Chapter 7: 2.2
When Shelly pulled in front of my house, few hours later in the evening, my heart ached a little when I noticed that neither my parents nor Dane's car was in the driveway. Then, it was already few minutes past nine. Entering a dark house by myself was my least favorite part of any day. I wished Shelly could hang around for a little longer before she had to drop Tamara off at the next street. At least, I thought, Buttercup would be happy to see me.
"See you tommorow, Lisa!"
Behind me, as I proceeded into our yard, my friends called out to me. I turned around and waved not so enthusiastically at them. Shelly had her arm propped against the car window, as she stared hopefully at me. By her side, Tamara pushed the glasses upon her bridge and waved at me. She had on long sleeved cashmere sweater that engulfed her whole arms and left off just the tips of her fingers and her hair was packed in a high pony tail. We all had plans to go to the game together the next day in Shelly's car, so Mae and Quinn decided to leave their's home. And even though I had no prepared dress like my friends did for the party, I was expected to come up with something and get a date to the dance.
During the holiday, I purchased two long, dropping silver earrings and red leather high heels shoes. I was thinking of making use of them with a new dress that I could quickly purchase at the town's mall the day before the homecoming party. I let myself into the house through the kitchen's back door with my keys, feeling uneasy about the fact that I knew Shelly and Tamara were probably talking about me not yet having a dress, a date and not enough enthusiasm for the party as I'd done all through the summer holiday.
I took in a deep breath and proceeded into the house to turn on the light from the switch. "Buttercup?" I called, weakly.
The bright lights flooded the entire house and sent me squinting for seconds before my eyes adjusted to the light. Past the kitchen, and way into the living room, I heard soft meows returning back my calls. Buttercup appeared at the threshold of the kitchen's door, cat-walking towards me, tail wagging delightfully. I crouched down and lifted her against me. Her warmth engulfed me as I cradled her against my chest and walked into the house, placing kisses all over her face. She meowed in response to my kisses and in some way, I imagined she was asking how my day had been. On days, no one was home but me, she'd always given me her best attention and love which I generously accepted all the way.
The house looked too deserted with no one in. We never had dinners at home except on Sunday evenings and some few Saturdays my both parents were home and not busy at work. Most of my parents dinner were organized because of my dad. He was a scientist and invited most other scientific personel to have dinners with their families almost every end of each month.
Few minutes later, I roamed about the house in one of Dane's shirt over short shorts, Buttercup trailing behind me. My insecurities had gotten the very best of me while I showered that someone had broken into the house and was lingering in a dark corner to grab me. I cautiously walked through the brightly lit hallways, looking over my shoulders over and over again. I settled in one of the couches and decided to watch TV for a while but finally, after watching TV and gaining nothing fun from it, I settled on the kitchen's island table to finish off some history assignment. We were still studying the Revolutionary war, beginning our U.S history from the top.
Brows furrowed, I skimmed through my history book and texts while also scrolling down the PDF attachment Tamara had sent to me through email to help with my homework on my laptop. Our homework assignment had been to write an essay on Thomas Paine's pamphlet, common sense, and since I'd been too preoccupied with too many thoughts and worries, I hadn't had enough time to complete the essay myself and had politely asked Tamara for help. All through the time I sat and did my homework, I had the feeling someone was watching or monitoring me from outside the house even though the blinds were pulled over the kitchen window that was just opposite me, over the sink.
Suddenly, Buttercup's distance meow startled me. I jerked up and gasped, glancing around. I'd expected her to be at the feet of the island table but she wasn't within my line of vision. I hopped off the high stool and began my search for her. I carefully treaded through the living room and up the stairs before making it into the dark hallway leading to the rooms.
"Buttercup?" I whispered, voice quivering.
Muffled meows came from the left side of the hallway. The sounds of my own heartbeat in my ears was like someone beating a bass drum at an erratic rhythm. My nails dug into my palms. I chewed on my cheeks on the inside and whimpered before holding my breath. Underneath the doors of each room on the both sides of the hallway, shadows and darkness persisted. I stopped in front of my dad's study where Buttercup meowing got louder and my paranoia about what was awaiting me on the other side of the closed door got the best of me. I naturally imagined someone large hands enclosing around her neck, choking her, with a gun to her head.
I shuddered and desperately shook the image out.
"Buttercup?" I called again.
Her meows returned. My fingers trembled as I lifted it. The door was ajar, which explained how Buttercup could have gotten into the room. Naturally, on other days, dad would have left the door locked away. So then I guessed he must have forgotten to do that before leaving for work. My left hand folded into a hard fist. I figured it was best if I got ready for whatever was going on. That space was like dad's personal library for consulting scientific researches that made absolutely no sense to me and it still bothered me why he left it open.
Ready to defend myself, I prodded the door with just enough force to be able to push it in and instinctively took a step back. Nothing leapt at me which made me feel like an idiot for having braced myself for such impact. I stood in the doorway, holding onto the doorknob for a long moment as I tried to glance through the dark room. I could barely see anything. A strange smell, putrid and stale hung over the room like a cumulus cloud. It smelled of lot and lots of books, old and molding. An odd sheen reflected off the wall from the streetlights spilling in through the window. Swiftly, I stepped into the room and switched the light on, fingers trembling.
"Buttercup! Geez! I almost had a heart attack!"
Buttercup's black beady eyes blinked at me. She was laying on dad's study table, over sprawled pieces of documents and textbooks, struggling with the lamp bending over the table. I closed the door behind me and proceeded into the room. The papers and books beneath her wrinkled and tousled as she continued to tug at the lamp shade in an hopeless attempt to get to the bulb, meowing loudly in struggle.
"Not cool. Stop that."
I clapped my hands in an attempt to stop her and that seemed to do the trick as I approached her with a warning scowl lingering on my face. Buttercup leaped off the table and took off further into the office, tail slowly wagging mischeaviously. I watched her leap up the window to stare outside, paws stratching against the window pane eagerly. I would have gone after her to pick her up and scold her more but halted at dad's table with the mischeavous urge to go through his documents despite knowing I wasn't supposed to. His files and documents that were undoubtedly previously arranged neatly on his table were all tousled and wrinkled, some already toppled on the floor and sprawled inches away from the table. Framed family photos were face down on the table and scattered at different angles. I picked the nearest one to me and adjusted it to stand, the light brightly reflected against it.
Looking at the picture, my heart fluttered. It was a family picture of everyone, with my grandmother seated at the front on a wooden seat, papery face wrinkled with a broad smile that revealed her false teeth. My lower lip trembled and I instinctively bit into it. I could clearly remember when we took the picture at a Christmas holiday at Beverly hills, California. The same year my grandfather had died of heart failure and we all had to pretend to be happy having the first christmas together without his presence. Later that day, I'd seen my grandmother choking on tears in her room while pretending she had something in her eyes, rubbing her eyes over and over again with her wrinkly, papery knuckles while trying to hide her tears from twelve-year-old me.
I settled on the chair and dragged it closer to the table, meaning to clean up Buttercup's mess and go through my father's file. As I piled the files together in an alphabetical order as dad liked his things, I took brief glances through them. The tabs were filled mostly with global diseases, natural disasters and much more boring stuffs that were swiftly boring me out of my mind:
"Coronavirus. Causes of coronavirus. Cases of coronavirus. Symptoms of coronavirus. Future possibility of earthquakes in California," I read the subject matters aloud from the tabs on the folder. "Chateau-thierry. British Empire's scientific failure influence on humanity within the time range 1939 to 1942. Caporeto. Scientific consequences of the World war 1 on humanity." I pulled the file folder titled British Empire's Scientific failure influence on humanity within the time range 1939 to 1942 and swiftly gathered the other folders over each other and placed them by dad's computer.
I tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear and got out of the seat. Eager to be able to glance through the folder before anyone returned home and found out I was going through my father's most treasured, sacred stuffs, I'd become pathetically restless. My brows puckered in concerntration as I glanced through the files. Very close to the window, Buttercup loosed concerntration at teasing the pane and decided to hug and claw at my shirt instead, underestimating the risk of falling to the floor through the few metres space between I and the window.
"Buttercup, stay still," I cautioned, very absent minded.
Inside the Manila folder, there were numerous old, slightly crumbled newspapers stapled together and arranged that smelled slightly wet, moldy and felt fragile to my fingers. Any mishandling of the cheap, old, brown papers could cause them to shred into pieces. The headlines of the newspapers were; Creation of Men Z. Chaos as men Z turns against soldiers on the battle ground. True definition of cannibalism on the battle ground. Men against animals. Destruction of the four hundred Z men: year—1942. The symptoms of the Z virus. Dead among living.
"What is this?" I muttered to myself, utterly confused.
As I gently turned the pages of the newspapers — the second to the last page were pictures I presumed were cut out of newspapers. It looked like a picture taken out of a walking dead scene or an old zombie movie except they was printed black and white. Men with widened, red eyes clad in military uniforms with guns hanging down their shoulders while they posed for the picture. They looked comical, with some with uneven body parts of without a body part. They all had on scorn looks that deeply marred their ugly looking facial features. On the right side were a limited number of normal looking men in military uniforms, with smiles and friendly poses, dirt and mud smeared against their uniforms and faces, weapons held in their hands and hanging down most shoulders. Collusion of 400 Z men with actual soldiers first breakthrough—1939. Dead soldiers brought to life. At that moment, I began to wish I'd come up the second floor with my phone to take pictures of the papers to find out exactly what they were about and look into them later.
Never in my history classes had I come across topics that dealt with Z men. Dead soldiers brought to life to continue the war. I wasn't even sure they truly existed. I involuntarily shuddered at the thought of dead men being revived to life and my heart thumped painfully. As I turned to the last page, my heart threatened to fly out my mouth and my breathing momentarily seized. Attached to a clean piece of printed A4 paper was a picture of a mutilated calico cat with bleeding red eyes, bawling out of its socket. It had tiger stripes that was drenched with blood. Even though half of its body from its waist was missing, it still appeared alive and that fact was just creepy. Thick black blood dripped down its mouth. The picture looked slightly old but wasn't in black and white.
I gagged, feeling nauseated and quickly turned the picture over. Behind the picture, the name: MATTHEW D. SILVERSTEIN was scribbled with blue ink in cursive writing. At the left end corner of the picture, more words were scribbled:
EFFECTS Of THE Z VIRUS ON DOMESTIC ANIMALS.
JULY 10, 1942.
The bold topic printed at the top of the A4 paper said; The possibility of Z virus releasing into the atmosphere in the year 2023—an anonymous scientist threatens the world. Where will it begin?
Cold washed over me and my innards trembled with fear. In between my terror and panic, I looked out the window and caught sight of a familiar tall hooded figure standing opposite our house. At first, I'd thought the person wasn't exactly looking straight at me, but confirmed it when my father's car suddenly appeared in the street and the headlight brightly illuminated the figure. Underneath the hoodie, a face marred with a permanent scowl gawked at me but turned and began to walk away without arousing dad's suspicious.
As dad pulled into the driveway, I panicked while I squeezed the Manila folded in between the other folders I had piled over each other. Clutching Buttercup very close to my chest, I bolted for the door after switching off the light and made a mad dash down to the kitchen. I ran. The fastest I could on the marbled tiles of the house, my heart throbbing with panic, confusion and terror. At that moment, I realized I might just have just decided into crying my predicament to my mother when she returned home or just kept it to myself and found a solution to everything myself.
Then, I was sure I had a stalker monitoring my every move and a whole lots of more secrets and puzzles to understand.
Later that night, after changing into my pajamas and making sure my windows were locked and my blinds pulled, I was about to flip my light and settle into bed when I heard my phone buzz across the room, on my study table. I mindlessly sauntered towards it, worry etched into my facial expression. As expected, it was a text message from Shelly. I'd sent her an extremely long note, concerning the fact that something really was going on even though I left out everything I found in my dad's office. I informed her about spotting the man outside my house and asked to know if she'd noticed any figure lingering around her parents' estate.
Today 11:43pm
SHELLY;
No, I didn't notice his figure or any lingering around. It's creepy over here being alone in his big house with no adult to watch over me. For once, I really wish my dad or step mom's around. Let me know how things turn out. I think we really should inform an adult about this.
I crept underneath my quilt with Buttercup curled by my side after finding herself somewhere fluffy and comfortable on the bed. My inside was churning with disgust and fear each and everytime I recollected the pictures and the files in dad's office. Sleep, sleep, I commanded myself sternly, squeezing my eyes shut very tightly. Paranoia kept eating me out from the inside, murdering me gradually. Now, I knew I had to do something. Find out somethings and change somethings even though I had no strategies to carry out my plans yet. I was completely in the dark. Knew nothing other than the fact that I was very frightened. When I fell asleep, I wasn't thinking about homecoming game. The homecoming dance. Those to be crowned homecoming king and queen neither was I thinking of those to be running for government officials in the school.
The name that rang on in my head was that same one I had scribbled in a jotter on my study table. Matthew D. Silverstein.
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