"So what are we going to do once we get inside his house? Are we going to be stuck in there?" Cody asked quietly.
"Not if we don't want to be. I'm pretty sure we can get out through the glass door and make it to back to the woods without being seen. We'll just have to make sure that old lady isn't in her front yard when we go. She's the only house on the street that could see us and even if she did look out at just the right time, the angle from her house is terrible. Once we get inside I think we'll be okay to come and go as we please."
The twins had been sitting a dozen yards deep in the woods diagonally behind Arwin's house for over an hour as the sun slowly went down. Zack was squinting into the darkness trying to make out any movement on the street, especially the old woman's house, while Cody was busy smashing mosquitoes against his skin.
"If we stay out here much longer, we won't need to break in to his house and fix the box since we'll be dried out husks," he whispered as he smeared another one on his calf.
"We can't do anything until that old woman goes to bed," Zack reminded him as he absently swatted one himself. "Her front windows look right out on Arwin's side door."
"I know, but this is awful. It's still a million degrees and there's bugs everywhere and I need to pee."
"We're in the woods, Cody. Go find a tree. Nobody will see you." Zack absently gestured at the nearest maple tree.
"I'm not worried about being seen. I'm worried about stepping in a hole or stumbling through poison ivy."
"Then stand up and turn around. Just be sure to aim downhill so it doesn't run back on us."
"I'll take a few steps, thanks. There's enough moonlight for that." Zack heard his brother walk away and tried to ignore the thunderous sound splattering behind and focus on the woman's house. He readjusted his position as the noise petered out and Cody rejoined him.
"I don't know what she can possibly be doing in there," Zack grumbled. "Aren't old people supposed to be in bed by nine? I swear, if she stays up to watch the late news I'm-there we go!" Zack pumped a fist in the dark as the living room light in the woman's house finally went out. "We'll give her five minutes and then we'll get on it."
Zack's hands went to the myriad of small pockets on Cody's pack and dug for his phone. "It's going to be our make-shift flashlight," he told Cody when he saw his brother's questioning look. "I could probably do it in the moonlight but this won't hurt." He pressed the button and the screen glared to life. Zack checked the battery level before pressing it against his chest until it dimmed.
The minutes trickled by and Zack was ready with his phone and library card in one hand and the strap of the backpack in the other. He silently mouthed let's go and gave the pack to Cody. They crept through the woods and paused at the edge of the grass for a moment while they gave one last look and listen. Satisfied that the coast was as clear as it was going to get, they moved quickly through Arwin's back yard.
"What if he has a floodlight with one of those motion sensors?" Cody whispered as they neared the halfway point.
"What a great time to have that idea!" Zack replied. "It's too late now, keep moving." They crossed the rest of the short grass and soon were standing on the concrete patio on the back of the house. Zack's first stop was the large glass sliding door and he gave the handle a light pull. He hadn't expected it to be unlocked and wasn't disappointed. He scampered around to the side door and leaned against the wall.
"What do you want me to do?" Cody asked as he stood by nervously.
"Be my lookout. Tell me if you see anyone coming down the sidewalk." Zack returned his attention to the door knob and powered on his phone again. The quiet sounds of lock picking seemed incredibly loud in the boys' ears as Zack worked.
"How's it going?"
"Not as well as I had hoped," Zack answered. "This door is a lot more flush against the frame than the one I saw Paul open and it's harder."
"Wonderful. If you can't get it, you can't get it. Let's just get out of here." Cody retreated from the front of the house and stood close by.
"Just give me another minute. I almost had it a second ago."
"It's a good thing there isn't a deadbolt."
"You know, you really aren't helping things here, brother," Zack hissed. He felt a split second of success before the library card slipped and all progress was lost. "Dammit. You're making me nervous, Cody. Go check the back of the house or something."
Cody walked back to the rear of the house and looked around. A cobblestone path led off from the patio and wound its way through a small garden. He walked partially along it and stopped suddenly. "What's this?" he mumbled as he stepped back and took another look down at his feet. One of the stones didn't reflect the moonlight quite the same as the others. Cody smiled to himself as he squatted down and picked the stone up, not surprised in the least at its light weight. He flipped it over and saw a small panel and immediately slid it open to discover a key. He quickly replaced the plastic stone and scurried back to his brother.
"Give me one more minute, Cody. If I don't get it by then we'll go."
"No, let me try," he said as an idea struck him. "I can't be any worse at it than you are. Maybe I'll get lucky." He palmed the key as Zack handed over the phone and card in a huff.
"Fine, have at it. It's harder than it looks, you know."
"I'll find out." Cody moved into position and pretended to fumble with the card and light for a few seconds before sliding the key into the lock. This better be Arwin's key and not the old owners' or I'm going to look like a fool, he thought as he moved his body to screen Zack a bit more before twisting the key. He heard the tumblers turning and gave the knob a turn and removed the key at the same time. "Presto!" he said as he pushed the door open to Zack's amazement.
They were both inside the house and had the door closed behind them in less than three seconds. "So how many houses have you broken into, Cody? Is there something you want to tell me?"
"It really wasn't that hard. I got the card against little slidey part and fiddled with it. When I figured that wasn't going to work, I used the key I found in his garden," Cody told him, flashing the key.
"He had a key in his garden?" Zack shook his head.
"Yep. In one of those fake rocks that's supposed to look real but doesn't. We'll have to tell Arwin to hide his key better when we get back to Boston. Our Boston."
"That's not going to be an issue, Cody. Arwin isn't coming back here again. I'll make sure of it personally," Zack spat and Cody couldn't disagree. "Let's check this place out. Keep quiet and don't turn on any lights. Get your phone out if you want."
Cody did just that, leaving the backpack on the kitchen counter for the time being. They walked with their screens pointed at the floor and took in the layout of the house. The dining room was right beside the kitchen and the living room was a few feet away behind a half wall with a hallway leading into the darkness.
"Bedrooms and bathroom down that way, I bet," Cody said as they walked through the dining room, his eyes locked on the massive, thick dinosaur of a television sitting in the entertainment center. "And a split-level den," he added as they turned the corner to see three steps down to another room with an equally large television on the far wall.
"Yep, there's the glass door," Zack said as he stepped into the room and peeked behind the brown curtain and out into the darkened yard. He looked around, doing his best to avoid laying eyes on the two garish couches along the walls. "And another door to a basement." He opened the door and looked into the gloom.
"We'll check that later," Cody said and Zack closed the door. They quickly swept through the back of the house and found the bedrooms and bathroom before returning to the kitchen. Zack immediately went to the refrigerator.
"Wish me luck," he said as he pulled the door. Cody had wanted to search the house for usable materials but the second the light inside the 'fridge popped on, those ideas were banished. Lunch meat, milk, eggs, and an assortment of leftovers nearly filled the interior of the machine. He licked his lips unconsciously. "Jackpot," Zack said as he started pulling things out and setting them on the nearest counter.
"Looks like he has definitely been coming back here regularly," Cody noted, pointing to the expiration date on a package of salami. "Still almost two weeks away."
"I should be pissed off about that but I'm too hungry to care right now," Zack told him as he began assembling a triple-decker sandwich. Cody agreed as he fixed a smaller sandwich for himself.
A quick search through the cabinets and the pantry found loads of canned goods and eventually glasses. They chose the largest of the glassware and filled two of them with milk, leaving the plastic container on the counter for easy refills. Standing next to the counter with the refrigerator door still open to provide light, the boys devoured their late dinner in minutes. Zack belched.
"That saved us a lot of money," Cody said as he cleaned up the few remains of their feast. Zack wiped the back of his hand over his mouth and brushed the crumbs to the floor.
"No kidding. There's enough food here to last us at least a week. Heck, maybe even two. Plenty of time for you to figure out how to fix the box."
Cody inwardly groaned when Zack brought repairing the time machine up. Zack was ironclad in his belief that Cody could fix it but all Cody wanted to do was throw up his hands each time he thought about what might be hiding inside the plastic housing. What if there was some sort of futuristic alloy in there? How could he get more of that if it was needed? He shook his head and pushed the thoughts away.
"You okay, buddy?"
"Huh?" Cody returned to reality to see Zack waving a hand in front of his face.
"You kinda zoned out there for a while."
"I was thinking."
"Anything I should know about?"
"Not really. Just stuff. Should we take a closer look around the house now?"
"I think we should wait until the morning for that. We can use the sunlight coming through the drapes and blinds to see instead of having our phones out and possibly giving ourselves away if someone looked over here at the wrong time."
"That makes sense," Cody admitted. He hadn't given stealth the slightest thought.
"We can check out the basement, though. If there aren't any windows to the outside we can make it our base and not have to hide in the dark. Come on." Zack led him back to the door and pulled it open again. Lighting the way with his phone's screen, Zack led the way down the stairs and into the darkness and nearly fell off the last step. Cody's hand flashed out and grabbed the back of Zack's collar in a death grip. "I'm good, I'm good. My foot just slipped off the end of it."
They looked around in the dim blue light and saw that the basement was nowhere near as cluttered as the office back home but was well on its way of catching up. Clutter was everywhere and stacks of who knew what were clumped randomly on the tile floor and on what had once been a ping pong table. Zack turned his phone to the ceiling and worked his eyes around the top of the walls. "Two windows," he said, "but already conveniently blacked out with cardboard or something." He walked over and prodded the corners of the window coverings until he was sure they wouldn't let out any light. "
Now that he knew they were relatively safe, Zack turned his phone down to waist level and looked for a light switch. It echoed when he threw it and the boys flinched at the sudden sound.
"Arwin really needs to get a maid," Cody said as he looked around. "Look at all this crap. At least most of the stuff in his office might be useful. This is just junk." He picked up a half-smashed Dustbuster box to prove his point before tossing it back down.
"Do you think he has some tools down here?" Zack craned his neck to peer around some of the bigger piles. "The windows are covered so that almost has to mean he's done stuff down here. He has to have tools somewhere."
"I hope so. I don't want to even think about having to take the box apart with a bread knife." The twins split up and walked around the room, pulling and pushing things out of their way as they went. Zack walked past a quartet of vacuum cleaners and ducked under a cord hanging randomly from the ceiling. Cody walked around a bicycle that had never seen a single road mile before angling toward a wall with a washer and dryer. He lifted some towels from what he assumed was a drying rack and was pleased to see a bright red toolbox with lots of little drawers and shelves on the front.
"Got it," he called out and Zack scurried over and watched as Cody rifled through them.
"Like what you see?" he asked expectantly.
"If we need any size screw, bolt, or nail it's in here, that's for sure. And some wire, too, it seems." Cody opened the top of the bin and saw a large assortment of tools inside. "That's more like it."
"Everything you need?"
"Maybe. I have to be honest, Zack. I'm not sure what some of these are even for." He pulled a rather complex looking thing from the toolbox and examined before putting it gently back in its place.
"All you'll probably need is a screwdriver, Cody. It's just a loose wire or something like that."
"I hope so." He knew Zack was trying to encourage him but the ideas of dozens of circuit boards and flux capacitors and other crazy things inside the box tempered his enthusiasm.
"You can do it. I know you can." He patted Cody on the shoulder before heading up the steps and returning a few seconds later with their backpack.
"There isn't enough room down here," Cody said, only to watch Zack take an arm and sweep nearly everything from one half of the ping pong table to the floor. Boxes clunked randomly to the floor and papers flew in all directions.
"And now there is," Zack grinned as he flicked the remaining odds and ends from the table. He grabbed one of the towels from atop the dryer and wiped the rime of dust away. "What do you think?"
"Well, it's not a NASA clean room but I think it'll have to do," he said.
"It is compared to his office," Zack said and Cody couldn't argue. He unzipped the backpack and pulled the box out, taking great care to set it gently on the table. Cody stepped closer and all the wires and screens that had been fascinating in Arwin's office now turned daunting and foreboding as he looked at them. He pushed his hair back off his forehead and exhaled deeply. He stared at the device and soon found his palms were getting sweaty.
"Cody, dude, what's wrong?" Zack asked after his brother hadn't moved in almost a minute, his father's slang rolling unnoticed from his tongue. "Cody?" He gave him a slight shake.
"What?" Cody shook his head and things swam back into focus.
"You did it again."
"What'd I do?"
"You spaced out like before. Are you okay?"
"I'm nervous, Zack. No, not just nervous. I'm scared. What if I open the box up and there's things in there I can't figure out? What will we do then?"
"We'll go live with Dad and our grandparents, I guess. But I'll tell you this, Cody; I think you can fix it, but if for some reason you can't, it won't be from a lack of trying."
"Thanks, Zack."
"No problem. You know what? Let's forget about it for the night. We're tired and smelly and the box is going absolutely nowhere. Let's grab a shower in the dark and then call it a day. We can take a good look at it when we're fresh in the morning." Zack put a brotherly arm around Cody's shoulders and turned him away from the table.
"That might be the best idea you've had all day," Cody replied as they turned to the steps.
"The best idea I've had today was breaking into Arwin's house."
"No, this is still a terrible idea," Cody laughed. "Dibs on the first shower."
"Fine. Keep it short and sweet."
"You must have me mistaken with you. I'm not the one that drains the hot water heater every night."
"Hey," Zack exclaimed with a shrug, "I get dirty."
"I bet you do," Cody laughed.
"That's not how I meant that at all...Wow."
"Of course you didn't. That's what makes it even better."
"I don't even know what to say to that. Hit the shower already." He shook his head and waved his brother away. "Oh, no lights if there's a window in the room," he called out.
"Duh."
Cody rounded the corner into the bathroom but Zack stopped in the living room and examined the window blinds and curtains. He pushed a small gap open between two of the plastic strips and peered out into the street before pulling back when he saw it was empty. He rearranged the curtains to completely cover the sides of the windows to obscure them from any prying eyes.
Zack stepped away from the window and was planning on checking the rest of the windows in the house when his eyes fell upon the entertainment center. He stepped closer only to find himself staring at a row of pictures of his mother on one of the top shelves.
"What the hell, Arwin?" he whispered as he looked them over. "That one is her Facebook profile picture, that's from one of her albums, and that one's a promo shot from the Tipton." Zack growled low in his throat as he laid all three of the frames face down on the shelf. He walked away from the entertainment center before his unfocused anger could grow any further.
Zack decided to continue his tour of the house while his brother finished up in the shower, partly to ensure their invisibility from the outside, but also to see just what else might be laying around. He skipped the den and opened the door to the first room on his left and saw nothing but bare walls. He performed his security check and then left the empty room.
The next room was the same size as the first room but it had been decorated in what could only be Middle American Guest Bedroom style. None of the furniture quite matched and the sheets on the bed looked stiff and unused. Zack pawed through the dresser and found each drawer empty except the bottom which contained a spare set of sheets and blankets. He closed the drawers and left the room, shutting the door behind him.
This has to be Arwin's bedroom, Zack thought as he pushed the last door open. Unless he doesn't sleep here. He flashed his phone around quickly and saw a bed that seemed to have been made by a drunkard. Flanking the bed on one side was a massive dresser with nearly every drawer open and clothes hanging out as if they were trying to escape. A hamper stood next to a night stand on the other side of the bed and Zack wondered how long it would be before gravity collapsed the tower of dirty clothes from the hamper to the stand. He whistled in awe of the scene.
"This makes my room look like a hospital ward," he whispered as he shook his head. He walked further into the disaster zone and heard the water shut off. He kicked random clothes out of his way as he poked around the room.
"Hey Zack? Where are you?"
"Back in Arwin's bedroom," he answered as he tried to open one of the closet doors. He pulled a little harder and it came partially open and a small avalanche of boxes and things slid down from a top shelf. "Son of a..." he muttered as he rubbed his forehead.
"You okay?" Cody appeared in the room wrapped in a towel with concern on his face.
"Yeah, I was attacked by Arwin's booby trapped closet," he said as he gave one last gingerly touch to the knot he could already feel forming just below his hairline.
"You're not bleeding at least." Cody looked down at the layer of junk that had fallen out of the closet and toed some of it over with his foot. "Why does he keep all this stuff?"
"I don't even know, Cody. It looks like he's a pack rat or a hoarder or something."
"If we do end up staying here, we could have a yard sale with all his junk and make enough money to buy whatever we need." Cody squatted down and picked up an unopened box with a picture of an alarm clock on its front.
"We won't be selling that box, though. No chance of that."
"Why not?"
"Because that is what hit me in the face. I'll be breaking it shortly."
"If you have to," Cody shrugged. "Anyway, the shower is all yours." Cody gestured toward the door and yawned. "I'll keep watch or something."
"Why don't you go ahead and hit the sack, Cody? You look like you're about to fall asleep on your feet. There's a spare bedroom across the hall that's actually clean."
"What about you?"
"After I clean up I'll either slide in there with you if you haven't taken up the whole bed or I'll sleep on one of the couches in the den."
"Just make sure you don't go to sleep commando style if you get in bed with me," Cody said as he yawned even bigger than before.
"A guy does something one time when he gets out of the shower exhausted and no one ever lets him forget about it," Zack grinned as he left the disaster of a bedroom for the steamy bathroom. He turned the water on before quickly stripping and climbing into the tub. Zack stood under the showerhead for a few long minutes before reaching for the soap. He cleaned up and rinsed off and wrapped a towel around his waist after shutting off the water.
He opened the door intent on heading downstairs to gather clean clothes from their bag when he noticed that Cody had left him a pair of underwear and a white t-shirt on the floor outside the door. He silently thanked his brother as he dried himself off and pulled up the underwear in the doorway. He was still hot from his shower and was in no mood for the shirt so he slung it over his shoulder.
He yawned and stretched and felt weariness hit him like a runaway train. His stomach had been attempting to talk him into a late-night snack while his brain wanted to explore the house further but Zack overruled them both and headed for the second bedroom. Cody had curled himself up into his usual little ball on the far side of the bed and Zack slid into the empty half. He relaxed into the mattress and sleep's grip was upon him before he knew it.
Probably not the most action-packed chapter I've ever written but it had to be done to set up what's going to happen later on. As usual, let me know what you think about it.
