An Acorns Flash Fiction Feature
By: S. Y. Coffelt
Every day, the pop-pop of gunfire and the whump-whump of energy theft warn of more deaths nearby. Shooters and Suckers petrify me. Dead neighbors, riddled with bullets or life force sucked empty, pile up outside. I hide in my basement apartment and meditate, aiming to produce only low energy delta brain waves. Hoping to escape death.
Most afternoons Rashid taps on my window and calls. “Come out, Shawn. Come now.” He’s only six, but when he puts his hand in mine, I feel alive. He’s like that first warm day after a dreary winter. Like a cold lake in oppressive heat. Like the sumptuous feast after the fast.
This afternoon, the sun blazes as heat rises from the asphalt with the stink of tar. Otherwise, the oven-like street seems benign. Rashid has found a softball, crusted with dirt and half the stitching undone. I leave my refuge for a game of catch. We play until Rashid’s mother, Lakiesha, calls him.
“Hey.” Lakiesha tamps down her energy too. She peers first up the street, then down, looking for trouble, relieved not to find it. “Thanks for spending time. You must like kids. Most grownups wouldn’t bother. He gets bored inside.”
I gaze at the sky and not at Lakiesha. Kids and me—no. I’ve only ever liked Rashid. “He’s safe with me.”
“Wish he’d be more afraid to be outside.”
Words of warning tumble from me. “Rashid’s nothing like us. The inside will stunt him.”
She tilts her head as if I’m stupid. But I know what I know. Rashid’s energy is inevitable, like the daily sunrise. I’ll protect him from the Suckers and Shooters. If I can.
A whump-whump wakes me at midnight. The neighbor in 201B plummets downstairs. At dawn, the landlord kicks him outside and throws his belongings to the sidewalk. Instantly, the good stuff is gone. The sun bakes the street as flies swarm the fast decaying body.
Rashid taps on my window, calling, “Come out.”
It’s too hot and soon the smell of rot will turn unbearable. “Better come inside.”
He nods, his sneaker-shod feet hissing up the stoop and down to my door. He comes through and grabs my hand. A zing runs up my arm.
“What we gonna do?” he asks.
We share a bottle of water and eat stale crackers.
Pop-pops and ka-booms penetrate the stone walls. Shooters are close by. Rashid gazes through the window glass. For once, his fright shows.
I clench my fists. “You’re all right here.” It’s a promise that’s maybe true.
The afternoon speeds by. He chatters. I listen. The sounds of dying fade as the sun sets.
Lakiesha knocks and comes in, squinting out the window. Her ominous gaze lights on me.
I shut the blackout drapes and make a promise. “I have stuff for a barricade for when it gets dangerous.”
She crosses her arms and glowers. “That time is now.”
But time seems meaningless. Even the weather is nothing more than hot or hotter. Scorching winds yowl and muffle the death knells.
I gather books from apartments of the dead to stack three deep against the window. Without a gun, I can’t test for bulletproof-ness. I can only hope. Nothing will shield me from the energy thieves. I’ve never seen one. Don’t know what to look for. How it works is a mystery.
Sometimes I hear a Sucker’s whump coming from inside the building. No one has ever figured out where the Suckers come from. Viruses? Mutations? Aliens?
On a day darker and cooler than most, Rashid scratches at my door. “Shawn, come outside ‘cuz there’s rain.”
Rain tempts me. I remember thunder and ozone, a memory like the fading photographs of my parents. So long ago and only fifty-some years.
I step into the hallway. “Where’s your ma?”
“Baking me a birthday cake.” He holds up seven fingers and waits for me to say, “Happy birthday.” Then I follow him up the stairs and out the big door to the sidewalk.
High clouds cover the sun and the air is thick with moisture. A storm is coming.
“Let’s play dodge ball.” He zigzags into the empty street.
“No ball.”
“Pretend.” He swerves to avoid an invisible ball. “You do it too.”
I squint, studying the street for danger. Feinting a few running steps, I pretend-play, but Lakiesha comes out, saving me from oozing energy.
No one cooks anymore since electricity vanished years ago. The plate she holds is covered in icing sugar mixed with water. Even that’s a treat. Rashid gets the first finger swipe of the dish.
“Sing happy birthday,” he says.
Lakeisha shoots me a glance. “No such song and even if there was, no reason to sing it nowadays.”
She’s right. Why celebrate birthdays with the world coming apart?
A drop of rain lands on my nose. Distracted, I notice too late the old black car chugging toward us, smoke pouring from the exhaust.
I scream, “Get down!”
The barrel of an automatic rifle emerges from the back window and fires a burst of rounds. I drop on top of Lakiesha who’s covered Rashid with her body. I’m heavy. Rashid gasps for breath. The bullets miss us, but beneath me comes a hushed whump-whump.
I struggle up and pull Rashid out from under his mother. His energy shines brighter than the summer sun and blinds me.
Now I know.
I shove him toward the door. “Hurry. You’ll be okay in my apartment.”
But will I?
Lakiesha uses her last breath to whisper. “Promise. Keep him inside.” She dies only after she sees me nod.
She’s right and wrong. Outside is certain death. But inside, the real monster waits. What will happen when the Suckers—the little ones like Rashid—suck everything dry?
I have to teach him to never suck, even foreseeing the time when he kills me. On that day he’ll venture out to join the rest of them, the devourers of earth.
When that’s gone, will they eat the planets? Consume the sun? Cannibalize each other?
I spin in a circle to run away, but can’t. Rashid is only seven and it’s up to me to keep him safe.
I push Lakiesha’s body into the gutter and go inside.
About the Author:
S. Y. Coffelt spent a decade wandering from university to university, earning her BA in philosophy, only to read the classifieds one day and realize her mistake. She now lives on an acreage in Kansas, tending gardens in spring and summer, and writing dark speculative fiction in all seasons. She has stories published in Noncorporeal Anthology, the Cloaked Press Fall Fantasy Anthology, and Dragon Soul Press’ Spells and Fangs Anthology, and Wicked Shadow Press’s Small Town Shadows anthology, among others.