Chapter 3: Mette's House

It's not too far from the comic book store to Mette's address. Carrying the comic books, the six of you quickly make your way there.
Once you get a view of the place, it becomes obvious pretty quickly why Ing-Marie claimed that Mette's parents are not the best. The house itself is nice, a small two-storey home with a large tree throwing shade onto a porch where two adults are sitting on recliners. They're both drinking beer from cans and - judging by the empty cans all around them and over the lawn - probably not their firsts for the day. A huge German shepherd is lying rolled up next to the man. The gate to the yard is closed and behind it, you see that the garden is unkempt and littered with all kinds of trash.

"Okay, maybe I was wrong," Kajsa comments quietly. "Maybe there is harm in coming here."

"Yeah, no kidding," Mikael says, "This place kind of sucks. I feel bad for the kid. Shouldn't her parents be in there trying to comfort her or something?"

He looks around the home. "It probably helps if we don't show all our cards right off," he says. "Maybe you all try to circle around the back to the garden? I'll try the straight forward approach with the comics and see if I can just talk my way into bringing them to her. If I can, I'll find a way for you guys to get inside."

"Before we get too far into this with missing kids, I think its goes farther than that." Sabine shares with her friends. "Ever since last night at the party I have noticed things wrong or out of place. Songs changing on the set list, clothing switching in mid-dance, a comic dealer writing in a book, Superman becoming Batman... Is it just me or has anyone else noticed as well?"

"Y-yeah," Mikael says with a start. "I thought it was just me, to be honest. I keep getting these feelings like, well, I can't trust what I'm seeing. We never did talk about it, but the set list at the party yesterday...we started playing the right song, right? I could have sworn we were supposed to play Creep. I mean, Smashing Pumpkins is fine, but I...I don't have any memory discussing that song for the party."

"I remember Creep being the second song on that list as well." Sabine agrees with Mikael. "Why is it we remember one song and Hare remembered a different one? Has anyone else noticed odd happenings like this in the last couple days or is it just me and Mikael?"

She looks at Kajsa. "I do remember you asking me about the change from Creep too, Kaj. So, you knew the song was supposed to be Creep as well, right?"

"The vodka bottles were switched out at the party too. I definitely noticed that. I thought someone was pranking me, or ripping me off, but I could have sworn the new stuff was actually more expensive by at least 20 krona a bottle. It was really strange."

She nods , frowning. "Some weird shit going on, for sure..."
Then looking at Mikael "I think that's a sound plan - better not to overwhelm those parents with a bunch of us. We can wait near the back garden."

Henry hadn’t noticed, in truth. He had been too distracted trying to put on a good performance last night, that he hadn’t been paying attention to much else than the girl in front of him at the time. The sudden memory of it made him smile, even if he was looking into the face of a nice big dog.

But Henry knew these kinds of people. Grew up around them and rubbed shoulders with them all his life. Rough, and wary. Perhaps not the brightest bulbs, like himself and his family. But most likely decent, somewhere, even though outward appearance said otherwise!

Mikael squints and purses his lips. "Kajsa," he says, "You've been there for our rehearsals. I don't know how..." he cuts himself off, "Just, never mind. I swear, something really weird is going on." He passes a glance to Sabine. "And it ain't aliens," he adds, "probably more Krafta bullshit."

"That's a great idea," Mikael says with a smile to Kristina, "We could ask Louise Tannenbaum, perhaps. Or even that weasel, Järnek. If anyone knows Krafta's dirty secrets, it would be him."

Mikael waits for the others to start circling to the garden, unless any of them insist on joining him to the front door, and grabs the comics from Henry for the ruse.

Stina goes around the back garden, staying some distance away, in case the dog decides to get territorial.

Sabine nods. "Sure. Let's do this." She detours around with Kajsa, her mind still perplexed as to how and why only she and Mikael remembers things differently than others. What did these missing kids mean and how was it specifically effecting everyone except she and one friend?

"I hope you aren’t afraid of dogs." he says to no one in particular. He wasn’t. Not really. Unless this one lunged at them at the outset.

"Got those comics ready?" but, having seen the parents; he wondered if they’d care about the comic angle at all.

Stina, Sabine and Kaja begin heading around the house. The main door seems to be the one next to the porch but there is a smaller backdoor on the opposite side of the building, next to some overflowing trashcans. One window on the upper floor is open, giving Sabine flashbacks to the group's first attempt at sneaking into a schoolmate's house.

As Henry, Mikael and Kristina approach the front door, the huge dog suddenly jumps up and runs up to the front gate, barking loudly and aggressively at the approaching teens. Neither of the parents even bother to look at the front gate to see who their dog is barking at.

"uh-oh. That dog complicates things..." she says to the others in a whisper, hearing the barking going on at the front.

She steps to the fence of the back garden and glances inside, in search of signs of Mette.

Henry inelegantly tries to pacify the dog with a promised pat to the head, but he quickly withdraws his hand for fear of biting.

He circles around until he gets into view of the parents, and then tries to get their attention over the sound of barking.

"Hello! Hello?! We’re here about Mette!" he holds up the comics and points to them. And then points to himself and the other two.

There are two ground floor windows in the back that Stina can see. One leads into a kitchen that seems empty. The other is made from milky glass, so it's probably a bathroom. She can't tell if anyone is in there or not. She can also see one upstairs window but with the angle from the floor, she can't tell what's in the room behind it.

The parents try to ignore your group for as long as they can but when Henry calls out to them, eventually the woman gets up from her lawnchair with a heavy sigh and moves over the fence. "Killer, shut up. Sit!", she orders the dog who lets out another growl at the three teens but then moves back to the porch.

"Killer," Kristina whispers. "That's reassuring..."

"What do you want?", the woman asks Henry sharply. "Mette can't have any visitors. She's grounded."

"We figured as much," Mikael says, "but we also heard she might be having a hard time processing what happened. Even if she's grounded, we were hoping we could deliver these for her? It would just take a moment. We know her from the comic book store, these are her favorites - maybe it'll..."

Mikael studies the parents and the situation - the tone in the mother's voice, the dog's name, the beer cans everywhere. He takes a gamble at what he says next.

"...maybe it'll make her realize exactly what she's missing by going and putting herself in danger? Plus, these would take her hours to read properly. We'll be in and out in 5 minutes, then you can come take them away if you don't want her to have them - just one more thing to show her that her actions have consequences, right? We promised the owner we'd deliver them is all."

"They're free," he offers with a smile.