I'm a little reluctant to post this story, but I was asked to, so here it is. I apologize in advance if anyone is out of character. And in case you didn't read the summary, this is a humanized story.
When They Came
Chapter One: December 29
One chilly morning in late December, Alice got up from behind her desk with a washrag and a bottle of Lysol and headed to the wall covered in mailboxes. She used her master key to open the one that read 7B and began spraying the liquid from the bottle into the mailbox.
Up on the staircase, the head of young boy peered over the railing on the landing. The bespectacled second grader pulled a toy walkie talkie from his pocket and pressed the button.
"Skipper, Alice is cleaning mailboxes! She only does that when someone is moving in!"
"Which mailbox? Please tell me not one from our floor." The anxious voice of another young boy came through the speaker. "You know how I feel about new neighbors, Kowalski."
The boy deemed Kowalski could not see the labels on the metal doors of the boxes from where he was positioned. He quickly counted up from the bottom. "Sorry, Skipper, this mailbox belongs to our floor. It appears to be 7B- wait! Alice just opened another one! 7D!"
"7D?" Skipper exclaimed. 7D was almost directly across the hall from him. "How many neighbors are we getting?"
"I think she's done- wait, never mind. She just opened 7F."
Skipper's eyes, though Kowalski could not see them, had started twitching. Skipper did not like new neighbors. They were almost always either weird, crazy, creepy, or evil. "You've got to be kidding me."
"Sorry, Skipper." Kowalski looked up just in time to see Alice glaring at him. He casually got up and walked down the stairs, and went to his mailbox, as if he had planned to do that all along. Which he had, until he noticed the suspicious activity. Kowalski quickly unlocked the box, grabbed the mail inside and closed the door before casually walking back up the stairs. When he reached the landing, and when he was sure Alice wasn't looking, he dashed up the remaining six flights of stairs.
Meanwhile, another young boy was walking solemnly through what people might mistake as woods, but was really jungle. His hands stuck in the pockets of his jacket, he sighed for what might be the eighth time today. He didn't want to leave his home. It was a wonderful place. Almost carefree. He kept trying to believe that he wasn't moving to a whole different country in just a few days, but he was unable to fool himself.
"Julien!"
The boy, Julien, heard his father calling for him. He had a very good reason to. It was way past his bedtime. Julien dug his hands deeper into his pockets as he turned around and headed home. Madagascar sometimes got chilly at night.
Julien soon found himself back in the clearing that served as a little yard for the house he lived in. His father stood in front of the fire pit. And he didn't look very happy.
"Where the in the hecks were you?" he asked.
"Taking a walk?"
"At 10:30 at night?"
"The sleepiness was not coming to my eyes."
Julien's father sighed. He motioned for his son to sit down next to him on the log.
"Julien, I know you don't want to move, but think about it. New York City. The city that never sleeps."
Truthfully, Julien was pleased with this fact, but he didn't say anything.
"I'm not going to try and tell you it will be easy, because it won't, but it'll all work out, okay?"
"Okay."
Julien accepted the hug from his father and allowed himself to be led back into the house.
"Did you find him?"
"Yes, Josh, now go to bed."
"I am in bed."
"Go to sleep."
"You're not my father."
"Don't make me go get your father." This shut up the rather rebellious 16-year-old who was Josh Lemkus.
Julien took his jacket off and threw it over the chest next to the bed. His father leaned down to hug him good night. "Think you can fall asleep now?"
"Nope."
"Julien."
"Did I say nope? I meant yes."
"Alright then. Good night, Julien.
"Good night, Father." His father left the room.
"You heard the man, go to sleep." Josh said.
"You are not the being the boss of me." This was all Julien said. He was too tired to fight back.
Julien got under the blanket of the bed he shared with his best friend, Maurice. He stared at Josh. He was the only one out of five kids in the house who got his own bed. But Julien really didn't care. All in all, it gave him an excuse to talk to Maurice all night. But not tonight. Maurice was asleep. Which was reasonable, given the time.
Julien closed his eyes and tried to think of happy things. Like kicking Josh's little brother, Mort. That was fun. It was annoying when the big eyed, high voiced 4-year-old kept coming back no matter how much he screamed, but kicking him down made up for it. Until Mort's mother caught them and he got in trouble for "picking on an innocent child".
Julien thought about this until he flickered into sleep.
Josh has been mentioned a couple of times in my other stories. He will be in here a lot at the beginning, and will appear pretty frequently throughout the story. Also, if anyone has a better title for this, I am completly open to suggestions. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed th first chapter, and please review! :)
