Quote:
Martin Lau
Frank tapped at the window and said aloud, “Are you sure we can’t go to the pool today?” Sue walked around behind him, getting her things together while eating a bagel.
“I’m sorry Frank, but I didn’t exactly expect three people to call in with heat stroke, did I,” she said sarcastically while sighed heavily. Sue was Frank’s sister, 26 and had a full time job working at the local post office and lately she had been called in more often, replacing co-workers that had been falling ill due to the summer heat.
“You could just drop me off and I could walk home you know.”
“Frank, the pool is two miles away. I can’t let you walk that far in this heat, Dad would disown me.” Frank and Sue’s parents had been divorced for nearly six years when their father had found out that their mother had been cheating on him with another man.
“Who cares what Dad thinks, he always sends me here every summer,” Frank huffed while watching cars pass by every so often. During the summer, Frank’s father sent him off to his sister’s home in order to cut down on costs. Sue waved at him passively and began to moves towards the front door.
“Just be grateful that I let you stay here. You go through soda so fast, it’s as if you think I’m made of the stuff,” she shouted as she closed the door loudly behind her. Frank watched as she made her way down the drive way.
“Another boring day of nothing,” he muttered to himself and sighed as he slumped down into a chair in front of the television. Frank drearily watched the afternoon weather report on the television for a moment and then shut it off, getting up and dragging himself towards the kitchen, picking up a slice of leftover pizza from dinner last night. “There’s always nothing,” he moaned to himself as he walked up the second story steps and made his way to his room, falling onto his bed in a slump. His room was the guest bedroom when he was gone so it was fairly bare with a bed, desk and set of drawers to keep clothes in. Frank briefly watched the various trees sway in the short bursts of wind before closing his eyes.
With the sound of breaking glass, Frank quickly awoke from his nap, startled by the sudden sounds and slumped out of bed.
“Ugh- I swear, if it’s another bird..,” he muttered to himself as he slowly made his way out of his room and down the steps into the kitchen towards the basement, noting that the back door window was now broken with glass strewn onto the floor. “That’s just great,” he said to himself sarcastically. As he walked down the steps of the basement towards the refrigerator, Frank could have sworn he had heard another pair of footsteps from above him, somewhere else in the home. No more pizza before sleeping, he thought to himself as he grabbed a soda from the refrigerator and slammed the door shut. Just as Frank was making his was back up the basement steps, he swore he saw the doorknob handle move. Sue cannot possibly be home yet, his mind thinking quickly as he moved down the steps tripping slightly and then falling backwards in a rush. She would have said something about the window by now, he thought once more before quickly hiding behind rows of stacked boxes full of old holiday decorations as the door creaked open and a pale, shaggily dressed man revealed himself.
“Just like Kasey said, no one’s home,” the man muttered into a cell phone as he made his way down the basement steps. “You can bring the van around in about an hour, I should have everything loaded in the back by then,” he said as he opened the refrigerator door and sifted through its contents while putting his phone away. “Blegh, this place may have stuff to steal but not any food,” the man said disgusted as he slammed the refrigerator door and began to search through the various boxes that were strewn about the basement. Suddenly something caught his eye and he looked towards Frank’s hiding spot.
Don’t move, Frank thought to himself as he stood still in his hiding spot. The man shoved aside the box that he was previously looking through and made his way towards Frank.
“What do we have here,” he said aloud as the man opened a box marked ‘silverware’ right next to Frank and began to look through it.
Frank slowly began to move away towards the stairs as the man was distracted, but suddenly stopped as the can of soda he was holding knocked against a box slightly. He quickly looked towards the man to see if he had reacted to but the man continued to search through the boxes. Frank began to move once more but instead of slightly knocking a box, this time he had accidentally knocked over the box of holiday decorations he was hiding behind, alerting the man to Frank’s presence.
“What the-,” the man yelled out before being interrupted by a series of boxes being knocked over onto him. Frank quickly made his escape up the basement stairs and shut the door behind him, while making a mad dash towards his room. The man quickly got up and chased after him, kicking down the basement door and chasing Frank up the stairs but fell short as Frank had locked his bedroom door.
Frank frantically began making an attempt to call 911, but the man banging at the door and the compilation of all that’s happened today he was too shaky and kept misdialing a series of times until he finally got it right.
“Hello, 911, what is your emerge-“
“There is a man on the other side of my door and he’s going to kill me!”
“Calm down, you need to-,” just then the man kicked through the door and Frank dropped the phone in sudden jump of fear.
“No where to run kid,” the man said gruffly as he walked towards Frank and picked up the phone, “Now just come over here and we can work this out.”
Frank looked around nervously for an escape route but his door was blocked and then he eyed his seemingly only way out, his window. The man quickly followed his eyes and made a step towards him, “I wouldn’t suggest leaving this house kid,” but Frank wasn’t set to listen to him as he made a dash towards the window only to be grabbed from the collar of his shirt. “I said, you’re not going anywhere,” the man growled.
Suddenly Franked turned around and looked over the man’s shoulder and shouted, “Sue!” The man quickly turned around just as Frank wriggled free from his grasp and kicked out the window in a flash of shattering glass and snapping window pane, then making his attempt to climb out. Not quickly enough though to where as the man quickly turned around and grabbed Frank’s arm while he was halfway through the window.
“If you really want to leave, then be my guest,” the man shouted before suddenly pushing Frank out of the window. Just then, everything seemed to go black for Frank as the world faded from his vision with as he heard thud.
Frank wearily opened his eyes and looked around slowly, noting that he was strapped to a stretcher with a sling around his arm.
“What happened,” he mumbled to himself quietly as Sue suddenly appeared next to him as she patted head.
“It’s okay Frank, don’t worry,” she said to him as she wiped her eyes.
Franked wanted to say more, but nothing else would come out of his mouth. He turned his head towards the roof of the van and watched the lights as they sped off towards the hospital.
