Memoir gone short story

This will probably look familiar to some of you. I cut out 400 words and tried to make things a little clearer so it would work as an assignment for my Creative Writing class. It is actually the first thing I'm going to turn in that I really like. The other two assignments I posted I loathe with all my being.

Here it is:

Alanna looks a lot like me: thin, female, nineteen, non-threatening. Her smiling eyes are studying my tense, freckled face.

"We are going to pick up a payment from where Mike’s guys leave them," I explain to her as we get closer. She doesn't know who Mike is and doesn't ask. She is coming as moral support, and possibly as a witness.

I breathe in slowly and tell her that if they- the goonies- are there waiting for me I'll make her drop me off a block down and drive away.

“If I don't come back, call the cops.”
She almost laughs, but stops when she sees my worry.

We get to a lane of houses that look like the Cleavers live there. No cars outside. I hop out and find there is no payment in any of the usual spots. Suddenly I'm furious and I call Mike several times. No answer. I scream into the receiver, leaving threats way beyond a normal teenage girl’s imagination. I see Alanna, wide eyes and wide mouth and still wondering if she should be laughing. Still? Still wondering?

"Just ring the doorbell. Look inside, can you see it inside? Let’s try the backdoor."
"No, this isn't a real house."
"What?"
"This house is not real, Alanna. It’s a drop off point. People don't even go inside." Mostly true.

She stops and is afraid. Fake houses, vague payments. Two days ago she thought I was just like her.

I am so mad at Mike, at his stupid goonies who smile, slap, smoke cigars, chuckle at aching souls, so mad at this hideous house in the middle of the suburbs, mad at the adorable lawn gnome and porch swing that make it look like it’s someone’s grandmother’s house when in reality the gnome hasn't seen anything but drugs and money and scared people brought here to be broken. Physically or mentally or spiritually or grammatically or spherically I don't know but one way or another you die when you accept an invitation past the calico cat welcome rug.

No answer on the phone.
I have forgotten why we came here.

I run into the backyard and grab a brick. Let’s burn this place down, lets break in the door, I'll show you how broken everything is! COME ON break it down with me I need you to break this door and smash the walls in get your lighter we can send a message to SatanMike and his demons and the houses! The sweet white houses and their innocent potted plants and beautiful lawns and it’s how all the bad houses want to look but guess what there’s nothing inside maybe a couch or two for appearances but nothing really and we’re too close and I don't want you in there I hate thinking about in there and I don’t understand how and why life is like this and I hate it and I've been in that house.

I am that house. I throw the brick.



Author comments: Hopefully people can read through the narrators garbled thoughts. I was tempted to edit the massive run-on sentences but I think they fit how I want the story to come across. Also, just to clarify, yes the narrator has been in the house and is still alive, despite her having said that people die when they go inside; however, she includes multiple ways of dying (spiritually, physically, the last two don’t make a lot of sense but it fits how she thinks). Hopefully a reader can conclude that while she is still living she feels like that house has killed part of her. I tried to make that clear.