“I have the flashlight,” I said as I stood and turned it on. I roamed the beam around his room. Everything was a mess. Most of his belongings had fallen over. “I’m scared.”
“Me too,” Alec said as he took hold of my hand.
I was glad I was with Alec when the world shook and not my dad, it allowed me some comfort, however small. But I knew my dad would have gone to my room to check on me, he would have found out that I was missing. I prayed he wouldn’t be heading to Alec’s to find me. I was shitting myself as it was, I could do without his maliciousness.
“You lead the way. We need to check on my mom.”
“Okay.” I shone the light at his door and started to walk toward it. He still had hold of my hand when he reached for the door handle and didn’t let go when he opened it.
The living room was just as messy and as dark as Alec’s bedroom. Our feet crunched broken glass as we stepped in. I swallowed and Alec called out, “Mom!”
“Where do you think she is?”
“Maybe she hid in her bedroom, let’s go and check.” He pulled on my hand and aimed me in the right direction; I leveled the flash that way. It lit the hallway that led to her door; pictures had crashed from the walls and now littered the walk.
We stepped over them and were soon at her room. “Mom!” Alec knocked on her door as he hollered. There was no reply. So he opened it up. Her room was wrecked too; one wall had a large crack running the entire length. “Mom, are you okay?”
“What about her bathroom?” I shone the beam over the room and found the door to the bathroom. “She might have hid in the bath, didn’t you say she did that once, when she watched a documentary about the 2012 Mayan prophecy?”
Alec laughed. “Yeah, you’re right.”
He was smiling all the way to the bathroom, but it left his face quickly when we opened up the door and I let the flash show us what was in the bath ... Nothing.
“Shit!”
“Don’t panic, we’ll find her, Alec. Did she say anything about leaving tonight, going to a neighbors, anything like that?” I eyed the broken mirror and then let my eyes move to the floor, it looked like water had shot from the toilet during the quake.
“No. She was staying in, having a few drinks, a few glasses of wine, with her friend. They were going to watch Dirty Dancing for the millionth time.”
“Maybe she went to the store, to get a bottle of wine?”
“Maybe, it’s possible, but I doubt it. She isn’t the last minute type, though. She’s got a rack full in the kitchen, well, I’m sure it’s empty now.”
“Perhaps the best thing to do, is to wait here until she comes back? If we leave and go looking for her, we might miss her, and we’ll most likely end up lost too, she’ll have to come looking for us then, and it will turn into a big cluster-fuck of a situation.”
“Why don’t I just call her?”
“Because it would appear we’re both stupid and don’t think of sensible things like that.” We both smiled. “Your cell in your bedroom?”
“Nope, down the front of my panties.” He pulled his skirt up and removed his cell. He dialed and placed it to his ear. “There’s no dial tone. It’s dead.” He threw it across the room, it clattered somewhere in the dark. “What’s going on here? It seems big, whatever it is.”
“We’ll find your mom, don’t worry.” Fear was starting to grip me every time I had to reassure Alec. “Let’s check on the neighbors, see if they have any idea.” I didn’t want to leave the apartment but I wanted to find his mom. She’d been so good to me. I didn’t like the idea of her being lost in the dark, or injured, a heavy object not tied down enough, fallen on her leg, or some other nightmarish shit like that.
“Okay.” He grabbed my hand and we entered the living room.
I stopped, forcing him to do the same. “Look at the windows, Alec. No lights. This is city wide.” I could make out the outline of the buildings against the night sky; see some flashlights flickering in some of the windows in the distance, people with the same idea as us.
“Yeah, seems like it. I told you it was big. Something doesn’t feel right.”
“Terrorist attack?” My heart sunk as I asked it.
“Dear God, I hope not.”
“We’ll find her.”
We opened up the door to the apartment and peeked our heads out; I squeezed my arm through the gap and shone the flash to the left. It was empty, just as dark as everywhere else, more cracks in the walls, dust hanging in the air.
“Hello!” Alec called out. We got no response.
We turned to the right and I angled the beam in that direction. Nothing.
“Hello! Does anyone know what’s going on?” Alec asked.
A door started to open, three down, on the opposite side. It creaked and then we saw a light shine through the gap. “Hello!”
“Mister Harington, is that you?” Alec opened our door fully and we both stepped into the corridor. I bounced on my heels a few times, checking the floor was secure. I didn’t like the look of the cracks. The building suddenly didn’t feel quite as safe.
Then I thought about my little brother. He’d be petrified. My dad would be a useless comfort. He’d just be screaming at him, telling him to pipe down, shut his trap, quit his bitching and crying. I hated that man with a passion.
“Yeah, it’s me. That you, Alec?”
“Yeah, and June.”
“Hi, June.”
“Hello, Mister Harington, are you okay?”
“Yeah, apart from not being able to see shit.”
“Have you seen my mom?”
“Is it safe to come out?”
“Yeah, it’s fine. I said, have you seen my mom?”
Mister Harington stepped into the corridor, carrying a flashlight of his own, we both angled them so they didn’t blind us. He was an old man, painfully thin and with more wrinkles than a baseball glove; he was in shorts and a white shirt that had more stains than Alec’s bed sheets.
“Sorry, son, I haven’t seen her.”
“Damn it.”
“Don’t worry, kid. I’m sure she’s fine. Have you tried the elevators? If the power is out, she might be stuck in one.”
“I didn’t think of that. Shit, she hates being trapped in small spaces.”
“You kids got any idea what’s going on here?”
“Not a clue. Is your cell down too?”
“I don’t have one, son. The main phone line is down, though. Did you catch any news on the TV before the power went?”
“Nothing.”
“Alec, why are you wearing a skirt?”
“Oh, I was … I was … we were going to a comic book convention. This is my cosplay.”
“It ain’t Halloween, son. It’s getting closer to Christmas. Do you have the wrong holiday season? I did that once. I showed up to my nephew’s Easter party dressed as a vampire, terrified the poor kid, he still wets the bed because of it.”
“Do you think it’s a terrorist attack?”
“I wouldn’t put it past the bastards. Pardon my language, June. I shouldn’t be cursing in front of a lady.”
“Don’t sweat it, Mister Harington.”
“I know,” he said. “I have a radio, battery operated, maybe we can get a signal, on that. Why don’t you kids come in here and we’ll try. I’ll look after you. I’m trying to get in your mom’s good books, since I dinged her car.”
“That was you?”
“Yeah, don’t panic, I’m planning on telling her. I just want to get her liking me a little more first.”
“You’re adorable, she’ll take it easy on you,” I added with a smile.
“Thank you, missy. If I was twenty years younger … well, I’d still be too old, but I do like a lady with meat on her bones, since when did everyone get so damn skinny. Don’t you go doing that.” I rolled my eyes and cursed him under my breath.
A black-shadowed object blurred into view from Mister Harington’s apartment. It enveloped the old man and snatched him backward. He was gone in an instant, his shoes still stood in the corridor. He’d been pulled right out of them. His door slammed shut. Alec and me jumped back.
Then the blood-curdling screams started.
BRAD
Sara held me into her chest. It felt good to be pressed up against her. My blood was still pumping but the adrenaline was gradually leaving, my shaking decreasing in intensity as it did. “Is he dead?” I asked, terrified of what the answer might be.
“I’m not sure. He isn’t moving.” She stroked my hair and made hush-hush noises. “You had no choice. He would have killed us both.” She answered a question I hadn’t asked. It was like she could read my mind.
“I could have stopped. There is always a choice.” I’d never killed anyone before. Hell, I’ve never done that much damage to someone before. Dealing with being a murderer, with jail time, would be too much for me to take. My load was too heavy as it was.
“It was self defense. You did what you teach us.” Her voice was soft, calm, and almost motherly. Why was she so calm? How could she be so calm, when I was a wreck? It was as if she’d dealt with that kinda thing before. That scared me and at the same time made me feel like a pussy, my testosterone didn’t care about the gravity of the situation. It only cared about impressing a girl it would seem.
“I still could have stopped.” I swallowed, my throat was raw, and then I took a deep breath. I could hear her heart through her chest; it was beating fast, but nowhere near the speed of mine. Her breathing was slow and deep, more controlled. It was nice having the cushion of her breasts as they rose and fell. I needed that comfort.
“Maybe he isn’t dead. We’ve haven’t checked … I’ll go and take a look. You stay here, okay, my hero?” She was already slowly moving from me before she finished speaking. I liked being called a hero. It was a step in the right direction, the opposite direction of what I was usually called, a failure, a loser, bum. It felt nice; I’m not going to lie.
I stayed seated, my legs tucked into my chest, feeling like a five year old hiding under a table during a thunder storm, as Sara slowly edged her way toward the body, her head tilted, trying to get a better angle on Bobby’s face.
She took one slow step after another, pulling at the strings of my nervousness. My heart was in my throat, choking me. I prayed he’d still be alive. It wouldn’t only lessen the time I’d spend behind bars; it might lessen the repercussions from Bobby’s associates, although that was an anorexic chance.
Sara stepped over Bobby’s legs and moved to the side he was facing. I could see blood pooling under the back of his head. I wanted to puke, but that didn’t seem like the response of a hero. A hero would say a witty one liner; well, they always did in the action movies I watched.
Sara slowly knelt. I saw her swallow. Then she covered her mouth with her hand, like she was going to vomit. She wrestled the vomit back down and reached out a hand toward Bobby’s neck. She pressed two fingers to his throat, but had to turn her eyes from the macabre nature of what I’d created.
“Is he dead?” I managed to whimper out.
Sara placed her other hand to her mouth again. She retched a little but regained composure quickly. “I think … I think he’s …”
Bobby’s left hand shot up and grabbed hold of Sara’s arm. I stood and ran toward them. Sara stood too. Before I was able to get to them, to snatch him from her, she stomped her foot down into his face, like I had before, three hard shots.
His arm fell. His face was pulped. I put my arm around Sara’s waist. It was her turn to bury her face in my chest. “I think,” she started, “he’s dead,” she finished.
There was no question of it now. He was dead for sure. No one could be alive with a face like he had. It was disgusting, sunken, bloody, enfolded, mangled, all fifty shades of shit not right. “Are you, okay?” I asked.
“Not really, but I’ll live … thanks to you.” She looked up at me and smiled. “It was very courageous what you did, Brad.”
“It doesn’t feel like it.”
“It should. You saved us both. You might have saved more than just us two.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Because this asshole might have been going to pay someone else a visit tonight. God knows what he’d have done to them.” She gave Bobby another little kick. “We both don’t have any need to feel bad about what’s happened.” She pulled from me and placed a hand on each of my shoulders. “We’ve done the world a service, we’ve rid it of scum … haven’t we?” She sounded like she doubted herself.
“Yes, you’re right.” I wasn’t sure if she was. She hugged back into me. “What now? I mean what do we do, call the police?”
She broke away from me again, placed both of her hands at the sides of my face this time. “No! No way. We can’t do that.”
“Why? What else can we do?”
“I’m not sure yet, but we can’t do that. Do you think it would go well for us if we did?”
“You said it was self defense, that we might be okay. Won’t we be okay?”
“You heard what he said, Brad. He said he had the police force in his pocket. They won’t take too kindly to us cutting off another source of income for them, especially with Christmas not far away.”
“Fuck, you might be right.” She was. That fact was enough to petrify the shit up my ass let alone me. “What are you thinking then?”
“I … I think we need to dump the body. Dump it somewhere no one will ever find it. We clean the blood up and we never think of this event again … and we most certainly never speak of it again.” Tears formed in her eyes. “What do you think, does it sound like a plan?”