Mythical Link ▸ Link Neal {Book One}

Eighty Six

     He found himself walking a tad faster to be beside Baker rather than behind him, and the both of them stepped on to the front porch together. Baker looked around cautiously before taking the handle into his hand and turning it, pushing the door open. He went inside first, gazed around the room, and then beckoned for Rhett to follow. Rhett stepped into the house and was automatically hit with a musky, unfinished attic kind of smell. He scrunched his nose and swiveled on his heel as Baker shut the door, and Baker took the flashlight into his hand and clicked it on.

     There was a wall dangling in front of Rhett's face and he cried out, stumbling on his heel backward. Baker held his arms out to catch him and Rhett threw his arms up in front of his face, but lowered his arms when he realized that it wasn't a wall, and it was just a really long strip of paint that had begun to peel from the ceiling. 

     His eyes widened as he walked toward it, scrutinizing the ceiling as a whole. Large paint strips were peeling in various locations throughout the ceiling, and his gaze followed along the wall where more paint was peeling off as if somebody had come in and started going to town.

     They must have been in the family room, because there was a four seater sofa lined along the furthest wall. It was littered with what looked like dust, but when Rhett approached it followed by Baker, they realized it was bits of plaster that had rained down from the ceiling. It covered the couch and the floor around it like snow, and Rhett happened to gaze around at the floor around him. He noticed a bucket in the corner that he didn't dare to check out, an empty box, torn pieces of paper, and something that looked like a kitchen utensil poking out from under the couch. Rhett crouched and grabbed it by the handle, pulling out a rather large blade. His eyes narrowed and he turned it over, noticing the rust that had caked to the blade.

     He immediately brought the blade up to his nose to smell it, but he couldn't tell what the smell was trying to tell him. Was it rust, or was it blood? He looked at Baker, whose eyes were also narrowed. At that moment, Rhett decided he was going to carry that blade with him throughout the rest of the house in case something decided to jump out at them while they were investigating. He began stepping toward an open door with articles of clothing on the floor in the entrance, and he peered into the room with Baker's light over his shoulder.

     He felt like he was in a real life episode of hoarders. He couldn't tell what was in the room, but it was littered with stuff that were obviously not in their respective homes. Clothing, garbage, dishes, furniture, bedding, anything you could think of was strewn all over the place. He backed away from that room and looked toward Baker, who inclined with his head toward the stairs. He began heading toward the stairs and Rhett followed. 

     As they climbed the stairs, their body weight and the old creaky floorboards didn't get along, and they protested as they made their way up. They stopped on the landing and Baker crossed the hall to a door that was already open. He waited for Rhett to join up beside him and he cast the light into the room.

     Rhett couldn't believe his eyes. Everything in this room looked immaculate. The bed was made with a light purple comforter set, with a purple area rug and curtains to match. Not a stitch of clothing was in sight, and Rhett stepped into the room to open one of the drawers to the white dressers to find that the clothes were neatly folded and organized. He opened the closet to find coats hanging along the top and shoes organized at the bottom, and he turned around to look at a wooden desk where the writing utensils were organized into little containers from pens to pencils to markers. 

     He stopped by the desk and thumbed through the various papers that were neatly stacked when he stopped on one. There was a stick figure drawing of a small girl standing between two bigger people, apparently they were holding hands and above it written in blue was My Family. Below the feet of the people written was Mommy, Daddy and Me. Rhett turned his head to look at Baker.