Radioactive - Book 1: Birth 🪼

Fifteen

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Every door we have come across has still had things in it. Even the bathroom still has stuff in it.
"This just makes no sense... What is the sense of clearing out the bottom and not the top? I mean, the trash cans are still full." Nalak says, going to the next room and opening it up.
"And you're sure they didn't have another car to use? Maybe they used a U-haul and just moved the bottom first and will come back for the top." I say, opening a door on the other side of the hallway.
"No, I'm telling you, my parents aren't like that. Besides, the only U-haul they know is 'hey, you come haul this stuff for us."
I laugh a little when I sniff and make a face.
"Hey, do you smell that? I smelled it just slightly from when we got closer to the end of the hallway but it's starting to get stronger."
Nalak sniffs and frowns. "I don't smell anything."
I turn to him and cross my arms. "Mr. I-Can-Smell-A-Fart-In-A-Whirlwind can't smell that sickly sweet smell?"
"I'm telling you I can't. That's odd too... if you can smell it and I can't, then... Let's just keep looking, okay?"
I nod and we look in each door on either side of the hall until we get to the last two rooms. I am about to gag from the smell and Nalak looks like he can't smell anything.
"How can you not smell that? God, it's like a thousand piles of shit that someone tried to cover up with flowers... Black Plague shit..."
"Well, I seriously can't smell it. I dunno why though... Hey, what the heck? Why are there flowers all over my door?"
As he looks at the flowers for a second, I open his parent's bedroom. Clothes and all are in there along with the canopy bed. I frown.
"Hey, Nalak, come take a look at this."
He turns, still holding the purple flowers in his hand and I point.
"I'm going to assume that your parent's been wasn't always like that right?"
Nalak looks in as I open the door more and we stare at the one broken spindle on the canopy bed. He walks in and we look around the room, going to the biggest walk in closet I'd ever seen. My sister would have loved this closet since it was full of shoes, handbags, and clothing.
"Wow, you're mom was pretty fashionable." I say, looking at all the shoes she has.
"My mom definitely wouldn't have left this stuff behind. She paid top dollar for this stuff... All her jewelry is still here as well." He says, looking in a large jewelry box that stands up on the floor. "R, something's really, really wrong now."
"Why?" I say, walking over to him.
"My parent's wedding rings are in here. Even though they weren't that great to me sometimes after the crash and such, they were always fully in love with each other. They never took these off unless showering or in the bed. If they were not here, they would have taken these. What's that?"
He points and I look over to the bathroom where it looks like there is something on the mirror. We walk over and turn the lights on, finding a cryptic note on the mirror.

MIRROR, MIRROR ON THE WALL
WHO'S THE FAIREST OF THEM ALL?

To find out, please go see what's in Nalak Ghoti's room.

Nalak narrows his eyes at the mirror and then gulps.
"Someone's been in my home."
He turns quickly and is gone before I can follow him. I shake my head at his sudden disappearance and start to head out when I hear this blood curdling scream like nothing I have ever heard before. I run out of the room and see Nalak on his knees sobbing his eyes out. I go in and go to comfort him but I look over and yell myself, falling backward into the wall.
On the wall are... well, what's left of his parents. They've been nailed up there and it looks like something had come in and gutted them, entrails all over the floor. Blood is everywhere, splashed on the wall, the carpet, the bed. The smell I was smelling was the putrid stink of decomposition. There are those odd purple flowers everywhere in the room and on the wall over Nalak's dresser is a surprisingly lengthy message inked in blood.

MIRROR, MIRROR ON THE WALL
WHO IS THE FAIREST ONE OF ALL?

The answer is YOU, Nalak Ghoti.
Albinos are the fairest of them all.

You cannot escape us forever.
This should show you what we are capable of.

DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE US.

Nalak stands up and suddenly lets out another feral scream, something coming from the depths of his body and soul. It's a monstrous roar/cry of pain built of all he's made of. He does one more of these and then I can see him start to crumble, both physically and emotionally. His legs turn to jelly and I grab him before he hits the ground, his body shaking from the shock of everything. He just keeps staring at the scene as if it will go away the longer he stares.
I grab his face and make him look at me as he trembles, completely wrecked in my arms.
"Nalak, you look at me. Don't look anywhere else." I put my hand beside his eye so that all he can see is me, making a blinder for him. "You only look at me, alright?"
He can't talk because he's too busy crying. He finally grabs a hold of me and begins to bawl into my shirt and I just cradle him to me, letting him do what he needs to do. I can't imagine the feeling. He's literally the only one left in his family now.
He suddenly stops crying and sits up, looking at the door. I look too but see nothing.
"Nalak, what is it?"
"There's something in the house. We need to hide." He says, grabbing me and running out of the room.
We get halfway down the hallway when the sound of gurgling from in front made us stop. There is something coming up the stairs.
"Come on." He growls, grabbing my hand, pulling me to him, and taking me up the wall with him.
I hold on for dear life as he scoots along the ceiling to the chandelier that hangs above the foyer. He places me in it and we both watch what's going on. A man in a cloak is standing at the base of the stairs as three shuffling people make their way up the stairs. They are moving in jerky motions, as if it's taking every effort they have to get up the steps. They are so black though that they could almost be mistaken for shadows if they weren't moving.
"What is that?" I whisper.
"I don't know." Nalak says, and I can still tell he's not composed at all.
"Are you all really that dumb?!" the man in the cloak suddenly yells.
The black creatures turn to him slowly and it looks like he may have crossed his arms.
"I got confirmation that that little albino came here. We need to get going and you guys can't even get up the stairs. Useless bunch of melanistics."
Nalak and I look at each other and both mouth 'melanistics?' to each other. Nalak crawls closer to me and grabs a hold of the chandelier chain to lean in to me.
"Do you trust me?"
"Depends."
"We need to get out of here. That guy is dangerous. He knows me. I think he was sent here to get me. I need to grab a hold of you and there is an entrance to the attic over there. If we get there, there is a window in the attic we can get out of."
"Okay... okay, I trust you."
He nods and I reach out to him to grab hold of him and I latch onto him tight, arms and legs. He slowly makes his way across the ceiling like a sloth holding her baby and gets to the entrance. He takes a moment but finally pops the square open and crawls in. He moves the square back and we head toward the window.
"You're oddly calm."
"I'm not. Just wait." He says, leading the way.
We finally find the window and h punches it, even pulling back the wall parts that's connected and slithers out of it. I shimmy my own self out and we run across the top of the house until we get to the trees that surround his house.
"Do you trust me again?"
"Um... maybe..."
"Have you ever seen Lord of the Rings?"
"Yeah I have."
"Good." He suddenly grabs the back of my pants and the back of my shirt. "Because today you will learn the Dwarven Toss."
"Wait, what?!"
Too late; he is already swinging me back and then forward and back again and then I am flying. I yell and fall into the canopy of trees, beginning to fall. I blindly try to grab at branches when I feel something grab me. I look up and Nalak is holding me.
"What the fuck is your problem?!"
He says nothing as we reach the bottom of the tree and run to the parking lot. We hop in the car and I speed away from the house.