Generations Family Secrets
25 Jan 2018MMMMMalcolm
“Who would do this?” I asked, thinking out loud, as I moved past my tears and started looking for answers.“This was a professional execution.” Kay answered the obvious.
“Well it certainly wasn’t a robbery. Nancy’s still wearing the low temp diamond wedding ring Tom gave her.”
“Do you think ‘The Club’ had anything to do with this? This couldn’t be more than a couple days old.”
I thought about that during a whirlwind of guilt. Maybe this was my fault. If I hadn't run away. If I hadn't so carelessly shunned the love and affection they freely gave without prejudice, I would have been here. I could have prevented this. The truth instead prevailed. If I never left, I wouldn't have gained the required skills (limited as they may be) to stop this. I would just be another body on the pile.
“Nah, I was out of their life by the time I ran into my guardian. This has to be something else.”
“What then?"
"They were looking for something. Let's pray they didn't find it." I got off the floor with a sharpened focus. "Go close and lock all outside access. I don't want any surprises if they still believe their quarry is here. Then come help me look. Maybe we can succeed where they failed."
Kay rushed back downstairs. I stood and stared at my foster parents. I didn't notice their grisly appearance; I simply used them to focus my thoughts. If I wanted to hide something, where would I do it? It had to be here if it was valuable enough to kill for. I couldn't leave it somewhere I couldn't easily get to it. If then it is here, where would I hide it so a restless and inquisitive little boy wouldn't stumble upon it by mistake? I searched my memories for all the places Tom and Nancy said were off limits to me. I couldn't think of any. Kay came back with a puzzled look on her face.
"This house has four floors right?"
"Yeah."
"What's on the fourth floor?"
"It's not so much a floor; it's an attic. I used to play in it pretending I was a mad scientist performing all sorts crazy experiments I saw on holo-vids."
Kay looked at me with a wry grin. "Aww, I bet you were so cute too. Anyway, what's up there?"
"Nothing really just some old boxes and unused furniture collecting dust."
"How do we get up there? Maybe what we're looking for - what they're looking for, is up there in one of those boxes."
I led Kay out the master suite and turned left. At the end of the wooden railed walkway, that overlooked the house's main entry, I looked up to the ceiling. I could barely make out the rectangular outline that separated the attic's entry from the rest of the bright white ceiling. The attackers must have caught Tom and Nancy by surprise, because he implored me to hide here if ever there was an emergency. Remembering his words, I twisted the third from the wall column of the wooden railing. Slowly, the entrance to my childhood lair once again granted me access to its hidden treasures. Automatic lights illuminated dismissing the darkness. Kay climbed the ladder first and I followed after. Near the top rung, I pressed the button that would bring up the ladder behind me and hide the access once again.
"See, I told you; just old boxes and dusty furniture."
"Then why is it so small, when the house is so big?" I looked around me as Kay continued. "That wall coincides with the wall of the front door. That wall lines up with the wall of the back of the house. This wall lines up with the far wall of the study. But that wall..." she gestured in the direction opposite the way we came. "...doesn't make it back past the master suite entrance. There's a lot more house on the first three floors that's not accounted for up here on the fourth."
We both stared at the wall. It wasn't overtly covered with boxes or blocked by furniture. There wasn't anything hanging on it. It was just a wall, that happened to cut off two thirds of the attic. Suddenly I remembered a question I never got an answer to. What was the third button on the top rung of the ladder for? One button opened the attic and lowered the ladder. The other button raised the ladder and closed the attic. What was the third button for? I assumed it operated the lights and dismissed the mystery a long time ago. Now, I wasn't so sure.
I pushed the button and watched as a door slid open on the mysterious wall. More light flickered on as Kay and I entered the...lab? It was a scientific lab filled with all the latest equipment, scopes, and measuring devices. One wall was actually a storage cage filled with all kinds of weird specimens and jars. On the wall opposite the door, past all the equipment and experimenting tables, sat a desk covered with papers, journals, and a Galnet computer.
"I think we found what they were looking for." I muttered; sitting down at the desk.
"All that time you were playing 'Mad Scientist', you could have actually been a mad scientist!"
"I guess so." I was just about turn on the computer, when I heard a bump and a crash.
"What did you do?" I asked Kay, irritated she may have broken something important to my care givers.
"It wasn't me. It came from downstairs. Someone is in the house."
Images of Tom and Nancy flashed before me. Thoughts of their terror and how they begged for their life filled my brain. I rose from the desk and marched toward the door. Whoever was foolish enough to return to the scene of their crime was not going to walk out again in one piece.
"Wait a minute. Where are you going?" Kay asked.
"I'm going to ask our guests some questions and I'm hoping they refuse to answer."
"Think about that first. How many are there? Where are they in this big house? Who else knows they're here? If we somehow happen to subdue them, and they don't return at an appointed time, will more come? Remember what I taught you: 'You control the hunt. Don't let the hunt control you.'"
Kay let go of my arm and I walked toward the ladder. Instead of opening the access back down to the house, I got on my hands and knees and listened to the commotion below. I would have thought there was nothing left to break. Whoever was down there proved otherwise.
"I thought I told you to leave the doors unlocked so we wouldn't have to break back in?" One voice asked.
"I thought I did." Another voice replied.
"Shut up, both of you!" A third voice barked in a thick Imperial accent. "It doesn't matter now. We have what we need to finish this job; let's do it and get out of this system. Federals disgust me!"
I quietly slid back away from the ladder. As I turned to Kay, I heard it's mechanisms power up.
"Hide!" I urgently whisper. "They're coming up!"