“Absolutely not!” Arthur crossed his arms stubbornly and turned away from his wife.
“Why not?” She snapped back.
“When will we ever find time to go to Quebec? You’ll just have to wait until we move to see the house.”
“Arthur…” Natalie gave him ‘the look’. Merle sat on the couch in the living room amongst dozens of boxes, listening to their argument. The sudden silence told her that her mother was winning.
“I can’t just take you two to Quebec! We still have a lot to do!” Arthur insisted.
“I want to see this great new house, Arthur. I can’t just follow you blindly.”
“Merle has school!”
“She can stay here.”
“What?!” Arthur screamed, shocked.
“What!” Merle echoed, excited.
“Your mother can come by and check on her. She’s sixteen, after all.” Natalie turned to her daughter. “You can handle yourself, can’t you?” Merle nodded eagerly, “Of course I can mom! I even know how to make grilled cheese!”
“You see…” Natalie glared at her husband. Arthur paled and finally gave up.
“Fine,” He sighed, “We’ll leave tomorrow.”
Natalie smiled triumphantly. “Good, now what do you want for dinner?”
As Merle and Natalie moved on to the topic of food Arthur quietly excused himself and logged on to the Internet. If he and Natalie were going to leave for Quebec tomorrow, he would have to find a house in the next two days! In the darkness of his basement, he went into overload, looking for something, anything that would live up to Natalie’s expectations. He had far too much pride to tell her that he hadn’t actually found a place for them to live yet.
In the morning, Natalie and Arthur Lotus were both packed and ready to go. It was Saturday so they let Merle sleep in and left a note on the table saying that they had left. Merle got up at around noon and found the note on the table. She grinned to herself and just as quickly opened the fridge to find breakfast. This was going to be a great week.
“I don’t know about this, guys…” Craven said cautiously as Trent, Gray and Chad pulled black ski masks over their faces.
“You’ve never known about this, Craven,” Chad hissed back, “Now shut up and put this on.” He tossed a mask at Craven. Carven picked it up and studied it for a moment. “I mean it,” He repeated, “This is a really bad idea. I think we should just turn back before someone else ends up getting shot to death!”
“At the rate you’re going, Craven, that person is going to be you.”
Gray snickered at him from outside the van where he was pulling on a black sweater. They were currently parked outside a deserted park lose to their target household.
“You guys are just going to add more charges to your criminal records. And mine, come to think of it. I don’t want to be a murderer twice!”
“Will someone shut that pussy up?” Gray growled. Trent gladly grabbed a hold of Craven’s shoulder and grabbed his little hooked knife.
“Knock it off!” Chad hissed at them. “Focus you guys, we have work to do.” He pulled the mask down over his face and led the way.
Craven was muttering under his breath the entire short walk through the shadows to their target house. They stopped outside and went around to the back. There were two lights on in the entire house, one upstairs and one in the living room.
“They must be sitting down to a nice family movie.” Chad grumbled, “They won’t know what hit them when we’re through.”
“Chad…” Craven said nervously, “Please, try not to kill anyone will ya? Do you know how much DNA evidence is in vomit?”
“No,”
Neither did Craven, but he wasn’t about to say anything. Trent was beginning to look at him like he was lunch. He gulped and followed his brother silently to the back door. He tried the door, but it was locked.
”Hey Craven, how did you get our door open all the time?”
“Oh no you don’t!” Craven shook his head. “Breaking and entering? Once I do that the possibilities are endless! Another murder charge, kidnapping, assault and battery…”
“Just do it!”
Craven groaned and pressed his shoulder against the door and pushed it up until the lock was shifted out of the latch. After that, there would be no more obstacles. Not to say that Chad’s plan ran smoothly after that…because the one thing that they had been counting on had disappeared.
“Where the hell is everybody?” Gray hissed lowly.
“I dunno…” Chad muttered. They heard a noise above, it sounded like a shower had just stopped running. Chad grinned at his friends and made sure the mask was over his face before leading the way upstairs.
Merle stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around herself, thinking about how great it was not having her parents around. She could eat in the living room, watch whatever she wanted on TV, and postpone homework until eleven o’clock Sunday night. She hummed softly as she pulled on her pyjamas and opened the door. Almost immediately, she felt like she wasn’t alone in the house. She stopped in the hallway and looked around, straining her ears for anything unusual. But there was nothing; feeling stupid, she continued on her way to her room. She opened the door when she heard a floorboard creak. She took a deep breath; maybe her parents leaving her alone for a week wasn’t such a good idea. She had no idea she was so afraid of…
Before she could finish that thought, an enormous hand clamped over her mouth and yanked her backwards. She screamed through the hand and fell against a hard body. Merle quickly shut her eyes; she didn’t want to see her attacker; that would just confirm that it was real. A second person approached from the front and pressed something cold to her throat.
“Where are they?” The person hissed.
The man holding her moved his hand from over her mouth so she could answer. But Merle just whimpered instead. The cold steel was pressed harder against her throat. “Where are they?” He repeated angrily.
“W-who…?” She squeaked.
“Your parents you little bitch! Where are they?”
She turned her head, “They went to Quebec, to see the house…” She said softly.
"You see man, I told you the little bastard was gonna skip town. Didn’t I tell ya?” It was a third person.
‘Oh God…’ Merle thought, ‘I’m going to die.’
“Fuck!” The man screamed. She heard a loud thud from beside her and the man cursed again. She finally opened her eyes and saw a vicious looking knife embedded in the wall near her face. She looked around saw, not three, but four men standing around her.
The one holding her was huge, more than six feet, and very buff. He probably could have snapped her neck like a toothpick. She assumed the one pounding his fist into the wall was the same one who had been interrogating her, a third stood near the entrance to the guest room, and a fourth was at the end of the hall, leaning against the wall. She couldn’t see their faces because they were all wearing masks. All that was visible were their eyes.
“What to we do, Chad?” The third man asked.
Chad, she assumed he was the ‘leader’ of the small band of criminals, cursed yet again and said, “I don’t know…” He looked over at her, “When are they coming back? They are coming back, right?”
She nodded, “In a few days.”
“Then we wait.”
”What!” The fourth one at the end of the hall screamed at him. “Chad if they went all the way to Quebec, they’re going to be gone at least five or six days! You want us to stick around for that long? How are we supposed to do that without getting thrown in jail?”
“Will you shut up?” Chad snapped at him. “If we get caught it’ll be your fault. And then in jail you’ll be everybody’s bitch.”
“He’d like that,” the third muttered.
“Fuck you,” The fourth snapped. There was along pause before the man holding her grunted and pulled on her arm. Merle shuddered as they all turned their gazes to her.
”Good point, what do we do with her?” Chad asked the group. There were no immediate answers.
“She looks about Craven’s age…"
Craven, the one at the end, looked up at him and glared. “And?”
“Just making a statement,” Chad said, “Keep her out of the way.”
“Me?! Why me?” Craven complained.
“Because you’re no good for anything else.” Chad snapped back.
“You’re going to make sure I never get out of jail, aren’t you?” Craven growled.
“Shut up and take her!”
Craven grumbled something about rather having sunburn and stepped up to her. He shakily took hold of her wrists and the big guy let go and followed the others back down the stairs.
Craven’s grip on her was weak, and he seemed unsure of what to do. Merle could probably catch him off guard and get away, but not while the others were around. She would have to wait for the right moment. Craven looked her over, and she shrank back.
Finally he groaned and pulled her down the stairs after them. As they reached the bottom, Merle saw that the big guy - whom she could now confirm was even bigger than she expected - had already found some rope.
Shit…Merle’s throat was still too dry from fear for her to speak, so she just stared at him in horror.
“What are you going to do with that?” Craven voiced her question for her.
The huge black man said nothing; instead he just motioned towards the couch.
“Uh…” Craven knew that he wanted to tie her hands, but he was unable to force her to sit down. Merle resisted with every once of strength in her body. To sit would be to give up, and there was no way she was going to do that.
The big guy rolled his eyes and pushed her over easily, then pinned her down and tied her hands behind her back. Merle whimpered at how rough he was with her. The rope cut into her tiny wrists, and her hands were twisted at a painful angle.
“C’mon, is that really necessary?” Craven asked. “I think we can handle her.”
“I don’t care,” Chad said, helping himself to the contents of her fridge, “I don’t want to take any risks. We keep her tied up at all times, you hear me?”
“Yeah, sure…” Craven grumbled. As Merle forced her self to sit up again, Craven sank down onto the couch next to her, crossed his arms and glared across the room. He sat like that for a good few hours while the rest of them engaged themselves in some sort of meeting.
By midnight she was beginning to get tired, and was slumping against the armrest. Her abductors paid little or no attention to her, and Craven was sleeping already. She forced herself to relax enough to allow herself to rest her head and close her eyes. Almost as soon as her head hit the armrest of the couch, she was fast asleep.
