BLOODLINE Episode 6 by Ironkurtain

BLOODLINE Episode 6 by Ironkurtain

The 2007 black Mercedes Benz ML class swung into the car park as the gate-man pressed a button and the gate automatically slide shut. Agnes killed the engine and lazily unbuckled her seatbelt. Victoria, her 17 years old daughter who was sitting at the passenger seat beside her had already done hers and quickly got out of the SUV. Eric, who was at the back seat with suzanne, his other new sister, had enjoyed the smooth ride except for suzanne’s constant glances he had to deal with.

Eric got out of the car slowly and closed the door as he beheld the breathtaking architectural design before him. He just stood and stared at the 3 storey mansion like a kid in Disneyland. Then he looked around the compound. Everything there, from the house and it’s colorful and beautiful concrete paved floor to the fleets of cars he had just seen, speaks of opulence. The last time he saw something similar was when he went to Liz house on her birthday.

“What are you looking at?”, Agnes barked at him. Will you get inside the house and take a shower!. Am sure you haven’t had any for the past two weeks that you disappeared”, she said angrily. Victoria sniggered at what her mother just said.

“Geez……..woman take it easy”, Eric muttered inaudibly, wondering what Alex might have done to warrant this insult.

Thinking about the cold reception the Philips gave him at the hospital, Eric was having the feeling that this Alex was some kind of a problem. Perhaps the black sheep of the family. And must have been very good at it because nobody seem to like him, even his own mother. Throughout the ride from the hospital to the house, she didn’t utter a single word to him, not even a glance. Now, except for the pitiful stares he was getting from the three female workers in uniform who were probably the house helps, everyone else were giving him the cold shoulder. Especially the boy who just came out from the house.

He is Daniel. Alex younger brother or rather say Eric’s new younger brother. He is 16 years old, quite tall for his age and had some facial resemblance of his mother Agnes. He was wearing a clean white “dogi” with a japanese inscription that Eric quickly recognized.

“Hi mom…..”, Daniel greeted Agnes. He hugged her and eyed Eric strangely. Eric sensed sibling rivalry.

“Hi Danny, how was your lesson today?”, Agnes asked with a smile and put her hand around his shoulder.

“How is he?……..what did the doctor say is wrong with him?”, he asked, jerking his head at Eric as both of them walk towards the house.

Eric could hear Agnes tell Daniel that the doctor said he is having some kind of a manageable mental illness to which Daniel laughed at.

“Oh my God!…….Alex!”,

Eric saw a chubby and jolly looking woman approaching him.

“Probably the house cook”, he thought as he gave her a weak smile.

“How are u doing?…….what happened?”, she asked and place her thick hand on his shoulder. Then she looked at him from head to toe. “My God you lost some weight”.

“Lost what?”, Eric thought as he stared at her.

“Nancy, i hope there is something for him to eat”, Agnes asked the woman.

“Yes madam”, Nancy replied and looked at Eric. “I will also prepare your favourite”, she said and lead him into the house.

**********************************************

Eric closed the door and look around the bedroom. It looked very clean and cozy. The room is quite bigger than his own in Metro-city and had more furniture s. All of them, from the bed to the reading table are all positioned at the right places. Not bad for someone Eric thought would probably have a bedroom that could be best described with a warning sign that says “Biohazard”

He sat on the double size bed and felt the soft mattress covered with a white bed sheet. He glanced at the wardrobe and looked at the bedside table with drawers. Alex wouldn’t mind him poking around the room, Eric thought and shuffled to the side of the bed the table is at. Afterall he is living his life.

Eric opened the top drawer and saw a few things. Pens, pencils, paper clips, some coins and a few old magazines. He slided it close and opened the lower drawer. It contain a few paper scraps and some text books. He got out of the bed and opened the wardrobe. His eyes met alot of neatly hanged cloths and another compartment that has alot of shoes in it. Eric counted twelve pairs. Four sneakers, four loafers and four leather shoes. He ran his fingers through the cloths. Except for the suits, the rest weren’t his style.

He went over to the reading table that also have a desktop computer with a flat screen monitor. He studied the neatly packed books in the bookshelf and read the titles of a few. Eric was tempted to switch on the computer, but decided that it was too early. Then he checked the drawers of the table and saw a laptop computer and a book that look like a diary. Placing the laptop on the table, he opened the diary and glance through the pages. His eyes caught a sentence

“…….. just to keep the marriage from breaking up……”

Then the phone Nina gave him suddenly vibrated twice. Eric checked and saw it is a new text message notification.

“If you are alone, call this number now”, it read.

Eric dialled the number below the text message and it rang about four…..five times before the call was answered.

“Hello”, it was Nina’s voice.

“So what now?”, Eric asked

“Are you alone?”, she asked.

“No am with the whole family listening”, Eric replied sarcastically. “Don’t you read your own message?”, he asked.

“So how is it going with the family?”.

“I’m in a complete hostile territory”.

“What do you mean by that?”.

“Well you should have given me more info about this your ‘my look alike’ client”, Eric said quietly as he slightly opened the door of the room and peeped to check for any activity in the corridor. “What did he do that he had to run away from home only to be seen two weeks later by the mother who seem to wish that he was never found or even worse”, he grunted and sighed as he laid on the bed, holding the diary. “Did he like…..impregnate his girlfriend and burn down her father’s house?”, he asked.

“Like i said before, who he is or whatever he did is not important to you. The important thing is you following my instructions”, Nina sounded abit impatient.

“So what if they start asking questions about things i know nothing about?”, Eric asked again. “Am sure you might want me to tell them to wait while i call you to know your instructions”, Eric said.

“First of all no one is pregnant and no house got burnt down or whatever, so don’t worry about being asked questions”, Nina stated. “Secondly, if they ask questions, it will only be about what happened throughout the couple of weeks you left the house. You just tell them you cant remember. Have you forgotten that you have a minor memory loss?”,

“Okay then”, Eric murmured, seeing that Nina was unwilling to tell him anything about Alex.

“Anything else?”, Nina asked.

“Yeah…..i think there is also a slight problem…or it could be nothing”, Eric replied

“What is it?”.

“Well,….i saw Daniel, the younger brother wearing a karate dogi and later found out from the cook that he started his new hobby about three weeks ago”.

“So how is it a problem?”.

“It’s not him, but his karate teacher”,

“What about him?”.

“If you had came earlier during the National Karate tournament, am sure you would have seen me knocking man out cold”. Eric could still remember that knock out he delivered with a round-house kick to the head and wondered if he had taken the human insanity that was going on that day too seriously. He literally made the guy’s head to clap his shoulder and feared that he might end up watching t.v sideways for the rest of his life.

“How do you know that he is Daniel’s karate teacher”, Nina asked.

“Oh…..have you forgotten am the one with an I.Q that is above 150?”, Eric answered. He could hear Nina’s sigh. “Your……’i can’t remember anything because of memory loss’….won’t help if he happens to see me through one way or another. And i don’t think he would easily forget the face of the person who sent him into oblivion”, he continued.

“Just don’t let him see you”, Nina sighed again. “So are we done?”, she asked Eric who sensed the impatience in her voice.

“I think that’s all….for now”, he replied. He seems to be enjoying himself.

“Okay then call me whenever something that is important comes up…….i mean something really really important?”, Nina said and the line clicks before Eric could say anything.

Eric glanced at the phone and dropped it on the bed. Then he opened the diary and started reading the first entry.

********************************************

Only the sound of cutlery and food munching could be heard as the family ate their dinner. Barry Philips, Agnes husband, ate and gave the others quick glances; focusing most of his attention on Eric.

Barry Philips is a middle aged man in his late forties, well built with strong shoulders. He had some grey hair with a neatly trimmed beard and moustache. He is a man of few words and have the eyes of someone who always seems lost in thoughts. He is the owner and C.E.O of a family conglomerate company well known in Easthill city.

Earlier in the day, when he came back from his office, he had gone to Alex’s room to see if what he heard about his runaway son being found was true. When he saw Eric whom he thought was Alex, he voiced his disappointments and left.

“How is your mother doing?”, Barry asked Mary, his wife’s 19 years old niece who is spending her vacation in the family’s house. “I haven’t seen her for almost a month.

“Uncle she is okay……..and complaining that you hardly make out time to see her”, Mary replied and sipped from her glass of water.

“Dont mind him”, Agnes put in. “He is always busy busy busy. One day i will put him in chains so that he won’t leave this house for a month.

“Oh really?……”, Barry said to agnes as he accept the glass of water she just poured for him. “Then i better hire bodyguards to protect me from a chain wielding woman”, he contiued.

Everyone else except Eric laughed. The family talk at the dinner table continued with Eric still not listening to their conversations. He was thinking about what he had read from Alex’s diary.

The events that transpired from the time he woke up in that hospital to him stepping into the Philips mansion had being nothing but pieces of a meaningless puzzle until he read the book. And it gave Eric some clues on what was really going on.

Alex was an orphan adopted by the rich Philips family. And he was suffering from extreme depression. He was adopted as a baby after five years of Agnes and Barry being unable to have children. But two years into the adoption, Agnes started having babies. And Alex problems started. Eric had gone through the dairy page by page and saw an unending tales of being mistreated and belittled and abuse. The loving family Alex had known as a child had become his worst nightmare and it all seem to start after Daniel, his younger brother was born.

Even at school he wasn’t spared. Being bullied everyday seem to have become a subject in his own curriculum. One student in particular, whom Alex calls Greg, made it a hobby of making life hell for Alex in school

Eric took a sip of water from his glass to wash down the food he had been chewing. He stared at Agnes, the main culprit for the hell Alex was going through and remembered the list Alex made in his diary. The list of horrible names she had called him and horrible things she had said. The one that Eric can’t get off his mind is the one Alex had written he overheard her telling her friends. That he was just a “bastard orphan adopted just to keep the marriage from breaking up”. The first line Eric saw when he opened the diary. And that explained her attitudes towards him when he first saw her in the hospital.

Alex, do you want to have my chicken?”, suzanne, who is sitting next to Eric asked with a cute voice and put a piece of chicken in his plate before he could say anything.

“Suzanne…..eat your chicken!”, Agnes commanded.

“Mom i want him to have it”, she began but got cut short by her mother who barked out her command again.

Eric looked at the chicken as if examining it. Then he shove it into his mouth and chewed it noisily.

“Thanks”, he said to suzanne with a smile. Everyone including Agnes stared at him. “Yours even tastes better”, Eric continued and stared at Agnes while chewing. He was doing it to spite her.

“Why you dont want to eat it”, Victoria asked her younger sister. “That is you favourite part”.

“Is there any problem with her giving me jer favourite part of a chicken?”, Eric cut in and looked at Victoria. “Maybe it is her way of saying she is happy to see her big brother”.

“Her big brother”, Daniel sneered.

“Do you have any problem with that?”, Eric asked him.

“No, it’s not a problem….”, Daniel began indifferently. “…..it’s just that for the past two weeks since u……well…….disappeared, her classmates had being teasing her. Though i don’t see how your coming back will make any difference.

“Then i will make her classmate apologize to her”,

“Well he is teasing her and keep telling her that it was his elder brother that made you to runaway from home”, Victoria said to Eric. “He said he gave you the order and you obeyed”.

“Oh really?, then i will have to deal with him for saying that”, Eric said to Suzanne. “I will make both of them apologize?”.

Victoria and Daniel burst into a fit of laughter with suzanne starring at Eric like he said something crazy.

“His brother is Greg”, Suzanne then said.

“Greg?, isn’t he the boy that made him cry like a baby in school last year?”, Agnes smirked.

“Made Alex cry?”, Mary asked, looking at Eric. She was trying to paint a picture of him crying infront of other students in her head.

“Yeah…..that day was the most embarrassing day of…..”, Victoria began to her cousin.

“Enough!!”, Barry suddenly interrupted angrily. “I don’t want to ever hear any of that again!”, he warned.

Eric got up and wiped his mouth and hands with the white napkin on the table. He pat suzanne on the back and said, “I will still make them apologize”, and head straight to his room. He could hear sniggers behind him.

******************************************

“Today i have decided to end it all. I think my purpose of coming into this world is done. It’s time to go even though nobody will ever miss me. My only regret is not being able to know who my mother is and never having the chace to meet her if she is still alive”

Eric had being starring at that last entry in the diary for minutes with a tornado of questions in his mind. But the one question that bothered him more than any other is, this Nina’s scam he is being part of, is he really going to be playing it just for a month as Nina had said because he is staring at what seems to be Alex’s suicide note. Nina is probably not aware of this diary and he is sure of that. So is he going to play this bluff for a month or…….forever?.

A knock on the door interrupted Eric in his thoughts. He immediately hide the diary under one of the pillows.

“Yeah the door is open”, he said.

Suzanne stepped into the the room and gently closed the door. She is wearing a pink flowery pyjamas.

“Suzi…….aren’t u suppose to be in bed by now?”, Eric asked and glanced at the wall clock. It was almost 9:30 pm.

She shook her head and rubbed her elbow. Eric invited her to sit next to him on the bed.

“So……”, Eric began and looked at her beautiful face with cute eyes covered with glasses. “Is there anything you want to talk about?, perhaps all that had happened when i wasn’t around”, he asked

“Nothing really happened. Just some men came to our house and asking questions. Victoria said ther were policemen”, Suzanne answered.

“What about you?, where you worried?”.

“I was crying”.

“Crying?”.

“For almost two days. I thought something happened to you or maybe you were……dead”.

Those words made Eric to glance at the pillow where he hid the diary. Then he look at suzanne.

“Well you can see that am not dead”, he said with a smile.

“Suzanne nodded and said, “But you have changed”. Then she looked at Eric’s body and arms. “You look kind of different”, she noticed

“It’s still me. Maybe i look different to you because tou haven’t seen me for over two weeks”, Eric said thinking of how intelligent she is.

“Maybe”, she said and looked away. “But i missed you alot”, she murmured.

“Why does mom hate me so much?”, Eric asked her intently, hoping she will spill some infos he might need.

“I don’t know…..”, Suzanne shrugged. “She said you are not one of us and can’t be one of us. Daniel is practising karate because of you”.

“Why?”.

“So that he can beat you”

“Oh really?, well i don’t think he can…..am sure of that”.

“Suzanne looked at him and said, “The last time you had a fight with him, he beat you”.

“You think so?”, Eric asked, thinking how much of a wussy boy Alex was. “I let him beat me because he is younger that me”, he continued, not even sure if what he said made any sense.

“What about Greg?, did you just let him beat you?”,

“Eric smiled and put his hand on her shoulder.

“Well……Greg talks too much. Most of the things he said are not true and people who talk too much are not even strong”, Eric said. “It is the quiet people that are really strong. But they dont fight”

“Why don’t they fight?”, Suzanne asked.

“Because if they do, they might hurt people or even do worse”.

“How do you know that?”.

“Let me tell you a story”, Eric began and sat closer to her. “There was a boy who lived with only his mother. His dad died before he was born. In school they called him the silent one because he hardly talks. Some of his classmates and other students thought he was silent because he wasn’t strong and scared. So they made jokes about him and said bad words to him. But he still remained silent and never complained to the teachers, not even to his mother. One day he was alone in the classroom, some students came in and locked the door. There were five of them and quite big. They wanted to beat him up”.

Eric stopped and looked at suzanne who was staring at him with alot of interest.

“So what happened?”, she asked eagerly.

Eric got up and went over to the reading desk and picked out a thick hard cover book He handed it to suzanne as he sat next to her.

“He used that…..”, he began and pointed at the book he just gave her. “He used it to send them all to the hospital”.

“Suzanne looked at the book and said, “That’s impossible. I think you are joking”.

“Do you think am joking?”, Eric asked.

“Suzanne stared at the book curiously. Perhaps she is wondering how possible is it to use it as a weapon for a beat-down. Eric stared at her and wondered if he was suppose to tell her that story. The story of what got him suspended for two weeks when he was in high school.

“So what happened to the boy?”, Suzanne then asked.

“Well, he got suspended from school and his mother made himto promise never to hit anyone again…..never”, Eric replied.

“Do you think he kept his promise?”.

“I don’t know about that. Maybe he did or maybe he didn’t. But am sure he is always trying his best not to fight no matter how trouble comes”.

Then Suzanne placed the book on the bed and got up. She yawned andd stretched. Her eyes looked tired.

“I think you have to go to bed”, Eric said to her and got up to go put the book back in the shelf.

Suzanne then wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tight. After a few seconds she break away saying, “Goodnight Alex”, and heading towards the door.

“Wait can i ask you something”, Eric asked.

Suzanne stopped and looked over her shoulder and asked what it is

“Sometimes the medicine the doctor gave me make me forget things”, Eric lied. “Do we know any woman by the name Nina?”,

“No i have never heard of that name or know her”, Suzanne replied.

“Okay then…..goodnight”, Eric said and watch her leave the room.

BLOODLINE Episode 6
#OpraDre

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