I've always associated my birthday with that depressing time of year where the cozy autumn
turns into an early winter decay, where colorful leaves die, leaving a withered
brown shell behind. Still, people are expected to celebrate their birthdays. It's
strange if one doesn't. I don't. My fiance recently asked me why I
never celebrate my birthday, and it's a hard one to explain. When you've
been through something traumatic, everything sort of brings you back to that moment one
way or the other. And while I'd love to tell her about it,
I don't think I can without sounding like a maniac. I thought I'd start
by just telling my story anonymously and sort of go from there. It was
the year I turned thirteen. Since You've Been Gone was blasting on the radio
every hour of the day. My friends and I were quoting How I Met
your Mother religiously. It was a good time to be a kid. Since
my birthday was in the middle of the school week, my big birthday plans
were postponed until the upcoming week end. Still, I couldn't complain. Birthday
cake on a Tuesday didn't sound all that bad. I got home, had
a small celebration with my parents and opened a few presents, two new games
for my PlayStation two. I finished at my home work and browsed the net
for a few hours ahead of my scheduled bedtime, when there was a knock
at the door. We rarely had visitors, so to have some one knocking
at our door at ten p m. Was unusual, to say the least.
My parents had already opened the door by the time I was half way
down the stae There was a man in a fancy jacket with a clipboard standing
outside, along with two armed guards, and I sort of fell into the
middle of the conversation. So we need you to sign the content forms and
we'll get started. The clipboard man said, any questions, This can't be
legal, my mum said, and what kind of authority are you, ma'am?
This is an emergency. We have been authorized to bring anyone and everyone
if need be, but I promise you it'll be a less pleasant experience than
what you could achieve here in the comfort of your own home. As the
discussion continued, the armed men pushed into the house. They had a sort
of checklist they were going through, asking questions as they poked and prodded.
Someone mentioned the satellite phone, which we didn't have. I hurried back upstairs.
From my window, I could see them putting wheel locks on our car.
They were testing some sort of electrical equipment too, and as they did
I could see the Internet connection of my computer disappear, my cellphone lost door
bars, and while I didn't check, I suspected they'd done something to our
landline as well. They were isolating us, putting us under some sort of
lock down. I still didn't have the slightest idea of who these people were.
There were no patches, badges, ranks, or symbols, just a
bunch of serious looking men in windbreakers with visible gun holsters. After a few
minutes, one of the men entered my room. My parents were worried sick,
but were told to wait outside. The man was about six four and
had the look of someone who could kill me with his bare teeth if need
be. Without a word, he started to go through my things. You
got any walkie talkies, he asked, any radio science projects something like that.
Nope, I said, shaking my head. I got a PlayStation two
that can go on line right. I never got the chance to answer,
before my marm added, we don't let him play online games. She said,
it can't do that. As if to make sure, he pulled the
power cable and dropped it in a sealed bag, along with various knick knacks
and keys they'd collected. They weren't taking any chances, and I wasn't playing
my new games any time soon, it seemed. As they finished up their
impromptu house inspection, we were asked to gather downstairs. The fancy man with
a clipboard cleared his throat and the room fell deathly silent. Even my dad,
who was usually a very assertive man, didn't have much to add to
the conversation. That's how you knew it was serious. For seventy two hours,
this and the surrounding neighborhoods are under lockdown. The man explained, there
is a localized problem related to a recent geological event. We just caused some
unexpected issues. I'm sure you've noticed some minorities as of late, like what
my dad added, milk turning sour, house plants getting a strange color tint,
swarms of frogs cluttering the roads. My parents said nothing, but they
nodded. Perhaps they'd seen something I hadn't The man put down his clipboard as
he explained calmly, you have been exposed as something akin to a chemical.
It reacts violently to the release of certain hormones which are associated with deep rim
sleep. To ensure your safety, we are currently enforcing at temporary seventy two
hour ban on sleep. Excuse me, my dad took a step forward,
but one of the armed men responded in kind. They both stopped before it
had the chance to escalate. Exposure was approximately nine hours ago, meaning you
have about sixty three hours left to go. That'll be approximately one p m.
On Friday. There's no way we can This is non negotiable. This
is a matter of your security, sir. We have an emergency health service
sight, but I can promise you that it won't be pleasant. You will
be chemically induced into sleeplessness for the full duration of exposure until the event has
passed. It can cause long lasting brain damage. We were handed to reach
explaining our responsibilities and rites an unmarked red folder with three papers, one explaining
their right to force this upon us, another explaining that we'd already signed the
consent papers, and a third one was a form explaining exactly when we could
go to sleep. There was also an inventory form explaining the items we were
to have returned. At the end of the containment, they left a box
of fifty glass files some kind of four hour booster shots. The man explained
how underaged children were not to take more than one every seven hours, and
that my mother, if pregnant, shouldn't take any at all. Luckily my
mom wasn't pregnant. I'm an only child. We were also given fiber bars
with some kind of hormone supplement, unmarked and unbranded, but warm. Maybe
they were made recently. The packaging was sloppy at best. The fancy man
was trying his best to explain, and I could see my parents were eager
to listen, but I barely understood half of it. Instead, I looked
at the armed guards. They looked exhausted. Maybe they too weren't allowed to
sleep. One of them had his mouth open and almost drooled, blinking one
eye at a time I could have sworn he nodded off for a second,
which prompted him to take a walk outside. I don't know if we can
do this, my mother complained. It's it's a lot to ask. We've
only just if at any point. You can't do this. You need to
call this number. It's the only number that works, the man said,
pointing to the final line on the final page of the folder. If someone
falls asleep and can't be awakened within a few minutes, they're in terrible danger.
If that happens. Try to keep them awake by any means until we
can get here to pick them up. And then they'll be and then they'll
be taking to our side to Mankato, or they'll be chemically induced to stay
awake. So what exactly happens if if someone doesn't make it? My mom
asked, if we'll just fall asleep. The man shook his head, tapping
the clipboard with his pen. They will most probably die. Others might too.
While they went into the kitchen to explain the details, the angry looking
guard approached me with a sealed bag, handing me back my PlayStation two power
cable. He gave me a pat on the shoulder. I checked with the
tech team. He said, you're good to go, and AH, happy
birthday. I'd almost forgotten that it was my birthday. I appreciated the gesture,
but I just couldn't bring myself to smile. I had too many questions
bubbling in the back of my head, and I was too afraid to speak.
They probably talked for another twenty minutes or so before the men left,
leaving my parents and I alone in the kitchen. My mother was smoking under
the kitchen fan. I'd only ever seen her smoke two times, once when
she lost the job and another time when her father got sick. Smoking in
the kitchen was a sure fire away to tell something was wrong. Dad was
sitting with his arms crossed, looking at the box of booster shots. This
is not a joke, my dad finally said. This is very serious.
We're all going to need to help each other to get through this. Mom
said nothing, but I could see her hands trembling. She'd been crying.
She was shaking so much that the ash from a cigarette didn't reach the ashtray,
just PLoP down on the stove. You can't be alone, Dad continued.
We're going to do our best to keep busy. You can play as
many games as you want, but you can't fall asleep. They gave back
my power cable. I said, does that mean it's okay for me to
use the PlayStation? It's okay, Mom, coughed, it's okay, honey,
play your games. For the first few hours, I didn't understand what
the big deal was. No more school for the rest of the week,
no bedtime, and unlimited screen time. That didn't sound too bad. I
gained late into the night, Sly Too and Ratchet and Clank were on the
menu, and I had a blast. I got some snacks along with one
of those fiber bars. They tasted like twigs and raisins, but it made
my brain calm, not tired, but it made it easier to focus.
It also made it harder to shut my eyes, making my eyelids ditch.
All lights in the house were kept on all throughout the night. Mom and
Dad kept playing music on the downstairs stereo, and they desperately tried to keep
me engaged. I was engaged enough just playing games, so I think it
was more for their benefit rather than mine. At five a m. Dad
took his first booster shot. I could hear it all the way from upstairs.
He was cussing pretty hard. Apparently those things tasted like a mix of
stale and death. Mom took her first booster shot half an hour later,
but she mixed up with orange juice. Apparently that helped. By seven am,
even I was feeling it. I'd never been up all night playing games
like that on a school day before. Sure, I'd pulled all nighters with
my friends, but it was usually something we prepared for. So by early
morning I could feel myself nodding off. My parents were checking in on me
every now and then, and decided to act. We were having family breakfast,
pretending as if we'd already slept. You're always cranky in the morning,
Mom said, Try to imagine this is just that another cranky morning. I
knew for a fact that they'd slipped one of those boosters into my cereal.
I saw three empty vials on the counter, and I knew none of them
had taken a second one. Yet still, I had little choice but to
try. We weren't even half way through the containment yet. As we finished
our breakfast, we could hear commotion outside. I was upstairs brushing my teeth,
watching through the hallway window. It was our neighbors. Larry Peterson,
the fifty five year old man who worked the fishing supplies at the local Mini
More, crawled out of his front door. He was throwing up something black
and blue under the pavement. I'd never seen this man do anything more physical
straining than trying to start the lawn mower, and now he was crawling on
all fours like his life depended on it. I could hear his wife calling
out from the inside. She was screaming at him, but I couldn't hear
what. Larry got up and almost leaped into the back of his pick up
truck in a show of athleticism i'd never seen from him before. It wasn't
until his wife got out of the house that I could hear what she was
saying. Larry. She cried, Larry, wake up. I saw Larry
Peterson grab a wrench, get out of the truck and grab his wife by
the hair. Suddenly a hand covered my eyes. As my father dragged me
away from the window. I could hear a scream turn into a gargle,
followed by a hearty laugh, one I'd heard a thousand times before, the
same kind of laugh Larry Peterson would chuckle up whenever my dad tried to pull
off a bad pun. My mind painted me a picture of what had happened,
and it wasn't pretty. My dad spun me around and stared into my
eyes. I could tell he wasn't himself. There were lines across his face
that I hadn't seen before. Stay with me and Mom, He said,
don't look outside. People are getting sick. Are we getting sick? Dad?
I asked, a yawn escaping me. He shook me a little,
as if to make sure I was paying attention. We'll be fine, he
said, it's just a matter of time. But I don't want you to
see people getting hurt. Larry isn't feeling well. There was a knock on
the front door that took point as Mom hid in the bedroom. I remember
standing on the top of the stairs, looking over the railing to the floor
below. There was a violent, angry pounding on the door, Larry Peterson's
soft chuckle coming from the other side. He didn't say anything. He just
pounded the door with his wrench, laughing as he tried to get in.
He went around the house, rattling our windows. He didn't get far before
we could hear a car roll up. There was a popping sound, but
not like a gunshot. I think they tased him. By the time I
could hear Larry Peterson get dragged off, my mom had come upstairs with a
smile taped to her face, asking me to show her how far had gone
in my new fancy video games. She was clearly trying to keep me distracted,
but I didn't mind. At that point, I wanted desperately to be
distracted. I could imagine Larry Peterson on the other side of the door,
his white T shirt stained with that strange black and blue goo he'd thrown up,
Wielding that wrench with a manic grip. The thing was as large as
my arm and solid metal. I never considered it a weapon, but thinking
about it made my blood run cold. Had he really killed Missus Peterson?
Why? Mom and I spent the next few hours playing video games. We
also made a plan. We went through our all DVDs and decided on a
watching schedule. She'd originally planned a walk, but now we weren't to leave
the house. She didn't want to say why, but I had the feeling
that there was something outside the Peterson's house that she didn't want me to see.
Bloodstains. Maybe I was too afraid to find out. My parents tried
their best to keep the mood up, but I could tell it was getting
to them. My dad was mostly just standing there leaning against the door,
staring straight ahead like in a trance. Mom tried to occupy herself by playing
games and watching DVDs with me, but she was counting the minutes until she
could get her next booster shot. I wasn't eager to take one. They
made my stomach all queasy. We made it all the way until noon.
Dad was having trouble staying up and kept washing his head with cold water.
He tried to keep busy doing housework that he kept for a rainy day,
but there were constant distractions. We could hear sirens in the distance, and
at one point there was someone spraying off front door and windows with a high
pressure water hose, possibly to wash away the last traces of Larry Peterson.
There were dog patrols going up and down the street, along with the occasional
phone call. The one number that still worked was someone called to make sure
we were all awake and accounted for. By dinner time, Mom was having
stomach troup. Her shaking had gotten worse, and she was having trouble with
sudden change of smells. Dad kept rubbing his eyes and checking his watch,
getting up every ten minutes or so just to move around. We had decided
that we were going to play board games after dinner, but Mom was having
trouble keeping herself from the throwing up. We ended up just reheating a lasagna
from a few days back. I didn't mind. Mom made amazing lasagna,
but my appetite was quickly lost when I saw my mother barely keeping it together.
She kept drooling and making this weird chugging sound. She was blinking slower
and slower. Dad tried to get her to eat one of her fiber bars,
but she just ran out of the kitchen, locking herself in the bathroom.
It was touching go for a while. I could feel my heart racing
as Dad tried to convince her to unlock the door, but she just couldn't
do it. After a while, she stopped responding. Dad had to break
the handle with a hammer, but it was too late. She was already
sleeping. I could hear her through the door as the door burst open.
Mom had only been asleep for a couple of seconds, a minute at most,
but she was sitting on the toilet, her head leaning back, and
something was coming out of her mouth. Black and blue fingertips poking out over
the edge of her lips, her throat undulated. The moment Dad grabbed her,
she tipped her head forward, coughing. Dad washed her face in the
sink or yelling at me to wait in the other room for a few minutes.
I was just sitting there, ready to run or hide. It might
have been too late. I figured she could have already been affected, like
Larry Peterson. I could hear them arguing in the other room, and as
their voices went from angry to desperate to sad, I didn't know what to
do. When they finally returned, they sat me down to explain that we
were going to be fine, that we were almost half way through, and
that we were in the home stretch. They were so kind, warm,
and careful in the way they explained it, but my mind was a thousand
miles away. I had trouble focusing, and all I could think about was
that strange noise I kept hearing in the background something outside. Dad was halfway
through explaining how we weren't going to lock our bathroom doors any more when something
in me screamed at me to react. It was just a slight click,
but it was clear as day. Maybe it was the booster shots, but
I kept hyper focusing on little details rather than big picture stuff, like an
actual conversation taking place in front of me. I closed my eyes, and
no less than a second later, there was a loud bang. Someone was
shooting at us. It was only a couple of shots, but we dropped
to the ground. One shot got lodged in the front door, while the
other cracked the kitchen window. There were loud voices outside, laughing hysterically.
They were talking but barely making any sense. One of them sounded like she
was trying to talk with food in her mouth, while my dad kept quiet.
As two more shots popped off, One of them hit in the kitchen
light with an an electric spark. It gave out, blacking out most of
the kitchen. I could hear someone running and laughing as they continued down the
street. In the distance, there was more gunfire, maybe someone responding in
kind. We can't stay here, Mom whispered, we gotta call them.
You want to go where they put Larry. Dad answered to be in a
whole hospital full of these people. They're shooting at us. We can't just
Mom quieted down and looked at me. She and Dad excused themselves, the
talking private while I was asked to move upstairs. I was to stay away
from windows, and I couldn't sit or lie down. They'd be up to
check on me in a bit, but of course I was too curious.
While still hearing them argue downstairs, I checked an upstairs window. I could
see pretty far down the street, and in the distance I could make out
a car stalling on the side of the road. The headlights were still on,
but it was surrounded by at least six people. Two of them were
dressed like the armed guards we'd seen earlier. It took me a while to
realize there was an old man sitting in that car. I'd seen him around
a couple of times, but I didn't know his name. The surrounding people
were trying to crack the car windows with various weapons tire irons, bricks,
hammers, lead pipes, but they didn't take them long to break through.
They reached in to pull the man out. It was too far off for
me to hear his screams, but I could vaguely see what they were doing.
They held him down and covered his face with their hands, his eyes,
his mouth, his ears, leaving only his nose to breathe through,
and then just sat there. It took me a moment to realize what they
were doing. They were forcing him to sleep. After a few minutes,
they let go of him. The old man slowly stood up, leaned against
his car, and started to dry heave. After a while, the same
blue and black goo that I'd seen from Larry Peterson started pouring out of his
mouth, stopping only as he coughed up some kind of clot that could barely
fit in his mouth, a clot that moved as he straightened his back.
He looked at the strange group, and they walked down the street together.
Some jogged, some sprinted. One of them crawled, but it looked like
he held onto something with his teeth. Either that or something was coming out
of his mouth. Something long as they hurried down the street, I could
hear more gunfire in the distance, coming from another way. I could see
another group of people, at least a dozen, but heading in another direction,
roaming gangs of sleep deprived sick people. God knows how this thing affected
them long term. When my parents were done discussing, they sat me down
to explain that we were going to stay indoors and keep away from the windows,
just in case. We were locking all doors and windows, closing all
curtains, and not playing anything louder than necessary. We were to draw as
little attention as possible. Of course I agreed. What choice did I have.
That night, I could tell things were deteriorating. Dad almost took a
double dose of booster shots, as he forgot he'd taken the phone last one,
but Mom stopped him. There were no phone calls coming in. They
stopped checking in on us. Mom even tried calling, but the line had
been disconnected. The gunfire outside was further away but more frequent. We could
hear cars honking, but no sirens. Then there were the fires, at
least two somewhere downtown. We could see the smokestacks from afar. Mom wasn't
doing well. She couldn't eat, and at times she could barely stay on
her feet. She kept talking out loud, even if no one was in
the room with her, and she had to lean against things to stay upright.
She couldn't keep the fiber bars down, and she kept walking around with
her head bobbing back and forth. Dad tried his best to keep her active,
but he was having trouble as well. No matter how many cold splashes
he took to the face. He just couldn't stay attentive. I wasn't doing
well either, but nowhere near as bad. I still had my appetite,
and I took my booster shots, but I could feel the side effects.
My hands kept shaking, and I had a nasty headache. There were these
pinches down my neck, like someone was shocking me with a wet battery.
I'd imagine things moving just outside of my vision. I kept turning around to
look at the windows as I started to hallucinate that there were screens. By
morning, there was a new problem. Both the power and the water had
been caught. There was a small lake a short walk from the house,
and we had no choice but to try and get some water by hand.
We had some drinking water stocked in the kitchen, but we needed some for
the bathroom. Mom volunteered to go, but that was out of the question.
She could barely stand or make a coherent sentence. There was no discussion.
Dad had to do it. We watched him from one of the upstairs
windows. The sun had just risen, bathing the withering landscape in long,
sharp shadows and a sickly bright glow. Mom was just staring blankly ahead,
as if trying to remember what was so important. Isn't it your birthday?
Soon? She said out loud, that was Tuesday? I responded, Did
you wish for you to get older? She asked, I wished for that.
I want you to be be able to get older. She looked at
me and laughed moniacally. She blinked one eye at a time, and left
eye lingered a bit longer than a right. Her eyes were sunken and dark,
and she kept going cross eyed. I think she meant well, but
that look she gave me was nothing short of terrifying. It was like she'd
been reduced to her most basic self. My mom was still in there somewhere,
but most of it was just gone. After about an hour, I
spotted Dad coming back. Mom and I were both relieved, but it didn't
last long. I noticed he wasn't carrying any water. Moments later I could
see he wasn't alone. There were about two dozen more people coming with him.
Mom didn't seem to react. She just looked out the window and nodded
to herself. For a moment, she was almost falling asleep, standing up,
her mouth moving up and down on its own like a bass out of
water. I could see something moving in her throat. I shook her,
and in a moment of clarity, she looked out the window again. As
I heard something pounding against the door downstairs, Mom pushed me into the closet.
She ran downstairs to get the remaining booster shots and dropped it all on
me, along with the wristwatch and a couple of fiber bars. Someone will
come get you, she said. Just wait and stay awake. I'll try
to think of something. I didn't have time to protest before she slammed the
closet shut. I could hear a key slide into the lockdownstairs. Dad may
have forgotten something about who he was, but he hadn't forgotten how to use
the house keys. I just sat there in the dark, listening. I
curled up into a ball, but I didn't want to get too comfortable.
I could hear furniture being turned over. Unfamiliar voices yelling obscenities were incoherent nonsense.
A fight broke out and I could hear someone throwing something. Another person
ran up the stairs and into the bedroom, repeatedly kicking the bathtub. A
woman screamed, then a man. There was a gunshot, followed by windows
being broken. I could hear a muffled scream as someone was held down,
maybe like they did with the old men outside the night before. I must
have sat there for hours in the dark. It was hard to tell if
my eyes were open or not. I couldn't tell if I was really hearing
something outside or if I was just imagining it. I could hear voices and
whispers, but they didn't seem to make sense. Sometimes I imagine them standing
just outside my door, asking me for the cheat codes for the game I
just played. All I had to keep my waning sanity company was my mom's
wristwatch, and I could barely make it out. Time passed so strangely.
I could be wrapped in a thought for what fell like hours, but only
minutes passed. Then I catched myself staring straight ahead, and two hours could
disappear. I kept repeating the next scheduled hour for the booster shot like a
mantra, but things were getting stranger. The clock would go backwards. I'd
imagine someone sitting across from me, a pair of white eyes staring back at
me from the dark. There were little voices telling me to go to sleep,
and I found myself nodding off. I could feel something moving in me,
like a hand trying to fit in to a glove. I finally gave
up and got out of the closet. I could barely stand as I dragged
the booster shots and fiber bars along in a plastic bag. I didn't care
if there was anyone downstairs. I needed to see something. I needed light
or some kind of stimuli. The whole house was trashed, every piece of
furniture broken, every light smashed. There was blood splatter on the walls,
and the front door was hanging on a single hinge. Every window was smashed,
and our picture frames had been thrown across the room like ninja stars.
But the strangest thing was an acred smell coming from the kitchen. At first
I didn't understand what it was. It looked like a person, but there
was the wrong number of limbs. After a few seconds of adjustment and trying
to force myself to clarity, I realized there was a dead body, a
young man with a knife sticking out of his chest, splayed out on the
kitchen floor. His jaw was extended and broken on one side. There was
a black and blue arm reaching out of his throat, reaching upwards to grab
his own head. Something in me stirred. Something in me didn't like what
I was looking at, and I wasn't sure if it was me or something
else. I tried to push it down with a fiber bar, which strangely
worked. I made my way outside in a daze. I didn't know what
to do. Part of me wanted to find my parents. Another part of
me wanted to get out of town. I wanted to look for a bike,
or just start walking, or catch a boss. Of course, there
were no bosses to catch, but my sleep deprived mind couldn't separate fact from
fiction anymore. That entire night was one long, living nightmare. I kept
imagining things coming out of the dark. I could hear voices telling me to
turn around, to stop, to run, all at once, and none
at all. I could barely keep my balance, and stopping even for a
moment would send me straight to sleep. I had to keep moving. I
even took an extra booster shot, which just gave me this sharp jolt of
pain and made me sweat. I could tell I'd done something stupid. I
took a shortcut through the park I could see faces coming out of the trees.
I saw a man lying down on the gravel path being pulled forward by
an arm coming out of his mouth. I saw a man out by the
lake, repeatedly slapping his arms against the cold water surface, like a maniac
child, trying to get as high as splash as possible. Some of it
was real, some of it wasn't. I couldn't tell which was which,
not anymore. When I finally reached downtown, I saw at least two dozen
people gathered outside a burning building, all of them with black and blue arms
reaching out of their mouths, stretching towards the flame, as if slowly wafting
air towards them, like human help moving against an invisible current. They leaned
back and forth in unison, praising whatever chaos they caused, without a word
or sound. And yet I could hear them welcoming me, beckoning me,
all voices unique carried to me by an eye felt wind, Come closer,
It begged, you belong here. I turned away, and the voices grew
louder, desperate, screeching, demanding my attention, my devotion, some of
them coming from outside, some of them coming from the rumble of my stomach.
It's already here, it laughed. It'll never go away. Eh,
it'll never sleep, it'll never stop. Hands reached for me, a face
in every window, voices reaching from beneath the concrete, gunfire, broken windows,
glass cracking under my rubber boots. As I shuffled past burnt out cars.
It was dark, then bright, then dark again, and at some
point I succumbed. I felt concrete against my cheek, but I couldn't bring
myself to get up. My legs wouldn't move, my eyes wouldn't open.
Yes, the voices laughed, Come, come to us, Come burn with
us. And then darkness. I don't know how long I was out,
hours, maybe half a day. I woke up to see a man running
towards me, asking me if I was okay. A car had pulled over,
bathing me in a warm light. By the side of the road.
A colony of frogs looked at me in the distance. My eyes landed on
a discolored flower. It had turned blue. Strange how you don't notice the
most obvious changes until they stare at you in the face. Turns out exposure
had happened at least six hours earlier than the man with the clipboard had predicted,
and I'd been awake long enough for most of the effect had passed through
my system. I was found unconscious by the side of the highway, about
nine miles from my house. While I did have an uncomfortable, dreamless sleep,
the effects it had on me were nowhere near as bad as what had
happened to most of the neighborhood. I'm sure you've all heard of it riots.
They called it just another mess up in a low income area. I
don't even think it reached national news. Some of the people who succumbed to
it early got permanent brain damage. Larry Peterson was never the same, but
it was hard to tell if it was because of the emotional trauma or the
sleep thing. Either way, he had to have a nurse come to look
after him a few times a week for the rest of his life. Mom
and Dad weren't completely unharmed either. Mom developed some kind of narcolepsy after that
night, spontaneously nodding off at the most inopportune times. Dad lost this sense
of taste and smell. To this day, they're having a hard time explaining
what exactly they experienced. To them. It was just like going to sleep
and having the most horrible nightmare, only to wake up in a hospital bed.
Sometimes I wonder if I did fall asleep. Some of the things I
saw were so strange that there was no way to tell if they were real
or not. I vividly remember that scene of hands waving back and forth outside
that burning building downtown. It had to be real. That building really did
burn, as you might imagine. I have a hard time looking back at
this. Thinking too much about it gives me this icy feeling in the pit
of my stomach, like some part of me believes that this is all just
a big nightmare, that I'm still just a clock stick away from waking up
in that closet with someone standing just outside waiting for me. Or maybe it's
something inside of me still waiting to grab the reins. Maybe it's just a
night away.