Surviving Death
When he awoke, it was around nine or ten in the evening. The full moon shone into the room, illuminating everything. He heard the rumbling of his stomach, voicing its need for food. He sat up and stretched his arms high over his head. Awkwardly, he stood next to his bed and hesitated. He did not know why, but for a second, he did not want to go downstairs. A sense of foreboding pushed its way into his consciousness, demanding attention. As Rhys left his room, he suppressed the feeling and descended the grand staircase.
Because his father was one of the wealthiest executives in the city, the house was fully furnished when they bought it five moths ago. The floors were all made of hard wood, except for the bedrooms that had carpets. The house was two stories high with eleven bedrooms.
At the foot of the stairs was the door to his father’s study. Rhys had been rarely allowed in the room since they had moved, since his mother died. His father had become detached from his son over the last five months. Just as Rhys locked himself in his room, his father would do the same on his study.
Tonight, Rhys paused at the foot of the stairs. The door to the study was open, and light streamed into the hallway. This usually meant his father wanted to talk. He started to enter but stopped short. In the room, he were men in matching suits and a woman in a deep red dress. Rhys’ father sat behind the great oak desk, facing the doorway. One of the men, who were the largest of the three, held a gun in his hand, the muzzle right up against his father’s left temple. It was the woman, with her back turned from the door, who spoke first.
“Where is the surveillance tape from your building’s parking lot?” Rhys heard the woman say in a low voice. His father remained silent.
“C’mon, you’ve been trying to blackmail me for months, and I let you get away with it. I was scared, but not anymore. I decided to take care of my problem. However, you just had to run away. Now that’s just too bad for you because it’s all or nothing.” She paused. “Now, where is that tape?” His father remained silent, looking down on the desk. Rhys heard the woman sigh.
“Fine,” she said almost sorrowfully. Then she spoke to the man with the gun: “Kill him.”
His father looked up and saw Rhys, hidden by the doorway. For a moment, they held each other’s gaze. His father smiled in a way he hadn’t seen since they moved.
Rhys’ eyes widened in horror as the man pulled the trigger. Everything seemed to occur in slow motion. He could hear the deafening sound of the shot echoing, yet he knew it would never echo. The sound muffled Rhys’ gasp. The impact of the bullet penetrating his father’s skull moved his head to the right. Then, everything returned to the normal speed of life. His father slumped to the right of his chair; his eyes were still open, but they were lifeless.
“Make it look like suicide,” the woman ordered the men as she turned and sighed. Rhys, who had moved from his hiding place, was in full view of the woman. For the first time, he could see her face. She looked like she was in her late thirties. Her blonde hair was ornately piled on her head. She smiled maliciously, her cold, blue eyes glittering. That was when Rhys began to run. He had not thought about where he was going. All he knew was that he had to run; he had to survive.
“You two, after him!” shouted the woman, “You! Stay here and finish this!”
Rhys sprinted through the living room, out the front door, and into the woods surrounding the house. He always regretted the fact that the house was secluded from other houses, now more than ever. The fresh air cooled his heated skin. Adrenaline surged through his veins, giving him the energy to run faster and harder, away from where his father was murdered.
It felt like Rhys had been running for hours, but it was only mere minutes. He hid behind a patch of crowded trees. Rhys slumped against a tree, trying to catch his breath. He could hear his heartbeat thundering in his ears, feel his heart pounding against his ribs. He considered himself lucky he had not changed when he had gotten home; he would have been outside shirtless and shoeless.
Rhys tried to relax, willing himself to be calm. His father always told him that a calm mind made the best decisions. However, he couldn’t. All he could do was replay his father’s death repeatedly. Tears stung his eyes, but he quickly blinked them away. This is no time to grieve, he told himself, when this is all over…if this will ever be over, then and only then will it be the time to grieve.
Closing his eyes, Rhys fought the flood of emotions for control. It felt like he was drowning, unable to break the surface of the water for one breath. He closed his eyes and tried to regulate his breathing, counting each breath he took. Once he reached sixty, he started over just for the calming effect it produced in him. When Rhys felt calmer, he opened his eyes once more. He stood in the middle of the forest while contemplating what he should do; that was when he heard it. It was a faint voice calling him. It reminded him of his mother when they had played hide-and-seek together. Her voice, sweet and melodious, echoed in his head. Rhys shook his head; she was dead, and this voice was very much alive. His heart began to beat faster, all the calm he had felt was slowly replaced by fear.
“Hey, boy, where are you?” one of the men shouted. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
“Yea, we just wanna talk,” the other one shouted, harboring a Boston accent.
“Yeah, talk.”
The sound of the voices weren’t as far away as Rhys had hoped them to be. He straightened himself and began to escape as quickly and silently as possible. As he learned exactly where to place his feet with minimal noise, he was able to maneuver silently in the woods. He did not want to be captured. What would they do to a boy who witnessed his father’s death? Rhys knew what they would do to him. They would kill him just like they did his father. The realization sent another burst of energy through him. His feet barely touched the ground as he ran. He felt the air whipping through his black hair and saw the trees blur in the corner of his eyes.
Then it happened. Rhys tripped over a dead tree half-buried in the ground. The loud crack it produced when he fell on it echoed throughout the forest.
“I heard ‘im!” said the man with the accent. “Ovah theh.”
Rhys scrambled to his feet, his panic rising, his thoughts cursing himself for his clumsiness. He ran, not caring if the men heard him. He ran through the forest with only the full moon to guide him. Fear gripped Rhys’ heart, but he was slowing down. The fatigue from earlier was catching up to him. Rhys could hear the men running behind him. He struggled to elude his predators. Rhys sensed his energy draining from him, slowly but surely. His legs were weakening.
I shouldn’t have ran that fast in the beginning, he thought. Now I’m in trouble.
Just as he was about to emerge from the woods, his legs gave out from under him.
He fell face first onto the ground. Almost instantaneously, the men caught up with him. Rhys remained on the ground, unmoving, except for his panicked breathing. One of the men grabbed him by his hair and pulled him to his knees so abruptly that it hurt. He couldn’t see the men, but he heard their voices behind him. Every part of his body hurt; Rhys just wanted it to end.
“Should we take him to Madame Cheryl?”
“Nah,” answered the one who held his hair. “Let’s just kill ‘im. She’ll neveah find out.”
“Yes, she will; she knows everything that happens. However…” The other one hesitated. “We could always tell her he tried to shoot us with our own gun, so you shot him.”
“Now yer thinkin’!”the man laughed. “Gimme yer gun, Drew.”
As the men figured out the kinks in their plan, Rhys overheard them and calmed down. Every cell in his body wanted to panic, he was going to die after all, but all he felt was relief. Rhys believed that with his death the whole ordeal would be over. He was never a believer in heaven and hell, but at that particular moment, he had a feeling that he would see his mother and father once more. In his mind he was finding peace, but there was only one thing he wanted to know.
“What was in the tape?” he asked in such a low voice that he had to repeat the question two more times before the men halted their conversation and heard him.
“Why do you wanna know?”
“Just tell him, Ernie. He’s gonna die anyway.”
“Don’t argue with me, Drew,” Ernie said angrily. “He’ll tell.”
“Who’s he gonna tell? We’ll kill him.”
“Fine, but you tell ‘im.”
There was a pause as drew took in a breath. “We did business in the lot of your father’s building and there happened to be a camera that caught the whole thing. When your father got ahold of it, he blackmailed Madame Cheryl. Madame Cheryl owns a huge business centering on public opinion, and she didn’t want proof of any illegal activity being connected to her name. So, Madame Cheryl gave your father what he wanted, and he wouldn’t show it to the authorities. This went on for a long while, years maybe. Then one day, Madame Cheryl told me and Ernie that we have a job to take care of. That was when we killed your mom.” Rhys sucked in a sharp breath, but Drew continued. “We killed her because Madame Cherylwanted to send a message to your father: Madame Cheryl wasn’t gonna be pushed around by anyone anymore. That’s why your father moved you and himself. Madame Cheryl blew a gasket when she found out. For five months we were tracking you down. It was hard but your father is too well-known to hide for very long. When we found him, we killed him.”
Rhys remained silent throughout the rest of the story. His father, the man who used to be so close to him, was the cause of his mother’s death. Had he still been alive, Rhys would have cursed him, but it would have been useless becaus enow he was going to die too.
“Enough yappin’, Drew!” said Ernie.
Rhys heard the gun cocked and felt the cold tip of the muzzle pressed against the back of his head. He shut his eyes tight.
“Lights out, boy,” mumbled Ernie as he pulled the trigger.
—
Rhys shot up from his bed, his heart puonding. He quickly looked around. He seemed to be in his own room, alive.
A…a dream? he thought to himself. All of it was a dream?
He got out bed and hurriedly descended the stairs. The lights in his father’s study were on, and it streamed into the hallway. A feeling of joy and relief washed over him; his father was not dead. It was a dream. Rhys started to enter the room, but stopped when he saw the familiar sight. Three men in matching suits and a woman in a deep red dress were in the room. The feeling of joy was replaced with dread as he noted the largest of the men holding a gun to his father’s temple.
“Oh…no…” he whispered to himself.
“Where’s the surveillance…”
Rhys, upon hearing the woman’s question, ran.
