the door turned out to be locked, she let out a frustrated sigh and gave it a hearty twist. With a screeching akin to a dying whimper, the entire handle broke apart in the woman’s firm grip. As the door ominously creaked into the shadowy building, the redheaded medic took a step back and wiped her dirty palm on the leg of her blue jeans.

“Has to be something in this place,” she assured herself as she clasped both of her bony fingers around her gun. Lowering herself a little closer to the ground, the woman slid into the building and quickly leveled her gun in front of her. After a few seconds of scanning the poorly illuminated room, she let out a sigh of relief and lowered her gun back down to her side. “Now I’m just getting myself all worked up,” she mumbled as she tried to put on a smile.

Bang!

Immediately, a scream loosed itself from Piper’s throat as the jarring sound echoed throughout the empty police office. After swallowing her heart back down, the already uneasy redhead turned around and saw the cause of the noise: The old, now broken door to the building was being rattled against its frame by the wind. Glancing over toward the far wall, Piper could see that the wind was being let in through a thoroughly broken window.

“I hope they didn’t hear that,” Piper sighed as she reached for an old oil lamp sitting on a broken stool near the corner of the front room. After tinkering with the wick, the woman scanned the cluttered, dust-ridden lobby until she managed to find a matchbook inside the front desk. Although the box itself smelled faintly of mildew and a few of the matches had been ruined by water damage, Piper was able to finally find one that still worked.

With a hiss, the lamp burned to life—casting a dull, amber glow across the lobby of the derelict sheriff’s office. Feeling rather content with her scavenging skills, Piper stuffed the remaining, undamaged matches into her side pack. As the sunset slowly began outside, the woman made her way through the door that lie behind what she could only assume served as the reception desk. As she stepped out into the hallway, Piper couldn’t help but shiver from the noticeable plunge in temperature.

“Deserts always get really cold at night,” she muttered as she held the flickering oil lamp closer to her body. “Come on, Piper…you know that,” the woman assured herself as she heard the creaking of floorboards from somewhere within the large, multi-story police complex.

“This place didn’t look that unsettling from the outside,” Piper mumbled as she heard a gust of wind that sounded convincingly like a long, drawn-out moan. As the woman rounded the last corner and made her way through an open doorway, she found herself presented with several options. In front of her, there was a wooden staircase that seemed to barely be holding itself together. To her left and right, there were two sets of wooden doors.

“Maybe I should go find Kaden,” she whispered nervously as another cold spell befell her.

Before the redhead could even turn around, the door she’d just walked through slammed shut with a thunderous bang. As Piper tried to stifle a scream, the lamp in her hand flickered just once and then died for no apparent reason…leaving her shrouded in darkness.