Page 4

Past

I stick my hand in the feed bag and pull out a handful. Offering my palm to the goats, I giggle when their tongues tickle my palm. The distinct sound of metal cutting through the air breaches my brain.

I lean left slightly and exhale. A throwing knife, sharp and lethal, lodges in the wooden post next to my head, and I whirl around.

Eyes bulging from my head, I yell, “Not funny!”

“You can’t afford to be complacent, Kid,” Papa says.

“I’m not. I was feeding the goats.”

He gives me a stern look. “You’ve always got to be prepared.”

I jut my hip out and slam a hand down on it. “For what?!” I cry out.

“Emotion will get you nowhere. Fifty. Now,” Papa grunts.

I glare at him before stomping to the metal bar that is lodged between two barn beams. I dry my palms on my shorts and leap up, grabbing the bar.

“One,” he counts.

By forty, my arms scream in protest, but I don’t quit. I pull myself up, chin over the bar ten more times until he counts fifty, and drop down. My arms hang like worms at my sides. They tremble and quake as if they’re controlled by their own separate nervous system.

“Tomorrow, we hunt,” he says before turning and walking back inside. I drop to the ground and lie there, staring at the ceiling, wondering why in the hell my schooling consists of training for the apocalypse.

I didn’t start questioning anything until I turned thirteen. I never questioned what Papa taught until he started bringing home books for me to read. Books that taught me what school was like, what normal kids were like. Before that moment, I’d assumed that all kids were schooled like me.

I thought everyone’s life was like ours.

Hunting, gun safety, crossbow training, Krav Maga, pull-ups, sit-ups, squats, push-ups, and knife throwing. We worked on one skill a day until we completed the list and then went back to the beginning again. Rinse and repeat.

The only thing I questioned was my mother’s absence. To which I only ever got a terse, “ She left us a long time ago, Kid.”

We grew our own food, hunted for meat. We played hide and seek so I could learn how to remain silent and still—for survival. He set up elaborate traps to hone my attention to detail and my ability to focus.

But those books he got me, those changed my world.

They altered the very fabric of my being.

The books made me realize our lives were unique.

I asked Papa why I wasn’t in school like other kids.

Why I didn’t have friends or parents like they did.

Why we never saw the ocean, or traveled the world, or do any of the things I read about?

“You’re not like other kids, Kid. You’re special.” He’d grinned down at me but I didn’t like his answer.

“But why?” I’d asked.

“You just are. The skills I teach you serve a purpose. We’re living in an age of pesticides, of all-important capitalism, greed, four-bedroom houses, and Stepford wives.

Greed and materialism have tarnished this country.

We live humbly to keep us grounded. To keep us alert and alive, Kid.

Every skill I teach you, you will need someday. And I mean every single one.”

“For what though? Why do I have to learn these things?” I whined.

He patted me on the head and grinned. “Because Kid, you’re special. You might be the most special kid alive.”

God, Papa was so irritating with his cryptic responses.

I’d been so infuriated that day. I’d stormed to my room and slammed the door.

I’d laid on my bed and cried and sobbed until I fell asleep.

I didn’t want to be special. I didn’t want Papa’s stupid tricks and tactics.

I wanted to be normal. But normal was as useless as a wish blown across a dandelion.

I push off the dirt floor of the barn and pet the goat’s heads before I go inside.

Judging by the sky, it was nearing dinner time.

Dinner is rabbit with apple, parsnip, potato hash. It hits the spot.

Papa is a great cook, always has been, so he says. I clear the plates from the table and rinse them. It’s my job.

He cooks. I clean up.

It’s been this way for as long as I can remember. I wipe the dishes dry and set them in the drying rack.

“Kid,” Papa calls to me.

When I reach the living room Papa has the chess board all set up and waiting for us. I snag a pillow off the couch and sit atop it on the floor. Papa winks at me.

“Think you can beat me yet?”

“You’re on old man,” I say, which makes Papa chuckle. It’s a deep rumbling laugh; a sound I love to hear because it happens infrequently.

Papa might be strict, strange, and quiet, but he loves me, of that I am certain. The timer dings about thirty minutes into our game. Papa stands, stretches, and heads for the oven.

“What’d you make?” I ask.

He doesn’t answer. Instead, he pulls a tray from the oven and transfers it to a plate. He carries the plate over and sets it down next to the chess board. Chocolate chip cookies. Fat, thick, gooey ones.

My favorite.

“Thanks, Papa.” I snatch one from the plate and shove the entire thing in my mouth with a groan. They’re still hot, but I don’t care.

Treats are just that in our house—treats. Papa nods and does the same. By nine the sun has set, and blackness surrounds our modest cabin. I pick up the chess pieces and put them away, along with the board, before kissing Papa on the top of his head. He squeezes my hand in response.

From my room, I can hear Papa closing up the house for the night. Locking windows and doors and checking my bedroom door before setting his rifle down next to his bed. The thunk of the butt hitting the hardwood floor, the telltale sign.

After my door handle turns and Papa is satisfied that it’s locked, I know it’s safe to crack open my window. I love the smell of the fresh, crisp mountain air. A cacophony of sound creeps inside when I stay still and quiet. Crickets, frogs, deer, and birds. It’s the best soundtrack.

It’s also the only noise out here, we’re buried so deep in the mountains. The cool night air wafts in gently, improving the sleeping conditions. My eyes flutter closed as I think about the golden-skinned boy, Truman, from earlier.

Soon, I drift off.

I’m sitting at a table. Sunlight streams through big windows next to me.

A radio plays lively dancing music with a little static mixed in.

I watch the dust dance in the beams of light.

Two boys sit at the table with me, laughing as they use a piece of macaroni for tabletop football.

A beautiful woman kisses my forehead before returning to the stove to stir a silver pot.

I feel so small. Too small.

A man enters the room. He tousles the boys’ heads before pinching my cheeks and kissing me. It makes me laugh.

The man kisses the beautiful woman and I feel joy or maybe just peace. The man grabs the beautiful woman and starts dancing around the kitchen with her.

Glass shatters around me. It flies like glitter. Red-tinged glitter. I blink rapidly and swipe at my face. The joyful song still plays.

Debris flies and crimson splatters every surface.

I cry.

I wail.

Except for the radio, the room falls silent. No one moves. Not the beautiful woman. Not the man. Not the two boys. I can’t move from my seat. I’m locked in. I squeeze my eyes shut tightly and scream.

When I open my eyes, a man, my father, lifts me from my chair and squeezes me to him. He whispers words in my ear as he walks with me from that room. From the woman, and man and the two dark haired boys.

I wake up sweating and nervous and confused.

It’s a dream that has plagued me for as long as I can remember. It feels more like a vivid memory than a dream, but that’s ridiculous. I’ve never been in any life-threatening situation before.

Sometimes, I lie in bed and try to recall my very first memory after I wake up from the nightmare.

As far as I can tell, I remember being three or four years old and Papa’s handsome face. His big hand holding mine and the way I struggled to keep pace with his long even strides as he walked.

I remember hotel rooms and being in the car a lot before we finally settled in our cabin. I don’t remember my mother. It ticks me off that I can’t conjure up a vision of her. It pisses me off even more that Papa refuses to discuss it with me.