Night has firmly fallen by the time she pulls up to the isolated house she's been directed to go to at 9PM. The decorative stars are beautiful in the Outlands, stretching from open horizon to open horizon.

Gravel path. Tire swing spinning in the breeze. Freshly painted treehouse, candy apple red, much like the Happy Acre Orphanage.

How cute.

She approaches, box in hand, and rings the doorbell.

Nothing.

Again? She doesn't want to be annoying but she does need to deliver the box.

She can hear the bell clearly; the only noise out here comes from crickets and the like. If anybody was home surely she'd hear activity inside—wait. There. Footsteps, coming up a flight of creaky old stairs. Across creaky old floorboards. Closer...

Door locks, being undone in sequence. A lot of them. Scrape of a chair or something on the floor, and before she can get properly concerned, the door finally opens a crack.

Dark inside. Hard to see the occupant, for that matter... sickly, unshaven, terrible complexion. He wears a third-hand suit under an overcoat, weirdly enough.

the shabby men, the words ring in what could be described as a cautious chime.

"… Hello, sir," says Rachel. "I have a delivery, for this address?"

"I didn't order anything," the shabby man replies. A raspy voice, much like Grandma Scarlett's, but with zero mirth to it. Just... dry.

"No… kids?" she asks, looking over his head a little. "I mean, it's addressed here." Pause. "It's a toy."

"No kids," he mumbles. "No kids here. Goodbye."

"– Honestly it's important?" she tries.

This guy is giving her a bad feeling.

Now that her eyes have adjusted properly to the darkness, she can see over his shoulder...

Marks on the corner of a hallway wall. Height indicators, for a growing child. Dates on the lines. 2010, 2012. Bright and colorful crayon lines. A stray sneaker, far too small to belong to this schlub, laces untied. No second shoe. It had been kicked to the side when he approached the door, as if trying to hide it.. but not kicked far enough.

And the words, ringing softly, a whisper, coming from the cardboard box...

she needs me. help. help.

"Goodbye," the man replies again. And then the door closes, locked, and the chair under the knob is replaced.

What the hell.

She – there's a kid here, that's not just signs of a newly bought house – so she looks to both sides of the door – any windows she can look through in?

She feels creepy thinking about it, she feels like it's clearly not what she should be doing, but this is way more than 'just' a bad feeling.

All the windows are closed and the drawers shut.

And the long-promised rainstorm finally comes. A slow and heavy beatdown of rain, content to release itself gradually for the next twelve hours rather than thrash about in fury. Satisfied with its inevitability.

She goes back to her truck.

She is safe from the rain, in there.

There is a kid with a creepy guy who claims there is no kid.

He didn't take the delivery.

She doesn't suppose she sees any more if she looks back at the house.

Nope, nothing.

And then—

we need to talk                                                    
                       we need to talk

"… Uh-huh?"

The fuck.

"How much negotiation can I do here and can we leave it until after we deal with the fact that guy is mysteriously lying about having a kid there?"

you have chosen.

"Are you kidding me." Ugh. "Whatever sure can we just get them out, or at least more information on the problem – is there a problem, how much of a problem is there?"

park out of sight.

… Sure. Whatever.

She starts driving away from the building, tries to find a spot out of sight of it.

Plenty of those, especially in the gloom of the stormy night.

not too far away.