THe Little brother

S.M. Roundtree

        My dad had to go away to fight them. He said it was his job to be brave, to protect me and my big brother and my mommy and all the other moms and dads in the world. I don’t know why dead people had to start waking up, but I watched the T.V. at night, even when my mommy told me I wasn’t supposed to. I saw the dead people on the news, they wanted to come find everybody so they could eat us and make us into dead people too. 

        So I told my dad that he should go. But it still made me cry. I asked him not to forget about me, even if he had to go away forever. 

        My dad held me tight and he said he would never forget me. He didn’t promise anything about coming home. He asked me and my big brother to promise to keep Mommy safe. My brother’s a lot bigger than me. Once my dad was gone, sometimes he would yell at Mommy. I don’t like yelling, so when they got into big fights, I always went into my room and covered my ears with my pillow. 

        One time, I heard the door slam real loud and when I came out, my big brother wasn’t there anymore. Mommy was crying, she said he wasn’t coming back. I guess my big brother forgot about me, because he never told me goodbye. 

        After that, it was just Mommy and me. We had to stay in our house all the time, because if we went outside the dead people might get us. 

        Mommy got real sad which made her tired a lot. She told me to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches everyday, because I knew how to make that. Mommy stayed laid down in her bed and with her room dark. Sometimes she stayed there all day. When I went in there, she would make me get out if I started to play. She told me I had to learn how to be by myself. 

        Until the day Mommy said she would make everything all better. She got real happy and she made us both pancakes. She played with me in our backyard and told me that we didn’t have to be scared anymore. Mommy said she figured out a plan. She said that we would have one more perfect day, and then she would make a special drink for us, and after we drank it, we wouldn’t ever have to be scared of the dead people ever again. 

        But I watched her make the yellow juice, and I knew it was something you’re not supposed to drink. Even though Mommy said that’s what I was supposed to do. My big brother taught me that sometimes I have to do things even though it’s not what Mommy and my dad say. 

        She made me sit with her at the table and she put the drink in front of me. It smelled like cleaner from the bathroom. She made her voice loud, and told me to drink it or I would be all alone.

        Then she plugged her nose and swallowed the juice all at once. It made her cough and choke. I thought she was going to barf it back out, but she didn’t. She swallowed it all and then she got real quiet. 

        I remember her head was laid down on the table, and her eyes didn’t open, even when I got real close. I patted her hair, and combed my fingers through it, like my dad used to do for me when it was my bedtime. I looked at the juice and thought that maybe I should drink it too, but sniffing it burned my nose. I left the glass there. It scared me to touch it, so I didn’t even pour the yellow juice out. 

        Mommy didn’t get up when I was sitting with her, even after I said her name a lot of times. I just guessed she was really sad and tired again, probably because I didn’t drink the juice with her. I knew it was my fault. 

        When it was nighttime, I went into my room and slammed the door as loud as I could, just like my big brother used to do. I wanted Mommy to know that I was mad at her for drinking the juice. 

        Then I did something else that I’m not supposed to do: I pressed the little button on my door knob to lock it. My dad told me never to lock my door, because I might get hurt, and then nobody could come save me. I did it even though he said I’m not supposed to. I don’t know why. 

        The dark in my room didn’t scare me. I laid under my covers and hugged my pillow. I couldn’t go to sleep. My eyes were open and I was thinking really hard, wishing for my big brother to come home. I laid there for a long time, but then I heard my door knob jingle. 

        “Mommy?” I asked in the dark. The jingling stopped, and there was scratching on my door. “Stop it,” I said. “You’re scaring me.” I was frozen in my bed, listening to my door knob move. It got quiet, but then there was a bang against my door. Mommy was trying to break it down! She did it again and again. It kept getting louder. 

         I yelled at her, just like my big brother did. I told her to stop it, but she didn’t, she just kept banging her whole body against my door. Everything felt hot and wet on my face, and my door sprang open real wide which made me jump right out of bed. I saw her even though it was dark, I could see in just a little bit of the gray light. She wasn’t my mommy anymore. 

        Her head was hanging over like her neck was too soft. Her mouth was wide open and both her hands were reaching for me, but her knees were bent wrong and she made shaky, slow steps. 

        I didn’t hear her breath. Usually my mom breaths heavy, but this time she wasn’t breathing at all. 

        I screamed and I stared at her, and then I screamed louder and started running. My mommy was one of the dead people, and I didn’t want to become a dead person too.

        To get out of my room, I had to go right by her. I got up close and I could see my mommy’s eyes, just for one single second. They weren’t white any more, they were dark purple, like old blood got stuck in her eye balls. She tried to grab me, but I ducked fast. I ran out of my room and then to the front door and I didn’t close it behind me, even without any shoes on, I kept running.

        Grown-ups were outside, across the street from my house, talking in a circle. I yelled at them to get away. I told them my mommy was one of the dead people. I went onto the street, even though I could feel the black stuff crack on my feet. I wanted them to run with me, but none of the grown-ups did. They called for me to come back to them, and then they all started shouting, but none of them came with me. Except when I looked back, I saw my friend Katie and she was running too. 

        Katie was one of my neighbors, sometimes we played together at the park. I didn’t always like playing with her though. She was bigger than me, even though she was a girl and I was a boy. I guess she heard me about my mommy though, because she was the only one who came running. 

        I was always faster than her, so I got her when we played tag, and I was the one who got to the park first. We ran to the park because Katie was following me, and the park was the only place I knew how to get to without getting lost. 

        I sat on the swing so I could catch my breath. When Katie got there too she sat on the other swing with me. She asked me what happened to my mommy, but I didn’t want to tell her. She said that we should go back, that her parents would help us. I didn’t leave the park though, and neither did she. 

I must have fallen asleep hanging on the swing chains, because the next thing I remember is opening my eyes and seeing a whole bunch of the dead people. I don’t know if they were all the grown-ups I saw before, if they were Katie’s parents, or even if my mommy was with them, because I yelled at Katie to wake up and I went running. 

        There was a house my big brother showed me by the park one time. He took me there because there was a hole in the wood fence that I could fit through. He said nobody lived there, so I crawled in through the hole like it was a doggy door and let my big brother in the gate so we could play in the backyard. 

        I ran across the whole field of soft wet grass until I found the fence with the hole. I yelled for Katie to hurry, because she was still way behind me, running across the grass, the crowd of dead people behind her. 

        I tried to get through the hole in the fence, but my shoulders got stuck on the wood. I had to squeeze them through, and the fence scraped through my shirt and stabbed into both my sides. But I got through and the fence didn’t even hurt my legs. 

        Dirt got onto my face, but I kicked up onto my feet and ran for the back door of the house. It opened for me, just like my brother showed me. Katie was still behind me, she was in the fence. “I can’t,” she said. “I can’t get through.” She screamed for my help. Her voice got loud and screechy. 

        I wish I could say that I tried to help her. I wish I could say that I grabbed on her arm and tugged and tugged, but couldn’t pull her through. But I didn’t even look at her. I closed the door of the house behind me and I locked it. 

        I could still hear her though. The sounds she made came through the door and the window. I thought about finding a place to hide, in case the dead people came into the house, but

I couldn’t make my legs move anymore. I just laid down on the floor of the dark house and listened to Katie scream for her mommy and scream for her dad. Then I heard when her screams weren’t words anymore, and I heard the snapping sounds of her body. 

        All that noise, Katie’s crying - I could feel all of that sound going inside of me. It scared me worse than anything else I’ve ever seen, even worse than when Mommy tried to make me drink the juice. Katie’s noises scared me so bad, I forgot my name.