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Maria was falling asleep in the car. Maybe it was a long ride, or maybe it had just been a long night. Either way, she couldn't keep her eyes open a moment longer. The vision of the drunken man stumbling in the rain grew fuzzy with distance, with the sheeting rain on the window, and with the fog of Maria's breath on the window. Her eyes became unfocused, and her head began to nod. Her mind began to wander to her own private dream land. That was not always a nice place to be, in fact sometimes it could be hell, but you can't put ratings on dreams or censor them.
BOOM! The sound of lightening sounded right above Maria. It shed light on the little girl standing alone in a field of wheat. She stood there braving the wind that was whipping her tattered dress and streaking tears across her cheeks. The distant roll of thunder crept ever closer and louder until the earth began to tremble beneath her, shaking her until she nearly fell.
SLAM! She bolted up, suddenly awake, her eyes wide open and heart beating rapidly. As a blurry image came to focus in front of her, she could only think, “Where’s Carla?” She blinked and realized the image was her brother standing against the wall, a blanket held tight to his chest. As usual, he wasn’t crying. He never cried. Maria just entered fourth grade and this was the first time she’d ever been able to have a friend spend the night. Heck, it’s the first time she ever had a friend period.
CRASH! Her door flew open. Her bed vibrated with the ripples of anger ebbing their way through her room. She saw her mother fly into the room backwards, feet completely off the ground. Mrs. Flummox only came to a halt when her body hit the floor with a thud. Dale, Maria’s stepfather, stormed in. Her mother had the wind knocked out of her but was reaching out and trying to say, “NO!” “No, what?” Maria silently wondered to herself. She couldn’t figure it out at first. Then Dale stumbled over her in a drunken fit. He reached for the phone with one hand, and yanked the chord out of the wall with the other. Dale lifted it above his head, bellowing obscenities before chucking it at the wall above Maria’s head. She ducked and dove under the pillow as phone pieces rained across the bed.
Maria slowly peered out from the pillow’s edge. Robbie still stood there, still, still as a stone. His eyes were peeled and taking it all in, but he stood like a statue better than Ms. Liberty herself. Maria’s gaze slowly descended to the heap of sobbing flesh on the floor. With the smashing of the phone went her mother’s last hope, her last chance for someone to do anything or hear her pleas for help. Whether the police cared, or whether it was merely their job, the police had been her last hope for ending tonight’s melee. The neighbors all heard the screams, the cries, and constant pleas for help. They didn’t care enough to do anything to help or even call the police. Nobody wanted to get involved. They wouldn’t even answer the door if Maria’s mother could have made it all the way out in the hallway. They’d only be irritated that she tried to involve them.
A siren sound became audible, faintly at first. It seemed to instantly stop all other sounds in the house. It slowly got louder and louder until it started to resemble a scream; a bone chilling, ear splitting, goose bump kind of haunting scream. Maria’s mother, still sobbing, looked up at Robbie. A small trickle of blood flowed from Mrs. Flummox’ nose and dripped from her chin. Both Maria and her mother then followed Robbie’s gaze to a trembling and terribly frightened girl, pale white, and screaming in the corner. Maria had quickly forgotten all about her. Carla's hands were over her ears; her eyes were shut tight, but she donned the Grand Canyon for a mouth.
Carla was nine years old and could barely stand upright in the corner on her wobbly legs, knees knocking together, even though she was leaning up against the wall. When every ounce of breath had been exhausted in that piercing scream, Carla tried to take another breath. Maria’s mother leapt to her feet as quickly as a frightened fawn and covered Carla’s mouth. Mrs. Flummox quickly but cautiously peered out the bedroom door and looked both ways. The coast was clear. She wrapped the frightened girl in a sleeping bag with one hand while maintaining her grip over Carla’s mouth with the other. In an instant, Mrs. Flummox scooped Carla up and whisked her through the house. Maria heard the front door slowly open, then gingerly close. That was the last time Maria ever saw Carla.
It grew quiet, too quiet. Maria tiptoed thru the house to look for her stepfather Dale. She gasped when she turned the corner of the hallway to the living room and saw Dale less than a foot away, facing her; head leaned back on the couch. He stared right at her, but it looked like he didn’t see her. She slowly passed a hand before his open eyes. She could smell the beer with every breath as it came out, so she knew he was alive. Other than that, there was nothing. No blinking, no recognition, no nothing. There was another smell, a strange smell. When Maria looked over, she saw the black stinging smoke coming from the seat of the couch. Lonnie had fallen asleep with a cigarette in his hand. She quickly looked around the dining room, then the kitchen. She found a canister of some flour and dumped it on the hungry flame. The fire was out, but she also successfully created a HUGE mess for which she was sure to catch hell for later. She looked around the living room and decided it might just get lost amidst the war zone she saw facing her. A quick glance around verified her mother had succeeded in escaping to bring the frightened Carla home.
Maria went back to her bedroom. “Robbie, why don’t you go lay down?” He shook his head no, very slowly. He wouldn’t admit to being afraid but he was. He was deathly afraid. Maria softly smiled and whispered, “If you go potty first, you can go to sleep in my bed.” POOF! He was off to the restroom and left but a cloud of smoke in his wake. She cleared the phone pieces from her pillow and tried to fit the puzzle together. On closer observation, it hadn’t broke into too many pieces. The base and the insides snapped together neatly, and the cracked cover fit over them nicely. It only needed some glue and it would be almost good as new. She set it on the end of her bed and looked at the frayed end of the chord. Her mother could try to fix that in the morning.
(Will she get back before Lonnie wakes up? What will happen to Maria's mother if she doesn't?)
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