by Kyle Dane
“So, como estas hombre?” Dad asks, then resumes picking at the keyboard.
I stop listening to the news and answer in my preferred language, “Awesome! I’ve wanted this game for so long. Thank you!”
“Our pleasure, hijo. Come here and dame un abrazo.”
A hug is given as directed.
“Now, let me finish a couple things on the good ol’ computer.” Dad returns to the bright screen littered with boring numbers I want nothing to do with, and I return to the excitement of my gaming mission. I start by speed-snatching a soda from the fridge, grabbing a bag of chips from the cupboard, and racing to my bedroom. Need to call Dshawn and Trent!
The cell phone I forgetfully left on my nightstand is now pressed against my ear. I try Dshawn first, but he doesn’t answer. Now Trent. No answer either. I resort to texting, expecting that at least Dshawn will hit me up—he’s addicted to his phone. But still no reply back. Weird. Why wouldn't they answer? That's very unlike them. Much is out of the ordinary tonight.
“Hey Bee from the Bay.” I hear Mom call to Dad as she steps into the house.
“Hey mi Miel,” Dad replies, using the Spanish word for honey. So nauseating. Wish they’d use their legal names. Dad, you’re Leon not Bee from the Bay. Mom, you’re Renay not Miel. If anything needs fixing, it’s our embarrassing last name.
“Did you close the garage?” Dad asks Mom.
“Oh right, I’ll do that…have you seen outside?!” she bubbles back.
“Yeah, que loco. Was just on the news. Apparently no one knows what’s going on. A rare Super Harvest Moon was in the forecast tonight, but this is something completely different. Uncalculated. Even the professionals...astronomers and astrophysicists...they’re all dumb-founded. They’re calling it, the Mysterious Red-out. Spooky huh?” Dad shares.
I leave my room, pass through the hallway, and walk into the family room—also Dad’s official office, don't know why he's in the kitchen—in search for scissors. I need them to cut through the videogame’s film packaging that my finger nails finally gave up fighting.
“Anyway, they’re talking about V'lore again. That’s still the big story,” Dad says. “But that garbage can rot in hell for all I care.”
Dad rarely curses anyone, so I eavesdrop best I can—this should be good.
“Bee…” Mom begins.
“Don’t! I mean it. That man and all the people who followed him have been a curse to our country and you know it! Has taken nearly eight years…EIGHT YEARS for people to wake up and...and smell the lies for what they are,” Dad rants.
Mom takes a deep breath. “Look, we don’t always get the president we want. But don’t you think it's a little heartless to celebrate him going missing? He’s not an evil person, not hurting anybody…just a bad leader. He could be in serious trouble. Maybe dead.” Her kind, silky voice makes me question if she's a normal human.
“Yeah…guess you’re right,” dad admits hesitantly.
Mom swoops to sympathize. “But I know your intensions. You'd never wish bad things upon anyone. You’re a very passionate man who loves his country and wants the best for little families like ours.”
Scissors! In the clutter of Dad's paperwork, on top of an antique, cherry wood desk, lies the hidden treasure. I jet back to my room.
“Exactly. Thank you,” replies Dad.
“And passion...is what I love most about my man.” Mom seduces Dad by sitting on his lap. Please. They’re going to kiss as if they’re the only ones in the house. Vomit. I slam my bedroom door and ready myself for the game.
Minutes flicker away like seconds as I sit here in gym shorts, legs crossed Indian style on a green throw rug. The darkness around me from the turned-off light, keeps me sucked into the bright, fifty-inch TV, as if nothing else exists or matters. Pure bliss. Even though that out-of-place feeling keeps coming back to me, I'm determined to enjoy the night, Mysterious Red-out or otherwise. Don't care. As for my parents, they're a world away outside a shut door, so they can make out all they want. Don’t care.
∆∆∆
“Ahhhhh!” Without warning, Mom screams beyond the top of her lungs, followed by the thunderous sound of dishes breaking onto the kitchen tile floor. The unexpected sound jolts me as if I swallowed a high-voltage taser and, as a reflex, my arms fling into the air, the videogame controller flies out of grip, and my body collapses backwards.
Mom! Uhhh! Why're you so dang dramatic?! Another tiny spider, I bet, that’ll be described as a deadly tarantula. Probably ran across her fingers, causing her to drop the dishes in a thoughtless panic. Wouldn't put it past her. She hates spiders. Always freaks out. I’d love to squish it with my bare finger, right in front of her, like I did last time, to freak her out even more.
The anger of being startled is immediately extinguished when Dad affirms the seriousness of the situation with a lion-like roar, “RUKO! THE HIVE! NOW!”
My heart instantly sinks into a quicksand of panic. Dad doesn't mess around like that. Never. He’d never mention the Hive unless there was true danger. The Hive is a hidden room underneath my closet floor that he built after the neighbors across the street were robbed on New Year's Eve. Supposed to be a sanctuary in case of emergencies such as earthquakes or burglaries. Whatever’s happening outside my bedroom is no mystery—the Earth isn't quaking, so it must be...a burglary.
In a pulse-racing fear frenzy, I dive for my cell phone and rush to the closet. I open the double doors, bend down, pull back the edge of an attached rug that covers the heavy Hive door, slide one hand into the opening, and lift up.
BANG! The sound of a weighty object—very large—hitting the refrigerator wall, also hits hard inside my chest as a heavy testimony of an obvious fight. A home invasion.
My body turns to jelly. Feel like a baby trying to walk for the first time. Can hardly move but have to. Have to hide. The black hole stares up at me through a thick fog of blinding tunnel vision—can barely see even though my eyes are fully open.
With impaired physical function and vision, an attempt to move fast ends in a clumsy fall down the wood staircase.
SMACK! My forehead connects with the corner of a metal safe filled with my parent’s valuables. I scramble to get up. Blood oozes out of me and the center of my rib cage kills from landing on something hard, but despite the fall, my body’s adrenaline numbs the pain enough for me to close the Hive door. Total darkness envelops me.
Cell phone! That’s what my ribs landed on. I drop to my knees and pat my hands across the cement surface like insect antennas scouring for the only weapon I have against the unknown threat outside.
Got it. Is it broken? The phone's glow floods the tiny room with light, and before I have time to think, I realize I've already dialed 911. Seems to work fine.
Ring………ring………
Come on pick up!
Ring………ring.........
Why won’t they answer? It's 911, they always answer!
Ring………ring.........
My mouth slurps in some of the blood that’s been streaming down my face from the gash in my forehead. Tastes like a rusty nail. Still no answer from the police department. I try to think of another number to call, but the phone loses signal. What can I do?! Think, Ruko!
Time zooms into warp speed, which causes me to become less and less responsive to the live-action nightmare.
BANG! Another hit against the far kitchen wall marks the end of the fight. It’s unquestionable by what comes next...silence.
A dead quiet falls over the entire kitchen. The room that was just raging with violent noise, now emits no sign of life whatsoever. No movement. No cries. No struggle. The panic inside me amplifies.
“Say something...Mom, Dad, please,” I beg in the voice of a restless whisper. I want to explode out of the Hive and rush to my parents’ aid. How can I just sit here? But I remain in place, hiding and waiting per Dad’s strict command, waiting for further instructions, but he says nothing. I feel totally helpless.
>
I crawl up the stairs to better listen—for anything. The side of my head touches the Hive roof, the underbelly of my bedroom floor. Ears pivot from the kitchen back to my location in a desperate search for any signal of life that’d break this unbearable silence but nothing hopeful is picked up. The only noise that remains is from...the videogame!
The soundtrack plays loudly in the background as my character idles. In the chaos, I didn’t think to turn it off. If the intruder’s out there, he’ll surely hear it.
Sure enough—to my horror—the sleeping kitchen wakes up with the sound of scattered movement. Uneven footsteps rapidly progress towards my location; something’s coming right for me.
As the footsteps close in, my pulse rises into a pounding like a woodpecker jack-hammering on my heart, hollowing out any hope of survival. I'm a dead man. All I can do is crawl backwards down the staircase until I'm stopped by the wall and can go no farther. I press up against it with my arms screwed into the ground and head cowering away from my impending death.
The bedroom door opens. The footsteps limp across the room, straight to the closet. Straight for me. Now, the closet doors swing open, and the intruder crashes hard with all his body weight directly above me.
“UH!” I let out one last gasp and pinch my eyes tight in wait for the Hive door to open and my life to come to a close. However, to my surprise, the door remains shut, and the intruder lies entirely motionless above as if he decided to take a sudden nap.
A minute or so passes. Longest sixty seconds of my life. What’s he waiting for?
“Ruko…” Through the darkness, I hear the shaken yet comforting voice of my mother.
“Mom!” I shout, now standing to open the door.
“Stay…stay where you are…Ru-u-uko...we love you,” she finishes.
“Mom?” The full, limp weight of her body pushes back on the door as I exert myself to open it.
“Mom. Get up,” I encourage. Something wet drips down through the imperfectly sealed Hive door and hits my cheek. It’s…blood. Not mine. “Mom!” I heave on the heavy door with all my strength until I feel her roll off to the side, enough to crack the door a few inches. Can see part of her body in the shadows—need to help her!
But, something else forces my immediate attention. From somewhere outside the house comes the most foreign, ear-splintering sound I’ve ever heard; it’s a deep, dramatic, almost frantic inhale of air that could be from a person—although I’ve never heard someone breathe that way—or a large animal. The long, unbroken breath lasts five to seven seconds, which is swiftly followed by angry feet stomping into the house at the speed of a furious run.
There’s no doubt in my mind that whoever or whatever has reentered the house is the intruder responsible for this horrifying nightmare—coming back to finish the job, after having gone outside for an unexplained reason.
“M-mom,” I tearfully whisper as I let go of the Hive door, which shuts under her dead weight and obstructs the entrance to my secret location—and in no time too soon. The intruder’s here. Can’t see anything but I can hear everything. The soundtrack from the videogame continues to play. I remain perched on the top step of the staircase, maintaining balance best I can, afraid to move an inch, afraid to be heard.
“Whooahhh!” After a spine-chilling yell, my large TV flies across the room and shatters into a wall as though it were a lightweight football. Whoever threw it is insanely strong.
The intruder moves in a weird way right above me, never standing still for even a second.
THUMP thump. THUMP thump. THUMP thump. THUMP thump.
The frightful confusion in my head spikes as I realize I can hear the intruder’s heartbeat. But that’s impossible! What...is in my bedroom?!
Silent tears haven’t stopped streaming down my face. More seconds pass, and I’m almost unable to control the urge to cry like a baby. However, just before I give up my location, the intruder jumps out of the closed window to the backyard, causing shattered pieces of glass to rain upon the floor.
My life is spared, but I remain in the Hive, compelled in place by the sound of horrific screams echoing in through the broken window. Whatever happened to my family is also happening to others in the neighborhood—the anthem of a one-sided war. A massacre.
∆∆∆
After a while, a few hours, the battle cries end. Don't know how long it’s been exactly, if it's safe or not, but I can’t stay down here anymore.
I make another attempt to open the Hive door, as carefully and respectfully as I can. Mom’s body is still on the other side, and I don’t want to hurt her even though I already know she’s dead.
Finally, I escape.
“Mom?” I exhale then drop to my knees and wrap my arms around the lifeless body of the woman who gave me life. I sob, uncontrollably, as my broken heart cries out in anguish at the confirmation of what I already knew to be true. She’s gone. No vitals. No movement. No breathing. Dad...
I wobble to my feet. The forehead injury is still fresh and apparently deep, because blood continues to run down my scalp and into my left eye. With only half visibility, I brave into the kitchen. The crackling of glass shards and ceramic fragments from broken dishes sound off under my feet as I stagger.
Still crying. But now, the tears fall all the harder when my right eye falls upon Dad. I maneuver around the destroyed dinner table that’s flipped upside-down and lower myself to the tile floor where his dead body contours around the refrigerator. He’s as unrecognizable as is the kitchen, maimed and disfigured by something ruthless. Something of pure evil. What? What could've done this? And why?! Nothing in the house is missing, just vandalized. This was no burglary. I hold dad and weep, numb in shock. I’m alone. Truly alone. Fatherless. Motherless. My world...as I knew it...is forever changed.
CHAPTER 3: CAPITOL HILL
7 years later...
Crack. Crunch. Crack. Crunch. A noise like walnut shells being opened becomes less tolerable by the minute. I've been awake listening to it for about an hour now, stretched flat on my back on a camping cot inside this wretched mountain shelter; the tiny, one room space I call home.
An olive green sleeping bag snuggly hugs my body with warmth against the cold winter. My fingers poke out of the bag and skim across the surface of the outer shell's nylon fabric. It's still chilled from the icy, early morning air that seeps through the cracks of these four, ever-rotting wood walls and into the room, along with frail slivers of sunlight that penetrate the darkness. No electricity. No AC. No plumbing. No fridge. No TV. No internet. I suffer the void of a good many luxuries thanks to a construction job that’s built to par with my life—crappy. Very least of my long list of problems though...
Last night was another Red-out. Number 282 since the first one happened all those years ago. Why don’t they stop? is one of several unanswered questions I pointlessly revisit as I lazily lay in bed with zero desire to get out. Can I be blamed for my lack of motivation to start the day? The outside world’s a cold place I’m never eager to face, especially when Red-out aftermath awaits me. Crack. Crunch. Crack. Crunch.
Get it over with, Ruko, coward. Can’t stay locked in your shelter forever.
I burst out of the sleeping bag like a butterfly from a cocoon, punch my arms into a coat, and push open the knob-less wood door to the outdoor world. A powerful flash of sunshine beams off the white snow and inflicts temporary blindness to eyes that were so long adjusted to my shelter's diluted lighting. Remaining blind to the gore would be a blessing, but I'm not a blessed man. My eyes acclimate to the daylight.
CRACK! CRUNCH! CRACK! CRUNCH! I see a pack of wild dogs—husky-wolf breed—maliciously fighting over pieces of a human body several yards away. Their strong jaws crush the bones with ease, the sound that blares louder in my ears now that I'm exposed to it. It’s a man. Identity unknown. Obvious Lasher victim; I heard him scream last night.
Two of the hungry mutts indiscriminately play tug o’ war with the man’s arm as if it were a ju
icy filet mignon. Back and forth, the tossed limb splashes blood across the surface of the white slush and leaves me defenseless to think of anything other than cherry syrup snow-cones a younger version of me used to get at the So Cal summer fair. Going to be sick. My eyes recoil fast as possible. Too late. In a half-standing lean, I dry-heave as though I had food poisoning from undercooked squirrel, but the scavengers pay me zero mind.
Ruko, you should be used to funeral viewings like this, by now. Pathetic pobresito.
While the animals ravage the body, including the arm steak, I raise and briefly study my own arm in the brewing of a weird thought, a disturbing notion that says I’m peering into a crystal ball of my own dreadful future. I’m looking at me...my arm, my body, my death, my fate. That’s me being eaten by dogs.
“Grraaa!” I growl my way back up to standing at my six-foot height, a move that triggers three of the dogs into barking. Guess I came off threatening. The pack’s alpha doesn’t bark but displays a quiet snarl that reveals two rows of yellowy-white teeth—long canines—along with bloody drool that oozes out the sides of its mouth. Intimidation epitomized. The gray hairs on his back stand up like thousands of tiny flags signaling his readiness to brawl as the formidable contender he is; surely he’s over a hundred pounds of pure muscle and savage instinct. Then again, so am I. But I have zero interest in a petty puppy quarrel.
I turn my back to the dog gang and begin the hour walk to town, blindly awaiting their response to my withdrawal, almost uncaring if they decide to attack me from behind and end me. Mercifully, they pardon my rude disturbance and resume their human corpse breakfast.
Why don't I cry, anymore? Maybe I can’t. Tear glands could be dried up from all these years of weeping, or worse, maybe I just don’t care like I used to. This constant injection of emotional pain is, in-and-of-itself, working like anesthesia that numbingly desensitizes my ability to feel empathy in the way I should.