Once I’ve broken through all the glass, I make my way through the window and try my best to avoid another incident. As luck would have it, I make my way in unscathed. My first breaking and entering is off to a roaring success!
As I predicted, this is indeed a bedroom, although it doesn’t look like the master. Most of the houses in this neighborhood are two-stories, where the master bedroom is upstairs.
I begin exploring the rest of the bottom floor, which is very tidy and clean. The family room has a big screen TV with a nice, long leather couch surrounding it. My favorite room in the house, the kitchen, is right behind it. The two rooms have a very open feel that all housewives love, being able to cook and watch their husbands watch Monday Night Football at the same time.
When I go to the pantry, I’m delighted by the plethora of cereal options. They’ve even splurged on the name-brand cereal, something I usually don’t buy because I’m cheap. I open every single cabinet until finally the last one I choose is the one with the cereal bowls. I grab the biggest one I can find and start digging in. Normally, I eat cereal with milk like every other normal person. Milk now may be a bad idea since it’s been warming for almost a day now. I’m starved, so dry cereal is more than enough for my taste buds. I am, however, a bit thirsty. It occurs to me I haven’t drunk any water all day. Fortunately, at the bottom of the pantry is about a half-dozen bottles of water. I waste no time opening one and chugging the entire thing. Once I finish, I’m reminded again the power is out and I go into a panic. I run over to the faucet to see if the water works. Just as I expect, it doesn’t. I’ve learned from somewhere that a person can live for several days without food, but much less time without water. With no faucet water, I’m left with drinking only the bottled water I can find.
It’s starting to get dark so I begin opening up drawers and looking for a flashlight. To my surprise I find a nice, bright flashlight in one of the kitchen drawers.
While I still have daylight left, I begin surveying the rest of the house. I can’t help feeling creepy doing this. I’m in somebody else’s home, without their permission, snooping around through their stuff. If they came home now I would die of humiliation. What on Earth would I say and do if they came back? I think I’d find the first door I could and take off running. I’d rather face Cujo than experience that level of embarrassment. If I told them the truth about my story they’d probably think I escaped from the nut house.
As I peek through their rooms, it looks like they have one teenage boy and a younger girl. One room is filled with heavy metal band posters on the wall and black Misfit clothes on the floor; I’ll bet this kid is a troublemaker. The little girl’s room couldn’t be more different. It’s clean, tidy, and pink from floor to ceiling with unicorn posters hanging on the wall.
I think of anything in the house I might want to take back with me. The first thing, obviously, is all of the cereal, peanut butter, and other food that doesn’t need to be cooked. I look for something to put everything in and find a large suitcase in a closet. It’s a little unorthodox to put food in it, but it’s easy to carry and should get the job done.
Looking through the master bedroom, there’s really nothing of use I can find. I have all of the clothes and other items I need at my house. Opening up the underwear drawer, it looks like mama has a few pounds to lose. These panties are large enough to cover a small child.
Dad needs to get over his obsession with plaid, flannel shirts. Seeing these redneck shirts makes me wonder if dad is packing something else — guns. I’ve never actually shot a gun before, but the thought of protection sounds like a good idea. After all, how hard can it really be? Insert bullet, take off the safety, and then pull the trigger and blast away. I’m not an evil person, but I would love to take on Cujo with a gun rather than a shovel.
I make a mad dash throughout the house looking for any kind of weaponry. My father wasn’t a hunter, so I’m not sure where you keep this kind of stuff. I suppose with two kids it isn’t something you have lying around on the kitchen table. I check under their bed but only see another flannel shirt and a pair of socks.
I revisit the closet, but no weaponry there. I check to see if they have a basement but it doesn’t look like they do. I even revisit little Misfit’s room but expect to find pot more than I expect to find a gun. As it turns out though I find neither, not even a pack of cigarettes. Little Misfit must be bad boy on the outside and good wholesome boy on the inside.
I don’t even bother revisiting the little princess’s room; I doubt she’s packing heat. I do decide to visit the last place in the house I would expect to find a gun — the garage. I don’t know why someone would have a gun in the garage but it’s my last hope. As I’m reminded again, garages are extremely dark when there’s no electricity so I get my first opportunity to use my new flashlight.
Surprisingly, there are no cars in the garage. Did they go where everyone else went? As I scope out the area, Mr. Flannel appears to have a nice tool collection and a bench to work on. He must be a handyman. The bench takes up a lot of room, enough that they most likely can only fit one car in here. Surveying the tools, I would think some of this would be of use to me but I can’t think of anything that would. There’s a hammer but if I were going to attack Cujo I’d rather use a shovel. There’s also an assortment of wrenches and screwdrivers but I’m not working on a car or putting a toy house together anytime soon. It’s hard for me to believe, but with all of this junk I can’t find anything useful to take with me. No guns or weapons in the entire house. It looks like Mr. Hunter Flannel is a poser just like his son. I go back inside empty-handed.
I can’t find any clock, but the sun is getting ready to set so it’s probably around seven o’clock or half past. It’s starting to become very dark already, and I realize it’s about to become extremely boring too. I’m in an empty house all by myself, and it’s about to become pitch black. Unless I feel like snooping around the house some more with my flashlight, there’s nothing for me to do other than sit here with my thoughts.
As the last few minutes of daylight shine through, I decide to sleep on the sofa. Who knows what Mrs. Big Panties and Mr. Flannel like to do in their bed.
My thoughts turn to tomorrow. Will I wake up and find everything back to normal? If so, I’m definitely taking a sick day. I’m not planning on this so I work on my strategy assuming nobody will be around. I’ll take the food, bottled water, gas tank, and shovel and make my way home… hoping I don’t run into Cujo along the way. I have enough food and water to keep me alive for at least a few weeks, but I don’t have much gas to get me very far. Where would I go anyway? I suppose I could take off and drive in one direction as far as it will take me until I find someone. With three-quarters of a tank in Abby’s car and the few gallons left in my neighbor’s gas tank, that should get me around three hundred miles, provided I don’t drive like a maniac again. I’m sure I could find someone to help me in that distance.
I don’t think about it anymore because tomorrow, when I wake up, I’m confident I’ll find somebody to talk to. It’s too unrealistic that everyone took off and left without me; someone must have stayed.
With these thoughts in mind, I drift my attention to Abby. I wonder where she at this exact moment. What is she doing right now? I hope she’s safe, even though I’m sure she’s a nervous wreck without me. I wish there was some way to tell her I’m OK, that I’m smart enough to figure this thing out and find her. All I want right now is for her to be here with me. None of this would matter if she were here.