His game avatar, which he named Hfant, re-spawned on the screen. He directed Hfant over toward his team’s base where he planned to pick up the weapons off his own character’s dead body. They weren’t great weapons, but they were better than the defaults everybody spawned with. A set of numbers popped up in the corner of the screen just as he retrieved them.
“Ah crap, guys, this has to be last game,” Danny sighed into his microphone.
“What? But I just got on!” JimmyHaHa20k complained.
“Yeah, well, the timer just popped up.” Danny compared the new and ugly green numbers to the time left on the clock for the game. He had enough time to finish this one, but not to start and finish another.
“I can’t believe your mom put a timer on you,” Lemon laughed.
“She’s not my mom,” Danny grumbled.
“Your babysitter then.” Lemon knew Danny’s living arrangements, but liked to poke fun at him anyway. That’s what happened when you were the youngest member on the team, no matter how skilled and polite you were compared to the rest of your age group.
“Will you be able to get on later?” BaybeFayce asked.
“Maybe.” Danny finally got his character over to where it needed to be in the central area of the game map. “Luca is going to some birthday party tonight, so I might be able to get his time slot.”
“Cool. Now would you mind going and stealing their flag for me?” Pyromaniac1234, the last member of the team, asked from his perch. He was a great sniper and put a lot of pressure on the other team. Danny was actually fourth string sniper on the team. The only player he was better than was Lemon, but that was because she liked the up-close and personal weapons like the shotgun.
“Sure thing. Should I go up the river side or through the caves?” Danny moved his character up a hill in the middle of the map from where he’d be able to see both routes.
“Actually, go straight up the middle,” Pyro instructed him, “it’s clear right now.”
“You better cover me. Jimmy, where are you right now?”
“Behind the rock behind their base,” Jimmy told him. A little icon hovered over his head to indicate he was indeed over there. “I’m waiting for you though.”
“Good.” Danny continued to play his game with his online friends. He played a lot and by now, he and his team worked like a well-oiled machine. If he didn’t have to share the system with the other kids in the house, he would spend all day online. His teacher once told him he needed to make friends with the other kids in his class. What she didn’t understand though, was that he had enough friends here. And they remained his friends no matter how many times he had to move.
The game ended with his team winning by one point in overtime. He said bye to his friends and turned off the system with less than a minute left on the counter. His stomach decided to remind him of its existence then, so he got up off the living room floor and went into the kitchen.
“Emma, I’m done with the Xbox if you want the TV,” he mumbled to a girl sitting on a stool. She was the same age as him, but taller. Being a girl meant she got her growth spurt first, which made Danny kind of jealous. He had always been the short kid. It didn’t help that Danny wasn’t particularly fond of Emma to begin with. He thought she was strange. Her hair was super long and frazzled all the time, kept in check only by the hair-bands she always wore. She also had glasses that made her eyes look too big and braces on her teeth. And she wore sundresses a lot, which Danny thought of as old people clothes, not teenager clothes. He tried not to think in stereotypes, but she was a stereotypical nerd.
Not like he could really say anything though. He had been called a geek several times because of his love of video games. In fact, he was wearing a blue T-shirt branded with the logo of his favourite game right now. Games and military stuff were his only real interests.
“Great! Just in time for my show.” Emma jumped off the stool and left for the living room, leaving the homework she had been working on sitting on the counter.
Danny opened the fridge and looked around inside. He dug around behind juices and containers of salad. It didn’t look like they had any pop left, but he found a leftover hamburger from the night before. It was probably the one made for Jon; he was on some vegetarian kick for some girl, so he had refused to eat it.
Danny took the burger apart and microwaved the meat. While it was revolving, getting nuked, he prepared his choice of condiments: a slice of cheese, some lettuce, ketchup, mustard, and relish. There was no bacon, but he did find some bacon bits he thought would do nicely. When the meat finished reheating, he threw the whole thing together. While he took the first bite, he walked over and looked at Emma’s homework. Gross, she was doing algebra. Emma was such a nerd, she willingly took summer classes.
Trigonometry, geology, geography, history, those were all classes Danny enjoyed. They would actually be useful to him one day. As soon as he turned eighteen, he planned on joining the army, just as his older brother, Mathias, had done. Mathias wasn’t even against it. In fact, he was saving up money to send Danny to a good military school. For now though, it was foster homes.
This home wasn’t too bad. Certainly in the upper bracket. He hated having to share the TV and video game system, but over all, it was pretty good. He liked the other kids who lived there. Emma was a total nerd, but she was very good at helping him with his homework. Jon was sixteen and had his own motorcycle, which was the coolest thing ever, although he never let Danny near it. Luca was the popular kid at school and a year older, but he liked a lot of the same stuff Danny did. The little kids, Joan, Nelly, and John with an H, were actually well behaved. That was the biggest surprise about this place. Beth and Holly, the two women who ran the home, were pretty cool about most things. They were just very strict about making sure everybody shared. This included Danny’s game system, which Mathias had gotten him for Christmas the year it came out. At least he got his own room. The last place he was at, he could use his system whenever he wanted and for as long as he wanted, but he had to share his room with this annoying twerp who always bugged him when he played.
Danny Cole walked with his burger into the living room. Emma was watching some show on the Discovery channel. He stood and watched a few minutes of it while he ate his burger, but it wasn’t that interesting. Sometimes the Discovery channel had good stuff on, just not at that moment. When he finished, he headed upstairs, not knowing what to do for the rest of the day. Luca was the only one that he kind of liked to hang out with, but he was at a friend’s house and from there, would be going over to some other kid’s birthday party. Popular kids always had a lot of social engagements. Jon was also gone, hanging out with his friend Mark, and Beth and Holly had taken the three little kids to the playground. Only he and Emma were still in the house.
He entered his room and flopped down on his bed. He wanted to call Mathias but couldn’t. Mathias’s job required him to stay at some facility practically 24/7. It also required that he live there without any family, which was why Danny had to stay in foster homes. He did come see him every now and then, and he called, but Danny hadn’t heard from him in the past week and a half. He’d be worried if it hadn’t happened before. Something would go wrong at the facility and they would shut down the phone lines. Danny didn’t actually know what Mathias did; just that it involved guarding secrets. He liked to imagine what those secrets were. Ancient artifacts of destruction maybe. Or perhaps alien technology. Government-related secrets for sure.
Eventually, Danny fell asleep and dreamed of sea monsters in the sewers.
* * *
When Danny woke up, his mouth tasted gross and tacky, as it always did when he fell asleep during the day. He wandered over to the bathroom and brushed his teeth. After that, he decided to go downstairs and find out what Emma was doing. Maybe he should start on his own summer reading… Nah.
He made a lot of noise going down the stairs, letting his feet fall heavily, thumping along. When he reached the bottom, he gav
e a jaw-cracking yawn and headed back into the living room where Emma was still planted on the couch. He collapsed down next to her. TV was better than nothing, even if it was boring TV.
“The timer’s up,” Danny pointed out. At least now, he knew how long he’d been asleep.
“That’s fine. John with an H’s time is up next and I know his code,” Emma told him. Everyone in the house called him John with an H to distinguish him from Jon without an H.
The TV was programmed to shut off at certain times of the day. To get it to work again, you needed a code, and different codes corresponded with different times of the day. Everyone in the house had their own code and agreed-to time slot that was posted on the fridge. If you wanted to use the TV outside of your slot, you had to ask the person whose turn it was. It was actually a good system when they were all home, but when you were alone in the house with nothing to do, it sucked.
“When did you learn his code?” Danny didn’t know anyone’s but his own. He was planning on calling Luca later and asking for his, though.
“I learned it months ago. I also know Joan’s and Nelly’s. The little ones aren’t very good at keeping theirs a secret.”
They watched until the timer ended. When it did, Emma picked up the controller and punched in the numbers. Danny just got to see a bunch of asterisks on the screen. Once the code was in, the TV came back on. The next show coming on the Discovery channel was about haunted houses. Danny thought it might actually be interesting.
“Since this is neither of our times, we have to agree on what we watch,” Emma stated. She was always as diplomatic as possible. Or maybe she was just unsure of her decisions. It was always hard to tell things like that with teenagers. Even when you were one yourself.
“This is fine.” Danny almost never watched TV, so he had no idea what kind of shows would be on around now. He would rather not surf around looking for something they could both agree on.
“Okay.” Emma put the remote down on the empty cushion between them.
The show wasn’t as interesting as Danny had hoped, but it still had its moments. It was mostly about scientific stuff that happened in houses that caused people to mistake them for being haunted.
It was about halfway through the show when they heard an explosive shatter toward the back of the house, from the kitchen. Emma jumped several feet out of her seat at the sudden crash. Danny maybe half as high.
“What was that?” Emma tried to sound calm but her voice wavered slightly.
“I don’t know,” Danny shrugged. “Maybe a dish or something wasn’t put away right and just fell over.”
“That sounded louder than a dish,” Emma pointed out.
“Maybe a racoon got in.” Danny got up off the couch.
“I hope not, racoons can carry disease.” Emma also got up and followed closely behind Danny as he headed for the kitchen.
“Careful, there’s broken glass,” Danny noted the sparkles dancing off the floor. Each piece glinted in the bright sunlight giving the illusion that the floor was made out of something much nicer than linoleum. “It definitely wasn’t a dish.” There was too much glass for that.
“Look.” Emma pointed past Danny.
Danny hadn’t noticed, since he was looking at the floor, but the sliding glass door that led out into the backyard was shattered. The screen was ripped and torn down as well. There was movement out of the corner of Danny’s eye. He looked over quickly to see the door leading into the dining room swing closed. It was the kind of door on swing hinges with no latch, and only required you to push your way through.
“Something got in,” Danny told Emma as the door slowed its swinging to a halt.
Emma made a sound of displeasure in the back of her throat. Her hands rose up and clutched the small silver cross she always wore around her neck.
“Come on, we have to find out what it is.” Danny grabbed a broom from a nearby cupboard. “Watch your feet.”
Danny led the way over to the swing door. Thankfully, the island counter in the middle of the kitchen had prevented most of the glass from covering their route.
“What if it’s a coyote?” Emma whispered at Danny’s back. “I don’t think a racoon could get through the glass door.”
“I don’t think a coyote could either.” Danny had meant that to be reassuring, but it did the complete opposite. It even worried Danny.
They reached the door, and Danny placed his hand on it. He took a deep breath and pushed his way through, the broom held out in front of him. The dining room was empty.
A loud thumping suddenly filled the house. Something was running up the stairs, and then down the halls up there. It stopped roughly around Beth and Holly’s room.
“What was that?” Emma squeaked.
“I think someone is in the house,” Danny was whispering now too. “Get the phone.”
The two young teenagers backed into the kitchen once more, eyes on the ceiling. If they hadn’t gone to investigate the breaking glass, they would have seen the intruder pass by the living room on his way to the stairs, but then the intruder might have seen them too.
Emma grabbed the cordless phone out of its wall charger and handed it to Danny who dialed 911. His answer was a continuous beeping.
“It’s busy,” Danny frowned. He tried again but got the same answer.
“How can it be busy?” Emma matched his frown, a line appearing between her eyebrows.
“I don’t know, but I think we should leave the house.” Danny put the phone back.
Emma turned her head to the back door but Danny grabbed her arm.
“Not that way,” Danny actually scolded her. “You’re sure to cut open your feet. We have to use the front door.”
However, that meant going past the stairs. Danny carefully pushed the door open again and checked that the coast was clear. He waved for Emma to follow him. They passed through the dining room and into the hall. The entrance to the living room lay on their right and the stairs led up on their left. They crept down the hall, closely watching the stairs. The TV continued to jabber on about rats in the walls or something. It certainly wasn’t a rat they had. When they reached the front door, Danny slid his feet into his skater shoes, sockless. Emma stepped into a pair of yellow flip-flops. Danny leaned the broom against the wall and quickly turned to the front door while Emma hastily pulled it open.
Right outside the door stood a tall, skinny, black woman wearing an apron. The apron was stained red with the blood pouring out of a jagged cut across her throat.
Emma screamed. The woman reached an arm out to her, but Danny pulled Emma back in, out of the way. He grabbed her hand and started running for the back of the house. The thumping upstairs started again as the intruder made his way back to the stairs. Now that they had footwear on, the glass posed little danger. Danny pulled Emma over the field of glass and out into the backyard. He saw this time, what he missed the first time due to the reflecting sunlight: small drops of blood amongst the glass. They flew off the back porch and onto the green grass.
* * *
“Ow!” Emma cried out and stumbled sideways.
“What’s wrong?” Danny helped her to keep from falling while eyeing the house. He couldn’t see any movement in the kitchen. For now.
“I think I twisted or sprained my ankle.” Emma lifted her leg up trying to assess it visually.
“Well, as long as it’s not broken. Come on.” Danny swung Emma’s arm across his shoulders and helped her walk. They hurried over to the back gate. The backyard led into the yard of another house. Danny unlocked their side of the gate and then reached through the fence slats to unlock the other side. No one really knew their rearward neighbours, but the gate was installed in case of fire. Or, as in this case, an intruder. Several houses had them but they were mostly used by the older kids who would sneak around at night.
Once through, Danny shut and locked the gate behind them. He then put Emma’s arm back across his shoulders and they hobbled across the lawn.
“Do you think someone’s home?” Emma asked as they crossed the yard. The house ahead looked dark but on a bright summer day, that didn’t mean much.
“I don’t know.” Danny kept glancing over the shoulder that wasn’t being used to help Emma. He kept expecting to see some monstrous and gnarled hand slide through the slats to unlock the gate. Something that belonged in the same realm as his sewer-dwelling sea monsters.
“Are you planning to stop and check?” Emma inquired as Danny directed them toward the side of the house.
“Do you think I should?” Danny had no plan at this time, he was open to suggestions.
“Why not? We can use their phone if they’re home.”
“Okay, I guess.”
They still made their way around the side of the house, not wanting to be in view of the gate. This particular house had a side door, which was currently open and hanging off only one hinge. They crept past it, carefully looking inside. It opened onto the landing of a staircase leading into a basement. There was blood on the door and frame as well as on the stairs. A single light was coming from the basement. A shadow passed in front of it.
Danny hurried them along. The intruder had broken in through the back; it was possible he had made a pit stop at the neighbour’s place first. For all they knew, it was one of the neighbours themselves who turned out to be a maniacal mass murderer. And the woman at the door was an escaped victim. Once they reached the front of the house, they made for the sidewalk, not even considering going to the front door.
“Danny, what’s going on?” Emma’s eyes were filled with tears.
“You think I know?” Danny huffed and reset Emma’s weight on him. Her being taller than him made it surprisingly harder.
“Where do we go?”
“That is a very good question.” Danny looked up and down the street. In one direction, he saw someone running across the street, being chased by two others. Perhaps it wasn’t the neighbours. “This way.”
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