by Caleb Karger
I looked down. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“Yeah, you weren’t. Don’t do it again.” She shook her head as she tore off the papery layers of an onion. “Go take your sister out to play. She’s been holed up in here all day.” She threw a concerned look in Hannah’s direction.
“…this will safely protect newspapers from a bomb, you know, so we don’t get cabin fever and start eating each other,” Hannah said.
“She doesn’t need me to go with her,” I said.
“I don’t want to hear it. Go,” mom replied.
Hannah ran upstairs to get dressed. By the time I reached my shoes, she was ready. She ran around me in circles. I couldn’t tie my laces with all of her jumping around.
“Calm down!” I took my sweater off of the coat hanger. It was warm out, but I wanted to keep the mosquitos away from my skin. I opened the door, and Hannah leaped outside. She looked around, searching for imaginary zombies or something.
She had a toy gun and wore a military vest. She’d filled the pockets with foam ammo darts. Smeared on her face like war paint was black marker ink and a black bandana hid her blonde hair. She ran in zigzags across the sidewalk to stay in the growing shadows.
The sky was layered with streaks of orange, pink, and purple as the sun set. The neighborhood was alive with children playing and adults watering their flowers. The smell of lemonade, watermelon, and fresh cut grass filled the air as we walked.
Hannah didn’t like any of the parks in our neighborhood. She made me walk what felt like ten miles to the warehouse district. It consisted of abandoned, deteriorating buildings and graffiti-covered trains that sat around rusting. For some reason, there was a park amongst the ruins.
The playground was in the center of a dirt field. There were only a small slide and a swing set. A single light shone a circle of orange on the antique equipment. I sat down on the swing as Hannah played on the slide. I watched the sky become darker and darker. I didn’t keep track of the hours, but I’m sure we were there a good while.
I zoned out. The thoughts I’d been avoiding all day bombarded me. I thought about what my life could’ve been like if Katherine had let me join her. I imagined all of the things I would’ve done if I had powers like hers and money to afford anything I wanted. I’d buy a huge house; I’d throw a ball at Derek’s head and not have to worry about the consequences, but…I wasn’t joining her. Everything I wanted to escape from I still had to deal with. I didn’t know what was worse; finding the thing I wanted out of life, or knowing it was there and I could never have it.
This couldn’t be it. This wasn’t how the story was supposed to go. Wonderland wasn’t supposed to kick Alice to the curb. The Jedi didn’t send Anakin back to his desert planet. Why didn’t I get to be awesome? Why was I not good enough?
“Come on, we should head back,” I said.
“Five more minutes!”
“Fine, but then that’s it.”
I looked away from the sky. I hadn’t realized how pitch-black it was in this area. It was as if the world vanished beyond the point of our circle of light. I stared at the emptiness and hoped my eyes would adjust. I wanted to see the shapes of the buildings at least, but no luck.
For all I knew, anything could be out there. No, not anything. There’s no monsters or ghosts, I thought.
My adrenaline spiked as an uneasy feeling settled over me. Pins and needles pricked through my arms and legs. I inspected the darkness. I wondered if something was watching us. Then, right in front of me, I thought I could see the faintest outline of a head and shoulders. I waited for it to move. Minutes ticked by and nothing happened. My heart rate started to settle. It was nothing.
Suddenly, the shape moved.
My breath hitched. My body froze. I gripped the chains on the swing. I lost track of it and tried to find it again, but I couldn’t.
It had to have been a trick of the light. I always thought I saw something when nothing was there. It was no different than all of the times I went to the kitchen at night for a snack. For the longest time, I swore some creature lurked in the corners waiting to attack me. The only way to keep it at bay was by turning on the light. It was an irrational fear all kids had. Maybe I hadn’t outgrown it yet.
My eyes were glued to the edge of the light, daring them to see something that wasn’t there. I felt my palms get moist. Then I saw it again! It was blacker than black. It was as big as a person but crawled across the ground like a spider. It stayed far enough away to avoid the light and circled us.
I tried to speak, “H-Han…n-nuh…” was all that came out. She couldn’t hear me over her pretend gun noises. I sat, useless, as Hannah played on. Stay in the light! Stay in the light! The thing in the darkness moved when she moved. It was waiting for her to get too close to the dark.
Hannah rolled across the dirt. She got to her feet and pretended to be overwhelmed in a fight. She took three steps back towards the edge of the protective light. Black, spindly arms jumped out of the darkness and snatched her. She tried to scream, but it was quickly muffled.
“Hannah!” I shouted.
Trembling, I got to my feet. I didn’t want to leave the safety of the light, but I couldn’t abandon her. I yelled in terror/whatever bravery I had in me. I charged towards the abyss.
Immediately, my eyes were useless once out of the light. The ground was rough and uneven. My foot fell through the air as I stepped into a hole. My momentum shot me forward, and I fell flat on my face. Grunting, I scurried to my feet.
The spots obscuring my vision faded and at last, I could see the thing that had Hannah. It was a short, slender person, but the way they moved like an insect was unnatural. Whoever it was, moved so fast they were a blur. They leaped onto the side of a warehouse, scuttled up to the roof, and jumped across a fifty-foot gap to the next building. Then the kidnapper bounded out of sight.
How was I going to follow them?! I was struggling to lift my feet; there was no way I could run hard enough to catch them. Hannah was going to die because I was too out of shape. I hated myself at that moment more than ever. I tried to use that self-loathing to force myself to sprint, but I felt like I was going slower. No, no, no, c’mon move!
Decades later, I reached the first building the kidnapper had climbed. I struggled to the next one. There was still no sign of them. I stopped running. I bent over and gasped for air. My throat stung. I was too late, too slow. The kidnapper could be in the next state by now. Hannah could be…No, don’t think it.
“Daniel!” Hannah screamed in the distance.
She was still alive! I wasn’t too late. I taxed my muscles. I refused to give up. I followed her screaming to the warehouse at the end of the row. It was the largest one and also the most corroded.
Something flew over my head. I hollered and ducked. I expected another human creature thing to attack. Instead, Katherine landed in front of me, anger written on her face.
“What were you thinking taking her to a place like this?! I told you more of them were coming!” she said.
“Yeah,” I inhaled sharply, “I remember you saying you would take care of it!” I sucked in another lungful of air. “And that I had nothing to worry about!”
“Stay here,” she said and walked towards the warehouse.
“No, that’s my sister in there, and I’m gonna help get her out!” I said and jogged to catch up beside her.
“Fine.”
She held out her hand as if reaching for some invisible object. I heard the sound of metal ringing through the air, and a sword came flying towards us. Once she caught it, I could see that it was a glorious katana with a razor-sharp blade. A black tree shedding its leaves ran down the blade. The cross guard was gold, and wrapped around the hilt was green silk.
She turned to a blur and disappeared into the warehouse. Whoa. I ran after her.
I came up to the open door. I could hear crashing, yelps, and thunderclaps from inside. I crouched down low and crept over to a stack of boxes inside.
<
br /> I saw Katherine’s shadow leaping over crates and old equipment as people tried to attack her. She spun through the air, her sword was like the spinning blades of a blender. Everything around her was shredded.
Suddenly, a cold blue light drenched everything and dozens of lightning arrows appeared. Every archer was aiming for Katherine. They all loosed at the same time.
Katherine stabbed the ground in front of her. The cement popped and cracked, dirt flooded through the cracks and gathered together to form dirt creatures. They snatched the arrows and ate them. Someone threw a grenade, the dirt monsters piled onto it and absorbed the worst of the blast.
The warehouse shuddered. Pieces of the ceiling fell. I heard Hannah scream from the upper levels. Somehow Katherine made pillars of stone jut up from the ground, hitting the masked people and throwing them back. I dodged falling debris as I looked around for a way up.
I found a rickety-looking metal staircase. I tried to step onto it, but rust had eaten so much of it that the moment I stepped onto the first stair, it crumbled. I gulped and jumped to the next stair, only to find the handrail was wobbly. The whole structure lurched sideways. I raced upwards. I heard the supports breaking. I was almost to the second floor when the staircase had reached its limit and began to tumble over. I hurled my body towards the second floor and landed hard.
“Ow, ow…” I said as I got up. I tried to walk, but pain shot up my leg. I limped around, trying to find the next staircase.
When I reached the top floor, I saw a hole in the roof. The kidnapper who had taken my sister was waiting up there. Hannah was unconscious at their feet. I growled and found a ladder to climb up to the roof. I stumbled over the rungs and jumped off of the last one.
The kidnapper didn’t make any effort to stop me from grabbing Hannah. I checked her over. She seemed okay. She might’ve passed out from the fright. I turned to give a mean look at the stranger only to have all of my bravery pulled right out of me.
A gray mask glared back at me. It was as menacing as the guy’s the night before, only worse. The eye holes were pure black. Not the kind of darkness black holes had, it was more like the eerie blackness at the bottom of a well. There was something old and sinister in the depths; something trapped that wanted to get out.
I felt like I was seven-years-old again huddled up on my bed hyperventilating as I stared at the closet door. I would get so terrified if it were cracked open at night. My mom would insist there was nothing in there, but she always checked when the light was on. Without the light, the closet turned into a portal for bad things.
At that moment, I felt like I finally saw what thrived in the shadows of my closet—the thing that haunted everyone’s nightmares. I wished I could shut my eyes and throw a blanket around me. I wanted to hum little songs and pretend it didn’t exist. I got a squirming sensation and felt as if maggots were wiggling around in my shoes.
“W-what do you w-want?”
They took a step towards me. The metal roof creaked underneath their feet as if the building couldn’t handle the weight of the evil emanating from them. The air around them was frigid.
They never got a chance to answer me. Katherine’s foot smashed into their mask. The black hood on their sweater fell off, and smooth blonde hair tumbled out. I realized it was a girl. She went crashing into a warehouse far off in the distance. The whole thing collapsed on her.
Katherine watched the warehouse crumble. She waited for the wreckage to move, not sure that the enemy was down for the count. When nothing happened after a while, she slowly turned to me.
“Is she okay?” she asked.
“I think so,” I said and held my sister close. My fear faded away, and relief washed over me like the calm waters lapping onto a peaceful beach. I had been so scared I wouldn’t reach her in time. “Why…why did they come after her?”
Katherine gazed back at the collapsed warehouse. “The enemy will do anything, use anyone, to get to you.”
“You were supposed to be watching us.” My tone was a little more accusing than I had meant. I was still on edge from being so close to someone so creepy. “I thought you could take care of it?”
She pointed at herself. “I had everything under control. You weren’t where you were supposed to be.”
“I can’t just stay locked up in my house! If you can’t protect me every second of every day, then something needs to change. I shouldn’t have to worry about taking a wrong turn down a street, or I wander out of the area you think I’m in and get attacked!”
“It’s only for a little while.”
I shook my head. “You don’t know that for sure. It hasn’t even been a day, and they could’ve killed my sister!”
Her shoulders dropped. “It won’t happen again.”
“You bet it won’t!” I said. “It won’t happen because next time I need to be ready. You need to teach me how to defend myself and protect my family.” Her eyes widened. She knew where this was going. She started to shake her head. “You have to train me. Let me join you!”
She turned away from me and crossed her arms. “You don’t want to join me.”
“Yes, I do!”
She spun around. “You won’t be safe! Your family won’t be safe! Everything you love, you will have to give up! Is that what you want?!” Her eyes were dark, like a dense, unforgiving jungle.
“The happiest I’ve ever been is when I’m with you!” My mouth hung open. I didn’t mean to say that. The words had slipped out.
Her rage melted into an unreadable expression. She looked at the city lights. Whatever argument she was having in her head made her entire body stiff.
“All I want is a chance,” I said.
After what felt like several ages, she made up her mind. She turned to me. “You get one chance,” she said and reached down to take Hannah from my arms. She held my sister as if she weighed no more than a bag of cotton balls. “And, Daniel?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m not going to make it easy for you.”
Chapter 5
The First Test
O kay, would you rather have to swim really fast across a pool full of ice, or walk slowly over a bed of hot coals?” Hannah read from the card in her hand. She balanced back and forth from one knee to the other. She grabbed a slice of pizza from the box on the coffee table and took a huge chomp out of it. “Don’t take all day.”
I rubbed my chin and my lips contorted into different positions like they were doing some form of lip yoga. “Well, I don’t know. They both sound pretty bad, I don’t know if I can choose,” I said.
“You have to! That’s part of the game!” she said. Her fingers danced over the plastic penguin that represented me on the game board. “If you don’t choose, I get to move you back a space.”
“Don’t get grease on my piece.” I pushed her hand away. She wiped her hands on her pants and snatched the penguin before I could stop her. She pretended to march it back several places. “Hey!”
“Just kidding!” She giggled and set it down on the right square. “You’re turn, mom.” She pulled out a new card. “Would you rather have super farts or super burps?”
We both laughed as we turned to our mom. She was in the reclining chair wearing silky, pink pajamas and her feet were boiling in her Foot Soaker 5000. Her head bobbed in rhythm to whatever song she was humming.
“Mom!” Hannah said.
“Super burps, I guess,” our mom said. Hannah laughed so much she could barely move mom’s bunny. Then the alarm on Hannah’s watch went off.
“Red alert! We’ve got incoming meteors! Everyone to your stations!” Hannah ran off to the safe zone in the basement. She’d be there for a good while.
“Hey mom, can I ask you something?” I said.
“Sure.”
I peered down at the brochure I’d been clutching protectively in my lap. Carefully, like it was the Arc of the Covenant, I passed it to my mom. She put her glasses on.
“Camp Fit for Life, the best fu
n a kid can have,” she said and unfolded the brochure. “Canoeing, scenic hikes, and much more. We have everything to help your child regain and maintain a healthy weight…” She gave me an uncertain look. “This is a fat camp?”
“It’s a fitness camp,” I said.
“Let me guess, you want to go there?”
I nodded. “It’ll be good for me.”
She sunk further into her chair. “We can’t afford it, sweetheart.”
“My school said they would pay for it.”
“Your school really said that?”
“Uh…” I pretended to stretch as I looked at the specific lines Katherine had written onto my palm. “I failed gym class. To make up for it, they’ll pay to send me to the camp.”
“I’ll pretend I buy that for now.” She pressed her lips into a straight line. “But who’s going to look after Hannah while I’m at work?”
“She’s old enough to look after herself. I mean, come on, she planned a five-year nutrition plan to survive an atomic wasteland,” I said.
“True.” She picked up the picture on the end table beside her. It was a smaller version of me holding Hannah after she’d been born. “I guess I have to get used to the fact you two are growing up.” She tilted her head back and stared off into space. “And I’ll be an old, lonely woman soon enough.”
I shook my head. “You’ll be fine, mom.”
“Alright, alright I suppose you can go. Don’t I need to sign something?”
“Yeah, I’ll be right back.” I headed towards the stairs but froze. Hannah stood in the way with her arms crossed.
“You said you would start training with me! You’re just a big liar!” She ran up the stairs. Her bedroom door slammed shut.
“Don’t think it’s just my permission you need,” mom said.
I groaned. “I’ll go talk to her.” I knocked on Hannah’s door a minute later. When she didn’t answer, I opened the door.
I hadn’t gone into her room for a while. I still remembered it with light purple walls and decorated with her crude butterfly drawings. Now it looked like a former Navy Seal occupied the space. Newspapers with headlines of growing doom plastered the walls, buckets of nonperishable food were stacked anywhere possible, and somehow she’d boarded up her window.
