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.

Bandages, and other white cloth.

     He started driving faster after that. He checked his phone once, and almost took out a lamp post. I clenched my fist and opened it, over and over again. The bandages pulled against my wrist, shooting a pain up my forearm. I kept it up, squeezing, aching, releasing, relaxing squeezing again. I was trying to make myself immune to it. trying to shake off pain. It wasn't working, but I kept trying anyway, trying to make it hurt enough to matter. It didn't.
     Silas was flying down the freeway now, bobbing in and out of traffic. He drives like an asshole, but I wasn't going to tell him at this junction. We were long past Chicago, on the 90, past sleepy hollow and on the way to Hampshire  I realized what he was doing, he was rushing for the next house on the list, the next family who might still be alive. The trip should have been an hour or so, according to Google maps, but Silas did it in about half that. We found ourselves swerving through suburbs, track housing, whatever you want to call it. We turned onto Schmidt, and were about to turn onto barn owl, the home where they lived, but we were stopped by the two police cars and an ambulance sitting on the culdesac. Silas hit the brakes, cussed me out, and told me how to behave, before parking the car in a neighbor's driveway.
     We got out of the car, acting completely bewildered. Silas approached the cops, who were filling out their paperwork, and I stood by the car, acting nervous, which was easy for me. Apparently, we'd been camping for a week, and didn't know anything about anything. He spoke with them for awhile, lots of disbelief on his face, and fear. The medical examiner walked out through the front door of the house, pulling a gurney behind him, covered in a white cloth. When that happened, Silas feigned squeamishness, and I turned away from the whole scene. Silas walked back to the car shortly after that, told me to get in.
     We left and we went to some little diner, where Silas filled me in. Apparently, there was one victim, a woman, in her thirties. She lived alone in the house, which seemed crazy, considering how big it was. She drowned herself in the pool, according to the M.E. After we ate, I payed the check and asked Silas whet the plan was. He sighed and sat quietly for awhile, before admitting with heavy resignation, that we needed to regroup. So we headed back to the bank.

Silas, Honestly.

     We climbed back into the car, and hit the road again, hoping to put some distance between us and the police force that was hunting for us. My wrist hurt like a sonnofabitch, but I didn't make a sound about it. Silas didn't make a sound about anything. We drove in silence for a couple of hours. I was embarrassed about hurting myself, and Silas was unreadable for a very long time, until we hit a large bump, or, I guess it was a pothole, I don't know. What I do know is that my wrist bounced, hit the arm rest, and I yelped. Yelped is a girly word for it, but not an inaccurate one. That noise, whatever you call it, set Silas off. I'll try my best to recount what he said:
     "What, did you hurt your wrist? Jesus, you're amazing. Why the hell are you even doing this? You can't handle a fucking broken wrist, but you expect yourself to hold up against everything out here? Unbelievable."
     We got silent again for a few minutes. Silas was obviously pissed at me, and I couldn't argue. I had taken all sorts of hits and bruises and shit, but at the end of the day, I knew he was twice the badass I was. You can just tell about some guys, y'know? He stared down the road for awhile longer, clearly mulling things over in his head. I could see the cloud forming over his head, the anger building in his eyes. I knew I was in for it.
     "Your bitch ass couldn't even handle a fucking hangover. A goddamn hangover. Have you even thought about that? If your pansy ass had grown up, made like a man and got going that day, three people could still be alive. That's on you. You'd better realize that. Every time you are a weak-ass little girl, every time you take too long to man up, you put people in danger now. Bandage the damn wrist, because I'm done making concessions for you. Now we're doing things my way." 
     I should have argued, I should have stuck up for myself, but I knew he was right. Those people died because I wasn't there to help them. I bandaged my wrist up way too tight, trying to make the pain on the outside match the pain on the inside. It didn't work.
And now I knew who Silas was.

The Cops

     The cops began to shout, like they always do things like " we have you surrounded" and "step outside quietly!" We decided instead, to find a back way out. When we made it to the back door, we peered out of the window in the door and discovered that the cops were't lying, they did have us surrounded. Silas gestured to me and I followed him toward the stairs. He was unshaken by the cops everywhere, all business. We dashed up the stairs, walking along the hallway and checked through each room, looking for our out. We found it at the end of the hallway, the third bedroom in the house. We didn't really pay attention to it before, and even while we were escaping, we didn't notice it, but looking back, it should have sent up about a million red flags.
     The room was painted yellow, with sports pennants and star wars posters on the walls. the whole place was coated in dust and cobwebs, and we ran through with barely a glance, as we headed for the window. the bedroom had a roof right under it we hopped out of the window and ran down the roof toward the neighbor's yard. We jumped and rolled onto their back lawn, I twisted my wrist on the landing, but Silas immediately got running again. we hopped the fence, Silas with style, me with a nice groan, as i tried to fling my wrist over with me. It took us half an hour to lose the cops on our tail, and an hour later, we stole a tow truck. We threw on uniforms, and pretended to have been called by the cops to pick up our own car. It was risky, but we pulled the car away, dropped the tow truck off at a Hardee's and split.