Home Sweet Home

Alex pushed open the darkwood door of 29 Main street and looked around the empty room. There was dust sitting on the air in a spacious living room, catching the mirky sunlight. He placed his suitase, all of his belongings, in the middle of the hallway and paced around the empty house. The large wooden staircase wound away from him and up to the second floor. Alone in his new home, Alex felt for the first time a sense of settledness, he felt his anxiety lift.

Alex had received the call less than an hour ealier. Finally, someone had agreed to offer him a room to rent, completely sight unseen. Having spoken to the owner and transferring her a large deposit, he stood in a house he could call home, after months of sleeping on the backseat of his Toyota Prado.

Alex stood still for a moment, soaking in the silence of the place, and reveling in his luck. The house was old, but it was large and he had it all to himself. From where he stood, he could see a kitchen and three closed doors behind the staircase. The doors were labelled informally with cheap silver stickers, "A," "B" and “,” all locked.

Upstairs, Alex discovered only one room that was unlocked, garnished simply with a double bed, a table and a closet. On the table were a set of keys, as promised by his new landlord. Alex spread his exhausted body over the undressed mattress, allowing himself to relax and breathe in his new home. Almost immediatly, sleep flooded over him.

__

Alex snapped awake, his world was spinning and it took him a few moments to remember where he was in the unfamiliar room, now dark around him. He reached around for the light switch, only to discover no response from the bulb as he flicked it on.

Thud. Rustle.

The sound that that shaken him awake continued to float up to his ears from somewhere downstairs. Intending to investigate it's scource, Alex rubbed his sleepy eyes and headed down the stairs, grasping tightly to a broom handle, which he found leaning lazily against the staircase bannister.

BAM.

A door slammed as the sound of his descending footsteps echoed around the empty house. Reaching the darkness of the ground floor, Alex noticed his suitcase, which he had left in the living room, flung open and its contents placed all around it in tidy piles. Strange, thought Alex, his heart hammering in his chest. The room was empty.

"Hello?" He croaked, feeling strange in the darkness of his unfamiliar home.

Silence.

He checked the front door, which was still locked, as were all the windows and the rear entrance as it had been when he arrived. Alex paced around the room, studying his belongings piled around him on the floor.

Creeeaakk.

If he wasn't crazy, that sound came from behind the door marked "E." He leaned over so he could see through the large keyhole below the doorknob. He reeled back in a panic, adrenaline rushed through him, sending hs heart reeling. He expected that he was the only tenant at 29 Main Street, but no, he had distinctly seen a large, curious, brown eye looking straight back at him through the keyhole of the door marked "E."

Alex had a housemate.

__

Two days passed without a sign of the quiet person behind the door marked "E." That was until the middle of the night, on a Saturday, when Alex realised he was completely alone. The room behind the door marked "E" was empty when he peered through the keyhole, and when he turned the knob, the door creaked opened.

Inside was like a strange new world. A huge computer with three monitors dominated the entire left half of the room. The blank blue screens cast an ominous blue light over the unkempt single bed on the right side of the room. Alex could see numerous pizza boxes stuffed underneath it. The smell of stale food was pungent, without any fresh air filtering through the room to relieve it.

Overwhelmed with curiosity, Alex rummaged through rubbish-filled drawers, and found nothing but used food wrappers and computer cables. Deciding to dig a little deeper, Alex hoisted up the mattress, finding it lighter than expected, and dropped it again immeditely in shock upon dicovering beneath it a hidden stash. In disbelief, he again raised the mattress to confirm what he had seen. His heart was hammering in his chest. Two handguns, multiple foreign passports and a small black notebook lay neatly side by side.

His fingers nervously grasped the passports first, his mind desperately trying to find a name and face for his mysterious housemate. A large man with black eyes and grey beard stared back at him from the identificaiton page. From what he could tell, he had multiple identities and it was impossible to determine which one was the truth. He placed the passports back exactly as he found them, and, finding his hands shaking uncontrollably, he avoided touching the handguns and instead picked up the black notebook. Inside, the pages were pasted with photos and lined with notes. Usually clear headshots of a person with their personal details scratched untidily next to them. Some of the pictures were crossed out, like some kind of cruel checklist.

Alex took a step back from his discovery, slowly allowing comprehension to wash over him. Was it possible he was sleeping in the same house as an assassin? A killer? Panicked, he turned to make his escape from the room, but was stopped by a huge man who stood in the doorway, staring at Alex in disbelief, no, he was staring at the black notebook which Alex still clasped in his hands.

Alex could see it was the very man he had just mentally accused of vicious crimes. The man was indeed very tall, his height almost reaching the top of the doorframe, his shoulders wide and strong. Silently, the man took a step further into the room, closing the space between them, his expression fierce.

"I'm sorry, I.." Alex backed away, now terrified.

Slowly the behemoth man reached over Alex's head and brought forth an empty pizza box.

"For your silence." He simply said, as he gestured for Alex to take it. With confusion, but realising he had no other choice, Alex slowly exchanged the notebook for the pizza box, not breaking eye contact for a moment, then made his escape.

Upstairs now, Alex locked the door and opened the box. Inside lay bundles of cash, neatly counted and bundled together. Cash in exchange for his silence, he realised. He counted twenty bundles all up, each bundle containing $1000 a piece.

$20,000.

Alex sat stunned. He had never seen so much money in his life. Dirty money, he corrected himself. No, blood money.

He sat for a moment weighing up his options. He desperately needed the money. If he agreed to the bribe, he could buy his mother that new wheelchair that she needed, and he could pay off all his credit card debts. On the other hand, he could be assisting a possible dangerous fugitive, and furthermore, be could be liable as an accomplice to whatever crimes this man had committed.

Alex knew what decision to make. Slowly, he bundled the cash back into the box, closed up his still unpacked suitcase, and slowly descended the stairs for the final time. Seeing the house again empty, he closed the front door silently behind him, breathing the damp winter air. Regretfully, he turned to take one last look at the house which he would have called home, feeling that familiar anxiety and restlessness settle over him once again as he said goodbye. Then he turned and drove off into the night, clutching tightly to a pizza box.