KAT Chronicles

The first morning

I awoke to the door bell screaming. Sighing, I threw the pillow over my head to block out the sound. I’ve heard it before of course, during my summers here when my dad would take me to visit my uncle while he was away on business.

“You used to love it here” My dad kept saying as we drove past Last Chance for the 2nd time in two weeks. “You begged me to come for the candy apples”.

“Yeah when I was 4, I’m 16, I’ve changed in the last few years” I sighed, picking at the white strings in my shredded jeans. Not like I’ll be needing these anymore, I’ve got a mandated uniform. Grimacing I imagined what outlandish thing I’ll be wearing this year, up until I was 12 I always enjoyed dressing up but it seemed with puberty I also developed a taste for the sun and warm colors, not the gothic creations Garish Garments sold. My dad of course had let me stay with a cousin in sunny Florida these past two summers during his travels, but she and her husband recently had a baby and I guess a teenager and a newborn is a bit too much to handle. So now I’m back here.

“Ugh don’t remind me” my father sighed and looked into the distance as if distracting himself in thought. “We’ve got the last of your boxes right? The house won’t be there anymore after today so I want to make sure you got everything.”

What did that mean I wondered? Were they finally taking a wrecking ball to that cabin he liked to call a house? “Yes Dad, you quadruple checked.” I mused recalling him walking in and out empty handed with a nervous look on his face. We’d been packed for weeks at this point and had been slowly moving everything to my uncles as Dad was going on an extended trip this year and I was going to be here for the whole school year this time and not just the summer. I wondered where we’d be living next. We moved every few years so I’d gotten the hang of not forgetting anything after Mr. Bun Bun was left and never to be seen again.

“Good, good” my father said half-heartedly, still lost in thought. It was quiet outside, not even the sound of birds disturbed this formally forgotten area. There’s never any birds until you get into town, and even those seemed to be few and far in between with the occasional raven call. “I’ll call every 2 days at 4-“ he started

“4pm so that will give me enough time to get home from any lunch activities or school and get situated so I have no distractions and can always answer.” I finished for him. It’s always the same, he never wanted me to miss his calls. They used to be varied and whenever he was free and I missed one because I was in the shower due to falling in a puddle outside and didn’t answer and I had 3 officers at my uncles door checking on me and searching the house. After that, I got a strict time where I had to tell him everything that’d happened between calls. Including what I had to eat and who I interacted with. Always so paranoid.

Sighing I got out of bed and wrapped myself in the robe hanging off “my” bedroom door as the doorbell continued to scream. Who was it this early?