The Terror Next Door (Based on a True Story)

8)An Angered Reveal

"Radioactive" -Our Last Night version
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"Dad, this wasn't us!!" Sophia exclaimed for the fifth time that night. Nothing she was saying was being heard. Her father had come home later that night and inspected the window for himself. He concluded that one of the girls had left the window open and the cat must have pushed the screen out while he was trying to bask in the sun yet again.

"I know it wasn't," Mr. Summers simply said. "It was Sandpelt. You know how much he likes the sun-"

"-It wasn't the cat!" Sophia insisted. "That window was closed last night! It was closed and locked!!" She couldn't help but panic. She knew it was closed and locked; she had spent a half second looking out the window at the Bradshaw place. Sophia would have seen if her window was not only unlocked but missing a screen.

"Obviously not, kiddo. It was open and that's how the cat knocked it out," her father yawned.

Alex glanced up momentarily from her computer, finally listening in on the conversation. She spared her father a shrug. "Sophie gets cold easily...She wouldn't open the window on a cold fall night."

Mr. Summers broke his concentration away from Sophia to glance at his eldest daughter. He seemed to have not noticed she was even in the room given she had been so silent. "Are you ever not on the computer?"

Alex released another shrug. "I like reading and writing on Wattpad," she defended. It was only as Sophia and Mr. Summers stared at her that the young woman ducked her head back down towards the laptop. "Don't judge me..." she mumbled before going back to typing.

"Anyway..." Sophia pouted, "I didn't do it. Annie didn't do it, and, the younger kids didn't do it either."

"Perhaps Alex or Colin did it," her father tried to rationalize.

At the mere mention of her name, Alex's head snapped up from her laptops screen. Her eyes were comically wide. "Ohh yeah, because it's sooooo characteristic I'd be spending time in a room I'm never in opening windows and pushing screens out," she snorted.

"FINE. Maybe Colin did it-"

"-It makes even less sense Colin would be in their room opening windows," Alex huffed. "Did he need fresh air after looking for makeup supplies in a room he's also never in?" she joked, chuckling before a stern look from her father silenced her. "Just sayin'."

"My point I am trying to make is there are logical explanations that can be pointed to," Mr. Summers continued. "What is your alternative, Sophia? Someone craftily pulled out your screen, used something to unlock the window, climbed in, and deleted your alarms so you would wake up late and did nothing else?" he snorted, shaking his head. "I'm more inclined to believe one of your siblings did it as a prank."

"And I'm inclined to point out I actually have better things to do in a day rather than play pranks on teenage girls and cause them to miss school," Alex offered, not even looking up from her laptop as she answered.

Mr. Summers ignored her as Sophia once again tried to prove a point. "As for the locker incident, we're working with your principal to discover who was the culprit behind this."

"How about Blake Bradshaw like I told you!"

As Mr.Summers scowled at this declaration, the doorbell rang, echoing throughout the large house and causing the dog to start barking. As Alex went to calm the bull-mastiff, Mrs. Summers in the next room went to open the front door. Daniel Bradshaw was behind it, looking quite apologetic. "Hey neighbors," he greeted politely.

"Speak of the devil and his father shall appear," Sophia muttered under her breath. Though, no one heard her comment.

"Hey Dan, how are you today?" Mrs. Summers greeted back.

"I'm fine, thank you. How are all of you? Still liking Schaumburg?"

"Completely. We're in love with the Portillo's restaurants around here."

"Ah same. That place kills the diet the little lady has me on," Daniel grimaced, giving his potbelly a light pat

"I can believe that, that place is too good," Mr. Summers laughed.

"What can we do for you, Daniel?" Mrs. Summers asked kindly.

"Well, I was wondering if Sophia is free to babysit for us again, tomorrow around five?" Mr. Bradshaw asked hopefully. Sophia only then tried to slink from the room to avoid being seen. She wasn't fast enough. Mr. Bradshaw then spared her a friendly wave. "Our Blake says you're his favorite babysitter!"

That was a joke if Sophia had ever heard one. Was she his favorite because he seemed to have found a new past time in being mean to her...? "Ah, sorry Dan, I don't feel comfortable allowing our Sophia to be alone with a boy her age..." Mr.Summers hinted, smiling sheepishly. A relief floated through Sophia after her father's breezy lie.

"Ahh, I get it. Don't you worry, my Blake is a gentleman." Mr. Bradshaw beamed.Sophia had to resist rolling her eyes at that. The boy next door was nothing such. Creepy, weird, and disturbing seemed to be better adjectives to describe him. Dan Bradshaw sighed. "The wife and I were looking forward to getting out for the day but we didn't want Blake to be by himself...Hey! You've got older kids! You could make it a family affair. How bout' Sophia and one of your older ones stay with him, I'll pay em' both twenty-bucks an hour."

Before Sophia could even offer out a lie that she was busy or had dance class,her father was nodding along to this in an agreeable manner. "I don't see why not, we'll send over Alex and Sophia."
***

"You should go down as the world's worst big sister for this," Sophia complained an hour later as Alex was packing a book into her purse. Sophia was taking this new babysitting job with the Bradshaw's a lot worse than her sister was. The young woman had cringed up until her father had revealed she would be getting $20 an hour for six hours. After that, Alex was more than fine with it.

"We'll be getting one-twenty each for doing nothing while some brat kid is up in his room acting like a weirdo by himself," Alex defended adamantly. "We couldn't have gotten a better gig!" she smiled gleefully.

Sophia grit her teeth angrily. "You could have talked mom and dad out of this!"she whispered furiously.

Alex immaturely stuck her tongue out at this retort as she put her jacket on. "Do you know how much school books fetch for? Even when used, some of my college books are a hundred bucks. I take a good paying job when it comes at me. Like it or not little sister, this is a good job."

Sophia scowled. "You don't get it! Blake hit me when I was on the trampoline...And I don't care if there isn't proof, he spray-painted my locker! And c'mon...Like it's a coincidence he was asking grandma what rooms we were all in and somehow my window ACCIDENTALLY opened by itself!"

"And what?" Alex shot back, rolling her shoulders. "He snuck in like some crazed stalker, didn't do or take anything, he just turned off your cellphones alarm...? Nothing else?"

"No, he did something else," Sophia defended, twiddling her fingers together nervously. Upon her sisters' raised brow, she sighed. "And he unplugged our clock from the wall," she offered, unsure why no one seemed to believe this. It was her elder sister's roll of eyes that made rub her forehead tiredly."There's something seriously wrong with him, Alex! We can't watch him, not even together!"

The older Summers daughter scowled. "I'm not afraid of some punk kid, Soph. I'm scarier than anything that brat could bring to the table," she snorted before packing up her bag for class. Even though the young woman had a reputation for standing up for herself when the situation called for it, Sophia wasn't exactly certain she was a match for Blake's creepiness.

"I really hope you're right."

Nothing calmed Sophia's nerves regarding having to be back inside the Bradshaw's place. She worried about it the entire day. Nighttime wasn't any better. Sophie was now feeling positively certain Blake Bradshaw had come in through her window and dismantled her alarms. Why he did it, Sophia didn't know. Not only did it not make sense, but the move could not have been made to make Sophia miss school. How exactly could Blake have banked on nobody else in the house waking her up? He couldn't have known that. So, that brought Sophia back to the question she kept asking herself...Why did he do it?

The teenager didn't sleep that night. She practically booby-trapped her window and the area around it so she would see or hear if Blake made a reappearance. She made her family's dog sleep in the room and she also kept her brother's old metal baseball bat by her bed. None of this, however, comforted her to sleep.Sophia sat up all night watching her window. It was only once seven in the morning that Saturday finally rolled around did she start to fall asleep.
***

Even though Sophia was running on little sleep and nerves, her bad feeling regarding Blake Bradshaw only increased the more she thought about having to be near him again. Nothing that day could calm her, not even having her edgy big sister with her. By the time they had made the venture across the massive lawn next-door, Sophia and Alex had been at the large Bradshaw residence for less than four minutes before the Bradshaw's started squabbling over something ridiculous."For the love of god, can you man up at least once in your damn life??" Jenny Bradshaw practically hissed at her husband.

Alex's eyes widened in surprise at the strange comment as she shot Sophia an incredulous look. "Jennifer, don't get hissy at my because god-forbid I find problem in you wanting to leave to the Bahamas for a month with your friends."

The older woman snorted. "I didn't know getting married to you meant I was forced to stay and look after your kids for the rest of my life-"

"-Excuse me, would you like us to go home?" Alex interrupted, an eyebrow raised high as she and Sophia awkwardly stood in the living room not knowing what to do. They had been greeted and led to the living room and nothing else had been said to them before the strange arguing began.

At her question, Jenny Bradshaw sent Alex a dirty look but did not say anything further. She threw her mane of curled hair behind her as she placed her nose in the air and stomped off without another word. "Seriously, I smell awkwardness...If you need us to leave, we happily will," Alex continued with a shrug. Sophia had to resist smirking. Her eldest sister was hardly one to care about being blunt or not liked for her comments. Even as Mr. Bradshaw looked uncomfortable, the eldest Summers' child had broken into their conversation no problem. Alex was simply indifferent to her awkward nature.

"No, no, of course not, please stay." Mr. Bradshaw scowled at his wife as he followed after her. "I'm sorry about this, girls. I'll get Blake." Soon enough,he called up the stairs for his son to come. "Blake, buddy! The Summers' are here!"

The bedroom door to Blake's room slowly creaked open. The young man's head popped out of his doorway. The boy slinked his way to the stairs, his brows furrowed. "You said 'Summers'. Plural. As in, more than one."

"Yeah," Mr. Bradshaw admitted, clicking away at his cellphone as he responded to something. "Sophia and her sister are going to stay with you tonight."

A very frightening look crossed Blake's pale features, momentarily causing Sophia to feel he looked to want to throw the nearby lamp directly at his father's face. As quickly as the scary look came, it was gone. A polite smile instead slipped on his lips as his father looked at him. "I don't need two people to stay with me."

"Well, er...They're already here."

"I'll rephrase. I don't want two people to stay with me," Blake replied icily.

Mr. Bradshaw looked at the Summers' girls, momentarily looking as though he was about to ask Alex to leave. Instead, Alex beat him by speaking quicker. "I totally understand, buddy! Soph, why don't you get home to finish that school project of yours and I'll stay with Blakey," she exclaimed, slapping her hands together as she glanced at her sister. Sophia had never felt more grateful for having such a caring older sibling. At the same time, she also didn't want to leave Alex here by herself.

Luckily or -unluckily- Blake seemed to grasp very quickly the Summers' girls either came as a packaged duo or Sophia was going home. His blank expression he was shooting Alex quickly evaporated into a polite smile that outdid even the most prestigious of boyscouts. "Where are my manners? Of course it's great that two people are herewith me instead of one," he smiled devilishly. "The more the merrier."

Mr. Bradshaw seemed to not notice his son was exceptionally weird as he nodded while simultaneously replying to another message on his phone. "Excellent! I'll see you all later. Sophia, you probably remember the house from your last visit. Blake I trust you can show the girls around if need be?"

"Yeah, of course," Blake nodded politely.

That was that. Mr. Bradshaw followed his scantily dressed wife, the two could be heard arguing on their way out. Once the door slammed shut, this left an eerie silence. It was Alex that attacked the silence similar to how a bull would react inside a china shop. "So why does a teenage boy need a babysitter?"

"Your sister once asked me the same thing. I recommend asking my parents for an answer," Blake replied, his icy blank stare returning as he watched Alex.

Alex, however,  was indifferent to his response. Blake attempted to walk away before her voice echoed throughout the silent house, stopping him mid-stride. "I would've if they hadn't been too busy arguing. So...why is it? Are you afraid to be alone,or, are a naughty kid who enjoys recreational activities such as breaking and entering along with spray painting?"

Sophia's breath locked in her throat due to her surprise. Did she just say that!? She wasn't sure if her older sister was brilliant or stupid for practically confronting Blake. Either way, this definitely took a hold of Blake's undivided attention. He turned back to walk towards the balcony overlooking the girls. He smiled wryly at Alex, causing Sophia's insides to shiver.
"That is a very specific difference. Afraid or juvenile delinquent? How about...neither?" Blake and Alex had an undeclared staring contest after that. The boy watched her with his frightening blank expression while she watched him with crossed arms and a challenging look. Sophia stood awkwardly by her sister, not quite knowing what to make of the situation.

Blake's jaw clenched. "Question for me, Ms. Summers; why is it a young adult such as yourself is still living at home? You seem to be judging me for requiring someone to stay with me at fifteen, but why is a literal adult still living at home with her parents?"

Sophia's jaw clenched at the question. Though, Alex didn't seem offended. "It's cheaper than paying rent for an apartment," she answered casually.

"And your reason for taking my parents money by staying with me?" Blake challenged with a raised brow.

"I figured they must have been pretty desperate for their little boy to be watched, so here we are," Alex smiled sweetly, looking and sounding quite sarcastic.

Blake returned the polite smile. "Instead of casting judgement upon me, the underage youth, I would spend more time wondering why you, the adult, is spending her Saturday evening babysitting children for money. Could you not find a better gig?" he asked, his question laced with a mocking tone. With that final comment, Blake slowly retreated by back stepping before quietly heading for his bedroom. Nothing more was said as his door quietly clicked shut.

Sophia's brows furrowed as Alex started chuckling. "Prick," she muttered,shaking her head in amusement. Even as the young woman went to flop herself down upon the couch, something felt very strange about that conversation to Sophia. "What's wrong?" Alex asked, keeping her voice low so that the bizarre Blake couldn't overhear them.

Sophia felt her face pale as she considered the odd exchange before Blake's final wording. Alex had gotten him to break out of his quiet 'nice-boy' shell to reveal a bit of an attitude. She had done so to the point where he had been going out of his way to be mean without even realizing he was revealing something in the process. Blake had used a very specific wording that sounded near identical to the conversation the girls had yesterday in their own driveway.

"How could Blake have known you took this job for the money?" It was only as Alex started to reply before her mouth fell open in surprise did she realize Sophia made a great point. Somehow, Blake had practically quoted Alex's phrase from the day before regarding the babysitting gig. He couldn't have done such a thing unless he was nearby overhearing their exchange.