The Scarlet Sweater

14. An Endless Light

“DEAD!” Jeni screamed. “They’re all dead!”

She fell to the ground in horror and slid desperately backwards, trying to escape the terror that she had just been surrounded by her now-corpse-y family for the past hour.

She panicked, and started to cry (she had done a lot of that lately, it’s a wonder her water level didn’t go way down from the massive amounts of tears she had shed). She had to call someone! Her fear was just too great!

Should she call Daniel? No, he was asleep; she shouldn’t wake him from slumber he needed. Nic? Yes, that seemed like the most logical option. She dialed Nic’s number.

“Hello?” his voice was alert.

“Come quickly to my house!”Jeni cried.

“Jeni? Hold on. What’s going on?”

“My parents...dead...I don’t know!” she sobbed.

“I’ll be right there.”

It seemed like forever until Nic arrived at her house. He pulled up in his car and slammed the door quickly. “So, what’s wrong exactly?”

Jeni explained what had happened. Nic nodded quietly and assessed the situation.

“It sounds like they may have died from a gas leak.”

“A gas leak?”

“Thanks for repeating me, Jeni.” Nic said flatly. “But, seriously, do you know if your house is equipped with a carbon monoxide detector?”

“It was,” Jeni said. “But then my sister tore out the batteries because it went off every five minutes. She never told my parents about it though.”

“No wonder your family is dead!” Nic exclaimed. “They’ve been exposed to enough carbon monoxide that just a little more killed them! It’s a good thing you didn’t stay in there any longer...you could’ve croaked too!”

Jeni started crying...again. Never before had such agony happened to her. She turned her gaze to the front of her house, where Juliearl was slowly crawling, pulling herself out of the edifice.

“Juliearl!” Jeni cried. “I forgot about you (As did the authors apparently, as there hasn’t been any recorded activity of her since their stream confrontation thus)!”

“It’s alright mother. I only inhaled some of the noxious fumes. They can go away in time, right?”

Jeni turned to Nic for an answer. Nic nodded his head

“I may be able to do something. Where’s your breaker box?”

Now, Jeni’s house was filled with faulty wiring, and her father could never escape from an electric fix unscathed. Jeni led Nic to the dangerous box, which was closed with numerous strips of duct tape.

As soon as he saw the box, Nic knew that the only way he would be able to help Jeni was if he got into THE ZONE. The only way to reach the proper mindset was to remove Jeni from the picture.

“I need you to go.”

“Wha-”

“Go wait for me in the driveway. I just need to be alone right now.”

“Oh… um… okay.”

Jeni left Nic to work on the breaker. He had just begun to peel away some of the crusty duct tape when he noticed some sparks. Of course, forgetting about the dangerous gas leak, he continued to work with the sparking electricity. Suddenly he was thrown backwards in a fiery explosion. Luckily, he was knocked unconscious by some rubble—he had gone entirely limp, so he broke nothing.