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The siren started and I picked up my coat and bag. I said, "Goodbye. I love you all," and left.
There was a
bus waiting outside for the 'chosen' to take us to the local safehouse. I sat alone, but there wasn't much choice - there
were only six other people on the bus. I put my headphones on and pressed play on my disc player.
"Matt, this is Alana."
"Matty.
It's Marty."
What the hell? I stopped the disc player and looked inside. It was a blank disc with pictures drawn
by the kids all over it. I started crying and pressed play.
"Matt, this is Alana"
"Matty. It's Marty."
"We
just wanted to make you something so you could remember us."
"I picked out the even numbered tracks. Alana picked
out the rest."
"Hope you enjoy this. We worked really hard on it."
"Yeah, Matty. Bye."
The first song
was "Running for Home". I sat there and cried in silence as the bus travelled down the road. God, I'm going to miss them
so much.
The bus had tinting on the windows to prevent us from looking out. There was even a wall between us and
the driver so we couldn't look out the front. Were they, whoever they were, expecting us to escape to come back to where
oru families had just been killed? What was going on?
Around track 6 - "Everlong" - the bus pulled to a halt outside
of a nondescript building. We filed out and walked in through the steel doors. We stood in line with fifty or so other people
and waited for the processing. My turn came and I handed the lady my forms. She told me to put my bag on the counter and
empty it. A brief shock of terror ran through me - what was she going to do, confiscate my stuff? She called over another
guy in a uniform who pawed through my stuff and pronounced me clean. I repacked the bag and headed for my designated room.
I put my bag on the desk and lay down on the bed. There was no light in the room, save for the tiny string of lights
around the ceiling. No windows to speak of. Ok, there had better be a good reason for this.
I fell asleep quickly.
It was a restless sleep - I couldn't get the sounds of my family out of my head. I dreamt about trips we took, meals we ate,
sports we played. I was sure I was going to die - if I wasn't, why else would my entire life flash before my eyes?
I
woke the next morning, or at least what I thought was morning, and found that there was in fact a window - it had been cover
with a sheet of metal when I came in the night before. I looked out and saw no movement anywhere. It was like we were on
a totally different planet. The sun was hidden behind a haze that made everything dark grey. I left my room.
I turned
down the hall and found myself in a great-room. There were couches and tables and a couple of bookcases placed rather cautiously
around the room. It was like they expected us to just collapse and never get up but might just trip over the non-crowded
furniture. There was no one else in the room and sunlight glowed through a large picture window over a table covered with
pamphlets and a bowl of fruit.
"Hey, man. I'm Edward. Had breakfast yet?" This neanderthal was looking at me as
though _I_ might be his breakfast. Edward was at least 6'7", a good 300 pounds and may have played for the local university
football team. I've never liked jocks that much - might be because I was never one.
"No. Where's the dining hall?"
I hadn't thought about food since breakfast the previous day and I realized that I might want to get some sustanance into
my body. God knows what hell they were going to put us through.
"At the end of the hall, turn right and go through
the beige doors. I'll come with you. Just smelling that bacon has made my stomach start eating itself."
I walked
down the hall with the giant. I'm only 5"9', 175 pounds on a good day, so this guy could, if he wanted, break me in half
using his toes. I tried to keep a steady pace, not too fast, not too slow, and stared down the hall.
"Just through
here, man. Fuck, I'm starving. I wonder if there's any hot chicks hanging with us in this place. So, where you from, man?"
After only two minutes, I'm beginning to find Edward a little like my best friend in high school - Tyrone. Ty and I used
to get into all sorts of shit together and he ended up being my roommate after I left my parents.
Ty and I thought
we could conquer the world. It was fucked and we were the only ones who could fix it. Hell, we were only 15 - what 15 year
old doesn't think the world is fucked? We had planned on going to college together to get some degree - he was interested
in engineering and I wanted, mistakenly, to be an architecht. Ty and I were opposites to everyone else, but we were identical
to each other.
Ty grew up on a farm outside of town with six brothers and sisters. He was second youngest and often
forgotten by his parents. Times were tough and everyone had to pitch in to help - Ty's job up until the time he moved into
the city with me was to shovel all the shit in the family's barn. He said he used to go in clean as a whistle and come out
as dirty as a porn magazine.
Ty and I met in grade 9 when we sat beside each other in math class. I was a fairly
decent student and Ty was a genius. In junior high, I was used to being the one people asked for help - I relished the attention.
Girls finally talked to me, even though it was usually about theorems and trigonometry. It took Ty a whole week before the
class looked to him for the answers. He was the typical farm boy - big and broad, quiet as a mouse - but he had this auroa
of intelligence that you only see on Jeopardy. One day, the hottest girl in the class, Melissa, walked over to Ty and asked
for help with a question. He took one look at her, turned bright red and started shaking. He managed to spit out the answer
she was looking for and she tossled his hair and went back to her seat.
"Shit, man. She's the head cheerleader.
How'd you manage that one?" I was insanely jealous that he, of all people, was able to get the head cheerleader to walk all
the way from the 'cool' side of the room over to our desks cluttered together by the pencil sharpener.
"Well. I don't
know. I guess she needed some help. What's the special in the cafeteria today?"
Ty had a big problem staying on one
track at any one time. We'd be doing something and he'd get sidetracked - usually by food. I was eternally thankful that
his parents kept us stocked full of food while we lived together. I was working a part-time job at a local drug store and
Ty was attempting to make ends meet by doing odd jobs for little old ladies. I can't imagine how we would have kept afloat
if we didn't have them. My parents, on the other hand, refused to have anything to do with me. At least that's what I thought
- I later found out that they were keeping tabs on me through Ty's mom. She'd tell them if I was eating, if I looked healthy,
if I was keeping out of trouble. Knowing that drove me nuts.
When we were in college, we'd get into a bit of trouble,
usually after we'd been drinking. I remember quite a few nights where cops would show up on our doorstep with complaints
from neighbours, parents, girls. It was a great time. We were old enough to do what we wanted and no one could tell us not
to.
When Ty died, I felt like I lost an arm.
We were 20. I been back at home for almost a year when I got
the call. I remember sitting in the kitchen talking to my dad while he fixed the cabinets and keeping Marty entertained by
feeding him Cheerios.
"Hello."
"Could I speak to Matt Pickert, please?"
"This is Matt."
"Matt,
this is Carol. Ty's mother."
"Oh, hi Mrs. Howard. What's up?" I could already tell by the sound of her voice it
was not good.
"Matt... I have some bad news. Ty died this morning. He was hit by a drunk driver on the highway outside
of our place."
My world stopped. I couldn't see. My dad stopped what he was doing and came over to me. He told me
later that I just sat there like a statue and didn't react when he called my name. I guess I scared Marty so much he started
wailing.
"Matt? Are you still there?"
"Um. Yes, Mrs. Howard. Is there anything I could do?" I had no idea
what I could possibly do at a time like this, but it seemed like a good question.
"No, I don't think so, Matt. I do
appreciate you being there for the last few years. I will be in touch with the arrangements. Good bye."
I hung up
the phone and stood up. I looked at my dad, who started to say something and stopped. I went to my room, turned on my stereo
and cranked it as high as it could go. I wanted to disappear in the thumping and screaming of whatever trash I was listening
to at the time.
My mom came to my room a couple of hours later and woke me up. She sat on my bed and held me like
I was a baby.
"Matty. These things happen. Just know he's in a better place."
"I know."
"What did
Carol tell you?" Mom and Carol went to school together eons ago and still kept in kind-of touch - if they ran into each other
at the store, they said hi. They knew their sons were friends.
"She said he died when he was hit by a drunk near
the farm. And that she'd call later with arrangements." I didn't want to think of arrangements - a body that I used to hang
out with was being put into a box for eternity. I will never see him again.
"It's life, dear. You can't begin without
knowing it will end." Mom always was the philosopher of the house.
"I know, Mom. But he was so young. He was my
best friend."
"Matt, you know that it was meant to be. Someone, out there somewhere, made this decision for him a
long time ago. There was nothing that could be done."
That statement made me so angry I saw red. I got up, walked
calmly out of my room, past my dad and the kids in the living room and out the door. I kept walking until I was out of town.
I stopped when I fell to my knees and cried. I've never cried so much in my life.
"Hey, man, keep it moving. I'm
a big boy and need to refuel the engine." Edward had filled his tray full of what meager offerings they had - mainly organic
stuff that had a dull tone to it.
"Oh, sorry." I shuffled along the line and looked for something that was appealing.
There was little that looked even remotely edible. I picked up a plate of something - maybe chick peas, maybe barley - and
took a cup of apple juice to a table near the back.
"Hey, wait up."
"Oh, Edward. Did you want to join me?"
I didn't recognize anyone in the room. There were maybe 50 people in the room, most of them silent, contemplating whatever
they had on their trays.
"Yeah, man. What did you say your name was?"
"I didn't. I'm Matthew. Matt."
"Matt,
I'm Edward Gallion. Where'd you say you were from?"
Small talk drives me mad. I figured that I had better cut to
the chase if I wanted to keep this guy on my good side.
"This is my hometown or at least I think it's Timberham. Hey,
Edward, do you mind if I call you Ed?"
"Nah. Edward makes me feel like I'm a CEO of a Fortune 500 company who has
billions in the bank and babes on each arm. Not that I'd mind the babes."
"Who wouldn't?" I started relaxing a bit
and began picking at my food.
"Man, I wish this place were a little more normal. It seems more like an insane asylum
than a safehouse. Why do you think you're here?"
It was a question that I'd asked myself a thousand times in the last
twenty-four hours. And still didn't have an answer.
"I got an email three months ago telling me that I was saved.
That's it."
After that I got a couple more emails telling me that I was going to receive a key for a mailbox at the
post office so I could pick up my forms and one that outlined what I could and couldn't take with me. It was so bizarre,
but so convincing all at the same time.
"How about you? You get the emails too?"
"Yeah. At first, I thought
it was a huge joke, that someone I worked with was fooling around. Then I got the key. I walked into the post office that
day expecting the mailbox to blow up in my face."
"Yeah, it was kind of wierd. Why do you think we're here?" I spooned
the rest of my meal onto a slice of bread I got from the basket at the table. Yuck, it was chick peas after all.
"I
don't know. Some big experiment, maybe we're the new world army to fight the aliens? I hope we get an answer soon, though.
I may just leave if no one talks to us today." Ed seemed like he had all the time in the world, but very little patience.
"Yeah,
you'll leave for what, though? Have you looked outside? It's like someone hit the 'pause' button. Kind of freaky if you
ask me." I leaned back in my chair and contemplated starvation over the possibilities for lunch.
"There's gotta be
a way out. And everything can't be gone. I just wanna know what the fuck is going on."
"Yeah, it'd be nice. So,
Ed, what'd you do before all of this?" As much as I hated it, small talk was going to have to be the order of the day, just
to pass time.
"Me? Oh, hell, I was just a city worker. I was the guy who stood at the construction sites and leaned
on my shovel for the better part of 8 hours every day. Paid good, benefits really helped out when one of my little ones got
sick..." Ed looked a little solemn and his eyes teared up. Oh great - this bloody oaf is going to cry.
"Yeah... sounds
great. What city?" I am the king of small talk.
"Lexingford. Yeah, I've worked for them for 11 years since I left
high school. What about you? What'd you do?"
"I was a chef in my restaurant - Hidden Treats - over on 11th and Nillon
in town. Not too exciting, piss-poor money, but man, I loved it." Loved it? Hell, I poured my heart and soul into that
place.
Four years before, I was working for Rodney Rattler, a guy my dad knew from the golf course. Rod owned a local
restaurant he thought was the creme de la creme - in fact it was the shit de la shit. The place blew - the food sucked, the
atmosphere was so depressing I'm surprised we didn't hand out shotguns with the menus, the staff was a joke. I had been with
Rod for a couple of years since I graduated from college with my chef's diploma.
What I really wanted with that diploma
was a choice job working in the city at a high class hotel with menu prices no less than $50.00. Ah, those were the days.
Right
after I turned 23, my parents came in to some serious money. I remember walking into the house after a particularly bad day
at Rod's (Chez Delores was the name of the hellhole - how fucking cheesy is that?) to find my parents drinking champagne.
After what had happened 8 years previous, I thought seeing my parents drunk would mean the end of the world.
"Oh, Matty.
You're home." My mother struggled to keep her upright pose. My dad stood and promptly fell over.
"Uh, yeah. What's
going on? I thought you two had learned last time..." I'm not going to delve farther and farther back into my past, but
here's a brief recap of what happened years before: Dad was a drunk. A bad drunk. He came home one night, when I was 15,
and hit my mom. And came after me with a chainsaw. I moved out. Back to the story.
"Matt, my boy, I have some great
news. Your uncle Stu died today." Stu was my dad's older, evil, extremely rich older brother. He and dad had a falling
out years ago, and from what I've heard in the family gossip cirlce, it was over me. I wasn't named after Stu - and he took
it personally. What gall! I hate that fucking name - Matt sounds way cooler.
"Oh. And this is a good thing? Did
he leave you all of his cash?"
"Matt, you have no idea. This couldn't have happened to a better man!" I was beginnign
to think my parents were going insane.
"We never have to work again. You can get out of Rod's for good. Alana and
Marty can go to any school they want!" My mom had worked at the local seed factory for at least 20 years - I figured that
any reason to get out of that place was as good as any.
"Um, Dad? Mom? How much do we get?" I stepped into the living
room and sat down - just in case I might fall over in shock.
"From what his lawyer said, something like $12.3 million
in four separate payments, with 30% right off the top for taxes." And somehow my dad stated this with a straight face.
"Really?
Do the kids know? I mean, they're going to know something's up when they walk into the house and see the two of you sloshed
out of your trees."
"Not yet. We're all going out for dinner tomorrow and we're going to talk about it then. I
mean, it's highly unlikely that a 12-year old and an 8-year old will be able to comprehend that much money, but it's better
to tell them than not, I guess." Mom, even in her fairly drunken state, somehow managed to have the clearest thoughts of
all of us.
So at dinner, my parents told Alana, Marty and I about how we were going to each get $1.7 million each.
The kids would have theirs tied up in trusts until they went to school, but I could get mine right away.
So I bought
Rod out. I shut the place down and started from scratch. I overhauled the menu, hired new staff, redecorated the place and
reopened within six months. The place was packed every night. I took what tiny amount I was able to save and put it into
another place I bought down the street. When I was growing up the only thing to do - outside of getting drunk and getting
into trouble - was to go for coffee. So I bought the coffee shop we used to hang out in and took it over. It's where I spent
most of my time. I only worked a couple of days a week at Hidden Treats so I figured I may as well relax at a place I love.
"Oh,
yeah, I've heard of that place. Never been there - a little too pricey for me." Ed seemed like the type who would eat anywhere
if it didn't have any 'fancy' words in the name or on the menu.
"Yeah... I'm, uh, going to go to the great-room and
see what's up there." I took it personally when people attacked my businesses - it's not like I actually made any money from
these places.
I picked up my tray and headed for the door. I heard Ed's not-so-light footsteps beside me and realized
I had a new friend. Oh, the joy.
I walked down the hall towards the great-room and heard some voices. I'm not one
for a large group of strangers, but I figured with Ed on my side, I'd get to know everyone in a 10-mile radius by the end
of the day.
"Hello. I'm Mark, this is Charlie, and that's Al by the window. And you guys are...?" These guys all
looked like used car salesmen. I could feel the slime in the air.
"This is Ed and I'm Matt." Ed shook their hands
and I followed suit. We all kind of stood around looking at our feet, the floor, the legs of the furniture as though the
meaning of life may just appear there in the next few moments. I decided to bite the bullet and sit down. The other guys
looked at me like I had just discovered fire.
"Hey, guys, sit down. Let's get to know each other. Lord knows how
long we're going to be together." God, who the hell was making these words come out of my mouth? I'm usually the guy standing
in the corner looking somewhat forlorn at the scene around him. If anyone asked me if I wanted anythign, I would answer 'No'
in a tiny, meek voice. I'm beginning to think that the devil himself has taken up residence in my head.
As the guys
started chatting with each other, I retreated back into my memories. Frankly, I was scared. I didn't know what the future
held - but it's not like when you're 18 and just graduated from high school. I mean, back then, you kind of had an idea that
you'd get a job, maybe some education, and start your life. This whole situation scared the shit out of me.
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