This Day

Beep Beep

My hands fumble as I reach over to turn off the loud alarm. It reads 8 am but I have long since been awake, with nothing to do. My mind still sets back in its old ways but I remind myself as I dress that I need to cook breakfast. By the time I lit the stove to cook I see my husband walk into the kitchen, “Morning dear.” I tell him as I make my way to the coffee pot, “Black?” I ask, pouring the coffee already knowing the answer.

“Yes thank you.” He says as the flap of him pulling out his beloved newspaper goes about. I place the mug down in front of him and kiss him on the cheek.

“Missed a spot.” I tease him although more his whole face than a spot. He never shaves but can't seem to grow a beard either.

“Very charming right?” He defends himself justibly, flapping the newspaper to the next page as he continues with his morning reading. By the time I finish setting the last plate I see Alan walk into the room, his gaze to the floor. He says nothing and sits down looking at his father. I feel the mood shift. I find it hard to say something, I couldn't think of what to say anyway. Alan was still looking at his father for a bit longer before seemingly giving up and looking at me.

“Jolly good morning mac.” I say trying to lighten the mood, something my father often did. Alan seemed to give me a pity smile to which I responded by patting his head. I look at Jim, his face covered by the newspaper he was supposedly so infatuated with. Without so much as touching his plate Alan stands up and goes towards the front door.”Where are you going?” I ask him.

“School.” He says curtly before closing the door behind him. I hear Jim mutter something behind his newspaper. Once again I look at the date of it, and once again it is dated from 6 years ago.

“Do you really think he’s going to school?” Jim asks me carefully already knowing my response to this question.

Yet and still I can’t help it and say, “How could you say that. Of course he’s going to school. Why would he lie? Where else would he go?” I look at the backpack still at the door and I feel my heart sink all over again. He must have forgotten it.

Jim stands up and kisses me on the head, “I got to go to work now, 2nd period is about to start and I have an aid waiting for me already. I’ll see you later Nettie.” He says as he walks out of our home. I sit alone in the house now, clenching my hands together.

I often find it hard to sleep at times like this. When it's no longer night but not quite morning. I often feel like a ghost wandering the halls. With nowhere but everywhere to go. And it's around this time almost like on a schedule where I hear the sound. Clatter, clang. Ever so soft that you couldn't hear it if you were upstairs. When I first heard it I was scared that there were intruders but I'm not sure that would've been so bad now compared to this. I stand by the doorway and once again I see Alan. I feel a knot in my stomach as I see him open the window and crawl out. Just a while ago he was quiet and didn't eat breakfast. Now he does and even asks for lunch money. And seemingly he comes home later and later.  I head back into my room and wait for day.

The day that I’ve had nightmares about finally comes. Before I knew anything at all the quiet slow paced Section J was thrown into chaos. I awoke to the sound of sirens and beams of light flashing from the sky even though at quite a distance. I knew immediately that Section J of the dome was going into lock down. I feared for the worse as I ran towards Alan’s room and to my horror he wasn't there. I heard a loud bang in the common room and found Alan there. “Alan, are you alright?” I scream as I run towards him. He dodges my attempt to grab him.

“I’m fine, please leave.” He says to me.

“What are you talking about, it's dangerous right now we should evacuate.” I said frantically, surprised at his reluctance to let me touch him. “Where are you going?” I cry out as Alan tries to get past me. I grab his arm successfully this time and yank him towards me. “Listen to me, you are not going anywhere. You are going to come with your dad and I and get to somewhere safe. I put up with your nonsense for long enough!”

It seemed Alan had enough of my screaming as he whipped around, “What do you know?” He screamed back at me. I was stunned he had never yelled before, his voice hardly ever louder than a whisper. “You know nothing so stay out of it. You aren't helping and I don’t need your help either.” He shook off my grip on him and tried to get away again.

“Stop right now Alan!” I yelled with all my might at him. I felt so helpless and guilty. I still didn't know what was happening but I needed to know. I could be left in the dark about everything else if I could just know what was happening now. “Do you think I don't know anything? Do you think I’m an idiot? Anyone would notice that you sneak out almost every night and you're collecting money. I’ve been trusting you time and time again, trusting that you would tell me and being betrayed time after time.”

Alan stood with his back towards me for what felt like an eternity and with all the vigour he could muster he turned around once again and faced me. “Stop lying, I know you of all people don’t care about me. Never once have you tried to stop me. It's as if you know the best ways to hurt me. Out of all the times you chose now to confront me? What do you want me to do to pour out my soul to you? What have you ever done that makes you think I would ever confide in you? I’m leaving and you are not going to stop me.” He said finally. With swiftness he got to the window and escaped. I ran towards the window and stood wide eyed. Alan was actually the reason behind the lockdown of Section J and I now knew why. Right there next to my house outside any cities. In the outer edges of the dome stood a monster. I tried to scream but no sounds came out. I was petrified. I collapsed helplessly as I saw the monster approach my last son. I couldn't bear to watch as I saw its large sharp claws marking the earth underneath it or how pitch black skin stretched along with its unnatural movements. I felt tears streaming down my face when suddenly I saw my husband tackle Alan. Jim got up quickly grabbing Alan by his arm and dashing towards the house. I watched as the beast started chasing after them. Suddenly Alan clawed his father’s hands off him and started running towards the beast. I watched in horror as he climbed onto the beast. I couldn't take my eyes off it as it body writhed and morphed until wings had grown out of it back. As soon as it could it spread its wings and took off into the equally dark night.

Jim stood in front of the house for a long time. As if he couldn't process what had just happened. I finally was able to force myself to move again and went to him. “Jim..” I started to say but he cut me off quickly.

“Nettie what happened here?” He asked me with a panicked look on his face. I didn’t have an answer and could only shake my head. I grabbed his trembling hand and led him towards the house.

“We’ll figure it out.” I said softly, still at a loss with everything.

Not long after we had the authorities come to our house. “Hello Ma’am and Sir, we’ll be your escorts in the evacuation of Section J. How many are in your household?” I panicked for a moment. Should I report Alan as missing? Would he be in trouble for going off with the beast?

Before I could say anything Jim started to speak, “Hello officier, may I ask why we are being evacuated?” The officer tried to talk down the situation which led me to assume it wasn't very well known.

“We just are doing some maintenance to the dome, which is happening all over in the other outer sections. And are just taking this provider to be safe. So how many are in the household?” He asked again.

“Just the two of us.” I said to the officer, holding my husband's hand to give it a tight squeeze.

“Two? I’m sorry but on this paper it says four.” The officer asked suspiciously.

“We never updated it after the accident.” I said grimly, seeming to cause the officier some surprise.

“Ah, okay, I'm sorry to hear.” He said shaken. I looked to my husband who looked back at me. He squeezed my hand back and kissed me on the head.