Missing

“Hah! Checkmate!” I roar, throwing my arms up in victory.

“No fair! You’re too good at this,” Ben complains, sweeping the checker pieces and the board onto the ground.

Bending down to pick up a piece, I toss it at him.

“Don’t be a baby about it, I’m better at everything because I’m older.”

He groans in frustration before hopping off of the kitchen chair and wandering into the living room. I look down at the mess and sigh. I know I should clean up the game, but I don’t really want to.

I’ll just do it later.

Cracking open a can of mystery meat I nabbed from the cabinet, I shovel some into my mouth, not bothering to cook it. It tastes like salt and has the same texture of hard Jell-O, but there’s nothing better out of the meager pickings of canned food we have, so I just keep chewing.

Ben is sitting on our dilapidated sofa, remote in hand, watching the original Scooby Doo on our flickering box TV. Flopping down beside him, we watch the animated characters run about the haunted mansion in silence. The hum of the ventilation envelops the music and voices that come all staticky out of the TV speakers, permeating a sense of normalcy through the air. Almost everything would be the same, except nothing really is.

Chasing the comfort in all that is usual and predictable, I wave a speared piece of meat in Ben’s face. His chubby baby cheeks pucker in disgust and he jumps away as if I’m shoving a bomb in his face.

“Mandy! Why would you do that! You know I hate that stuff!” He screeches, his face starting to turn red, making the bleach blond hair we both got from our mom look even paler. Smirking mischievously, I slowly slide over to his side of the couch before pouncing. I pin him down with my knee on his chest, trying to make him eat the meat. He struggles and yells, grabbing onto my shirt.

“Ugh! Stop it, you’ll stretch out the collar!”

We struggle a bit more before Ben sucks in a deep breath and screams, “Mom!”

He looks triumphant for a fleeting second before he realizes his mistake. All the fight rushes out of me like air from a deflating balloon and I abruptly get off of him. Silence fills the space between us.

I’ve been trying to avoid thinking about where Mom could be, all alone on the surface. She left a week ago to go scavenge for more supplies. She should be back by now, so all I can think about is what could have gone wrong.

Ever since the bombs dropped, life has never been the same. We got stuck in this bunker, trying desperately to ride out the nuclear fallout, and then Dad disappeared.

Mom has only gone out a couple times before, since Dad vanished, and she told me all sorts of horror stories: mutated animals, dangerous gangs roaming the surface, areas contaminated with so much radiation you can practically taste it, and more, all commonplace.

Thinking back to those stories, my imagination plays horrible tricks on me, cooking up gory and terrifying scenarios. Eyes pricking with tears, I hold them back in hopes that Ben won’t notice.

“Mandy, don’t cry,” he whispers.

“I’m not crying, fart face!” I yell, giving him a hard shove. That starts a whole new round of bickering as the cartoon continues to drone on in the background.

Eventually we stop and it gets quiet again. I finish my dinner while Ben picks at the fluff coming out of one of the holes in the couch.

“Do you think Mom’s coming back?”

I knew this was coming. I knew the longer Mom was away the harder it would be.

“Yeah, of course she’s coming back. She promised, remember?”

Ben silently nods, his mouth downturned at the edges.

“Just go to sleep, will you? Brat boy.”

He sticks his tongue out at me, but lays down, pulling a frayed blanket around his shoulders.

I can’t sleep. I haven’t been able to really sleep since Mom left. Instead, I stare blankly at the TV, absentmindedly fiddling with the heart shaped locket Mom gave me for my birthday last year as Ben snores soundly beside me.

I was so excited to put pictures inside the locket, but I never got around to it. I really regret it now; I wish I had little photos of my parents to look at when I especially missed them. Curling my legs to my chest, I allow myself to sob, biting my lip to stay quiet. The last thing I’d want to do is wake Ben.

There’s a loud creaking sound that fills the bunker. My eyes fly open and I immediately shed the drowsy effects of my fleeting sleep. With my heart in my mouth, I spring up from the sofa, waiting eagerly for Mom’s voice to reach my ears.

“Is Mom back?” Ben says sleepily, rubbing his eyes.

“It’s got to be her, I don’t think anyone else knows we’re here.”

I repeat that thought to myself, even as the poorly oiled door hinges squeak open and no one calls down to greet us. My cloud of disbelief is only dispelled by fear when heavy footsteps descend the ladder, quite obviously not Mom’s.

“Ben, go hide in the bathroom, come on,” I whisper urgently, practically hauling him off of the couch as whoever it is gets off the ladder.

Crouching with the bathroom door propped open just enough to let me peek through, I hold onto Ben’s hand like my life depends on it.

“Who is it?”

“I don’t know,” I whisper back, fighting to keep the tremble out of my voice.

The footsteps draw nearer, their slow and uneven pace coming down the short hallway from the exit to the living room. My heart feels like it’ll pound out of my chest as whoever it is rounds the corner. As they step into the light, I choke back a horrified scream.

Whoever it once was looks like they had been microwaved, the skin melted and hanging like ice cream left out in the summer sun. Half of their face has virtually no flesh at all, with the pale bone shining eerily in the half light from the TV. The eye on that side is completely cloudy, bulging out because there is nothing there to really hold it in the socket. The clothes they had been wearing are fused into the skin, the tattered pieces making them look like a shedding dog. The arm on their boney side is nothing more than a shriveled husk, and their leg keeps bowing under their weight.

They are swinging their head around manically, as if looking for something. I find myself praying that they are just here to take some of our canned food, and then leave.

My entire body freezes as they spot the bathroom and begin hobbling towards us. Panicking, I whip my head around for a hiding spot. Despair rips at my throat, but there’s nothing in here, only the most basic stuff.

“Lay down in there,” I say, my voice barely audible as I push Ben into the tub.

I spot a pair of scissors on the sink and I lunge for them right before the door swings open.

“St- stay away fr-om me,” I basically sob, pointing my pitiful weapon at them. The person points at me with their good hand, swaying on their feet.

“Heart… locket…”

My hand flies to my necklace. Fear, confusion and apprehension make my mouth taste sour.

“Mandy… it’s me…”

They touch their chest with an open hand, the single eye looking at me imploringly. Staring at them, it takes only a moment before I recognize the black eyes I inherited.

“Daddy?”

His melted mouth twitches in an attempt to smile and he comes closer.

“Daddy is that you?” Ben asks, his voice timid as he peeks from the tub.

“Ben..” Dad croaks out.

He only gets one more step forward before he collapses in a heap. A cry leaves my chest as I fall to my knees beside him, terrified to touch him.

“Daddy?” I whisper, tears streaming down my cheeks.

“They… took your… mother…” He wheezes out, his good eye rolling around feverishly.

“Who did? Who took Mom?”

“...The overlord… of the,” a sickly cough rocks his frame, “surface…”

With that cryptic answer, Dad closes his eye, his labored breath slowing until it finally comes to a stop. I stare at his ruined face, unable to process what just happened.

“Daddy? Daddy! Daddy!” Ben screeches, jumping out of the tub to try to shake our Dad back to the land of the living.

With trembling hands, I check for a pulse. Only when I confirm that that essential rhythm is absent, do I start to scream alongside Ben.

“Mandy, what are we going to do now?”

I stare numbly at the blanket-covered corpse in our bathroom. Just half an hour ago, Dad was alive.

Mutilated, but alive.

I ball my fists up in my shirt. He came all the way here, he came to us, just to die on our goddamn bathroom floor. Even though I promised myself I was done crying, tears of frustration and anger shatter my blank trace.

“Mandy, did you hear me?”

Stomping to the kitchen, I gather all of the food and water we have left and stuff it into a large duffle bag I found under the couch.

“Mandy, what are you doing?”

Ignoring him, I continue packing the essentials: the few clothes we have, flashlights, batteries, a couple of walkie talkies, anything and everything we could possibly need. Grabbing the gas masks hanging near the ladder, I put mine on and hand Ben his.

“We’re leaving Ben. We’re going to find Mom.”

His chubby little face scrunches up, but he says nothing. Slipping on the gas mask, he runs back into the living room to grab one last thing.

“The Scooby Doo VHS, really?”

“What happens if we find something that can play it? It’ll be good when we’re bored.”

I roll my eyes but throw it in my bag anyway.

“Should we clean up the checkers?”

I glance at the kitchen. The brightly colored red pieces had scattered into the hallway.

“No, I’ll clean it when we get Mom back home, safe and sound,” I answer, vowing it to myself.

Ben nods before reaching over to squeeze my hand. Doing the same, I take a deep breath.

With shaking hands, I start to climb the ladder to the surface.