The Final Countdown

"Malcolme..?"

February 21, 2018

She used to see her father all the time, but since mid '06, he's been gone. She was a hunter, and as far she knew, so was her father. Most of the world had been converted to hunting when all hell broke loose. If you weren't a hunter, you either would be soon, or you were dead, no if's, and's, or but's about it. She'd hunted everything under the sun, been to every hunter bar, and gathering, in the states, and adopted two dogs along the way. The first had been a yellow Labrador Retriever, which she'd named Bentley. The other was a brown and white Husky that she'd named after a 1965 Audi that she'd seen a girl in her neighborhood driving.

At the moment, she was with a highschool friend. She could still remember the teacher's eyerolls when his name ghosted over their tongues.

Nirvana Zeppelin Manson. Let that one simmer for a while.

"Hey, Aspen," he spoke up, messing with a rock that he'd been kicking for a while. They'd stopped to take a break, since Aspen's old Bentley had broken down about three miles behind them. "You have brothers, don't you?"

She took a moment to answer. Aspen hadn't thought about her brothers, or really, any of her remaining relatives in almost three and a half years. "Half-brothers," she answered finally, before adding, "Three, if memory serves me right."

"You gonna tell me their names?" He asked, a small smile forming on his face. "Or are ya just gonna leave me hangin'?"

"Yeah, Skippy," she sighed, rubbing the sweat from her forehead. "Dean, Sam, and Adam." Aspen quickly added, "stop with the twenty questins, let's get moving," when he opened his mouth to speak again.

"I was just gonna ask how old they were.." he muttered under his breath.

"I'm the youngest," she confirmed, hiking her bag further up her back.

They walked on, Nirvana continuing to kick his stone. He eventually picked it up, and started tossing, and catching it in the air. They stopped again, this time near a large building. It looked like an old water plant, one Aspen's step-father would've worked in. When she looked for the sun, she saw it peeking just over the horizon, and huffed in frustration. Not too far away, there was a woman standing near a pretty well kempt Impala. She looked hunched, her head in her hands.

"We spottin' her?" Nirvana asked quietly, voice just above a whisper.

"No, looks miserable enough," Aspen replied, before taking a longer route away from there.

It was just turning dark, when Aspen half-dragged Nirvana into an old home, on a dead-end street. Her friend was asleep before his head hit his bag. She pulled a yoga mat out of her bag, and let it flatten itself out, before laying it on the floor. Though she didn't do yoga, they were still comfortable enough to sleep on. She curled into a tight ball, gun fisted in her hand, and drifted to sleep.

~

March 21, 2006

Aspen quickly buckled her seatbelt, her small heart beating fast. Her mother and step-father were arguing again, which never ended up well. She grabbed hold of Malcolme's hand, squeezing it tightly. Her little half-brother was only two years old, but he, too, grasped Aspen's hand.

"If I need to pull over one more time, because you 'can't handle being in the car with me', so help me God," her step-father growled, hardly paying attention to the road.

"Daddy, please-"

"No!" Her step-father interjected. "I don't want another word from you, understand?" When Aspen didn't answer, shaking slightly, he raised his voice again. "Am I understood?"

"Yes," Aspen whimpered, closing her eyes, awaiting the impact from her step-father's hand. "Yessir-"

"Stop the car!" Her mother called out, before her step-father grabbed a hold of her hair, pulling roughly. "Let-" she struggled. "Let me go!"

"Not until you shut the hell up!" He yelled back. "I'll get pulled over for all your screaming and whining!"

"Maybe it's for the better," her mother muttered, before Aspen saw her fight for control over the window lock. Her step-father wrapped an arm around her mother's neck, and pull back, choking her.

Aspen's gut clenched, and she pulled forward in her seat, whispering to Malcolme.

"Don't worry, Mal, I'll keep you safe. You won't get hurt because of your daddy anymore, I promise. My daddy, he'll come back, and take us away with him. We'll be safe with him, just don't worry," she noticed Malcolme start to cry. "Don't cry, please," she tried to keep her brother's cries to a minimum. "I'll keep you safe, Mal."

When Aspen looked up, her mother was gasping for breath, her step-father's arm still wrapped tightly around her mother's neck. They'd had fights before, but nothing like this. Aspen ducked behind the seat when she saw the large 18-wheeler charge towards their old car. It was a loud crash of metal against metal, and the scream of someone; she couldn't quite place who. She didn't know how long she'd been out for, but when she opened her eyes, she wanted to vomit. Her mother had been impaled, a rod through the upper right side of her skull. A smaller, thinner part of the car was protruding through her stomach.

Aspen could taste the blood in the air. She couldn't help the tears seeping down her face when she saw the man in the truck crawl out of it, and away from the crash-site. The only apparent injury being his twisted leg. She looked to her left, and could still see the rise and fall of her step-father's chest as he breathed, and something sour settled in her heart. Aspen then remembered Malcolme, and finally clenched her hand, which still had his in it. She looked back quickly to his car-seat hopefully, and let the bile in her throat escape onto the floor of her step-father's car at the sight. She cried hard. Malcolme's hand was in hers, but mid-forearm back was completely gone.

The window was smashed, and covered in blood. Several feet away, she could see the rest of her half-brother. She carefully set Malcolme's arm into his car-seat, shivering as shock began to set in. When Aspen looked herself over, her left shoulder was dislocated, and broken. Her legs were sore, one of them definitely broken. She heard voices, which just barely snapped her out of the shock. Aspen looked up, catching the eyes of a paramedic. An ambulance, or maybe three, she couldn't tell, were behind the female aid.

"I'm here to help you, sweetheart," she put a hand out. "Can you grab hold of my hand for me?"

Aspen thought she followed the request, but assumed that she slumped forward before her hand touched the woman's.