"Don't I know you?" The woman asked, speaking to Wyatt directly. Wyatt's eyes widened as she shook her head forcefully. I wonder if she's lying. Of course, she is.

"So you haven't seen anything odd?" I questioned the woman, trying to take her attention away from Wyatt.

"Huh? Oh! No, not that I know of..." She spoke but continued to stare at Wyatt. Suddenly, anger washed over her face as she furrowed her brows at my sister."YOU!"

Wyatt didn't hesitate to take the fuck off. I knew she did something, I just knew it. God damn it.

"Well, thank you for your time." I smiled at her as the woman still grimaced in the direction that Wyatt went.

"Yeah, sorry for your loss." The door slammed right in our faces after she muttered that line. Brent pressed his lips in a fine line as Marcia walked away from us to join Wyatt, wherever she ran off to.

"So who do you think Wyatt screwed?" He suppressed a laugh as I shook my head with a smirk.

"Let's find out." I spun around on my heel to get off this woman's porch before she calls the police. As I got closer to the sidewalk, I could see Wyatt leaning against a tree with a satisfied smile on her face."Who did you do?"

"Her son. I thought she'd get over that, we were in high school. She caught us on her couch. At least he used protection.... I think." She pondered as Marcia raised an eyebrow in confusion."So this is another bust? That's a good thing."

"Not even close. We're gonna have to case some houses tonight." I gestured to the houses behind us. This is the eighth house we've been to and not one of them has had a disturbance. Well, other than Mr. Scrabbles the cat is missing. Not really important.

"Good. I haven't done anything illegal in a while." Wyatt pushed herself off the tree as we started making our way towards another house. This was always a lively neighborhood, thriving with people. Mom said the busier the block, the more things are lurking. Some things like to hide in plain sight. They like to be 'conspicuously inconspicuous' as my mother would say.

"Uh, I haven't done anything illegal in my life." Brent pointed at himself as Marcia turned her attention towards him.

"What are you talking about? You have a whole stash of weed." Marcia brought up. Brent froze looking between me and Wyatt as we all stopped.

"A whole stash? And you didn't even share. You're the worst brother ever." Wyatt ruffled his brown hair as he let out a chuckle. It's actually been a while since I saw Wyatt. Last time I saw her was her birthday earlier this April. She wanted to get wasted, just like all her other birthdays.

But, we just had this bond between us. Ever since we were kids; we were inseparable. We're still close but I just see her less. Hopefully with the gate damaged, we'll all get to spend more time together.

"So we can check one more house before we call it a night." I said pointing at the house coming up. It was a two story house, that was painted black. The dark, metal gate barricaded the beautiful house from the rest of the block. The short gate protected the dark red roses that littered the front lawn. This house was just visually pleasing. The four of us walked towards the house but I could see the look on Brent's face. Almost like he was nervous.

Before I could ask what was wrong, Marcia knocked on the door. After several seconds, a tall girl answered. Her light brown skin glistened with sweat as she looked at us with brown eyes, wondering why we're here.

"Uh, hi, can I help you?" She answered with a puzzled look on her young face. The girl studied all of our faces until she got to Marcia."Marcy!"

"Hi, Cupid," Marcia smiled as the girl pulled her into a huge with a wide smile. Wyatt and I exchanged looks as Brent continued to study the floor. He hasn't looked up since we walked up the porch steps."How've you been?"

"Pretty good. I'm finally graduating so I can't wait to get out of that school in two months. You're so lucky you graduated!" Cupid beamed at my sister then looked at Brent with squinted eyes, trying to figure out who he was.

"Don't worry, you're almost out. You still on the basketball team?"Marcia asked. Cupid nodded, still partially peeking at Brent."Where are my manners?! This is my sister and brothers! Wyatt, Kenji and-"

"It's Brent, right?" She pointed at him with a smile. Brent looked up from the floor, finally, and all his attention was on her.

"Y-yeah. Hi. I'm Brent... but you already knew that." He twiddled his thumbs rapidly as he spoke up to her.

"Yeah, I've seen you around... in school I mean. And around here too, since you live up the block. Not that I'm watching you! I just- I just see you around. We have chemistry right?" The girl once stood confidently before us was now a nervous wreck, almost just as much as Brent.

"Chemistry? I mean we rarely speak and all but- Ohhhh! Chemistry! The class! Oh! Yes, we do. We most certainly do. And we have music together.......I'll see you in school." Brent dashed away before she could say another word to him. A pained look flashed across her face but it was gone in a second.

"He's such a mess." Wyatt shook her head as he continued to walk up the block on his own.

"It's nice meeting you all and seeing you again Marcy and forgive me for sounding rude but, why are you guys here?" The girl finally asked. My sisters looked at me, basically telling me with their eyes to explain.

"Well, Cupid because we-" I was getting ready to tell her a lie but I was interrupted by a pained howling."Everything alright in there?"

"Other than my dog, Poppy, acting up, yeah. Like he'll just bark at the nothing for hours and be won't go outside anymore. I'm just gonna take him to the vet I guess." She told us as she looked behind her to see a tall Dalmatian. Poppy looked at us outside and whimpered.

"How long has this been happening?" Wyatt asked, looking directly at Cupid who was more worried about her dog.

"About a week now." Exactly around the time that the gate opened.

"Well, hopefully, Poppy gets better. I just wanted to stop by and say hello. I'll hit you up and we can hang out." Marcia smiled at her old friend.

"That'll be dope. And I'm sorry about your mom. She was a sweet lady. Take care." Cupid smiled as we said our goodbyes then parted ways. As soon as we far enough, we started to discuss what the hell is going on.

"I'm thinking a spirit. Dogs can usually sense their presence." Wyatt unlocked her phone to look at herself in the camera. Vain as ever.

"Possibly. Did you scan anything, Mars?" I peered over to Marcia who pulled the EMF meter from out of her pocket.

"Not a damn thing. Maybe it's just a dog in pain. It's not uncommon." Marcia shrugged shoving the device back into the inner pocket of her denim jacket.

The fact that this just might be a regular thing scares me even more because where the hell are these things then? Did they get farther? They know if they leave this town another Gatekeeper will capture them. So where are they?

"Misery! Misery! Where are you, boy?" A woman shouted down the street with a man by her side who yelled out with her."Have any of you seen a golden retriever?"

We all shook our head, causing the couple to leave us, continuing the search for their dog. Hopefully, they find him. Right after, we took a short walk back to the house to find Brent sitting on the couch, slouched over with his face buried in his hands.

"Everything alright, small fry?" I was the first to approach my little brother. He looked up at me with sad brown eyes but still nodded with a fabricated smile."Did you do what I said?"

"Yeah. I planted the tracker in her backyard. I'm pretty sure I did better than Wyatt." Brent smiled as he looked towards Wyatt. Just like Wyatt had to do, he had to leave the group while we kept the person distracted so he can plant a tracker by their house. It's so we can monitor it in case something....weird happens.

"Yeah, but you made a whole ass of yourself in front of that girl. Nice going, Casanova." Wyatt rolled her eyes as she made her way out of the room. Brent's face turned a bright red, failing to hide it from the rest of us. He took his book bag from under the dining room table and took out a huge textbook. Psychology. My least favorite.

"You have homework? I thought you were out of school for the week?" I questioned.

"I asked for it in advance so I don't fall behind." His eyes were glued to his textbook as he continued to read through it. I couldn't help but smile and ruffle his hair. He still had his innocence and that just made me happy. I don't want him to end up like the rest of us. Brent, Scarlet, and Marcia still have a chance.

"Well, I'll let you work, sport. I'm gonna go annoy Wyatt." I patted his shoulder, about to walk out of the room but spun around quickly to tell him one more thing."And try to talk that girl more. I think she likes you too."

Brent buried his face deeper into his book in an attempt to read away his embarrassment but I he couldn't hide that from me. I know him too well.

I already knew where to find Wyatt. Drinking a glass of whiskey in front of the gate. And that's exactly where I found her.

"Staring at it won't fix it." I walked down the basement stairs to Wyatt, who didn't even flinch at my voice.

"Did she suffer?"

"Wyatt, will asking that re-"

"Answer it. I need to know." Her back still facing me. I know she didn't want to look at me. I hate looking at myself too.

"Yes."

"I thought so. Of course something would want her to." She chuckled bitterly, sipping her drink once more."It's not your fault, Kenji. I know how it feels."

"I always knew what happened to you was bad but we all suffered too. I just wish we didn't have to go through that again."

"What did it?"

"It was something.....evil. I could sense it since the minute it got loose. It was...It was...big and black and-"

"How racist of you." Wyatt stifled a laugh as I stood by her side. I took a good look at her face. Her eyes were bloodshot red. She kept a tissue clutched in her small fist to catch the tears before they fell. Wyatt was the toughest person I knew and I rarely ever saw her cry. Her reason was that she didn't want to ruin her makeup but I knew the real reason why."Sorry, can't cry. Trying to get this warm brown foundation from Fenty was a bitch."

"You don't have to make jokes, you don't have to say anything. It's okay." I wrapped my arms around my older sister who finally gave in and let her tears fall. She wept for the loss of our parents. She wept for what that thing did. She wept for all the times she held back her tears.

"W-w-why do we always have to go through this shit, Ken? Haven't we fucking lost enough?! Why does bad shit happen to us?" Wyatt croaked through her tears as she soaked up my black dress shirt. She laid her head on my shoulder as her body shook with each sob. I stroked her black hair, quietly soothing her and telling her that everything will be alright. Everything will be alright. Right?

***

Nothing out of the blue has been happening.

Not a fucking thing.

The bastard kills my mother and doesn't cause any kind of chaos? You have to be fucking kidding me.

I looked up from my laptop to look around the room. Wyatt was on her phone messing with Snapchat filters, Brent did his homework, and Marcia watched tv. Everything seemed normal. Our lives were very far from normal.

My mother was something called a Gatekeeper. This was a job you had until you died. The point was to keep everything evil locked away, to keep the world safe by getting rid of them. Being a Gatekeeper ran in my mom's family for generations, eventually passing it on to us when she couldn't have any biological children of her own. She traveled the world, fighting evil stuff and protecting people. My mother made a lot of friends and some enemies. Our father, on the other hand, was a Keyholder. They're in charge of guarding keys that haven't unlocked any gates. We still had the key even after what happened to him but.... I haven't told the others that the monster that killed mom...took the key with him. That's why I'm in such a hurry to catch him. God knows what he could do with that one key- and I don't even want to find out. How could I let this happen?

I did this.

This is my fault.

Mom is dead because of me.

I could've saved her.

"Hey." Marcia took me out of my self-loathing trance for a second."You alright?"

"Yeah. I'm okay." I'm not okay.

None of this should be happening right now. Mom should be here trying to track down a monster and I should be helping her. Just us two. I'm making my siblings give up their lives. They shouldn't have to do that.

They should be free. Working. Going to school. Socializing. Having fun. Not devoting their lives to something that will eventually kill us. It's not right.

All of a sudden, the door burst open, followed by various footsteps. Scarlet walked in first with a white paper bag in her hands. McDonald's written across the bag. She dug into the bag, tossing burgers at the four of us. I caught mine as Marcia was hit in the head by a McChicken. Scarlet rolled her eye as she dropped the bag on the dining room table next to Brent. Omar and Daria entered the house with a giant, metal trunk. I could tell it was old by the thick layer of dust, and the rust decorated all over it wasn't helping. They dropped it on the floor by the couch and let out a relieved sigh. Must have been really heavy. I would've helped them but I just don't want to. Frankie walked in last with a shopping cart.

"You're welcome for the food," Frankie tried pushing the shopping cart inside but struggled. I would help him too but... no."I bought them all."

"Where's the rest of the fucking barbecue sauce?" Wyatt rummaged through the bag, holding a box of 10-piece nuggets in one hand. The harder she looked, the angrier she got. She kept looking into the bag as if a secret compartment was going to open up, revealing a shit load of sauce."How am I going to eat 10 fucking nuggets with one sauce? Do they want me to choke?"

"Just use ketchup." Omar piped up. We all stopped what we were doing and glared at him in unison. How dare he?

"How dare you?" Frankie shook his head then went back to struggling.

"You use ketchup to eat with your nuggets, you savage? Come on, Mom raised you better than that." Wyatt rolled her eyes as she placed the nuggets back in the bag. I'm pretty sure she lost her appetite. I wasn't even hungry in the first place.

"What did you guys find?" Omar asked us, taking a seat on the couch with a sigh.

"Mr. Scrabbles and Misery are missing." I sighed, tossing the burger aside. I'm not a big McDonald's fan. I prefer homemade food over fast food. I'll miss mom's food.

"Who?"

"A cat and a dog. That's the only peculiar thing we found." Marcia shrugged."And my friend's dog is sick."

"Really? When we were at Tony's shop, a bunch of people was looking for pets and we all thought they were looking for the same animal, turns out like five dogs were missing. I can't have animals, they run away. Or die." Frankie shook his head once again then finally managed to get the cart into the living room. Once he did, he removed the blue tarp from on top that was covering all the weird shit inside. He pulled out a blood coated machete and eyed it with a wide grin. He swung it around in the air a few times, satisfied with the way it cut absolutely nothing. As you can see, Frankie's an idiot but he's funny.

Wyatt got up to reach into the trunk and pulled out a double-barreled shotgun. She grimaced at the brownish-rust color and toss it back into the shopping cart in disgust. I think Wyatt was the second one to learn how to shoot. Omar was first. Frankie was supposed to be second but dad didn't trust him enough (at all) so he learned after me.

"Five dogs? From the same block?" Brent chewed on his burger as he had his homework spread out on the dining table. They give high school students so much damn homework. How the fuck do they expect them to do all this, get eight hours of sleep, eat breakfast early in the morning and then memorize everything from the day before? Ugh, I'm so glad I graduated.

"Yeah. All cute doggies too. Just vanished." Daria answered, throwing her hair up into a ponytail. Daria was never much of a talker but she was always smiling. She was the most optimistic one about mom's passing. She said at least it brought us together again. I just wish it wasn't like this."I love dogs. Can we get one?"

"No." Wyatt answered. I turned my head to look at her, just to check if she was actually alright. Her makeup was now even better than before, it was almost like she didn't even break down a few hours ago. Almost like- Did he just say five dogs?

"Wait, I'm sorry- Did you just say five dogs?" I looked up at the rest of them with pure shock on my face. What they said just hit me. Five dogs on the same block?! Didn't they see that this was something weird? Yup, they've been gone for too long.

"Yeah. Need me to say it in Gaelic or you wanna clean the cumshots from out your ears? Dick." Frankie rolled his eyes as he continued to rummaged through the cart. Told you he was an idiot.

"You dumbass. Five dogs vanish and that's not weird?"

"Um because it's fucking dogs and they can literally runway whenever they want. You spent too much time with mum." Frankie made a face at me before scarfing down the rest of his burger like an animal.

"And you didn't spend enough time with her because then you'll see that something is wrong." I stood up from seat look at all of them."Something is not right and we need to check up on this. Now."

***

"Nine missing cats. Four dogs. Look even a rabbit went missing. You were right, I guess." Frankie flipped around the laptop around to show the rest of us. I love it when I'm right. I really, really do.

"Also says here that there was a coyote attack in the local pound and many homes. A couple animals were found drained of their blood. A coyote in New York City would be kind of weird but there's literally ghost floating around now." Omar scrolled on his phone then tossed it to Daria who caught it effortlessly."Didn't they think that the drained blood part was odd? Coyotes can't even do that... They can't right?"

"Could this be a werewolf?" Daria asked looking at Omar who still looked at the articles.

"Nah. Lunar cycle is off. It has to be a Chupacabra." Wyatt made a point.

"But it's not eating goats," Frankie suggested as he chewed away at his burger."The shit is literally called goat sucker. Maybe a vampire but the last time we saw one was like...nine years ago?"

Different suggestions were thrown all around the room as I sat quietly trying to get my thoughts in line. Cats and dog are being slaughtered and drained of their blood. Most likely that blood is being consumed. Do you know how many fucking creatures drink blood? A lot.

"It can be anything. We don't know what the hell got out so this could be literally anything." I spoke up, leading for agreeing murmurs from everyone else. Good that we were on the same page. For once.

"I got an idea...Maybe it's just animals...running away and dying since that's pretty common, you know." Scarlet piped up leading for all eyes to be on her.

"Scarlet, we are not a family of skeptics. We know these things are real, okay. You may not have seen it, but we have. Believe us." Omar stood with his hands placed on his waist. Always so level-headed. Being the oldest he was the first one to take part in this but he stopped after he turned twenty to go and see the world. I don't blame him for leaving.

"You see, it's crazy shit like this is why none of you have relationships. Maybe this is why we didn't have dad around anymore." Scarlet spoke again and I felt like the room got heavy. The silence was unbearable. No one spoke but I knew what they wanted to say.

"You don't know SHIT ABOUT DAD!" Wyatt nearly rushed her but Frankie was able to catch her before she got to Scarlet."DON'T YOU EVER TALK ABOUT HIM!"

"Wyatt. Chill." He tried to calm her as she was close to breaking free. Frankie tightened his grip on Wyatt but she only wiggled more. The truth is that Wyatt always took what happened to dad the hardest. She had to sit there and watch just like I did..... These days we don't talk about our father much but now we lost our mother too. Now, all we have is each other.

"How dare you fucking talk about that man, the fuck do you think you are? I swear to god if you talk about him again I'll break every last tooth in your mouth. Try me, Scarlet." Wyatt tried to break free from Frankie's arms but he kept hers at her sides so she couldn't move. If she gets free, it'll be like 2016 Christmas all over again.

Marcia and the twins didn't get a chance to know dad like we did. The incident happened around the time they were pretty young. They don't even know what really happened to him. Mom thought it would be better to hide that from them. One day, I'll tell them.

"This was such a stupid idea! Getting everyone back together in one house, to pretend like everything is amazing and great like our mom didn't just die and you all want to play ghost hunters! This is bullshit!" Scarlet scoffed, throwing her hands up. The disapproving look from Brent caused her to angrily retreat to her room. Still, with her gone, the room felt even heavier.

"I'm going out. I can't-I can't....be here." Wyatt grabbed the bright red designer purse from off the couch and dashed out of the house. Seconds later, we heard her peel out of the driveway in her BMW, driving away into the night. One by one, everyone left the living room in silence. No one dared to say a word.

I sat in the black chair, looking out the window. As usual, I'm left to do everything alone. They helped me do one task, maybe I can finish it on my own. I'm used to it.

But, I always had mom to help. It didn't matter when Omar decided to stop by, or if Wyatt could take a night off from work, or if Marcia would visit from college. She had me to help her. But now that I need help, who's going to help me?