Chapter 4: Intruders

Did it really happen? Was that true? Ten days! When Spud was laying in his bed he didn't knew was it a dream or truth. He was staring threw the darkness to the lamp on his ceiling and was thinking.

"...207 people... 207! Was that destiny or maybe not." Spud thaught.

For the first time after the crash, Spud really thinked about it. They would had to accept it. Although it would be really painful. Especially when thier memorys will be ereased. Spud closed his eyes and due to the sleeping-pill he took he fell asleep imediately again...

When his mother knocked on the door he woke up. She carefully put her head in and looked.

"Good morning Arthur! How are you today?" she asked.

When she saw her son she was shocked. His hairs where fatty and wild. He had bags under his eyes and looked ill. After that night and his court he felt really sick.

"I... I... mom can you drop me somewhere?"

Only a hour later,... Spud left his mothers car and stood with Trixie in front of the shop. His mother drove away and both teenagers walked to the entrace.

"I can't believe that we have to do this?" Trixie said and shacked her head.

"We have to!" Spud said and placed some empty moving boxes next to the door. "When we do a good job, the concil give us a chance to... wait... the door is unlocked!"

In shock both opened the door, behind the door was a glass test tube. Both knew that the silver liquid inside was the protection spell of the shop. But the liquid became black dust. The test tube was dirty.

"What happend with the spell? The old man did... oh..." both remembered, when the old man died the spell died too. „Hmmm... we have to look that we safe everything magical before they come to close the shop."

Spud agreed. "We have to call Rose, too! I'm pretty sure that she does not know it right now! And Jake's other relatives. In Florida you know!"

"Yeah..." Trixie said sadly when she took a old radio from a shelv and looked on it. "When I was here for the first time I asked the old man how old this radio is."

"And what did he answered?" Spud asked.

"He said that he even didn't knew it when he opened the shop because it was already here when he moved in." she said and had to laugh.

Trixie placed the radio back in the shelv. Spud looked around and saw the dragon-costume, they got from Rotwood that day they found out Jake's secret and they weared when they fight against the mountain-goblins. The costume laiyed behind the desk on the ground.

"I thaught it was lost after the fight with the goblins. I didn't knew that the old man found it again." Spud said.

The both teenagers looked on the costume. Trixie began to cry. She stood up and looked for a tissue. When she didn't found one in the front room she opened the curtain to the back room and was horrified when she saw the mess there.

"SPUD!" she screamed and Spud came to see the mess too.

All drawlers where open. Papers and books couvered the cround. Small empty bottles for indigrients laid everywhere.

But than the both teenagers had to scream when they saw the blood on the slashed couch...

In the Carters house meanwhile, her mother was talking with Colonel Carter, her husband and Trixie's father, by phone during she watched the Internet for the latest news of the crash.

"Awww... Hank. I see this pictures and I can only hope that Trixie will never see it." she said when she saw pictures of small burned pieces of metal. The plane left a gigantic crater in the ground. The debris couvered the whole island.

"I saw the pictures too. I'm so sorry for Trixie. Was it really the engine?" Hank Carter asked. "I mean this video this guys made proves that!"

"Yes, but there can be so many reasons. Hank, a 767 does not loose an engine without a reason. The company, the authorities... everyone will just focus now on that engine. But that's somewhere on the bottom of the ocean."

Back in the shop...

The both teenagers stopped screaming and calmed down. The couch had holes like from a knife. In the middle was a pool of blood.

„W... Wha... happend here?" Trixie stammered.

Spud walked closer to the couch only to stop when he felt a terrible stinch in his head. When Spud opened his eyes he saw a person sitting on the couch holding a knife. Spud fighted with the person. Everything became black and white again. What followed was the horrible scream of the intruder when Spud was able to rid off the knife of her hands and smashing it into the chest. In that moment he saw that the intruder was female. He heared horrified screaming. Once again he had no control about himself and turned to see a second woman running on him with a much bigger knife...

Spud woke up from his daydream when Trixie touched his shoulder and turned him around. She had a shocked impression on her face and was afraid.

„Spud... what was that?"

„What?" he asked shocked.

„Your eyes... you looked on the couch and you had this strange... shining in your eyes. Than you shacked and you where so maniaclly."

Spud realised that he was laying on the ground. In shock Trixie poured a bottle of water over him. And here he was. Spud looked on the couch again, the blood was still there.

"I have to go out of here!" he said and ran out of the building.

Trixie followed him and ran after Spud who stopped on the next crossroad. It began to rain. Loud thunder halled threw the air. Trixie arrived and hold her hands on Spud's head.

"Hey,... Spudinski... what's going on?" she asked slowly and tried to smile.

Spud breathed fast. He sweat and he felt like he has to puke again. The rain became harder. The people on the street opened thier umbrellas and passed them like nothing happend. Spud leaned down on a street-latern and breathed much harder.

„T... Trixie... I... I... I... think, I killed someone!" Spud said and Trixie was horrified again.

She was so shocked that she could only shake her head. "No... No... you're not able to..."

"TRIXIE BE QUIET!" Spud shouted maniaclly on her. Once again a loud thunder was hearable. The first people stopped. But than they walked away again. „Trix... whaaaa... In the night before the plane crashed... I had a dream... but it was a vision... I had a vision how the plane crashed. I knew it before it happend... IT'S ALL MY FAULT!"

Trixie was shocked and didn't belive it. „NO... NO... NO.." she said and hugged him but he continued.

„And since the crash... these visions occur ever and ever again. Like... like... all this had never should happen. Like all this is not the truth... like everything had should went different." Spud looked on Trixie and hold her on her shoulders. "Right in the shop... I saw it... I killed a woman!"

When Spud said this a flash couvered the sky. Trixie put her arm around Spud and escorted the horrified and flustered Spud back to the shop. She locked the doors normally and escorted Spud home. Was that a shock? A trauma? Trixie felt not good. But one thing she knew: Spud is not able to kill someone! When he should do it? They spend almost the whole day yesterday. And before yesterday there was the old man in the shop.

Spud didn't talked the rest of the day. After Trixie left him to go back to the shop to call the concil and some other people because the mess the intruders made. She didn't believe it. Spud told her about his visions but it was impossible. When Trixie tidied up she found a bunch of papers in a hidden drawler...

Carefully, she looked on the various papers. All from the magical world. She was not surprised that they where hid. But than was something that surprised her, a letter to Lao Shi... written years ago.

„June 21, 1999 Dear Mr Luong, we thank you for your order for investigating the... what..." Trixie said loud and thinked about Spud's speech again. Than she had to cry again and threw the letter crumbled on the ground. She was horrified and looked on the couch again. "AWWWW... Spudinski!"

It became evening when Spud took a second sleeping pill with some water and layed down in his bed. Was it true? Is he really a killer? And who was that person? When he had his vision he felt that his 'victim' was a woman. And what for a woman! But why that all? Why? WHY? Was that what happend in the shop a memory, a vision or that what happend from the point of view of the real killer. Or was that him?

Finally the sleeping-pill worked and Spud fell asleep...

The next thing he knew when he opened his eyes was that Jake's father stood in front of him.

"Do you think you have a reason to be sad?" Jonathan asked. His clouthes where damaged and his face was totally pale. Than he pointed with his finger on Spud. "I knew my familys secret for only 3 months and now I can't even enjoy it!"

In shock Spud turned his head away to look to the right to his wall, but there was the shop of Lao Shi now... two man in business-suits left it and talked to him.

"If you where smart, you have told the old man that closing this 'money-eater' had been better than running it further." the two man said in a chorus and all electronic-devices in the shop began to fly out and load itself into garbage-containers. The bloody couch was carried out by moaning ogres. Purple fog couvered the shop when Spud and his bed where flying around the building. Than Jake appeared... as big as a giant he was looking down on Spud. Spud's blanket was ripped away and something pressed him into his matress.

"We wanted to apologize... but we missed you!" Spud said before Jake disappeared in a puff of smoke and a black wearing widow appeared. Spud could see that it was Rose.

"I didn't killed him!" she begged.

"But you tried to very often!" a angry voice said to her.

"I apologized for it so many times... when you want to punish me... do it. But don't erease my memory on Jake. I changed the sides. I'm on your side." Rose said in tears. "Where are my ten days?"

After she finished something hit her and blood was sprinkling out of a shootwound in Rose's forehead. A long, slow scream of a woman halled threw the darkness when Rose fell on her back dead...

Spud who was standing right in front of the dead body felt that someone touched his shoulder. He turned and saw the woman from his plane-crash nightmare in her colourful dress standing there.

"Which colour has my dress?" she asked with a strong Portugese accent.

"What?"

"Do not answer my question with another question!" she said.

"Your dress is... light green... with small pink and red roses on it. And it's looking a little bit... granny like..."

"Hey that was a present from my mother!" she said mad and walked away into the darkness.

"Wait... I saw you in my nightmare. You where in the plane that crashed!" Spud said and the lights went on... he was standing in a plane-cabin again. On the walls he saw the logo of InterFly Airways again. Haley came walking down the cabin wearing a dark-red InterFly flight-attendent uniform. She smiled.

"Haley... I..." Spud began but loud music interrupted him.

"...To fasten your seatbelt, fit the tip into the buckle. To unfasten it, lift the buckle as shown!" she said and demonstrated it like in a real safety announcement.

"Haley..." Spud said again but it came out slowly and unclear.

"...If there's a loose in cabin pressure, oxygen-masks will appear automaticlly from a compartment over your head. Take a mask and pull it down to you to start oxygen flow. Place it over your nose and mouth and strap the elastic band over your head."

"Haley... please listen to me!"

"Please ensure that you fit your own mask first before helping others..."

"Awww... I give up!"

"When you give up we will never get alive again!" Haley said still with a smile on her face.

"What?" Spud asked in shock.

"We never had should die!" a man next to him said mad. "I don't know why you have all these visions but I know that you are the one who can set us alive again. I have three children... they have to be with thier father!"

The man start to grab with his hand around Spud's neck. In that moment two little boys appeared and pulled on his clouthes.

"We don't want to be dead! We don't want..." the children screammed horribly.

When Spud looked up he saw that Haley disappeared... instead what he saw was the pure horror. The seats where filled with dead burned people... He screamed and tried to run away. But the two screaming boys pulled on him. Slowly the dead, hardly burned bodies in the seats around him rised up and tried to reach him. The both boys became ugly burned bodies...

"HELP US! HELP US!" hundreds of voices said. „HELP US!"

"NOOOOOO... I can't! LEAVE ME ALONE! LEAVE ME ALONE!" he screamed but the hands of the deaths where holding his mouth and ripped him down so that he felt on his back... and on his matress.

"ARTHUR!" his mother screamed in horror.

Spud screamed when he opened his eyes and looked into the faces of his parents. Tears ran into his eyes. It was night. His parents woke up from the horrible screaming

„Arthur... oh Arthur... calm down! It was a nightmare!" his mother said and hugged the sweating boy. But Spud knew that that what just happend was more than a nightmare. He shaked his head and felt that he had to do something. Spud stood up and passed his parents to ran into the bathroom. He locked the door behind him and opened the fauced to pour cold water over his face. When he watched himself in the mirror he shacked his head. But than he saw it...

Carefully he pulled down the shirt he weared to see a bloody handprint on his chest...

End of Chapter 4

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