Nothing but blackness

I wake up in the middle of the night frustrated that I can’t sleep. I turn to the left alarm, and it reads 1am UGH! I turn to the right and see my wife Patricia laying down next beside me. God she always looked so pretty when she was asleep. I lay back down and stare at the ceiling after what seemed like twenty minutes I decide that I just can’t do it and get up. I go out of our room and down the hall on the left that’s Penelope and Emily’s rooms. I open the door just a tad to see them sleeping soundly together. My precious little girls from the moment I held them in my hands I knew they were special. They were twins non-identical. They got along fairly well they were sleeping facing toward one another the sight made me smile. Afterwards I closed the door and headed downstairs and got on the desktop it was a gaming pc…mostly for me though Penelope sometimes got on as well.

As I got on instead of playing any games right away I decided to look on youtube to see if there was anything I could watch. Youtube was kind of my tv Patricia couldn’t stand it she felt like it was nothing but a bunch of people who aren’t professionals tell others how to live. That and a platform for male chauvinists to preach their gospel. She wasn’t entirely wrong about those things being part of the website but, I always told her there was more to the website than that. Oh well, her loss. I saw video of the missing persons case for a Clara Rising. Apparently, she was a famous writer that mysteriously disappeared. Of course, people on the internet had their own speculation about what happened to her. Some were claiming that she was abducted by the government, others said she was faking it to get attention, some even claimed that she was abducted by aliens.

I got lost somewhere in the youtube sauce looking at peoples opinions about her, her work, and her personality. Just when it looked like I was gonna pull an all nighter researching this woman the desktop shut down. I tried to turn it on but…nothing. I tried all the lights in the dining and living rooms and the appliances in the kitchen. A blackout? Dang! It looked like my fun was over slightly annoyed and more so tired I started to head for bed. When I heard a scream come from the outside. I went to check since it sounded kind of blood curdling. I saw our neighbors from across the street getting their house broken in too. There were about…fifteen men all different shapes and sizes storming that old lady’s house. Christ! I ran upstairs and woke up the wife and kids just in case those jerks came over here. Naturally they were all tired and wanted nothing to do with my paranoia. I decided to coerce them into the basement for the time being we had stairs and a basement door that led outside if need be. I went back upstairs with a P90 on my hip to check if they were coming over here. I ran to the blinds and peeked through them to see a pair of eyes in a ski mask staring back at me.

Shit! I yelled as I jumped back I pulled out my P90 and immediately pointed it at the window and shot it. “Jesus christ! They shot Kenny!” “Look you assholes I’m gonna give you on chance to back off before.” Before I even finished my sentence, I heard the cock of a gun then the next thing I knew bullets were flying from the open window. I managed to jump back in time to doge a fatal blow as I tried to get up I noticed intense pain from my abdomen. Shit it looks like I got shot after all and…not just once from feeling of it. I limped downstairs in the basement closing and locking the door behind me. I tried to take my time slowly limping down the stairs as to not alert them to our presence. “OH MY GOD MATT! Are you okay?” Patricia asked as she came to help me down. “No but, I’ll live also we need to be quiet there are several men upstairs coming in as we speak.” I whispered. “What!? God Matt what are we going to do?” “Call the cops of course and leave my mothers house is close by.” “DAD ARE YOU OKAY!?” “Shhhh! Bad men are upstairs sweety we need to be extra quiet now.” “O-okay.” Emily was always easily shaken mostly because she was a sweat heart. Penelope was also very terrified I could see it in her face even if she tried to hide it. “Patricia…call the cops…everyone…time to go.” Jesus every move I made had me wincing in pain. I wanted so badly to pull the bullets out but, that would require time which we didn’t have. As we made our way toward the basement door Patricia called the cops and told them about our situation. “Honey I-I can’t get through.” “What!?” Oh no was it…a citywide blackout? If it was then our plans would have to change a little bit. Suddenly I started to hear footsteps all along the upper floors. Patricia grabbed my shoulder to stay calm I could see her tearing up at the thought of a situation like this actually happening and even worse the police aren’t around to help. As we crept toward the basement door I heard less footsteps from upstairs. Did some of them go to the second floor? If so, it would be best if we left now.

Me and Patricia went first we opened the basement door as slowly as possible to avoid making too much noise. I stepped forward one hand covering my abdomen the other holding the P90 seeing if any of them were outside. Luckily for us they weren’t we decided to move as quickly as possible which wasn’t that fast account of the holes in my belly. I felt so frustrated right now me the only man in the family and here I am holding them back. Patricia had to put me around her shoulder to help me walk the rest of the way once we left the backyard. The kids were quiet this whole time which was a good and a bad thing. Good because the escape plan worked without a hitch but, bad because I could tell this probably scarred them…possibly for life.

We eventually made our way to my moms house which was further away from the suburbs and somewhat isolated. Honestly, I was surprised I didn’t drop dead considering I was shot. As we knocked on the door it suddenly opened to reveal my father peeking through it. “Matt? JESUS! Come in.” As we went inside the living room, I saw he was cradling a shotgun in his arms…s semi-auto one at that. “Matt!? Oh, my goodness sweety come here sit down and let mama take care of that.” She ushered me onto the couch. “Patricia dear keep watch for any changes. Penelope, Emily follow me I need you two to help carry some supplies from upstairs.” With that ma and my girls went upstairs to grab medical supplies and came back down to tend to me. She told the girls to wait in the kitchen as she and Patricia help tend to my wounds.

She took a good look at the three holes with a lighter and sprayed them with disinfectants and bandaged my abdomen. “Lucky for you the bullets didn’t seem to do that much damage. In fact they may possibly be blocking some arteries which is keeping you from bleeding out.” “Soooo?” “So were going to leave them in there since their relatively harmless. I bet you don’t even feel pain from the wounds anymore do you?” My ma was a surgeon for twenty five years so I let that I could trust her opinion on the matter. She then called my father and the girls in so that I could tell them what transpired. “Dear god in the middle of the night? What’s the world coming too?” “Dad I think the power has gone out city wide Patricia has been trying to call 911 for a while now but can’t get through.” “Dang, nab it looks like we gotta wait this out. Go ahead get some sleep I’ll wake ya’ll up if I spot anything.” “Thanks pops.” “Ma, can I sleep with you tonight?” “Sure, Pen in fact I want you and Em to sleep with me and Daddy for the night.” “Yaay!”

It was nice to hear them speak and sort of act like children again. With that we all went to sleep on the couch somehow and before we knew it morning came. Dad woke us up telling us the good news. “Does that mean the bad guys won’t come and get us?” “That’s right little girlie them bad men have gone away for now.” “Pen thank grandpa for keeping watch.” “Thank you for keeping watch Grandpa.” “My pleasure baby girl.” Patricia was on the phone for a minute trying to call the cops I guess. “Ugh! Matt…bad news.” She said in frustration. “Let me guess still can’t reach them?” ‘Still can’t reach them.” “What in heavens name is going on?” “Calm down Patricia we just have to survive as long as we can until they do pick up.” There we were a big happy family just the six of us living in this remote house for two days until one night Pa came and woke me up. Said he heard a loud thud coming from the back of the house so I got my P90 and went to check it out. Or…at least I was until pa came along and handed me another shotgun this one was a double barrel. I went to the back of the kitchen and opened the window blinds and sure enough I think it was that same gang of men we ran from earlier. I ran and called Pa to notify him. Suddenly while we woke everyone up preparing to head to the basement we heard the steps creak.

Shit! One of them went into the basement door that must’ve been the loud thud Pa heard. Me and Pa looked out the front and saw that even more men were parked out front coming towards the house. There were definitely more than last time me and pa decided there was no choice but to fight and stand our ground hoping that the two of us would somehow make it out of this. Once all the woman were upstairs we geared up pa still had some body armor he kept from his tenure during service. I handed Patricia the P90 and pa gave my ma a revolver just in case they were found if we couldn’t fend them off. Let’s see there was the five in the backyard, who knows how many went into the basement and the seven out front. Yeah I’m glad I gave my family one last hug beforehand this definitely seemed like a lost cause even I with no military service could see that.

And Pa wouldn’t let us give up as long as we had the means to fight them after all how do we know they wouldn’t just kill us anyway? So…this was it I ran hid next to the basement door while he got next to the kitchen back door. With one final nod to each other the basement door flew open and I immediately pointed the shotgun and shot the guy point blank. He fell on top of the others I ran in pumping my shotgun for another shot. I noticed one who didn’t get caught by the falling debris of men, so I decide to shoot him second. With a slight turn to my left I managed to head shot him…that’s one down I decided to take this time to reload while the others were getting up. I managed to shoot two others point blank as they got up killing them instantly. Finally there was one left he got up and got his bearings the moment I finished reloading. He had a pistol he aimed and before he finished pulling the trigger I jumped to the side causing him to miss then I took my shot shooting him in the chest. The shot sent both of us flying.

I then heard shots from upstairs immediately after (sigh) no time to rest huh? I gathered my courage and ran upstairs the minute I reached the door. BLAM!!! It felt like a split second I saw one of the men in ski masks pointing a pistol at me then my vision started to get blurry. My legs gave out and I fell face first to the ground. Shit. Looks…like…this…is…it…Patricia…Penelope…Emily…p…please…l…ive.