The Building by T O Davis

"Seriously? You expect me to go in there?"

“If you want to join our club,” Chad said.

I turned back toward the old Jones’s residence. It was more a tool shed than residence. They had owned the property on Clifton Street for what seemed like eons. Now it was a vacant lot surrounded by red clay hills, kudzu and factories, and even the factories were now empty. I nudged my toes into the red mud, felt it squish and give against my foot; there was honeysuckle in the air, and I savored it for as long as I could.

“You going or are you yellow?” Josephine asked.

I picked up a dirt clod and flung it at Josephine. Her freckled face went white before she ducked. The clod sailed past her and exploded in a patch of tall grass. A fly buzzed, and I thought I could see its wings move one by one.

I took a step closer to the rusted, metal shed. There were no windows, so I would get no sneak peaks. The sun glinted off the tin roof burning my tired eyes. The wind rattled hot and fast stirring up dust and old leaves. I looked back and it seemed like miles were between us, as though the earth had opened up and deliberately separated us. I turned back to the building. Its grey door moved back and forth as if it were breathing; waiting for me to open its door and swallow me like all the others. I reached up, my sweaty, dirt-caked hand shaking, knowing this was all superstition but hoping I was somehow stretching through time, and also hoping, as my arm touched the door, I would feel a smaller hand reach in and grab hold of mine.