The Vendeleer Brothers Book 3: Nightmare on Holly
Chapter 14: Hector

Roderick sat there quietly, listening to Holly’s and Akaysha’s explanations as the roses from the fake Roderick slowly began to disappear.

“So… if Akaysha can bring things out of people’s minds… does that mean… I was on your mind Holly?” Roderick grinned.

“Um… maybe.” Holly mumbled.

Roderick felt extremely giddy at this thought. After all, he had liked Holly almost from the first moment he had seen her. However, he was just as excited about the news from Akaysha.

“And… you have powers?” he asked of the thirteen year old. The girl looked extremely worn out now, and she simply shrugged.

“I guess you could call it that. Please don’t tell anybody. Just the fact that you guys know now puts you in danger.”

“But that’s the thing! It doesn’t have to be that way!” Roderick exclaimed with excitement, jumping up. “I work with other people like you. We help train them to control their powers! I even have a good friend who just found out about hers.”

For a moment, the girl looked up at him in surprise and… hope.

“Really?” she whispered.

“Yeah! You could come to the PDU and we could help you. I could go talk to your legal guardian and-.”

At the sound of “legal guardian”, Akaysha’s face fell.

“Hector would never go for it…” she said sadly.

“But-.”

“Roderick.” Holly interjected, looking at Akaysha in concern. “Can I speak to you for a moment?”

Roderick let Holly pull him over to the side, out of earshot of the thirteen year old with them.

“I’m 99% sure that there’s some abuse going on in that household.” she whispered. “She usually has bruises on her arms and legs where people can’t see, and she even came in with a black eye over the weekend once. She said she got into a fight, but I don’t believe her. She’s probably scared for anyone to talk to her foster dad because of this, so we need to play things delicately.”

Roderick stood there thinking. An abusive home would definitely explain the thirteen year old’s behavior… And…

His eyes suddenly grew wide as he thought over the mysterious murders in town. Many of them had happened over night while the victim had been in bed…

“Holly!! What was Bobby doing when the velociraptor appeared?!” he asked suddenly, facts from the case boiling up inside him. Holly seemed a bit taken aback by the sudden change of subject.

“Um… He told me that he had been watching Jurassic Park and had fallen asleep when-.”

“They’re nightmares!!” he practically yelled, forgetting to whisper in his excitement.

“What are you talking about?” Holly questioned, glancing at the girl standing a few feet away. Roderick hunched over and lowered his voice.

“Holly-think about it. Akaysha has the ability to bring things out of people’s heads. There’s been a string of deaths in town from things that shouldn’t be able to happen-most of the time after someone was sleeping-or probably dreaming. If she is really in an abusive home, she’s probably under a lot of stress and unable to control her powers. She must be accidentally bringing nightmares to real life!”

Holly stared at him.

“Holy sweet Friday on a stick.” she whispered with her mouth open. “You’re right! I bet if we looked into all the attacks, they would have come from somebody had either had a dream about it or been thinking about it!”

“I have to get her to the PDU and get her some help.” Roderick told her, straightening up, a determined look on his face.

Holly tried not to think about how attractive Roderick looked at the moment.

“Akaysha…” Roderick began, turning to her and kneeling down on one knee. “I’ve dealt with a lot of dangerous stuff for my job, so it takes a lot to stop me. Let us help you. I’m sure we can convince your foster dad to cooperate.”

Akaysha took in a deep breath.

“Ok. But I’m telling you right now-he’s not going to like it…”

A few minutes later, Holly was driving the three of them to Akaysha’s house. Akaysha pointed down the streets to go down, and when they pulled up in front of her house, Roderick realized it wasn’t too far away from where he and Ian were living. Akaysha did not seem overly excited to go inside as she dragged her feet along and acted like she wanted to hide behind the two adults with her.

“Come on in…” she said a bit shakily as she opened the door.

Inside, the house felt fairly normal. Roderick started to brace himself for what this Hector guy might be like within his own home.

“Hector! We have guests!” Akaysha called out. A moment later, a man that Roderick recognized from the Waffle House a couple of weeks ago appeared from around the corner. He was probably in his early forties, and he was wearing a nice collared shirt and khakis. He put his hands on his hips and looked at the thirteen year old sternly.

“Akaysha, what have I said about inviting people over without permission?”

The girl glanced at Roderick and Holly and then hung her head.

“Um… I accidentally… told them… about my… abilities… But-they said they can help me…”

Hector froze, and then looked up at his two guests.

“Well, I guess we have some things to talk about then. Have a seat.” he said, gesturing to the table. Holly and Roderick slowly sat down as Hector glared at the thirteen year old.

“Akaysha. Go to your room.” he said quietly.

“Yes sir.”

Hector sighed as the girl hurried out of the room.

“Do you two want some water or anything?”

“Oh no thanks.” Roderick replied amiably.

“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t give you one of her glasses of course.” the man chuckled. Holly and Roderick regarded him in confusion.

“Uh… One of her glasses?”

“Yes. We have separate dishes. I’m not going to eat and drink after a black kid after all.”

It took a moment for Roderick and Holly to process what had just been said. Roderick felt a rage start boiling within him, and his face started to grow hot.

This guy was freaking racist!!

He felt his hands close into fists as an urge to suddenly punch this guy in the face shot through him. Holly seemed to notice this, and quietly put her hand on his under the table. Immediately, Roderick felt the rage leave him a the soft touch of her hand. He had to play this cool. Violence wouldn’t solve anything-even if this guy was super racist.

“Well…” Roderick began with a deep breath. “I work at the PDU in town. The Paranormal Division Unit. We work with people who have abilities, like Akaysha, so that they can control them.”

Hector sat there in deep thought, his eyebrows furrowed forward. His eyes flashed.

“I don’t think you realize how dangerous she is.” he said quietly. “I don’t know how you know her, and I don’t really care, but she’s more capable of evil things than you think.”

Roderick felt Holly squeeze his hand, and he glanced over to her to see that she looked rather nervous by what Hector had just said.

“What do you mean by that?” Roderick asked warily.

“Don’t trust anything she says.” Hector warned them. “She’s delusional, smart, and more powerful than she lets on. I don’t think it’s a good idea for her to go to this PDU place of yours. She needs a normal environment to keep her calm. Doing a bunch of tests and experiments with her in some lab won’t help her destress from anything.”

“But-we wouldn’t-.”

“Please just trust me on this. You don’t even know her at all.”

Roderick clenched his teeth, still having a hard time with his usual conversational skills because of the comment Hector had made earlier.

“Tell you what. I’ll give you the address to the PDU, and then if you just want to come by with Akaysha, we can all sit down and talk about what might help the both of you. Does that sound ok to you?”

Hector sighed.

“Fine. Just, when you leave, be careful. Now that you know about Akaysha’s abilities, it might bring out another side of her that you’re not prepared for.”

Holly and Roderick exchanged glances.

So Roderick wrote out the address to the PDU for him, and the two of them left without any incident. It was only when they were outside, that the two of them realized that they were still holding hands. Roderick halfway expected her to let go in surprise, but… she didn’t. She looked up to him and then shyly looked away.

“I’ll… give you a ride home…” she mumbled.

Roderick couldn’t keep the smile off his face.

“Come on man!! I’ve got more zombies headed my way!!” Brian exclaimed, hunched over his controller and staring at the tv in Ian and Roderick’s apartment.

“On my way!!”

The two friends continued to shoot zombies while Ian sat in his armchair, a bit flabbergasted.

“Roderick-can we please go back to the fact that you very possibly could have figured out what’s going on in this town?!” he exasperated. “You just kind of glossed over that before freaking out about holding Holly’s hand.”

“I mean, there’s not much to tell bro.” Roderick said a bit dismissively, shooting a zombie in the face right before it got to Brian.

“I still can’t believe that fake you kept giving her roses.” Brian smirked. “I’m going to hold that against you for the rest of our lives.”

“Fine by me.”

“Roderick.”

Roderick rolled his eyes and paused the game.

“What more do you want to know Ian? I went and talked with her foster dad to try to convince him to let us take her to the PDU so we can help her out. That’s pretty much all that happened. Can we get back to our game now?”

“Fine.”

With a sigh, Ian sat back in his chair to think while his brother got back to playing his game with Brian. Something didn’t feel right about all of this. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but he knew it had something to do with Shaq. This girl that Roderick was talking about could very well be the reason for all the stuff in town, but that wouldn’t explain why Shaq had acted out of character, or the things that Joey had been seeing and hearing. There was something more to this, he just knew it.

At that moment, he looked up as the lights flickered, and then went out.

“NOOOOO! OUR GAAAAME!!” Brian lamented, falling to his knees.

“Aw man! We were doing really well too…” Roderick pouted, dropping his controller on the couch and falling back to fold his arms. Ian narrowed his eyes in annoyance at the blackout.

“I’ll go replace the breaker box…” he mumbled, getting out of his chair.

“I think it’s back in my bedroom!” Roderick called out as Ian made his way down the hallway. Ian found himself mumbling things in annoyance as he opened the door to Roderick’s room and started stepping over dirty clothes on the floor. He made a mental note to pester Roderick later about cleaning his room. When he finally got to the breaker box, he flipped the switches a couple of times, only for nothing to happen. He groaned within himself,and then made his way to his own room so he could grab some flashlights.

He paused when he walked by his window.

There was a figure out there, coming toward their apartment. It looked like whoever it was was limping. Thinking that someone was hurt, Ian opened his window as he put batteries in his flashlight.

“Hey! Are you ok?” he called out, turning his flashlight on. “Do you need some help?”

He shone the flashlight on the person, revealing tattered clothes and rotting flesh. A bloodshot eye stared at him from exposed muscle riddled with gangrene, and stringy hair draped over part of the person’s face.

Ian’s mouth dropped open, and then he immediately slammed his window shut.

“RODERICK!!” he screamed, running into the other room. “WHY THE HECK DID YOU HAVE TO BE PLAYING A ZOMBIE GAME?!!”