Series Wednesday: Family Game night Page 44

                I open the envelope. “Oh dear sisters, this letter is for Grace once again she is just more fun to play with. Sorry Cahira step to the side. You are just Grace’s side kick on this one. To get Percy back is simple. One of these tied up loose ends has the key to Percy’s room. All you have to do is figure out which one has it. After you untie and talk to everyone get your key and pull the string on the dummy.  Then you will get Percy back. You remember dear sister you catch more bees with honey not vinegar.” I finish reading the letter. So he wants us to find the key to unlock Percy door by talking to all these people who are tied up. I look over at Grace. “Well let’s start untying these people and figuring out who has the key to Percy” I tell Grace. “I wouldn’t untie everyone,” Sara says.  Grace and I turn around and look at her. “Why not?” Grace asks her.  Sara points at a man tied up on the floor. “Well because he is a killer. He is on the FBI’s most wanted list. So, I don’t think untying him would be such a smart idea,” Sara says. I start to think about this. Sara makes fake IDs and she knew the man on the floor had asthma, maybe everyone here is somehow related to each other in a way. “Wait!” I say. “Wait for what?” Grace asks me. I lean into Grace’s ear. “Something isn’t right here. How does she know the guy is on the FBI list thing or that the other guy has asthma and why are all these tied up people so calm? I mean half aren’t even awake yet and the ones that are, well they are just looking at us. Something doesn’t feel right.”
                I can see Grace’s wheels turning. “Sara how do you know the guy on the floor?” Grace asks her. Sara looks around. “Which one?” She replies. “Do you know more than one person tied up here?”  Grace changes her line of questioning. “Yes of course, most of us have worked together before.”  Sara says. “Worked together?” Grace and I ask at the same time. “Yes, if he needs to disappear or a new look. I did the IDs and passports but not full back grounds. Larry does birth certificates and school records. So, a lot of times we team up on jobs.” Sara says like she isn’t talking about breaking laws. “So, everyone tied up here is a criminal?” I ask. “No, she is a hair dresser. I think she changes his look for him when he moves.” Sara points at a girl who hasn’t woken up yet. “I know we are all trying to figure out why we are here. But can someone please untie me?”  Larry says as he is wiggling around.
                We can’t just start untying people. “Untie him.” Grace says. “Wait what?” I ask her. She walks close to me and whispers in my ear. “If worse comes to worse we can turn them on each other.” Grace says with a smile.  I am not sure that is the best idea. She walks over to Larry and starts to untie him. Slowly more people start to wake up. “Where are we?” A lady says who she clearly works with her hands. She has blisters all over her fingers. “We are in a warehouse a man brought you here. You might have worked for him. What is it that you do?” I ask her. “I am a house cleaner,” the women says. So, we have criminals, a hair dresser and a house keeper. Everyone that has ever seen his face maybe. I wonder if he is trying to make us learn more about him still. Maybe he was really good to his house keeper and wants us to see he is a good person. “Did you ever work for a man, who... well…. he was on his own. A bachelor types,” the lady looks at me like I was crazy. “I can name 10 of my clients that fit that bill” she says. I shrug. “This one would have stood out. He had you there, but his home was impeccable. Almost as if he had you clean his house for no reason.” Grace says. “Yeah I know exactly who you’re talking about,” the lady says. “Tell us about him.” Grace asks.  “He was younger than most that lived in his building. I cleaned his place once every two weeks. He didn’t talk much or like ever. His place was always perfect. He just had me stream clean the rugs really.” She looks as confused as we do. “Was anyone ever there when you cleaned?” I ask maybe there is more to her story, that she doesn’t even realize.  She stands there and thinks about it. “I always thought it was strange but yes. He would always have meetings when I was there. He would apologize that he had no other time to take the meeting with whomever he was having the meetings with and he would say that he was just so busy and he didn’t know what he would do without me. He would say the house would be a disaster without me.”  Just as I thought. Her cleaning was all a show. She doesn’t have the key. She is just here as a show. I think maybe that is the point figuring out who here really knew him. It is just another game.

Poem: 20 years in the making just didn't make it.

Loyalty blind and unyielding. 

A love for the ages,

more than a decade under their gazes.

The world couldn't tear the two lovers apart.

No matter what was thrown their way,

they remained completely unfazed.

How ever this is no fairy-tale story.

There is no happy ending here.

For the world did not tear them apart, ego did.

Pride and stubbornness, the inability to give in.

Both strong in many ways.

They lost sight of the first day.

All the promises they had made.

Now they live worlds apart.

Even in the same room they have different hearts.

Series Wednesday: Family Game Night Page 43

Grace goes through the window first. I follow right behind her. We are in a dark cold warehouse.  “What now?” Grace asks me. “Relive that day” I tell her hoping that’s what we are supposed to do. Grace starts to head toward one of the sectioned off rooms, she stops in the door way. “Yeah I think he is trying to re-enact that day.” Grace says as she moves to the side for me to see. There are blood covered sheets over what looks like died bodies. “What do you think is under there?” I ask her, knowing that these sheets are not covering dead bodies. “Manikins maybe” Grace says as she enters the room. “The blood on the sheets is real” Grace says as she takes a deep breath. “Yeah but there is no smell of decaying so that means there is no bodies here just blood.” I tell her as we walk around. “The blood smells old to.”  Grace says as she sniffs at the sheets. One of the sheets move and Grace and I jump back. “Did that just?” I ask Grace. “Yeah that sheet just moved.” Grace starts to walk up to the blood-soaked sheet and pulls it up. There is a girl under it and she is tied up. She is moving very slowly. “She has been drugged.” Grace says as more of the sheets start to move.

                “Why would he drug all these people and just leave them under old blood-soaked sheets?” I ask Grace. “How should I know? But I will say these are the same sheets I covered everyone I killed that day with. Maybe he wants us to kill all these people” Grace says as she looks back at all the sheets. “I hope that’s not it.” I look at all the sheets knowing there is a human life under each one. “There has to be a note of some kind, right?”  Grace asks me. I shrug as I look at all the sheets struggling. “We have to figure something out they are all waking up”, I tell her. I walk over to the girl who we first found. I look at her and she is gagged, so she can’t talk. She looks at me and start struggling to move. “Please calm down and I will untie you.”  She nods like she understands me. “Don’t fully untie her. Just ungag her mouth.” Grace says as she starts to pull the sheets off the other people. I untie the gag in her mouth she takes a deep breath. “He can’t be far. We have to get out of here!”

                “Do you know him?” I ask her as I untie her to sit up. “I helped him change his name and get new papers. He told me the name I gave him would be the last. I had no idea he was going to kidnap me.” She is a forger for him. Is he trying to clean up loose ends because he thinks that this is the end of the road? Does he think after we get Percy back that he is going to become a part of our family? “Cahira!” Grace yells at me as I look back as she is holding one of the sheets up but hasn’t quite pulled it off, so I can’t see what is under it. “Give me a second.” I tell the girl, she nods yes as she is stretching out. I walk over to Grace and look under the sheet. It’s a dummy. “Maybe he didn’t have enough people to tie up” Grace says. I look at the dummy for a second and turn it over and see an envelope and a string. “There is a letter.” I tell Grace. “I was really hoping that there wasn’t going to be a note. I was praying that the dummy was tied up for no reason.”  Grace says as she kicks the dummy. “Kicking it isn’t going to change anything.” I tell Grace. “What does any of this have to do with Percy?” I say in frustrated and just wanting my baby brother back. “STOP!” Grace yells at the girl who was tied up. I turn and she is untying another guy who is tied up.  “I know him.” The girl says. “That nice but we don’t even know you. I am not sure why all of you are tied up. Until I get some answers, we aren’t untying anyone else.” Grace says like she is the boss of these people. The girl stands up. “My name is Sara, well that is the name I am going by right now.” She sticks her hand out to shake Grace’s hand. “Nice to meet you Sara! But if you try to untie him I will gut you very slowly so you will feel every second of it. So sit down and let me figure out what is going on her.” Grace says as she pulls Sara in close to her.  “Grace take a chill pill. But Sara please don’t untie anyone. We have a letter that might give us some answers.” I tell Grace and Sara. “I understand what you’re saying but he has asthma so I am not sure if being gagged is safe for him. I don’t want to be gutted but I don’t want to be responsible for his death either.” Sara says as she points at him. “Just ungag him” I tell her. “Thank you” Sara says. I just smile at her. We are not monsters.  “Fine ungag him but that’s it. Let’s read this letter and see what he has to say.” Grace says.

Series Wednesday: Family game night Page 42

We get out of the car at the warehouse; I start to walk to it. “Wait!” Grace says as she opens her trunk. She opens the floor panel on her trunk where a spare tire should be, but there is a bag instead. She pulls the bag out. “Okay let’s go” she says. We both walk up to the front door.  “Are we really going to just walk in through the front door?” I ask Grace. “I mean what other choice do we really have? He knows we are here” Grace says. “Are you going to tell me what is so important in that bag of yours that we need to bring it with us?” I ask Grace looking at the giant black duffel bag in her hand. “It’s my tools and a gun just in case this doesn’t go well, and we have to kill him.” Grace is my mother’s child all the way. “Why would you need tools to kill him?” I ask her. “Because after everything he has put us through I would like to take my time with him, if I can that is.” Grace says as she shakes her bag of tools.  “You should give me the gun then.” I tell her as I turn and put my hand out. It is not that I don’t trust Grace, but Hope is in there. I know Grace would not think twice about killing Hope if she got in the way of killing our big brother. “You want the gun?” Grace askes me in shock. “You think guns are such an unoriginal way to kill people any way. So why are you questioning me?” I tell her. “I am not saying I won’t give you the gun just a little surprised you asked for it.” Grace says as she reaches into her bag and hands me her gun. “I just want to be sure I can have your back in there. Just in case this is trap.” Which I am almost 100 percent sure this is. We both take a deep breath and go to open the front door of the warehouse.
                “It’s locked” Grace says as she keeps trying to turn the handle. I look around and I don’t see anyone insight. There aren’t even any cars in the parking lot. It is quickly turning into night, I am not sure if we figured it out sooner then he thought we would or if this is a part of his game. “What are you thinking?” Grace askes me. “Just that this has to be a part of it somehow. Like if he wants you to come in the way you came out all those years ago or something. That’s if you didn’t leave through a different door.”  I say to Grace. She stands back for a second and motions for me to follow her. “Your right I didn’t leave through that door that day. I took off out the window in the back by the office thing that’s inside.” We walk around the building. The office is where he must be keeping Percy. Grace runs up to the open window. “Let’s think about this. He only gave us one-way in. This seems like a trap.”  I tell Grace as I pull her back from the window. “Do you think he is going to kill us?” Grace asks me. “I don’t know. It’s not like I know him so much better than you. You’re the one who actually spent time with him. You tell me is he going to try and kill us?” I tell her. “I am safe then. I don’t think he would kill me or Percy.” I just look at Grace with my hands up. “What does that even mean? You and Percy are safe” I ask her. “Well he wants dad’s love. The same way I want mom’s and dad’s love. Since dad loved you the most, you’re the only real threat. Well that was until our big brother got you thrown in front of a car and kind of turned you into everything mom and dad hate. With all that being said I guess you’re safe now to. Mom would be the only one he would need to kill” Grace says. “Who doesn’t want to kill our mother? He would have to get in a long line on that one.” I start to laugh. “If Hope is in there are you going to go with her?” Grace askes me. I just look at her not sure how people wanting to kill our mother lead to this question. “What do you mean if Hope is in there? She better be in there or we won’t have an older brother for much longer.” I pause to think for a second. “Where is that question coming from?” I ask Grace. “I just want to know if we find her am I going to lose you? I just want to be prepared.” I fear if I tell Grace I would leave that she will kill Hope if we find her. I am not even sure if I would go with Hope, I just know I need to find her. “Grace I would never just up and leave you. I wish you would get that through your head. That doesn’t mean that I don’t want to know my mom. I know you don’t understand that right now.” I hug her just wanting her to feel comforted. “I get why you want to get to know her. You have a mom; our mom is your mom. She raised you, she loves you.” I step back from Grace. “No mother loves you. Plus, she has never once in my life felt like my mom she has always felt like my mother. You know that I have always felt that way.” I am not sure why Grace is acting like what I am saying is all brand new. “I know,” She says sadly. “Come on let’s climb through this window and go get Percy. Who knows if we are even going to live through this? He might kill us as soon as we get in.” I shrug.

Series Wednesday: Family Game Night Page 41

                     I get Grace to walk out of the apartment without killing the old lady. “Come on Percy is waiting on us” I tell her. I look back at the old lady smiling at me from the couch, she mouths to me. “I won’t say a word.” I nod at her as I shut the door behind me.  I manage to somehow get Grace into the car. “Let’s go” I tell her. “She will tell on us they always do when you leave them with a tongue.” Grace says. “Do you ever even leave them alive?” I ask Grace sarcastically. She just rolls her eyes at me. She starts driving but I am not sure where. We start to drive down to the warehouse district. “So are you going to tell me the story of this place?” I ask Grace as she drives. “It’s not a big deal. It is pretty much what the letter says I killed someone and the family couldn’t get over the loss. So I slaughtered the whole family.” Grace says like it is nothing.  “Who did you kill?” I ask. “I killed their prized son.”  Grace says trying to keep it short. “Grace tell me the whole story so I have an idea of what we are walking into.” I tell her not sure if our big brother won’t try to take Grace down memory lane. “We aren’t going to walk into anything. I killed every single one in that family” she says. “How do you know that you killed the whole family? How could you know something like that? Also how could you take a whole family?” I can’t help but ask her. “It was a family reunion. I didn’t mean to take them all out, I just did.” Grace says. “Grace I swear if you don’t start telling me this STORY, I am going to sing Britany Spear Hit Me Baby One More Time until your ears bleed.” I know Grace had that song stuck in her head for like 6 months when we were kids. “If you do that I swear I am going to kill you.” She says back to my threat. I start to do the tapping sound like in the music video. “Oh baby baby oh baby baby”, how was I supposed to know I would start to sing. Grace starts to scream. “STOP! I’ll tell you.”

                Grace is taking her sweet time telling me her story. “Come on get on with it already.” I tell her. “Fine, I killed their son. You might remember him cursing Lewis.” Grace looks at me. I do remember him. That guy was a real creep. “Yeah I remember cursing Lewis. I hated that guy, always picking up on 8th graders when he was like 17.” I still see his creepy smile in my head as he cruised around our JR High looking for girls. “Yeah well he tried to get fresh with me. So I killed him. I quartered him to be honest. I loved taking him apart piece by piece as he begged for his life. I took my time with him. I told mom and dad what he tried to do and they let me have the game room for the whole weekend. I took my time killing him. He really was one of my favorite kills.” I can hear the satisfaction in Grace’s voice. “I wish I could say I felt bad for him. However he was the worst type of guy so I guess I am okay with you killing him.” I say to Grace. We both laugh at the fact that I didn’t care about her killing him. This doesn’t explain why she killed his whole family or how. “Keep going with this story. How did that make you kill his whole family?”  I ask Grace wanting to know the rest. “Well what none of us knew is that he was really good at baseball, he was his family’s big hope. So when he went missing they wouldn’t give up searching for him. They would have fundraisers to pay for private investigator to try and find him. It never worked of course because you can’t find someone who isn’t there” Grace smiles. “Mother’s acid bath?” I ask knowing she means there is nothing to find. “Of course, you know mom’s acid bath is the best. She has a way with making bones disintegrate into nothing.”  Grace says like she is so proud of our mother. “Yeah, I know, so why don’t you tell me how you killed his family.” I know Grace is just talking in circle so she doesn’t have to tell me the story. “Okay fine, I use to go to all their family fundraisers for him. All the church functions in their efforts to raise money to find him.  I ended up getting close with his family. I thought if I stood close to them I could convince them to move on with their lives. It didn’t work; his selfish mother just wouldn’t let it go. She said she missed her son but really she just wanted the money he was going to earn.” I can hear the annoyance in Grace voice. “So after a fund raiser I spoke to her about letting him go. It was time for her to move on. She didn’t really take that well so I slit her throat. Some of the family over heard it so I had to kill them to. I hid in the corner of the room and slit each throat as they came in. Lucky one of his uncles had a gun. So I didn’t have to slit all of their throats I also shot a few of them to. Next thing I knew I was standing in a room of dead people, 20 dead people to be exact. I don’t even know how I did it. It was like I turned into a killing machine, either way they were all dead. I got scared that someone would see me there. So I ran home to clean up and come up with a plan. I just knew I couldn’t tell my mom or dad. But when I came back they were all cleaned up so I just took it as a win and waited to see if anything turned up. When nothing did I decided to just forget all about it. I guess it has finally caught up with me.” We pulled up to the warehouse. It’s time to meet our big brother.

Series Wednesday: Family Game Night Page 40

   I start to open the phone and go to her last call. I see the number and call the number back and wait. Someone phone picks up. “Hello” a man’s voice says. He has a very thick accent that I can’t tell from where. “Who is this?” I ask. “I am God.” The man says. “GOD?” I ask. “Yes I am God. Who did you think you were calling?” I stand there very confused. “Are you going to help Hope?” I ask. “How do you know Hope? Do you know what kind of trouble she is in?” She made it clear to the old lady that she didn’t want the man to know about me, so he won’t. “She has been kidnapped by a serial killer.” I tell him. “I have already sent help but the question still remains little girl. Who are you?” I hang up the phone. I think this call was a bad idea. Somehow, I think this did more bad than good. “What did he say?” Grace asks me. “He said he was God and he was sending help.” I shrug. “Oh, great so he was a nut job. What is he sending angels?” Grace asks. “I don’t know but we have to search the apartment for the letter.” I tell Grace as I head inside. Grace drags the poor old lady in the apartment. “What are you doing?” I ask her. “We can’t let her go until we leave. We can’t have her running off telling what I did to her.”  Grace throws her on to the couch. “Sit and relax” Grace tells her. I grab Grace by the arm. “You can’t kill her! Got it” I whisper in her ear. Grace smiles at me. “Let’s just find this letter. We need to get Percy back.” I roll my eyes at her. I walk into Hope’s room. It seems so normal not what I expected at all. I look around and still see no letter. This doesn’t seem right her place looks so normal. I look at Grace and ask her “Anything?”  “No nothing.” Grace says as she throws over Hope’s matters. Grace walks over to Hope’s closet. “For some reason I thought she would have more interesting clothes. I mean these are all very dull.” The noise neighbor lady walks up behind us. “That’s weird” she says. “Yeah it is weird that you left the couch.” Grace says to her. “What’s weird?” I ask her as I hit Grace. “It’s just weird because I could have sworn this unit had a walk-in closet.” She says as she looks at the small closet. “Walk in?” I ask. “Yes, this unit should have a walk-in.”

       I look at Grace. “Get her back to the couch” I tell Grace. “Come on let’s go sit down.” She tells the little old lady. I look around Hope’s room some more. I look under her bed and see a sledge hammer. I had seen it there earlier when I was searching her room and for some reason it didn’t stand out to me. I pull it out from under the bed and start to hammer inside the closet. “It’s a fake wall.” Grace says as the pile wood comes down so easily. Grace starts to pull the pile wood away. “She did a good job with this fake wall.” Grace says looking at the wood as she tosses it to the side. “If she is the one who built it?” I say as I see there is a string hanging from the ceiling with a letter attached. “Ready?” Grace says as she pushes past me and grabs the letter. “I am never ready for these things. I mean as far as scavenger hunts go he sucks at this. They aren’t even clues! He just talks about his life and wants us to find the next spot through his long-winded letters.” I tell Grace. “This should be the last one, Right?” Grace says. “How should I know he might be a liar and we could be just on a wild goose chase” I tell Grace. I look at Hope’s real closet. She has whips and chains along with some other things I would rather not look at. “Whoa well that a umm….” Grace says looking at me looking at the closet. “Let’s just read the letter.” I tell Grace closing the closet door. Grace looks down at the letter taking a deep breath. “Here is the end of the road. Now that you know a little more I hope we can put our family together. I got to know my little brother through all of this and note I never hurt him. So, come to find us and welcome both of your brother’s home. Grace this one is all on you baby sister. Where was the place where you first lost it? The place where you could no longer control the urge to kill? Do you remember how you slaughtered all of those who couldn’t stop grieving? You set them free. You left the bodies everywhere; you couldn’t face at that moment what you had done so you ran home to clean up. When you returned to clean up your mess the bodies were gone and somehow everything was ok. Well here is our secret little sister.  I cleaned up those bodies for you. I saw my little sister in trouble and I came to help. You’re going to laugh when you realize that you knew where we were the whole time. We are where you lost control. We will be here waiting for you when you arrive. See you soon little sister.” Grace throws the letter on the ground and screams. “I knew it would come back to haunt me! I knew it I knew it.” I just look at Grace. “What would?” The little old lady says. Grace turn and looks at her sitting on the couch. “Grace don’t!” I can see my mother in her eyes. I grab Grace as she starts to head toward the couch to kill the old lady. “Don’t let your emotions get the best of you. We need to find Percy.” I shake her to try and get her to focus.