The Surprise Child

“Oh my God, Mum, can we please stop somewhere and eat?” a small blonde child moaned from the back seat. A women, obviously her mother, rolled her eyes.
“For the love of God, you’ve been complaining for the past two hours. We’ll stop when we get there, for the last time. Now stop asking.” The girl snorted.
“Yeah, that’s in at least five hours!” She said. A man sitting next to the women turned around.
“I feel for you, I really do. But we don’t want to stop. Why don’t you eat a granola bar or something?” He said. All of them had British accents. The girl sighed.
“We ate them all back at the last stop, and Mum was too cheap and didn’t want to buy more.” She pouted. This began a heated argument between the girl and her mother, the man, probably the child’s father, sat in the passenger seat and tried to tune them out. For close to a year now the two of them had been somewhat at odds, and he’d grown sadly used to the commotion. Suddenly there was a loud bang from the back.
“Well you don’t have to hit things,” the women said. “You’re too old to be throwing temper tantrums.” The girl blinked.
“I didn’t hit anything, it sounded like the engine…” There was another loud bang. “Uh, what’s that flashing light on the dashboard mean?” She said. The adults looked at the dashboard.
“Oh, dear,” Says the mother. “We need to stop.”
“Well, we could stop near Dad’s parents,” The girl said. “Maybe they’d have food,” She said hopefully. Her mother sighed and within a half hour they were parked on the road opposite an apartment complex in London. The three climbed up the stairs and knocked on room number 13, shivering in the slight chill of a spring evening. The door opened and a tall old man with thinning pepper colored hair and blue eyes opened the door, his face lighting up when he saw who it was.
“Marie! Marie!” They’re home!” He yelled, ushering the trio inside the small apartment. A tall thin woman with a severe bun on steel gray hair came bustling into the kitchen, holding a cup of tea. She was a formidable woman, perfectly capable of frightening the neighborhood children, but when she saw the visitors her face transformed into the smiling face of a women seeing her son, his wife, and her only grandchild again. She enveloped the child in a hug, gushing about how long it’s been.
“Gram, we were here last week…” the child says. The grandmother, Marie, swats the child.
“Don’t you tell lies, young lady, it’s been nearly a year since we last saw you.” She says sternly. The girl looks down sheepishly.
“Right. Well, guess we lost track of time…sorry…” She says, scuffing her feet in a way she knows will make her grandmother feel bad. It worked. She was enveloped in another hug.
“Of course it’s alright, it just worries us, not knowing what you three are up to out there, dear.” She says. The girl smiles, and Marie moves to say hello to her son and daughter-in-law.
“Gram, you don’t happen to have any food, do you?” The girl asks hopefully. Her grandfather coughs.
“See, I’m not the only one about to starve, Marie!” He says. He turns to the girl. “We don’t have anything, darling,” he tells her. She groans. Marie fishes out some money.
“I’m not going shopping until tomorrow, so if you’re hungry, you can go down and get something,” She says.
“Marie, don’t encourage her,” her mother chides. Marie snorts.
“I’m not encouraging her, dearest daughter-in-law, I’m trying to put some meat on that fragile little body of hers. She’s not cut out for this stuff you do. She’s going to be sixteen soon and she can’t even tip the scale at 120 soaking wet, can she?” She sees she’s won this battle, and turns to the girl. “Run along now dear, we’ll be here - I’m assuming something needs to get fixed with The Thing, and that’s why you’re here.” The girl nods and stuffs the notes in a little leather bag the she puts over her body and heads to the door. Just before she leaves, her grandmother walks up and puts a multicolor knit scarf around her shoulders. “It was here when we bought the apartment,” She says. “And it’s cold.” The girl smiles and opens the door. The woman calls her daughters’ name. She turns.
“Be careful, it’s getting dark,” She says. “And come right back.” The girl rolls her eyes, but nods and smiles slightly.
“Don’t worry Mum; I’ll only be gone for a little,” She says, walking out the door. “See you guys later!” She calls, shutting the door behind her and going down the stairs.
As she cheerfully makes her way into a slightly busier section of London to a little café she knows of, she wraps the scarf around her neck, thinking that it was warm and it smelled good- not like the rest of her grandparents’ apartment, which smelled permanently of blueberries and cigar smoke, but something else good.
She gets platter of fish and chips and sits by the window of the café, people watching. It’s not her favorite dish, but it seems to be the appropriate thing to eat while in London. She takes her time eating, looking at the different assortment of people walking along the sidewalk. London, she decides, would be a fun place to stay if she ever decides to leave her parents. Full of unique people.
Speaking of unique people…she watches lazily as a man in a brown jacket with elbow patches and a bow tie walks down the street with a redhead and another boy, who looks a bit like he’s a third wheel. Looking at her phone, she decides it’s time to get home. She pays for her meal and walks along the street, loving the slight crush of people, even though it’s nearly eight. She bumps into an old lady, who spills her bag of groceries and almost falls. She catches the lady’s elbow and apologizes. She recognizes the person. “Oh hello, Mrs. Deandre!” She says brightly. The old lady blinks at her.
“So you’re back,” She says. The girl nods. “It happened before, you know,” She says as they pick up the fallen groceries.
“Sorry, what happened before?” She asks.
“With the last people who lived in that apartment. The girl went running off like your father did with your mother- only came back every year or so. And then one day, they all disappeared. Forever.” Mrs. Deandre says. The girl blinks.
“Well maybe they just moved,” She says lightly. “Do you need help carrying these back?” She asks. The old woman shakes her head tiredly.
“Go home, puellula,” She says. The girl nods and says goodbye, muttering to herself that she wasn’t a child and didn’t appreciate being called one once she was out of earshot of her grandparents’ neighbor. She gets to an open square and sees a troupe of musicians in the middle, playing a Christmas carol she couldn’t quite remember. There was an open trumpet case at the feet of one of them. She fished a handful of money out of her purse and tossed it in.
“Nice playing, mates,” She said. “But it’s not Christmas yet, yeah?” She smiles cheerily at them and walks away, not noticing how their heads all swivel and follow her with mechanical-looking eyes. She decided to take a shortcut back to the apartment and turned down a small corner.
Just then, someone’s hand snaked out to grab her arm. She reacted instinctively- grabbing the hand and twisting it around to bring herself face to face with her attacker and swinging her free hand up and smashing into his face, making him stagger back. Just to be safe, she kicked her leg up and nailed him in the groin before sprinting back onto the open street screaming that someone had tried to mug her back on Kinrick Place. A couple of beefy guys came up to her and asked if she was alright. “I’m fine, thank you,” She says. They nod and head off towards Kinrick Place, presumably to set a guy who would mug a girl like her straight. She continues on down the road, evidently not taking the short cut now. As she walks, she notices something out of the corner of her eye, something blue against the bricks of London. Her pulse picks up a little, but she keeps decides to keep walking and get home.
The first thing she notices when she gets back to the apartment complex is that The Thing is missing. They probably moved it to the garage, she thinks as she trudges up the stairs.
The next thing she notices is that her family is missing.
She screams.