THE EVENT

  THE EVENT

  Published by Jamie Heppner

  ©2012 Jamie Heppner

  Kindle Edition

  To my Wife,

  Who first looked at me and said...

  "You can write!"

  And I have never stopped since...

  Chapter 1

  Days before the event happened, worldwide panic set in. Every channel on TV ran a story about what to expect, or how to prepare. The sun was going crazy, and no one had an idea what to do. In the end, it really didn't matter. There was no way to prepare. The earth didn't stand a chance.

  I remember my parents telling me we had to leave quickly. As my father rushed around the house grabbing things such as our camping gear, lanterns, batteries, and my mother went for the food. Both of them worked together, stuffing it all in our four-door sedan. I jumped into the driver’s seat, earning me such a glare from my father. I mumbled a sorry and silently moved to the back.

  I had never seen dad drive so fast, we practically flew away from our home. My parents were arguing about whether to stop at a store or not. As we approached the Super Store, my dad began to slow down. Gunshots rang out from inside the building. Every window was broken and people were running out carrying as much as they could hold. It’s odd the things you remember in times like these. I remember a man; eyes wide with terror as he held a bag of dog food in his arms, dog food, of all things. My dad gave my mom one look and drove away from the store. Lawns and houses passed by so quickly, all I saw was a blur of green.

  Dad took us into the woods. There was an old cabin tucked away in a valley near a small lake; its waters were clear as crystal. My dad said we were lucky that only a few people knew it was there. He hoped it would stay that way. I overheard my Dad say, "There is a chance these mountains will protect us." My mom didn’t respond. Her eyes had a shine to them every time she looked up. Later I learned she was holding back her tears.

  We didn’t do much for the first day. Dad and I sat in the small cabin playing cards and waited, for what, we didn’t know. My mother listlessly wandered around the cabin, crying sometimes. Her face framed by her greying hair was unreadable. Dad lit a fire at night using the wood we collected from close by. None of us ranged very far.

  After the first day of camping in the cabin, a deep silence fell over us and we rarely spoke. The days passed slowly. One evening as the sun was setting my father woke us up carefully. His strong hand on my shoulder gently shook me awake. My mom was crying silently as we all huddled together in the cabin.

  A faint red glow was forming outside. As it built, the world began to take on a deep red glow. Gradually it grew brighter and brighter until we had to shield our eyes. It grew so strong I could see the bones inside my arms. With a brilliant flash, it doused the world in a light that penetrated everything. Nothing could hide from that light. Then I remember darkness, which arrived only with my loss of consciousness.

  I was the first to wake. Something felt different, looking around the cabin I saw my parents laying side by side, breathing lightly as they slept. For the first time in days, my mom wasn't crying. Looking closer I saw there was something different about them. I couldn't explain it, but they looked darker somehow. There was a change in them that I was unable to see, only sense. I looked down at myself and noticed I looked brighter, almost as though a glow inside me was trying to light the way out.

  My parents were sleeping soundly so I decided to let them wake on their own. I stood up and went outside to look around. The sun was just falling behind the mountain. We had been asleep for almost a full day. My stomach confirmed my suspicions when it loudly grumbled. In the fading light of our little valley, I looked around at the trees, the lake, and our car. Everything seemed exactly as I remembered, yet different, just a little off. It was almost as though as when I looked right at something, it was the same. Then when I glanced out of the corner of my eye things would shift. As I stood trying to find the difference, I heard my mom call out my name. I knew from the way she said my name something was wrong. She very nearly screamed it. My heart pounded in my chest as I rushed back.

  Dad lay on the ground rubbing his eyes. He worked them as if he was having trouble waking. My mom on the other hand looked fully awake. She was sitting on the ground where I had left her. She still called my name as I ran back to her side. Each call was louder and more frantic.

  "I'm right here Mom." I reached out to her and placed my hand on her shoulder. She jumped at the sound of my voice and turned her head towards me. It was at that moment that I saw her eyes. The deep blue that had welled with tears just yesterday was gone, replaced by pure black, the black of nothingness, emptiness.

  My dad stood up behind us and turned towards me. His eyes focused on me. A warm smile formed on his lips when he realized I was ok. The smile vanished quickly when he saw mom. He rushed over to her and grabbed her by the shoulders.

  "Honey, can you see me?"

  Mom turned her head towards the sound of his voice and blinked a few times. "No, is it still night? Are there no stars?"

  A gasp escaped my dad's throat. He didn't say a word at first. Then as silent tears rolled down his cheeks, he told my Mother "Your eyes have gone completely black, the sun is setting but it is still light out. From what I can see. Shade and I are ok, but honey, the glow must’ve blinded you." My Mom broke down and sobbed. Dad held Mom close.

  "We will work through this."

  *****

  Mom never did see again, but she learned to work with her disability. After a while, she taught herself a system. She rarely left the cabin so she took over the inside chores and not once complained about what happened. My dad took things a little harder. He rarely left her side, only going out for food and water. After a week of this, she finally got mad at him.

  "That is enough; I'm not a puppy dog that has to be watched every minute. Shade is here. He is more than able to help me with the little things I can't do. Besides we are almost out of food if we don't find more soon we will all starve."

  That seemed to shake him out of his worried stupor. Dad had never been a slacker; everything he did was for the good of his family. He is a strong man and proud of his ability to care for his family. With my mother’s words, he suddenly seemed to remember it was his responsibility to take care of us all. Dad took a deep breath and looked at us."You’re right. It's been a little over a week now since... since it happened." He glanced again at my mother who was already busying herself with daily chores. "I need to get back to town and see what’s happening. See if there is any news, maybe it is safe to go back to our home now. I don't know what that light was but we won’t find out anything sitting around here."

  It was then we found out more had changed then just mom’s eyes. Dad worked on our car for hours, testing one thing, changing another. He would scratch his head then stare.

  "I just don’t get it, everything should work, but it’s not." I was too young to be of any help. I didn't even know the first thing about fixing cars; I only just started thinking about getting my license. I could see the car looked different. If anyone asked me to explain it, I would say it looked dead, the trees, plants and grass all had a glow inside them, as if they all had visible souls, bright and beautiful. Many of the things we brought with us looked out of place. They looked darker, foreign and wrong. I didn't mention it to my Dad. I didn't know how to explain it.

  He gave it up trying to fix the car that evening and started to look at other things we brought. We stashed them in a corner of our cabin when we got here. Everything that had batteries or electricity had stopped working.

  "It isn't that the batteries are dead," he explained as he showed us a wind up radio he brought. Dad spun the handle, but the radio didn't make a crackle. "It’s like the electricity stopped
working all together."

  That night by the fire, he puzzled over how it was possible while mom sat in a chair looking towards the heat of the fire. The light danced off her dark eyes. I wasn't sure then, but it looked like she was smiling to herself. An internal laugh at a joke only she could hear.

  Dad left us the next day. He took a backpack and very little food.

  "I’m going to find us more food so there’s no point in taking all that is left here." He kept saying to my mom as she tried unsuccessfully to shove more food in his bag.

  "At least it's less than a day’s walk to the closest town." He said giving mom and me hugs in turn. "I'll be back as soon as I can, don't worry." He gave my mom a quick kiss, and as he walked past our now useless car, he kicked the passenger’s side door, leaving a large dent. "It sure would have been a lot faster to drive." He mumbled as he waved and smiled back at us. That night I found out what really happened to my mom.

  Chapter 2

  Night was the same routine as before with the exception of dad not being there. Mom made what she could with our vastly diminished supplies. I helped her carry in some wood and lit the fire for her even though we didn't really need the heat. She said she enjoyed feel of the heat from it. When we were settling down to sleep, she called me over to her.

  "Shade, I need to tell you something. I had to wait since your father would rarely leave us alone long enough to talk together without him overhearing. I don't know what happened to us that night my eyes turned but I can tell you that something in this world changed drastically. I can no longer see what is around me but sometimes I can seem to see other things. When I look around the room now everything is dark, with one exception, you. Where ever you move I can see you, not as a person but as a light in the darkness. You glow to my eyes in a world where everything else is dark."

  "I see the glow in myself too mom. You and dad don't have it."

  "Somehow I’m not surprised, what else can you tell me that is different to you?"

  I moved away a little, not sure how to tell my mom without sounding strange to her.

  "Things are more alive than they were." I started out shyly. "Plants, animals they all seem to have some glow inside of them. Other things seem dead."

  My mom nodded to herself waiting.

  "I can't say I totally understand but please go ahead. I have something else to tell you when you are done."

  "When dad was working with the car, and the radio, somehow I knew they wouldn't work. They were dark, empty and dead. They are sterile and have no life in them anymore."

  My mom turned away from me and again looked into the fire with her dark eyes.

  "Yes, I can understand that as well. I think you will deal with these changes a lot better than most. You were always older than your actual age." Mom shivered a little then continued. "Your father is a technical person. He will never understand fully what I think has changed and always try to make the tools of our past work. That is the one main reason that I waited for him to make this trip, and waited to talk to you as well. I don't know how he will handle this information. There will be a time to tell him, but for now we must keep it a secret between just you and I ok?"

  I nodded at my mom before I remembered she couldn't see me nodding.

  "Ok mom, I promise."

  My mom sat still a moment before beginning.

  "I know your father will come back from this trip ok, this time. I saw him coming back, that’s why I don't mind him leaving us. His trip won't be as easy as he would like it to be but he will come back unharmed. I don't know how this came to me but last night while he was working with the radio, I had an image of him in my mind. He was walking back to us past our dented car. At least now I know where the dent came from." My mom smiled then and I knew her private joke from the night before.

  "He will be bringing something else with him as well as food; I didn't see what that was."

  We talked a while about what other things my mom had seen but mostly they were flashes, almost an insight, a glimpse as though a flashbulb went off in a dark room. Sometimes they were so fast she didn't get a chance to take them in before they were gone. Our conversation slowed after a while until the room grew silent. We both looked at the fire a while, me with my eyes and mom feeling its heat.

  "There is one more thing I saw." She broke the silence after a while. "He can't leave this valley again. If he does, he won’t be able to come back. Our life here will be over."

  I didn't say anything. It wasn't so much as she was telling me but just stating a truth that was unbreakable.

  The next day went as normal, when we woke, I helped my mom clean, tidy, and wash our clothes. I gathered more wood from the forest for our fire and spent some time down at the lake trying my luck with an old fishing rod. Even though I saw the fish swimming below me, I couldn't convince them to bite at the old hook at the end of the line. That night was the same as many others that went before with one exception. Just before we went to bed, mom sat looking again at the fire and she started to laugh to herself.

  "Shade, would you please clear an area under the window over there and lay out another blanket. Your father will be home tomorrow." She gestured where she wanted it and with a shrug.

  I didn't bother to ask whom since I was still frustrated with my lack of fishing abilities. Mom didn't say another word but lay down and promptly went to sleep.

  The morning broke clear again. When I thought back, every day since the event had been clear. It seemed strange since the season was turning to fall. Usually by now, the clouds were rolling over the mountains, and it rained one out of every three days. I was rummaging through the car looking for anything that might have missed our attention, and mostly out of sheer boredom when dad came walking back towards our little cabin in the woods. On his back was a pack filled to overflowing with boxes and cans. An old wagon trailed behind him, also filled with food of any kind that wouldn't spoil quickly. Three things seemed odd to me as he got closer and I watched him through the dusty car window. The first was gun he had in his hand. In my sixteen years, I had never seen my father carry a gun. I had looked at them in the stores but my dad would shoo me away from them telling me that I wouldn't need one of those. He held it in a way that showed he knew how to use it. His fingers light on the stock it seemed it was a part of him already.

  The second was his face. Down one cheek were three long, deep, scratches. Just missing his left eye, they reached from his ear to his jawbone. Some blood was running from them and they were red and swollen. His jacket had dried blood down the front. The third thing I saw was the most strange. Next to my father, matching his pace was a light. At first glance, it reminded me of the same light I saw in the plants and me. As I concentrated on it more, it shifted and formed a small girl. Well, she wasn't that small, but next to my father, she seemed tiny. She was dirty and her clothes hung torn almost to shreds. It was a wonder she remained covered at all. She couldn't have been more then fifteen years old but she walked with a confidence that spoke of an age greater than her years.

  It was then Mom came to the door of the cabin and I led her out to meet Dad. I don't know how my Mom knew. The girl walked quietly and didn't say a word. My father stopped and dropped his pack as he grabbed Mom in a large bear hug. The moment he put her back down mom turned to the girl.

  "Hello Dawn, we have laid out a place for you to sleep inside. If you would give me a moment I'll help you clean up, and then we can see what to do about getting you some new clothes. Ok?"

  The girl, Dawn, moved inside the cabin without a word and mom turned back to Dad. She reached up to put her hands on his face and gave him a kiss. The moment her hand touched his torn cheek she jerked back. "You’re burning up! What happened to your face! I didn't see you getting hurt."

  My dad gave mom a sideways look and raised his eyebrows. With a small shake of his head he told us what happened.

  "The trip back to the nearest town wasn't uneventful. It would appear that we weren't the only one
to have trouble with our car. As soon as I started getting closer to town, there were cars everywhere. It looked like people abandoned them right where they were. I looked at a few of them thinking that it would be a big help to have a working car to bring back more supplies but none of them functioned. Not even their radios. Everything just stopped working. I left them alone after a few attempts and kept walking to town. Then it hit me, there were no people. With all the cars I had seen, there should have been at least some people still wondering around.

  Everywhere I walked, there were signs of an attempted mass exodus but there were no signs of people. I became a lot more cautious as I got closer to the store. You remember the mall we passed. Well, it's one of those massive shopping stores, where you could get anything from a lawn mower to lettuce. It was destroyed the windows were smashed. The merchandise spread everywhere.

  Most of it looked trampled and crushed. I hid out of sight inside a parked car for a few hours and watched the store. I kept looking for signs of people or trouble of any kind, but I didn't see a soul.

  Once I decided to get closer to look inside, I moved cautiously towards the entrance. I felt a tingling in the back of my neck so I kept looking around me for traps or trouble. At one point, I thought I heard a noise, but nothing moved. The tingle didn't leave me though; I knew something was watching me.

  Inside the store was worse than outside. It’s a wonder what people will do when scared but this was gone too far. Not one shelf stood still standing. Every useful item I snatched up, and put into my backpack.

  I must have gotten distracted while scanning for food or other items because I didn't notice it sneaking up behind me. The snap of some garbage under its feat was my only warning and I dropped to the ground. With a snarl, it flew just over my head and landed a few feet past me. Only then did I get a good glance at what it was that had been stalked me.

  Jaws and large fangs took up most of that snarl. It stood on four legs as it faced me. Covered in a thick, coarse hair its back was as wide as a man's was. Massive front legs held it up as it threw its head back in a furious howl at having missed its prey. I noticed its front feet had an odd shape. The beast had large nails on the ends of its feet but they had a shape like a hand. It must have been a wolf, even though I had never seen a wolf that looked quite like it before."