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onceuponmmy · 4 years

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Someone was coming.

And I could feel it.

Even Papa was standing out on the front porch with a shotgun in his hands, glaring out in to the distance so even the devil himself wouldn't dare come near.

And Mama was too busy getting my sister's down in to the basement, the place where mama and papa always put us whenever strangers came around.

As if hiding us from someone.

"Abby, lock the door after your mother takes the girls downstairs." Papa commanded gruffly, keeping his eyes in the distance. With a quick kiss on the cheek, mama looked me in the eyes with worry.

"Be careful Abby." She said softly, before turning and ushering the girls downstairs. I quickly closed the door and locked it, sliding our large Armoire in front of it to keep the basement hidden.

Even I was worried with what was happening.

Papa never usually asked me to stay with him, but today was different.

This visitor was different.

"Abby I want you to go out back and stay hidden in the stables. And when you get a good enough spot where you can see everything, aim my hunting gun directly at the stranger."

Heart in my throat, I nodded my head and quickly shuffled out the back door.

Now was not the time for questions, I could do that later when the visitor was gone.

I ran in to the stables and reached for the gun hanging over the hay bales, loading it the way Papa showed me.

As I put two shells in to the barrels, I could hear the sound of wheels cruching down on gravel.

My heart raced quickly as I wedged myself in between two hay bales, pulling some of the hay over me just as I looked out of the window to see a black sedan emerge from a cloud of dust, the windows tinted black. Papa stood on the edge of the porch, his shotgun held aloof to his side.

When the car came to a stop, I swear I could hear the roar of the engine in my ears. The engine shut off and suddenly all I could hear was the wind.

All four car doors opened and out stepped four men, each of them as different from the other.

The two back passengers were no older then I was, a look of boredom clear on their faces.

One with light brown hair wore Chinos, a dress shirt and a dress jacket, the other with darker hair wore baggy jeans with a torn knee and a hooded sweatshirt zipped to his collarbone. Their faces almost looked alike, but there was something a bit different where you could tell them apart.

Their eyes maybe?

And then there was the driver who wore a long brown trenchcoat that reached to his ankles.

His sleeves rolled at his wrists and his hands covered with black leather gloves.

But then they weren't the ones Papa was interested in. His body had tensed visibly as his eyes rested on the old man that had stepped out of the front passenger seat.

The man that wore dark glasses which hid his eyes from my view, who leaned heavily on a dark wood cane as he walked across the gravel ground to the front porch my father stood on.

"Aim my hunting gun directly at the stranger." I could hear Papa's voice in my head.

The problem was which stranger did he want me to point the gun at.

"It's been a long time, Ethan." The old man spoke with an accent, like English was not his first language.

"Apparently not long enough." Papa said tightly, not quite raising the shotgun from his side.

The old man laughed pompously.

"Then you know why I am here." Taking another step closer, he reached up for the glasses and took them from the bridge of his nose.

I had to stop myself from gasping out loud, seeing what were supposed to be his eyes were black voids in the sockets of his face.

"You can't have her, Marcus." Papa said firmly.

Something told me that he was the person my father wanted me to point the gun at. Ever so slightly I positioned the barrel of the gun to aim it at the old mans chest.

"You don't really have a choice." With the snap of his fingers, the other three men with him came forward. As if surrounding him like a shield.

Then the strangest thing happened.

The roar started loud in my ears again, but this time I felt it in every cell in my body

I wasn't sure if my blood was boiling or if it was running cold through my veins but it felt like my whole body was on fire.

At first I thought I was the one screaming until I heard another scream sound off from somewhere inside the house.

I knew something was wrong, and my family needed me.

Without thinking I stumbled from out of the barn with Papa's hunting gun, keeping it pointed at the old man.

Even though my head throbbed and my body felt like my skin would melt off, I summoned the will to scream at them.

"Leave now!" The words vibrated in the air, making all four men stare at me with surprise.

That is all except the old man.

"Hello Abby." He said smugly.

Shocked, I kept my finger on the trigger.

"Abby! Get to your mother!" Papa shouted from the ground, his arms flashing visibly with some kind of energy.

"But Papa-"

"Now!"

With that one word, a shockwave of energy shot out from my father's hands, hitting the men over like bowling pins.

The vibrating stopped and the world felt right again, apart from the ringing in my ears

Before the strangers could get their bearings and get up, I quickly took off at a run to the back door of the house and quickly made it to the armoire.

Well where it was supposed to be.

It looked like something strong had picked it up and thrown it across the room. There was broken glass and broken crockery everywhere.

The basement door was in no better shape, the door having been ripped off its hinges and floating in the air.

"Mama!" I screamed, running toward what was left of the basement doorway.

Mama was being carried up the stairway by my sister Sade who was a year younger then me. She seemed like she was arguing with someone, muttering under her breath as she lifted our mother with ease.

Mama wasn't a big woman, but she wasn't exactly small either. And something had clearly hurt her leg to make her limp so visibly.

"Abby! I think Xana is hurt!" Our baby sister Elle cried from the basement, holding on to her older sister's head in her lap. I gathered Xana's scrawny frame in to my arms and both Elle and I ascended the stairs to get out of there.

I didn't know if those men had followed me or not but I didn't want to hang around long enough to find out.

If the basement plan didnt work, we had to get out of there.

"Sade! Get mama to the pick up truck out back! And start the car!" I yelled, hefting our barely conscious sister a few steps behind them, Elle right at my heels.

"Abby we can't leave without Papa." Sade yelled back, moving round to the passenger side to put mama in to the seat. She buckled her seatbelt carefully before shutting the door quickly.

Scampering back round to the driver's side she got in and tried to start the truck. She turned the key once, then again and it was only met with a mewling sound.

The truck battery was dead flat.

"Abby, let me." I felt Xana move from out of my arms. She went to stand up next to the trucks' bonnet then placed both her hands down on the hood.

With a scream, sparks transferred from her hands in to the truck and a lot of things started going crazy.

The car alarm was going off, the window wipers were swishing back and forth. But most important of all, the engine was rumbling.

"How did you..."

"There's no time Abby." Sade said hastily, ushering Elle in to the seat between her and mama. She belted our baby sister in before closing the door and looked at me seriously as she put both hands on the wheel.

"Get Xana in to the back of the truck with you, we're going to get Papa."

Even though there were so many questions burning in the back of my mind, I knew now was not the time to be sitting around talking. I boosted Xana up in to the back of the pick up and pulled myself in too.

All of us knew how to drive a car since I could remember, Papa having taught us as soon as we could walk and talk.

So I trusted our lives in any one of my sister's hands.

As she put the truck in drive and skidded it around the left side of our house, Papa was limping as he held on to his left side.

I reached out my hand as we swerved past him, he grabbed on and I pulled him up on to the back of the truck with us.

And as Sade drove us down the driveway in a cloud of dust, I could just barely see the outline of the four men standing there next to our house.

And I knew there was no way we were ever going back there.

~~~~~~~

Living on a remote farm out in the middle of nowhere, we hunted or raised our own food and animals, and grew our own fruit and vegetables in our gardens.

We never relied on anyone else, and if Mama or Papa needed to get something that we couldn't get on the farm, Papa would drive to the nearest town to get it himself.

Most people would say we were poor.

Even though my sisters and I had only a few pieces of clothing, we didn't care, it was just the way it was.

The farm was the only place my sisters and I have ever known.

Mama said that we had lived there our whole lives, but I knew different.

She knew I wasn't that naive, but my sisters and I chose to believe that lie.

For some insane reason, we all knew that it wasn't that we couldn't handle the truth. But because bringing it up only brought mama pain.

So we chose to believe the lie her and Papa told us and continued living the life we were given.

Until now.

~~~~~~~~~

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