Morning all. I hope you are having a great Tuesday Morning. I’m doing pretty good this morning. A bit bleary eyed, but my good buddy coffee will soon see to that. So shall we jump into the morning prompt and see where we land? Excellent, let’s get started. Timers at the ready? And off we go.
Oh, fun to start the morning with a mystery. Not where I thought I was going when I started but i like where it ended up. Now I just have to figure out what happened to the family. The plot thickens.
Tuesday, April 11th: It was clear no one had been there in years.
It was clear no one had been there in years. The mail was piled up just inside the front door, weeks, months, maybe even years of grocery store flyers making it difficult to even open the front door. Once opened, the entire house had a disused scent to it. Dust allowed too much time to settle, temperature fluctuations unregulated, possible damp either rising or leaking through an unrepaired roof.
‘Possibly both,’ he thought.
He frowned. The last letter he received said everything was fine. There were comments about the old apple tree in the back yard finally coming down and Uncle Hank’s cold getting better.
‘According to Aunt Marcie he was back to his old self and spending time in the workshop again,’ he thought.
The letter had only been dated a week ago. The post from here to his home would have only taken three to four days. James stepped further into the silent house. There was no way the level of dust, the feeling of emptiness could have accumulated in just a week.
He heard a step behind him and turned. Kevin was standing there looking around. His face showed confusion. Not knowing what was going on and suspecting that if something did happen to his Aunt and Uncle he would need assistance to keep it together if nothing else, he enlisted his best friend to come along with him.
“Didn’t you get a letter a week ago?” he asked.
“Yeah,” James replied. “And the neighbor was vague on the last time she saw them. I thought it was only a couple of days.”
“This isn’t right,” Kevin said. He grabbed James arm as James was about to investigate further. “Back outside.”
James blinked.
“Trust me,” Kevin said. James nodded and followed Kevin back outside. He closed the door behind himself. Once they were back on the porch, Kevin pulled out his cell phone. He pulled up a number from his contacts.
“Hey Mike, it’s me. I am in town with a friend and there is a situation.” He quickly outlined the situation and after a few nods and a “Thanks,” he hung up. He looked to James. “My cousin,” he explained. “He works for the local PD.”
“Police?” James said. “But we don’t know what happened.”
“We know you got a letter from your Aunt and Uncle a week ago, the neighbor hasn’t seen them in a little while and the house looks like no one has been there in a year,” Kevin said. “That is the sort of thing you call the police on. You don’t want to be disturbing evidence or something.”
What that something was they let hang on the air. James nodded. If it had just been the fact that no one had seen his Aunt and Uncle for a few days he would have gone in, but there was that letter. It changed things.
Ten til Midnight 