by Roman Cesaro
Robert stood up with resolve. “Yes, I just need a minute with these two.”
Kyle was the last out the door, closing it behind him.
Robert turned back toward Michael, looked past his cold smile, and locked eyes with the sad excuse for a man.
“Buddy, there’s no need to thank me,” said Michael. “You would’ve done the same for me. I know it. Everyone says such great things about you.”
“Do you know what people think about you?” Robert could feel his blood pressure rise as he began to clench his jaw.
“What are you talking about, Robert ?”
“I’m not your buddy and I wouldn’t have done the same to you. If I were taking care of two small children, I would make every sacrifice to protect and feed them. Now, let me tell you what people say about you.” He clutched the flashlight so tightly that he could feel the knurling on the handle dig into his skin. “People think you’re a liar. You’re a fake and a liar.” Robert firmly pushed him in the chest with the flashlight. Michael’s chest felt soft. He noticed that Becky was paying attention to the conversation now.
“Hold it. You got this all wrong. We’ve all had to make sacrifices, big sacrifices.”
“Sacrifices!” exclaimed Robert . “What sacrifices have you made? All things considered you look like you’re doing well, maybe too well.”
The door to the garage was past the staircase, but just before the kitchen. Robert walked that direction and Becky stiffened, thinking he was coming at her. Robert stopped at the garage entry and opened the door. He turned the flashlight on and shined it into the garage. It looked like items from the various houses Michael had been constantly visiting in the aftermath, including Robert ’s.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” asked Robert .
“About what?”
“After the grid collapsed, you ran from house to house acting like a savior, but you were really seeing what you could take from people. Like I said, you’re a liar. A fake and a liar and a thief, and both of you disgust me!” He slammed the door to the garage, and a picture from one of their tropical vacations fell off the wall next to it. The glass shattered on the floor.
“You need to go!” Michael said angrily.
Robert walked into the kitchen and Becky stayed on the opposite side of the kitchen island. Her body tensed as Robert got closer. She moved over to a small kitchen drawer and reached inside, out of Robert ’s view. He opened the door to their walk-in pantry, stepped into it, and shined the flashlight around inspecting all that was inside. There was a cornucopia of food stacked tall and deep, and Robert recognized a box of cereal, not yet opened, that his son had colored on with crayon before Robert had left for Montana. At the thought of his children starving next to all of this food, his temper began to flare again. He noticed his hands shaking from the anger as he left the pantry and walked back into the kitchen.
Becky was staring at him now. He noticed that she had something gripped tightly in her hands, and was trembling with fear or anger. Robert could not discern at first what the object was, but quickly realized that she was now pointing a small pistol at him.
“You can’t do it,” said Robert , stoically.
“Squeeze the trigger, Becky,” urged Michael, still in the living room.
Robert took a step toward Becky and she flinched. “Don’t come any closer, or I’ll kill you,” she said, with a trembling voice.
“Oh, no, you won’t. You can’t do it. You didn’t have the guts to kill my children. Both of you just left them hidden in a room, starving, and out of your sight.”
Robert took another step toward Becky and she raised the pistol.
“Pull the trigger, nice and easy. Listen to me,” said Michael.
Robert looked directly into her eyes and said, “You can’t do it because you’re weak and a fake. Everything about you is fake.” Slowly moving forward, he pointed the beam of light at her trembling hands as they gripped the pistol. “Fake fingernails.” Still moving forward he moved the beam of light to her chest. “Those are fake, too.” He quickly flicked his wrist so the beam of light went into her eyes. Instinctively, she squinted from the brightness and turned her head away. Robert lunged forward and violently crossed her temple with the metal flashlight. She dropped the pistol on the top of the kitchen island as she fell to the floor. Becky curled into a ball and moaned in pain. Blood was dripping from her temple. Robert reached for the pistol and noticed that he had knocked out a contact lens from one of her eyes. He picked it up and held it near the candlelight. The contact was colored blue. Her eye color was as fake as everything else about her.
Michael gave Robert a glare filled with hatred and said, “You think you’re so virtuous. Where have you been? You abandoned your children.”
“Where have I been? You have no idea what I have come through to get here and what I’ve done to make that happen. You’re just a little bump in the road compared to what I’ve been through.”
Robert put the pistol in his pocket and set the flashlight on the kitchen island, turning it off to save the precious batteries. He pushed Becky flat to the floor with his boot, and dragged her into the living room, dropping her next to Michael. He spun the rifle from his back and placed the stock firmly into his shoulder.
“Are you going to kill us? You don’t have to. We can work something out.” Michael begged.
“Neither of you is worth a bullet,” Robert said, coldly.
“There’s lots of food in this house. We can split it,” said Michael, in the tone of a man pleading for his life.
“I’m not splitting anything with you, because you don’t have anything now. Understand?”
“I don’t understand,” Michael whined, staring at the rifle.
Robert opened the front door wide and stepped back to make room for them to walk through the open doorway. He pointed outside with the rifle.
“Through this door is exactly what you gave my children: nothing. Go, and don’t come back. If I see you around here again, I’ll kill you.”
Michael dropped to his knees and waddled toward Robert , begging for mercy. “We have no place to go. We’ll starve to death. You can’t do this!”
“Yes, I can!” Robert drove his knee into Michael’s perfectly veneered teeth, knocking him to the ground. When Michael sat up, he felt his mouth and the gap where a tooth used to be. Robert pushed him out the door with his boot, then Becky crawled out and sat next to her husband on the front porch. They held each other, whimpering loudly.
Robert put the end of the barrel at the back of Michael’s skull. “You better leave now before I change my mind.”
The couple ran away, not looking back. Robert watched them disappear into the darkness, toward the stream that fed the nearby lake. He went back into the house to retrieve the flashlight and some candles from the kitchen. He opened the pantry and the garage entry door one more time to look at the pile of food, just before he ran back home to his children. He hurried home as fast as he could and pushed his front door open. Kyle, Alexis, and Jim were there. Alexis had made some cold oatmeal for the children, and he could see their weakness in the way they chewed the food so slowly. He placed the candles on the kitchen table and lit them.
“You’re safe now,” Robert said, as he touched their boney shoulders gently.
Brad looked up at his father. He finally smiled. His mouth was full of food. From the opposite side of the table, Robert leaned forward to get a closer look at his children in the candlelight. Jennifer touched his wrist. Robert turned to her and smiled. She smiled back. Then the children, so fatigued from their hunger, drifted to sleep at the table. Robert gently picked them up and carried them to their beds, covering them with blankets to keep them warm through the night.
Robert sat at the dining table facing the other three adults in the flickering candlelight.
“I didn’t want to say anything in front of your kids. What did you do after we left?” asked Kyle.
“That asshole won’t be
coming back.”
Jim laughed and said, “I wish I could’ve seen that.”
“He took my food and starved my children.” Robert shook his head angrily. “He got better than what he deserved.”
“That’s where all the food went?” asked Alexis.
“Yes, and he had a lot more than that. He took from everyone he could.” Robert pointed at Jim. “We can take some of that food and split it among the people who are still in the neighborhood. I don’t know who needs it, or who deserves it the most. Do you have any ideas?”
Jim nodded his head, saying, “I could use some of that food, myself.”
“We need to go move that food back here tonight,” said Robert . “Michael is a snake in the grass, and he might come back for it. Jim, I want to do this quick, tonight. Can you come back tomorrow, too? I want to know about everything that’s happened here since I’ve been gone.”
“Sure, I’ll come back at daybreak.”
“Thanks, Jim. Now, take the wheelbarrow, and you and Kyle get started. I’ll be right behind you.”
They left, and only Robert and Alexis remained at the table.
“Thanks for making them something to eat.”
Alexis smiled and said gently, “They’re going to be okay.”
“I’m going to make sure of that. They’re all I have now.”
Robert stood up, retrieved the flashlight from his pocket, and handed it to Alexis.
“It’s going to get dark in here when the candles go out, so you should take this.”
“You won’t be afraid of the dark?” Alexis asked, sarcastically.
“I’ve got nothing to fear.” Robert held the rifle up for Alexis to see.
“I prayed for bullets last night,” said Alexis.
Robert walked to the front door, stopped, turned around, and said with a somber expression, “I hope you did.”
Robert opened the door and stepped outside.
“Hold on, Robert . You should be happy now. It was a long journey home and we made it.”
“We made it here, but our journey isn’t over yet. It has just gotten started. Keep praying for bullets, Alexis. We’re going to need them.”
He shut the door and walked into the darkness.