Strange as IT Seems

Chapter 29: Monster House

Mia and Georgie return to the house with their purchases. Sharon is standing at the bottom of the stairs looking upwards.

"Mommy!" Georgie says in delight, dropping the shopping bag he was carrying and wraps his arms around her legs.

Instead of being happy and showering her son with attention, she simply pats his shoulders and hardly acknowledges his existence.

"What's going on?" Mia asks.

"Bill came home and locked himself in his room. I heard him throwing things around up there and I tried to reach out to him but he's not having any of it. I'm worried something happened to him."

Mia frowns but decides to let the parents handle this. She's only a guest after all. She takes her supplies upstairs to her room and begins to make the place a little more like her own space. She tapes several posters on the walls, puts up some better-looking curtains, and then moves on to her biggest project. It was something that she'd seen in magazines before and wanted to try for herself. She unwraps the set of Christmas lights she'd bought and begins to work.

Living in the country and farm, she'd learned how to make something with very few materials and use everything.

She heads downstairs to the basement where she'd been storing empty plastic water and soda bottles. She'd managed to get a whole bag of them from the school's recycling program and while everyone had looked at her like she was crazy for wanting them, no one wanted them and therefore didn't give it a second thought. She was also able to gather a few from the house as when the Denbroughs had moved in, the pipes were not working, so they drank bottled water for a few days before it was fixed. One's trash was another's treasure.

Once upstairs, she cuts the ends of the bottles off with a kitchen knife and hot glues two over each light bulbs, creating lights that were uniquely her own.

...

After finally finishing hanging them up, Mia steps back to admire her work. It certainly wasn't perfect, but it gave the room some much-needed charm and décor. Daylight is fading already, a sign of the coming autumn months, but once the lights are plugged in, it creates a "festive" and colourful ambiance. It was a familiar and comforting glow that made everything a little less scary and more like home.

The time for admiration comes to a stop because there's incessant knocking outside across the hall. Mia peeks through the door to see her youngest cousin calling for his big brother.

"Billy!" Georgie pleads. "Billy, can I come in?"

He continues to knock in rapid taps.

"Billy, let me in!"

"Go away Georgie!" is the response. It's a sharp and angry response, but if you listened closely, you could hear the pain. Something must have really rattled and hurt Bill enough to make him bark at his little brother like that.

Georgie is shocked but tries again with the knocking.

"Go Away!" Bill shouts again.

"Please, Billy..."

"G-GET LOST YOU L-LITTLE..."

He doesn't need to finish his remark as the six-year-old goes down the stairs in tears, running to his mother.

Mia feels for the pint-sized kid but is also wondering why Bill lashed out like that. It must have been something really big... maybe a fight with a girl that has him so emotional that he'll insult his little brother like that.

The girl retreats to her room as her Aunt Sharon comes up the stairs, with Georgie clinging to her, while she chews him out for hurting his brother like that and being so disrespectful. Sadly, the discipline does not quell the teen's anger as he yells at her to leave him alone and shut up. This makes his mother visibly upset and she shouts at him. She tries to open the door, but something is wedged in front of it. Despite her demands to open the door, Bill continues to yell in a stammering voice.