Peace Love Resistance Read online

  Anger fueled my veins with every mile, all eleven of them, and I planned on putting it out on the table as soon as I walked in the door. I wasn’t about to take shit from a man who’d been a part time dad my entire life. Only I didn’t walk in the door. Instead, I followed the laughing from around back. There they were, standing in the moonlight on the wobbly old dock over the pond. My dad grabbed my mom around the waist and kissed her neck while she giggled, trying, but not very hard to shove him away.

  Gritting my teeth, I walked around front to the stupid dog that seemed to love me no matter how much I shoved him away. Another present from the last time I’d been there. When I was twelve! Kota met me at the bottom of the steps, his tail wagging like he’d been waiting for me for the past five years.

  “Move,” I ordered, my hand shoving him away.

  I looked out the kitchen window to my dad opening a can of beer for my mom, again puking in my mouth a little. He couldn’t just open it and hand it to her, he had to kiss her first. Whatever, I decided for the millionth time, retrieving the old yellow phone from the wall. Looking through my phone for my girlfriend’s number, I dialed it, literally with one finger. Ten numbers, around and around. The rotary dial phone was probably the same one that had been there since the house was built. That’s how old it was.

  Avery answered on the first ring, bringing my forced smile to a sudden halt. “Hey, Ty. I can’t talk right now. We just landed. I’ll call you later.”

  “Yeah, okay. Have fun.”

  I looked down to the antique phone, and sighed, twisting the cord around my fingers, sarcastically talking to it like it could hear me. “Call ended? Oh, okay smart phone. Thanks for telling me.”

  “Come and eat some ice-cream and pie. Your dad got the old ice-cream maker out.”

  I looked up to my mom with an instant frown. “Um, no. I’m good.”

  “Why do you have to be this way, Tobias? Why can’t you just be happy for me, for us? We’re a family again, Ty. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

  I stood and dropped the not so smart phone to the cradle on the wall, trying like hell to keep my mouth shut. Epic fail. “Whoa,” I said, my arms out like the floor was moving. “I swear this is like déjà vu right now. Did this happen before? Like when I was like seven? Haven’t I heard this speech before? It meant something when I was a little kid, when you decided that it was best to take me away from my dad and from my home. Ten years later, yeah, not so much. I’d rather go home now, but of course that’s not up to me. Right, Mom? Because you know what’s best for me, right?”

  “I’m not having this conversation again, Tobias.”

  “Yes, yes, I know. You did it for my own good. Because you were afraid of the path I was heading down. Because you love me. Because it had nothing to do with you and Dad conniving behind my back to get me here. You fell in love again along the way. Right mom? You’re in love? Again? Yeah, you’re right. We don’t need to do this. I’m going to bed.”

  “Tobias, it’s not even nine o’clock on a Saturday night. You’re seventeen. Go see a movie.”

  “Can’t, I have a curfew. Night.”

  “You don’t have a curfew, Ty,” my dad said, his arms going around my mother from behind. “I already told you that bike was on its last leg. This isn’t Los Angeles. You don’t want to walk these roads after dark without a gun.”

  I grabbed an apple that I didn’t even want from a basket on the counter and walked away. “Yeah? Well, guess what? You don’t won’t walk them in L.A. without a gun either.”

  His voice elevated with the distance I placed between us. “You can take my truck.”

  I gave him the pleasure of having the last word, walking away to my own layer on the second floor, a crunch of the apple my only response. It wasn’t like I had anywhere to go anyway. Where would I have gone? Maybe to my best friend’s house from Sunday school that I didn’t remember. Maybe the movies in town with one theater and one movie, one that I’d already seen in Cali. Three months ago. There was no way my life could get any worse. None whatsoever.

  The steps creaked, groaning with every skipped step I took. This was really happening. This was my real life and I was really being forced to live here. It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. Not until I turned eighteen anyway. I didn’t even care that I’d barely be a senior, I was leaving that very day. Three months and seventeen days. Screw everything was my new mentality. What was the point?

  I frowned toward the hall, shoving the door with my hand when my dad walked right up to it, uncaring of me standing over the toilet with my dick in my hand.

  “I’m not going to let you disrespect your mom like that, Tobias. She’s trying really hard here, and you’re being an asshole.”

  That instantly pissed me off. I zipped my jeans, jerking the door, my eyes meeting his at the exact same height. “I feel a little entitled here. I had the right to be an asshole when she dragged me away from here crying when I was seven, too. I mean, come on. Can you make up your mind here? Do you love Buck Sheffield or Chance Reed, or maybe you’d rather be married to David the Dentist. Do you want to live in Hartford, Connecticut? Miami, Florida? Cincinnati, Ohio? Los Angeles, California? Sorry, I’m being and asshole, dude.”

  “What do you want, Ty? We’ve both done some shitty things in our lives. We were young when we had you. Don’t you want us to have our second chance? Don’t you want our family to be a family again?”

  I couldn’t even. Not without being sick again. I sidestepped him, my shoulder purposely shoving his. “You do whatever you want. Don’t worry about me. I’m eighteen.”

  “You’re seventeen.”

  “Oh right, thanks for reminding me. For a second there, I thought I was old enough to make my own choices. Forgive me. I forgot.”

  “You mean like painting national monument decisions?”

  I wanted to scream. If one more person threw that up in my face, one more time… “Yeah, like that.”

  “It doesn’t have to be like this, Ty.”

  With that, I walked away, to my old room, away from your highness dick-head. Spider Man curtains still hung over the window and a homemade toy box sat in the corner right beside a Curious George book. Great. This was just great, I thought as the kid sized, twin bed bounced, screeching when I fell on to it. My sneakers thumped off the hardwood when I toed them off, and blasted the music on my phone, my feet hanging off the edge. Heroic Dose sounded like shit coming from the tiny speaker in my phone, once again reminding me of how much I hated it there. I missed my house, my room, my friends, and my blue-tooth speaker, which I still hadn’t found. I was sure I’d packed it, but then again, I was still refusing to unpack. My head lifted off the pillow and my fingers fumbled with the volume, already as loud as it would go.

  I frowned when a weird, bright light caught my eye right outside my window. It was clear across the field, on the other side of the river in a patch of dense woods, and quick. Just a flash. Nonetheless, I walked over to the window seat, propping one knee to the 1 2 3, A B C covered pad with a frown, wondering what it was. It was bright whatever it was, like the sun had reflected off glass or a mirror or something. Bright enough to hurt your eyes, but it was gone. A quick bright flash was all there was.

  I sighed and sat down, retrieving a little green army man from the windowsill, something I was sure I had left there as a boy. My room looked the exact same way it had the last time I was there. I’d outgrown it then, too, but nobody seemed to care. I was a seventeen year old with Scooby Doo sheets. The same ones covering my bed when I was seven. When things were perfect. When I loved being a kid and I loved Odessa Falls. Things were a lot different then or at least I was young enough to think they were anyway.

  My eyes moved to the white door leading to the attic, only it wasn’t like it was before. It wasn’t as big or as intimidating as it had been when I was a boy. Nothing was. I glanced out the window in search of the bright light again, but it
was gone and so was the sun. A dark gray covered the sky with a black night trailing quickly behind. One thing about Odessa Falls after dark was that it was dark. I mean darker than dark.

  Opening the attic door, I pulled a chain, illuminating the old wood stairs, quietly taking the first step, more creaking old wood. Once I made it to the top, the eleventh step, I realized I didn’t remember the attic at all. It was bigger than I recalled, taller than I imagined, and I could stand straight up, no slumping at all. That was saying a lot for my six, three height, especially for an attic. More creaking below my feet and another string in the middle of the room lit the rest of the space. I looked around at the somewhat empty room, trying to remember it, but I didn’t. Not really.

  Walking over to the window where, I’d seen the light, I had a better view. I saw a burning fire in little clearing in the woods, deciding I wasn’t crazy after all. I knew I’d seen a flash. I looked around the room to an old chair, a wooden crib with really cool spindles, feathers hand painted on each one, and a ladder made from tree branches that I remembered playing with as a boy. I was very little and it was barely even a memory, but it was there and real, a happy memory when the only thing I had to worry about was playing, fishing with my dad, and exploring the woods, the creek, or the barn, something I’d always had a connection to. I practically lived in that empty barn when I was a little boy. If I wasn’t in there, I was wading the stream, looking for crayfish or playing in the woods, always adventuring further than I was supposed to. The double pane windows creaked like everything else in the old house when I split them, opening them to a star filled sky. The darker it got, the more appeared, sparkling sensations of light, twinkling right above my head.

  “Wow,” I mumbled to myself. Bright stars as close to city lights as I would get, glimmered just above. I sat on the warm roof tiles, my eyes moving to the little fire, no more than a quarter mile straight across, separated by a corn field, a river, and a mountain. That’s the only thing I could see though. I couldn’t see the people around it, but I did make a mental note to ride my piece of shit bike over there the next day. Checking out a fire from a couple dispersed campers in the middle of the woods could be the highlight of my day. It wasn’t like there was much else to do around there.

  Another heavy sigh escaped my lungs, this one for how ridiculous it all was. And me… Stuck in the middle again. I watched the little fire from afar when it came to me, a light bulb moment. Remembering I had a stash, I jumped back through the window to fetch it. After packing a nice full bowl, I went back to the roof-top. My new favorite place. It didn’t take much. I hadn’t gotten stoned at all the first day we were there. Not because I didn’t want to either. My shit was packed in the back of the U-Haul truck for safe keeping. Parent proof in box labeled, Ty’s bathroom stuff. Four hits of the best shit in L.A. and I was toast, relaxed into a state of, fuck everyone and everything.

  It was actually kind of hard not to be calm. Even without the weed, the entire atmosphere created a serenity that I didn’t understand. I hated it there. With everything in me, I hated it, yet I felt drawn and connected there. The sky filled with breathtaking lights, a moon way brighter than you could see in the city, the sound of crickets and bull frogs, the fresh, crisp air, it all assisted in something magical, something extraordinary that I felt deep in my bones.

  My mind and everything around me stopped, a peaceful still felt throughout my body, warming in my chest and the palms of my hands. Although I’m sure the pot played a role in the calmness I sensed, it wasn’t the only culprit involved. It was mostly the effect of nature. Only I’d forgotten it. Even when I was seven, when things went on that I didn’t understand, I could count on nature to take me away. I laid back, feeling the heat from the still warm shingles heat my bare back, staring straight up in a meditative state for what seemed like hours, not one single thing on my mind. The moon moved, the shades of the sky becoming darker ever so slightly with passing time, and even more, bright stars appeared. Fresh air became cool and brisk, as the noises around me quieted, my eyelids growing heavier and heavier.

  What woke me from my dead sleep was unclear. My hands were above my head and my eyes opened wide, startled from whatever I thought I’d heard. I sat up, looking around at the dark night, hearing nothing but what I’d expected to hear, an owl, thunder in a distance, and a quiet whistle from the wind snaking around the bend, gaining momentum with an impending storm. One big drop of rain to my forehead was a dead giveaway. The storm woke me, I decided, listening again to the nature sounds, quieting as a summer storm approached, and then I heard a scream like I’d never heard in my life. Frozen with adrenaline pumping through my veins, I listened to the cry echoing through the dark. The sound ripped through me, filling me with fear, sending rapid adrenaline right to my fast beating heart.

  As soon as I was able to regain my composure and wakeup enough to know it wasn’t a dream, that I really had heard a scream, I scrambled through the window, crab-crawling my way in. My feet skated down both flights of stairs, and right through my dad’s bedroom door. “Dad, wake up. I heard something outside. Someone’s in trouble. Dad, wake up.”

  My mom groaned, her hand brushing her hair from her face, but she didn’t wake up.

  “Mom, someone’s in trouble. A girl. I heard her scream. Mom.”

  “Ty, Jesus Christ. It’s Odessa Falls. It’s feral cats mating or something. Go to bed.”

  “No, it wasn’t like that.”

  My dad raised his arm and my mom rolled right in like it was invitation. “What’s going on?”

  “Dad, I heard someone scream outside.”

  My mom covered his chest with her naked body, eyes still closed. “It’s nothing, baby. Go back to sleep.”

  I ran out, understanding why the comatose slumber when I saw the front porch. At least a case of beer had been consumed between the two of them, empty cans of evidence scattered everywhere.

  Kota heard it, too. He sat at on the top step, his ears straight in the air with guarded attention. “Good boy. Stay.”

  It wasn’t until I kicked the motor start on the little rice rocket, that I realized I’d slid my feet were bare. The scream coming from the other side of the river kept me from running back in for them though. Someone really was in trouble, and I was crazy. Who knew what I’d find? A possible bear attack or worse yet, a murder. What if I happened upon a rape, a girl being massacred? Had it not been for not having much to live for, I might have changed my mind. Even though I didn’t have much of a life anymore, I still preferred to keep it a while longer.

  Regardless of the fear pumping through my body, I drove as fast as I could, out the dead end lane, turned right on the next township road, and right again just across the bridge. My instincts took me up the mountain side, guiding me to the spot I’d picked the little fire out in. And…truth be told, I kind of knew it was the girl in the van. It was an inkling deep in the pit of my stomach, that feeling you get when a doctor is about to tell you someone was dead. With everything in me, I knew it was her.

  Of course with my luck, I decided on the wrong road when I came upon a fork, taking the right one when I should have taken the left. Fortunate for me, it was easy to get back on track. Even over the purr of the idled engine and rolling clouds, the scream once again guided me in the right direction, echoing through the valley.

  The brakes on the dirt bike felt a little spongier than I cared for, and I dropped it down a gear, letting the engine hold me back. Losing your brakes on this mountain couldn’t have ended well for anyone, but then again, that was the least of my worries. Just when I was about to gas it for the next hill, I caught a glimpse of the flickering flame, hitting my back brakes as hard as I could. The ass-end of my bike slid in a one-eighty and I fought with it, barely keeping control.

  I’m not even sure what happened then. I know I dropped the bike, I know I froze when my dim headlights landed on her, and I know I saw blood. Lots of blood, but it was all so surreal, like something from a horror
movie or something. Not anything that normal people like me ran upon. Ever. Her hands were covered in blood, her face was white as a ghost, and her hair was damp from sweat. Heaving breaths escaped around the screams brought on by pain that I didn’t understand. I had no idea what was going on around me or what to do. A girl dropping to the ground on her knees, blood all around, her hands dripping with red liquid, and her face more terrified than mine.

  What the fuck?

  That’s the only thing I could think of while I stood there, my wide eyes locked on hers. Over and over and over.

  What the fuck?

  What the fuck?

  What the fuck?

  Chapter Two

  The entire Universe is conspiring to give you everything you want.

  ~Esther Hicks

  I didn’t even know what the hell was going on, yet I reacted or my body did anyway. My mind was nowhere to be found, and there was no denying it. This was so far out of my realm, and no matter how far I searched, I wouldn’t find any instructions for this one. Not in my brain. With one more scream, I skidded across the dry dirt, feeling grit from the ground grind into my knees just in time. The girl fell to her back, and with one last push, it was all over. A tiny, slippery, crying baby boy shrilled in my hands, starting the chant in my mind all over again. What the fuck? What the fuck? What the fuck? His little body stiffened with every cry, his two tiny feet, sticking out of my hand. The loud beating drums heard in both my ears matched the thumping behind my chest, and for a second, I thought I might pass out.

  My dazed eyes shifted from the squealing baby to the girl, to the baby, and back to the girl. Had it not been for her heavy panting, I may have thought she was dead. Her head was drooped back, and her breaths were quick and rapid, her chest heaving up and down.

  “Give him to me,” she ordered through gasping words, a weak hand holding a big white feather reaching for him. A bloody, white feather. The Twilight Zone. That’s where I was.