She's a Dwelling Place for Demons

The roar of the dirty off-white van was almost deafening; I couldn’t even hear Johnny’s horrible sing-along skills in the back seat. Thank God we only had to endure fit for the few minutes it took me to drive to Brian’s house.

Before we knew it, the van was resting in front of a small, grey, one story house.

“Alright Brian,” I began, “you have fifteen minutes to get all the clothes you can. Grab your cash stash, and haul your ass out of there. If you’re not out of there in the next fifteen minutes, I’ll assume McKenna is torturing you with her Barbie tea parties and leave you. Do you hear me, Haner?”

I turned around only to find the backseat void of Brian, and to hear his house’s front door slam shut.

“Y’know Alexx, you can be really scary in the mornings,” Jimmy muttered, his eyes barely able to stay open from his lack of sleep.

-Brian’s POV-

Is it possible to run like a grizzly bear and not make a sound? I didn’t have to hear Alexx’s full threatening speech in order to know what I had to do: grab everything that didn’t smell like a rodent died in it, get the money, and leave.

I tiptoed past Brent and McKenna’s rooms, careful not to wake my unsuspecting siblings from their vivid dreams.

Mission accomplished, I made it into my cluttered room without anyone’s snoring ceased.

Good ol’ dad; he set out all the stuff I might need after I went to Alexx and Jimmy’s. Apparently, he had his shit more together than I did.

Instinctively, I grabbed my purple suitcase from the closet and shoved all twenty pairs of jeans, thirty some-odd shirts, and random socks into the dark luggage. It only took me three minutes to get the zipper zipped up all the way.

I hopped over to my dresser to rummage around for the $300 I had saved especially for this summer. It may not have been much, but every penny counted right now, literally. My fedora was hanging on my bed post, waiting to be scooped up and placed crookedly on my head.

Out of Alexx’s bad habit, I glanced at the clock, only to have it glare 6:30 A.M. into my face. My fifteen minutes were up. Oh shit.

-Zacky’s POV-

Jesus Christ, if Haner doesn’t get his ass out here in the next ten seconds, I’m charging into that damn house. Just in time, the front door slammed shut, portraying a cartoonish Brian huffing his way over to the van, lugging his suitcase the whole way. It looked like it
could weigh thirty pounds.

“I, I thought you were really going to leave me,” he gasped; his eyes about to pop out of their sockets.

I know it sounds horrible, but the laughter that had been building up inside of my diaphragm just spilled out into the eerie silence of the van. Everyone turned to look at me, too tired to do anything but roll their eyes.

-Alexx’s POV-

I didn’t say anything after Brian’s near left-behind experience. I simply put the van’s gear into “drive” and drove off to Matt’s house so we could repeat this routine one more time.
***
Turns out, Matt had over $800 stashed. Our current financial statement, in cash, was $3,050. Not bad, considering this was all just money we’d all earned in the past two months
with our part-time jobs.

Zacky, Matt, and Jimmy were discussing their favorites liquors, quite vehemently I might add, while Brian and Johnny were fast asleep.
Only eight more hours, I thought to myself, only eight more hours.