Mom’s Inheritance

“Robert”, my wife whispered loudly, whimpering as the foot steps ascending the stairs grew closer while we hid in our bedroom closet, me clutching my baseball bat, my wife a couple kitchen knives. “Why did you even bother with that stupid, little, black book? We’ve had nothing but turmoil since you opened it”, she continued; She was right. Since I found that thing, life has been horrifying. My mom clearly had been hiding the book for a reason. It all started a couple months ago, my mom had recently died, suddenly, at the General hospital; it was supposed to be a routine check up. I’m still torn about it, I didn’t take her there to die and, this BS isn’t helping. During the funeral, I saw two strange men standing at the back of church, tall, clad in long, draping, black coats, heads covered with small, black, bowler hats. I was sitting in the front row and couldn’t really make out their faces. They looked like they may have been wearing sun glasses, maybe it was just their eyes hidden in a dark void from the brim of the hats. I thought to myself “who the hell are they?” Truth is, there were a lot of people there I don’t remember seeing before, maybe distant relatives. My mom had an excellent memory. She kept up with everyone, birthdays, anniversaries, whatever special date it was, she knew it and made sure to send cards every year. She was beloved dearly for that. I turned back to look at the pastor give his sermon, but when I looked back to the back of the church, the strange men were gone. Later, after the funeral, I asked the pastor if maybe he knew who the men were. Unfortunately, he didn’t know what I was talking about and assumed maybe they were ushers or, maybe I was imagining them but, he assured me, I need not focus them, just focus on recovery. Losing my Mom was hard and, I needed to cope. A week later, I began going through things that she had left behind. I grew up with just my mom, we traveled a lot. You see, my Dad died when I was young, car accident. He apparently shot through a red light and his car was struck by oncoming traffic. After it happened, the funeral was quick and, without warning, my mom packed up our things; We immediately left town. I was 9, I didn’t know what was going on, but leaving my friends behind was the worst. Still, my Mom moved us a lot. We didn’t have much with us, but mom always kept this Navy Blue, tote bag. As I was rummaging through her things, trying to get a read on what I may want to keep, what I may want to get rid of, I found the tote. It was pretty dirty at this point, scrunched up in a box labeled “toiletries”. I opened the bag and it was empty, save for one thing: The little black book and a key taped to the back cover. I grabbed the book and started going through it. It appeared to be notes, scribbling with things that made no sense to me, things like, “the sky was blanketed in a green glow. The humming sound seemed to soothe my being”. Many of the inserts were in that fashion, weird recounts of strange lights and noises, locations that seemed to be describing forests; It was all very Greek to me. On one page though, I did find information regarding a safety deposit box. This must be where the key belongs. Weird, my mom never told me about this. Several days later, I found some time during my lunch break to visit the post office and look into the deposit box. When I opened it, to my surprise and glee, there were a bunch of different state IDs for my mother, maps with locations circled, passports and, 20,000$ in cash. I knew it was 20,000$ because of how it was banded; I used to work as a bank teller while trying to put myself through online college courses. I took the contents out, returned the box and, left the post office. As I was returning to my car, I saw the two strange men again. This time, they were sitting in a jalopy. Yea, that wasn’t terrifying at all. What did they want? I rushed to my car and fled the parking area, tires squealing along the way. As I was driving, speeding of course, it seemed the dark men were pursuing me. I tried losing them in some turns, but they always seemed to pop up again. Next thing you know, I get flashed down by a police car, sirens blaring. I kept thinking, “Perfect. I can tell the officer about the strange men”. “Sir, do you know why I stopped you?” Said the officer after approaching my car window. “No, officer” I replied half paying attention to him and half looking over my shoulder. “You were speeding”, said the officer. “I apologize officer but, some strange men are following me. They have been since I left the post office and I’m worried they’re looking to rob me” I exclaimed to the officer, trying to keep my voice down. The officer looked at me bewildered, looked behind my car, scanning the street. He asked me to describe the vehicle and I did. He assured me, there was no such vehicle down the street and, he certainly didn’t see anything of the sort as he tailed me. He handed me my ticket and sent me on my way. I got home and couldn’t wait to tell my wife what happened, the 20,000$, the strange men, everything. She said oddly enough, she was at the grocery store about the same time and saw the same two men talking to one of the cashiers. How could that be? She just continued her shopping. She quickly got over my story and began dreaming aloud what we should do with the money. There were a couple things around the house that needed attention, the top stair on the staircase was loose but, would require more than just replacing the step to fix it. There was a leak in the plumbing or, we assumed as much because of the Water bill being so high lately. She wanted a new car. She wasn’t shy about what she hoped for. Meanwhile, I was trying to put the pieces together, the book, the IDs, the money... what did it all mean? Was my mom planning to escape? Assume a new identity? We retired for the night and just a few minutes past 1AM, my phone started ringing. Who could be calling me at this time? The screen on my phone showed “scam likely”, so I ignored it. After it stopped ringing, my phone went off again. Same title on the screen. This began to annoy me, I had to work and was trying to get some sleep. I ignored it further and tried to go back to sleep, lucky for me, my wife is a hard sleeper and the phone didn’t wake her. You know what they say, “Happy Wife, Happy Life”. The phone didn’t stop going off so, I eventually powered the phone down. I thought the nightmare was over, probably calling to warn me that “my car warranty was going to expire”. Ugh! Everyone’s been getting antagonized by those robocalls lately. Suddenly, my wife’s phone started ringing. What was on the screen? The same thing, “scam likely”. Was this a coincidence? Neither of us have ever had these calls this late. I finally answered, “who is this and, what do you want?” I got a chill which was alarming, because my wife has the warmest blanket ever, her grandmother knitted it for her years ago. I heard what sounded like electronic feedback then, a disembodied voice said “Your warranty has expired.” I was exasperated. As I was about to hang up the phone thinking I was the victim of some hacker’s prank, I heard a whisper on the phone say, “you’ve been warned”. I hung up the phone stunned, what the heck was going on? A couple days later, I had to stay late at work so, it was quite dark out. As I was heading home, I saw strange, green lights in the sky, flying around, almost like they were dancing. The lights were pretty high up, but the were still visible and fast. Were they strobing lights from a party or something? I took out my phone and began recording the lights. Soon after this, the lights just disappeared and, as I looked at my car’s clock I realized, 3 hours had passed! How was this possible!? Did I black out? I wasn’t recording that long. I looked for the video of the lights, it was gone. No evidence at all that I was recording. I hurried home and while pulling into my driveway, my neighbor met me at my lawn. “Hey, Rob” Julius said, holding his trash in his hand. Julius and I had been neighbors for about 10 years now. “Someone came by today asking about you” Julius said, his tone didn’t appear concerned. “Yea? Who?” I replied. “I don’t know. They looked like government people. Haha you would think that they would’ve had a better looking car” Julius said laughing. My jaw dropped, Julius looked at me in shock. “What’s wrong dude, you in some trouble?” Julius asked while I stood unsure of what I was going to do. “Uh, uh, uh, no, it’s nothing. I gotta go see if Debbie’s ok. I am getting home late”, I said as I turned to run into the house to see if my wife was there. After that day, everything seemed to go back to normal. That was a week ago today. This morning, the chaos started. Debbie couldn’t get the tv to work, my phone was going haywire, I couldn’t get the damn thing to do anything, just kept seeing weird symbols on it. I figured it was glitch. When I got home from work, Debbie was in a panic saying she had been seeing figures walking around the house but that she couldn’t call the police because neither the lan line or her phone worked. She was terrified so, I told her to pack some things, we were going to leave town for a bit. I looked for the little black book and put it in my pocket when I located it, grabbed some clothes, my wallet, the 20,000$ cash and, threw it all in the bag Debbie put together. That’s when we heard banging on the door. I looked out the window and saw that same Jalopy parked in front of the house. Debbie came running upstairs with a knife. “Robert! Those men are at the door!” She screamed with terror on her now pale face. I rushed into the hallway grabbing my bat from the closet then, I heard the front door open. I rushed into the room, grabbed Debbie and, we hid in the closet. “What are we going to do?” Debbie said crying. I hated seeing her like this. “I don’t know, Deb” I answered squeezing the bat till my knuckles turned white. There was a loud crack and I knew, they broke the step! I could hear rustling as if they were trying to get something loose. I knew this was our break. “C’mon” I said, grabbing Debbie as we fled the bedroom through the window. I slid down the vine cage next to the window with the bag as Debbie followed, climbing down carefully. We ran to the car and started it. We were relieved that it actually started. Now, we are on the road, no plan, no real destination, just running. Funny how your life can cycle your past back to your present, right Mom?