The Sound of Silence Calling (Ereri/Riren)

Chapter 1

"Hurry! Hurry! He's coming!"  My sister, Isabel  ran up the littered driveway, almost to exhilarated to speak.
"Levi! You must hide! Hide!"
     I didn't even question who was coming. Picking up the stone I had been lazily fumbling in my palms, I plunged my body into the variety of vines and weeds lining the gravel driveway. Isabel was almost instantly behind me. Side by side we crouched down and watched as an old, seemingly falling apart, pickup slowly approached, bumping over the many dips and ruts in the ground. The blaring sun casting all the many shadows of leaves hid the identity of the human inside. Their belongs were strewn about in the truck bed and weak ropes barely held together the atrocious mess inside. Sitting on top the pile of tables, couches, chests, and cardboard boxes, somehow balanced a big, brown, panting, dog.
     "The new caretaker," I mumbled into Isabel's ear. "Who is it?"
Beside me, a mouse noisily rustled in the leaves and birds chirped.
    Isabel was still trying to catch her breath after running to warn me. "I'm pretty sure it's a man around your age. I didn't really see him to well but he did get out to unlock the gate. He was tall, skinny and he had dark brown hair. Isabel smiled widely.
"And he had the most hilarious clothing on."
      I rolled my eyes. "He sounds like another junkie."
"Well yes, that is kind of what he looked like." Isabel's shoulders shook with laughter, causing her to bump against me.
"We can call him junkie man."
    "You can-" I hushed myself. "Be quite, the dogs looking in this direction."
     The dog barked but the man in the truck didn't seem to mind at all. I shook my head and sighed. I imagined this dog barked often and the human didn't even pay attention. Dogs really are foolish. People can't tell if they should look or not when a dog barks so much.
      The truck passed us. Allowing me to catch a glimpse of the man inside. As quiet as a mouse Isabel and I followed after the truck, making sure to stay in the bushes and brambles we stayed clear of the lane. I knew exactly where we were heading.
The truck slowed almost to a complete stop as it approached the house. Lilac Manor. The front lawn of the house was a hideous field of waist high weeds and thistles the size of small trees. Old, now colorless paint peeled from the locked up front door and wood trim. The steps and the porch were decaying and for the most part completely gone. Shutters hung loose and crooked off the border windows and a few that had fallen off littered the ground around the house. Slates from the roof were hazardously scattered around the yard. Two tall chimneys tilted to the left, giving the place a most unstable look, as if it might give out and collapse at any moment.
I wondered how much this new caretaker had been told about Lilac Manor or even possibly researched. Isabel and I had been around the house long enough to know quite a bit. May I mention we knew the owner, Erwin Smith, had been dead for nearly a decade. It was vulgar knowledge that he hadn't left a will, so the county now owned the tawdry property. Workmen has temporarily patched up the house with wooden boards covering the windows and draped tarps over the leaky roof. They put chains and padlocks on the doors and made sure to litter the property with "No Hunting, No Trespassing" signs.
And of course they'd also hired a caretaker to I live in the trailer next to the house. That caretaker hadn't done much work or stayed long. Neither had the others the county hired, one after another, too many now to remember all their names. Maybe it was the night noises that scared them, the barking of foxes, or the shrill screeching of owls in the dark of night. Maybe they didn't care for the seclusion. Maybe they believed in ghosts. Or came to believe in them. At any rate, after a few months they would leave and a week or so later a new one would come along. Where the county found them I can't even begin to imagine. However, they were all always a sorry lot. Grumpy, old and most certainly lazy.
Now we had a new caretaker to spy on.


~

Word count 747———
I hope you enjoy the first chapter I got up. I spent a lot of time in this and although I really wanted to make the chapter longer the 747 words I couldn't wait any longer.