Hobbes Family by O'Brien Dan

Author:O'Brien, Dan [O'Brien, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2013-08-06T16:00:00+00:00

IV

Day 148

T

he air outside had an ethereal quality, as if there was something waiting to take form just beyond the tree line. Michael had become accustomed to the silence. His wife would often sit quietly with their daughter, smoothing back her hair and humming a nameless tune.

Everyone was a stranger, even to themselves.

Night had settled.

Daylight frightened him the most. Nightmares were meant to be hidden in darkness. In the light of day, groaners were abstract art gone wrong, diseased sculptures fumbling to be real. Simple things were the most difficult to get over. Running water and the ease of electricity, the forgotten wizardry of flipping a switch, made moving from one room to another in the haunting hours after dusk a harrowing ordeal indeed.

The room in which they had barricaded themselves was bathed in slivers of light: a broken board here, a cracked pane there. Michael sat with his back to an overturned refrigerator that acted as a sentinel against the door behind him. Susanna and Clara sat in the center of the room, worn and faded playing cards set between them.

Pink headphones pressed down his daughter’s hair.

Their mute expressions changed little as his daughter placed a card down, and then his wife collected it. They were playing setback, a game Michael’s father had taught him decades ago. Susanna took neither pleasure nor heartbreak from the game. The far side of the room was littered in disheveled piles of food racks and overturned furniture collected from the rest of the convenience store.

The back room served its purpose well.

There was one window to the back that overlooked the forest just beyond. The front door had been boarded up long before the Hobbes family had taken residence. The chain interlocking the door was locked with a series of keyed and combination locks pilfered from what little stock remained.

As Clara won a hand, a brief smile lit up her face. Michael’s stomach sunk and he felt his eyes warm. In the months after the fall, he rarely saw his daughter smile. It was a gross injustice if there was ever any stock to be placed in the fairness of the world.

The laughter of children disappeared first.

Civilization was tethered by the stolen moments when death and disorder played no part. A newborn laughing upon seeing her mother’s face, a small boy throwing a ball to his father for the first time: The theft of these was unforgivable.

Standing, Michael walked around his wife and daughter, not wanting to disturb their rhythm. The door leading out into the main area of the convenience store was cast in a shadow. As he took a step closer to the door, the handle moved imperceptibly.

His heart thudded in his chest.

Waiting a moment, a thin whine echoed in his mind.

The handle jiggled again.

Michael took a few steps back toward his family, the back of his leg bumping into his daughter. She turned; her wide eyes were distant. He lifted her up in a smooth movement and touched his wife’s shoulder as he held a single finger to his lips.

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