An hour into her cleaning, Megan decided to give up the broom and dustpan and hunt down the Shop Vac. She brushed the drywall dust off her bare arms and jean-clad legs before returning to the living room.
The two workers she had met earlier were nowhere to be seen. However, another girl, who looked to be a few years older than Megan, was busy taping off a section of wall, which was still in dire need of dusting. "You should probably clean that area before painting it," Megan kindly suggested.
The brunette girl turned her head, her expression hard. "I'm not getting paid to clean," she curtly replied. "I'm just here to paint."
Megan frowned. "Yes, but if you don't dust it off first, it's going end up looking like crap."
"What do I care?" the girl asked. "This isn't my house." She then went back to taping, completely ignoring Megan.
The redhead was about to make another comment when she heard a set of footsteps walking down the stairway behind her.
"Hey, Briana, you are going to clean that wall before you paint it, right?"
Megan recognized the voice as the one belonging to the blonde-haired worker.
The brunette looked at the man, her cheeks flushing slightly. "Of course I am, Nick," she sweetly responded.
Megan simply rolled her hazel eyes.
"Good, because we need this house looking its best if it's ever going to sell."
"I know," Briana said.
The worker addressed Megan next. "How's the family room coming along?"
"It's been a slow process," she honestly told him, "but it's getting there. I was just going to try to find the Shop Vac."
"The last place I saw it was in the basement. I would check there first. The door to the cellar is in the kitchen."
Megan nodded and headed out of the living room, leaving Nick and Briana alone. She swung the kitchen door open and found a small group of people installing new countertops and cupboards. The teenager's presence went unnoticed as she walked to the cellar door. She opened it and stepped down onto the small landing. Then, she shut the door behind her, muffling all the noises coming from the kitchen. She flicked on the light switch and descended down the stairs. The workers were using the large room to store all their equipment. Ladders, scaffolding, buckets of drywall mud, and other miscellaneous building material cluttered the basement.
Megan searched for the Shop Vac, being careful not to disturb too much. Eventually, she found the round vacuum cleaner. It was sitting underneath extra sheets of drywall that were leaning against the wall. As she slowly began maneuvering the Shop Vac into the open, something metal dropped heavily onto the floor behind her. She jumped in spite of herself and instinctively turned around. A large silver wrench was lying on the floor a few feet from her. "H-hello?" she called, her voice trembling slightly. "Is someone there?"
Silence answered her; however, she swore she saw movement within the deeper shadows of the room. She released a small shriek, grabbed the Shop Vac, and raced back up upstairs to the safety of the kitchen. Her dramatic entrance caused a couple of the workers to give her strange looks, but no one said anything to her as she hurried back into the living room.
"What's gotten into you?" Briana asked upon Megan's hasty return.
The redhead dropped the vacuum cleaner and placed a hand over her thumping heart. "I think I saw someone lurking around in the basement."
The brunette smirked. "I hate to tell you this, but there are a lot of people running around this house right now."
"I know," Megan impatiently replied, not appreciating Briana's sarcasm, "but I don't think it was one of the workers. I think it was someone else."
"Who?"
Megan slowly shook her head. "I don't know."
The other girl sighed. "Well, I'm just glad you found the Shop Vac. It will save me a lot of unnecessary work." She pointed to a nearby electrical socket and said, "You can plug it in down there."
"I don't think so," Megan sternly stated, lifting the vacuum cleaner back up. "You can use it after me. I'll be finished with it soon."
"Hey, that's not fair!" Briana exclaimed. "This room is bigger than yours!"
"Yes, but I've already dusted mine, for the most part. I just have to go over a few areas with this. It shouldn't take me too long." Megan carried the Shop Vac into the family room, ignoring the utterance of "bitch" that she distinctly heard on her way out.
The redhead plugged the vacuum into the wall and continued cleaning. As she worked, her thoughts drifted back to the mysterious shape she had seen in the basement. She supposed it could have belonged to a large animal of some sort, but that still didn't explain how the wrench had ended up on the floor. No, she was certain someone had thrown it to get her attention. For a moment, a man wearing dark coveralls and a white expressionless mask entered her mind. However, if it had been him, it seemed unlikely that he would have been satisfied with merely spooking her—unless he had been toying with her to see her reaction. If that was the case, then she highly doubted he was through with her, yet.
Megan considered telling the project manager about the incident, but she didn't want to do anything that could potentially jeopardize her new job. She really needed it to pay for her apartment. The threat of possible death didn't scare her nearly as much as her father's boss' indecent proposition. And the fact that her own parents had encouraged her to accept it...well, that was when she had decided to leave home.
The memory of that night still made Megan shudder. Yes, she would rather die than move back in with her parents. She just hoped others would not pay the price for her tenacity.