37. Sexy Strangers #4 and #6 get robbed.

As usual, I woke up earlier than Gabe and Brendon the next day so I could talk to Mikey about the upcoming vision. "What's the next vision?" Mikey asked as he put a stack of pancakes on my plate.

"You and Gerard getting robbed," I responded as I took a bite of my breakfast.

"Who would want to rob us?" Mikey asked.

"We were wondering about that too, but Gabe's visions haven't been wrong yet," I said. "How can we stop the vision from happening?"

Mikey thought about it and said, "What if we had someone keeping watch on the front of the house? Nobody's going to able to get in through the back thanks to that giant poison ivy bush growing in front of the window, and there's a spot in the attic that gives you a nice view of the front yard."

"That's a good idea, but who would be willing to sit around and watch for robbers?" I asked.

"We could have a rotating system," Mikey suggested.

"How is the person in the attic going to be able to stop the robber?" I asked.

"There could be a second person hiding behind the cork tree in the front yard," Mikey said. "We probably have some extra walkie-talkies around here someone, so the person in the attic can let the person guarding the front yard know when there's a burglar coming."

All of a sudden, Gabe climbed upstairs and came into the kitchen. "What are you guys talking about?" he asked. Mikey explained everything to him, and he said, "This is brilliant, but there's one thing missing."

"What is it?" Mikey asked.

"There should be some sort of alarm system in the house," Gabe said. "The person in the attic should be able to push a button that sets off an alarm, and all of us will know that there's a robber. In the vision, I only saw one robber, so if everyone in your family is here, plus Pete, Brendon, and I, we'll be able to take the thief down easily. It will be seven against one."

"Eight against one," Mikey corrected. "If Gerard's in the house, Frank will be too, although they're both pretty useless in a fight."

"I still can't believe that your brother is dating such an attractive guy," Gabe said. "If only he was single..."

Mikey groaned, and in a desperate attempt to change the topic, I said, "Let's get to work on the alarm system." I shoveled the last few bites of my pancakes into my mouth, and Gabe and I then left the room to figure out how to install the alarms. "Can you please stop trying to get one of the Way brothers wasted and alone for just one second?" I asked him on our way out of the kitchen.

"It's not my fault that Gerard and Mikey are both incredibly hot," Gabe said.

I shook my head, and Gabe and I started working on creating an alarm system. It took a while, but we eventually figured out how to hook up the Ways' computer to the fire alarm. Before long, we had a button set up in the attic that would set off a cascade of noisy alarms throughout the house if someone pushed it. The whole system was perfect.

I was the first person to keep watch from the second floor that night. Gabe was hiding behind the cork tree in the front yard, while Mikey and Brendon slept. They were supposed to take over for us at midnight. In the meantime, I was doing my best to watch the yard carefully, but I was falling asleep. I was tempted to go downstairs and steal some of Gerard's coffee, but I couldn't leave the attic. This was one of my last chances to keep Gabe from dying - I couldn't mess up this time.

All of a sudden, a blond-haired figure dressed in black walked toward the house. Certain that this was the robber, I pushed the button and sprinted downstairs. I then turned on the walkie-talkie and told Gabe, "There's a robber coming toward the house!" Tonight, it was just fire alarms, but hopefully, I wouldn't lose Gabe.

We had set up a ladder outside the house, so when I opened the window, I could easily get down to the front yard. As I scrambled down the ladder, Mikey, still in his pajamas, emerged from his bedroom, and Brendon came out of the basement a few seconds later. Together, the three of us ran into the front yard, ready to take on the robber.

We had the thief surrounded, and he looked both confused and terrified. "What the hell is going on?" he asked. "This is why teenagers scare the living shit out of me."

"Gerard?" I said, backing away from him. Sure enough, we were all about to beat up Mikey's brother just because we had mistaken him for a robber. He had dyed his hair, but that wasn't an excuse for not recognizing him. "I'm so sorry," I said. "It's hard to see in the dark, and I thought you were a burglar."

Gerard laughed and then said, "Did you all seriously think that? Mikey, you should know better!"

"I'm really tired," Mikey said, rubbing his eyes.

"The blond hair looks good on you," Gabe said to Gerard.

"Thanks," Gerard said, smiling.

"Can we go inside now?" Mikey asked.

"Why are you all even awake?" Gerard asked. "It's eleven o'clock at night."

"We're testing out a new security system for our house," Mikey explained, thankfully leaving out everything about the visions. Even though Gerard was involved in this vision, and Gabe did like him, I wasn't sure that Gabe wanted Gerard to know about the visions.

"You all are so weird," Gerard said.

"Why are you awake at eleven o'clock at night?" Mikey asked.

"I was at Frank's house," Gerard responded.

Mikey rolled his eyes and said, "Why am I not surprised?"

"Let's just go back inside," Brendon said. "I'm tired, and I want to go to bed."

"You're supposed to take over in an hour," I said.

"Do I have to?" Brendon whined, but an hour later, he came up into the attic, and I could finally go to bed.

The next morning, Mikey woke me up by putting headphones over my ears and putting my Walkman on its maximum volume. "Seriously?!" I screamed as I pulled the headphones off. "You couldn't have picked a better song to wake me up to?"

"Sorry," Mikey said. "You're just supposed to take over for Brendon behind the cork tree in half an hour, and I thought that you might want breakfast first."

I reluctantly got out of bed, and once I was ready to go, I sat down at the table and ate my breakfast. "We need to be more careful," I told Mikey.

"Yeah, Gerard was really freaked out this morning," Mikey said as he downed a cup of coffee.

"Where is he now?" I asked.

"I'm not sure," Mikey said.

All of a sudden, Gerard's bedroom door creaked open. "Are you guys talking about me?" Gerard shouted. We didn't respond, so he said, "For the record, I want my basement back."

"It's not your basement," Mikey said.

"It's the only place where I can write in peace without having to listen to you guys talk about me behind my back!" Gerard said. "You wear me out!" He slammed the door to his bedroom, leaving Mikey and I alone to finish eating.

"We definitely need to be more careful," Mikey concluded. "We cast him out 'cause this is our culture, but we can't do that again."

"I won't set off the alarm again unless I'm sure it's a robber," I said.

A little while later, I took over for Brendon. However, nothing happened during that time. It started raining in the middle of the afternoon, but even the drums of the city rain couldn't drown out my thoughts.

At first, it seemed like we were guarding the house for no reason. When I thought about it, however, I realized that Gabe's vision hadn't come true yet, and that was progress. Usually, we somehow managed to make the visions happen within a day or two of each other. The Ways had already lasted a full two days without getting robbed. Even if we were only buying Gabe time, and probably ruining our New Jersey vacation in the process, he could live a little longer, and that was what mattered.

That night, I was finally able to sleep. I curled up in bed, eager to rest my head on my pillow after a long day of making sure that nobody robbed the Ways' house. However, just as I was about to fall asleep, the alarm went off. At first, I thought it was another false alarm, but I decided that I at least had to check and make sure that there wasn't a thief in the house.

I walked upstairs, still in my pajamas, but everyone except for Brendon was already outside. The rain had finally stopped, but I nearly stepped in a giant puddle on my way out the door. "Where's the thief?" I asked.

"Over there!" Brendon shouted. He leaned out the window and pointed into the distance. Brendon then jumped out the second floor onto the ladder, but all of a sudden, he screamed and fell onto the ground.

"Brendon!" I shouted. I rushed over to him, and soon, Mikey, Gerard, and Gabe were there too, trying to make sure that Brendon was okay.

He was lying on the ground, and his right foot was sitting in a pool of blood, gallons of the stuff. His ankle was twisted at an unnatural angle, and there was a piece of bone sticking out of his foot. "It hurts pretty bad," Brendon said, crying.

Gabe backed away as soon as he saw what had happened to Brendon's foot. "That is the understatement of the year, Brendon," he said.

"Let's get you some help," Mikey said. "I'll go back into the house."

"The pay phone across the street is closer," I said, so Mikey ran there and called 911, while Brendon continued to sob.

"It could have been a lot worse," I said. "You're lucky that you only broke your foot."

"You're the worst, Pete," Brendon said. "I know the world's a broken bone..."

"I swear I heard Ryan say that once," I said.

"Ryan has a way with words," Brendon said.

"You're all idiots," Gerard said. "This is what you get for trying to set up a security system, or whatever you were trying to do."

Brendon groaned and then said, "This hurts really bad."

"Mikey's calling for an ambulance right now," I said.

"Can't the ambulance get here faster?" Brendon complained. "I'm probably going to bleed to death before too much longer."

There was a lot of blood, but I had seen far worse in Mikey's horror movies. "Quit being so dramatic," I said.

Mikey ran back across the street and said, "The ambulance will be here any minute. Brendon, are you doing okay?"

"Does it look like I'm okay?" Brendon said, gesturing toward his broken foot.

I looked back toward the Ways' house, and I saw a man leaving the Ways' house. I was sure that I had seen him before, but I wasn't sure where. I took a closer look to make sure that Gerard hadn't just dyed his hair again, even though Gerard was right there with us. He definitely wasn't Gerard, or anyone else who actually lived in the Ways' house, and he was carrying several large bags and loading them into a car, which I was certain was the one that had cut me off on the way here.

"Hey!" Brendon screamed. "That's I Don't Know How But They Found Me's old merch guy!"

All of us finally realized that this guy was stealing from the Ways' house, so Mikey, Gabe, Gerard, and I ran after him. However, he jumped into his car and drove away. I ran toward the DeLorean, eager to chase this guy down.

I started up the car, not even bothering to buckle my seatbelt as I slammed my foot on the accelerator. The DeLorean raced down the street, the speedometer going higher and higher, but the thief's car suddenly turned left. I slammed on the brake and took the same turn, but I couldn't see him. I drove around the neighborhood, searching for the man who had robbed Gerard and Mikey's house. He was nowhere to be found, so I gave up and drove back to the Ways' house. "I lost him," I told everyone after I had parked the DeLorean.

"He probably just knew the city better than you, Pete," Gerard said. "He's more likely to get caught if we just call the police."

Mikey groaned and said, "Why have I had to call the emergency number twice in five minutes?" as he went across the street to the pay phone again.

Meanwhile, Gerard went back into the house, and Gabe and I stayed with Brendon. "When's the ambulance going to get here?" Brendon complained, still lying on the ground.

"Soon, hopefully," I said.

"Pete, what was the car's license plate number?" Mikey shouted from across the street.

"I don't know," I answered. "I think it started with a 4."

Mikey went back to his call, while Brendon searched around in his pocket. "Pete, my wallet's missing," he said.

"Seriously?" I said. I thought that this night couldn't possibly get worse, but somehow, it had.

"Yeah," Brendon said. "I think it fell out of my pocket when I fell off of the ladder. The iDKHOW merch guy must have stolen it."

I cursed under my breath. Not only had this guy robbed the Ways' house, but he also had Brendon's money and his driver's license. He probably knew where we lived now too.

Mikey finally hung up and walked across the street to Gabe, Brendon, and I. "Let's see how bad the damage is," he said to us as he opened the front door.

I followed Mikey into the kitchen, which was completely bare. Everything was gone, from the silverware to the placemats to the coffee maker. When we walked into the living room, only the couch remained. The robber had taken the lamp, the TV, and the family computer. The iDKHOW merch guy had even torn some of the wallpaper from off of the walls. "He stole everything," Gerard said when we found him sitting on the couch. "Everything."

"Did he take anything from my room?" Mikey asked. When I glared at him for being so selfish, he added, "What about the basement?"

"He only left the bed and your dresser in your room," Gerard said.

Mikey's eyes opened wide. "He stole my comic book collection," he said, panicked.

"You can borrow some of my comics," Gerard said. "Wait, no, he stole my collection too. He left my sketchbook though!"

"That's probably because your art wasn't good enough to steal," Mikey said, prompting Gerard to glare at him.

"On the plus side, I can have the basement back," Gerard said. "The robber stole all of the air mattresses."

"Why would anyone want to steal an air mattress?" I interjected.

"I don't know," Gerard said. "Whatever compelled him to steal all of the spoons from the kitchen also compelled him to steal three air mattresses. This is one weird guy who just robbed our house."

All of a sudden, sirens blared again, and Mikey, Gerard, and I ran outside. The ambulance was there, and we saw several paramedics getting Brendon onto a stretcher. Once he was in the ambulance, it drove him to the hospital.

The flashing lights finally disappeared into the distance, and I looked back and forth between Mikey, Gerard, and Gabe. We had done our best, but Mikey and Gerard's house had still been robbed, and Brendon had still broken his foot. This is it, I thought. This is the beginning of the end of the world.