“Your house is very pretty," Anna said, sitting down on a wooden rocker with a red and white striped cushion tied to the back.
“Aww, you are so sweet to say that,” the woman said, returning from the kitchen holding a glass jar filled with mahogany tea. “It helps that this time of year I can open the windows and let some fresh air in here! I swear the winter months about drive me crazy. I love this time of year where the leaves are just starting to change and everything smells like going back to school!”
“I like this time of year, too.” Anna smiled and looked over at Cole. “Do you like the early fall, Cole?”
“I guess," he responded, distracted by the woman’s bizarre appearance.
“Let me finish filling your glasses and I’ll get on with the formal introductions.” The woman poured the brown liquid into three tall drinking glasses. Once she was finished she sat the large jar back onto the table and wiped her hands on a purple dishcloth. “My name is June, and my father Henry is in the next room. We can meet him after I get to know you two more better.” She pulled at her dress, bowed her head and curtsied.
“It’s nice you meet you, June. My name is Anna and his name is Cole. I must say given the state of everything out there… it’s just--- this is very nice.”
June furrowed her brow and shook her head. “I appreciate that but please, I prefer not to talk about the horrible state of decay we are forced to live in out there, especially over my famous iced tea.”
“I’m sorry- I was just---”
“I try not to think about the way things used to be, it just makes me too upset.” June leaned forward in her chair as if to stand, paused while looking at the floor and then leaned back in her seat. “It’s terrible what they did to us, don’t you think?”
“What who did?” Anna asked.
“The government... the Illuminati… the powers that be… any of them, or all of them.”
“I don’t quite underst----”
“Don’t get into this now June… don’t do this," she scolded herself. “Aw heck, I’m going to go there even though it’s probably not polite.” She cleared her throat. “We lived in a world of wonderful surplus!” June stretched her arms to her side and the wrinkled excess skin danced in midair for a moment. “Tacos, steak, pizza that was delivered directly to your door… it was a beautiful utopia. You could go out to a restaurant, sit down at a table and have a smiling beautiful person ask what you would like to eat. You would tell them what you wanted, and then…” Her eyes grew wild as if reaching the climax to a children’s book, “...and then they would bring you exactly what you wanted. For me, it was typically a porterhouse with mashed potatoes and french fries. There was so much food! Remember all the food?”
Anna and Cole nodded.
“Yes,” Anna smiled, “it was nice to go out to eat. I liked going to the Olive Garden.”
June squealed as she clasped her hands together. “Breadsticks! Breadsticks! You could order as many baskets as you wanted! I liked to order a side of the alfredo sauce to dip mine in. Did you ever think to do that?”
Anna shook her head. “No, but that’s very clever.”
“What about you, Cole, did you like going to the Olive Garden?”
“My family was too poor to go out to eat.” Cole was irritated at the topic of conversation.
“Oh.” June looked back down at the floor. “Well, it was probably for the best. The government let us indulge until we were all fat and happy… and unleashed a terrible disease until every single Olive Garden closed down. All of them, all of the restaurants that I loved so much began to close… one by one… until they were all gone. GONE!”
“Because everyone who worked at them died," Cole spat.
Anna shot him an irritated look.
“Yes, I understand what happened.” June dropped her jovial tone. “I had to watch my mom die of that horrible disease, ok? See this dress?” She smoothed out her polka dots proudly. “This was my mother's.”
“I’m sorry.” Anna leaned forward in her seat. “It’s a very pretty dress.”
“Biscotti!” June ignored Anna’s compliment and jumped to her feet. “I think I hid a box from myself a few weeks ago. I’m going to see if I can find it in the kitchen. I’ll be right back.”
As she turned the corner into the kitchen, Cole shifted in his seat towards Anna and looked at her with wild eyes. “Something’s not right here… and with her. We should leave.”
Anna shook her head calmly. “You’re being paranoid.”
“She said that her dad was here… but where is he? I don’t see any signs that anyone else lives here instead of her. I have a bad feeling---“
“Biscotti!” June hiccupped and sat the box onto the table. “I don’t know why I bother hiding food from myself. There’s only so many places that I could hide it.” She smiled warmly over at Anna and Cole.
“June, didn’t you say your dad lived here too? I would love to meet him," Anna asked.
“Daddy is back in his room sleeping. He’s old, you know.”
“Of course, I don’t want to wake him” Anna replied.
June leaned back into her seat and shifted her focus from the tea and food to Anna and Cole. “So… Anna and Cole, right?”
They both nodded.
“What brings you two here? I’ve lived here alone- with daddy- for a very long time… and this is one of the very few times someone has coming knocking on my door… and it’s the very first time someone has come knocking on my door looking for daddy.”
“You had people come here before?” Cole asked.
“Yeah… years and years and years ago.”
“And what happened to them?”
Anna’s stomach sank in response to the venom in Cole’s perceived accusation.
“They left," June answered simply. She turned her attention to Anna. “May I ask what’s wrong with your friend here?”
Anna laughed nervously. “He’s having a bad day. I’m sorry if his questions seem offensive.”
“No, no… I mean his face. He is looking positively wan. Is he sick?”
“He’s not contagious, if that’s what you’re afraid of," Anna assured her.
June scoffed. “Oh, I’m not worried about catching anything. Daddy paid a lot of money to have me vaccinated from the virus. So, I couldn’t catch it anyway.”
“Your dad worked for A-IX, right?” Anna asked delicately.
“Yes… he was very important to that company. They made machines or something. I don’t know… but he was very important and he had a lot of people working under him. They had to be nice to me whenever I would visit him at work or else they’d be fired.”
“Did he---“
“Wait.” June held up a crooked finger with a long, red painted nail. “How did you know where daddy worked?”
“I have reason to believe that A-IX did something to me years ago. Since the company is no longer in business, I’ve been looking for former employees.”
June shook her head. “I don’t know if daddy could help you with anything like that.”
“Probably not,” Anna agreed, “but I have so few options I need to make sure I exhaust every possible avenue. You understand, right?”
June shrugged. “Not really, but whatever. You can try and ask him if you want, but he’s not really making a lot of sense these days.”
“When can I talk to him?”
“He usually is up after I eat lunch. If you would like, both of you could stay for lunch and then talk to him after.”
“I really don’t want to," Cole said before Anna could respond.
“Cole---“ Anna scolded, and smiled sympathetically to June. “I’m sorry- we would love to stay for lunch.”
“No I think we should leave," Cole insisted.
Anna leaned in close to Cole and asked “What are you doing?” through clenched teeth.
“There’s something wrong with her… you can’t sense it?” Cole leaned back and whispered in her ear.
“I need to grab something out of the kitchen,” June said. “You two figure out what it is that you would like to do, and then let me know. I have plenty to go around,” she chuckled.
After she left the room Anna stood up. “I don’t know what you’re trying to do… but we drove all the way out here and the answer to everything could be in this very house. Why on Earth do you want to leave?”
“Stop obsessing about finding answers for two seconds and look at June. I mean, really look at her. The woman is crazy. Hell, look around you…” He gestured to entirety of the living room with his arms. “This is crazy town.”
“Look at the world around you, Cole, everyone is a bit crazy. No one survives the end of the world and comes out psychologically unscathed.”
“Do you think I’m crazy?” Cole snapped back.
“I’ve told you over and over and over again! I don’t think that you’re crazy.”
“Then listen when I tell you that we need to get out of here.”
Before Anna could even consider what Cole was saying, June walked back into the living room carrying a shotgun on her shoulder and pointed it at Cole. “No one is leaving," June said.
“Wait, June… we didn’t mean to---“Anna’s voice was calm and soothing.
“Things would have been so much easier if you would have just stayed for lunch. Soooo much easier… like, you have no idea how much easier. But I couldn’t risk you guys just leaving. Well, I couldn’t risk Anna leaving.”
“Why just me?” Anna asked.
June threw a pair of handcuffs on the ground and instructed that Cole pick them up and cuff Anna to the radiator under the window.
“No," Cole’s voice cracked slightly.
“You either do it or I shoot you in the face. I’ve done it before, it’s not like it’s hard. And it’s not like I’ll go to jail or anything for killing you.”
“Do it," Anna snapped.
“But---“
“Cole, do what she says.” Anna pressed.
He bent over and picked up the open handcuffs. With a trembling hand, he reached down and clicked one half around Anna’s wrist and the other half to the radiator.
June sighed in relief. “There. The hard part is over. Now, you can scamper away.” June pointed to the door with the barrel of the gun.
“I’m not leaving Anna here.” Cole shook his head in a panic.
“Remember what we said on the way here?” Anna spoke softly.
Cole nodded, remembering that they agreed that if anything were to happen, one of them would run back and get Clovis and Oz. “I know, but I don’t want to leave you.”
“I’ll be OK, I promise.” Anna smiled.
June scoffed. “Yeah… run along Cole… she’ll be juuuust fiiiiine.”
Without saying anything, Cole turned and walked out the door. The air felt thinner as he walked down the stone pathway towards the car. Before getting in, he turned and looked back at the quaint cottage with the white laced curtains and purple and red flowers in the flower pots. And with a deep breath, he exhaled and got in the car. He shifted it into reverse and watched as the quaint little cottage became smaller as he slowly backed away.
Chapter 15
Cole’s mother took his small face in her hands and kissed it so hard that his cheeks dug into his teeth. “You need to be brave for mommy, ok? When you crawl under that fence I want you to run as fast as those little legs will take you, do you understand? If you see any other grown-ups, I want you to run from them. I know you, CJ, and you will want to ask them for help… but don’t do that. I know that it sounds scary- but we need tools and knives and long sharp things. We need something sharp enough to cut through this fence, do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“I know that the world is such a big scary place for such a small boy, but remember how daddy is an angel? He will be with you, and he will help you and keep you safe. Whenever you are feeling scared you just think about your dad and he will comfort you.”
His mother’s words were accompanied by the encouragement of the people standing behind her- his neighbors and distant family members.
“You got this, CJ.”
“Bring us a miracle, CJ.”
“You are brave, like your dad.”
Cole’s mother held him tight and whispered in his ear “We will see each other soon, sweetheart,” and she told him to crawl under the fence.
Once he was on the other side, he looked back at his mother, friends, and family smiling back at him through the chain link fence.
“Go on, honey… go.”
Cole looked behind him and trembled at the darkness of the woods.
“I’m scared," he said in a small voice.
Tears began to well in his mother’s eyes and she tried her best to conceal them. “I know, baby, but your dad is with you… he will keep you safe, remember?”
Cole nodded, and ran into the woods.
The leaves had just started to fall from the trees and were wet and slippery. He ran continuously and didn’t stop for anything until he stumbled upon an old concrete driveway. At one end was a main road, and at the other end was a large brown house nestled in the woods. He chose to walk up to the house and knocked on the door. When no one answered, he turned the door handle and found that it opened easily.
“H-Hello?” His voice echoed off of the cold ceramic tile that ran throughout the entire house. “I need help.” He waited to hear a response that would never come.
As he walked deeper into the house, a wave of relief began to rush over him. For over a year he was subjected to horrible living conditions without anything to do. There were no toys, no holidays, no birthday parties with cake and ice cream, and no games. There hadn’t been a day where he didn’t see someone have a hysterical mental breakdown. His mother cried in her bed every morning while she thought everyone was still asleep.
The living room was two stories tall with a balcony. The opposite wall was nothing but glass that provided views to the woods, and cast yellow and red afternoon light onto the sterile beige carpet. In front of the windows was a giant Christmas tree that almost stretched to the ceiling. There were mounds of brightly wrapped presents under the tree, and they were guarded by toy train tracks. Cole walked around the tree until he saw the 5-car train back towards the window. He kneeled down and ran it along the tracks and he mocked the sounds of a train. Along the side of the locomotive was a switch, and when he flicked it the wheels of the train began to propel the train along the tracks. He gasped in awe and scooted himself backwards along the soft carpet as he watched in delight as the train circled the Christmas tree.
Once the train had circled the tracks a few times, his focus shifted to all of the presents sitting under the tree. If the family that lived in that house came home to find that Cole had opened all of their presents, surely his story of being imprisoned would grant him sympathy enough to get away with it.
He decided that he would open one- a small, flat rectangular shaped box wrapped with green and silver paper with a red bow. He unwrapped the present slowly at first, and picked up speed as his excitement grew. That excitement was dashed when he found the present was a DVD of M*A*S*H- a show that he had never heard of and had no way of watching. Since that present was something that didn’t interest him, he opened another small gift that was wrapped in the same paper. Once again, he was disappointed when he opened it and discovered it was a woman’s scarf. A pile of boring department store merchandise began to build behind him. That is, until he opened the big box with the solid red paper and red bow. Inside was a brand-new iPad, and when he took it out of the box it had still had half of a charge on the battery. All of his life he had always wanted an iPad, but his parents couldn’t afford it. Back at home his parents didn’t have the means to provide him with much. His video game system was old and outdated and none of his friends at school played any of the same old games that he had played. They had an old computer that Cole’s mom used to look for jobs a
nd send applications and she forbid Cole from touching it. Even their TV was old and the picture was always fuzzy.
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