I felt his body go taut. He put two fingers on his lips signalling me to stay quiet. I obliged.
It rang again and again and again
“M-m-miss Emma , h-h-help me”.
Phoebe.
Her voice sounded urgent and scared
Richard only looked at me
“I don’t know w-what’s happening, they’re coming. H-h-help me. P-please”. Her voice shook.
“We’ve got to help her Richard”
I saw the reluctance in his eyes. “It’s not safe, we don’t even know what’s out there.”
The bell kept ringing frantically
“Richard she sounds like she’s in trouble! It’s only going to take a minute”
“And then what?”
I didn’t have to answer that. Was I really ready to take up responsibility over a teenager?
“Emma, it’s risky. It’s not just us now” he touched my belly
I pleaded with my eyes
He sighed deeply.
“If things go south or she slows us down, I’m not going to hesitate”
“Okay Mr. Richard” I beamed a smile at him.
He unbolted the door to let her in. The moment she walked in, my heart went out to her.
She looked like a scared little puppy.
Poor thing
“They all just… They came at…daddy didn’t..oh God” she fell to the floor in tears.
We stayed silent. How could we tell her it was going to be okay? It wasn’t.
You only read these kinds of things in books or watched them in movies.
One thing was sure, this was no movie.
Neither was it a book. This was real.
We were faced in the middle of something greater than us with the only option of surviving.
I walked to the kitchen Island to get Phoebe a glass of water.
She could barely hold it as her hands shook terribly, so I held it up for her.
“Here, have some water”
She went through the glass in one gulp.
“Can you walk me through your day? One step at a time. Just tell me how your day went”. Richard asked gently.
Smart.
He was steering her mind away from whatever horror she had witnessed.
She stayed silent for a while. We waited.
“Eggs” she suddenly said in between sobs. Each word she uttered carried a pain more heartbreaking than the last.
“Dad was making scrambled eggs this morning, it’s my favourite. It’s also— ”
Her mum’s death anniversary.
I gave her a look that told her i understood.
“I had a fever this morning and he just wanted to make me feel better” she took a deep breathe, gradually gathering herself together. “It did. I remember walking to school feeling grateful for dad and now…”
She trailed off
Lost in a memory, she smiled.
“When I got back from school, he was already making dinner. I washed up and joined him. We laughed, made funny jokes and cried. When the light came, he wanted us to go see it at the Patio with the others but I —”
She stopped abruptly. Her face turning bright red. She was embarrassed. But why?
I didn’t probe because I could tell she was having an internal struggle on whether to share the information. .
“There’s a boy…”
Of course, there was a boy.
Richard hid his laughter with a cough.
That only made her more embarrassed.
“He.. um.. called me so I went inside. When I was done with the call, the light had gone. Almost immediately, power went out. Then…”
“Everything went to shit” I completed for her.
The room here quiet until Richard suddenly asked
“Do you know who was at the Patio at the same time your dad was?”
My attention had been fixed entirely on the teenager that I didn’t notice Richard’s set jaw and the lines that had come to his face.
What could he be thinking?
“I heard him talking with Elaine and the others”
“Is there a chance you could be more specific? Who were the others?”
“Miss Shaw was still babysitting Mason at the time, I heard daddy playing with him”
She shut her eyes trying to recall more
“I heard Elaine, Dr. Fergo, Mr. Cranwell arguing. I’m sure they were all there”
Mr. Taddosh. Elaine. Mr. Cranwell. Dr. Fergo. Miss shaw. Little Mason
Something about their names tugged at my mind but I couldn’t place my fingers on why.
Then it hit me, sending waves of shock throughout my body.
It couldn’t be. It didn’t make any sense
How could it?
But then it did when the memories came flooding
“…How about we go to the bed, just me you and our little bun…”
“… it’s started…”
“Why are you shutting the blinds?” I had asked “we should enjoy the light”
“I’m trying to set the tone for us” he had said.
Oh God
The kitchen. The living room. The bedroom. He had shut all the blinds.
Because he knew.
The whole time, Richard had known it was the Light.
He had ensured we didn’t go near the light.
How had he known?
I looked at him and found his eyes resting on me
Who was Richard?