The Darkest Days

CHAPTER THREE: In The Beginning

Plunging through the darkness I found home. I was safe, the garden was green, my family alive, and I had never experianced true hardship. My mother stood barefooted in the kitchen, dressed in a long nightgown and curlers, it was Sunday and we were going to go to church. I could smell rich meaty sausage sizzling in the pan and the buzzer set for the bisquits squawked and my mother drew them out golden and steamy.

My mouth watered and I wished to run to the pan and grab one but before I could my mother tapped my hand with a wooden spoon before I could reach into the hot pan and devour the batch. "Naw Scarlet hunny, don't ya go a doin that naw!" she laughed her face wrinkling into an indulgent smile. "Ya gotta be awaitin til Gabe n ya Pap sawake." That was when I realized I wasn't really hungry, I was full, I just wanted to eat because it tasted good, how was this possible?

I must be dead, and this was heaven! Oh, what a great and unsuspected surprise! I hugged my mother's waist eagerly and let her stroke my hair with her calloused hands. "I love ya, Mama." I whispered squeezing her tighter and breathing in her familiar scent of hand lotion and fresh cotton. "Oh Mama, I missed you so much."

She raised her eyebrow and straightened up her graying blonde hair that was starting to come loose from the curlers. "Um, I luv ya too, Scarlet hunny, but ya was only jus sleepin I don't see how ya coulda missed meh in dat shorta time." I let got of her waist so she could flip the sausages. It was all just a dream! A horrible hungry terrifying dream, I knew it was, no way was the world so cruel! If it wasn't a dream then... Cate! Oh my God, Cate!

She was safe in her crib, waiting for Mama to wake her up for breakfast, where she would rub her sleepy baby eyes with her pudgy little fist and yawn and eat breakfast with us. Oh Cate! I ran out of the kitchen to the den where she slept and sure enough she was there. Dressed in her teddy bear PJs and sucking her thumb she looked so innocent like an angel. Gently I whispered into her ear, "Cate baby, comon naw les getcha inta da kitchen fo breakfast." and picked her up and held her while she stretched and opened her little blue eyes.

"Sca..." she questioned as I set her down pronouncing my name the best she could this early. She had just learned to walk and was starting to work out her words, Papa came first then Mama and then Sca and she was just starting to work out Gabe which right now was Gub. She held my hand for support as she toddled slowly to the kitchen with me. "Mama?" She hollered as mom set the bisquits and sausages on the table and dad came by and kissed her on the cheek.

Dad then ran up to Cate and I and lifted us into the air in a giant bear hug then way only a man of his lumber jack stature (and beer belly) could and scrubbed our cheeks with his scruffy beard delivering a huge smacking kiss each while roaring like a bear. Cate was giggling as he set her down and so was I as Gabe stumbled sleepily in from upstairs. "Why yall so loud?" He asked rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

Dad was about to make a sharp retort when we heard a comotion coming from outside. No. It was coming from the chicken coup. "Hal, sum daffed cowyoat is in ta da chickens agin!" My mama hollered as I slowly died again inside. This was not heaven.

My dad frowned and went to across the room to get his coat and his gun but I grabbed his legs. "No Papa, please Papa, no!" I screamed latching on like I was the whiny toddler that didn't want to go to preschool. He gave me a weird look and tried to shake me off. "Scar naw is jus sum silly cowyoat, they aint nutin scery, I'll keel it n beh back bafore da bisquits is co..."

"No Papa, no! You don't understand, Papa!" I cried tears streaming down my face as tried to clutch to him harder. But he didn't seem to hear me and pushed me off with an unknowing smile before walking asuredly out the door. Oh my God, NO! I wanted to cry, to tell him to come back inside so that my little perfect fantasy would continue.

Somehow I mangaged to get sat down at the table next to Gabe as Mama chased Cate around trying to catch her to bring her to the breakfast table. There was nothing I could do, it was too late, it was all over, this would all end before I took my first bite of breakfast. I looked down at my plate suddenly disgusted with my gluttony, two sausages and three bisquits slathered in rich white gravy, a meal many would kill over. Gabe was chattering next to me but I had no patience for what he was saying so I ignored him, he seem unhindered by it and continued on whilst grabbing up bisquits whilst Mama wasn't looking and swallowing them whole.

As if no longer in control of my own body I lifted a almost dainty bite of bisquit to my lips and suddenly the door burst open. It was Papa, covered in blood, his eyes glazed over in death and his pale arms reaching out to grab Mama. She didn't understand and neither did Cate. "Hal?" Mama questioned as a soul-shattering moan tore from her dead husbands lips and he grabbed her roughly by her hair and through her to the ground. We all screamed as Papa ripped open Mama's stomach with his bare hands and tore at her intestines with once loving lips.

Suddenly it was as if I was frozen I didn't know what to do, I was never prepared for this kind of thing, it didn't happen in families like ours, it didn't happen in a world like ours. Gabe stared mouth wide open and still crying as we all watched our Papa feed on Mama. No one thought to grab Cate.

Cate toddled over to Mama's corpse where Papa was still feeding and tugged on Mama's hair trying to wake her up. Unfortunately she did... Mama's cold dead hands grabbed Cate and throttled her making a scream like that of a dying song bird burst from her lips. With that Gabe and I both awoke and ran, but not before I grabbed the extra shotgun by the door and with tears in my eyes I lined Papa up in my sights and... ran...

I felt a huge hand slap the side of my face roughly as I awoke in the abandoned house my stomach still empty and Gabe cuddled beside me cowering away from the huge man standing over me. He sneered in my face as I gazed at him with tear filled eyes. "Bout Fuckin' time!"