The Days After | Teen Ink

The Days After

May 8, 2015
By Zach Campbell BRONZE, Ravenna, Ohio
Zach Campbell BRONZE, Ravenna, Ohio
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

 I've lived with my mom for a couple weeks now. My dad use to live with us but he had to go away very abruptly then. It was more my moms willful hand pushing him  out of our lives than him doing it voluntarily. It sucks because he won't be here to celebrate my birthday tomorrow but it's also a relief because he's not coming home intoxicated anymore. I'm scared for him, I want to know what he's doing but at the same time I don't because he's probably just gone downhill. Enough , I should go to sleep. Its my day tomorrow.
My curtains were flying up and for a moment the morning sun faintly appeared threw them. i’m 16 today! I walked down the steps expecting to receive a ‘Happy Birthday’ but my mom seemed agitated. She said she got a phone call that she didn’t want to get. I shook it off and though ‘ it happens’. I wasn’t expecting anything special today, just a chance to kick back and relax. I watched t.v. for a bit and eventually does off in my room. I eventually woke up to loud voices downstairs and the sun setting. Curious i went downstairs to check out what all the ruckus was about. My mom was standing defensively by the counter knife in hand, and my dad standing on the otherside. He looked so horrible and his voice was slurred. As things escalated my mom started swinging the knife she had in her hand. Dad suddenly pulled out a small gun he had in his pocket and shot her, Where i didn't know. I ran upstairs and threw myself under my covers. i started to cry. He had followed me up to my room and sat down on my bed. He tried to reassure me that everything was okay and that he was so happy to be here on my birthday.  He said he was sorry that he could not call me, He said he tried to this morning but mom wouldnt let him talk to me. He started to tear a little and told me to to shut my eyes, like i was pretending to sleep, i did. He put a pillow over my head so i fought back to get it off. somewhere at this point i don’t know what happened. That night I knew he left, I remember paramedics and please coming and leaving but i stayed there, painless, with no emotion.
The following days police had came by to tape sections of my house off and inspect it, I tried to talk to them and tell them what happened but it’s like they didn’t notice me at all. They stopped coming after awhile and I wondered why, they took the tape and everything with them. Many, many uneventful months passed, the only thing i could associate myself with was the stray cat that had made itself at home in the attic, he seemed to notice me unlike the police officers months before.
A sign was put up by a women in the front yard one day, i seen her do it through the window. I couldn’t make out what it said from the angle where it stood but i think i seen the word ‘sale’. Within a couple days of the sign being put up people started coming inside the house to look around. I tried tried to greet them but they didn’t notice me , just like the officers had. The people had come and gone, they said that the vibe of the house felt weird. Until one day a family of four came in. They had two daughters one looked about my age, 16.  They looked through the rooms and soon left with smiles on their faces. I didn’t see them for a couple days but i did notice that the sign outside had been taken down. Then suddenly about a week later they came back with a truck parked on the curb of our house. They periodically moved furniture into my house threw that day. It was weird, like they’re coming to live here. Don’t they know i live here? They spent the night in the house that night, the first of many nights to come. I tried to talk to them but they never answered. They started talking about how the room suddenly got cold and how their cell phones were acting up. I never had a cellphone but my mom did, I wonder where she has been all this time. I went back up to my room to find someone sleeping in it, I was confused. I sat on the floor that whole night. The next morning I went down stairs to the family eating breakfast, one of them said "oh, there is that chill again. Is there a window open?" there were no windows open. The dad started to talk about a noise that was coming from an attic last night and said he'd check it out when his kids go to school. When the kids left for school did just that. I followed him up the stairs and upon opening the door the cat that had been living in the attic the past year had sprinted out. Usually when people came into the house he would hide so he wouldn't be seen. So what sparked his bravery here? The man ran after the stray cat, both of them were startled, almost as if they had seen a ghost because it had happened so quickly. I knew where the cat had ran so i met it there, i started to pet it and hug it. We waited in the closet for a couple hours for the man to stop looking. We started to hear other voices, those of the children coming back from school perhaps? I was still petting him when he started to purr. The family must’ve heard it and opened the closet door. They quickly grabbed the cat and ignored me. I was so furious that they would take my fried away from me, this was the first time i’ve felt any emotion for a year now. Coats from the closet started flying at the family all at once. The two kids and their mom were screaming and somewhere in all the chaos the man dropped the cat. Everything went calm and the family looked started. I quickly shut the closet door. Right after i had shut it someone screamed ‘How did the door shut all on its own’? I began to question myself. I’ve never considered myself a mean person so why did i just flood that family with terror? Why do i feel so energized after doing that, I didn’t know. That night i was in the attic with the stray cat when the man came into the room and seen the cat. He had grabbed it again while it tried to squirm out of his grip but to no luck. He squeezed harder and harder onto the cat as it tried to escape. In what seemed like a second the cat stopped moving and stopped fighting. The man  put the cat onto the floor, still it had no motion. The curiousness i had felt earlier had came back to me. I scratched the man, he made a noise, it must’ve hurt. He quickly looked around with a confused impression on his face, almost as if he didn’t know what had scratched him. He went back down stairs while i followed in a huge rage. Everything startled flying very violently as i passed it.Now all the family members were screaming. Their mom told the girls to go get their things from their room quickly as she did the same. They all met up downstairs  and left that night.
They did not come back the next morning, but weird thing, the stray cat did. It brushed my legs with its silky fur while it purred. I started to hear a noise and looked up. There was a bright light then a voice. It was my mom, i was so happy. She told me “it’s time for you to leave this place to come be with me” so, as if i was being lifted. the cat and I slowly went into the light. It was at this moment i realised that i was dead. 



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