Acolon

Prologue



It was late.  The constant sound of my parents arguing was keeping me awake.  Words were coming out of their mouths, some of which I didn’t even know existed, and firing through the air at each other like bullets in a loaded gun.  The arguing seemed to go on forever; I didn’t know what it was about but I was dying to know.  If only I had an older brother.  He would back me up in a situation like this.  But to my disappointment, I am an only child.  Finally things began to settle down.  It was peaceful.  Well, almost at least.  Every so often they would start back up again, but I could now concentrate on my thoughts instead of them being interrupted by the commotion coming from the other side of my bedroom door.  Of course, the only thought on my mind was what the hell is going on?

Just when I thought I would finally be able to sleep, something happened.  Something that startled me in such a way that it caused all the exhaustion to escape from my body, leaving me wide awake under my comforter.  I couldn’t tell, but I’m pretty sure the skin on my face went pale.  Wouldn’t the sound of your mother choking to death do the same thing to you?

I jumped out from under my covers and slowly made my way to my doorknob, turning it even slower than the amount of time it took for me to make it this far.  As I grabbed the knob, I felt a strong sensation consume my body.  A feeling so uneasy that it made me second-guess myself on whether or not I wanted to continue with operation-open-door.  Pulling myself together, I turned the knob, slowly allowing the door to open - only to find my father’s arms wrapped around my mother’s neck.  The color of her face had changed to an abnormal purple, and the image of terror that I found on her face is going to haunt me for my entire life.  I was so filled with rage that I lost my mind.  Letting my anger get the best of me, I charged at my father, jumping onto his back while digging my fingers into his eyes.

At least, that’s what I wanted to do.  Instead I just stood there, letting the anger build up inside of me as a stared off into my mother’s distant eyes. Eyes that, until this moment, never knew malice or desperation, eyes that had no idea on whether or not they would see the outside world again - the petrified look on her child’s face being the last image they capture.  I could feel the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand up.  That just made me think of my mother, and how her tiny neck hairs were being forced to stay down due to the brute strength of my father.



My mother somehow managed to look over at me.  Even with my father holding her in place, she pulled off the impossible and locked eye contact with me.  She didn’t say anything, probably because if she did, she would risk the opportunity to catch her breath again.  Instead, she only held her arm out.  Even though she didn’t say anything, I got the message.  Whatever you are thinking, don’t.  But how could I not do anything at a time like this?

My legs answered that question for me.  They wouldn’t move.  It’s as if they were glued to the floor, forcing me to take in the moment.  Like time had frozen me in place to watch my father nearly take my mother’s life, something that no person should ever have to witness.  I don’t think there is a feeling much worse than this one.  Well, the feeling my mother must be dealing with probably qualifies.

My legs finally responded to my commands.  I went back into my room and shut the door slowly, quietly - as if I was trying to hide from someone - when in reality I was only hiding from myself and the mixture of complex emotions that began stirring up inside of me.  Anger, fear, anxiety, and some other complex emotion I cannot describe.

The constant screaming coming from my mother finally stopped.  The gasping for air, the sound of her struggling to compete with the force of my father vanished as things began to settle down.  When I had gathered enough courage, I opened my bedroom door again, but only enough for me to peek out and see what was now going on.  I saw my mother standing there, holding her neck.  I thought this over for a minute and realized that it seemed strange to me.  She finally escaped the grasp of my tyrant of a father so why does she already have her hands around her neck?  This question was interrupted by another, and then that question was interrupted by a few more.  I found myself in a state of absolute hopelessness and confusion.  I had so many questions, the most important one just being, why?  Why would he do this?  Why wouldn’t my mother let me help?  Why did I do nothing even though I wanted to?

I didn’t even see what happens next coming.  It wasn’t anything my father did, or my mother for that matter.  No.  Instead, it was me. Something I did, and I didn’t even realize it until after it had happened.  I found myself on the other side of my bedroom door staring into my father’s eyes; as if I was peering into his heartless shell he fallaciously calls a heart, while a feeling of complete rage filled my spirit.  It was as if, for this entire situation, a flame was burning up inside of me.  And this flame just kept burning and burning as it grew in size until it couldn’t be contained anymore.  And that moment was now.

Stay away from us!  The words exploded from my mouth before I knew it, so there was no chance that I would have been able to them.  After I said those words, the anger and hatred I was feeling toward my father was replaced with fear.  Trying not to panic, I stood as still as possible.  I acted as if making any sudden movements would cause the ground beneath me to explode.  I stood there waiting, just waiting for my father to do something about what I said.  Whether it was to attack me how he attacked my mother, or just to simply yell at me, I wanted it to happen already so I could forget this night had ever happened.  But how could someone forget anything this tragic?  Especially after hearing what my father said next.

“I’ll be back for him.  Mark my words, I will return.”

I will return.  So now it was certain.  Whether I escaped or not, this was only the beginning of my madness.

Chapter 1

  I didn’t know what to expect.  Once again I was on my way to yet another town with my mother.  I watched the landscape run by in the opposite direction my mother and I were driving in, examining the different towns as they went by one by one.  At one point we must have passed seven different kinds of trees in five minutes.  Pine, oak, maple, those fancy ones that look like rain.  I think they are called Weeping Willows.  I think.  When I was younger and my grandmother was still alive, we would call them rain trees.  Sometimes she called them crying trees.  She used to tell me that whenever I saw one, it meant that something sad would soon happen, or had recently happened.  So I guess it’s probably not a good thing that I see them often.  It could just be that they are a popular tree in the areas I’ve been in, or maybe her conspiracy about them is true.  But if it is, then maybe I should prepare myself.

In the past three years of my life, I have gone from Denver, Colorado, Knoxville, Tennessee, and Detroit, Michigan.  This is the path my mother and I have taken to remain hidden from the monster.  Sorry, I mean my father.  Now we’re on our way to some place in Florida.  My mother said it once before, but I’m not sure if I remember.

“Hey, ma?” I ask.

My mother didn’t take her eyes off the road in front of us.  Which was probably a good thing considering she is driving.  I’m only 17 and, as much of a hassle as it is, I love my life.  I don’t plan on dying anytime soon.

“Yeah, Bry?” she replied.

That’s me, Bryson Correiro.  Just your normal average joe trying to live his life. 

“Where are we going again?”

“Stuart City,” she says to me with a slight tone of annoyance in her voice.  I guess I had asked this question more times than I thought.  Maybe I asked her when I fell asleep.  I have a tendency to sleep talk; it has been quite humorous at times.  The first time my mother witnessed it was when she woke up in the middle of the night to find me emptying the bathroom cabinets.  When she asked me what I was doing, I told her I was looking for something.  After that she told me to go back to bed.  Apparently I said okay and walked back to bed instantly.  I never listen to her that easily.  Clearly I must have been sleeping.

But had I fallen asleep today? We have been driving for so long that I don’t even know how many days have gone by.  One?  Two?  Seven?  No, definitely not a whole week.  I would ask my mother, but I didn’t want to risk it.  Who knows, I might have asked that question several times as well.

I don’t remember sleeping.  That much I know.  Or, I think I know.  I may have zoned out watching the different types of trees go by time and again, but I’m pretty sure I stayed awake.  So then maybe she had dreamt I asked the same questions again and again.  No, no.  That wouldn’t make sense.  She has been driving, so I hope that she wouldn’t fall asleep at the wheel.  Talking in your sleep is one thing.  Driving in your sleep would be miraculous.  Maybe she can do it.  Maybe she can’t.  I don’t really want to be in the car when she tests that.

“Are you hungry?” she asked as we were about to pass by a rest area.

“Nah, I’m okay,” I answer back.

“Are you sure?  We haven’t stopped all day.”

This is true.  But the strange thing is that I’m really not hungry.  I had a few snacks out of the bag of stuff we packed for the trip, but that shouldn’t be enough to hold me off all day.  Not even close.  But I lie and say I ate enough anyway.

We keep going until…actually I don’t even know what.  I don’t remember it, but I fell asleep for the first time in quite awhile.  I guess I really was tired.  When I woke up my mother told me that I had passed out for at least thirteen hours.  That has got to be a record for me.

“I think you just expanded the term ‘weirdo’ to a whole new level,” she says to me. “I’m glad I gave birth to a strange one.”

Ouch.  How does someone even respond to that?  But I know it’s all just for fun, so I play along.

“Like you said, you are the one who gave birth to me.  So I had to get the trait from somewhere.” I directed my response to assure her that I was referring to her.  She got the hint and laughed.

It was great, surprisingly.  I can’t say I remember the last time I witnessed my mother laugh. Even though I’m not with her all day, I’m pretty sure that it must have been a good six months.  The only other time I can remember before that was because she was watching America’s Funniest Home Videos.  That is our favorite show.

Hearing the sound of her laughter, even if only for a second, made me feel superior inside.  Like I had accomplished a task that was too extreme to accomplish.  So extreme that people never bothered to attempt it.  I have done the nearly impossible.  And I did it with one, simple sentence.

I am the champ.

****************

It was Thursday now.  A day that used to be my favorite.  For a couple of years my father and I would order Chinese food from the same restaurant every single Thursday for dinner.  The place was called Luke’s Inn, and I would order the exact same meal every time: general tso’s chicken with white rice, replacing the disgusting egg roll that usually comes with it with two very tasty crab rangoon.  I never got tired of it.  I would probably enjoy it just as much if I had some right now.  My father and I did this for so long that the guy who wrote down our orders eventually knew who we were, and he started to expect us every Thursday.  If we weren’t able to go one week, then the week later he would confront us and ask where we were.

I reached toward the seat in the back of the car that had the bags we packed piled on top of it, pulling a random bag toward me. Although it was random, I knew that it had food in it.  Imagine if it were some of that delicious Chinese food.  That would be outstanding.  Without looking, I felt around for some kind of package that should contain food.  Wrapping my fingers around what felt like the corner of a box, I pulled it out.  It was a box of cereal labeled “Raisins & Oats”.

“Really, mom?” I asked with a hint of hopelessness in my voice.

“What?” she replied.

“Raisins and Oats?  What kind of food is that?”

“The kind that will keep you healthy,” she said with a smirk.

“Keep me healthy?  What the flap do I care about that for?” I ask.

She doesn’t answer me.  She only glances over for a second and smiles.  This was the first time she has taken her eyes off the road.

“Two things.  One, I don’t even care about what I eat, ma,” I say to her.  “You ain’t never gonna see this body fat,” I continue as I place my hand over my stomach. 

And there it was.  Laugh number two.  It was unbelievable, the way the look on her face changed from regret and sorrow to witty and cheerful.  Whatever it was that was concealing her happiness must have finally let go on this fateful car ride.  Suddenly I myself became happier than I have been in a long time.  It was as if mine and my mother’s happiness are connected.  If one of us is unhappy, so is the other.

I examined the box of Raisins & Oats for a few minutes.  My mother must have viewed this as a strange behavior because I could see her give me that look out of the corner of my eye.  The look she always gets whenever something seems strange to her.  Her eyes slightly narrow as her right eyebrow curves.  Whenever she makes this face she usually continues by saying something that lightens the mood.

“Well it’s not gonna bite you if that’s what you’re worried about,” she says to me as I lower the cereal box.  I knew that it was coming, her smart-mouth comment just made its debut.

“It’s just such a strange cereal,” I say.  “I don’t get why anybody would eat it.”

         Cap’n Crunch.  Yeah, that’s a good cereal.  Nothing beats Cap’n Crunch.  Its taste is the best, and its variety of flavors is the best.  Even its commercials are the best.

         I could really go for some Cap’n Crunch right now I think to myself as my stomach ironically growls.

         “What’s that sound I hear?” asks my mother as she cups her right hand over the matching sides ear.  “I thought you weren’t hungry?”

         I can tell by the tone of her voice that she is calling me out for lying earlier.  That’s one thing I have never been able to understand – how mothers have that sixth sense only a mother could have.  They always know when you’re up to something.  You can’t hide things from them, no matter how hard you try.  And as much as I hate to admit it, she is right.  I said that I had enough to eat, and she found me out.

         “I just want to be done with the driving,” I tell her.  I like car rides.  Long ones usually don’t bother me.  But this process of skipping town after town is starting to just get on my nerves.  “I want to be able to settle down in one place, keep the same friends, see the same family members, and eat the same food.  I liked it when I was able to live in one house and go to sleep knowing I would wake up in the same bed.  You know, like we used to.”

         I look at my mother.  Her face was blank.  Maybe my words had a stronger impact than I had interpreted.  I guess that’s what happens when you don’t talk to a lot of people for awhile – you forget the how strong an affect each word can have on a person.  It explains things like bullying.  Kids constantly pick on other kids all the time just for how they good they look, or for the clothes they wear.  Or it’s because of how they act.  None of these are good enough reasons to torment another individual.  Each word sets off a tiny spark that eventually fires the cannon, and when that cannon fires, the victim does something they will eventually regret.

         Kind of like the time my father had my mother’s neck in his grasp.

          I looked through the bag for other foods that might keep my satisfied for awhile.  Maybe some cheez-its or some of those soft, delicious sugar cookies my mother sometimes makes.  She is an excellent cook.  Just because I don’t like some of the types of food she makes doesn’t mean that she doesn’t cook them up top notch.  She can make something just as disgusting as a professional chef would be able to.  To my disappointment I did not find anything I felt like eating.  Not because they didn’t taste good, I just didn’t feel like eating breakfast at five o’clock in the afternoon.  In this bag I found only more cereals.  Another box of Raisins & Oats, one box of Lucky Charms, 2 boxes of Cocoa Crispies.  All of these are different types of cereal.  I start to believe that this lady, my mother, really is a tad on the strange side.  Because as I continued to look through the other bags we had packed I found no milk.  Not a single carton.

         “Hey, genius mother of mine,” I say sarcastically, preparing to get my revenge on her for calling me strange.

         “What’s the matter now, dear?” she asks me like my incessant talking is getting on her nerves.

         “You can no longer call me strange,” I tell her.  “because the only food you packed is cereal.”

         She glanced over at me for a second, and then turned her attention back to the road.  I could tell she didn’t know where I was going with this, so I cleared that up for her.

         “Where’s the milk?” I say while raising an eyebrow.

         She doesn’t say anything at first.  I started to think that she was just going to ignore me this time, until she finally said that I didn’t need milk to eat cereal.

         “Just, I don’t know, forget about manners for a little bit,” she tells me.

         Wow.  Did my mother - the women who must have added at least fourteen more ways to be polite in this world - just tell me that I now don’t need to?

         “I am mind blown,” I say to her.  “I never thought I would hear that from you.”

         “Enjoy it while it lasts.  It will be a long time before you hear these words again,” she assures me.

         This is probably true.  I don’t think I have ever heard my mother tell me to do something she once told me never to do.  Most kids would be grateful that their mother said this to them.  However, I just found it strange.  I’m just not used to it.  But I shrug it off and just open the bag of Lucky Charms cereal, eating like a caveman, just as my mother suggested.  Yes, I am one of those people who pick out and only eat the marshmallows.  I started to hum the Lucky Charms theme song to myself, the one that names all the shapes of the marshmallows.  Hearts, stars and horseshoes…all the way up to the red balloons.  They are just so good, and the crunchy stuff in the box is just not.  Once I believe I have devoured every marshmallow in the box, I lay my seat back, shut my eyes and doze off into a sleep.

         I wake up to the obnoxious sound of my mother’s car horn.  Damn it, mom.  That’s all I want to say to her.  When I open my eyes, I scope out the surrounding environment to see if I can figure out why she blared the horn before I ask.  But then my mother starts talking to herself out loud, answering the question I was pondering.  The car that was in front of ours was driving ridiculously slow.  I glanced over at the miles per hour meter on the car dashboard.  According to the red pointer that runs over the numbers as our speed changes, we are only going 35 miles per hour.  I don’t remember what the speed limit on this route is exactly, but it’s got to be more than 35 considering it’s a highway.

         There she goes, blaring the horn again.  I just want to tell her to lay off the noise, but I decide against it.  She’s already annoyed so I better keep my comments to myself.  Instead I tell her that there is nobody coming in the next lane over.  She takes advantage of that, thanks me, then rotates the wheel clockwise until our car moves into the next lane.  Whenever I’m in the passenger seat I have a tendency to stare into the cars that pass by.  So, naturally, I do the same thing to the car going a whopping 30 miles per hour.  I look into the contents of the vehicle.  Or should I say lack there of.

         What the flap is this?  There is nobody driving the car, not a single person maneuvering the vehicle.  No wonder it’s going so slow.  But something’s not right.  Something other than the car lacking people.  If my memory is right, I am almost one hundred percent positive that we were behind this same car before I went and dove into a sleep.  So then that means that, at some point during the last quarter of an hour – the time suggesting that I only fell asleep fifteen minutes ago - whoever resided in that car has vanished.

Chapter 2

How could this be possible?  This car must have had someone operating it.  How else could it have made it this far?  None of this makes sense.  The abandoned car.  Its inhabitants vanishing without a single sign of retrieval.  The missing milk needed for the cereal, and more importantly my mother telling me to chow down like a prehistoric animal.  Today is just so bizarre.  What else could go wrong?

That question became clear soon enough.  I looked back at the unmonitored car to find its speed increasing.  And not slowly either.  For the first time in awhile this car had enhanced its velocity.  Had someone somehow gotten back inside of the car and took control again?  No, I looked and found that the car is still abandoned.  This whole situation just climbed up a level on the “makes-no-sense scale”.  I just made that up.  I think I’ll keep it.

The car’s momentum is still growing, and in no time it was right alongside us again.  I warned my mother about the vehicle, which I proudly named the phantom car.  A look of pure bewilderment overcomes my mother’s face.  Just then I felt my mother’s car tug sideways.  I looked over to my mother as she straightened her wheel.

“What’s happening?” I demand.

“Your ‘phantom car’ just tried to hit us!” she says to me.

This whole situation once again moved up another step on my “makes-no-sense” scale.  It was so screwy, how the car doesn’t operate.  How it then begins to operate without any driver as if it had a mind of its own.  How it now has the mind of a murderer.  My mother pushed her foot harder on the gas pedal, allowing us to get back in front.  I stared at the car again.  It was far enough behind me that I could now see the front.  The car was missing a good chunk of the front windshield.  Someone must have broken out of it.  That explains how it went from having a passenger to having none at all. 

And now, even without a passenger, the phantom car sped up again, positioning itself on the side of us.  My mother continued to increase our vehicles speed as well.  Weaving in and out of the surrounding cars, we were now competing in a race to the finish.  And whatever lies ahead at this finish can’t be anything good.

A sudden rush overwhelms my body from head to toe.  We were driving like maniacs as we tried to escape the phantom car.  I was constantly being slammed into my side door whenever we would turn, and there were often times when I would lift off my seat and tap the roof of the car with my hand, preventing me from whacking my head.  My mother noticed this, and when she found enough time to gather her words she said to me “Put your seatbelt on!”

“It is on!” I tell her as I continue clashing different parts of the car with every part of my body.  We were going so fast that we left all the other random cars behind.  The only residents on the road were me, my mother, and the phantom car.  My mother took her right hand off the steering wheel.  Is she insane?  I like driving fast but isn’t this too extreme to remove a hand from the wheel?  I feel another impact on my mother’s side of the car.  The phantom car caught up yet again and strikes the side of our vehicle.  Once again I slam into the car door on my side.  This time it was my head that hit the window.  But the glass didn’t shatter, and I have no cut.  I am fine.  Well, as fine as fine can be in a situation like this.  The hand my mother let free reached underneath the dashboard of the car.  I watched her out of curiosity.  That’s when I saw a cover flip down, revealing something inside.  What was it?  I couldn’t see from where I was, but I didn’t want to ask.  I was in such a shock about what was going on that I was too worried to think about anything except how I was going to get out of this.

“Hold on to something!” my mother suggests.

“To what?!” I say to her.

“Find something!” she replies.

But what is there to hold onto?  I searched around the whole car and didn’t find anything.  My mother double checked on if I had found something yet.  That’s when I looked up to the top of the door.  There was a handle, as if it were put here for this specific purpose.

“Got it!” I assured her.

“Don’t let go until I say to!” she insisted.

I watched as her hand moved up into the compartment that was concealed behind the cover.  I heard a voice come from the radio.  Not my mothers, not any kind of music.  It was a robotic feminine voice, and it said

BOOSTER MODE.  AUTO-PILOT ENGAGED. STANDBY.

Following these words was an obnoxious tone, similar to the beep you hear when you’re about to leave a voicemail on someone’s phone.  Suddenly the world around me became blurry as I hear the sound of rockets from the back of my mother’s car.  Oh, that explains “Booster mode”.  The velocity our car had reached was so extreme that my whole body was forced to sink back into my seat, and I’m almost positive my mother’s did as well.  If I couldn’t see the world outside clearly anymore, then I wonder if anyone in the outside world could see our car.  After a long, ten seconds, possibly the most extreme 10 seconds of my life, I heard that same robotic voice.

BOOSTER MODE DISSENGAGED. AUTO-PILOT OFFLINE.

The rush I had felt lasted several more seconds, even after the car slowed back down to its regular speed.  I was breathing heavily due to the adrenaline rush, when my mother asked me if I was ok.  Of course I was ok.  However, I can’t blame her for asking me after going through something like that.  I reassure her that I am fine.

“You mean to tell me that we could have done that this whole time?  I have been sitting in this car for hours upon hours.  We could have gotten to Stuart ten times faster if you did that before!” I say.

Before.  That’s right.  Before this moment I had no idea something such as “booster mode” even existed.  Once again, I found myself in a state where all I wanted were answers.

“Why do you have that,” I ask my mother.

“Have what?” she requests.

“Don’t play dumb with me, Ma.  Why do you have those boosters?”

For awhile, she says nothing.  Actually it was really only about twelve seconds.  But twelve seconds is an awfully long time to answer a question.

“For preventing,” she tells me.

“Preventing?  Preventing what?” I ask.

Once again she does not reply.  And when she finally does answer me, all she says is, “It can wait.”

It?  What the junk is it?  For all I know my mother is some kind of secret assassin that prevents things, but I only have an it to work with.  I was dying to get all the answers I needed out of her, but deep down I knew that she was not going to answer them thoroughly.  So I kept my questions to myself for now.  Well, only the questions about her it.

“Are we at least close to Stuart?”  I ask her.

“It’s only a few exits away,” she replies.

Thank god.  I’ll finally be able to relax again.  Until next year.  That’s the pattern my mother and I have been working with – leaving one town every year to travel to a new one we haven’t been to yet.  If this keeps up, by the time I reach my sixty’s I’ll have seen the whole god damn country.

I attempt to relax during this last portion of the car ride, but I can’t seem to keep my grip on the feeling of being tired that I need.  My mind just keeps replaying the situation with the phantom car over and over, as if there was some kind of device that could rewind and repeat my thoughts.  Not to mention that I have so many questions that need answering.  It doesn’t matter anyway.  In a matter of ten minutes we finally reach the exit we need to take to get into Stuart.

We pull into a Subway parking lot for a quick bite to eat.  Neither of us said it, but both of us knew it.  We were hungry.  And I love Subway; I didn’t even know there was one in Florida.  That’s nice to know though, now I can eat it almost every day like I would back home.  I order either their buffalo chicken sub or the sweet onion chicken teriyaki every time.  The teriyaki one probably sounds disgusting, because most people I know tend to stay away from anything that says “onion”, but this sandwich is so delicious.  Do not let its name fool you.

After we ate, we went back outside to our car.  I’m pretty sure that it’s safe to say I should start worrying now, because when we found our car, we also found a note attached to the passenger’s door.  As if this note was for my eyes and my eyes only.  But I can’t just hide it from my mother.  Especially not if it means what I think it means.  I call her over to me and read her the message on this mysterious piece of paper.

I TOLD YOU I WOULD RETURN

Chapter 3

I told you I would return.  No other period in my life compares to this moment.  The overwhelming stun I felt throughout my entire mind, body, spirit.  The worried look on my mother’s face.  The mysterious message on my door.  But it wasn’t a mystery at all.  I have only heard that phrase once before today, and that was three years ago.  The time when I was watching my psychopath father nearly kill my mother.

I will return.  That was the warning my father gave us that fateful day.  And now here I am staring at the words again, only this time they seemed darker.  I felt like the world was growing father away until I lost my grip on reality.  The uneasy feeling that took over my body made me unable to move.  It felt like there was nothing but darkness surrounding me as the words kept repeating themselves in my head. I will return.  I will return.  I told you I would return.

“Get in the car,” says my mother.  Her words sounded so distant the first time that I must have barely heard them.  I finally snapped out of it when she told me to get in the car for the second time.  It was easier to just listen to her than it was to speak, so instead of talking about this I just got inside.  For awhile we both said nothing.  I stared out my side window as she kept her eyes planted on the road.  I was so shaken that this car ride felt longer than the time it took to get down to Florida, even though it was only five minutes before we got to our hotel, the Monterey Inn.  After we park the car, we grab all of our bags and start heading to the front desk.  The lady behind the desk that said she could help us was named Shelly.  I only knew that because of her name tag.  This was the first time my mother had spoken since we left the Subway parking lot. 

238.  That was our hotel room number.  The 38th door down on the second floor.  Once we arrived at our room, my mother threw all the bags in one corner.  She told me that she was going to take a shower and that I needed to put away the stuff we packed in their appropriate spots.  The clothes went in some dressers that a nice television was mounted on top of, and some food and drinks went in the fridge.  Snacks went on the side.  I was just about done when I heard the bathroom door creak open.  My mother had finished her shower, so I figured now would be the time to have that dreaded talk we have been putting off.

         “Look I know there is no easy way of doing this, so I’m just going to ask,” I say to her nervously.  “What do we do about this?”

         “There’s nothing we can do, Bryson,” she replied.

         “I don’t want to move again.  At least not right now,” I say.

         “He knows that we are here,” she says to me with disappointment.  To her, it’s like she has failed to protect me yet again.  I think that is why everything has been getting to her so easily over this past year.  All she wants to do is protect me, but if my father finds us then she has failed to do that.  And that has happened twice already.  Actually, if this recent note attached to our car was from him, then it’s three times.

“I don’t care anymore,” I state.  “I’m tired of the running.  I want it to stop.  Pretend that I’m not your son for a minute and listen to me like I am an adult.”  My words must have hit her deeply, like they shot out and sunk into her skin, because she paused for awhile before saying, “Okay.”

“I can’t keep running. I’m not living my life the way I should.  If he wants to see me that bad then we’ll let him,” I tell her.  “At least I can live an actual life.”

“Yeah, a life of secret, fear, and hostility,” my mother says to me.  “Trust me, you don’t want that life.”

“Well I’m sick of this one, mom.  All I’m saying is let him come.  If he wants me then he’s gonna have to put up a fight because I’m not going to willingly walk into the palm of his hands.”

I meant this with all of my soul.  And I think my mother saw that. 

“So you really want to fight him then?”

“If it comes to that, then I would,” I reply.

I could tell my mother was debating on whether or not she wanted to tell me something at this exact moment.  And based on what she did in fact tell me, this was probably the most significant moment of my life.  This is the moment where my life changed. 

What would you do if everything you thought was true, wasn’t?  And if everything you thought were lies, were in fact the truth? Because I had absolutely no idea what to think when my mother explained what would in fact happen next in my life. It was something I would have never even imagined would happen.  Something I didn’t think would ever be said to me before, especially by my own mother.

“I have a way for you to fight him,” says my mother.

Her words glued themselves to my mind.  What did she mean by a way to fight him? Sure, I’ve been in fist fights before.  I have no problem there, but what if she meant weapons?  And if so, where the flap would these weapons be coming from?  I needed to know everything.  But for some reason I was at a loss for words.  I just stood there staring off into the distance as my mother looked at me.  From the look on her face, I could tell that she was angry with herself for not knowing whether or not telling me this was the right thing, and that she wanted to stop where she was before more was revealed.  However, I couldn’t let her stop.  Not this time.

“Mom,” I say to try and get her to start talking again.  It worked.

“Do you remember when I told you I prevent things?”

“Who wouldn’t forget?” I ask in return.  “It was one of the strangest things I have ever heard you say.  Well, minus telling me to eat like a caveman in the car today.”

She may not have laughed, but at least I got a smile.  I guess that since this conversation was so serious then a smile is good enough for me.  She continued to tell me that she prevented bad things from happening by figuring out a critter’s plan and intercepting their line of fire with firepower of their own.  Critters are a nickname that she gave the people who lead their mischievous plots.

“Hang on.  You said fire power of our own.  What do you mean by our? I ask.

“We are all people who have had a tragic past.  People who had a reason to want to help others from feeling pain that we ourselves have personally experienced before.” she says to me.

I could not believe what I was hearing.  The thought of it just seemed so unimaginable, but I have reasons to believe that she is telling the truth.  A tragic past with my father, the talking car with boosters, the three buttons I was never allowed to press on the side of her cell phone.  As crazy as all of this sounded, I was dying to know more.  She told me that there was a secret society known as Acolon.  “It was named after a legendary Paladin that sacrificed his spirit to save the people he cared about in his lifetime.  And now we do the same, but with technology so well thought out that you won’t believe your eyes when you see it.”

Part of me wants to call my mom crazy, but for some strange reason I believe her.  The sound of her words, the tone of her voice, the look in her eye.  All of these small matters lead me to believe that my mother is in fact telling the truth.  And I think she realized that I was debating whether or not I thought she was crazy, so she told me that she had something for me.  But she can’t hand it – whatever it may be – to me until she takes me somewhere.

“Give it a few weeks,” she tells me.  “Everything will make sense then.

So now all I can do it wait.  Wait for the longest three weeks of my life completely passed by.  During this time period my mother put a down payment on a house nearby.  We moved in on June 26th, and were completely settled in a few days later.  I found out that the school I will be attending is called South Fork High School.  It’s kind of a funky name if you ask me, but hey I’m not on the school board so what are you going to do? 

Three weeks ago my mother told me that everything would make sense on this present day.  So why have none of my questions be answered?  She has left me on a cliffhanger for weeks and weeks; I don’t think that I can wait any longer.  Our minds must really be connected or something, because as soon as I walked out of the door or my new bedroom, there she was walking into my room at the same exact time.  And all she said to me was, “It’s time.”  Right away I knew what that meant.

I watched as she reached into her pocket and took out her cell phone.  “Push the top button on the left side,” she tells me.  Obeying her order, I push the button.  All of a sudden the front screen turned a bright red, and two words appeared in black.

PAGING SUCCESSFUL

My mother must have known that I was confused, so she explained to me what just happened.  Apparently, by pushing that button, the Acolon Society has been told about our whereabouts, and a helicopter was now on its way here.

“Where are they coming from?” I ask her.

“From their nearest location,” she replied. 

My mother tells me that there are stations set up all across the country – two in every state.  Luckily for us, the Florida headquarters is in a place called Moore Haven.  Its right along Lake Okeechobee, so getting here should only be about a half hour flight tops.  Maybe even less.  Now here I am, once again where the only thing I can do is sit and wait until the answers come to me.

Twenty-six minutes go by.  In these twenty-six minutes, my mother took me to an open field in the woods about a quarter mile away.  I think I finally hear the sound of propellers off in the distance, and when I turn my head to their direction I found that I was right.  I watch as the copter slowly hovers in towards us.  As it got closer, the wind let loose by the giant propellers was unbelievable.  You would think that a hurricane was on its way.  I probably would have taken cover if there was anywhere to hide, especially since a branch flew off a tree and right over our heads.

I kept my head down for a little longer, just in case something else decided to jump out at me.  Even though I’m not looking, I can tell the propellers are starting to slow down.  The wind is starting to calm, and the obnoxious sound emanating from the helicopter finally settled.  I decided it was time to lift my head up back to the world.  With all of the excitement I had forgotten that we were in the middle of nowhere.  That was probably a good thing, considering this probably would have brought a lot of attention towards ourselves if we had done this in the middle of town.  Although now that I think about it, if I need to make my new friends soon, I’ll just call up a helicopter and that will bring in almost everybody around.  Talk about popular.  How many people do you know that can call in a helicopter whenever they want?

“Sorry about that,” a man says as he steps out of the helicopter.  “Is everybody okay?”

My mother answered for the both of us when she said we were fine.  She told me that this guy’s name was John and that he is one of Acolon’s best pilots.  After a quick greeting we board the helicopter.  I have never been in one of these before, so this was a new experience for me.  After another man, Henry, strapped us in, he asked me if I have ever been in a plane before. 

“Once,” I told him.  “when I was seven.”

“Well a helicopter ride is a bit more bumpy.” He hesitated on the word bumpy.  Maybe he was trying to make me less worried.  But I am pretty good at interpreting lies.  I play along because I’m not worried anyway.  I could hear the sound of the copters engine start up again, followed by the whirling of the propellers.  Then I felt the helicopter lift off the ground, slowly rising higher with every passing second.  But so much more was happening here than I was aware of.  As the pilot guided the helicopter to its destination, all I could think about was my father, and how there was a ninety-nine percent chance that it was him who left the note for me to find.  And then a new thought entered my mind.  A thought that brought that ninety-nine percent chance all the way up to one hundred.  My father was the one in the phantom car, and one way or another he was the one who was controlling it the whole time.

Chapter 4

John, the pilot, guided the helicopter to an island in the middle of Lake Okeechobee, landing just outside a tan colored square building.  This building must have been no larger than my garage back home.  I would have never known that this was their headquarters if Henry didn’t say that we had arrived. 

I followed my mother, who was following John and Henry.  When we were up close to the building, I was more confused than ever.  At one point I started to think that this was all a giant prank on me schemed up by my mother. I stared at the front of this box structure and realized that it was only possible to fit one room.  Then, as I studied the walls of the structure, I found no windows.  There wasn’t a door handle either, just some square box where a handle should be.

“Is this a joke?” I ask my mother in a hushed tone.  But she only laughed.

“I’m serious,” I tell her.  “This is hardly even the size of an office.  It doesn’t seem to be very hospitable.”

“Just wait,” she tells me.  “It will all make sense soon.”

So I wait.  I feel like I’m waiting forever.  Each second seemed more like a minute as I waited longer and longer.  Finally, John holds up his right hand and places his palm on the face of the square that bulged from the wall.  Curiosity consumed my mind.  I was in awe as I watched this red light appear at the top of the box in the form of a thin horizontal line.  This line of red light then moved down, then all the way back up to where it had started.  Even though I had no idea what was going on, I figured out that this red light had just scanned John’s hand.  After it finished scanning, I could hear a voice very similar to the one I heard in my mother’s car right before the boosters activated.

VERIFICATION COMPLETE.  WELCOME, JOHN.

I looked over at my mother.  I guess she thought that I wouldn’t want to miss what was happening, so she pointed over in the direction John was in.  When I looked back I saw a portion of the wall, about the size of a door, slide up to reveal a stairway.  John, Henry, my mother and I walked down the stairs that were now visible.  It was dark.  It must be pitch black in here without that door open behind us. 

It doesn’t take long to get to the bottom.  When we get there, there was another wall with a square box on it that must do the same thing as the previous one.  This must be for defense reasons.  If somehow someone were to get by the first door, they would have to do it again.  But there was something about this wall that made it different.  In the middle, there was a picture of a winged warrior.  Its wings were spread out, with lush long blonde hair descending down its back.  Its body was completely covered with magnificent silver armor with a golden trim, and this warrior was holding a sword high up to the sky.  At its waist there was a golden sash that just added even more beauty to this picture.  Underneath this angel was a single sentence.  Perfect justice in service of a perfect will.

My eyes were so fixated on this picture that I hadn’t even noticed the door was open.  “That’s the Paladin, Acolon,” my mother tells me.  “Come on, we’re gonna fall behind.”

On the other side of this door was a hallway.  It seemed to go on forever.  Every ten feet or so there was a door with a label on it.  The first one was labeled “SPECIAL DEFENSE”, which was where they practiced important defending techniques.  The next door was labeled “BATHROOM”, and the one next to that had “KITCHEN” on the front of it.  The next few doors followed the rest of the basics: laundry, and some living rooms.  My mother told me that if we keep going down the hallway I will see a room belonging to every member in Acolon.  “I’ll show you my room later if you want,” she says to me.  “But I want you to see something else first.”

See something else.  All I can think about is three weeks ago when she told me that she had something for me, and that I would understand everything in a few weeks.  Well that time is now and she was right.  One by one all of my questions are being answered without asking any questions again.  At the beginning there was only a couple.  Why are there boosters on her car?  What is up with all of the buttons I’ve never been allowed to touch?  But now that those have been answered, others took their place.  That’s the headquarters?  What’s that red light?  What’s behind these doors?  But now all of these have been answered as well.  The only one that remains is what my mother has for me.

I watch as Henry and John walk over to my mom.  They are talking, but not loud enough for me to hear them.  However, I get the feeling that they are talking about me, because at one point John looks right at me over my mother’s shoulder.

“I’m sure,” I hear my mother tell them.  She holds out her arm and waves me over.  “He is ready.”



i have more to this chapter, but i'm restricted to showing only this much because i am not, nor can i be, a paid member.  It's too bad, really.  chapter 4 is when it starts to get good.