Chapter 2: Arrived in Chamberlain

Date: Monday 21st June 2021

Time: 1:10am

Location: Apartment at Anderson East Estates, Chicago

A boy, the name of Trevor, ate and watched a video on his camera phone. In the video, a car was on the move. At the same time, his mother: Callie, was cutting his hair. The hair dropped into his bowl. They sat in their apartment near the front door. Trevor was put off by the hair and reminded her mother he was trying to eat breakfast.

"Ugh. Mom, I'm trying to eat breakfast." Trevor said.

"Almost done." Callie said, as she informed him. "Aw, your mustache is really coming in."

"MOM!" Trevor yelled.

Callie touched it. He recoiled in annoyance.

*LIGHT BUZZING*

The power in the apartment hummed. Callie looked up at the ceiling and turned her head.

"PHOEBE!" Callie yelled out to her daughter.

Callie inadvertently tagged.

"OW!" Trevor yelled, as his right ear with the electric shaver by her mother.

Trevor recoiled and touched his ear then he looked at his hand. Callie turned off the buzzer. Trevor was angered that he was bleeding.

"I'm bleeding! You made me bleed!" Trevor growled.

"You'll live." Callie said, as she turned to Trevor. "PHOEBE!"

Callie walked into her daughter's bedroom. Callie looked at her daughter: Phoebe was crouched down near an electrical outlet.

"Uh- What are you doing?" Callie asked her daughter.

The panel was gone and a hole was present where it used to be on the wall. Phoebe turned around and informed her mother.

"Neighbor's electricity is running out of phase. I tied in, bumped us up to 220." Phoebe said.

As she spoke, Phoebe's bright headlight shined into her mother's face. Callie told her to take off the headlight as she turned away and held out her hand.

"Now I can run my lathe." Phoebe said.

"And you didn't think to ask me?" Callie asked.

"I mean, you just demonstrated zero aptitude for science." Phoebe said, as she stood up and took her head lamp off and put it away.

"Uh-huh. Got it." Callie said, as she got it and noticed her hair drier on a pile.

"You're better at other things. Like quesadillas." Phoebe said.

"My hair dryer." Callie said.

"Your quesadillas are excellent." Phoebe said.

"Thank you." Callie said.

To Callie's chagrin, there was a knock at the front door.

"Now what?" Callie asked, as she turned to knock at the front door.

"MOM!" Trevor called out to her mother.

Callie was annoyed he did not get up to answer the door.

"Really? You don't have legs?" Callie asked.

"I'm not an adult." Trevor said.

Phoebe took her head lamp and turned.

Callie opened the front door just as the landlord was about to post something on it.

"I'm literally just leaving to pick up a check right now." Callie said.

"You win lottery?" The landlord asked.

"Kind of. My father died." Callie said.

The landlord naturally reacted to the bad news.

"Relax. I didn't even know him. I'm surprised he left me anything." Callie said.

"Sounds like my father." The landlord said.

"Yeah? Did your dad abandon your family and move to a farm in the middle of nowhere?" Callie asked.

"No." The landlord said.

"Look, I… I know I have not been a reliable or consistent tenant. But if you give me a week to settle some loose ends, I'll be back with everything I owe." Callie said.

The power went out. There was a thud sound. The landlord tried to look inside. Callie turns to her daughter.

"I can fix that!" Phoebe yelled from her room.

Callie turns to the landlord.

"Listern, I wait for you to leave, then I change the locks." The landlord said.

The landlord posted an eviction notice on the door and left. Callie took it off and closed the door.

The family made the long drive from Chicago to Chamberlain in their Subaru Outback. Callie and Phoebe sat on the Subaru car's roof while Trevor fixed something under the hood. Dusk arrived.

Date: Tuesday 22nd June 2021

Time: 8:30am

The next day, Trevor walked out of a motel to the car. Phoebe was playing with a Rubik's Cube on the rear of the car. Trevor was about to shut the rear hatch. Phoebe quickly stood up and got out of the way.

Callie drove past a ghost town and its older buildings. Sunset has arrived. The next day, they drove past a giant cowboy cutout.

Date: Wednesday 23rd June 2021

Time: 3:30am

Location: Chamberlain, Maine

They drove under a green highway sign labeled "51 Chamberlain," indicating an exit to Chamberlain, Maine.

Chamberlain's water tower stood over the town. They drove through Chamberlain, past the coffee cup: The Steaming Froth. Phoebe looked outside. Trevor held his camera phone around.

"There it is. This is Chamberlain. This is where your grandfather lived." Callie said.

"And died." Phoebe said.

"Come on. Not a single bar?" Trevor asked in concern, on his phone.

"There'd better be a bar." Callie said.

"That's funny." Phoebe replied, as she scoffed & turned her head.

They passed by farmland. Callie turned up in the driveway. There were improvised signs of wood and sheet metal flashing propped up. A part of a quote from Revelations 6:12 was spray painted on each of them in yellow. Trevor read the quote aloud:

"Behold, there was a great earthquake. The sun became as black as cloth, the seas boiled, the Moon became as blood, the skies fell. Revelation 6:12."

"Behold, there was a great earthquake. The sun became as black as cloth, the seas boiled, the Moon became as blood, the skies fell. Revelation 6:12." Trevor said.

They quote at the entrance.

"That was normal." Trevor said.

The yellow read note:

"This is how it ends."

"Hey, maybe it's a good thing you never your dad." Trevor said.

Callie in the driveway at the Farmhouse.

"Great. You didn't tell us we inherited a murder house." Trevor said, as he got out of the car, took one look at the Farmhouse.

Trevor grabbed her backpack & walked. Phoebe looked around. "DIRT" was tagged in yellow on the side of a slowly collapsing barn.

"And just think. Now all of this is ours." Trevor said, as he sarcastically proclaimed all of it was now theirs & turned around.

Phoebe shielded her eyes with a hand and looked up at the satellites on the roof. Callie tried to open the front door but it was locked. She bent over, lifted up the mat and looked for a key.

"Pheebs, be a dear and break into your grandfather's house." Callie said, as she turned to Phoebe.

Callie walked around and tried to look through the window. Phoebe knelt in front of the door and picked the lock. Trevor walked around to get a signal on his phone. He noticed the rusted cars in various states of salvage. Phoebe got lock clicks.

"Nice." Callie said.

Phoebe got the door open.

"Oh, boy." Callie said, as she was pleased but took one look at the interior and became concerned.

Phoebe looked up at something in the house. Callie headed to the room on the immediate left, the study.

"Not a single photo." Callie scoffed at the lack of any photographs.

Callie looked at a tall stack of books taller than her. Phoebe looked up at a sequence of numbers carved on the boards near the ceiling. Part of the sequence of years read:

"...381 1432 1501 1596 1607 1782 182..."

Callie looked at the armchair and the rips.

"Rats." Callie said.

Phoebe picked up a miniature statue of Zuul standing on two legs. As Trevor walked inside and stepped into the house.

"You gotta see the gold mine of junk I found out back." Trevor said.

"Great." Callie said.

But Trevor looked around and realized the house.

"Oh, my god, this is so much worse than I thought it was gonna be." Trevor said.

Trevor walked and looked around and realized the house was worse than he thought it was going to be, Tervor turned around more than Phoebe thought and a miniature statue of Zuul standing on two legs.

*RUMBLING*

The house started to shake. Callie looked down & realized it was an earthquake and ordered Trevor & Phoebe to turn around.

"UNDER THE DINING TABLE NOW!" Callie yelled to her kids, as she ran and hide at the table.

Trevor & Phoebe turned to their mother. Phoebe picked down a miniature statue of Zuul, Trevor dropped a backpack, the kids were running & hiding the table.

"Phoebe." Callie said, as she hid with her daughter hiding the table.

Callie, Trevor, and Phoebe look around to see the earthquake.

"Remember that summer we died under a table?" Trevor asked.

"Of course this place is built on a fault line." Callie said.

"Probably just fracking." Phoebe said.

"It's fracking annoying, is what it is." Callie said.

The earthquake stopped. As Trevor took solace in the fact.

"It's okay, we're only here for a week." Trevor said.

"Um… Give or take." Callie said, as she hesitated and clarified.

Phoebe and Trevor looked at their mother.

"What does that mean?" Trevor asked.

Callie was silent then finally told the truth they were staying permanently.

"It means we're staying." Callie said.

Phoebe noticed the P.K.E. Meter, still under the armchair.

"You said we'd only be here for a week!" Trevor replied, as he reminded her mother.

"Yeah, well, that was before they got evicted." Callie said.

Phoebe stepped out from under the table & went over and grabbed it.

"You said you had money saved up." Trevor said.

"That was before I had children." Callie said.

Callie stepped out from under the table. Trevor hit his head on the table.

"To be fair, you've never good with money." Phoebe said, as she pointed out to her mother.

"Thanks, Pheebs." Callie said.

Phoebe held the P.K.E. Meter. Trevor walked over to his sister. Callie turn & support.

"What's that?" Trevor asked his sister.

"How am I supposed to know?" Phoebe asked her brother.

Trevor grabbed at the top of the meter but Phoebe pulled it out his grasp. After another earthquake rocked Chamberlain, Maine. The woman walked in through the front door & inside the Farmhouse and was surprised to see Callie, Trevor, and Phoebe inside already.

"Can I help you?" The woman asked.

Callie turned to her. The woman looked at Phoebe and Trevor. Trevor sat on the armchair. She looked back at Callie. She was at a loss for words and eventually blurted out the house was her father's.

"Uh- Hi. We're the, um- The-" Callie said, as she looked down. "This was my father's place."

The woman turned and looked at Phoebe and Trevor again and waved.

"Hi." The woman said.

"Hi." Trevor said.

"Hi." Phoebe said.

They greeted her back.

"I'm Janine Melnitz. We spoke on the phone. I was your father's- You know, we were friends. Very sorry for your loss." Janine replied.

"It's okay. You knew him better than me. I should be sorry for your loss." Callie said.

"I just tried to keep the bills paid on time, that kind of thing." Janine said, downplayed her role and claimed.

"Like a money manager?" Callie asked.

"There was no money to manage. He could barely keep the power on." Janine said.

Phoebe and Trevor exchanged looks.

"So he left us nothing?" Callie asked, with a smile.

"Well, I wouldn't say that." Janine said, as she walked closer towards Callie and revealed.

"There was quite a bit of debt." Janine said.

As Callie was stunned. Phoebe and Trevor looked at them.

"Ms. Melnitz, I'm here to sign forms, pack the silverware, and leave with a rent check. Are you telling me this place is worthless?" Callie asked.

"You mean, aside from the sentimental value?" Janine asked.

(Meanwhile…)

At the old rundown house of 47 Carlin Street, Chamberlain, the home of a certain religious fanatic known throughout town, a young and lonely girl with strawberry blonde hair awoke, slowly got out of bed, and went over to the window where the curtains were closed.

Opening the curtains and leaning on the window sill, she looked out at the rising sun and dreaded the day of school that lay ahead, particularly after what had happened the previous Friday in the showers immediately after gym class finished in the late morning.

"Lord, our father in heaven,"

"If you can hear my prayers, then please help me."

"I don't want to be alone anymore,"

"I want to be a confident person and fit in with all the others at school,"

"Please send someone, or anyone, to rid me of my loneliness,"

"And to give me the confidence I really need to be who I want to be."

"That's all I ask in your name, amen."

After a few moments of quiet reflecting, a girl, the name of Carrie White, turned away from the window and set about getting ready for the day ahead, completely unaware that fate and destiny were on her side; the answer to her prayers was on a flight right now and when they met, he would help to change her life for the better.

To Be Continued…