Decibelle

"Didn't you hear about the haunted wall?" Jerry asked. Right then, it hit me that I had almost entirely tuned him out for the past five or so minutes.

"H-Huh, what?"

"Come on dude, weren't you listening?"

"Well, I was… I lost track whenever it went from being about Ms. Moore into something about Alexis, I think? In the cafeteria or whatever."

"He was the one yelling."

"About what?"

"About the haunted wall!" Oh.

"Right."

Jerry's stories were usually impossible to follow once he got rolling. It was made even worse walking home from school instead of taking the bus; at least then, I wouldn't be stuck listening to him ramble on and on. I had no idea what the degrees of separation from Ms. Moore to this wall could have been, but I wasn't going to spend any more time listening to it again. Something else he mentioned seemed more interesting.

"What's this haunted wall?" I asked.

"Oh man. Okay, so!" And there he goes. "There's this house that got demolished like, twelve or thirteen years ago. You know that empty space at the end of 9th Road?"

"We have nine roads?"

"Of course we — he-hey!" Snnrk. "Whatever, anyway. This haunted wall was a part of that demolished house. No one knows why it got demolished, but it happened really quickly after the family who lived in it moved. There was a stray wall that survived the demolition somehow, but because 9th Road wasn't too populated back then as well, anyone who could have noticed didn't. A few days after, someone who lived up the road found out about it, and went to see why the wall could have still be up. When they went to the wall however, it talked to them."

"It talked?"

"Yeah. Whoever found out freaked, and called the police. And then…" He paused for a few moments. It took me a moment to realize what he was trying to do. I would have felt bad if I didn't play along.

"And then?"

"It vanished. Right before their eyes." He paused again, which I knew meant that he was done and waiting for my reaction.

"Ahh."

"What do you mean 'ahh', dude!?"

"Well, how did no one know what the wall said? And how did no one on 9th Road notice the wall? Pretty miraculous for a wall that was part of a demolished house to start talking…" I looked at Jerry, who looked completely surprised.

"Hello!? Is anyone in there? Aren't you the one who's hardcore into paranormal stuff and weird shit?" That wasn't completely wrong even after what I had been through, but I wasn't sure if I'd be able to explain the whole situation well, even (or maybe especially) to him. "This is a fresh scoop too!"

"I know, it's just… unbelievable. Too many parts just sound fishy. Even for a rumor. How could this be fresh if something like that happened that long ago?"

"Hey, don't blame me for not always keeping my ear to the ground," he muttered. He almost looked dejected. Hopefully that was also part of his arsenal of jokes, since I already felt bad for it. "Plus, I only heard this a week ago when studying for finals, so I forgot to mention it until now."

"It's good that you're taking that seriously, at least. No one needs to tell you how important college is."

"That's what I've been told. It shouldn't be too much of an issue with my grades now anyway." That was good to hear. After everything else that happened, he could at least hold that over everyone. "Anyway, you're right. It's old, and I probably wouldn't have heard about this in the first place otherwise. But…"

He stopped walking and looked towards Sandbox Street, which you had to go through in order to reach 9th Road.

"…one of the teachers said they heard something from the wall."

---

We decided to visit 9th Road before going home. To the surprise of neither of us, there was no remaining wall, nor any bricks lying around that could theoretically act as a wall. Jerry was disappointed, although I'm not sure what he could have gotten out of an experience with a talking wall. I wanted to be sad about it too, but I didn't have it in me to feel hurt by the supernatural again.

Instead, my mind ate away at the story for the rest of the night. Why a talking wall? Why did nothing new happen with it for over a decade? Why was a teacher out there when none of them live close to that street?

There was too much to think about, and too many possibilities to consider. Instead of putting it to rest, going there for myself just got me to overthink it. Whatever it was, I wasn't going to find out asking myself while struggling for sleep.

The next day, after school, I walked home by myself to see if the wall were still missing. I told Jerry, but he wrote it off as ridiculous. Plus, he had to keep studying. He might have had a point in it being ridiculous, but I couldn't not check.