Blood - Lucas Sinclair

The Weirdos on Maple Street (Part 2)

Nikki woke up the next morning to a crackling sound. She sat up to see her sister holding a weird box where the noise came from. Wondering what it was she carefully watched her sister fiddle with it until footsteps were heard and the blanket covering them was lifted up to reveal Mike.

"Hey, you found my supercomm." Mike smiled kindly at El. "Pretty cool, uh? I talk to my friends with it. Mostly Lucas, cause he lives so close. Signals pretty weak." Mike laughed lightly as El turned to face him.

After a second, Mike started to dig around in his jacket pockets and pulled out two waffles, or should I dare say, Eggos.

"Got you guys breakfast." He held the Eggos out to the girls who both took it and started to eat. "So listen, this is gonna sound a little weird, but I just need you two to go out there. Then go to the front door and ring the doorbell. My mom will answer and you guys will tell her that you're lost and that you need help. But whatever you do, you can't tell her about last night or that you know me. Understand?"

He was answered with El staring up at him and Nikki slightly glaring at him.

"Really, it's no big deal." Mike smiled trying to make it better. "We'll just pretend to meet each other again. And my mom, she'll know who to call."

Nikki thought back to the night before. Benny called someone, she knew he did at the very last second, or else how did they know they were there. She didn't want a repeat of last time.

"No." El beat her to it.

Mike's smile immediately dropped. "No?"

This time Nikki shook her head in response. "No."

"No.. you don't want my mom to get help?" Mike asked trying to understand. Nikki shook her head again. "You're in trouble, aren't you."

Nikki looked down at her hands as El nodded.

"Who.. who are you in trouble with?"

"Bad." El whispered.

"Bad?" Mike started to connect the dots. "Bad people?"

El nodded again.

"They want to hurt you? The bad people?"

Nikki had enough of his guessing and made a finger gun pointing it at her head, then El's and last but not least a frozen in shock Mike. She put her hand down and with pleading eyes she said, "Understand?"

"Micheal, where are you? We're going to be late. Let's go." Karen Wheeler said upstairs, breaking the tension in the room.

Mike looked back at the girls and made his mind up. "All right, I'll be right back. Just stay here, okay? Stay here." He stood up and put the blanket back down, leaving the girls to their own thoughts.

***

Lucas and Dustin went to school that day and immediately took notice of their other friends absence.

"Oh, this is weird." Dustin began to worry for his friend. "He's never this late."

"I'm telling you," Lucas shook his head at the thought of his plan, "his stupid plan failed."

"I thought you like his plan."

"Yeah, but obviously it was stupid, or he'd be here." Lucas argued.

"If his mom found out two girls spent the night-" Dustin shook his head for Mike.

"He's in deep shit right about now." Lucas finished for Dustin.

"Hey, what if that one slept naked?" Dustin asked with his eyes growing wide.

"Oh, my god," Lucas sighed and rolled his eyes, "she didn't."

"Oh, if Mrs. Wheeler tells my parents.." Dustin groaned, rubbing his eyes out of stress.

"No way. Mike would never rat us out." Lucas defended.

"I don't know." Dustin replied unsure about his friend and the secret the all kept.

"All that matters is, after school, the freaks will be back in the loony bin," Lucas said with determination laced within his voice, "and we can focus on what really matters, finding Will."

***

After a few minutes of waiting for Mike to come back, he showed up once again telling the girls that his mom had just let and they could roam around the house for a little bit.

Once they got up the stairs, the girls immediately took interest of everything around them.

"Want anything to drink?" Mike asked heading towards his kitchen, unaware of the girls going the opposite direction. "We have OJ, skim milk.. what else? Um, we have..." He trailed off as he turned around to see that the girls weren't listening to what he was saying. Instead, they looked around their family room stopping at certain things in the room they had never seen.

Nikki found herself looking at different photos placed in many different spots throughout the room. As she looked at them, she noticed that each one was different in some way but one thing was common among all of them. Every single photo had people who wore a smile. Nikki had gotten her picture taken a few times, but none of them did she smile for.

"Oh, this is my living room." Mike's voice cut through her thoughts. "It's mostly just for watching TV."

Nikki turned around to see her sister and Mike standing near a box with to sticks out of it. El's eyes were filled with wonder, while Mike was happy to explain, and even brag, about the box.

"Nice, right?" Mike smiled at El. "It's a 22-inch. That's, like, ten times bigger than Dustin's."

El had walked away mid sentence out of losing interest and joined Nikki around the photos. El step up on a ledge to get a closer look as Nikki looked from afar.

"Pretty." El said after looking for a few seconds at a certain photo of an older girl.

"I guess." Mike wrinkled his eyebrows at her statement. "That's my sister Nancy."

El started to move down the line of photos as Mike told who they were.

"And that's baby Holly. And those are my parents." Mike told her. "What are your parents like? Do they live close?"

Neither of the girls answered. They knew the answer, they just didn't want to utter it. El once again moved on to the next thing that interests her, that being the big chair in the middle of the room. El felt the fabric as Nikki moved back a little from it, watching her sister carefully as Mike started to speak again.

"That's our La-Z-Boy." Mike pointed at it. "It's where my dad sleeps. You can try it if you want. Yeah. It's fun."

El carefully sat down on the chair as Mike kneeled next to her. Nikki still stayed back but kept a close watch on the two. El gave Mike a scared look as she watched what he was doing.

"Just trust me, okay?" Mike said noticing the look she was giving him. El nodded slightly and braced herself for whatever was to come. A click sounded from the chair and El went back so now she was almost laying down. Nikki had jumped a little at the sudden noise but her sister's laughter calm her down.

"See? Fun, right?" Mike asked with a smile on his face. He got the chair back to normal and had El try it for herself. Once El was in a sitting position again Mike turned to Nikki and offered her a kind smile. "You want to try it, Nikki?"

He watched as Nikki's eyes widen and she shook her head quickly. Mike nodded realizing that the girl probably didn't trust him as much as El did and would probably be more difficult to gain the trust of. Nonetheless, after a few more times of El doing it, the girls were ready to explore a different part of the house.

And so the grand tour continued.

Authors Note
Thank you guys again for reading!! Also thank you to those that have read the neighbors series too!! It hit 10k reads the other day!!

Thank you guys for everything!!

Love ya!! ❤️❤️❤️