Deadly Silence (complete) Chapter 181

What did she mean, ‘home’? It took Theo a moment before understanding dawned on him. *Home. Where her mom…*

Genevieve had already exited the vehicle and was standing just in front of the door. The others joined her after a second, hanging back a little, as if worried they were intruding on whatever was going through her mind.

“We going inside?” Jacques inquired after a minute, earning him a sharp look from Miriam. He shrugged it off, unbothered.

“… yeah…” Genevieve nodded, stepping up to the door and, after another moment, lowering herself into a crouch.

“Is it locked?” Theo asked as he moved to stand by her side, trying to peer through the window just to the right of the door.

“Yes,” she answered, still without touching the door itself. “It automatically locks when the door shuts.”

Theo felt his gut twist as he stared at the lock, the implication behind her words hitting him harder than expected. If the other side of the lock also needed a key to open… he wasn’t sure how to react, or what to say, so he stayed quiet.

“Are you gonna practice your picking?” Jacques asked as he moved to stand behind where she was crouched, leaning forward a bit to squint at the lock.

“Why not?” She shrugged, pulling some odd looking, thin metal tools out of her jacket pocket.

“Practice your picking?” Miriam echoed as she also stepped up to join them. “Are you learning how to pick locks, Genevieve?”

“Mmhmm,” she hummed as she began to work. “After everything… it seemed like a good life skill to learn…”

Theo couldn’t exactly disagree with the logic, but it also made him worry she expected more bad things to happen. “Should… we be worried?”

“Nah,” Jacques replied with a shake of his head. “It’s more like… learning CPR. Useful to know, but hope you never have to do it.”

“So it’s like insurance,” Miriam nodded, stepped away to hold her hands up against the window and leaning her head against them, hoping for a peek inside.

It took Genevieve a couple minutes to unlock the door, earning praise from Jacques, saying she’d beaten her old record. *How long have they been up to this…?* Theo wondered, as he watched her open the door and step over the threshold.

Inside was a disaster. The front door opened into what had been the living room, which looked like a tornado had come and gone. The couch was on its back, the cushions torn with their innards strewn everywhere. A coffee table was in pieces, as was everything else that had existed in the space.

Sneaking at glance at Genevieve, Theo noted her pursed lips and the tightening of the skin around her jaw.

Almost directly to the left of where they entered was a door. Peeking inside, Theo noted this must have been the master bedroom. It’d met the same fate as the living room, the bed in pieces and things everywhere.

“It won’t open,” Miriam was grumbling, drawing his attention back to the main room where he noted she’d been attempting to open a window. “It’s so stuffy, I figured… but…”

Genevieve walked over to her friend and moved a small metal rod just above the window, then forced it up. It stopped after ten centimetres and she let it go. “That’s as far as any of them will open,” she explained, sounding almost nonchalant about it.

“None of them open all the way?” The freckled girl frowned, staring at the window.

“Yeah.”

Theo watched Genevieve as she turned and walked down a short hall towards the other end of the house. Following close behind, he paused as he walked by a closed door with multiple locks on the outside; all of them needing a key. Casting a quick glance in either direction, he reached out and turned the knob, surprised that it wasn’t locked. *I guess it doesn’t automatically lock, like the front door*, he thought to himself as he pulled the door open to reveal an empty closet.

No, it wasn’t empty. There was a small bucket in a corner. Confused, he stared at it, then looked around the closet again before his eyes noticed the scratch marks on the inside of the door. Had those been made by a person? It looked like…

Theo shut the door without allowing his thought to finish. His vision swam as his heart raced at what he’d seen. Leaning against the wall opposite the closet, he took a moment to get himself under control.

“Everything alright?” Miriam asked as she joined Theo, giving him a worried look.

“Y-yeah,” he managed to mutter, glancing at her, then to the man who had followed her into the hall. Jacques tilted his head to one side, as if asking what happened, but Theo just looked back at the closet door and then in the direction Genevieve had taken. There was no way he was ever going to talk about what he’d just seen; not with anyone.

“Can someone come give me a boost?”

The sound of Genevieve’s unbothered voice broke the spell that’d taken hold of Theo, allowing him to continue down the hall.

A couple feet from the closet was the door to a bathroom and, at the end of the hall, to the right, was a kitchen. Every last dish looked to be on the floor, all of which were in pieces. The kitchen table had been destroyed, and its three chairs were no more than kindling at this point.

To the left of the kitchen was a small bedroom. It was in the same state as the master had been. Genevieve was standing in front of a closet, whose door was on the opposite side of the room. “Up there,” she said, pointing to a hatch in the ceiling of said closet.

“Sure thing,” Jacques said as he brushed by Theo, who was a bit annoyed he hadn’t been given a chance to volunteer. The two of them were about the same size, and he worked out regularly for track. Giving her a boost wouldn’t have been difficult.

Jacques knelt down, lacing his fingers together into a cup that he rest on his knee. Genevieve placed her foot in his hands and, with a small grunt, he lifted her up.

It only took a second for her to pop open the hatch, grabbing the edges and pulling herself up into the attic.

“Do… you need help up there?” Miriam called out, peering up towards the open hatch.

“No,” Genevieve’s voice replied from somewhere above. Her footsteps caused the ceiling to creak as she moved around. “I’ll only be a minute… I think…” The last two words were said so low Theo wasn’t sure if she’d meant for them to hear.