LOCKED

by DaSilva, Luis

  Unfortunately, all of its folk-like charm was gone. Closing signs were plastered on every window, every bevel, every edge, until it looked like one giant closing sign that happened to have a wooden door.

  Danni and I let out a collective sigh of disappointment; the very same kind that one breathes when you see something that you’ve always taken for granted taken away. We hadn’t visited the shop too often, and obviously enough, we were feeling a little guilty of this now.

  I was the first to reach forward and turn the door knob, always carefully, as I never knew when it would fall off in my hand.

  Inside, the shop was dusty and decrepit, spider webs lining the ceiling. They were the kind that came with age rather than neglect, specifically in a small store which saw decades, centuries, millennia of knowledge resting comfortably upon the shelves.

  At the front of the shop was an old man sitting at a mahogany desk, scrawling away at a few documents. His white hair retreated to the back of his head, showing his many age spots. He wore the very same old-fashioned, dusty brown attire that Danni and I had seen him wear on a consistent basis; it became a trademark of sorts.

  Though he looked like he was old enough to be the founder of the shop some 110 years ago, his wit and physical abilities were retained. He had a quick eye, acute hearing, and a mind sharper than a butcher’s knife. However, his hands couldn’t quite keep still when he wrote, seemingly the only thing that the onslaught of years had against him; between his family name and trembling tendency, he had earned the nickname of…

  “Shakes!” I called from the back of the store. He looked up, and gave a quivering motion for us to go see him.

  “What’re you doing? You’re shutting down?” Danni asked with concern, saving any form of greeting for later.

  He looked up at us with depressed eyes, empty of any glimmer, his joy robbed by a nameless rot.

  “Well…I am…” he sighed, pushing himself up off of his desk and taking a step around it, the floorboards moaning loudly.

  “I have to leave, it wouldn’t be right for me to stay here. It’s not safe for an old man like me anyway …” he mused, narrowing his eyes. As Danni and I tried to figure out what he could mean by that, he continued.

  “I need to go somewhere quiet, somewhere safe…” he muttered, now lightly tapping at the glass at the front of his shop.

  “This isn’t a ghetto, Shakes. You act like you’re gonna get stabbed for walking outside.” Danni finally spoke up with a tone of annoyance. How could someone who has lived here so long have such a sudden change of heart? He turned quickly and stared her down, forcing her to retreat with a small step backwards and a drooping of her shoulders.

  “It’s gonna GET nasty! You don’t get it, you haven’t seen what I have! You don’t PAY ATTENTION like I have!” he pointed a bony finger at us, his temper flaring and his wrath shown.

  “Just calm down, calm down. Why are you so scared? You’re being paranoid.” I spoke softly, trying to stay on Shakes’ good side. He let out a hack, a wheeze, and finally sat down in a wooden chair across from us.

  “They’re all gone. Everybody’s gone. In…you have to have seen it by now. In Europe…!” he started taking shorter breaths, looking at everything in the room besides us. For the longest second of my life, he stared at the floor, and then he immediately shot up from his chair, and darted to us from across the room. He laid his spidery fingers upon my shoulders, staring into my eyes with his own, glazed and trembling.

  “Boy, all the Europeans are gone! Everybody I talked to and loved! They’re all gone! Nobody else wants to talk about it! Everybody’s scared, everybody’s GONE!” his ancient voice filled the room at once. He now clutched his head in his hands, once again finding solace by speaking to everything else in the room.

  “Nobody wants to talk about it! WHY does nobody want to talk about it?! They talk and talk and talk but don’t COMMUNICATE!” he was shouting at the floor. Danni and I took a few steps back, sweat forming on both our brows.

  “How do they not see what’s happening? How can they not see?!” his eyes darted to us once more, now furious and vengeful.

  “GET OUT OF MY SHOP!”

  That was all we needed. Danni and I flew past Shakes to get to the door. We didn’t look back, nor did we even close the door behind us. Once we were far out of sight, we slumped up against a brick wall, panting and tired from our little escape.

  “What…the hell…was that?” I had to ask, my breathing now becoming more regular.

  “Well don’t ask me!” she retorted.

  “He was always so friendly…” I looked around, seemingly asking the skies above for answers.

  “Maybe he finally lost it. He’s so old, it wouldn’t surprise me.” Danni suggested, although her tone seemed to be a bit more of an attempt at comfort than her true belief.

  “Maybe his family wanted to sell the place and he just couldn’t handle that.” I chipped in.

  “Then why did he talk about the Europeans never answering him anymore?” she responded, her lack of assurance starting to show through again. I stopped for a moment, trying to find some excuse in the recesses of my mind, but I didn’t need to look that far back.

  “On TV! Remember? Everybody was fighting over a new pandemic in Europe?” I was able to recall.

  “Oh yeah! Everybody must just be shut up in their house, nobody wants to go anywhere. Nobody must want to leave. Too dangerous to send boats and ships over unless it’s really necessary. There we go, that’s that. Shakes must not have been able to keep up with rental fees and stuff without any imports for all the die-hards. It’d just take too long for the disease over there to be cured for him to stay in business all by himself like that. He just couldn’t imagine losing the shop his family had for that long. Drove him nuts.” Danni concluded. We nodded in unison, both of us sure that we knew the end of that story. Still, I thought I could still find the faintest, most subtle hint of anxiety in her voice…

  We began our small voyage again, having made an informal agreement to forget what happened to Shakes. The sun was beginning to set in the faded sky, so we only had a few hours left to the day. Maybe something-

  “Hey Leo, have any money on you?” Danni asked, nodding in the direction of a worn out arcade, one of the last of its kind in this charming town of Burybury. The lights on the once-bright and cheery title sign flickered duly, struggling just to display “arcade” in big letters.

  “Uh…a little…” I responded, shoving my hands in my pocket and pulling out lint, a few quarters, and some more lint.

  “Perfect! You don’t mind, right?” she teased, taking the quarters from right out of my palm and mercifully leaving me with my valuable lint.

  I took a step inside the place that must have taken half of all the money I ever made. The space was dimly lit and only a few other people were inside, most of them being bored staff members; most other teens preferred to hide in the urban jungle in the summer instead of being in a stuffy, outdated arcade. They’d rather spend their time in the concrete maze rather than be swept up in a pixelated world of far off lands, impossible worlds, or whatever else the developers of these machines could design.

  Danni was already busy at one of the games. I leaned against the cabinet and took a look at the screen that she was so preoccupied with.

  “So when are you gonna pay all of this back to me, anyhow?” I asked.

  “Oh, Sooner or later.”

  “I don’t believe you.” I smirked. She paused the game for a moment.

  “Aww, don’t trust me?” she pouted. Unfortunately, she already knew me inside-out, and decided to abuse that power.

  “Well…whenever. I’m a sucker.” I sighed.

  “Yep. There’s room for one more, by the way.” she shifted over, making room for me at the second set of controls, consisting of a joystick and a couple of worn out buttons, their once-bright colors now faded and chipped away.

  “It’s MY money, there better be room!” I beamed.
She returned the smile, and began the game again.

  I didn’t really know a whole lot about this one; it just seemed to be another generic retro game set in space. Ironically enough, the name was just as generic: “Space Adventure”. The cabinet was adorned with comic book-styled explosions, zooming space ships and mammoth planets, all against a background of the deep blackness of space; even if I didn’t particularly like the game, the design of a good cabinet was a lost art.

  “So… how do I play?” I asked Danni, easing myself into the game already in progress.

  “Joystick moves…red button shoots, blue button shoots missiles…you’re a smart kid, you’ll figure it out.” Danni mumbled, occasionally tilting her head in the vague direction of what she was talking about, too busy to unglue her eyes from the screen.

  I got a decent hold of the controls, and started surveying the situation. Danni seemed to be doing just fine as she kept herself busy by abusing the little red button in front of her, shooting away endlessly at asteroids. I felt content with exploring the controls a little bit more, getting a better feel for the game. I pressed this button and that one, the one to the left in tandem with the one to the right, holding the blue one and the red… I noticed a sudden change on the top of the screen. I noticed a little meter that said “P1-11, P2-9”. I pressed it again, and saw the meter change to “P1-12, P2-8”. She wouldn’t mind if I borrowed a few lives, right?

  “Ooh, I’m gonna have fun with this one.” a grin spread across my face and Danni finally caught on.

  “Hey, what the hell!” she objected as I kept pushing those buttons until the meter said “P1-19, P2-1”.

  Danni grimaced at first, but a sly grin spread across her face after a moment.

  “Two can play at this game…” she practically hissed, now commanding the very power that I had before. The meter was going crazy during our little fight, the numbers reaching the highest highs and the lowest lows. Before we knew it, our little characters had gone through pixelated explosion after explosion due to our careless behavior. Soon enough, we ran out of lives to fight over, and…

  “CONTINUE? 10…9…8…” the screen displayed in a bold red font.

  “C’mon Leo, hurry up!” Danni pleaded. I fished through my pockets for that last quarter that I didn’t have, but the clock eventually ticked down to zero, disappointingly displaying a “GAME OVER”.

  “That sucks.” Danni groaned.

  “Nah, you do. If you weren’t so bad, we’d still be playing.” I responded, getting a little playful revenge.

  “How could you SAY such a thing? How could you?” she mock-gasped, feigning a reaction of finding my comment to be deeply insulting.

  I took another look around the empty arcade. Every machine was old, rusty, and the parts inside were probably decaying at this point; it was a miracle they still worked. Then again, materials always USED to be built with quality; doesn’t everyone feel that everything was better yesterday, no matter how good it is now? Wasn’t the grass always greener ten years ago?

  Now that we were depleted of our funds (which really meant my own), we were forced to find a few quarters here and there elsewhere. We squinted in the darkness illuminated only by the dozens of old machines and were quick to head to the second floor (just in case the first-floor staff was interested enough to care that we were snooping around for free cash).

  The transition from the lower floor to the upper was night to day. On this level, the walls were made up of a few dozen tall windows separated neatly by thin tan borders. They filtered the light in such a warm way as to bathe the room in a pleasant glow, the distilled beams themselves being very visible to create a picturesque scene. The air was much cleaner, and the room much more spacious than downstairs. This was the “classy” section; gambling machines were lined up in rows, each one lustful for the chink of greed. The carpet was a light-brown, soft material that seemed to be more fit to be a blanket than a rug. Logically enough, this is where parents were assumed to go when their children were busy in the questionable arcade downstairs.

  As we took in the scene that was a little more elegant than we were used to, our eyes were drawn outside to a parade of sorts occurring some twenty feet below us on the streets. A quick glance told us all that we needed to know: just another political rally, nothing special. Men of many words, few actions, and fewer morals boasted loudly, though their voices were drowned out a bit due to the distance and the thick glass between. They preached to any who walked by, waving bright ads and screaming in their face until the small crowd lost interest. Then they could just hop in their limos and find a new one a mile down the road.

  “Looks like the snakes are at it again.” Danni grumbled, though with a wisecracking smile all the same. I didn’t do much more than say “it happens” with body language alone. We took another momentary look at the convention before turning back to each other, an awkward moment of silence passing.

  “So, gonna help? It’s in your interest.” she teased as she already got busy by taking a look beneath some of the machines.

  “It wouldn’t be if you didn’t steal what I had before…” I teased back.

  “It was practically on a plate. Quit whining.” she half-turned her head from underneath the slot machine she was already looking at, but I could just hear the sarcastic smile she had. With one last shrug, I got to work on the other half of the room.

  I was about to count my blessings when the first thing I felt under the very first blackjack table I inspected was paper, but as soon as I dragged it out, the perplexed look on my face told a different story than I had expected. Instead of the familiar crinkle of cash, I found dirtied and yellowed newspaper. It tried its hardest to pronounce a time long-past, but the date in the corner said otherwise: only a few ago. I quickly scanned the front page, finding a few key words and images torn out. I hurriedly took a look underneath a few of the other tables, finding bits and scraps of the missing papers. I threw my confusion behind me in favor of curiosity.

  “Danni.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Tell me if you find any pieces of newspaper. Don’t ask.” I told her without looking up. She seemed a bit taken aback by my sudden and short-lived obsession, so she scraped a few more pieces from here and there with only a second’s hesitation. Without a single word, she hurried over with the few she had, and we put them all into a pile. I could see her desire to ask something increasing with every passing second, but it was understood that whatever question she had would answer itself in a few minutes. Soon enough, the newfound hunt turned to a newfound puzzle and she was helping me piece together what we had into a coherent form, hoping we had enough. Though fate had made it so, we pieced it together in its entirety, and with one question answered, a hundred more replaced it, mingling with suspicion.

  “GUERILLAS ENCROACH ON PRIVATELY-OWNED LAND, CLASH WITH OFFICIALS”

  Underneath this bold heading was the icon of rule within rebellion: a manned machine, a mech, standing atop a newly-made pile of rubble and ash. The photo was low-quality and blurry; I could only see a vague outline of the man-shaped machine, though it had a somewhat stout build. Underneath the photo was a caption…

  “A guerilla fighter sitting atop his newly-claimed land.”

  …and in even smaller letters beneath that…

  “Rest in peace, photographer Dan Drisieg.”

  I took a deep breath, cringed, and read on. The intro briefly discussed the unspoken law: land was split up between that which was guerilla owned, and that which is owned by whoever could afford it, usually headed by one man or a small group. The two came to an understanding on how land was to be split, and usually abided by these shaky laws (as if anybody around here didn’t already understand that inside-out; if they didn’t understand the boundaries, chances are that they wouldn’t come back to find out). The guerillas hardly lived in luxury on their half of the land; they seemed to be organized into tribal groups. Their lifestyle’s blend of old and new was reflected by the tarni
shed, menacing combat machines they manned and were rarely seen outside of.

  Now that the guerilla’s draconian rule was discussed, the article went on to detail their recent, bizarre, and uncharacteristic spread into territory that was legally forbidden. As to be expected for a race raised like wolves, they razed any that defied their desires. In the meantime, panicked officials scrambled to raise funds for any sort of unified defense, but their efforts were in vain against the astonishingly well-organized tribes. The districts burned one by one, and it appeared that none except for the guerillas themselves knew what this one-sided war was being waged for.

  The rest of the column was on their tactics and last known locations, though this hardly seemed to be of use for such a skilled yet unpredictable nation of war mongers. Worst of all, the greatest question remained unanswered: why?

  Neither of us wanted to admit it, but I had to be the first to say it.

  “Think it has something to do with Europe…?” I muttered. The question was rhetorical; for a group that had been violent but driven by honor for so many years before, only the threat of extinction could shatter that code. Danni simply nodded in response. She stood up, brushed off her knees a bit, and walked over to the tall windows.

  “So that’s what they’re all out there for…” she mused as she placed her hand on the glass, looking down at the convention that had mostly disappeared at this point.

  “They’re all so upbeat, though. They want to ignore the problem because they have no realistic solution. They want to die with a smile on their face. They don’t want anybody…to…” my jaw dropped mid-sentence. Danni caught on immediately too, turning to make a split second of arthritic eye contact.