NOVEL NEXT 30. Lost & Found
"Hey Cass," Kaylee said as I let her in. And as soon as I closed the door behind her she pulled me into a hug and asked, "How are you doing?"
I returned the hug then shrugged, "I'm ok I guess. Wanna go sit in the living-room?"
She hesitated, "What about your parents? Maybe we should talk in your room?"
"They went out," I replied quietly. "They won't be back for a few hours."
"Oh ok then," she agreed.
We went to the kitchen first and I grabbed us a couple sodas, then we headed into the living-room to sit down.
As we got seated Kaylee looked at me and apologized, "Cass I'm sorry about last night, I didn't mean to ignore your texts. I got distracted when my dad got home from work? Something happened on his shift and I had to listen in on what he was telling mom."
That sent a shock of worry through me, and I suddenly felt bad for not trusting her. I thought she was avoiding me last night and talking with the others behind my back, finding out there was something wrong with her dad was a lot more serious.
"What happened? Is your dad ok?"
She nodded, "Dad's fine, it was nothing like that. When we saw him at the emergency room last night, it's because him and his partner got called in to meet with their supervisor."
My girlfriend paused for a sip of her cola then explained, "Yesterday afternoon one of their calls was someone who didn't make it. He didn't go into details, but he said the victim was already dead when they got there. They did what they were supposed to do, then took the body back to the hospital. There's a procedure they follow for that sort of thing?"
I nodded, so she kept going while I had a gulp of my own soda.
"So the thing yesterday was the body went missing. At the end of the shift someone realized the body wasn't where it was supposed to be, so dad and his partner got called in for questioning. According to dad, they signed over the body to a 'Doctor Roslovic'. But dad said his supervisor says there's no-one by that name who'd be able to sign off on that?"
After another gulp of cola she stated, "Obviously losing a whole body is a huge problem, and dad said the supervisor said this was the second time in a week they'd lost a body? Dad and his partner got yelled at even though they did everything they were supposed to. Dad insists he saw Doctor Roslovic's ID badge, that's the procedure and dad says him and Alison wouldn't make a mistake about that. And I got thinking, the body that went missing is probably the one that got raised as a zombie then went and attacked your mum. I'm pretty sure the timing fits, unless there were two zombies running around town yesterday."
"Ok?" I responded. "So how does this help figure out the zombie stuff?"
Kaylee replied, "At first I thought maybe dad's partner was involved? Alison's the only other one with access to the body right? And as an ambulance driver nobody would think twice if they saw her around the emergency area, or if they saw her pushing someone on a gurney. Except she and dad were together for the whole shift yesterday, so she didn't have any time to steal a body and raise a zombie."
"Then I remembered what you said last night, about maintenance staff?" she said with a wide grin. "Like what if this 'Doctor Roslovic' was actually someone else on the hospital staff? That would give him an ID badge, then he'd just put on a lab coat and pretended to be a doctor. So this Roslovic guy could be the one raising the zombies!"
"Ok?" I said again. "So how do we find this person?"
Her smile shifted to a grimace, "That's what I was hoping you could help me with? I got my dad's password to access the hospital's secure website. I already searched the public site and there's nothing there. I couldn't risk using dad's login credentials at home though, that's why I wanted to come here. I thought maybe we could use your computer?"
I had another gulp of my drink, then got to my feet and nodded "Ok. If we find something, what then?"
She followed me up to my room and I let her sit at my desk so she could use the computer, while I sat on my bed.
"If we find him, then I guess we let the rest of the club know? See what Brooke or Paige say," she replied.
It only took her a few minutes to access the site, she read off the password from her phone then punched it in. And from there it was only twenty or thirty seconds before she found the name.
"Isaac Roslovic works in the hospital's lab," she announced.
I pointed out, "Labs have chemicals right? Melanie said the zombie scent was death and chemicals."
"Right," Kaylee smiled. "I bet this is our guy!"
"So should we do a group chat, let the others know?" I asked.
My girlfriend looked at her phone, then hesitated.
She looked up at me and asked, "You said your moms are out for a few hours right?"
I nodded quietly.
"Maybe we should have a look around while they're out?" she suggested. "Maybe we can figure out what Roslovic is after."
I had mixed feelings about it, but I knew she was right. With my parents out of the house for at least another hour or two it seemed like the perfect opportunity to search for whatever they were hiding.
"Ok," I sighed. "You're right."
We began in my folks' bedroom since that was the most obvious place. We checked in drawers, under the bed and the dresser, and the closet. That was a bust though so we moved on to other parts of the house I didn't frequent, but there wasn't actually a lot of places apart from their room that I didn't regularily use or visit.
The linen closet in the hall didn't have anything apart from spare towels and bedsheets. The spare bedroom didn't have anything suspicious or interesting in it either.
I felt bad about searching mom's office, but it seemed like the next obvious place to look. Even though I did go in there regularily, I usually didn't do anything other than sit on the sofa and talk to mom.
Kaylee started searching mom's antique desk while I began looking through the filing cabinet in the corner. I only got partway through the first drawer when my girlfriend found something.
"Cass?" she said quietly. "Come check this out?"
She had the lower right-hand drawer open, it was a deep double-drawer thing. And inside it was an antique wooden box of some kind. I watched as Kaylee gently pulled the box out then set it down ontop of the desk. It had been standing on end in the drawer, but when she put it down she set it upright.
It was about twelve inches square, and about three inches tall. The wood was old and dark, and it was sort of polished to a shiny finish. There were brass hinges on the back of the lid, and at the front a brass latch kept it closed. There was no lock though.
"What do you think it is?" she asked.
I shrugged, "No idea, I've never seen it before. I guess we should open it?"
My girlfriend nodded, and carefully undid the latch. The lid lifted up smoothly and quietly, and the inside of the box was lined with soft padding. It was a rich dark red colour, and looked like silk or velvet or something. Actually I had no idea what it was but I was sure it was one of those expensive fabrics.
The only thing in the box was a black bag made of the same expensive-looking material.
Kaylee and I exchanged a look, then she carefully opened the bag and tipped out the contents.
"Woah!" I winced and looked away. "That's bright!"
She sounded confused as she asked, "Huh?"
I had to sort of shield my eyes with my hand as I told her, "It's magic Kaylee, don't touch it! It's a lot of magic, it's glowing so bright it almost hurts my eyes."
"Oh," she gulped. "I don't know what these things are... Um, they look like glass collars? Are your moms into some kinky stuff or something?"
My cheeks went bright red as I grimaced, "What?!"
I forced myself to look, and once my eyes adjusted I was finally able to see what she was looking at. Sure enough it was a pair of glass rings. They were both about seven or eight inches across, and around a half inch thick. And they looked like they were made of clear glass, or maybe some kind of hard plastic.
"They can't be collars," I said while squinting at the two objects. "There's no hinge, no opening. No way to put them on or take them off."
Kaylee pointed out, "If they're magic maybe they don't need a hinge. Maybe they just...go on by themselves?"
I still couldn't believe my parents would have a couple magical collars hidden away in mom's desk, but to be safe I warned her "Just don't touch them ok? Can you get them back in that bag?"
"I think so," she replied.
First she pulled out her phone and took a couple pictures of them, then she carefully slipped the black silk bag over them. She got it done without touching them, then put them back in the wooden box. She snapped a couple pictures of the black bag inside the box, then closed the box and took some pictures of that too. Then she finally put the box back in the drawer were she found it, and closed it up.
"So I'll bet those collars are the 'them' that the zombie was looking for when it attacked your mom," she stated.
I nodded slowly, "Yeah. There's a lot of magic on them, whatever they are. I can't believe they're collars though."
Kaylee grinned, "Ok maybe they're not collars. They're definitely weird."
"Yeah," I sighed. "I've never seen anything magic around the house before, and I've never seen those things before."
After a moment I asked, "So now that we've found them, what do we do next? I'm not sure I want to just ask my folks why they have a couple enchanted glass rings in mom's desk."
My girlfriend suggested, "We should finish searching the house. We've found this, but that doesn't mean there might not be other things."
"Right," I sighed, then I went back to finish looking through the filing cabinet.
The top two drawers were full of stuff related to mom's work, then the second drawer from the bottom was full of embarassing stuff from my life. Apparently parents saved all my report cards, all my school pictures, even some silly artwork and stuff I made them when I was little. Every birthday card I'd given both mom and mum were in there too.
My girlfriend was looking over my shoulder by that point, so my cheeks were red as I slid that drawer closed. Finally I slid open the bottom drawer and started looking through it.
That was full of boring household stuff, like credit card receipts and utility bills and stuff. Towards the back there were some official legal documents from when my parents bought our house.
I was about to move past to whatever was at the back of the drawer when Kaylee said, "Cass wait a second."
She leaned in and pulled out the file from when my folks bought the house, and sat down on the sofa to take a closer look at it.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
She asked, "Do you know how old your moms are?"
I shrugged, "Mom's forty-two and mum's forty-one. Why?"
Kaylee had the legal document out on her lap and she pointed at the date, "Cass they bought this house in nineteen-eighty-seven. That was thirty-four years ago. If your mom's forty-two, then she was eight years old when she signed the paperwork. And your mum was seven."
My stomach lurched as I looked down at the bottom of the paperwork. I recognized the two signatures, the two names. Julie Underwood, Tanya Underwood. They bought the house in May of eighty-seven. So just under thirty-four years ago.
While I was digesting that Kaylee quickly looked through the rest of the folder. A few seconds later she stated, "They didn't get a mortgage, they paid for the house with a certified cheque. Your parents had enough money in their bank account to just write a cheque and buy a house. That's almost like paying cash for it."
I sighed, "So they're older than they look, and they had enough money to buy a house in the eighties. What does it mean though? What are they?"
"I don't know," Kaylee shook her head. "I'm sorry Cass."
She took a picture of the paperwork, then put it back in the filing cabinet.
That was it for the office, so we continued to search the rest of the house. There weren't many other places to look though.
We went down into the basement, which was kind of creepy. I definitely didn't go down there much at all, it was all dust and cobwebs and stuff. It was also mostly empty, there was just some old furniture and a couple plastic bins full of old clothes that probably should have been donated or given away like a decade ago.
There wasn't anything magical or mysterious down there, so that seemed to be it. A couple glass rings with powerful enchantments, and some legal paperwork that proved my parents were lying about their age. Along with all the other stuff they lied about.
Kaylee and I finally went back up to my bedroom, where I slumped across the bed and sighed.
My girlfriend sat next to me on the bed and asked, "Are you doing ok Cass? What are you thinking?"
After another sigh I told her, "This morning I was thinking about my parents? If they're not human then was there anything else in the past that was maybe magic? And I came up with a few suspicious things..."
I told her about the thing with the candles, and the thing with the neighbor's dog. And I mentioned the thing with the mystery aunt then reminded her that I don't actually have any aunts, or uncles or any other relatives at all.
"The thing with the fire and the dog definitely sound suspicious," Kaylee responded. "The thing with the aunt might be nothing though? When I was younger my mom called some people my aunt so-and-so when they were really just close family friends."
"Oh," I frowned. "That makes sense I guess. But the whole not having any relatives thing seems strange, and not ever telling me about their past and stuff. And if that lady was a close family friend, why have I never seen or heard of her before or since?"
She agreed, "Yeah. That does seem a bit odd."
"So what should we do now?" I asked.
After a second or two to think it over Kaylee decided, "I'll send a group chat about that Roslovic guy. And if it's ok, I'll send everyone a picture of those rings and see if anyone else knows what they are?"
I sighed but nodded, "Ok..."
The idea of my friends investigating my parents still left me uncomfortable, but I needed to know what was going on. And I knew they'd keep digging with or without me, so I may as well be involved in it.
