The Hollowed Land Page 3

  So, including their new home in Echo Bluff, this would be… five? No, six bedrooms in six houses in which he'd been locked in overnight. The sun through the heavy wooden shutters threw thin bands of light across the green Berber carpet.

  It was a quarter after five. He had to piss and his mom had locked him in. He kept an empty soda bottle tucked under his bed in case of emergencies, but his desperation wasn't quite to that level yet. He'd learned that pissing in his secret soda bottle was a better option than pounding on the door and waking his parents in the middle of the night. And yet, with the windows shuttered tight, and the door latched, he felt a strange sense of calm. He was safe here, cocooned away from the world. Sure, he couldn't get out, but nothing could harm him here, either.

  Their voices were murmurs of greeting. A playful laugh from his mom. A warm chuckle from his dad. So normal. So everyday.

  Why had he bothered to ask his mom about going to Chicago with Billy? If he hadn't mentioned it, he wouldn't be locked in here. If he hadn't, he'd most likely be seated in the living room, reading some dusty history book his dad was always impressing upon him. By now his dad would've loosened his tie and ruffled Kip's hair. His dad hated wearing a "neck noose" as he often called it, but it was standard issue in his job as an insurance fraud investigator. By now the stress lines would be easing from the corners of his eyes. By now, nothing monumental or earth-shattering would be threatening the horizon.

  Their murmured voices kicked up a level in volume. Kip could almost make out words. He pressed his ear against the door, and it was like listening to an aquarium—louder, but muffled and echoing.

  Kip's father didn't like the outside world. That's what he often called it—the outside world. There was family—just the three of them—and everyone else on the god damned planet.

  "You're telling me?" his dad shouted, clear as day. "You… are telling me?"

  Kip's heart raced as he listened to his mom's inarticulate reply.

  An abrupt slap cut her off.

  "You think we can just let him traipse about town with stranger kids? Like he's supposed to fit in?"

  "But he does!" she said, her words becoming clear. "If we just give him a chance. A chance at a normal life…"

  "You don't tell me anything! Got it?"

  Kip was ready to pound on the door. His knuckles were drawn back, ready to pummel solid oak.

  "You're sorry? Is that all you have to say? Sorry…?"

  There was a rough sound. The sound of violence, of struggle. The sound of rage transferred to flesh.

  "I'll show you something to be sorry for…"

  Kip heard the tearing of clothing, another rough slap. And then… a moan. Not of pain or fear, but pleasure. And it was coming from his mom.

  Kip recoiled from the door, disbelieving, disgusted. He sat on the edge of his bed and tucked his legs up under him. And as the sounds from the other side of the door became even louder, became impossible to ignore, he flopped onto his back and plugged his fingers into his ears so hard it seemed like he could hear waves crashing inside his head. As the waves crashed one after another, his mind retreated from now, seeking some far distant shore. Somewhere other than here.

  3.

  It was sometime in the middle of the night when the sound of the latch woke Kip from a deep sleep. He blinked a few times, disoriented. He still wore his shorts and a t-shirt. He'd missed dinner and was so hungry that it felt like his stomach had collapsed on itself. And he had to piss about a gallon.

  The urgency in his bladder drew him out of bed. He went to the door, doubting he had actually heard the latch opening.

  He slowly turned the knob and pulled the door inward. It was just as dark in the hallway, but he could see his mother's pale, slight form as she hastily reached the door at the end of the hall.

  She floated like gossamer fog. She stopped in her doorway, using the doorframe to shield her partial nakedness from him.

  "You can go." She gathered the tattered remains of her blouse and pulled them together. Her hair was in disarray. Even in the uncertain light he could see the red welt on her cheek. "Make friends, Christopher. You deserve so much more than this."

  "Mom… you can't just let him—"

  She cut him off with that same sad smile as she had right before she'd locked him away inside his bedroom. Locked him away to keep him safe from the monster living under their roof.

  "Promise me."

  "Yes, Mom, of course, but you can't let him—"

  "It's done." She lowered her eyes and closed the door. Immediately, he was closed off to the entire world. Because, really, she was his entire world.

  He had to piss so bad. He looked and listened for any sign of his father. He took a few tentative steps down the hall, and when he glanced into the living room, he saw him sprawled on the couch, and the bare white of his thigh, his naked buttocks. Then he heard the contented snore. Kip hurried down to the bathroom, trying his damnedest to piss as quietly as possible. When he returned to his bedroom, he only hoped that his dad wouldn't notice the unlatched door before dawn.

  Chapter 5

  1.

  Delaney watched Kip tell his story until he paused and fell silent. He picked up another pebble and tossed it into the foul lake. The impact cast out weak waves that were soon absorbed by the water's natural ebb and flow. He seemed mesmerized by it and picked up another pebble, tossed this one as well. She had never seen him like this. So contemplative. So… weak.

  A sharp cry came from the city, a man in agony, somewhere close. She glanced cautiously over her shoulder, but the voice choked off to nothing. She turned to look at Kip closely. His face had weathered in the last few years. He grew a thick dark beard that was only interrupted by a wide scar on his left cheek near the jawline. As so often happened when she looked at him in any depth, she wanted to reach out and touch that scar, to feel the nerveless stretch under her fingertips.

  She had been with Kip from shortly after Election Day, when the EMPs brought down the electrical grid and brought civilization to heel in a few short days. For nearly every day since their first meeting, she had told herself to love this broken man. After countless days and weeks under his protection, those words became not only easier to repeat to herself, but had also found a basis in truth. Watching him now, she made a point of repeating her mantra: I love Kip Redfield. Yes, I love Kip Redfield.

  She had to love Kip. There was just no questioning it. If she hadn't immediately brought him into her heart, she would've never become a member of the Anaki, and would've never survived to this point.

  As if sensing her intensive stare, Kip traced his index finger along the length of the scar at his jawline. He sighed and eased back until he was staring up at the gray sky. He braced his hands behind his head, blinked and said nothing more.

  2.

  Delaney remained alert. Simply being aware of your surroundings was a key ingredient to survival since Election Day. Kip's eyelids became heavy, but never remained closed for long.

  For a short time, her life had been perfect. But the Anaki arrived like a pestilence, destroying the remnants of civilization.

  Delaney remembered choking on dust and feeling like her head had been split in half. Even now she bore the jagged scar she suffered that day when the building in which she was hiding collapsed on top of her. And returning to consciousness with her clothes torn from her body and a circle of men surrounding her, ready to defile her flesh with their own.

  Trying to stand and nearly blacking out from the blood rushing to her head. And the men taking hold of her limbs, splaying her wide on a cold stone floor for their pleasure.

  Her memory blurred, and even now, her vision started to darken, threatening to boil over into madness, a cold blind rage. Her mind flashed with the memory of what it feels like to take hold of a man's scrotum and tear it open like a ripe fruit. She could still taste the blood from her actions on her lips, the bludgeoning fists of the Anaki in response. And vowing to fight until either
she savaged their bodies to pulp, or they put her down like a mad dog.

  And in that blur of vile memories, she felt her recoiled fist held in check by an even stronger grip. And the face of the man holding her violence at bay. Kip's sad eyes without a trace of the anger seen in any of her attackers. She grasped with her free hand next to her until she found a sharp-edged stone on the floor near her naked hip. She struck him in the face, slicing open his jawline.

  He could have easily ended her life right then and there, but his eyes never flashed with anger, and he didn't strike her. Instead, he took her in his arms and carried her bloody naked body away from the rubble of the ruined building.

  "Kip?" Acrid wind buffeted her face, made her eyes begin to water.

  "Hmm?" he replied, his eyes widening.

  She wanted to ask him why he saved her from a brutal gang rape and horrible death. The subject had never come up between them. Sure, they never talked much to begin with, but she also wanted to both forget that traumatic day and not test the ties that bound them together as any marriage had before the Election.

  "What happened at the beach that day?"

  He chuckled and then said, "You don't really want to know."

  "Yeah, I do," she replied. He turned to face her. "Really, I do."

  "Well… my life changed." He paused. "But then, somehow, it didn't."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I realized I didn't have self-determination, but only after putting it to the test."

  Chapter 6

  Thirteen years before the Election…

  1.

  Kip once again heard the sound of his bedroom door's latch opening. He was still rising from the depths of sleep, just starting to blink away the crust at the corner of his eye, when a bracing bucket of water was dumped over his head. He sat up fully and sputtered and spit, wiping at his face.

  "What the…?"

  "Time to train." His dad dropped a new pair of running shoes on Kip's bed and turned to leave. "Meet me in the driveway in five minutes."

  "Dad, what—?"

  "Five minutes."

  The sky was a bruised canvas just shy of dawn when Kip stepped outside. He'd changed into sweatpants and a t-shirt. The running shoes fit well, but were stiff and in need of breaking in. He'd been training with his dad in their basement gym for a few months. At the beginning, he'd been a string-bean weakling with no muscle definition. Now, after thousands of repetitions with cast-iron dumbbells and countless sit-ups and push-ups, Kip, while still skinny, had a layer of lean muscle on his growing frame.

  His dad wore a similar outfit as Kip, but his shoes were well-worn. He didn't immediately acknowledge Kip as he joined him near the street.

  His dad checked his watch. "Four minutes thirty seven. Cutting it close."

  "I made it. I'm on time." Kip's stomach was a bundle of nerves. He didn't know what was going on, but in some way, he knew it was punishment for wanting to go to Chicago.

  "On time is late." His dad grinned that knowing, dark grin.

  "I know, I know."

  "I'll have none of your lip."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Now I know you want to go to Chicago with your… friend."

  "Billy Revere."

  "Whatever." His dad looked down the street as if expecting someone. There were no signs of headlights. They could be the only people awake in the entire world, or at least that's how it felt. "Your mom," his dad broke into a soft chuckle, "your mom convinced me to let you go, so a man of my word, I'm letting you go."

  "Th-thank you," Kip said, but couldn't help a shudder at the thought of what his mom had to do to convince him.

  "But you can't be gone all day and miss out on your training. That's why I thought you should join me on my morning jog."

  "You jog?"

  "Every morning I jog five miles while you're still drooling on your pillow."

  "Five… miles?"

  "Yes, and we better get moving. The day's already started, and there's a lot to accomplish before all is said and done." His dad nodded and took off down the road without another word.

  Kip ran to catch up. When he'd finally caught up, they were all the way down the block and moving considerably faster than what Kip would consider a jog.

  His dad gave him a sidelong glance, chuckled again, and then picked up the pace. "Better stay with me. Stragglers get all-day chores, and it would be a shame to let down this Billy friend of yours."

  2.

  The sun was up when Kip reached their street. In the last mile or so Kip had started to lag; he and his dad had gotten separated like two stretched bits of taffy pulled to their limit. When Kip had started to fall behind, his dad had said nothing. He'd merely chuckled, looking like he was on a walk in the park. Kip's lungs burned and a side-stitch under his left ribs was nearly crippling. He kept his feet moving, even though he could feel them slip-sliding inside his shoes. At first the shoes felt fine, but then they began to rub and pinch at the heels and balls of his feet. For the last half mile the rubbing pain had become a heated fire, and then that fire was joined by wetness. Blisters. Rubbed raw, rubbed to pulp, and now bloody.

  As he neared his house, he saw his dad standing at the end of their driveway, stretching his hands high above his head. Kip picked up his pace to close it out. A new cramp flared in his shoulder. He kept moving, desperate to be done. Desperate to impress his dad, no matter how weak and inept he felt.

  His form went to pieces when he reached the driveway. He staggered to a stop and placed his hands on his knees, breathing as deep as his side-stitch would allow.

  "I should make you stay home today…"

  "Wha… are you… serious?"

  "Absolutely. My word means something. But… on the other hand, I also made a deal with your mom."

  "Dad, please. It's just one day. I did what you wanted. I jogged your five miles."

  "But you didn't keep pace."

  "It's my first day!"

  His dad stretched down and touched his fingers to the toes of his left foot. He shifted and did the same for the right foot. "Do you think I like this?"

  "Yes, I do. I think you like making me jog until my feet are bloody. I think you like knowing that you can dangle this trip to Chicago over my head, ready to snatch it away at any time."

  "You don't know nothing about nothing. You got that? Nothing." His dad pointed an index finger at him, looking like he wanted to smack him instead. "If you only knew about how the world really worked you wouldn't be so lippy with me."

  His dad glared at him, and for once, Kip glared right back. "You better make your mom up an icepack or two." He smirked. "She's going to need it."

  Chapter 7

  Kip hiked a backpack higher on his shoulders as he reached the sidewalk leading up to Billy's house. Before he left, he had bandaged his bloodied feet. As he wrapped the seeping, raw wounds, he almost decided not to come. But if he backed out that would mean that his mom had suffered for nothing, and he couldn't let that happen. Whatever happened today, he had to see this trip through. He stopped midway up the walk, waiting apprehensively as he stared at the bright blues and reds of the stained glass peace symbol glimmering in the front window. His dad would never approve of Billy. Kip also doubted he would approve of Billy's parents, and Kip hadn't even met them yet. He glanced back at his house as if expecting to see his dad standing on the front lawn, his arms folded, his brow a stern furrow. Luckily, he saw no sign of him.

  Kip could hardly believe he was here, and now that he was here, he really didn't know what he was doing. He chewed on his lip and felt sweat trickle from his left armpit. He rarely interacted with people other than his mom and dad, but that would have to change if he was ever going to escape the pull of his dad's dysfunctional gravity. Kip lived in a bubble, and he knew it. He was awkward and naïve; that was as plain as day. He needed to learn how other people lived. While that reality scared him to no end, the alternative wasn't something he ever wanted to consider.

  You
can do this, he thought. They're just people... just every day, normal people. He took a deep, steadying breath.

  An old brown VW bus sat in the Revere's driveway. The side door was open, ready for loading. He noticed grocery bags with chips and other snacks already stowed behind the front seats.

  The screen door to the house swung open and Billy Revere stepped out, straining under the weight of a large green cooler. A precarious tower of beach towels tottered on top of the cooler to the level of his chin. Billy saw Kip and smiled. "Hey, a little help!" Billy called out as the towels began to avalanche.

  Kip ran over, ignoring the flaring pain in his feet, and grabbed the towels as they toppled over.

  "Nice one, bro," Billy said, still struggling with the cooler. "Luna threw those on there. Real funny, right?"

  "Here, let's try this out." Kip tossed the towels back onto the cooler, and then took hold of one of the handles.

  "Righteous," Billy said with some relief. "Let's load this into the back of the bus so we can hit the road!" He wore an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt and long peach-colored surfing shorts. A necklace of white shells hung from his neck. He looked like a beach bum, someone who lived by the vagaries of the tide, someone who couldn't possibly call a tiny landlocked farming community home.

  Kip let Billy lead the way, and after a few uncoordinated strides, they found their rhythm. "Who's Luna?"

  "That's my mom." Billy rolled his eyes. "My parents don't like labels. My dad goes by Ziggy."

  "Ziggy? Really? So…" Kip paused as the cooler jostled between them, "what do I call them?"

  "I don't know, Kip. How about Luna and Ziggy. You know, their names?"

  "Okay." Kip didn't know about that. Calling adults by their first names? His dad would never approve. But wasn't that part of the point of this little excursion? To push the boundaries, to see what it was like in the outside world?

  "I didn't think you'd make it. We didn't hear from your parental units."