AUTHOR'S OTHER TITLES (16) A Message From God (Short Stories) From a runaway girl, inspiration from God? Possibly. [599 words] Cycle Of Street Life (Poetry) Life on the streets if you are not careful. [111 words] Dirty City (Short Stories) Abbie Angel is running, hiding in a concrete and glass jungle. [696 words] Dying For A Memory (Short Stories) When there is nothing left, what can you do? [228 words] Eastbound Wanderer (Short Stories) A runaway's Journey. [543 words] Forever Lost (Poetry) Poetry of the street people. [67 words] He And You (Poetry) Yin and Yang--we all have the good and the evil in life; sometimes it is evil that wins. [103 words] Hunger Moon (Poetry) Poem about what it is like to me hungry. [168 words] Lost Christmas (Short Stories) - [379 words] Lost Girl (Short Stories) A true story about a girl who ran away from home when she was 15 years old. It's about me. [1,526 words] Lost Girl 2 (Short Stories) More of my story being lost in a mean world. [619 words] Lost Girl 3 (Short Stories) Abbie Angel, 15, is still running. This might be my last entry for a while. [884 words] Magic Man (Short Stories) - [1,008 words] Night Zombies (Poetry) About the street people. [166 words] Pale Moon Of Christmas (Poetry) Abbie Angel, Runaway, is back again. [159 words] The Antichrist Of The Blue Moon (Short Stories) My name is Abbie and I am a runaway. I think I met the Antichrist and that is my story. [1,409 words]
Hell's Gate Abbie Angel
Hi, it is Abbie Angel again. I ran away from home last April and have been running ever since. The last place I visited, I wrote that I meet the Antichrist, I think. Well, two days ago I found the opening to Hell in another town.
I never hitchhike because it is too dangerous. I made a little money washing dishes at that foreign guy’s restaurant before he got too nervous about inspectors coming so I left. I also found some coins lying loose in a car wash, under high school bleachers and sidewalk cracks. I bought a bus ticket that took me to Pennsylvania. I got into the back of a pickup truck and rode some more until the truck stopped at a small carry-out. I jumped out and kept walking.
I followed Route 61 down into a town called Centralia. The homes were weird—tall, thin places. I could tell that they once belonged in neat rows, but today they stood alone. Lots of houses were torn down and streets went nowhere. Some places had steps leading to an empty lot and power lines were cut where homes once stood. It was like the whole town was being torn down. Field and smoking hill sides were littered with dead trees and burnt stumps. It was so spooky. There was a cemetery in town, and smoke curled up around the tombstones as I watched. Even the ground was hot.
My heart almost jumped out of my chest when an old guy suddenly came up behind me. He asked me where my folks were and I told him they were up on a hill taking pictures. He told me that I shouldn’t be wandering around alone because the ground could open and swallow me up, like it did that Domboski kid back in 1982. The boy was minding his own business when the ground opened up below him into a hole, 150 feet deep and filled with fire and poisonous gas.
I looked and the smoking cemetery and asked the old man what was burning underground. He told me that a seam of coal caught fire long before I was born and has been burning ever since. I felt the hot ground again. Most of the people left, but he sticks around because he wants to find the courage to explore hell, he says.
He tells me about a cave he found 5 winters ago and nods his head in the direction where smoke curls up from trees. He says the cave is foggy from poisonous gas and strange burning fluid flows from cracks in the earth. Sometimes, he says, around midnight, if you stand by the cave door, you can hear people moaning from inside.
“Go far enough into that cave,” he said, “and you’ll see old Lucifer himself, with black, shriveled skin and big batwings, slick like oil and sticking out of his back. And fire shoots out of his horns.”
I leave the old man and walk towards the smoking trees.
It looks like that was a nice town, years ago, and the few that lived there still love it. There was a heart shaped sign that said “We love Centralia.”
Well, the old guy was right because I found the cave entrance and it smelled like sulphur inside. I didn’t go in, but I heard hissing noise coming from the blackness and the air felt hot and wet, like an August day when the sun hangs low over steamy fields. He said that if you stood there and listened long enough, you could hear Lucifer’s wings flapping.
I got out of there and away from Centralia. I slept in the woods, melted a chocolate bar down in some water in my tin cup and drank hot chocolate for supper. My clothes smelled like that old cave did. I’m making my way East. I don’t know what I’m going to do in the winter i I can't find a place out of the cold. Perhaps I will try to go south, I don't know anymore.
READER'S REVIEWS (2) DISCLAIMER: STORYMANIA DOES NOT PROVIDE AND IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR REVIEWS. ALL REVIEWS ARE PROVIDED BY NON-ASSOCIATED VISITORS, REGARDLESS OF THE WAY THEY CALL THEMSELVES.
"you have a terrific way of painting a picture and i find myself worrying about your plight. you seem to be pretty good at getting into and out of some nasty places. good luck to you." -- just a guy.
"Being a runaway is wrong and not too bright to do, but I made a decision and I can't go back; I don't want a foster home, I don't want to be in a shelter." -- abbie.
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