Young Writers Society

2

Mere seconds after leaving my apartment building, and starting for countryside of west Miami, I am reminded that there is one obstacle to be overcome during my day with the Macintosh gang. This obstacle being, of course, speaking a complete sentence, maybe even three to four words, to one Jane Macintosh. Long wavy brown hair, and a smile that could light up the galaxy has always left me to no more than a babble, and a pitiful, “Hello.” But for some reason, I feel that today, all of that is going to change.

I find a nearly barren city street as I continue on the sidewalk, which is slightly chilling because in my recent memory, it was as crowded as any place in the whole city. Now, it seems as if it has become a ghost town overnight, except for one familiar truck, with a large rose printed on its side, and old Mr. Perkins loading it up with what seems to be his current inventory of flowers. Much like my grandfather, Mr. Perkins is something of a magician at keeping his glasses on regardless of their position on his nose.

As I near the truck, trying to push the eerie silence of the street out of my mind, Mr. Perkins looks up at me from one of his boxes, and waves me over to him, and says, “Sammy boy, how are you this fine morning?”

“Just fine,” I answer, stilling my walk when I nearly kick one of the boxes strung all over the ground. Fortunately, I am of no burden to him, and his current project, “Great actually, yourself?”

“Hard to be down on such a beautiful day, am I right?” He asks me in his sharp, raspy voice as I observe the cloudless blue sky, and feel the cool breeze that makes the outside delightful to be standing in, “Haven’t seen a day like this in months.”

“You’re right about that,” I add as he goes back to loading up the large cardboard boxes into his truck, “Say, Mr. Perkins, do you need any help?”

“I’m sure it wouldn’t do me any harm,” He says as I grab the box before me by its hands on the side, and piling it upon the twenty or so that have already found their way into the truck. I grab another, and he does the same, and after a mere ten minutes we have every one of his boxes up and into the truck, and he says, “Thank you much, my boy.”

“No problem, Mr. Perkins,” I say with a nod, latching the sliding door of the truck shut, and securing it with the think yellow rope that has been tied to the left side of the truck, “Is there anything else you need?”

“I am afraid that’s all that was left to be done,” He answers me, slipping his brittle glasses and rubbing them clear with the bottom of his white shirt, “But meet up with me at my new shop on the ship, and you’ve got yourself a job, my boy. I’ll tell the Misses tonight.”

“Thank you, Mr. Perkins,” I say back, holding out my right hand to him, and giving a respectful nod, he gives firm handshake, and nods me back in approval, “I’ll be seeing you later then?”

“Most certainly,” He answers me back, adjusting his glasses to their prior position, “You have a good day, Samuel.”

“You as well, sir,” I say, giving him another nod, and continuing down the empty street. I hear Mr. Perkin’s truck start, which roars proudly, and sends the behemoth opposite my direction, and toward the ship. I turn back to the street, where I am once again embraced by its emptiness. Not even a bird accompanies me during my travels. How could it be so empty? Especially now with all these newcomers awaiting their boarding of the ship; it seems as though I am completely alone; a wanderer of an abandoned land. For lack of a better use of my time, I yell, “Echo!” into the street, and it mimics my voice for what seems like ages before fading away into the silent nothingness of Western Miami.

Finally, after several minutes of trekking the street with somewhat of a nervous and hurried walk, I emerge from the dense city, and into the peaceful, and life-filled countryside. It always left be wondering why they had made it such a drastic change from the city, as if they just decided to stop, and leave the rest of the land alone. But I am not complaining in the least about escaping that silent deathtrap I just walked through, and I can now enjoy the soothing songs of the birds, and the crickets.

They sing to me with all of their hearts, the songs of their beings. The robins chant highly, and brightly, and the crickets at a rhythm to the air. It has always amazed me how even though we are so much different from one another, that we all take part in the expression of ourselves through music. It sort of sets us equal to them, when we are, or at least we believe we are, so advanced in comparison. Regardless, it is a desperately needed change in atmosphere.

“Sam, I could swear there are sloths that walk faster than you!” I hear Kenny yell to me just as their house becomes visible from the hilltop, Kenny being the only one of the Macintosh gang standing outside of their home. “Seriously dude put some oomph into your step!”

“Where is everyone?” I yell back, seeing as Kenny is alone on the house’s enormous front porch that could comfortable fit twenty or more people upon.

He stands from the wooden picnic table, colored light brown in contrast of the nearly black wood of the porch, and waves me toward him with both of his hands, and answers, “They’re all waiting inside for you!”

I quicken my pace when I hear this, knowing full well that they have obviously been waiting on me for a good while, and begin walking as I reach the top of the short pavement driveway with a large red van, with writing on the side that says, “The Macmobile”. Kenny steps off of his porch, and walks toward me with his right hand out for me to shake.

“Pleasure to meet you again, sir,” He begins in a fake, and absolutely rough foreign accent, shaking my right hand vigorously, “It has been a good three months since I last spoke with you, how’s the family been doing?”

“Oh, come on, I didn’t take that long to get here,” I answer with a playful scowl.

“The townspeople would beg to differ!” He yells into the house again with his fake voice, “Everyone, to the outside! We’ve a visitor from the city!”

The door beyond the porch flies open, and the first one out of the house is Nathan, and he is immediately followed by Elizabeth. Just like that, the Macintosh gang has rallied up, except for one member, however.

“Where is Jane?” I ask Nathan, who raises both shoulders and hands as to say he doesn’t know.

“She spilled milk on her shirt, she had to go change but she’ll be out in a second,” Elizabeth answers me cheerfully.

With a chuckle and a smile, I reply, “Good, then the gang’s all here.”

“Minus the fishing poles,” Kenny adds, waving me to the door, “Why don’t you come fetch them with me; I think they’re in the basement.”

“Lead the way, good sir” I say back, jogging up to Kenny, who approaches the front door, about to grab the knob just before it swings open on its own, or at least it seemed before Jane emerged from behind.

She looks up, and jumps with a startle, “Sammy, you scared me!” Jane shouts to me, in astonishment, holding her hand over her chest to feel her heartbeat, and chuckling with a pant, “I had almost forgotten you were coming.”

“I told you, you did take forever to get here,” Kenny grumbles to be quietly, and I give a look that says shut up.

“Sorry about that,” I say to Jane without babbling without paying much attention to it, and completely out of nowhere, I have completed my day’s objective. My eyes go wide with realization, and I become frozen where I stand.

“It’s alright, no need to apologize, Sammy,” She says back with a smile, and a cheerful laugh, and smiling wide to me, “Just be on your guard, you’ll never know when I might get you back.”

My right hand begins shaking out of control, but I suppress it with my left, and give Jane a smile and a nod, and say, “Don’t be too hard on me,” I pause, still astonished that I am speaking actual words, “I’m afraid I forgot a change of clothes,”

She laughs, walking past Kenny and I with a wide smile, brushing her wavy brown hair over her ear, and takes a seat at the picnic table in the middle of the porch. Kenny punches me in the right arm, and waves me into the house as he mouths to me, “Smooth”. I follow him into the door, and lightly close it behind me. As we enter, I am encountered by a subtle scent, much like a load of clothes coming fresh out of the dryer. Fresh and replenishing, but also dry. Alongside its delightful smell, I had forgotten just how big this house was. Just inside the door, there is wall about ten feet ahead; it splits off, the kitchen to the left where I see mister and misses Macintosh watching something on television, and a hallway that curves out of view to the right. Immediately to the right of the doorway is the staircase to the basement, which Kenny motions me toward, and leads me down all fourteen steps into the basement.

The basement is just the same as the upper floor. It is carpeted wall to wall, at least mostly, only stopping at a small square before a bathroom door, and another before a closet. Within the room, there is a large beige couch directing itself toward a television set; an all glass one that I can see clear through to the blue wall behind it. It is features like these that remind me of my old home on the beach, which at this point has been turned to rubble for months by now. It reminds me of the waves that used to put me to sleep through an open window, but also of how little time we have to enjoy such luxuries.

Kenny walks over to the closet, and pulls on the knob in the middle, folding the two boards of the door covering it, and revealing piles upon piles of boxes, as well as six red and black fishing poles. He tosses four boxes out of the closet, and bundles the poles up with both of his hands, and lifts them up with his left, pushing on the knob of the closet to unfold the two boards back over its opening.

“Samuel, if you’d do me the favor of carrying these boxes here, we can be on our way to the surface,” Kenny says to me in another voice of his, one sounding of sophistication and royalty.

“Is this all we need?” I ask him, walking past the television tentatively, leaning forward and lifting the four boxes up with both of my hands.

“Well, hold on,” He says in his normal voice, looking up to the ceiling and talking to himself, counting with his open hand, “Yeah, that’s the line, the lures, the bait, and the bucket in case we actually catch something. We should be all set.”

“All-righty then,” I say, re-positioning the boxes in my arms to assure I do not lose one on my way outside, “Lead the way.”

He nods, and turns back to the staircase that leads back to the upper floor, and I follow him back up the fourteen steps, and out the door that appears immediately after surfacing. He holds the door open with his empty hand, and waves me through to the outside porch where everyone has gathered at the picnic table to wait on us. Kenny slams the door shut behind us, and continues past me and toward the two step drop that ends the porch, and begins the patio connecting to the driveway.

“To the Lake, we ride!” Kenny says pointing one of the fishing poles with his open hand like a rapier going into battle. When I make my way off of the porch, and the other three remain where they sit at the table, talking indistinctively to one another from where we stand. Kenny directs his arm away from the forest path that leads to their lake at its end, and toward those who remain at the picnic table, lowering his arm, saying, “You know, usually when a man yells something with excitement, and points somewhere, the people around him drop what they’re doing and run into battle.”

“Oh, sorry Kenny,” Elizabeth says back to him with a wide smile, “We hadn’t realized that you had become a man yet.” Nathan and Jane give a quiet chuckle, as does Elizabeth at her own joke, which when I see Kenny’s face when she says this I give out a chuckle of my own.

“Ha-ha, very funny,” Kenny says back, sticking his tongue out at Elizabeth, and turning back toward the forest, beginning his walk for the start of the trail, which slightly muffles him when he says in a much quieter and less excited tone, “To the lake, we ride.”

Nathan, Jane, and Elizabeth all stand from their seat, and one by one hop off of the porch. I join them as they begin for the forest trail, and we all approach the dense and unrelenting wall of trees whose leaves and branches intercept each other so greatly that it is nearly impossible to distinguish each tree from each other. It reminds me of the stories that my grandfather used to tell me when I was younger. When my grandparents would come over on the weekends from their home in the city to watch me and Abigail when my parents had to work late, and they used to tuck us in on the couches in the living room, they always had a story to tell us. He used to say most every night on the weekends that humanity is like a forest. He would say that we are all different parts of the same tree, and that no matter what, no matter how anyone’s life played out we would always be connected by our roots. As a child, I didn’t really understand, and I’m not sure if I will ever understand fully what my grandfather was trying to tell us, but for now, me and the Macintosh gang are will continue our quest into the forest, and to our lake to enjoy one of the last remaining days we live on Earth.

Nobody speaks a word, but the four boxes seem to be having a wonderful conversation of clings and clangs as we walk. The black handles at the front of each box are especially talkative with one another. As we continue, Kenny remains ahead of us with the fishing poles, and a small herd of brown rabbits speckled with small white spots all over there body. The birds sing their little hearts away just as they had when I left the city, which when paired with the beautiful beams of sunlight making their way through the dense canopy made by the intercepting treetops.

“Kenny, why don’t you join us back here?” Elizabeth asks Kenny who is remaining the same distance ahead of us as he was when we were all engulfed in the forest, “You know if you don’t stop pouting, you’ll attract bears.”

“I have five perfectly good fishing poles in my hand,” Kenny answers, turning back to us to display the poles, “If any bear came near me, it wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“I guess you’re right about that,” Nathan adds in, “But what about the situation where the bear has body armor?”

Kenny stops walking forward and turns around, adjusting the five pole’s position on his arm, and says, “I had not run that thought through my mind, thanks for warning me.” He falls into the group between Elizabeth and I, and continues down the trail with us until the ground beneath our feet is that of the lake’s shore, which is lit up immensely by the towering sun over our heads. Finally, our odyssey ends, and Kenny and I set all of our fishing supplies on a large boulder that neighbors the lake.

I had almost forgotten how beautiful this lake was. Crystal clear water, clean enough to drink directly from it, and the perfect border that surrounds the quarter mile perimeter of the entire lake that is nearly a perfect circle. The water is so clear that if you look into it, you can see most each and every one of its inhabitance. Just in front of the border, as the water begins to take over the land, there is a school of catfish that seems curious of our arrival. They stare at Kenny and I only as a fish can, emptily. Sometimes I wonder what they could be thinking about, or if they are even thinking at all.

I look back to the group, who have all taken off their shoes, and have chosen a seat on the long rock that hangs over the lake where their feet can be submerged. Nathan has begun skipping rocks with the large collection that rests behind him, and Elizabeth and Jane just seem to be enjoying the cooling effect that the water is having on their feet. Kenny leaves behind all but one fishing line, and takes along with him the box of lures.

“Let’s join the party, shall we?” Kenny asks me, giving me a nod, and beginning for the long rock with one pole and the lure-box. I slip off my shoes, and my socks follow, plopping on the ground as a crumbled mass of cloth, and walk over to the rock, claiming my spot at the end next to Kenny, who doesn’t waste any time to throw his line into the water.

“So what do you guys think it will be like?” Jane asks everyone, leaning forward and turning toward us from the opposite end of the rock, “You know, on the ship?”

“It will probably be no different than what we live like now,” Elizabeth answers, swinging her legs back and forth through the water, and looking up at the clear blue sky that gives us company today, “But I’d imagine the sky won’t be nearly as blue as it is right here.”

“Cruel as it sounds,” Kenny adds, nudging at his line to check for any catches, but he comes up empty, and leaves it to rest once again, and looking to us to finish his though, “But maybe a change in scenery will do us good.”

“But there is no going back from this one,” Nathan says, looking up to the sky as well, “Once we’re out there, it is pretty much final. We will live the rest of our days on that ship, drifting off to who knows where.”

“Makes me think about all those beautiful days I wasted inside,” I say, joining in on the group’s gaze into the clear sky. I stay silent for a moment before I continue, watching as the sun begins its appearance over the clearing. It creates a wondrous effect off of the tree-line that is now outlined in a Bengal orange. It is truly amazing to me how wondrous our star is, yet it is the very force bent on destroying our world, “All these wonders that I took for granted all my life that now have so little time to thrive.”

We all fall silent for a moment, and I notice as I look back to the ground, everyone else is trapped in a gaze of the sky. Even Kenny throws his attention away from his line, but he hasn’t let up on it; his knuckles are white with the grip he has on the fishing pole. Suddenly, and obviously unexpected by Kenny, his line begins to whine loudly, and his handle begins spinning out of control. He snaps his attention back down to the water, and stands to his feet with to better pull the line to him.

“I’m losing it!” He yells to us, grunting with effort, and straining on the pole that has been bent into a permanent U shape, “Sam, I grab on to this with me, will you?”

I stand from my seat at the rock, and put as much grip onto the empty part of the pole’s handle, beginning to pull back alongside Kenny, who is vigorously spinning the line closer to us. Just as it seems our efforts seem completely futile, Nathan joins in, getting a hold of the pole around our hand, and pulling back as well. Seconds after Nathan pulls back with us, water shoots up into the air like a geyser, and we here an exceptionally loud thud of a large object landing behind us, and the cracking of branches as it rolls into the bushes.

The three of us remain still, and I think Kenny and Nathan are just as afraid to look behind us as I am. What could it have been, to have nearly thrown the three of us into the water with it? I hear the combined footsteps of Jane and Elizabeth behind us. They are going right for it! We still don’t budge, not even on our grip of the fishing pole.

“Guys,” Elizabeth says in that tells me that she is just as shaken up as we are, “Guys, look. You’re not going to believe this.”

We hesitate, but eventually ease our grip; Nathan and I let go of the fishing pole all together. Kenny places it on the long rock gently. We resist from turning around for as long as we can, but the suspense is killing me, and I whip around quickly, seeing Elizabeth and Jane bent over an object, making it impossible to see from this angle. I make my way toward it, stepping to the left side of Jane and seeing what we all once though was purely a silly legend made up by our parent, passed down to them by theirs. But what sits before us in this now destroyed berry bush proves us all wrong. What sits before us is among the most incredible of all things I have ever seen. Its body is all black, and its whiskers have a span of nearly five feet.

Cassie, the great and powerful, has been defeated.