The Dinner

My mother could be heard frantically moving about the kitchen, her quiet sobs almost muffled by the sounds of cabinet doors slamming and pots and pans clattering together. Leona, my sister, and myself sat caddy corner with each other at the end of our long dining room table. Her face was buried in a teddy bear that had most definitely seen better days. At the other end of the table sat our father, sweat beginning to bead on his forehead. He was still wearing the clothes he’d worn when he’d gone on a supply run early this morning. 

“Dad,” anxiety welled inside me, “Will you please tell us what happened out there? You came back too early for this run, and it looked like something happened to your a—”

My father’s left hand slammed firmly into the table, causing it to lean and my water glass to topple and spill everywhere. My sister began to cry. He grimaced, as if doing that hurt...greatly.

“Shut your goddamn mouth Reese. I managed to get what we needed at an earlier location. I didn’t need to travel so far…You should be happy,” He said through gritted teeth. His eyes finally focused in our direction, and he noticed the water on the table and my sister crying into her bear. “You need to get in line Reese, you’re scaring your sister! Get a towel and clean that damn water up.”

My fists tightened underneath the table as my chest began to tighten with anger. My sisters crying became louder..There was no sense in fighting him here at this moment. With a sigh—and a bit more force than necessary—I push my chair back from the table and stand.

           I pass my father as I walk towards the kitchen, both to grab a towel and to hopefully get a little more information out of mom. He must have seen something in my face because a firm hand grabbed me and stopped me in my tracks.

“Do NOT bother your mother right now”, he said, my arm aching in his grip. The frantic sounds emanating from the kitchen had calmed. The smell of some sort of stew, likely the rabbits and potatoes my father had brought home. My mothers stifled sobs could be heard more clearly now.

“Get a towel from the bathroom, no lollygagging, and stay away from the damn windows,” he released my arm, and it was a red where he had held me.

I jerked away from him, quickly turning from the kitchen and him and heading towards the stairs. Removing the heavy board across the door, I grabbed a flashlight and began the descent.

Three weeks we'd all be crammed in our renovated attic that served as the occasional studio AirBnB for travelers. My father had come home one evening from work looking more frightened than I had ever seen him before. A quick, hushed conversation with mom that I desperately tried to overhear led to a slap in the face for me, the windows being promptly boarded up with spare wood we had in the backyard and us moving upstairs. And there we've been. None of our phones have worked, not that I could check it anyways, given that my father had confiscated anything we had that could access the internet with, cell service and internet had gone down within the first week. My father insisted on taking up anything that could possibly access it, claiming he didn't want us unnecessarily scared, as if pretending nothing was happening and acting this way wasn't infinitely more frightening. The electricity had followed suit the following week, our cramped shared living space lit by a few kerosene lanterns and my mother cooked our meals atop a portable camping stove.

The stairs come out at the kitchen, by the side door, criss crossed boards firmly securing it shut. I steal a peek through a small crack between the boards.

Our neighbors house stood dark and still, no lights. No car in the driveway either. It had been a similar story through other windows he had managed to look through over the last few weeks. Empty driveways and empty houses, it's like everyone up and left all at once. 

“Everyone except us.” I huff, turning on the flashlight as I begin to make my way through the darkening house. The boarded windows kept the house down here pretty dark, but the sun was setting. I needed to be quick, I've already taken too long.

I make my way to the bathroom and grab a small towel from the cabinet and make my way back towards the stairs. I steal one final glance outside before heading up.

A man was standing there. They were standing almost out of my visual range, just at the end of the Jensons driveway. It was difficult to make out any defining characteristics in the dying light but there was someone…just standing there. Remembering my flashlight, I move to switch it off, my gaze never leaving the stranger. There had been riots in the news, in the weeks leading up to our self imprisonment. Things had gotten increasingly tense. My parents beginning to stockpile water and various shelf stable food stuffs.

As I do, however, my hands suddenly fail me. The light clicks off as the flashlight slips from my grip and clatters loudly to the floor. My breath freezes in my lungs as the stranger spins around in one frighteningly quick and fluid motion. The eyes burning a deep red, like embers of a dying flame, the only thing I could make out as the last dregs of light finally left the sky.

I stood that way for what felt like an eternity, but the stranger did not move. I needed to get back upstairs, quietly and fast. Their father might not be the kindest of men but if someone was here poking around uninvited then he would at least deal with them. They may not want to give us any information but I'm not stupid, the world has obviously gone to shit.

There's a loud crash somewhere across the street, startling me and breaking my focus from…They were gone. Taking the opportunity I quickly make my way up the stairs, quietly tap the rhythmic knock we'd been taught and wait. There's a quiet thump as I hear my father remove the board and he opens the door. Stepping inside I swear I hear the doorknob down below rattling as if someone is..

My father pulls me through the threshold completely with so much force that I stumble forward, falling to my hands and knees, dropping the towel. 

“Took you long enough, he growled, looking worse for wear than before I had gone downstairs. He's drenched in sweat and he's definitely bleeding. The sleeve of his denim jacket now a deep red on the left forearm.

He struggled to secure the door again and make his way back to the dinner table. In the center of the table sat a tall metal pot, my mother already seated and staring vacantly at some distant place no one else was privy to. She looked pallid, almost lifeless, like something had broken deep inside of her.

It was all too much. “What is going on?!,” I yell, “Where has everyone gone? What happened to you? There was a man downstairs…I saw him through the win-”

The back of my father's hand connects with my face before I can finish the word and I'm on the ground again.

“You were at the windows?,” he's towering over me, veins bulging in his forehead. 

“Did it see you?”

Before I can even answer him, he's stalking off to my parents room, “Serve the stew Erica, NOW!” 

I can hear things being moved around in their room. “Mom, please, tell us what's going on? What's happening out there? We can't live like this forever!”

Like an automaton she rises to the command of my father. Ladling a bowl full of a meat and potatoes stew into each of our bowls. It smells heavily of garlic and onions. My mother sits back down and picks the bowl up in her hands.

“Now hurry and eat your dinner, we don’t want it getting cold now” she says, the first words I’ve heard her utter all day, and places the bowl to her lips. Silent tears streaming down her face as she gulps the stew, as if it were a cold glass of water on a hot summer's day despite its obvious hot temperature and the discomfort it caused her. My sister follows suit, albeit less eagerly. Her emotions had settled slightly in my father’s momentary absence. I watch her take a mouthful in her spoon and taste it.

“Blegh, this tastes funny momma..”, Leona made a disgusted face and spits out her bite. Before I have time to even consider what is going on, my father emerges from my parents bedroom, his 9mm pistol in his right hand.

“WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU TWO?!” I scream, throwing my bowl off the table. It shatters on the floor. “You owe us an explanation, it’s not just your lives at stake here, if there is something dangerous happening we both have a right to know.”

The gun is pointed directly at me. “Sit down, and SHUT UP!” Leona is sobbing now. Glaring at him, I slowly return to my seat. Desperately I look to my mother for some support, anything. Was she…falling asleep? Her eyelids were heavy, she was having a hard time remaining upright in her chair. My father picks up his bowl of stew and walks over to place it directly in front of me. At this point, sweat has saturated his clothing almost completely. He’s removed his jacket, revealing a bandaged arm that is entirely soaked red with blood. There’s a thud as my mother’s head hits the table and falls to the floor. My father doesn’t move, the gun still pointed down the direction of Leona and I.

“Mom? You’re going to have to kill me you fuc-” There’s a loud crash downstairs that stops me dead in my movement towards my mother. My fathers already pallid complexion pales even further. A small pool of blood was beginning to form around where my mother lay on the floor.

“No no no no”, my father hissed, eyes focused on the door, “It’s too late, oh god it’s too late…”

It sounded like someone was coming up the stairs, several someones in fact. There’s a THUD on the door, and then another, and another. It rattles in the frame, the wooden bare remaining secure for now. We’re trapped…maybe if we had left with everyone else we would have had a chance, maybe if my parents had been honest with us for one sec-

BANG!

The noise causes me to flinch and drop towards the floor. Leona’s wails have reached a pitch I never knew possible and there’s a thud as my father’s body falls to the floor.

THUD, THUD, THUD, THUD

It was coming fast now, I could hear the door beginning to crack and give at certain parts. Was that growling? Snarling? One final barrage and the door finally gives out. Whatever was out there, was about to be in here. There was nowhere to go. If I was going to do anything it’s going to be to protect Leona where my parents failed, or die trying. But we were going to try. My father had taken me to the shooting range several times, guns were a “hobby” of his. So I’d gone through the basics on safety and use. I was no expert, by a long shot, but I had to at least try. 

Picking the gun up from off the floor, I point it towards the door just as it bursts from the hinges, flying in pieces into the room towards me. And then the nightmare truly began.