1st 5 Pages Workshop - Hillman Rev 1

Name: Amy Hillman

Title: Leave

Genre: MG Parnormal

PITCH:

When yet another move takes eleven-year old Jack and his family to a hundred-year-old building in the middle of nowhere, there’s nothing to do but count oil derricks and watch the wheat grow. His parents’ quest to serve the greater good means he’s moved four times in six years. He’s even less thrilled when he discovers the monstrous building’s been everything from an asylum to an orphanage.

On move-in day Jack receives a warning from a spirit: LEAVE. The orphans who never left rush to protect him from their sworn enemy. With no living kids anywhere close, he becomes fast friends with the ghosts. Once they discover he desperately wants to live in one place, they invite him to stay—forever. 

Just one problem. The sinister spirit he’s feared from the beginning pesters him with messages of doom about his translucent pals. A few mysterious mishaps get him in trouble and leave him confused. He sets out to discover the truth, including seeking out the one spirit who scares him to his bones. Jack must decide who to trust and the reason for the hauntings before he finds himself forced to roam forever as the next child ghost.

Revision:

Chapter 1

The one-hundred-year-old building blocks out the afternoon sun like an eclipse. Dad puts the Jeep in neutral and it coasts to a stop. My cheek presses against the cool window as I inspect the monstrous building. I tug my ear buds out, letting them hang around my neck and push open the car door. Heat slaps my face. A rush of wind shoves the door back at me as if it’s shouting a warning to leave while I still can. Escaping the car becomes a vicious game of tug of war with legs that need to learn to walk again after riding in the car for the past two days. 

Dad hustles to our side to hold the door open for Mom. “Pretty neat building. Isn’t it?” He shouts above wind that roars loud enough to drown his voice to a whisper.

“For a place that’s been everything from an orphanage to an insane asylum,” I mutter a little too loud before cramming my buds into my pocket.

Mom ruffles my shaggy hair that’s the same mop water brown as hers. “Jack, where’d you get that idea?”

“From the internet.” I kick a rock toward the building and it tumbles a few feet before it stops abruptly, like it doesn’t want to get any closer. “Do we really have to live here? Why can’t I stay with Grandma and Grandpa for this round?”

Dad takes a deep breath and ignores the same question I’ve asked dozens of times since the Veterans Transition Program announced my parents would manage this facility onsite.

“Smell that fresh air.” He exhales stretching his arms up over his head exposing his belly. “And yes, we do. Come on we have lots to get done before the veterans arrive.” Tilting my head for a whiff, I don’t notice anything but sun burnt tar from the little two-lane highway and the chemical exhaust from the Jeep.

Mom side hugs me as she rests her head on mine. “Because we’re a family. And because we want you to know what it is to make a real impact in the lives of others.” She lets go of me and pops the hatch on the Jeep. “Think of this assignment as the next adventure.”

I bite back the snark from my bad mood. I want to say they can keep their impact and I’ll keep my old friends, elite soccer team and bedroom. Together, my parents walk arm and arm toward the front of the building. They disappear at the top of the cobblestone steps as if the monster swallowed them whole.     

The crumbling driveway crunches under the wheels of my overstuffed suitcase until a pothole hidden by creeping weeds bumps the case onto its side. The handle twists out of my hand causing the case to belly flop into a mud puddle. Specks of dirt splash up my leg and the side of my cargo shorts.

Tunnel vision consumes my parents and they forget to pay any attention to me, same as every other time we’ve relocated for the greater good. Neither notice I’ve quit lugging the case towards our newest home. They both scurry up and down the age worn steps as if they’re running soccer drills, unloading the last of the boxes from the Jeep. I’m in no hurry to unpack and leave the case where it landed. Instead, I count the number of windows that peer like eyes across the face of the building. Twenty-four.

The movers lower the lift on the back of the moving truck while Mom impatiently checks her phone for reception. By the look on her face and the way she scrunches her nose before shoving her phone in her back pocket, I can tell the reception stinks.

A cold sliver snakes behind my ear and causes panic to worm down my back. I whip around, expecting to find my dad playing yet another joke on me for sitting instead of unpacking. Nothing, but open wheat fields lurk behind me.

“This wind’s terrible!” Mom says passing me by, her arms loaded with green starred boxes for our new kitchen.

Dad comes up behind me. “There’s nothing to break the wind for miles.” enunciating the word miles like it’s two words. His shirt whips and twists around him forcing him to tuck it into the sweatpants cut offs he reserves for moving days.

“Come on sport, lots more to do.” He still calls me by the nickname I’ve had since kindergarten even though I’m going into the sixth grade. He flips my suitcase up right. “Shame about the mud.”

As if the weather hears our complaints, the wind rests. In the immediate still, nothing makes a sound. No chirp, no creak, nothing. The severe lack of all noise pushes my heartbeat into my ears. Complete silence is deafening when you’re used to the neighbor’s dog barking. 

“Better get to work, if we want to get unloaded anytime soon!” Dad yells. His voice booms louder than needed. “Look at that. The wind stopped.” He ties the string to his sweatpants shorts.

The over-stuffed suitcase slaps my heels with every step, forcing me to waddle like a duck to avoid scuffing my shoes. The case bangs against each slab with a gritty thump. A wheel lodges in a crack near the top and the case refuses to go any further. Leaning back, I yank with all my weight and the crack finally releases its grip. The porch catches my fall and bruises my tailbone. The case slams into the top step breaking off a wheel. A deep throated laugh echoes around me. I whip my neck back and forth to find who thinks tripping is so funny. No one’s even close to me. The movers heave boxes onto a dolly, it had to be one of them, even though none of them appear to be watching me.

A giant oak tree guards the entrance and through the half-dead branches a man watches me out of a second story window. His shape blurs and shimmers like a reflection in wavy water. The light bounces off the top of his skull only faintly covered with skin. I scramble backward, crawling like a crab and scraping my fingers on the cobblestones. I tilt my head to one side in time to watch as the fog from his breath fades from the glass. I squeeze my eyes hard. My chest heaves in short bursting huffs and I squint one eye at the window. No one’s there. I can’t shake the gutting suspicion that this place keeps the memories of those who lived here as orphans or worse—the mistreated mentally ill.

Dad whistles his way toward me. With one hand shading his eyes, he looks to where I’m gawking. One dried brown leaf on the giant oak twirls and tugs but the tree won’t free its prisoner. It acts as if it’s alive as it claws at its neighbors and scratches like folding newspaper. All of the other leaves hang motionless in the absence of the wind.

“That tree must be as about the same age as the building.”

I rub my tailbone. “I thought we were the first ones here.”

“We are. The veterans won’t arrive until next week.” He holds out his hand to help me up.

“But I swear I saw someone—"

Dad cuts me off. “No one’s here but us and the moving crew.”