Lulu quickly snapped out of her memory and turned her attention back to Johnny. She got up from he spot on Johnny's lap and headed toward the newly painted soon-to-be nursery.
As she stopped at the door, she opened it slowly. She roamed the room with her eyes. Lulu was very good at noticing the littlest things. In this case…that detail applied. She found slits in the wall, the shape of a door. She looked back to see if Johnny was anywhere close. He wasn't.
She tiptoed past the window, over to the slits. She ran her fingers lightly over the gaps in the wall.
It traced a perfect shape of a door.
She spotted a tool that Johnny had used to pry the paint tops off the jars, and ran it roughly over the lines. Once she seemed to remove all of the paint from the slits, she tried effortlessly to open the wall, but found herself weak in the knees by the time she gave up. She didn't want to tell Johnny about what she had discovered.
She knew he would blow her ideas away and make her try to forget about it. That wasn't happening. She dug the sharp tool deeper into the wall, making it crackle beneath her hands. She knew she would have to use something to cut hole into it so she could access it more easily. The thought passed her about how Johnny wouldn't have noticed the slits when he was painting. It all didn't add up.
The next day, Johnny decided to go out for some coffee. That would be a perfect time for Lulu to pry a whole in what she had found yesterday.
Once the whole was gauged out, she pried the wall away, and felt a rush of extremely cold air beat her. It was dark, and smelled unruly.
She grabbed a flashlight from the dresser and turned it on. She skimmed it around the dark room. It wasn't much space between what she had tried so hard to open , and another heavy, metal door. This scared Lulu. She knew that she should NOT have been doing what she was doing. Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. She frantically, turned the flashlight off, and went to the door, to reveal very tired Morgan. "Hey baby…are you hungry?"
Morgan rubbed his eyes and shook his head. He started to head back to his room. Lulu calmingly stroked his hair, and watched him as he disappeared into his room. Just then, the phone rang. Lulu went to get it. "Baby…" Johnny sounded rushed. "Hey Johnny."
"I'm going to stop at the ply wood store. Ill be home soon." "Okay babe, I love you." "I love you too." Just as she hung up the phone, one of the babies kicked.
She placed her hand on her stomach, and headed back toward the nursery. She quietly shut the door behind her, and grabbed her flashlight.
Lulu…this is stupid. You shouldn't be doing this. "I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU THINK! IM FINDING MY MOTHER OKAY?!" "Lulu please, be rational, you could get hurt! You'll never find her. She's been missing for 4 years now! Don't you think that its time you give this all up?" "NO! She's out there somewhere, and I'm not going to just sit around. I'm gonna find her. No matter what it takes…I'm going to find mom.
As Lulu snapped back to reality, she became tense as she stared at the metal door in front of her. She slowly stepped farther, and farther toward it, becoming more tense than before. She looked back, making sure no one was in there.
She looked back, realizing that she was perfectly at the heavy metal door. She ran her light finger tips over the huge hinges. There were two light bulbs on either side of the door, and next to her right, was a switch.
She was afraid to touch anything at that moment, and kept her eyes roaming around whatever she could find to distract her.
She ran her flashlight to her left, and found a very dark, very long hallway. This was so far from being over. She put her free hand on her stomach, and gulped.
She took a few steps backward, and practically ran out the door. She shut it behind her, and ran to her bedroom. She placed the flashlight on the edge of the bed. She slowly stripped from her clothes, and turned, heading for the bathroom. She turned the shower knob, and stepped in. She let the hot water trickle down her face, and limbs. She didn't bother to wash her body, or her hair. She just stood under the hot, steaming water. As she turned the handle to off, she stepped out, and wrapped a towel around herself.
Johnny had a shirt, it was a blue button up, long, and cuffed. He called it his safe shirt. He wore it when his father held him at gunpoint, but fought him off, making him the hero.
She stumbled over to the dresser, and reached underneath all of the socks, and picked up the shirt, tracing the buttons with her fingers. She slowly un wrapped it, and put it on.
She needed this shirt for what was about to come. She grabbed the flashlight off the bed and headed for the door. She went to Morgan's door, and peeked her head inside. She found the small boy coiled up, on his bed, with a teddy bear next to him. She shut the door back quietly, and headed for the nursery door. No way was she going to let this go.
She shut the door, and stumbled slowly over to the opening in the wall. She inched her legs to the metal door. She looked over to the light switch. She slowly rose her fingers to the switch, and flicked it up. She realized that nothing happened.
She relaxed her head, noticing the bright light shining from the crack in the bottom of the door. "Who's there."
Those were the last cold, harsh, deep words she heard.
Who's There?
