(The Loud House! and/or other related titles are rightfully owned by Nickelodeon)
(This is a work of fanfiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the writer's imagination or are used fictitiously. All statements, activities, stunts, descriptions, information, and material of any kind contained herein are included for entertainment purposes only and should not be relied on for accuracy. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.)
Chapter Five:
Until They Came to...
The Pingrey Residence...
Leslie Pingrey sat on a wooden chair in the dining room in front of the dinner table, her arms folded across her chest, a very stern-looking scowl clearly written on her face. Her fingers impatiently drummed against her arm. She looked down at her wristwatch, her brows knitting together when she saw the time. It had just turned 4:30. He was late. Big time. She reached for her phone that was stuffed in her left pocket.
She shook her head when she saw the brightly lit screen, and the number of unanswered phone calls that she had sent to her son, the ones that had went straight to voicemail each and every time after she tried to dial his number. A frustrated sigh escaped from the Pingrey mother's throat, and she stuffed her phone back down into her pants pocket.
Conner, you are really starting to push my buttons right now. she said mentally. Leslie pushed away from the dinner table and stood up to her feet from her respective chair. She pulled out her cellphone one more time, and then dialed in her son's phone number - only for it to go straight to voicemail, just like the last five times that she had called him. This only managed to make her irritated even more. She was really going to give that boy a piece of her mind when he gets home.
"You might as well just give it a rest, Mom," said Carol, entering into the dining room with a small stack of porcelain dinner plates in her arms. "He's clearly not going to answer back."
"Yeah, but still," Leslie growled under her breath, gritting her teeth. She stuffed her phone back into her pocket. "That boy is seriously treading on very thin ice right now."
"He's probably trying to flake out of his punishment as we speak," Cassy added in casually, who sat in a cushioned armchair in the living room on the opposite right from the dinner table, fiddling with her own phone. "Knowing my brother, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised at all if he actually was."
"Now, Cassy," warned a grown man's voice. Walter Pingrey, Leslie's husband and family patriarch, emerged from the kitchen with a handful of silverware and napkins, and he placed them on the dinner table for a moment. Walter was a forty-something year old man with a full head of golden blond hair that was combed to the side and a nicely grown moustache. He was dressed in a pair of fine blue pants, a formal green-blue sweater and a bright-blue button up underneath, where the collar were folded over the sweater.
"Your brother is a lot of things," he continued. "But a flake is not one of them. He knows better than to try and test his limits with us. We gave him the talk the other day, remember? I mean, for all we know, he could have mistakenly taken a wrong turn somewhere, that's all. Or at least I hope he didn't."
"Well, let's hope he steers clear away from Grover Street," Carol commented, a small pinch of a worried tone in her voice. "Seriously, that area makes Detroit look almost like Disneyland. I know it's an exaggeration, but you guys know what I meant."
"That still doesn't excuse or explain why he won't pick up his ding dang phone!" Leslie grunted, trying for the sixth time to call her son until - voicemail again. She grumbled frustratingly. When the voicemail had beeped, she let it out, recording her message.
"You are seriously pushing your luck, young man!" she just about shouted into the phone's receiver. "Would it really kill you to pick up your phone whenever I call you?! When you get back home, you better hope I don't find out that you turned your phone off! Because if that happens to be the case, the word 'grounded' will not even begin to describe the trouble that's waiting for you!"
With that, she hung up and put her cellphone back into her pocket again. She sat back down on the chair, and she massaged her temples after letting out another tired sigh. Walter came over and placed two relaxing hands on his wife's shoulders, and he gently massaged her. Leslie groaned in relief, the tension within her back now loosening up.
"Calm down, honey," he soothed. "We will talk to Conner when he gets home." Leslie looked up at her husband's face and she smiled at him. She let out another sigh as she now hung her head low. She was just about reaching near her wits' end with that boy. Just when after Carol came back from the kitchen to help set up the dinner table, the house phone suddenly rang loudly throughout the house.
"I'll get it!" she said after putting down a handful of napkins. She walked up to the house phone that rested on a mahogany lamp table next to the living room coach up against the living room window. She grabbed the receiver and held it up to her left ear.
"Pingrey Residence, how may I help you?" she answered formally. Her face brightened when she heard a familiar voice from the other line. "Oh, hey, Lori. How's it going?... Whoa, whoa, slow down a bit. What...? Conner...? Oh, thank goodness. Do you know where he is? We haven't seen him all day today." Carol's face fell into a confused look when she heard the next few words come pouring out from the other side of the phone.
"What? What's he doing over at your place?..." What she heard next caused her expression to instantly change from confusion to dread. She then let out a terrified gasp and she covered her mouth with her other hand.
Leslie and Walter looked at each other in confusion and concern and they both maneuvered over to Carol's location to try and get a better understanding on what was happening. Cassy scooted on closer to her older sister, looking up at her concernedly. Carol's breathing quickened as Lori explained everything on the other line. She felt like she was going to cry at any minute now.
"Oh my gosh!" she muttered fearfully, putting a trembling hand to her chest. "I-Is he alright? Please, tell me he's okay!"
Within the next few seconds, Carol's eyes widened, and her mouth practically hung open at the information that was spoken to her from the other side of the phone. Her grip slightly loosened around the house phone, which made it almost fall right out of her hand. She looked like she was just a moment or two away from having a panic attack. She could not believe what she was hearing. She truly just could not at all believe what she was hearing. This couldn't be real. It just couldn't be.
Carol pulled herself back together and spoke again into the phone.
"Send me a picture of him to my phone right away!" she commanded. "... Lori, please! I have to see for myself! I have to know if he's alright!... Well, send it to me anyway!... Yeah... Okay... Good... A-Alright... I'll-I'll see you then... Bye." With that, Carol hung up the house phone. She stood there for a moment in complete shock of everything her friend had just explained to her. She covered her mouth with both hands, and she shook her head.
There was no possible way this was happening. No way at all.
"Oh my gosh," she muttered tremblingly as she leaned her back against the front door. Her eyes shut tightly as tears poured out from her eyes and trickled down her face. Both of her legs started to quake like gelatin as her heart thumped faster in her heaving chest.
"Carol, what happened?" Mr. Pingrey asked worriedly.
"Yeah, what did Lori say?" Mrs. Pingrey added. Mascara-stained tears continued to run down Carol's face as she made a hard sniff. She looked up at her parents.
"Guys!" she said, choking on a sob. "I-It's Conner! Lori said he got mugged!" Upon hearing the word "mugged" escape from the Pingrey girl's mouth, Walter, Leslie, and Cassy gasped in alarm.
"What?!" Mrs. Pingrey exclaimed, turning to face her husband. "He was mugged?!" The two parents turned back to face Carol. Carol nodded her head, her throat tightening as well as her heart falling heavily with emotion.
"Carol, are you sure you heard her correctly?" Walter asked cautiously, looking at his eldest daughter square in the eye.
"Yes, Dad!" his oldest daughter cried. "I'm sure! She said that Conner was attacked, and that they ambushed him in an alley! They stole all his stuff; his backpack, his money, his phone, everything! They even took his clothes!" Carol placed the palm of her hand on her forehead as more tears trickled down her face, spittle threatening to escape from the far corners of her lips.
"A-And... And..." she hesitated for a second. "T-They... They beat him!" The other three Pingreys stared wide-eyed at Carol, completely taken aback by the shock of what they had just heard.
"What?!" exclaimed a worried Leslie. "They beat him?!" Carol nodded her head, after wiping away a few tears.
"Carol, what do you mean by that?" Walter questioned, hoping to God above that it wasn't what he was thinking. "What do you mean they 'beat' him?"
"I mean, they beat him, Dad!" the older Pingrey girl explained, her voice stuck in a hitch for a moment. "They beat him into a bloody pulp, within an inch of his life, even after they robbed him! I can't explain it any clearer than that!"
"How did they find him?" Cassy piped up suddenly, completely dropping her whole goth persona, now very anxious to hear an answer.
"Lori said her brother, Lincoln, found him like that in an alley, over at Grover Street, of all places!" Carol explained as she wiped more tears from her face. "She also said her mother got off the phone with the hospital a minute ago! An ambulance is on their way right now!"
Leslie covered her mouth, and she shook her head again, wanting to refuse to believe what she had just heard, as tears of her own threatened to escape her eyes. Walter placed a heavy hand to his chest. There was no way this was happening. There was just no possible way at all that this was happening. Suddenly, a loud yet also slightly muffled ding was heard close by. It was Carol's cellphone.
Carol pulled out her phone and she saw that it was a message... from Lori. A feeling of uneasiness and dread came over her, as Carol knew what this meant. She, Leslie, and Walter sat down on the coach along with Cassy as the four Pingreys stared down at the small screen in suspense. They all looked at each other, completely unsure of what they were about to see, and hoping that it wasn't as bad as Lori described it to be. They looked back down at the phone.
Carol nervously gulped down a lump in her throat, her hands trembling with anxiety. Time for the moment of truth...
The rest of the family steeled themselves as she hesitantly swiped her finger across the screen and...
Words just could not even begin to describe their level of shock and adult fear as they stared at the photo that took up most of the phone's screen. Leslie shook her head in alarm, her face stricken with dread, her blood running cold throughout her body. She folded her hands against her face, her tear-stained eyes refusing to look away from what she was now seeing, desperately wishing for all of this to only be a bad dream.
Cassy felt her lower lip begin to tremble as her pale cheeks turned a bright red, tears welling up quickly in her eyes. Walter just stared completely alarmed by what he was looking at, his heartrate beating faster within his chest.
What they all saw was a taken picture of Conner laying down on the Loud family's living room couch, quite possibly asleep, covered up with a thick-looking wool blanket that stopped at the lower half of his torso. From what they could see, he was almost covered in darkly-colored bruises and reddish scrapes and cuts, around his arms, his shoulders, his lower torso, you name it. An oxygen mask was worn over his mouth and nose, and his right eye was black and swollen.
His left hand was bandaged up and a black splint was worn over it. His upper chest was covered in fresh-looking bandages as well. The lower right corner of the blanket was moved aside to reveal Conner's bandaged foot, a very small lump around the ankle. All eyes of the Pingrey family stared down at the screen, their faces stricken with horror. Lori was most definitely not exaggerating.
"This is not happening!" Leslie sobbed, holding a frightened Cassy close to her. "M-My boy! My baby boy!"
"Conner... No," Cassy muttered, her quivering voice laced with heartache, tears running down her face.
All Walter could do was just helplessly stare at the screen, uncertain of however else to react upon seeing his son, his own flesh and blood looking like this. His one thought was that if he had some kind of a superpower, he would use it to teleport through that tiny screen and embrace his little boy into a warm hug and tell him that everything was going to be alright.
There was nothing else the Pingrey father wanted more than to see Conner back home, safe and sound. But he knew that simply staying here and thinking about it was not going to make it happen. Another thought had suddenly come to him. That was it. Perhaps they could still be able to see him before the ambulance arrives. With this in his mind, Walter stood up from the coach and went for his jacket hanging on the coat rack. The rest of the family looked at him in confusion.
"Come on!" he ordered, as if he had read their minds. "We're going to drive over to the Louds' house! That's where he's staying at, right? If we get there now, we might still be able to see him before the ambulance shows up!" With this, the Pingreys followed after the family patriarch outside to the front yard of their house and they all quickly hopped inside of their parked Sedan.
After turning on the car's engine, Walter smoothly backed the vehicle out of the driveway and out into the street, and they drove eastward down the neighborhood. His fingers coiled tightly around the steering wheel, tenseness and adult fear gripping his being, until finally, tears finally trailed down his face and his bottom lip quivered beneath his golden moustache.
"God, please help our son," he quietly prayed, as a tearful Leslie placed a consoling hand on his shoulder.
Back at the Loud House...
Lincoln sat on the opposite side of the living room couch next to the still resting Conner, silently eating his bowl of whatever of the Cajun gumbo they had saved from burning while Lynn Sr. sat in the armchair next to the couch, his folded hands resting on his lap. Both father and son turned their gazes over to the boy, watching him sleep so peacefully, his now bandaged chest slowly rising and lowering from each breath he took, with some added help from the oxygen mask.
Conner's head was slightly turned to his left, so as a means to keep the icepack on his black eye balanced and from falling off to the side. The rest of the Louds - minus Rita, who sat in the second armchair in one corner of the living room close to the TV set - were in their respective bedrooms, waiting anxiously for the ambulance to arrive, each one of them dealing with this whole situation in their own way.
Lori, laying down on her bed in her and Leni's bedroom, texted her long-distance boyfriend, Bobby Santiago, everything that had transpired. Bobby was just shocked to learn of the ordeal and he prayed that this kind of thing would never happen to his own little sister, Ronnie Anne. Leni sat down on her own bed while slowly brushing her hair with a solemn countenance on her face, the image of a badly injured Conner still fresh in her mind.
Never in her life did she feel like running downstairs and wanting to give this boy the best comforting hug ever and cradle him like a little baby. That was Leni for you, a total sweetheart who would give anyone, even total strangers, some tender, love, and care. Luna sat on her beanbag chair, silently fiddling with the strings of her electric guitar.
She sighed quietly as she mentally wished that the ambulance would just hurry up already and help the poor little dude. Luan simply laid down flat on her back on her respective bottom bunk trying to jot down a creative joke or a clever pun on her notepad as best she could, just so she could try and get what had happened out of her head, with little success. She turned her head to see her ventriloquist dummy, Mr. Coconuts, sitting on top of the dresser drawer across the room.
"I don't suppose you could say something to lighten the mood up, eh Mr. Coconuts?" the comedian muttered.
Sorry, tuts, she imagined him saying. I ain't got nothin' for ya.
Lynn Jr. only laid down on her own bed in her bedroom, staring up at the poster of one of her favorite baseball teams that was pinned firmly up at the ceiling. She frowned and her face glowered. Her teeth clenched in anger, as she thought about whoever those three were that had the utmost gall to do this to a defenseless little kid like Conner.
If she ever got the chance to find the ones responsible for this catastrophe, she was going to turn them into human pretzels, show them how it feels to be scared and defenseless. But still, it was kind of odd to know that the kid resting in their living room couch was the same kid who tried to steal Lincoln's Zombie Bran cereal a year ago back at the grocery store. And said kid was also biologically related to none other than Carol Pingrey, her sister's former rival, a fact that Lynn could not get out of her head.
But even though this Conner kid had tried to steal her brother's cereal a long time ago, it did not mean he deserved to be viciously beaten like an animal. Lucy rested on top of her own bed right across from Lynn's, tightly holding the bust of her favorite vampire character, Edwin, from her favorite vampire television show against her chest, her doom and gloom-clouded mind still lingering on the whole Conner situation.
She shook her head and her frown deepened, feeling absolutely disgusted by the fact that any person who dared to call themselves human would commit such a horrendous action on a young boy who was no older than her dear brother.
Never in her life did she ever wish to be turned into a vampire so desperately right now, just so she could go out find the three heartless monsters who committed this crime and drain them up of all their blood until their corpses were nothing but withering husks. Just the mere idea that they had beaten this kid up so badly to near death even after they had stolen from him out of pure sadism, it was enough to make her ill to her stomach, and it made her want to cry at the same time.
Lola and Lana were completely silent in their room as the Loud twins tried to find ways to occupy themselves. The little pageant queen sat at the edge of her bed, trying to find whatever there was of comfort in her surrounding stuffed animals, while her mechanic fanatic of a twin sister watched her pet lizard, Izzy, sleeping under the warm heater lamp just above the glass cage.
And then finally, there was Lisa and Lily. Lily simply sat down on the bedroom floor drawing on a piece of paper with some Crayola crayons, while the five-year-old scientific genius tried to write down on her black chalkboard what would be the proper ingredients for some kind of a healing potion that could speedily aid in helping Conner in his road to recovery.
Back downstairs in the living room, Lincoln and his parents remained as they were before, keeping watch on Conner as he soundly slept on the couch. Lynn Sr. looked down at his wristwatch. The ambulance should be here any minute by now. He sighed under his breath, as did Lincoln. Rita anxiously tapped her fingers on the cushioned arm of her armchair.
Before she could even get the chance to open her mouth, a distant yet growing siren was heard, which had instantly alerted the entire house. The rest of the Loud siblings carefully ran downstairs into the living room in a near straight line, each one of them standing either behind or on the sides of the couch. The Loud parents got up from their respective seats and darted for the front door. After opening it, they saw that the ambulance had already just pulled up against the front of the house.
"Oh, thank goodness," Rita muttered. She then turned to Lincoln, and she nodded her head at her son, signaling him on what to do. Lincoln nodded in response after understanding what she meant, got off from the couch, carefully placed his bowl of slightly burnt gumbo on the coffee table, and moved over to Conner's side, gently removing the blanket and the two icepacks.
"Hey, wake up," Lincoln whispered, gently nudging Conner on the shoulder until the Pingrey boy stirred awake. He groaned a bit and he blinked a couple times before eyeing Lincoln.
"W-What...?" Conner managed to say.
"I'm sorry to wake you up," Lincoln said, flashing Conner a kind smile, "but an ambulance has just arrived. They're gonna take you to the hospital."
"You hear that, little dude?" Luna said from behind the couch. "It means you're gonna be okay." All of the girls looked at each other in relief and turned back to look down at Conner. Before Lincoln could move aside from the couch, Conner reached out and quickly seized him by the wrist. A suddenly alarmed Lincoln looked down at him, confused.
"T-Thank y-you..." Conner managed to say.
Lincoln offered him another kind smile and he nodded his head at him. Once after Conner let go, Lincoln moved to the side, and he saw his parents greet two paramedics inside through the front door, the two men carrying with them a folding stretcher. Lynn Sr. told them both the full story of what happened as he moved to Conner's side, and carefully took off the oxygen mask from the boy's face and turned the oxygen concentrator off.
The two paramedics moved the stretcher up close to the couch and folded it down to Conner's level.
"Be careful with his ankle," the one paramedic told the other. "It looks pretty bad." With that, the two of them lifted Conner up from the couch and they carefully maneuvered him onto the stretcher. They buckled one strap across his chest as a precautionary measure to keep him from falling off. The stretcher was then folded back upward to midriff level.
The two men wheeled the stretcher outside, the Loud family following after them and watching them from the front porch. Just as soon as the paramedics had carefully made their way down the four steps, the Louds spotted a certain 2014 white Sedan parking up right in front of their house, blocking the path of the garage driveway and they saw none other than the Pingrey family speedily climbing out of the vehicle, Carol, Cassie, Leslie, and Walter.
"Carol!" Lori called out, before embracing her friend into a comforting hug. The two parted after and the older Pingrey sibling looked at Lori.
"W-We drove here as fast as we could when we got the photo!" Carol explained, her face freshly stained with tears.
"Is our brother going to be okay?" Cassy asked worriedly. Lori paused for only a moment as she looked at the two Pingrey sisters with an uncertain expression.
"I don't know for certain, Cass" the eldest Loud sibling muttered as they turned to watch Leslie and Walter follow after Conner and the paramedics. "But I sure do hope he is."
"No, please! We have to see him!" they heard Mrs. Pingrey say.
"Ma'am, I'm sorry!" said one of the paramedics. "But you're gonna have to move aside and let us through!"
"You don't understand!" exclaimed Walter pleadingly. "He's our son!"
"We do understand, sir!" said the other paramedic. "But we gotta do our job and get him to the hospital!"
"M-Mom...?" Conner groaned. "D-Dad...?" Upon hearing her son's small voice, Leslie turned to face the boy who laid down on the stretcher. She reached out and grabbed his right hand and held it lovingly. She gave him a reassuring smile.
"It's alright, baby!" she said, tears streaming down her eyes. "We're here! Mommy and Daddy are here! You're going to be okay!" Mrs. Pingrey had to be gently forced by the paramedics to let go of the boy's hand, allowing them to ease both him and the stretcher inside through the back of the ambulance. Conner reached his weak hand desperately out to his mother, fresh tears of own beginning to run down his reddening bruised face.
"M-Mom...!" he whimpered pleadingly. Seeing her little boy's crying face and hearing his little voice like that pierced right through Leslie's heart. She turned around and wept heavily into her husband's chest. Walter held her closely, wrapping his comforting arms around her back, choking on a sob. The Pingrey patriarch looked up to the one paramedic, who simply gave him a wholehearted sympathetic look.
"Please, help our son," Walter croaked.
"Don't worry, sir," the paramedic said, placing an assuring hand on the man's shoulder and then nodded. "We promise, your boy is in good hands now."
And with that, the paramedic climbed into the back of the ambulance, and he shut the door nice and tight. In a few seconds, the ambulance easily drove out of the sidewalk in front of the Loud house, and the Pingreys and the Louds helplessly watched as the vehicle drove away, sirens eventually blaring out into the distance. The Louds crowded around the married couple, along with Carol and Cassy, and did their best to comfort the now distraught family.
"What do we do now?" Leslie muttered tearfully. "What can we do now?"
"I don't know, Les," Rita said, putting a calming hand on her shoulder. "I guess all we can do now is just pray." As this was going on, Lincoln silently watched as the distant ambulance drove away until it was now but a small red and white dot, the faint sound of the siren just barely audible.
He placed a closed hand to his small chest, and he sighed quietly, a solemnly worried expression on his face.
Get better soon, Conner, he mentally said. We'll see you later tomorrow.
