The satellite radio system that came with the new SUV her and her Husband Craig had bought had been nothing short of a blessing for 33 year old Leslie Griffen. They'd decided to purchase the Land Rover six months earlier, just before she was due to deliver her third child, a daughter named Jeni that was now almost 3 months old, simply because with their third brought into the world, the family would soon outgrow any car they could find.
A devout Catholic and extremely active in her church, it took every bit of Leslie's love for humanity and adherence to God's teachings however to keep her from going crazy as she learned to navigate the beast of a vehicle through the suburban asphalt jungle of the Santa Clara, California neighborhood her family called home.
Thankfully she had found a Christian music station on the satellite radio system to play constantly when she was battling for space on the road with hundreds of others just like her, crammed into oversized 'soccer mom mobiles', shuttling their kids to and fro under the glorious California sun. Without the steady and relaxing music to remind her of everything her upbringing in the church had taught, only God knows what sort of primal witch might have been unleashed as the horrible drivers around Leslie cut her off, wouldn't allow her to merge, or worse as she shuffled around town.
That Saturday had proved to be just like most others. Leslie had just started feeling somewhat back to her normal self and had a million errands that had piled up while she recovered from her pregnancy. It was also early September so she had once again become a chauffeur for her 6 and 8 year olds boys as they went in all directions with their school functions and friends.
She had just dropped each off at separate friends' houses and was preparing to make her way to the mall to do some much needed shopping for herself and the home. Her Husband Craig had offered to spend the day at home babysitting their newborn daughter so Leslie was gonna make hay while the sun was shining. She'd told him she would probably be out for at least 3 hours, maybe 4 or 5 if the boys had been good when she picked them up, she might take them to a movie since they had been somewhat neglected attention wise with the new baby in the house.
Just as she was about to make the left hand turn into the mall's parking lot, Leslie reached into her purse to fish out the bottle of medication she needed to get re-filled for one of her sons when it dawned on her that she had left it on the kitchen counter.
"Shhhheeff," Leslie groaned, coming as close to cursing out of frustration as she could when she realized she'd have to drive all the way back home to get it.
She knew she could call her husband up and her could drive out to meet her, but that would require him loading up the baby and after all, he'd sacrificed his Saturday golf game to give her a day out of the house. It just wouldn't be right to put him through all that when she had a full tank of gas in the SUV and no deadlines to meet. In fact, Leslie's stomach was growling so much, she decided to stop for a quick lunch all by herself to just enjoy eating a meal, in peace, that someone else fixed and cleaned up after, before driving back home to get the prescription.
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The first cautionary tip-off that something might have been amiss was when Leslie made the left onto the street where she lived and saw an unfamiliar car parked in her driveway. The white Jetta looked vaguely familiar, but inside Leslie's rushed and cluttered mind she couldn't quite place it as she walked towards the house. She expected to find Craig lounging on the living room sofa when she made her way inside, or perhaps rocking their newborn daughter in the recliner, but when she swung open the unlocked storm door and stuck her head inside, all she heard was silence. Another small but unsettling wave rippled through her intestines as the lack of sound in the house permeated her senses.
"Maybe Craig's still upstairs taking a nap or getting into the shower," Leslie told herself even though she began to sense something might be wrong.
Making the short walk from the living room to the kitchen to fetch her Son's prescription, Leslie neatly tucked the bottle into her purse before turning her attention back to her eerily silent house. Wearing her soft-soled tennis shoes, Leslie's 135 pound frame barely made a sound as she brushed lightly across the floor.
Deciding to make a quick detour upstairs just to check on her 3 month old Daughter, Leslie briskly climbed the carpeted stairs and the first thing she saw when she got to the top of was her baby sleeping peacefully in her crib. Leslie stood at the edge of the crib for several seconds, admiring her sleeping child before turning to look in her bedroom for any sign of her Husband.
Just as Leslie was about to call out his name, a sliver of something she remembered when she first walked into the house a minute earlier came back to her.
"The door in the hall that goes down to the basement was ajar when you came in," Leslie reassuringly told herself. "I bet Craig's down there cleaning up his shop like he said he might today."
An invisible weight seemingly lifted off her shoulders, Leslie went to kiss her sleeping baby goodbye on the forehead before turning to walk back downstairs. Strolling towards the door that led to the basement, Leslie cracked it open a little further but an instant before she was about to lower her right foot down on the top step, a third wave of trepidation suddenly clutched her throat. Unlike the initial two that had most likely been products of a stressed and overactive imagination, this one crested squarely in each ear.
There was a muffled and difficult to hear mixture of what sounded like some sort of straining and heavy breathing coming from deep within the basement. Had Craig somehow hurt himself down there or did he have the TVon maybe while he worked?
Leslie was sure she could make out a voice but she grew cold and antsy trying to decipher it, knowing it sounded much softer than her Husband's normally gruff and circumspect tone. Standing frozen at the top of the stairs, Leslie held her breath listening to the jumbled sounds, allowing the implication of them to mix with seeing the strange car parked in the driveway and the fact that her Husband was nowhere to be found.
Again Leslie had to ask herself if it was a sound of distress coming form downstairs, but as she continued to absorb the echoes radiating from the basement, she had no choice but to accept that they were becoming more rhythmic and clear.
Leslie's desperately racked her brain, trying to figure out an alternate, and perfectly innocent explanation for what she girded herself to see when she descended the steps, but the stone cold and eternal pragmatist inside Leslie just knew. Stealth on her part wasn't at all necessary. It was clear from the unabated and intensifying sounds rising from the bowels of the basement that the people causing them had no clue there was anyone else in the house except for a sleeping baby two floors up.