Fade: Chapter Two

Chapter Two1

I woke up surrounded by dusty nicknacks and floral-printed furniture. Some musky blanket was thrown across my legs; I came to my senses and pushed it off of me.2

Where . . . am I? I thought as I sat up on the flower-printed couch and looked around. There were walls of bleak pictures, none of them anyone I recognized. The room was rather dark so I figured it had to still be night. I stood up and brushed my legs off, and though I wanted to know what happened with the lights, I needed to know where I was first.3

The uneasy heat from outside seemed to have made its way inside as well. I fumbled around in the warm darkness until I found the switch to a nearby lamp. It was a small lamp, but its light was like daybreak to the gloomy room.4

I walked passed a small television and love seat, the love seat was collecting dust and the television seemed unusable. If somebody had taken me in when I collapsed, they sure didn’t watch tv a lot.5

Amazingly I found my way into the kitchen, it was dark but I could still make out the form of a nearby door. As I reached for the doorknob, a flash of light blasted in through the kitchen window. It was accompanied by the familiar barking of a dog. The headlight-type beams shone in through the window as I tried in vain to open the kitchen door. Why would someone lock a door from the outside? I thought to myself as I let my hand fall limp against my pant leg.6

The light dimmed as I walked around in the dark kitchen. I took a seat on a small chair and fell limply onto the dusty table. I tried to think for a moment, tried to figure out where I was or what had happened. It wasn’t until I picked up a strange envelope under my elbow that I knew.7

The Thatchers8

191 Silkwood Rd.,9

Mayborne MD, 290310

Thatcher . . . I thought to my self as I held the dusty envelope up to my eyes. I knew that name, but not the people. The Thatchers had lived next door to us for years, they were our neighbors. It was no wonder that I could hear their dog barking outside then.11

I stood up and laid the envelope down on the table. It seemed strange that the door would be locked from the outside, even stranger that the inside looked vacant. It’s like no one has lived here for years. I thought as I looked over at the nearby staircase.12

But that couldn’t be right. Someone had to live inside, even if mother and I didn’t see them much. The Thatchers had a kid too, a girl about my age, I had seen her before so I knew they hadn’t been gone long. Besides that, their dog was always fed even if I hadn’t seen them feed him. And someone pulled me off that road and laid me on the couch with a blanket.13

So someone has to be here. Somewhere. I wiped my hands off on my jeans and pushed my dark hair from my eyes. The rooms around me were obviously empty, so the logical place to look next was upstairs.14

Wether the Thatchers lived there, I wasn’t totally sure, but whoever did live there wasn’t very tidy. The stair way was lined with cobwebs and dust, each step I took echoed with aged creaks. It felt almost unsafe to go any further than the fifth step, but I did.15

When I finally reached the top of the stairway, I took a sigh of relief and looked around the musky hallway. A few doors lined the walls, each one accompanied by two or three dusty photographs.16

I walked up to the door closest to me stared at the pictures that were hung by it. The dust was caked on the glass so thick that I had to use my shirt sleeve to clear them off. By the time I wiped them clean and was able to look at them, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to.17

The photographs seemed real, but were gruesome and shady. The first one appeared to be the hill nearby my house, but it was dark and grainy. The second larger picture was zoomed in closer, allowing me to see a red car smashed into the side of a tree. I backed up for a moment. Who would have a picture of a car wreck hung up in their hallway?   I shook my head and moved on, not dwelling on the fact that the car looked just like my mom’s.18