Wherein All The Things Come Crashing Down

The house survived the hurricane, and everybody inside is well. Dog and cats seemed mostly unconcerned while the lights flickered around us. Me, I was curled up with a blankie and candles ready to survive on water and gummi bears for a few days, if necessary.
Halloween snuck up on me. I turned around and suddenly there were decorations in yards and I had to run and buy the leftover crappy candy from the Acme grocery store a few miles away, and the little candy-grubbing bastards made faces as I handed it out. Fine. Whatever. It's not my place, you're lucky you go anything.
It's amazing how living in this place for a few months has made me just really hate teenagers as a species.
You will note that it is November 4th. I don't remember if I posted it or not, as every single blog post between the 10th and now got eaten (I'm sitting in a Starbucks posting this, hoping this makes it through) but I never got an extension request from Mr. Talbrie. It was with great relief that the 15th, then the 16th, 17th and onward slid by without a single email asking me to stay longer. I wanted out of here, and it was going to be a huge relief to hand the keys over and leave.
Except Mr. Talbrie didn't show up on the 31st.
Honestly, I went and grabbed the candy so he would have something to hand out and not be blind-sided by hundreds of costumed kiddos looking for glucose and fructose. No good deed...
I thought maybe I misunderstood so I waited, packing the last of my things. I hung out and read a book all day November 1st, being careful not to dirty any more dishes, that the dishwasher was run and emptied. God, I must've checked the trash cans 5 times to make sure I hadn't left garbage in them. I even dusted, even though he'd asked me to leave things alone. I just didn't want him to come home tired with his family to a house that needed to be cleaned. I remember what a drag it was as a kid to have to put away your suitcase and stuff after a trip to the Shore, I can't imagine what a whole house is like.
Except... no Mr. Talbrie. No Mrs. Talbrie. No kids. Nothing.
I started calling at that point, leaving a voicemail, asking if everything was okay. No response.
Same for November 2nd. Same for yesterday.
I have called him easily a dozen times now, to the point that his voicemail is now telling me it's full and cant take any more messages. I took to emailing him, but there's been no response. I even tried texting, but got a message back that his phone doesn't support texts (?! really? in this day and age?!?).
So it's November 4th, and I've been sitting here in this huge house by myself, dog and two cats crashed out on the floor around me, and no idea what to do next.
I called the police a little bit ago to tell them about what was going on and maybe get an idea of what to do next. I'm sure they're getting tired of hearing from me. The conversation in my head goes something like this:
*cop on phone covers mouthpiece* "Hey guys! Guys! It's that crazy chick that gets weirded out by everything down on Holloway!"
*other cop* "Oh god, her again? What now? She seeing aliens or ghosts or something?"
*cop on phone* "Naw, the owner of the house just disappeared. You know, normal stuff..."
Ugh.
But they took me seriously, especially what with weird packages showing up and stalkery guys wandering the back yard. They came to the conclusion, as I did, that maybe we needed to be worried about the Talbries and someone who had it out for them. So they're trying to get in touch with them too, now.
God, in the middle of all of this, I'd almost forgotten. Blue hoodie guy hasn't been around the past few weeks. Just up and disappeared. I am wondering if he didn't realize the Talbries aren't here and moved to find them.... but wow is that dark and wow do I not want to think I'm in the home of a murdered family. Wow. Yeah. No, not going to dwell on that.
So I'm sitting here sipping at a coffee I can't really afford so I can steal the wifi and update this. It looks like I'll need to leave in order to do that for now, because stuff can come IN on the net connection at the house, but things don't leave. It's like a weird dead zone for electronics. Except for that back corner there.
Before I end this, I should mention... Ian took a look at the jumbled letters and said that it might be something called a "Caesar shift cypher" and that he would look in to it and get back to me. He's got a lot going on, so messing with word puzzles isn't a priority. I don't blame him. And I'm sure the police figured it out already. Though not telling me about it makes me wonder if it's something really bad or not.
I have turned in to the jumpiest fraidy-cat since moving in to that house, honestly.
I think if I don't get news by tomorrow I'll try to figure out how to leave. I don't want to leave the animals there without somebody to feed them, so that's the main sticking point. I don't know what to do about all of this. I've never run in to anything like it before. I just know I don't want to house-sit anymore. I want to get on with my life.