Over the River and Through the Woods

  Hank: Can I get some more tea? Liza?!

  Liza: Shhh! (Sounds of sirens, they get loud then they fade away. She peaks out of the window, sees nothing). We're okay, wifi is off. *Check* Dad you're doing great, please keep going.

  Hank: (looking at Liza like "Are you sure?" but takes a deep breathe and continues) Grandma and Grandpa lived south of the river and on any normal day it would only take about fifteen minutes to get there, cutting through downtown using the expressway. I tried to convince your mother to...

  Hank: Let me go alone, let me go and get them, you and Liza can just stay here, safe.

  Beth: (Gives Hank a cold stare)

  Hank: Please just stay here, bunker down. Maybe throw a peice of wood up across the front door.

  Beth: You're kidding right?! You are not leaving us here alone.

  Hank: But I dont know whats out there.

  Beth: Youre right, we dont know whats out there. Which scares me so much, but we will face it together. What if the violence comes here, Im not going to face it alone. You wouldn't want that either.

  (Looking deep into Hanks eyes)

  Beth: We do this together.All of this, no matter what comes, I want us to do it together...

  (Hank shakes himself out of the painful memory)

  Hank: I wish we could have done it together.You told me... (Holds back the flood of emotions)There was so much that I had to do alone.

  Liza: Hey... (Gets close and hugs Hank... Silence) You're not alone. (Shes steps back and holds Hank's hand) Look at me. I am here. You have always been there for me and I was always with you. You did what she wanted. (Liza is overcome with emotions too, but breathes and locks back in. She remindes herself how important it is to hear this story. How she needs him to keep talking.) You are with me, and we are safe. Ive got you. Let me take care of you now. Keep going, that's what you always told me, right? Even if things get hard, especailly when things get hard, we must keep going. What happened next?

  Hank: (Finding new resolve) We literally ran to the car once we were ready to leave. We made it a game... let's race to the car. I lost. Making sure that everyone got in the car first before me. Our street was still quite, but there were small signs of distress, like I remember Zeek.

  Liza: You mean Uncle Zeek?

  Hank: Yes, Zeek.He was our neighbor across the street at the time.He was a quiet man who typically kept to himself.

  Liza: Uncle Zeek being quite is a hard thing to imagine. Although, now that I think about it, you did do most of the talking whenever we met new people. Sorry, keep going.

  Hank: At that point, the most I'd ever gotten out of him was a short "yep"."How you doing today Zeek?" he'd simply reply, "Yep".Zeek was outside which wasn't the odd part but instead of sitting on his front porch or working in the flowerbeds. Zeek was posted up in the middle of his front yard sitting in a lawn chair, with a shotgun across his lap.Not threating, not angry, but just sitting there watching the street like somewhere between a hardcore lifegaurd and a shepard watching his flock when he knows the wolves are around. The oddest part of the whole thing was when he hollered at me before I got into the car.

  Zeek: You good?

  Hank: What?

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  I was confused, I had never heard Zeek directly address me before. We had lived across the street from him for 7 years, ever since you were born and he had never tried to talk to me.

  Zeek: Are you good? Y'all ok?

  Hank: My back was up against the driver's side door, I could feel the cold metal through my thin tshirt, my hand on the handle of the car and it was trembling with fear. I wasn't afriad of Zeek, but of what could be coming down the street at any moment, I felt exposed. Why hadn't I grabbed a coat? My brain was on fire, a million thoughts and fears were swirling around inside, and all I could think to say in that moment was...

  Hank: Yeah, were good. Going to see my parents. You good?

  Zeek: Yep

  Hank: Ok cool. Be Safe.

  Zeek: Yep.

  Hank: A strong *tap tap tap* came from inside the car, your mother was knocking on the window, frantic with a face that was saying without words, WHATS GOING ON? I jumped back into action.I got in the car slammed the door and stepped on the gas.As I told your mother what had just happened, we hit the main drag and all I could see were the street fires… piles of garbage had been set on fire all along the road.According to the news, it was a new form of protest that had sparked throughout the country, fueled by teenagers who were rebelling against the goverment. I was shocked by the violence.What was happening to my sleepy little city? The new bagel shop that had just opened up around the corner from our house, they made these really good sourdough bagels, I had only made it there a couple of times.As we drove past the shop, I saw the window had been smashed in and thick black smoke was pouring out.

  Your mom just kept singing. You and her sang your sweet songs as we rolled past the flashing blue lights, smoke, and blood. The cops, or ferdal agents, or the army, it was already getting hard to tell which was which, they were in the act of clearing this street, and it was clear that someone had resorted to lethal violence in order to make their point.Which side, the protesters or the pigs, I dont know. But, I do know that I saw the cops but I did not see any protesters.

  The trip to Grandmas I knew was going to take at least twice the time it would normally because I was going to do everything I could to avoid downtown. I decided to take the highway to loop around the city.When we got on the highway, the traffic was normal but the few cars that were on the road were far more aggressive. Everyone had to get somewhere and everyone was flying like a bat through hell in order to get there. Fast and reckless, the cars darted across the road, like I imagine the autobaun would be if it was recreated in a Twisted Metal world.

  Liza: Twisted Metal?

  Hank: It was a video game I used to play with my brother when we were growing up. You played as these cars and you could throw napalm bombs at each other and try and smash one another until one of you died. It was alot of fun.

  Liza: Cool, lets limit the video game references okay. No one knows about your deep cut video game titles from before The Fall.

  Hank: It's not a deep cut, they made a show about it... nevermind.

  It does make me smile thinking about it now… because if your mother had ever considered divorcing me,this would have been the moment. She screamed at me to pull over on the shoulder, slapped my arm as she pleaded with me to go the speed limit but that was not going to work.I understood where she was coming from, I knew that her mama brain was fully activated.She was thinking of you and your safety but all I saw was the road. She started to cry silent tears of anger and fear as I hurdled the car through the bedlam. It was more dangerous to be the slower moving object. The highway was a battle ground and the safest thing to do was to fold into the fray. Your mother sang with you at the top of her lungs. She finally gave up on me and turned around to face you in the backseat. Her eyes locked on yours, while trying to hold back the tears filling up in hers.

  We almost made it to my parents house without an major incidents. We were a mile away from the exit when we saw one car flip as it attempted cut across three lanes of traffic in one sharp move. Your mother screamed as we saw the car clip the bummer of another and it flipped, flipped, flipped and crashed off the side of the road. Any other day, any day before this one and I would have stopped, slammed on my brakes, gotten out on the side of the road to see if everyone was okay and I would have been the one to call 911. But not today. I'd later look back on that very moment, once the noise in my head had slowed down, that was the moment I began to change...

  (Silence)

  I dont want to do this anymore.

  Liza: Dad, please sit down. Just tell me about what happened at Grandmas house. Look at me. Look at me. Breathe. We are one. Dad, we... are... one. Say it! Its the rule, you have to say it! Say it with me.

  Hank and Liza: We are one.

  Hank: (Takes a deep breathe) I know this is important. I get it. I do, but you have to know how painful this is for me. This story doesn't have a happy ending. I know we made it through. I am so happy that we are able to still be together, that you are here with me, my baby girl. But, it was so awful. I did awful things...

  Liza: I dont care. I love you. Nothing will change that. This is bigger then me, this is bigger than us, people need to know what happened. Lets just take it one small piece at a time. You dont have to tell me everything right now... just tell me about what happened when you got to Grandmas.

  Hank: [Long silence]