The Purge: Revolution

Chapter 1

Molly was on her bed reading when she heard all the shudders in the house slide shut and lock into place. She glanced up to the cable box on the TV stand. 6:55. A moment later there was a perfunctory knock on the door before Karen let herself in.

"There we go!" Karen chirped. "Snug as a bug in a rug! Are you sure you don't want to come down and watch the festivities? "

"Uh, no. " Molly replied. "I kinda like to pretend this day doesn't exist."

"Oh, of course, dear. This is the day your parents..." Karen trailed off, looking uncomfortable.

This was the day, twelve years ago, that Molly's parents had been dragged out of their apartment and killed by a gang of designer-label wearing frat boys while she'd cowered under a pile of clothes on the floor of her parent's closet. She'd been found two days later, a four year old covered in roach bites and her own filth. It was a subject that Karen, an avid supporter of The Purge, didn't like to talk about.

"Yeah," Molly replied, turning back to her book.

"Well, I assure you, nobody will be getting into this house tonight. Are you sure you want to be alone?"

"Yeah, it's okay. I'm used to spending Purge night alone." At the group home, all the kids had been locked in their rooms during The Purge. The staff had done it for their own safety, more than for that of the children under their care.

Outside, sirens began howling into the early evening gloom. The Purge was officially under way.

"Karen? Molly? Are you two coming down?" Tim, Karen's husband and Molly's foster-father, said from farther down the hall, heading their way. His voice sounded oddly muffled.

"She says she wants to stay in her room," Karen answered.

"Oh," Tim said, appearing in the doorframe beside his wife. "I guess we'll do it here, then."

Molly's eyes widened in horror and disgust. Tim had crammed his pudgy, late-40's body into what appeared to be a studded leather jock strap. He was shirtless, his graying chest hairs sprouting out around two bands of leather that crisscrossed in the middle and attached at the jock, his pot belly pushing the straps around it. On his head, coving his face completely, was a grotesque pig mask.
"DOWN, SLAVE!" Karen screamed. Tim immediately dropped to his knees. Karen had begun unbuttoning her expensive silk blouse to reveal a red leather corset beneath.

Molly had been stunned at first, but was quickly regaining control. One of the more popular urban legends in the group home had been about married couples going through the lengthy procedure of becoming a foster family, simply so they'd have easy prey come Purge night. Molly had always been skeptical of these rumors, but spending twelve years in a group home had taught her many useful things. Think fast. Trust no one. Be prepared. Don't take any shit.

Keeping an eye on Karen and Tim, Molly edged off the bed, putting it between her and her foster parents. Karen had rid herself of the her blouse by now and had reached a hand into the pocket of her peach dress pants, from which she pulled a small, black stun gun.
"Molly, you've been with us for four months, and the whole time you've been a selfish, spoiled, undisciplined brat. After all we've done for you, you continue to dye your hair black and paint yourself up like some kind of vampire whore. You cut up your clothes that WE pay for. You listen to that awful, screeching, so-called music. Well, no more! Tonight, you will learn some discipline! Tonight, you will learn some respect! Tonight, you will be broken and purged of your sin!"

While Karen was giving her speech, Molly slowly began to bend and sink towards the floor, like legs were about to give way with fear. The instant Karen sprang for the bed, Molly leaned down and with her left hand hand grabbed the handles of her pre-packed overnight bag, the right hand grabbing what rested atop it. She was pulling back as the bed sank beneath Karen's weight. The older woman's arm was outstretched, thrusting the stun gun at Molly, blue electric current dancing between its metal times, humming and crackling. Molly swung the overnight bag and connected with Karen's outstretched hand.

The bag was full of clothes, a little bit of food, and $200 cash she'd found in Tim's top dresser drawer. She hadn't been positive something like this would happen, or even thought it all that likely. If it hadn't, she'd have put the food and cash back before anyone noticed. But, as always, she was prepared. Ready to travel. But she'd been ready to travel light, so while the bag knocked Karen's hand away, it wasn't a heavy enough blow to dislodge the stunner. Molly knew this, so even as her left hand completed her swing, her right was coming up across her body, swinging out to slash at Karen's neck with the butcher knife that had been resting atop the overnight bag.

It was a wild slash, and Karen was on an unstable surface, still righting herself from the surprise blow from the overnight bag, so the butcher knife didn't catch her neck. Instead it hit her just above her jaw, sliced across her right cheek, split through her nostril, and glanced off the bridge of her nose. Molly continued moving her body with the momentum of the swing, spinning until she was facing the foot of the bed, and was already dashing around it before Karen could even register the pain and the damage done to her face.
Molly was around the bed and heading for the door when Karen finally began to scream. Tim, who had been kneeling the whole time on his wife's orders, was just beginning to rise to his feet.

"Kar-" was all he managed to say before Molly slammed into him. Tim was well over 200 pounds, and normally would barely have felt Molly's slim, 100 pound frame running into him, even at full speed. But he wasn't steady on his feet, still rising from his crouch. The pig mask obscured his vision, which was directed entirely upon his bleeding, screaming wife. And then there was the butcher knife sinking hilt deep into his round potbelly. Tim fell against the open bedroom door, and Molly fell against Tim.

Molly pulled away before Tim could grab her, though grabbing her seemed the last thing on Tim's mind. Instead he grabbed at the source of his sudden pain, the knife. His screamed, muffled and hollow sounding due to the pig mask, joined those of his wife, who was hanging half off the far side of the bed, clutching her ruined face. Molly tried to flee, but the knife didn't want to come out at first, stuck in muscle, fat, and Molly hope some kind of vital organ. Tim's bloody hands had tightened weakly around Molly's two-handed grip. Molly thought about leaving the knife, but no, she knew she would still need it. So she leaned into Tim again, driving the knife deeper, then pulled back again as hard as she could. Tim's screams of agony somehow intensified.

Thankfully, this time the knife came free, slicing at Tim's clutching right hand as it did so. Molly fell back against the doorframe, and used the leverage to pick-and-roll around it it into the hallway, narrowly avoiding a half-hearted grab by Tim. then she was sprinting down the hall toward the stairs.

"YOU BITCH!" Karen's scream of pain and rage followed Molly down the hall, and Molly knew that her pursuit was imminent. She pelted down the staircase, and heard a thump from her old bedroom. Karen, struggling and falling off the bed. Then more thumps, running feet.

Molly took the stairs two at a time, her adrenaline pumping. One wrong step would send her rolling down the stairs, surely breaking limbs and probably her neck at this speed. But her senses felt heightened, every inch of her, every straining muscle alive and aware. She hit the floor of the downstairs foyer at a run and crossed it to the front door. The control panel for the security system was on the wall beside it, a bright grean, inviting "DISABLE" button at the bottom. Molly slammed her palm into it, and the hum of motors began to click and whir. No security code required, in case of emergency. A feature, not a bug.

Of course, that didn't make the shudder outside the door rise any faster. Molly had the front door unlocked and open a couple seconds after hitting the DISABLE button, but the shudder was moving by inches, the crack at the bottom seeming to grow wider with imperceptible slowness.

"FUCKING BITCH!" Karen was at the top of the stairs the right side of her face a mask of blood, trailing down her neck and right breast, disappearing into the top of her corset. She started running down the stairs, unlike Molly taking them one at a time, but still coming faster than the door seemed to be opening.

There was little for Molly to do but flatten herself on the ground in front of the door and wait. Maybe five more seconds and she could roll out and be free. Karen was halfway down the stairs.

Four seconds.

Three seconds. Karen was at the bottom of the stairs.

Two seconds. The night outside was tantalizingly close.

One second. Karen jumped at Molly, forsaking any notion of personal injury, not even attempting to break her fall in favor of getting a hold of her foster daughter.

Molly rolled. She was outside. A thump as Karen body slammed into the rising shudder. Molly rolled again. Her body moved but her head jerked backward painfully. Karen had her by the hair. A scream of triumph. A scream of desperation.

"BITCH!" Molly wasn't sure who had screamed that one.

Molly kicked, trying to hook a foot over the front step, trying to get some leverage to pull herself out of Karen's grasp. Nothing. Her eyes were squeezed shut. She couldn't tell if she were facing the sky or the ground. She realized that, after everything that had occurred in the last...how long? Two minutes? Less? After everything, she was starting to panic. She couldn't do that, not now, not when she was so close.

Molly brought the knife up awkwardly over her head.

CHUNK. The blade hit nothing but the concrete door frame.

Again. The blade sunk into soft flesh. A glancing blow. A grunt of pain from behind the still slowly raising shudder. The hand loosened for an instant but held firm again almost instantly. But now Molly had her target.

Another stab. The bite of flesh. Molly pushed harder. A louder scream and Molly was free. She rolled once more, then she was rolling uncontrollably down the front stairs. She barked a knee on the edge of one stair, scraped her elbow painfully across another, but the adrenaline was still pumping and while she noticed the pain, it all felt detached somehow. Unimpotant.

One last stair and she was sprawling on the front walk, then springing up to her hands and knees. With a brief glance toward the door, Molly saw that Karen's head and shoulders were out the door.

Molly was sprinting across the front lawn and was into the street before she heard the voice of her foster mother calling out, falling away behind her.

"FUCKING! BITCH!"