I Will Find You

Dead Butterflies and DeJa Vu

"Mom I'm home!" I yelp as I throw my bag down by the shoe rack and kick off my beat up sneakers. Making my way to the kitchen, I am greeted with the smell of Pozole and beans. "Oh, hi honey, how was your day?" My mother questions, her voice laced with the thick accent of a Latina women. "Alright. Cookin' dinner already?" "Yeah, Me and your father are going on a date night with the Smiths but I thought you and your brother might wanna eat too." She grinned. "Thanks mama." I say and she plants a kiss on my forehead. 

With a smile I make my way upstairs into my bedroom. Expecting nothing more than the familiar lavender walls littered with posters and paintings, and the comforting sound of the a/c being on on I was caught off guard because my radio was blaring and I usually turn it off when I leave for the day. When I walk into the room I sense someone has been in here. Someone unfamiliar. A few things are misplaced and my bed is disheveled. My brother might have done it. Thinking I took something of his. As I turn to shut off the radio I realize their is a messily crumbled up piece of paper on my bed so I make my way over there. I don't usually crumble up paper but rather put it in a binder or  neatly stacked on my desk, so the piece of paper was easily spotted by my keen sense of misplacement. Picking it up I unravel it carefully, the cracks and pops of the paper moving fill the now deadly silent room. Once it is fully unraveled it reads: 

"Hello Carla,

This letter is in regards to your beloved friend Max. Max is fine, he is alive. He is doing quite well actually. I know you have been worried sick since you were a child, I've been watching you. I've been waiting for this moment. If you want you friend to stay alive you will come pick him up. He is a pain in the ass to be honest with you, and you are the only person who hasn't given up hope that he is not dead. I'll explain more over the phone. Your first assignment is to go to the local gas station on the corner of Poe and Main and buy a prepaid phone and put minutes on it. Here is the number you will need to call to reach me...Good luck

-Anon 

                                             524-578-1535"

My stomach jumped to my throat. Making me feel as if I was about to fall from the worlds steepest cliff side. The butterflies in my stomach from the thought of being home alone have just been shot. And their corpse are coming up my throat right now. I run to the bathroom directly across the hall and spew it all out. Shaking and out of breath I slump down the wall onto the floor by the bathtub. I hear my heartbeat in my skull and the world gets dizzy. Just as I was about to take a deep breath I hear a knock at the bathroom door. "Hurry up I need to piss!" Rob. "Shut up a second." I say and stand up. "Are you puking your guts out cause you look fat?" My brother says. "Fuck off!" I yell back. I look at myself in the mirror. I look as bad as I thought. My skin a paler than usual and my hands are shaking. With a shake of my head I brush my teeth really quick and flush the toilet.

 Heading back to my room I close the door and pick the note of off the floor. Reading it over and over again trying to see if anything about where Max is would be hidden between the ink and the yellow paper.  Just a I was about to put my shoes on to head to the gas station my phone rings. "Carla, hey what you doing?" It was my best friend Justin. "Not now. Meet me at the Gas station on the corner of Poe and Main I have something I need to show you." I tremble and hang up the phone. Slipping my shoes back on, Robert heads down stairs. "Where do you think your going?" He says. "Rob, you are a year and four months older than me I don't have to tell you where I am going." I huff. "Fine, don't die." he lets it go, but he doesn't know how easily it is for me to do just that. 

Knowing that this person...the person who left the note for now we will call Anon is watching me put me in a paranoia state of mind the whole drive to the gas station. Once I got there, paranoia turned to nervousness. What if Justin thinks I'm crazy and I wrote the note so people would believe me that Max is still alive? What if he thinks this and tells everyone, the whole school, all my friends at work and so on... I need to stop with these thoughts. They will not help the situation. With a deep cleansing breath I take my key out of the ignition and open my car door. Justin is sitting on the parking thingies looking through his phone. "Hey," He says as he beams with excitement. "What did you need to tell me?" I don't know whether its him or the fact that I feel like I am constantly being watched now, but it seemed as he was yelling. "Shh..Get in the car." I say and walk to the drive side of my 1996 Honda. 

I then tell him about the note that I found on my bed when I got home from work today, and then I tell him about the feeling I got when I walked in my room and how it was unfamiliar. He got just about as shook as I did. "Okay, this is some NCIS shit right here we should call the cops." Justin says. "I know we should but he kinda says in the letter that if we do that he'll make sure Max is well..I'm guessing dead." Just talking about Max again is breaking open wounds I have not yet healed. Justin knew Max just about as long as I have so I'm glad he was the person I turned to. 

"Well I guess you should call the number then." He suggests. I take out my phone and dial the first three numbers, then the second and then the last four. Each ring that passes my heart jumps further and further up my throat. Finally someone answers. The voice is almost not human. It sounds so deep its so hard to understand what they say. "Ah, you must be Carla I see you calling." Chills run down my spine. "What do you want." I tremble even though the statement was meant to come out very stern and affirmative it came out as a squeak. "You. I want Clara." The voice says. Its laced with sadness almost, but I know enough from law and order SVU than to fall for that emotional trap. "Where is Max?" I inquire. "You'll know soon enough. I'll call you tomorrow some time. Keep this phone near." With that, the phone call ended and all I heard were dial tones.