1958

Warning - This story deals with violence, mental health, and substance abuse.

***

Alisa came back to the cabin with groceries around noon. She couldn’t go back to sleep, though she had stayed up most of the night. She paced round and round. She paused at the front door whenever she passed it, hovering her hand over the knob. Then she would shrug, sigh, and continue her idle march. She suffered all the symptoms of cabin fever only two days into the trip and felt claustrophobic for the first time in her life.

“God, stop your pacing,” Sean snapped as she passed the breakfast table for the thirty-fifth time. She kept count. Sean was eating a sandwich and playing checkers with his son, Brook. “Let’s play cards or something.”

“Maybe later.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Where’s Mrs. August?”

“She went upstairs,” Sean replied. “The kids are taking a nap.”

Alisa nodded. “I’ll go check on her. Has she eaten?”

“King me,” Brook grinned.

“Dammit, boy! Give a poor old man a chance.”

Alisa went upstairs and gave Mrs. August’s door a light knock.

“Come in,” answered a whisper. Alisa creaked the door open.

Mrs. August sat on the floor beneath a curtained window, reading a novel. She was a small, bookish woman who might have made a good librarian. Her two small sons slept soundly on a floor mattress. Mrs. August motioned for Alisa to come.

Alisa glided across the room and sat next to her. “Have you eaten anything yet?”

“No, not yet.”

“You have to eat,” Alisa insisted. “Let’s go to the kitchen.”

“Ok,” Mrs. August said, hugging herself. “How much longer do you think we’ll be here for?”

“I don’t know. It’s hard to say. Not long, I’m sure. Not much longer.”

Mrs. August looked at Alisa squarely. “Alisa, this might sound weird, but I just want to thank you. You and Sean and Brook have been really kind to me. I was so scared, but… I don’t know. The three of you are just so… human. You know what I’m saying?”

“I think I do,” Alisa said, nodding. “But I should be thanking you. You’ve been really brave these last few days. You should be proud of yourself.”

Mrs. August shook her head and gestured towards her children. “I’m just trying for them. I can’t imagine what I would do if—”

There was a large crash downstairs, like a crate of cutlery being violently overturned, followed by frantic shouting.

Alisa swore and jumped to her feet. She drew her pistol from its harness. She peeked through the curtains, nothing but forest. She made for the door.

“Stay here and keep away from that window!” she urged Mrs. August. But the mother didn’t hear, her two boys were awake.

“What's going on, Mommy?” one child asked groggily.

“Nothing, nothing. Shh, let’s go back to sleep, ok?”

Alisa pushed the bedroom door open just a crack, then all the way. She cleared the upstairs hallway, creeping towards the staircase. It had gone dead silent downstairs in an instant.

“Sean!” she called. “Brook!”

No reply. She muttered curses.

“Sean, I’m coming down!”

“Alisa! Help!” Brook grunted. “In the kitchen!”

Alisa ran and found Brook pinning his father in a chokehold on the kitchen floor. Sean, sputtering and turning blue, flailed his limbs wildly.

“What are you doing!” Alisa asked.

“He just went crazy!” Sean said, turning red from the effort of subduing a grown man. “I won the checker game, and he flipped the table. Then he tried to run out of the cabin. When I tried to stop him, he hit me, so I tackled him.”

Alisa shook her head. “I’m not dealing with this.”

She put her weapon away and knelt next to the choking man.

“Sean,” she said. “Sean, can you hear me? I need you to calm down, ok? You’re safe, you’re alright. We’re not going to hurt you. Do you understand me?”

Sean stopped struggling and opened his mouth as though to say something. His bloodshot eyes calmed, and he bowed his head an inch or so.

“Let him go, Brook.”

Brook slowly released his grip and Sean coughed violently.

“Has he ever done this before?” Alisa asked him.

“No, never!”

“You didn’t do anything to provoke him?”

“No. And even if I did, Dad’s super chill.”

Alisa scratched her head. “Does your family have any cases of anything like this?”

“I mean, they say my grandfather was schizophrenic. But they also say he was a drunkard, and you could never tell if it was the booze or the madness talking.”

Sean rolled onto his side, groaned, and continued coughing. “What the hell… who are you people?”

Alisa looked him over for any injuries. No head trauma.

“Sean, tell me what happened.”

“Who’s Sean? My name is—”

“Don’t say your real name!” Alisa and Brook said together.

“Why not?”

“Just don’t,” said Alisa

“Why not!”

“Because of the job!

“What job?”

“Forget it,” Alisa sighed. “Just tell us what happened.”

“What happened?” Sean asked, sitting up and rubbing his throat.

“Yes, why did you flip the checker table?”

“I’ll tell you what happened,” said Sean. “One minute, I was working on this beautiful American car, a Chevrolet Corvette. And she’s beautiful, she’s sexy… She purrs like a sexy tiger, a sexy tiger lady beast with voluptuous curves and—”

Alisa cleared her throat dryly. “So you were working on the car… And?”

“And the very next second, I’m losing a game of checkers to some smart mouth kid I’ve never seen in my life in a strange cabin in the middle of the damn woods. I swear I’m not crazy.”

“Look, you remember our country is at war, right?”

“Yeah, the war. When are we not at war?”

“With whom? Which country?”

“With… ourselves? Is this a trick question? Are you with the army? Am I being drafted? Is this some sort of top-secret spy stuff?”

“Sean, shut up and listen. What year is it?”

“1958.”

“And how old are you?”

“15 years old,” Brook answered for him in disbelief.

“Yeah...,” said Sean.

“I think you’d better look in a mirror,” said Alisa.

The three of them walked to the bathroom, and Brook flicked the lights on.

“Oh,” said Sean, glaring wide-eyed at his aged face. “Oh.”

He clasped his face with both hands and started to smoosh his cheeks together. He pulled at the receding tufts of silver hair.

“Sean,” said Alisa, “if you’re pulling a prank on us right now…”

“Look, lady,” Sean snapped. “This is no prank. If anything, the two of you are pulling a prank on me!”

“Listen, the civil war ended twenty years ago. You’re almost fifty now, and this boy here is your sixteen-year-old son.”

Sean turned sideways for the mirror and poked at his gut.

“Some son you are,” Sean snapped, glancing at Brook. “How could you let your father grow fat and ugly like this?”

Brook swore. “Oh no, you’re not blaming me for that one. Every morning I try to get you to go on a run with me, but you would rather sleep in with a hangover and eat a heavy, late breakfast of whatever’s greasiest in the fridge.”

“There you go flapping your lips again, smart mouth. I bet you gave me all these grey hairs as well.”

“Now those I’ll gladly take credit for.”

Sean pushed his son into the hallway. “Lousy punk! You cheat at checkers!”

Brook pushed back. “You owe me thirty dollars, you cheap, illiterate, lazy drunk!”

“Boys, boys!”

Alisa pointed in the direction of the stairs, where Mrs. August stood silently with a little boy clutching each hand.

“What’s going on?” Mrs. August asked.

“Nothing,” Alisa reassured her, “just a tiny disagreement.”

“Not about me, I hope.”

“No, no, not at all. How about you let the boys watch some TV while I…”

The phone in the kitchen rang.

“Sorry,” Alisa answered the call. It only lasted three seconds, five syllables, and the caller hung up.

“Change of plans,” said Alisa. “That was the call.”

Brook swore.

“Call?”

“The call to take you and your sons home. Your husband held up his side of the bargain, you’re free to go.”

“Thank goodness,” said Mrs. August. She was so relieved that her knees buckled.

“You can go ahead to the car,” said Alisa. “We’ll be there in a minute.”

Mrs. August led her boys to the front door. “You hear that? We’re going home to see Daddy.”

“Are we going to play the blindfold game again?” asked one of the boys. “I don’t like that game.”

Alisa grabbed Sean and Brook by the ears.

“Now you two listen here,” she whispered. “I don’t care which decade we think it is, I don’t care who cheated who in checkers. At this point, I don’t even care that the partners the company thought to give me are a fat, drunken veteran with amnesia and his bratty kid. I just want this kidnapping done with, ok?”

The two teenagers nodded.

“Sean,” said Alisa. “Sean!”

“Oh right, that’s me. Yes?”

“Can you drive?”

“Of course I can.”

“Be honest, this is life and death.”

Sean drooped his head. “No.”

“Brook, do you have your license?”

“Of cours—”

“A legal one?”

Brook pouted. “No”

“I’ll be driving then. Sean, sit in the front seat where I can keep an eye on… Sean, where’s your gun?”

Alisa pointed at Sean’s empty holster.

“What are you asking me for? I didn’t know I had a gun.”

“It fell out while we were wrestling,” Brook said quietly.

Alisa cursed. “Find it! I’m going to the car.” She went for the door, then froze. “Actually, forget the gun, let’s go to the car together.”

She unholstered her pistol again.

Sure enough, Mrs. August aimed at Alisa as she exited the house. Her hands shook, and tears were streaking down her face, but otherwise she looked determined to kill. Her stance and face were solid. Alisa glimpsed the two sons peering out the car’s back window.

“Give me the keys,” Mrs. August demanded, voice quivering.

Alisa and Brook moved slowly apart, dividing her attention, encircling her, cornering her, both their guns raised. Sean stood paralyzed on the porch.

“What happened, Mrs. August?” Alisa asked. “Things were going so well! You only needed to wait a few more hours, and it would have all been over. Put down the gun so we can take you home.”

“But what if you’re lying?” asked Mrs. August. “How do I know you won’t just kill me and my babies?”

“Have I lied to you once since we first met? Have any of us? We’re not liars, we just want to take you home.”

“They are too liars!” Sean hollered abruptly. “They cheat at chec—”

A startled Mrs. August turned and fired three shots at Sean, who dropped dead.

“Dad!”

Mrs. August screamed, turned her gun on Brook, and opened fire again as Alisa and Brook shot her.

Alisa emptied her clip into Mrs. August’s dead body. She swore as loudly as she could. When her lungs were empty, she inhaled deeply and sighed. Her eyes darted at the two terrified boys in the car.

“So, it’s really come to this. Alright then.”

She reloaded her gun.