Beauty and The Beasley

Chapter 5

Bree rummaged through the inside of her bag, desperately searching for her house keys and collided head-on into a streetlamp.

"Ho-" She grunted as she fell backwards on her behind. She rubbed her forehead, her skin burning and itching from the unintended meet and greet it had just had with the metal pole.

She stood up and realized the fall had actually emptied the contents of her bag - not very useful contents but still - her keys had stumbled out as well.

"There!" She mumbled and picked up the keys alongside every other item that had stumbled out of her black leather strap bag; a pack of minty gum, cotton swabs in a small ziploc, two books and a Teen Vogue magazine, a marker, a blue pen, lip gloss and a beanbag that looked like it was made out of Lego bricks.

She recomposed herself, hailed a cab and headed home.

The streets were not totally isolated as on would expect given the time. Instead, it was bustling with activity much like it did during the day. Bree spotted Tatum and her crew of graffiti artists at an abandoned bar called Gaper, roaring with laughter. Gaper was not exactly a bar specifically for grownups nor kids. It was more like the remains of an abandoned ruin. There were four waist length walls built around its perimeters with spaces in between each for someone to walk through. In the middle of the space were a set of comfy couches that were so old and torn they looked like a bunch of raccoons had thrown a wild summer party on them - hashtag TGIF.

The floors were concrete and so were the walls. Out on the extended pavement, the roof hung low as if hiding the rest of the bar - that is if one would look at it from a certain angle. There were no windows or doors so visitors just had to walk in from any corner. There was a wrecked vending machine by the edge of one of the couches and this was the sole reason why kids hung out there; in the hopes that by some luck the machine would let a bag of expired goody slip out one day. The group chattered cheerfully and gave each other friendly slaps, hugs and handshakes. It seemed they were celebrating their one-hundredth escape from the police.

Bree sighed and sank into the seat. She did not really have any friends to hang out or do silly things with. Her first year at Chapel Hill had been lonely and very trying and she had navigated life on campus all on her own. Of course she had spoken to a few people on different occasions but none could be tagged "friend" yet or wear matching tees with the words "besties forevs" written in cursives on the back.

The cab took a turn and pulled up near a large brown gate.

"Oakwood" The driver announced gruffly.

Bree paid him and got off then strolled toward her empty apartment. It was one of thirty rental flats in the large building, encased in a medium sized compound with a massive steel gate. Each apartment had a fire escape but hers was already trying to commit suicide. Its hinges had broken off but was luckily held up by four sheets of metal and nails that seemed to be buried deep inside the wall. No one of average human weight could stand ontop of it without it plummeting right into the street below.

What Bree hated most about Oakwood was the elevator. It often had serious technical issues and so she usually took the stairs out of habit. It had once trapped her in together with her annoying flirtatious neighbor, Norman for eight hours straight and she never wanted to relive such an experience.

Norman was the good looking yet nosy occupant of apartment 21 - six apartments away from Bree's. He was not your regular kind of good looking. Think of the two most handsome people you could think of and then smash them together - gross but do it for science. The result of your experiment was how goodlooking Norman was - unless your result was a tie between Frankenstein's monster and Gollum.