Chomp

Chapter IV

The orange juice had turned warm and due to condensation, the droplets that formed outside the glass had trickled down to the counter forming a little puddle. Rose pulled out her earphones and noticed that it had almost been an hour. Her eyes fell to the glass and that's when she remembered about the electrician.

She wondered what took him so long, something didn't feel right. Rose slowly stood up from her chair and walked towards the basement door.

'Hello?' she called. No response. 'Jim... are you down there? No response again. 'Hello???' she tried once again. She looked down into the darkness for a few seconds and cursed at herself for being clumsy. How could she lose track of time? She was so engrossed into clips of the Democratic and Republican conventions. Peter wasn't going to have it. At least she could use the mess in the basement as an excuse if they had an argument she thought. Rose headed to the bedroom to wake up her husband.

Peter was in a deep slumber when Rose tried to wake him up. He slept on his right shoulder with the head resting on his palm. He had sweat stains on his back due to the warmth in the room, he hadn't opened the window. Rose nudged Peter several times before he lifted his head and looked at her, dazed.

'What's wrong?'

'It's the electrician.'

'What about him?' he asked again rubbing his eyes.

'It's been more than an hour since he's down there. I tried calling out to him but I got no response. Can you go down and check on him?'

'More. Than. An. Hour? What were you doing?'

'I got a bit carried away with the phone.'

Peter sighed. 'Those devices are going to be the end of the next generation I tell you,' he said shaking his head. 'Where's the flashlight?'

'In the left drawer.'

Peter pulled the drawer open as the contents inside produced a soft clunks. He grabbed the 'Police' flashlight and pushed the drawer shut. He liked this flashlight as it was strong and had a good metallic grip. You could also use it as a melee weapon. It was a little long and it could produce a blow hard enough to knock a person out.

The basement door stood open. The passage was a bit dark but there was enough afternoon light coming through the glass panes from the entrance. A strange smell had filled the passage, it smelled a little like feaces but Peter couldn't decipher. Rose closely followed him but at a slower pace. Her knees continuing to hurt but she didn't want to complain about her arthritis.

'Hello?... Jim?... You down there son?... HelloooOOO?' Peter called.

'I already tried that,' Rose sighed. 'Why don't you go downstairs and have a look?'

'Ah yes, but shouldn't he have responded? Anyway, Try calling the service while I go down' he said and begun to descend the stairs, flashing the light at the riser of each step, moving carefully.

Rose pulled the phone out of her pocket and begun to dial the service. The operator picked up the call and denied that Jim had returned to their workplace. Rose couldn't figure out what was happening. Why would the electrician leave without informing them? What if Jim decided to just abandon his job and go hang out with his pals? Multiple scenarios ran across her head as she stood next to the basement door looking at her feet, lost in thought.

There seemed to be a lot of rat droppings on the stairs. The basement felt normal, except for the rat droppings, spider webs and layers of dust which weren't there months ago. The last time Peter was down here, he kept the only remaining sample of a chemical called Celerincrementum. He had developed the synthetic chemical and was the only one who knew how to make it. He was also into cytology and before his retirement he wanted to try injecting a dose of Celerincrementum into animal cells like mice to enable faster growth. The demand for lab rats had surged across the country in the past few decades. Peter and his team thought of trying to breed mice at a faster rate and supply them to labs all over America. Unfortunately the government didn't allow them to go forward with the experiment as PETA protested. Two of Peter's colleagues however conducted experiments in the dark but they failed to obtain accurate results. Peter caught wind of the experiments and brought the chemical home. He was devastated when he found out his colleagues had tried to carry out experiments behind his back and burned every copy of the formula. He didn't dispose the last few samples. What was he waiting for? Now it was going to cost him... dearly.