by P K Stadnyk
Mom put me to bed without any bedtime stories. She was very worried. I couldn’t sleep that night. I had terrible nightmares about Dad, Bella, Mom and doors, lots of doors. They were all in trouble and I couldn’t decide how to help them or who I should start with. When I tried to, the doors appeared out of nowhere in front of me and, of course, they were locked. I woke up all sweaty probably in the middle of the night.
If Dad isn’t here by morning, I’ll go and find him! That was my plan. I got up and quietly went to search for a key. It had to be somewhere. I found nothing in the bathroom and nothing in the food room where I avoided the jellies. In the kitchen, my search didn’t succeed either. I took a chair and stood on it to check the upper cupboards. One of them was full of cups, all looking the same except for one, within which I found three keys. I was so glad about my discovery that I did a little victory dance and... Bam! I fell off the chair.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Mom was standing at the door of her room, looking very pale. I made an innocent face like Bella and said, “I was only hungry and wanted some cookies, Mom.”
She looked at me for some time, scrutinizing my face and the kitchen. After she didn’t find anything suspicious, she gave me cookies and took me to my room. This time, she went to bed with me with her arm around me. I knew something wasn’t right. I only stayed in my parents’ bed when I had nightmares or wasn't feeling very well. I had to find Dad now!
I waited for Mom to fall asleep, which took a little while. She kept talking and I didn’t know if it was to me or in her sleep. I got up when I heard snoring. I gently and slowly took her hand off me, put it on a pillow, and very quietly went to the locked door.
I took the keys out of my little pyjama pocket and tried each one of them. The first didn’t fit, the second did but wouldn’t turn, and the last fit too but wouldn’t turn. I was desperate to get out and I felt like some kind of prisoner. I tried again with a second key, turned it very hard, and heard the click. At first, I closed my eyes, thinking the key broke, but the door was open. I looked behind to make sure Mom wasn’t spying on me and went out quietly, closing the door.
It was dark, very dark. Looking around was pointless. No walls, no floor, even my feet. I put my hand up. Nothing. I moved it closer and closer and... Wham! I smacked myself in the nose. If I didn’t see it coming, it could mean only one thing: I was invisible.
Awesome! I thought at first, but everything else was invisible too. I didn’t know where I was, where to go, or if something or someone else were there with me. However, since it was very quiet, I felt safe enough.
Well, I’m not going to find Dad by standing here, I thought to myself. So, I started to walk, but that didn’t last long. In less than a minute, I was lying on the floor like a newbie skater on an ice rink. I slipped on something I couldn’t see, but I decided it would be better not to check what it was. I had to move slowly one step at a time. Then I found a wall and walked along it. While I walked so slowly, I started hearing echoes from my steps. It was quite cold as well, but I couldn’t go back for a coat. In any case, I probably wouldn’t be able to find a way back. I think I was going forward all the time, but who knows?
After some time, I got a little scared, feeling something moving behind me. So, I stopped after every step and listened carefully. but it was just the echo of my steps, which sounded like someone coming after me. I had enough. I started to walk faster, almost run. After couple of minutes, I stopped to catch a breath.
Does it ever end? I wondered when I've heard somebody breathing heavily very close to me. I stopped and it stopped as well. Then I realized it was my own breath. Stupid! I thought but started to run anyway. I ran like a crazy for some time (it felt like hours in this middle of nowhere) until I hit my head and was knocked to the floor again. I really had enough. I wanted to go back, wishing I had never gone out and left Mom alone. I was very angry. I stood up and kicked the thing that stopped me with all the strength I had left. Then I realised that it was the door, locked of course. It took a while to find the keyhole and put a key in it.
When I finally opened the door, I found myself somewhere that was equally as dark as in the place before. I would say even darker, but I’m not so sure if that was even possible. I wasn’t that scared anymore, so I continued walking and found myself on stairs going up. I was very cold and tired, but it was too late for any change of plans, especially for going back.
I didn’t give up. I only hoped that the stairs weren’t very long. After some time, my legs became sore and my eyes started playing tricks on me. At first, I thought they were just getting used to the dark, but I started seeing things (figures and postures) that you normally don’t see on stairs. Then something touched my head; I checked with my hand and found a ceiling but no doors. I tried to look around but the more I tried, the worse it got. I put my hand up again and found a handle. I pulled it, but nothing happened. I only hoped it wasn’t locked because finding the right key and lock in the ceiling would probably take me ages. I pushed it, and it moved a little, and after some stronger pushes I was able to open it.
CHAPTER 4 - SURVIVORS
At first, I couldn’t see anything because it was too bright. My eyes hurt badly from spending too much time in the dark. It took a while before my sight was back to normal and what I saw wasn’t exactly what I expected. I was standing at the back of the house in the middle of the garden. I wanted to close the entrance, but I couldn’t see it. Everything looked like the good old garden. However, I couldn’t hear any birds or people. The pervading quietness sent a chill down my spine.. The sky had a weird grayish color; not the rainy type but more like… smoke. There was no sign of Bella or Dad. I went inside the house. The downstairs wasn’t badly damaged but the first floor was gone. There were only stairs but nothing more, stairs to nowhere. So they definitely weren’t upstairs. They haven’t been downstairs either. So I went out on the street. The neighborhood, always full of life, felt dead. I started to walk down the street when I heard a car. I started running in its direction but when I got there I only saw the back of a black car driving away quickly, surely well over the speed limit. Somebody was lying on the sidewalk. I went to see if maybe they could help me. It was Dad. I didn’t expect to find him so quickly…
“Dad, why are you lying here? Mom’s not well. I was bored and worried about you, Mom, and Bella, so I left Mom to go and look for you. So, please don’t be angry. And why are looking at me that way? Dad!”
He was just lying in there with his eyes wide open looking up at the sky, but he didn’t blink even once, which was very hard for me during our previous staring competitions. When he still wasn’t answering my questions, I started to worry. A reprimand would be better than that. How was I going to get Dad back to Mom if he didn’t want to walk or even talk.
“Dad, can we please go back now, please? Daaaaaaa—”
Somebody covered my mouth with a hand. It was Mary, our neighbor, a very nice lady; at least that’s what I thought. She gestured to me to be quiet and took her hand away.
“My dad—” I started but she closed my mouth again and whispered, “Not out here. Let’s go inside my house first. Then my husband and I will come back for him. She took my hand and we started to cross the street toward her house. I couldn’t take my eyes of that nice old lady when, suddenly, I found myself in the air.
“You better watch where you’re going, Max.”
The reason for her warning was obvious. A massive hole was in the middle of the street and it didn’t seem to have end. WOW!I thought and decided to look down from now on. She was walking very fast and it was hard for me to keep up with her. She kept looking over her shoulder all the time, and when we heard a car, she pulled me into the bushes. It was the same car I had seen earlier. When it passed, we waited for a couple of minutes and picked up the pace.
That annoyed me sometimes when I was a kid. Whenever adults didn’t want you somewhere, they just picked you up like a toy and there was nothing you could do
. Another matter was with asking questions that didn’t get answered. The more important the question was for me the more annoying it was for them.
Finally, we got to her house, which was at the end of the street where we lived. I found her husband in there and some more of our neighbors and their kids. I counted twelve adults and three kids. It wasn’t a lot, but I was glad we weren’t alone in this situation. Although my dad was smart, I don’t think he’d know what to do and how to help us if we were alone. I saw Nancy from the house to the east to ours with her baby, but I couldn’t see her husband anywhere. She was best friends with my mom, and I always thought of her as my auntie. She had brown hair and eyes, was short and very thin, and always had a smile on her face, except now. Now, her face was pale with a big bags under her eyes. She didn’t look at me but just somewhere far away while sitting in the dark corner. I think she was younger than my mom, about 25 maybe. I also noticed Dan and Megan Smith with their two children. They lived to the west of our house. Their son was my best friend I could ever have. He was my age and even had a birthday on the same day as me. His name was Alvin. He was taller than me with ginger hair, blue eyes, and a more athletic physique. I was better at schoolwork, though, so he always copied my answers on assignments. I wondered how he did it because we always sat in the first row in the classroom. Once, we were writing about our Christmas and New Year for an English assignment and we had written exactly the same story. He was better at math, which was always annoying to me. We were the ones getting in the trouble more often than others, but it was only because of our curiosity and desire to discover. We couldn’t be limited by a simple “can’t do.” He often stayed at my house for a night when we played video games or planned our adventures and discoveries. Maya, his sister, who was younger than us, could never keep a secret and almost always spoiled our best fun. They were all like family, since we were all very close friends and they all acted like my aunties and uncles. I was glad they made it alright, but, at the same time, I felt sorry for the rest. The survivors looked tired and dirty; some were even covered in blood with bandages on different parts of their bodies.
“You better stay here while we’re going to get your dad,” warned Mary. She gave me some clothes that were too big, but I didn’t care. As long as I was warm and got some warm food, that was enough for me.
I fell asleep and when I woke up, I was in a different room than before. It was nearly nighttime, but nobody was putting the lights on. I heard yelling and crying. I got up and wondered how I could fall asleep at such an important time. Then I saw my dad lying on the sofa. A few people were around; they looked injured, sad, or angry and sat by themselves or next to their unconscious relatives. I walked to where my dad was. He was lying there with his eyes still wide opened and still didn’t say anything. I walked around the house to find Mary. She was quite an old lady with gray hair and a very friendly face. She was always very nice and helpful. While I was looking for her I noticed that her house wasn’t touched at all by whatever destroyed my room and made a massive hole in the street that I almost fell into.
I found her in the kitchen whispering with a woman I had never seen before. When I entered the room, they stopped and the woman left quickly, giving me a long look.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
“What’s wrong with my dad?”
“We don’t know. However, we’ve seen this state before. The woman who just left is my friend from a neighboring town. She doesn’t remember much, but the same thing happened to her. When I found her, she was exactly like your dad and some others. He should be back with us in a couple of hours. He better be because most of us need a doctor. Now, tell me how you got out there. Where have you been all this time?”
I started telling her the story of how we were running and I woke up, and how I and my mom waited for Dad and… Mom!
“We need to get to my mom! She wasn’t very well when I left, and she’s alone now!”
“Do you remember the way back? We can’t stay in this house much longer. If this place is underground, we could move there for some time. I’ll just get us ready.”
She went around the kitchen, throwing food, clothes, and blankets in bags. Then suddenly she stopped. She looked through the window and listened. After some time I heard that too. It was a car. I guessed it was the same we have seen before. When it drove away, Mary went to the room where everybody else was sitting. She said to the healthy ones, “We need to move now! They’ll find us soon. He knows a safe place where we can stay for some time, and John is a doctor who can be invaluable, at least if he wakes up. We’ll move quietly in pairs and each pair will carry one stretcher with sick ones. Max and I will go in front.” She pointed at me. “We’re leaving in 15 minutes.”
Everybody started packing, dressing, and securing injured people on stretchers. I felt a little useless at this moment and started to worry if I would ever find the way back. I knew where my house was, of course, but the entrance to the basement was a different story. It looked the same as the rest of the garden. After about 10 minutes, we were ready. We left the house quietly like ghosts. It was very quiet and dark on the streets. We didn’t use any flashlights, so we had to move slowly and carefully using only the narrow roads and staying as close to the bushes as possible. If anybody could see us at this moment, they would think we were mad. Personally, I didn’t see a reason for being so careful, but it was better to follow the crowd. Everything was going smoothly until we heard a car coming. We stopped and listened. It was coming our way and there was no way we could all hide in the bushes this time. We had to act fast and I couldn’t see any place to hide.
“Quickly, behind this house,” said Mary. We went behind the house but one man, who was helping to carry the stretcher with my dad, went back to the road. Somebody tried to stop him, but he went away, saying he had enough and wouldn’t be hiding any more like a chicken. We heard the car screech to a stop and him shouting “What do you want from me? Who are you? Where is everybody?” Then we heard a scream and the car’s doors closings.
“Check to see if other people are there,” said somebody. We heard steps coming toward us closer and closer. I even stopped breathing, thinking only about my mom being there by herself if we didn’t make it.
“All units, move back to the center immediately.” Someone was standing about ten steps from us looking around for us and then started walking back to the car. It was too dark to see his face, but I could see he was dressed in a dark suit and wearing dark glasses. After the car drove away, we stayed there for another 5 minutes and somebody else helped carry my dad.
We got to our house without any more trouble. When we were in the garden, Mary took a small flash light and started looking for an entrance to our basement. She couldn’t find it and started to get annoyed and frightened.
“Don’t you remember what flowers were on the door?
Of course, I couldn’t. I was nine years old and didn’t think about the flowers. So, I just shook my head.
“At least try.” she said, giving me the flashlight.
When I started going around the garden looking for anything familiar, I heard some a noise coming from the bushes close to me.
Everybody froze. There was nowhere to hide. The noise was getting louder, and it was coming our way, quiet footsteps with growling and howling. I was scared, but, somehow, that noise sounded familiar. I didn’t take my flashlight off that place and it finally came out.
“Watch out! It’s a wolf!” somebody said and started to run. He wasn’t very smart to panic like that and my survival might depend on him one day. I hope it never came to that.
“Bella! Come here.” She wagged her tail happily, hobbling to me, dragging her left hind leg. She didn’t look very well.
“Will somebody go and get that idiot back here please?” asked Mary and Dan volunteered. That situation got us laughing and eased the tension a little. I resumed looking for any sign of the door until Bella started digging and pulling my trousers
. Once again, she was better at hide and seek than me. We pulled it open and two men went in first, followed by people with stretchers, women, and kids.
“I’ll stay here and wait for those two to come back. You go and show them the way,” said Mary. And so we went. At least we had the light with us. Everything was going well. I was so glad that I found Dad and Bella, that I wanted to run, but we were moving too slow for that. We heard steps behind us that didn’t sound like three people. I got scared a little.
What if somebody had been following us all this time, they took Mary, and were now coming after us? I thought.
“Heelloooo?”
“Don’t worry. It’s them,” somebody said.
We waited for them to come closer. It was them, but five instead of three. Two twin boys came with them. I knew both. We played video games together. Joe and William always played jokes on everybody around and themselves. That’s what they were famous for. They didn’t look so funny now, though. The twins were in the same class with me and Alvin.
“He ran into their house and found those two in there. So they went with him,” Mary explained. The runaway guy was Tom. He was a good friend of my dad.
“Did you find your wolf?” my dad said. He was back and everyone sighed with relief.
“Dad!” I shouted, giving him a big hug.
“You recovered faster than everybody else. Do you remember anything? Who did it to you and why?” Mary asked.
“I don’t remember much but I could hear everything and couldn’t move until now. I don’t agree with what you did, Max, but if it weren’t for you, we all wouldn’t be here,” he said. “Now, let’s go and we’ll talk in there.”
When we got inside, Dad told them where the food was and went with Mary to look for my mom. Dad came to me and said, “Mom’s okay but I need you to stay here. Don’t come inside this room until I tell you to.
