Evolution

Chapter 2

   Chapter 2

      My sleep was fitful. For many nights I slept crumpled like a discarded used tissue using my shirt as a pillow against the cold unforgiving vinyl benches inside the rail cars. My body seemed to utterly reject the idea of comfort. It seemed so right, yet out of place in my own existence. My legs fully extended and a proper pillow under my head I tossed and turned and attempted sleep.  At some point my overly anxious mind must have decided to rest and terror trampled through my subconcience. The horrors of my first encounter with the pod creatures replayed slowly and vividly in my mind. I was there. I could see it all, smell it all, and feel the fear tingling at the base of my spine.

      I could smell my mother’s perfume, a cross between honey-suckle bushes and vanilla, she seemed to sink into our sofa, becoming more a part of it than resting on it. It was barely evening time and her and father both just escaped the corporate jungle, meeting up with each other for the first time  that day since some magical period between the busstop and the school bell. Father’s leather brief case rested to the left of the sofa, a silent testiment to the raw power of a loving husband and devoted father. He seemed to more rip than loosen the silk tie from his neck and tossed it on the back of the sofa, its final resting place. The smell of mom’s home cooked meal wafted past the rod iron skillet and seemed to engulf the atmosphere. To me this was another day in a wonderful life my family worked so hard for.

      I sat at the kitchen table, my fifth grade math book open and a puzzled look on my face. Numbers danced back and forth in my mind, inverting and reverting, commas jumping from one zero to the next as I tried so hard to concentrate, to get it right. Tiny bite marks started to appear on the soft wooden edge of the number two writing utensil. I remember a loud sigh and a loud clomp as father dropped his weight and landed next to mother. Everything seemed so perfect.

      I heard the steady click and the non-whimsical sounds of many fictious people in the background as my father jumped from channel to channel on our television set. Something important must have happened because all the channels suddenly became one voice. Our president’s voice. Still nothing more than background noise to me, I diligently stared at the dancing numbers and tried hard to make two obscure numbers magically create an anwser someone much smarter than I decided it should be. On the paper I seen little bubbles, tiny circles I am supposed to scribble in when I conclude that the comma is in the right place and when multiplied with another couple of thousand numbers it will somehow equal what’s just to the right that bubble.

      I rubbed my eyes and stared blankly at number twenty three. only two more questions left and I will be finished. I was so anxious to be done with math and go play that I must have missed the panic in my mother’s voice. That seems to be my only regret. If I would have known the severity of the situation I would have asked what was wrong. I would have hugged my parents and I would have spent the last few hours of their lives telling them what I wanted to be when I grew up.

      It was a impossibility for a child of my age to truly understand adult things. No, all I heard was my mother telling me to go to my room and play. I didn’t fight it, after all, playing sounded much more fun than math. Without hesitation I slammed my homework into my backpack and trampled up the stairs. I smiled warmly at the inviting glow of the white screen washing over my face. I turned up the sound and became immersed in a pixel world of an expensive game.

      Downstairs I could vaguely hear the sobs of my mother and the steady thumping of fathers boots as he ramsacked the living room looking for unknown items. I became worried, but tried to click away at the buttons, hoping things were alright, trusting that they were. Sometime between level five and the main boss I heard a loud scream, a horrible blood curdling scream. In a blind panic I threw my system to the ground and came rushing down the stairs, taking them two at a time hoping to shave precious seconds off of my rescue time.

      Halfway down I heard my father’s booming voice demanding I stay upstairs. Mother still screaming I could hear wetting clomps and loud thumps, a sound that will haunt my memory forever. Convinced my father was brutally chopping my mother to tiny bits I let my imagination run wild on me. Charging through my room I flung open my closet door and chunked many childhood toys to the side. I was on a mission.

      After some time I came across the item I desired, the item that would save my mothers life! I wrapped my fingers around the hockey stick and charged the staircase once more. As I hit the bottom I felt my heart skip a beat and learned the true meaning of horror. There was so much blood splattered around the couch, that it left small ponds on our white carpet. Beads from mothers pearl necklace lay scattered across the floor like a messy game of marbles two young children refused to pick up. Father was still swinging his axe with all his might but to no avail. It took quite some time to register the whole scene in my mind, to me all I seen was blood.

      Loud chomping sounds startled me back to reality. For the first time I actually saw what was right in front of me. Podradiles, five of them, crawling on all fours and tearing at my mother’s flesh. My father chopped away, but was not fast enough to save her, fat salty tears streamed down his face as he sobbed and penetrated the skin of the alligator plants. many vines started to race up the walls and I watched in utter confusion as large bulbous pods started to sprout and then split, green slime dripped and more creatures fell into our home.

      I could hear the agony in my fathers voice as the teeth sank into his upper thigh and he was dragged to the ground. a nasty ripping sound was made audible before me as I stood frozen with fear. Podradiles started running for me, several hundred pounds of insatiable hunger looking for its next meal. I could hear father screaming at me to run. “Go to your aunts house GO!”

      I stood, still froze, still unable to grasp the very real and very adult concept of life threatening dangers. The creatures came closer and closer till I felt one snap at my shoe. Its teeth barely missing I panicked and starting kicking it as hard as I could, kicking at it with all my might, trying to get the nightmarish abomanation away from me. I opened up the door and ran, I ran into the cool evening air, feeling my chest hurt and my lungs scream, but still I ran. I awoke to the throbbing pain of my foot colliding with the coffee table.