June 12th, 2009 5:009 P.M
Petty frustration was gradually increasing in Keith Anderson. He struggled to attain the hard to reach cables situated behind the television set. They were a bundle of elusive jungle vines in a complete state of dishevel. He managed to gain a grip on one but released it recognizing it was the incorrect wire. An indeterminate amount of time flew by and bearing the correct cables, his ordeal was nearly over. All that remained was the tedious task of unscrewing the black spaghetti lines. With quick turns of the wrist a black digital convertor box was connected and capped on the top of a television set.
“I still don’t understand why they are doing this. It’s not like people have better things to spend money on. We don’t even have a high definitive TV to get the so-called better quality.”
Keith turned around to face Jane, his wife of twelve wonderful years standing in the middle of the living room. He noticed she had not changed and was still in her office cloths.
“It’s high definition honey.”
“We’ll you know what I mean.” She replied.
Jane was a woman of thirty-six living happily married with her high school sweetheart and their two children. And the root of her disdain for such a trivial matter as buying a convertor box was their financial woes. It was becoming exceedingly difficult to pay bills. The rising cost of cloths and food were of no help. Both Keith and Jane were fortunate enough to still have employment. There was a wave of layoffs going around in their town of residence. Some of the PTA mom’s she knew were already complaining about their husbands work terminations. As a mother herself, Jane’s primary concern was being unable to pay off their house. She couldn’t fathom losing the home she and her husband had obtained through arduous amounts of work. For the sake of the children she prayed they could continue living comfortably and not start struggling to survive. Their financial future was ambivalent at best.
“I’m going to get changed and get started on dinner.”
Keith responded with simple nod and watched as his wife left the living room. A few seconds later, the sound of running footsteps arose and daughter and son entered.
“Give me my cell phone brat!”
‘NO!”
They ran chasing each other in a game of cat and mouse around the couch.
“Hey! You two, stop it right now.”
“Dad, tell Nick to give me my cell phone.”
“Nick, give Allison her cell phone back. And young lady, don’t call your brother a brat. Apologize now.”
In a reluctant manner the eleven year-old handed the cell phone he held in his hand to his older sister. And with a sigh, she let out a low-pitched whisper of sorry. Both knew better than to disobey the orders of either parent. Nick was the youngest of the two. A playful innocent boy with black hair and brown eyes. He attended elementary school and was well on his way to middle school. Allison on the other hand would be graduating from high school in a year. She was a pretty seventeen year-old with long black hair and hazel eyes like her mother. They were normal siblings and like all siblings, a rivalry was sparked here and there. But nothing a good talking to couldn’t fix.
The Anderson’s lived in Belford, a small town on the lower peninsula of Michigan state. Domiciling in the upper north of the peninsula, the summers were short with warm weather and the winters were long and cold. Large densely wooded areas were more prevalent along with its inhabitant’s of bears, deers, and other woodland creatures. But when the hunting season rolled by, deer was the main attraction to hunt down for its venison. The majority of the towns people in Belford were nice and welcoming. The neighborhood was relatively safe with all the normal commodities of a town. Parks, hospitals, schools, shops, police departments, the works. With a total population of less than 4,000 it was perhaps one of the smaller towns. An attribute that made it a perfect candidate for a contained calamity...
The smell of a delicious mouth watering roasted chicken filled the kitchen. The Anderson’s sat together around a large wooden rectangular kitchen table. A plate with mashed potatoes, chicken, peas and a bun sat in front of everyone.
“So how was your day Allison?”
The seventeen year-old looked up from her plate and looked at her mom across the table. She was no longer dressed in a buttoned down white blouse or a brown skirt but wearing a pair of casual jeans and a red blouse.
“It was okay.” She shrugged her shoulders and went back to eating dinner.
“What about yours Nick?”
He stopped playing with the peas on his plate and glanced up at his mom.
“Nothing special happened. But the lunch menu switched the pizza back to Friday.”
“What about you dear?” Jane turned to her husband hoping for a more interesting conversation.
“Larry got laid off today. He made a big commotion and two other mechanics had to restrain him from hitting the boss.”
“He was always a hot head.”
“Yeah, tell me about it.”
“Nick, stop playing with your peas and eat them..”
He looked up at his mother and let out a groan.
“Do I have to?”
“Listen to your mother.”
Shot down by both his parents, Nick slowly pierced a single pea with his fork. He began the aching process of brining it up to his mouth when the fork slipped out of his hand. There was a mild shock below the ground that appeared to make everything shake. The kitchen lights flickered on and off and when everything seemed to settle down, there was a distant piercing scream. An ominous feeling consumed everyone.
“What was that?” Allison asked bewildered.
“A scream...and it was close...It must have come from across the street.” Keith said.
Accidents were rare but not impossible and crime was more uncommon. Yet nether of these two reasonable possibilities appeared to cross the minds of the Anderson’s. There was an unexplainable feeling lurking beneath there sub-consciousness’s of a diabolical alternative materializing right outside. Filled with curiosity and bravado, Keith settled on finding out just what was occurring for himself.
“I”m going to check out what happened. Everyone else stay inside..”
He sat up from his seat and shortly found himself unlocking the front door of his house. Balmy warm air spouted into the home and onto the man. His only clad was a pair of jeans and a white T-shirt. Prudishly dressed for the weather conditions, he stepped onto the front lawn and yielded a disturbing view. He had been right. The scream had come from across the street. To boot, the house found directly across from theirs sustained an immense gaping hole torn straight through its facade. It was as if a car had recklessly crashed right through it. Keith was clearly able to see right into the living room. At the very least a face could now be placed on the person causing all the hollering. It was Martha Lemen. The wife of Larry- the man who was the same unfortunate individual let go earlier at the auto-mechanic shop. He was on his and knees doubled over in pain, yelling, groaning.
Jane arrived to ascertain exactly what was happening when the situation worsened. It was dark outside, and a great deal of the street lights didn’t illuminate the spot where Larry was. So they were never very certain about what happened next. Larry let out a loud horrifying scream and fluid began to exit from his mouth. He began to vomit something putrid and red...
“Somebody help! Please Help!” Martha yelled.
There was nothing more than Keith wanted to do but help, but something deep inside him hampered any thought to get near.
“My god, what’s happening to him?” Jane asked horrified.
“I don’t know...get back in the house and call 911.”
She obeyed her husband’s orders and hurried backed inside. A action that inadvertently saved her from the sight which came about precisely the moment she went back in. Loud thuds echoed throughout the neighborhood as front doors were quickly slammed opened. At least one person from every household came running out, bent over in pain and began vomiting the same sick fluid Larry expelled.
“What the hell is going on?” Keith murmured to himself.
He did not spend a single second longer on the front lawn and went back inside his home, locking the front door.
The ominous flashing blue and red lights from the multiple ambulances sent forth painted the streets. Ten, fifteen, twenty, maybe even more ambulances were called to response to the incident. Not the paramedics, not the friends and families of the victims, no one exactly knew what was happening. There was already speculation of some sort virus going around. So a rule was readily adopted in the Anderson household. No one was allowed to go outside. All the doors would remained locked, and the windows would remained closed no matter the circumstance.
Hours passed and Nick fell asleep in his room. After asking what happened, he was spared the gruesome details and was told people were getting sick. Alison on the other hand perfectly learned what occurred. She sat with a laptop on her lap and both her parents on the living room couch. They patiently waited for the local news to come on and hopefully explain the events early in the evening. In the mean time Allison searched the net for any type of information regarding the incident. Ultimately, she turned up empty handed.
Ten O’clock came and news reporters standing outside the Belford hospital is what they were anticipating to see. No such thing happened. There was no mention of any of the victims, the incident, all the ambulances scrambled, nothing. They scoured all the news channels and it was the same on all of them. There was no mention of anything.
“I’m going to my room. Call me if anything comes on.” Allison stated and began her way to her room.
Half and hour passed after she left and still nothing came on. Keith tried the radio but the result was inauspiciously the same.
“Let’s go to sleep. Maybe there’ll be something on the morning.” Jane suggested.
There was a click and the TV screen turned off. He sat up and stood still, watching his wife walk away. God, how much he loved her. He wasn’t sure if he could bare if anything happened to her or their children. They were his entire life... He didn’t know how long he stood standing up. Maybe it was because he couldn’t move. But a sharp pain like no other abruptly seared through his stomach. Everything became cold and everything was pain. The sensation was as if someone was slowly chiseling away at his innards. He wanted to get on his knees and scream at the top of his lungs. But he couldn’t, he needed to get outside. His lungs were missing the vital presence of oxygen. Quick thuds sounded on the wooden living room and he ran bent over in pain to the front door.
“Keith?” Jane asked, looking back and finding her husband missing.
“Keith?” She asked again with concern in her voice evident.
She heard the front door slam open and hurried outside.
“No!No!No!” She screamed standing at the doorway.
Her husband was out on the front lawn, on his and knees, vomiting red liquid. When the paramedics arrived she begged them to let her accompany her husband to the hospital but was shunned away. Instead she had to cope with seeing him being strapped to a stretcher and witnessing the ambulance drive away. She could still distinctly remember the dazed look in his eyes, the unhumanly shade of white his skin assumed and its icy cold feel....She convinced herself it was best to stay with her children. That’s right, her children. Somehow, in someway, she would need to explain to them what happened to their father...
She gained a bit of composure and headed back inside the house. Unbeknown to everyone in Belford, the worst was about to come.
