Asking For Help

     That night, we didn't make it to sleep. We were too stressed, to anxious. We lay in bed, turning the encounter over in our heads again and again. I understood why he'd be scared, but we were offering him help, we were on his side. How were we supposed to help if nobody wanted it?  We got out of bed that morning and headed toward our next house. It was about half an hour from the hotel, and we left at eight, to make sure everyone would be awake.
    Twenty minutes after we left from the hotel, we received a call. The man from the first house wanted to speak with us in private. We agreed t meet with him after visiting the next household. Finally, we felt like we were getting somewhere, we had a family to meet with now, and a man who actually wanted help. Apparently, he was afraid we'd scare his wife. When "The incident" happened, his wife closed off, wouldn't eat, or speak for months. It took a long time for her to finally open back up, and he was afraid of losing her to that again. We asked what "the incident" was, but he wouldn't say over the phone. Mike agreed, thinking that his phone might be bugged. So, we finished our conversation and headed to the closer house. We should have left sooner.
     When we got there, we realized we had been beaten. The fire department made that clear enough. According to them, there had been a gas leak in the house, and when it reached the pilot light of their water heater, the whole place went up. The family had been upstairs, asleep. A husband and wife, both in bed, both burned alive. We asked when the fire had started, and one of the firemen told us it happened at about six fifteen. Mike pointed out the obvious. If this family had gone up at six fifteen, the man from yesterday could be next. We headed to the car, and mike immediately began to call the man. There was no answer.

Indiana, Family One

    In Indiana, we met our first living family. We knocked on the door, and were greeted by a skittish-looking woman. She had that air about her, like a sparrow, ready to dart off at any second. We introduced ourselves, and verified her name, and asked if we could take a moment to talk to her. She seemed hesitant to leave the front door, and i guess I can't really blame her. She called for her husband, who came forward, carrying a young child, no more than 18 months, I think. We introduced ourselves to him, and he invited us in to the living room. We sat down, and he asked what it was we were visiting about. Mike started, admitting that we didn't really know why we were talking to him. He tried to explain the list, , and as soon as he did, I felt the room change. The man got tense, and pulled his child closer to him, and very quickly he told us he had had enough and that we needed to leave.
 I butted in: "sir, I don't want to scare you, but the people on this list are dying, and we're trying to help."
He lost his temper "I have lost enough to this mess, and it is all behind me now! Get out of my house!"
     The baby started to cry, and we gave him a business card before leaving, heading for the next house on our list. We stopped for dinner on the road, and tried to see if he had given us any clues. As far as we could tell, he hadn't. We pulled into a hotel for the night and lay awake for hours trying to understand what had happened to that family. Nothing came to mind.

Meeting Mike

     The next morning, I was introduced to my companion for the trip. His name was Mike, and he seemed like a relatively nice guy, a bit talkative, but I didn't mind that. The radio in the car we were in was broken, so at least we had something to listen to. Mike carried a backpack full of clothes and such, and another bag full of computer gear. He had two laptops, one big, one small, an inverter to power them off of, a gigantic mess of cables, and a big android phone. He sat in the front seat, and I drove, while listening to him tick away n his keyboard, using the little laptop. Mike was one of those prodigies, I guess, never boasting any of that illegal stuff, like shifting money through bank accounts, but he's incredibly good with security systems. He's pretty well-known at all of the black-hat events, which he didn't want to brag about. When he found out that I didn't know what a back-hat event was, however, his shock led him into an hour of rambling explanations. I liked mike.
     Our "roadtrip" lead us south, heading toward Indiana. I feel like I need to stress this, We weren't heading to Indiana because it was the closest name on the list. We were headed to Indiana because it was the closest name on the list that wasn't confirmed dead already. There were hundreds of names before Indiana. Hundreds. Indiana was the closest we could get.

Back at the Bank

     We arrived at the bank that night, and Liza welcomed us back in. We told her what had happened, and she asked us to recount it again to the rest of the nerds. It's really not fair for me to call them that, but I think it's funny, and they think it's annoying.  Liza gathered everyone up, and drew their attention to Silas, expecting him to tell the story. He grunted and sat down behind me, leaving it up to me. I'm not much of one for speeches, but I did my best to recount what had happened. When I finished explaining the conversation with the M.E. there was a long silence, like they were all waiting for me to say more, waiting for good news, I guess. Fortunately, Liza swooped in and took charge.
"Okay People, here's the deal. I think at this point, we can make a few assumptions. We aren't the only people who are searching for the people on this list. I think we can assume that the deaths are linked at this point, and gauging by the connection made by these two families, I think that someone is following the same route we were."
     At that, a gawky little guy in the middle of the crowd raised a hand, and Liza nodded to him
"Can we assume a pattern with only two points of reference?"
     Liza seemed a bit frustrated as she replied "Sam, at this point I think we're going to have to make some leaps in logic. Just go with it." He didn't seem to like it, but he quieted down, and Liza continued, "What we need is a plan to get ahead of this other guy, and stop him. Let's get brainstorming!"
A ton of hands shot up, and liza began running the place like a town hall meeting, calling on one person, then allowing debate of the person's idea, either reworking it into a better idea, or scrapping it and moving on. They kept going like this for about an hour until it was settled again: we were splitting up, Silas in one car with a nerd and a mobile setup, Me in a different car with another nerd. We were each heading in opposite directions, toward different families. Meanwhile, the guys back at the bank were doing the obvious and calling families, trying to convince them to go into hiding, or at least meet with one of the two cars. All we were trying to do is protect them, but I was sure people were just going to panic.