Everything Will Change
February 2011
The screen door flew open and banged against the exterior of the house. Ambrose pressed her palms against the edge of the kitchen table and pushed himself backward, sending his chair clattering to the floor. He peered around the doorway and kept his pistol trained on the small entryway. Ambrose couldn’t see the person that had entered, but he heard the telltale footsteps and the creaking of the floorboards. Resting his back against the wall, he pressed his thumb down on the hammer of his gun and narrowed his line of sight to the kitchen doorway. He just needed to see a profile. He needed to see the foreign shoes or the unknown pants.February 2011
When he saw the flash of a baseball cap, Ambrose lifted his pistol and pointed the muzzle of the gun directly at the person’s temple. The man put a hand up toward the barrel of the gun and made a quick movement toward Ambrose. The change in position happened in the blink of an eye. Ambrose went from being in control of the situation to staring down the barrel of his own gun.
“What did I tell you about hiding? Boy, if you got the chance, you take it. Shoot. You think they’re going to wait for you to get your bearings? Hell no. You’d be chow by now.” Donovan lowered the pistol and then flipped the gun around so that the butt of the gun faced his son. He had a hard look about his face, one that showed the exact number of years comprising his hard life. “Got us some grub. Couple of trout and a rogue squirrel,” Donovan grunted. The man raised his other hand to show the trout strung along the fishing line and then moved toward the double sink to deposit them into the empty side.
“I’ll get the stove going,” Ambrose muttered as he tucked the pistol back into the waist of his jeans. He couldn’t help but scowl at his dad’s back, even if he did look up to his old man. Ambrose was twenty-three years old and he still hadn’t mastered control of his weapon or martial arts. Whenever he screwed up, he had to hope that his father corrected the mistakes. “We’re almost out of jam and we need some more salt to keep the meat. I thought I’d go into town real quick to pick up a few things.” Ambrose kept his back to his father so that he couldn’t see the man’s reaction. They weren’t supposed to go into town, not unless their lives depended on the trip.
Ambrose lit the flames over the stove and tossed in a few mushrooms and herbs, making his own little sauce from the last remaining portion of butter. When the heat was high enough, he lowered the flame and moved the old pan aside. He knew he heard the scraping of the chair legs against the wood floor, so he knew his father hadn’t left the kitchen. Donovan didn’t say a word until Ambrose had begun slicing open the fish and removing the skeletons, something that he had taught Ambrose almost thirteen years prior.
“You feel that, boy? You feel that in the air? Birds are acting queer. It took me hours to catch those two fish. And don’t go on about anybody’s luck or fate. I’ve been around too long for that mumbo,” Donovan said, pausing only to light a cigar. “You been reading the paper? Sudden disappearances, disorientation,” Donovan trailed off.
Ambrose had heard the same thing over and over again, but he listened just the same. He spread the fish out in the pan, flesh side down, and spooned some of the butter mixture up over the top portion. His dad went on about the signs in nature and the clues in the newspapers, all of which pointed to the return of the ancients. That’s what they were called: The ancients. His father and his father’s father--there were generations of Shaws dedicated to hunting and killing the ancients. The last ones to actually encounter an ancient were long gone, but it didn’t stop the following generations from passing along the training and all the information from past generations.
“Sure do,” Ambrose lied, turning his attention toward the kitchen window. As far as he could tell, nothing had changed. The sun, the moon, and stars appeared and reappeared over and over again. Someone always went missing. The elderly always had some memory lapse. He would have stayed in his daydreams all day if it weren’t for the crackling of the skillet.
“Don’t burn that fish! I’d like to see you drag your *** out there and fetch a few. Rough waters,” Donovan sighed and leaned back in his chair. He took off his baseball cap and slapped it down on the kitchen table. “You heard the same things over and over, right? You’re tired of this. You miss people. Well, this is our life. You can’t run from who you are. You remember that. Finish that fish now.”
