Vacant Memories

13th June 2012

Austin’s eyes slowly adjusted to the bright morning light of Houston, Texas. The sunlight which streamed through his window warming his face as he lay in bed.
“Aust?” A quiet voice from behind the door, followed by a soft tapping announced his sister’s presence.
“Come in Kaitlyn” He called out.
A rush of blonde curls and tanned skin quickly made their way into his lap as he sat up.
“Momma said you gotta take me to school.” Katie’s big blue eyes looked into his, twinkling as she spoke.
Although Katie was only five years old and Austin: eighteen, they were almost identical in looks. Both shared their mothers icy blue eyes, curly blonde hair and tanned, freckled skin.
Austin rolled his eyes but nodded anyway. “Now get out of here, I need to change” He shooed her away playfully.
After quickly brushing his teeth and throwing on dark jeans, a Linkin Park t-shirt and his vans he grabbed his camera and left his room.
Austin’s camera was his pride and joy, he never went anywhere without it. It was one of the really old ones were the photos had to be developed in a dark room, but he loved it nonetheless. It had been passed down from his grandfather who had shown him exactly what to do and how to develop the photos, shortly after this his grandfather died of old age.
Turning the corner and making his way downstairs he could smell his mothers home-made chocolate chip pancakes and smiled.
Just like always his mother was waiting at the end of the stairs, smiling with a plate of breakfast for him.
Austin quickly kissed his mothers cheek and took his pancakes, practically inhaling them.
“Son, the least you could do is sit down before you go on and eat.” His father, Daniel’s deep voice rumbled from behind his news paper.
“Yeah, yeah...” Austin mumbled before turning to the stairs and shouting “KATIE! Hurry up!”
Prancing down the stairs Katie replied: “I’m ready Austy” In a sing-song voice.
“Okay! Let’s go.” He clapped his hands together and held open the front door as his little sister ran ahead.
~
After quickly dropping Katie off Austin made his way to Lamar High School, almost running over the other cars in his haste not to be late.
When he arrived Austin was immediately aware of the whispers and mutterings of the other students.
Austin spotted his best friend Tristan waiting by the steps of the school for him wearing a hoodie, jeans and a baseball cap which was strategically placed on the side. If there was anything Austin could wipe off the earth completely, it would be baseball caps.

As he reached Tristan, Austin yanked the cap off of his head.
“Dude!?” Tristan protested as Austin rolled his eyes.
“Don’t act so clueless. We both know you wore this to piss me off”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about” Tristan acted innocent with wide eyes and a hand to his heart before speaking again. “Did you hear man? There’s going to be a new girl tomorrow.”
“Yeah. Everyone knows. So?”
“So? Did you also hear she just moved into the Jones’ old house? Alone. Makes you wonder how a seventeen year old girl can afford a place that big, right?”
“Maybe she comes from old money—Wait. How do you know she’s moving there? Stalker?”
Before he could answer the bell rang, signalling the beginning of first period, and Tristan just clapped his hand on Austin’s back before heading down the nearest hall towards his first class.
The lessons leading up to lunch were terribly uneventful, teachers rambling on about things that Austin had no interest in knowing but would have to learn anyway, he would rather spend all of his time studying and practicing photography... but for know he was stuck with plant cells and trigonometry.
Lunch was and will always be Austin’s favourite time of his school day, he was always stuck behind his lens; determined to capture the perfect replica of the stereotypical groups the students seemed to split off into.
So there he was, sitting upright, scanning the room with his camera in hand, and taking pictures every now and then.
As he focused in on a group of jocks with cheerleaders smiling and giggling in their laps his ears picked up on a conversation. His friends behind him were discussing a very popular topic. The new girl.
“I heard she’s French... that’s hot.” Austin rolled his eyes at Tristan’s obvious remark.
“I heard she lives alone. Up in the old Jones house.”
“Yeah! And did you hear? Her parents are locked up in jail for a mass murder”
“That’s not what I heard....”
Unwilling to take anymore of the mindless rambling of his peers Austin tuned out and took one more picture before the bell rang.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“How was your day Katie?” Austin asked as Kaitlyn buckled her seat belt and nervously squirmed in her seat, her eyebrows drew together.
Okay... something was definitely wrong. Everyday it’s the same thing here. I wake up, eat breakfast, drop Katie off, spend another day in the same school, pick Katie up and ask her the same question and Katie’s face would light up in the same way every day as she told me all about her day. But not today.
“Katie? Did something happen today? Was someone mean to you?”
Katie looked up and shook her head over zealously “Nope! But... I had a dream at nap time. And it was real scary Austy”
“Oh... what happened?” A scary dream... If this was anything like the last few times there’s no way it was just a dream. Katie tapped her bottom lip with her index finger to indicate she was thinking. “Well... there was a man and all of his teeth were real pointy and his eyes were red and..and he was mean to you and was hurting you” she tugged at her bottom lip with her teeth and her eyes were tearing up as she looked up at me.
Okay... this one was definitely just a dream.
I stroked my hand over her hair once before checking my mirror as I back out.
“Don’t worry Katie pie. It’s just a dream. Besides how many people do you know who have pointy teeth?” I stole a glance at her and smiled which got a giggle.
“None!” Katie giggled
“Exactly, you got nothin’ to worry about darlin’”
I smiled to my sister but it didn’t quite reach my eyes. I had no idea what was happening with my baby sister... a few weeks ago she started having dreams.. I mean she always had dreams but these were different... real but things that hadn’t occurred yet... I guess someone may call them visions?
Anyway, I’m hoping that they were just a coincidence... and this nightmare was nothing to worry about, obviously. Too... farfetched.