The Winter

Chapter Six ~ Leo's POV ~ Bonus Chapter

"I will check the kitchen and living room, Jessica and Zoe can check the bedrooms and bathrooms, and Leo can check the basement. Sounds good?" Dylan said.

"But baby, I wanna stick with you! Not Jess-sick-a," Zoe said.

That girl is sickening, but I feel a need to protect her. We're the same, in many ways.

"You'll be fine for a couple minutes," Dylan said, shaking his head.

She needs to stop this. Can't she take a hint? Multiple hints for that matter. More like multiple shoves.

I walked down the creaky wooden stairs that led to the cement basement. As I stepped on the second to last stair, my foot fell through and got stuck. 

I pulled it out without struggle, because the wood was so weak that it just gave in.

When I got to the basement, I felt a sudden rush of cold immerse me. I saw a door right in front of me. To the right there was some type of large pipe and a bucket below it. Right next to the pipe was a wooden door.

I decided to walk through the door in front of me. Inside was a variety of different shelves with some food on it. Must be the pantry. On the shelves I saw 2 cans of green beans, 5 cans of cranberry sauce, and a variety of different kinds of canned soups, including mushroom, tomato basil, chicken noodle, and vegetable soup.

I exited the room, my bare feet stepping on the ice cold concrete floor. Dagnabbit! Why didn't I bring my shoes down here? Any sensible person would do that. 

I struggled with the cold as I tiptoed over to the wooden door by the bucket and tube. Inside the room were some drawers. Most of them were empty, but the bottom two drawers to the right of me had something in them.

The second to last drawer had a large, leather book with a note on it. The note read:

I have a copy, don't worry. I've left this here for the next generation to find.

The book was labeled: Family album.

On the first page there were three photos. one of them was of a little girl, looking about 4 or 5, stuffing a sleeve of Oreos into her small mouth. She must have already eaten some, because her chin was covered with crumbs. Next to the photo there was a little description:

Found Amelia sneaking Oreos at 11pm!!!

Haha... This reminds me of the family I don't have.

the next photo was of a family standing outside of the cabin we were currently in. A man and a woman stood outside of the cabin. The woman held a new born baby. If they were in the picture, who took it then? 

The baby was a chunky one, that's for sure. It must have been the girl in the Oreo photo. None of these pictures had dates, but I'm assuming this was a while ago, because they had black and white coloring.

The description on this photo was:

Just moved in! We are going to settle in nicely! 

My mother and father are never around. We live in a nice house and they have always gotten me so many things, but, I can't help but feel without them. They are consumed by work. The never have time for me. It's always writing papers over family bored games. Work calls over movie nights. Late night work essays over bothering to say 'hi' to me when we happen to pass each other in the hallways.

The last photo on the page was of the mother, father, and daughter decorating a Christmas tree together. The daughter was sitting on her fathers shoulder, reaching to put the star on top of the tree. Her face was lit up with joy, as well as her parents.

Merry Christmas, 1955!

I closed the book, not wanting to force any more bad memories of my life onto myself. I figured that I might look at this later. Maybe not all of it consists of useless photos. It would be a stupid move to ignore it.

I heard a sloshing noise coming from outside of the room.

"What the..."

I set the album down and opened the door.

Gross! Well, at least now I know what that pipe and bucket are for. I watches as brown, stinky chunks plumped down from the pipe into the bucket. A stinky smell covered the room. Based off of how bad it was, I'm guessing it was Dylan who took a crap in the bathroom. Wow, their sewage system is messed up. As I walked back into the room, the flush of the toilet still ringed in my ears. It stopped when I shut the door. The smell went away as well and trust me, I'm grateful.

I placed the album back in it's original drawer, then opened up the one below it.

A TV remote? Seriously? Disappointed, I grabbed it out of the drawer to take a closer look at it. It didn't look like your everyday TV remote. In the middle of it, there was a black circular button. Around it were four other buttons. The buttons were each different colors, one was blue, one was green, one was yellow, and the last one was brownish red, more like a burgundy. At the top there was a red button labeled: Power Off. As I turned the remote around, I noticed a holder for batteries. There were two double As in it.

What use was this remote if the electricity doesn't even work in this house? Earlier we tried the TV. Guess what? It wouldn't turn on. Surprised?

I stood up and held the remote in my hand. Deciding I should mess around with the buttons, I pressed the blue button. Nothing happened, so I pressed the green one.

A small green spark in the air turned into a spiral of different shades of green that expanded until it reached the ceiling of the basement. The impact knocked me back and I fell on the concrete floor. My knee started bleeding.

"What the HELL!?!?"