BILLIE JEAN ( eddie munson.. ) ✔

004. In the Southern Nights..

The southern side of the state of Oregon was having a warm summer night in the middle of August. That could only mean that the atmosphere was filled, at every step, with the sound of crickets, with nature refusing to fall asleep. It was a comforting hum that spread throughout the town, everywhere but around the Carter's house. There, the imposing building stood surrounded by silence for the ground mourned and the little creatures kept their distance instinctively.

Neither of the Carter children was into studying insects, so, unaware of the lack of sound surrounding their home, they lived on a summer night high, deep into their own normalcy.

Billie Carter, seventeen, was in her room, practicing "Every Breath You Take" on her guitar. The door to her room was freshly closed because the boys were having at it with screams and giggles, just across the hallway from her room.

Devin, already eighteen, and Sam Carter were the source of the noise because, after breaking into Barry's locked room -kept as a storage after he left on an internship in Japan-, they pulled out of the dust an old board game.

"This game is going to be thrice as fun to play if we have the right snacks too," Devin yelled from his room, where Sam pretty much was about to live for the night considering how long the game seemed to be at the first skim through the set of rules and the instructions. "Hurry up!" He shouted even louder.

"Would you shut the fuck up?!" Billie stopped her playing to just scream back, desperately annoyed by their thin walls being at work with bothering her music with perturbations such as her brothers.

"Calm down, your skills won't get better in silence," Devin teased back with an irritatingly loud laugh.

Sam heard it all and chuckled while he bounced down the stairs, holding onto the railing tightly, wherever he could. For the most part, he was too short to do so and after hearing his parents tell the tale of how Barry got an ugly scar at the back of his neck for being careless on the stairs, he generally had a certain reticence about this part of the house.

His sigh of relief was audible once the stairs were over and he hopped on the carpet. From there, little Sam started running, towards the living room and aiming for the kitchen.

The run didn't last, because an absolutely disgusting scent made him stop in the middle of the living room and gag, with his eyes closed.

"I think something died in here!" He shouted gradually so Devin could maybe hear him.

He did not. No answer came.

Though the lights in the living room were all out, the kitchen lights were all on. He imagined it wasn't yet too late for his mom to be still onto the dishes, even though he heard no water running at all.

Sam wasn't going to investigate this scent alone, not when he was aware he had no way of actually knowing where it came from. So he turned towards the kitchen. Before he took a single step closer, the lights flickered and his heart jumped a little.

Though no one was there, in the doorway, a second before, the second the lights calmed down, his mother was facing him.

"Mom," Sam sighed relieved. "You scared me," his mumble teased the littlest of laughs until he noticed: his mother wasn't moving. Her arms were limping on both her sides, her allure was as still as that of a statue.

"Mom?" The relief turned into a wary question. Sam took a concerned little step forward and the lights in the kitchen started getting brighter and brighter... until he noticed the white of his mother's eyes.

All the electricity built up beyond the point of maximum intake those light bulbs could take. They popped in shards and sparks, a sound which seemed more like Sam had dropped a plate or something. Devin shook his head, about to laugh it off and dismiss it.