9/11 Short Stories

Chapter One Echoing sounds of fences rattling and people running buzz through her head. She can’t tell if they are real or not anymore, but the horrid stench is. Dirt, grease, and garbage smells invaded her nostrils.

“Wrong alley,” she mutters to herself, struggling to breathe in the humid air. The back of her hand catches sweat off her hairline. Eighteen year old Crystal’s apartment complex must be the next alley.

Damnit, she thinks, Did they see me come in here, are they still following?

Light on her feet, she stalks over to the main street where she entered second ago. Her thunder-cloud-blue eyes peer around the corner of the alley. She spots a man, familiar, he has been- no is following her. Quickly she slams her back

Her reflexes make Crystal look behind her to see what had happened, still facing the man. The loud noise came from a small boy crouched with one knee on the poorly paved alley. He stands up slowly his head rising to look Crystal in the eyes. Tears dance down the boy’s light colored checks from his sad, pleading, hazel eyes. Underneath a short-sleeved plaid sweater is a light blue collared shirt. Directly below his beige shorts, droplets of blood trickle down his leg from his wounded knee.

“Oh no! Are you- But how did you…” Crystal let’s her voice fade into the silence between them.

She turns her head to face the first man, twenty years old if she had to guess, and he holds a blank, expressionless face. Crystal’s quizzical face looks back at the boy as she turns fully around to face him. His hand is resting atop his perfect, slicked to the right side, jet-black hair. A reassuring smile comforts Crys for half a second. Then there are scarlet drops streaming down his tear stained face to his lips. He licks the blood off his mouth and shows his white teeth coated in a thin layer of blood. Shock stuns her and she stumbles forward following the lines of fluid. Her eyes reach the source: his fingers are white with the pressure his fingernails are applying to his hairline. A loud gut wrenching, ear-piercing scream escapes his bloody mouth. The screeching stops and an evil laugh starts. The boy starts pulling his hair

It came a few inches past his ears and parted to the side. He needed a haircut but hasn’t had the time.

As soon as Cruz exited the ballroom, he saw Eli running down the hall and turn into the room. He followed her and entered, squinting his green eyes at the dim lighting in the room. Eli was standing against her bedpost hugging her arm to her chest. Cruz walks in and looks at her, resting his hand on the top bar of her bed post with the see through mesh cloth. The cloth is nine feet below the glass window of her ceiling. “I don’t need you to prove that you’re six-eight and I’m five-nine, I get it!” Eli comments with a hint of a grin. She pushes her glasses furiously up her nose.

“I’ll move then,” Cruz laughs, then straightens his face. “But what’s wrong? You seem… tense.”

“It’s just- Well, I mean- Crys. She was supposed to be here at nine-thirty and it’s ten-fifteen! She is never late. I haven’t heard from her and she won’t answer my phone calls. It’s making me nervous. I wonder if she’s alright,” Eli allows her voice to trail off. Cruz steps closer to her, his light green eyes shining like