this one's just one of my dinky stories. it's not too great, but i'm just putting it out there. enjoy. :]
Maya brushed her white blond hair away from her face in annoyance, only to have another strand tickle it’s way across her cheek. She sighed and regretted ditching the frilly barrette her mother had carefully pinned her hair up with this morning. This wind had not let up all day. The swing beneath her groaned as she jumped up off it and fell into the lush summer grass.
She pushed her eleven-year-old self up and turned into the fierce wind that had not let up all day. Maya looked out onto the open boulevard. Several cookie cutter suburban houses dotted the road. Picturesque shiny silver Volvos and minivans were parked in the driveways and the grass was always mown to perfection. Everything looked perfect, but it was the most boring place Maya had ever known. No friends or girls, or even anyone her age. It got really lonely around here sometimes.
A distinct squeak of the screen door came from the backyard and she heard her mother’s high heels clacking onto the concrete patio. “Maya? Maya?” she called into the wind. “I want you to try on this new dress I bought for you. Maya?”
This was her cue to run as fast as she could until out of sight, and she took it without hesitation. Her bare feet pounded on the sidewalk as she rounded the corner to the second street over. After a bit she stopped and peered around the side of a house to her backyard. Her mother had given up looking for her and was going back inside, holding her short, blond hair behind her head in an attempt not to ruin it.
Maya let out a sigh of relief and returned to the sidewalk, trying to think of something to do, now that she couldn’t go home until her mother left for work. That’s when a foul odor hit her nose. It smelled like chemicals; sharp. It gave her an instant headache. But what was it coming from? She continued walking down the road and the smell continued to grow stronger, and then it was gone. She backed up and suddenly it was there again, pushed against her face from the steady stream of wind.
She could swear it was coming from the house in front of her. It was a smallish red brick house with a patchy lawn. All windows had the blinds down and the garage door was sealed tightly. A large keypad was visible above the handle to the front door and one in the side of the garage.
The low rumble of a car engine came from behind her, it was louder than any engine she’d ever heard on these streets. Maya turned to see an old, rusty pickup truck turning onto the street. Still hidden by a few of the houses, Maya dashed out of sight from the road and peeked out from the corner of a house.
The car was disgusting. Rust covered its entire body and mud was splattered all across the cabin and caked into the hubcaps. In the back of the truck, a blanket, coated in fragments of dead leaves and dirt, covered what looked to be several objects, but Maya could identify them as she squinted, straining her eyes to get a good look.
The truck passed Maya’s hiding place and she could see the license plate, white as bone proclaiming the name of Maryland, a state nowhere near Maya’s hometown of Cambridge, Illinois.
It was pulling up to a house now, the same house that reeked of chemicals. Maya stuck her head around the house she was hiding behind. Hands gripping the grainy bricks and hair flying in the wind, she strained her eyes to the other house’s driveway.
Two men were getting out of the truck, they looked to be in their early twenties. Clean cut and shaven, hair gelled back wearing jeans and tee shirts. The man Maya could see the clearest slid out of the truck and warily looked around the boulevard. He took in the perfect little houses and trimmed hedges with suspicion reading all over his features. He seemed in a trance, eyes squinted and mouth set in a firm line, corners turned down.
“Josh.” the other guy said sharply to his companion. Josh’s head whipped around to meet his gaze. The other man gestured with his shoulder for Josh to follow him to the front door, his black tee shirt rippled in the wind as he headed to the porch.
They were suddenly out of Maya’s range of sight. She ducked her head down and dove behind a shrub of little pink flowers, stems laden with thorns. It was too short to hide her whole body, so Maya had to lie flat in the mulch and push herself up with her hands.
Black shirt guy and Josh had reached the porch by now and black shirt guy looked around before knocking two times fast and then pressing the doorbell twice. It took but only a few seconds for the door to be answered. Maya couldn’t see the person who had opened the door, but she did spot black shirt guy nod once and they were quickly ushered into the house.
Maya returned to sitting on her haunches and brushed off the little mulch pieces that clung to her skin and clothing. Her hair was once again dancing in front of her face in the wind, but she barely noticed it now. What were those men up to? Her mind kept circulating around that question with no solace. She didn’t know what to do now. Twilight was creeping across the sky, draining more of the days light every minute. Who knew how long they would be in there. But Maya’s curiosity wouldn’t let her out of its stronghold. She couldn’t leave now, what was going on?
The approaching darkness seemed to grow thicker every second she sat there alone. When she’d grudgingly convinced herself to start to leave, the front door clicked open.
Maya dove for cover behind the bush, only to have little sharp mulch pieces poke into her arm, she brushed them off and pushed herself up to look out across the lawn.
The same two men were exiting the house now. When the guy named Josh turned a certain way, Maya could just make out a large bulge in his jeans pocket. The darkness was inevitable now, if she got a little closer maybe she could make out a shape. Maya moved her hand forward to get a nudge forward, when a horrible pain shot through her hand and up her arm, she’s stabbed herself with an upturned piece of mulch. She cried out and fell into the bush. Panic seized her stomach as she realized that she’d yelled loud enough for those men to hear. Thorns were scratching at her cheeks and arms as Maya lifted her head just enough to see them. Eyes wide they dove into the truck and pulled it away with more speed than Maya thought the old gas-guzzler could muster.
Stunned with pain and curiosity, she sat there in the shadowy darkness trying to make some sense of what happened, but the pinpricks of blood on her arms screamed for her attention. She nursed her scratches as she ran home as fast as she could.
The white light of the computer screen carved Maya’s face from the darkness as she logged on. With curiosity etched into her face, she was determined to find out something of what was going on in that house. She pulled up Google and typed up anything out of the ordinary she could conjure up. She hit the search button and hoped for the best.
The links popped up onto her browser one by one. Maya clicked into the first one and opened her eyes wide. Could it be? Was that possible? The more she read, the more she was convinced. Maya scrambled for a pen and paper in the drawer of the desk she was sitting at. She began to copy down the list onto a purple notepad, starring the ones that applied to the house. She took the mouse and clicked out of the Internet, Maya had all she needed.
Trash day. The day that would determine the truth. Maya slipped from the house I the early hours of the morning to get a head start to finding out what was really going on. All the trashcans were already out from last night and the garbage man wasn’t due for at least an hour.
She pulled her arms around her torso for warmth in the chilly morning air, tugging the terrycloth sleeves of her jacket until they completely covered her hands. Maya slipped through the dewy backyards to the next street over, the little beads of water collecting on the hemlines of her sweatpants as she ran.
The house still smelled as putrid as ever as she slowly walked toward it. Maya had the faint feeling of being watched as her feet gripped the grainy concrete of the sidewalk. She quickly pushed it to the back of her mind, thinking how it was ridiculous. It was six AM on a Saturday summer morning, plus every blind and shutter on the suspicious house was shut tight.
The large brown bin reached to Maya’s chin as she stood in front of it, trying to gather the courage to do what she was about to do. This would be the step that proved everything, and yet it would be so easy just to run home and never get tangled into a thing like this. Maya had never so much as stepped a toe into the world she was about to throw herself into, and it scared her. But finally she threw the lid open, so sure that a wave of chemical fumes would hit her hard. Except, it never did.
She opened her eyes and looked into the bin. She could see nothing but pure trash. The kind you’d find in any other garbage can. Maya could spot a banana peel and an empty cereal box; things regular everyday people threw away.
Maybe it was further down, hidden by all the other trash. She crinkled her nose and took a big sniff. Coughing, she backed away. It smelled awful, but no sign of chemicals or dangerous fumes. She lifted a few trash bags and looked underneath, it was evident that there was nothing but ordinary garbage here.
Maya closed the lid and backed up, stumped. She was so sure, so positive that she’d been right. This was the biggest piece to the puzzle, and there was nothing. Maybe they took the real trash somewhere there would be no snoopers, somewhere no one would smell it. But where? There didn’t seem to be anywhere where someone could…
The wind was picking up again for today and Maya smelled something. It wasn’t the house this time. It was stronger, more disgusting. It smelled like cat pee and lots and lots of chemicals. But if it wasn’t coming from the house then where?
Maya followed her nose, the smell seemed to be stronger when she walked towards the house to the left of the original. Then a light bulb clicked on inside Maya’s head. She ran to the new house’s trash bin and flung it open.
The stench hit her with such force that she had to back up a few feet just to be rid of the disorientation. Maya pinched her nose between her fingers in disgust and peered back in warily.
Containers of every sort were scattered throughout the bin, glass was shattered, contents were dumped everywhere. Bedsheets stained red were balled up in a corner and coffee filters were littered throughout.
Maya reached down in her pocket and pulled out her list she’d made last night and began to check off items. Almost everything on that list was present here. It was true, all of it. Everything she’d been suspicious of was right here, staring her in the face, daring her to do something about it.
There was nothing stopping her now. Maya ran home as fast as she could, almost slipping on the chilly dew a few times. She wiped her feet on the welcome mat as she tiptoed into the quiet house, careful not to make too much noise, afraid she’d wake her family.
Once in the kitchen, she grabbed the wireless phone from its cradle and, with a deep breath of courage, punched in the numbers 911.
“Hello, what is your emergency?” a nice sounding woman’s voice said through the phone lines.
“My name is Maya Everwood and I would like to report a meth lab.”
. But , by the way, just a reminder. Posting to your own thread, begging for reviews is called "bumping" and makes people lookdown on you. So try not to do it. Don't worry, I got told off for it once when I was new here myself. 