Solitary
"Mama, what's wrong?"
She didn't answer immediately; she was searching under the bed for something, trying to find anything, frantically, hurriedly. I cowered by the closet, knowing that I shouldn't be up and out of my bed this late, that all those monstrous shadows shouldn't have been dancing across the walls like silhouetted ballerinas. What were those noises? Who was yelling so loud, who was laughing so maniacally, muffled by the walls and barely discernable from the heartbeats echoing back and forth in my head?
My mom rose from under the bed, dragging out with her something large and clunky, definitely a little too heavy for her to carry.
"Mama?" I said carefully, chagrined by hearing the frightened waver in my own voice; I was young, yes, but, for some inexplicable reason, I'd imagined I'd be more courageous in the face of whatever terrible thing was about to pass.
She swung around, holding the object with almost reverent carefulness, and put on a smile that she and I knew was entirely forced; still, though, I can't lie and say it didn't calm me considerably. There it was. She was holding the Family Cane, sturdy and tall, shining somewhat even in the relative darkness. I ogled it with blind admiration; my father had carried this around for years, and it had been in the family for as long as my young mind could possibly imagine. She stepped forward, kneeling down so we were relatively eye-to-eye.
"Baby? Can you take this, precious love?" She held it out invitingly; I was wary, but the allure was too much, and my hands curled around the cane like it was an object of holy nature. I'm sure my eyes were wide and ablaze with wonder. I'd tried millions of time to find where they kept it during the night, and never had I ever suspected something as simple as under the bed. Maybe that was the ingenuity of the hiding spot, really.
"B-but I thought I was supposed to get—" I whispered.
"The book, yes, honey, you were supposed to get it tonight, but Daddy and I are keeping that safe right now, okay? We want you to hold this for us. It's only for a short time, okay? Baby, just keep it safe, okay? Now be a big boy for mommy and go into the closet."
I shot her a look that must've been incredulous, but I did as she requested, careful not to knock the enormous cane into anything while I slipped in. I know I must've looked so innocent, so pathetic, so freaking vulnerable standing in that closet while my mom looked on. She scrambled forward to hug me tightly; I dropped the cane, so lost was I in my mother's embrace. I would use this last moment to remember her forever: the smell of her hair, like peaches; the smell of her perfume, some sort of flower; and her warmth, her unbelievable warmth, spreading through my little body. Only days later did I realize I also felt the tears dripping off her cheeks and onto my back, as well. She drew out, blowing me a final kiss.
"I love you, baby."
"I love you, mommy," I replied, feeling like tears were going to explode out of my eyes. And she closed the closet doors. There were no shingles to look through, so when I figured she wasn't watching anymore, I cracked the closet open a tiny bit.
"Conner?" my mom said; my dad burst powerfully through the door, shutting it behind him with such force that it made me jump. For a moment, I could see the grotesque shadows looming behind him in the doorway. They frightened me to no end.
"Where's—" he breathed.
"He's in the closet, dear. He has the cane." My dad nodded; it looked like he was a bobble-head. My mother sounded so calm, so in control, it was unbelievable.
"Is it in the safe?" he said. He sounded a little hoarse. My mom affirmed this; what's in the safe, I thought at the time, but later I would look at myself and wonder why I hadn't realized they were talking about the other family heirloom… the renowned Thievius Raccoonus. I lament even to this day that I got the wrong inheritance on that day, but I figure sometimes it was just sort of meant to be. I couldn't do anything, my parents couldn't do anything; those five bastards were intent on breaking into our house and making my father pay for presumably stealing something from all of them, and I really don't think anything really could've stopped their malevolent force, not even the police.
"They'll be coming through in a few moments," my mother said quietly to my father, grabbing his hand tenderly. They stood tightly knit together, facing the door; the bangs that had been echoing for the past few minutes grew louder, more violent, and I could actually see the door arching with the blows from the other side. That image will stick forever, too; my parents, standing defiantly to whatever was going to come from the other side of the bedroom door, giving each other one last kiss. It makes me proud to be a Cooper, really.
And then they burst through the door.
Hideous beings, disgusting, ugly beyond description, tall and beefy and full of spite. As a child, they were giants of lore, evil and intent on eating my parents; I couldn't see them clearly in the blinding dark, but their shapes were quite distinguishable, and they imprinted in my mind for years to come.
The Haitian alligator bitch spoke first, her wicked and thick voice full of gusto. "Well, well, well, if it isn't the infamous Conner Cooper and his little bitch of a wife!"
They stood still, unresponsive. She laughed, and breathed out a little square that my dad easily avoided. Next, that Welsh blueblood frog bastard, slimy and green and full of contempt, added his two cents. "Don't attempt to communicate with them, dear Ruby, they're below human speech." He adjusted his monocle, stuck up his chin, and spat at my parents' feet. They were amazingly calm, like statues almost.
That dumbass American bulldog decided to chip in an unintelligent chuckle. "That's right, Frog-boy, they's too stupid to know a fork from a spoon, am I right, am I right?" He laughed at his own joke while he polished one of his guns; he pointed one at my mom first, then my dad, sneering all the will. Still, my parents did not speak a word. The Chinese panda, the fireworks asshole, responded to this, gravelly and serious.
"Silence your idiocy, Muggshot. Cooper, you know what we want. Face us like a man, and perhaps your family will go free." He punched a fist into his own open hand; it looked like his eyes were on fire even in the stealthy darkness of the night. My parents faced them down, silent and glorious.
"Yeah, yeah, where's Junior, huh?" the bulldog said, sniffing the air. I drew back in the closet, glaring at him from the shadows. Could he smell me? Could my father beat this steroid-abusing mobster down with his bare hands for me?
"Ooh, there's a son, hm? I bet he'd be lots of fun to play with," the alligator laughed. A part of me thought this was too ridiculous, too absurd, I had to be dreaming, but I could hear the all-too-real tension in the air, and somebody was slowly scraping what sounded like knives together in anticipation. Of what? Of what? Anticipation of what? It plagued my mind. What were they going to do? What the hell did they want with my mom and dad?
My father finally decided to break the silence the adult Coopers had held so far. "Burn in hell, you motherfuckers." I'd never heard my dad use such explicit language before in my entire life, and even though I didn't quite understand what he was saying, I felt the heat of shock rush through my head; daddy had said something very, very naughty, something I knew I would have been severely grounded for. But even so, he said it with such control, in my childish imagination I saw him not as a man nearing middle age with his wife behind him, but a cowboy, a regular Clint Eastwood, standing with a subtle screw-you attitude and daring on the villains as the orchestra boomed out the score with him, my mom his trusty partner. For a moment, they looked like gods.
And then two different fists burst out of the shadowy figures, one for my mom, one for my dad; they were knocked to the ground, and when they hit the floor, my juvenile fantasy shattered with them. Somebody had just hit my parents, these immortal, invincible beings who had guided me since I'd been a little baby.
All of them laughed at the sinful amusement they'd created, echoing through the room. And a voice that had not previously spoken added its own wheezy electric guffaws to the discordant sound. In a matter of seconds, my young mind was able to grasp that this was the one to be truly afraid of. It was the head honcho, the main proponent of the Fiendish Five, the big dick behind my parents' violent confrontation. The Eurasian Eagle-owl, hailing from Russia, longtime rival to my father… Clockwerk. I'd only heard stories about him, and even then, he'd seemed so distant, so made-up, there was no way he could've existed. But there he was; the biggest shape of all, somehow overlooked by me from the safety of the closet.
"You'll burn in hell before any of us do, Cooper," he said, and that was when it began.
Five monstrosities against my aging father and my slim mother; it was not fair, not in the least, but I suppose they didn't care, not when they knew they would most assuredly get their revenge. He fought, yes, he tried so, so hard to fend them off from my mother, and sometimes I wonder if maybe he'd had the cane with him, he could've done it… but what's done is done, and punch by punch by brutal punch, my dad was beaten down in front of my very eyes; he was pummeled by the bulldog, sat on by the frog, burned by the panda, hexed by the alligator. The blood splattered onto the walls, onto the floor, onto my mother, who tried desperately to pull them off. I started to cry, silently. It was an eternity in a moment, the grunts of these sick bastards echoing through my brain, the injured moans of my father echoing even more. The metallic owl of my nightmares shuffled forward when the other four were done with my dad and moved on to my mom, grinning over my father, beaten and bloody but still alive.
"Do you see what happens, Cooper?" he breathed. He was taking his time, savoring the taste of dark victory. "Do you see the life of a thief? Of one who crosses his fellow criminal? Blood. Pain. Anguish. Don't look at me like that; you know perfectly well that you and every Cooper before you had this coming. I was just lucky to be able to find you in good time. And now look at you… a puddle of shit staining your own carpet. You're pathetic."
I couldn't see well, but I think my father spat blood up on Clockwerk rather successfully; the bird squawked disgust, scowled, and then raised one threatening wing over his head like an axe. He brought it down with a sickening thud into my dad's body. That time, unfortunately, I could see the blood splatter out. I almost let out a shriek, but I stifled myself before it could come to fruition. The tears, however, were rolling out of my eyes; two miniature waterfalls, really.
My mother had been beaten down by this point, as well; she was crumpled like a piece of trash against the wall, sobbing while the blows imprinted into her fragile body from all angles. The other four continued to batter her until the owl walked over, waving them off. He spared my mother the demeaning monologue, maybe because she was only a Cooper through marriage. He merely grinned, studying my mother with sick satisfaction. The wing rose, like a rocket flying into space, and then it fell down with dizzying speed. It split through silently; my mother ceased to sob almost instantly. By that point, I had pushed myself to the back of the closet, choking on my own tears and stuffing my head into my drawn-up knees. I was about eight at the time; death is an abstract concept to children, without cohesion and understanding, and I was no different. But I'd just looked it in the eyes, practically shaken hands. I think I had every right to cry like a baby, at the time; I'd just become an orphan.
The crack was far away, but I could see what they did. They threw the bodies together on the bed, mangled dummies that merely looked like my parents, and laughed at the corpses for a bit. I imagine they were making the bodies pose and do other atrocious things for their momentary entertainment, but I did not dare to crawl closer for a better view. There was a moment where I believed that I could maybe surprise them and beat them down with the cane, but then they started to move again, and I remembered how vicious they'd been, how easily they'd killed two grown adults; I wouldn't stand a chance, not in the least. They rummaged through my parents' bedroom, knocking down wardrobes and paintings. The bulldog came close to my hide-out, and I gripped the crosier readily to beat him over the head, but one of them called him to the rest; they'd found it, they'd found it, they'd found the safe. I could hear their heavy breathing, smell the excitement on their skin; now that their bloodlust had been taken care of, they could focus attention on their main objective, and it was right there, right in front of them. I could hear the unlocking of a safe, the creak of the metal door. Somebody pulled it out; I could hear whatever it was drag against the metal inside the safe and bounce in one of their hands. Then, I heard the sound of a book opening, and too late did I realize that they were going for the Thievius Raccoonus; by then, the ripping began, the pages falling out and those evil assholes laughing all the while, grabbing at my history, at my ancestors' hard work. It was a disgrace. It tore me up, sitting helplessly while I listened to them tear apart my birthright.
They filed out, careful to knock down everything in their way: the frog walked out first, holding the pages to his slimy stomach like a prized possession and grinning his smarmy grin; the bulldog followed, crumpling his pages clumsily and laughing to himself; then, the alligator, humming creepy music to herself and studying her pages with a smirk; after her, the panda, eerily silent and holding his share carefully; and, finally, the owl, lingering behind with his portion of the family heirloom. He paused by the door, and turned around slowly.
"I know you're there, little Cooper." I froze in place; my heart skipped a beat or two. "You stay alive, though. Your pain is just… too good." And he walked out the door, leaving behind only silence.
I don't remember much after that, but I know now that some neighbors had called for the police when the sounds of a fight got too loud. I don't blame them; they probably just thought mom and dad we're angry at each other and the cops would be able to sort it all out. But all of them saw the mysterious shapes leave the house, yet they were unable to discern their features. The police came, all right, but too late, and I've been led to believe this was not a fault of their own at all. No one had called early enough. Simple enough. They burst through the doors, scouted the house, climbed up the stairs, found the master bedroom innocently open, came in to the bloodbath and carcasses… they were so preoccupied, it's a wonder they found me. But they did. One man, guarded enough to check the room for any remaining suspects, discovered the closet doors, slightly ajar. This, I do remember; the light flooded in, and even though I should have flinched with the blindness, I was quite lost in myself. All he saw was me; this lonely child, solitary in the closet, clutching the cane to my body like it was a rock and I was adrift in the ocean (I might as well have been, really). He picked me up and carried me out. He said later I didn't need to see anymore of what was in that room. I think he saved my sanity by being so compassionate.
The rest is more of a blur, up until when they were dropping me off at the orphanage because there was no other Cooper alive. It was a horrible day, a true testament that I didn't have parents anymore… but then I met Bentley and Murray. I guess all things have a purpose, in the end. Even now, as I read the files on those bastards who broke into my house and killed my parents, I find interesting facts; for instance, more than likely, the compassionate cop who pulled me away from the gore was my favorite fox detective's father. He did the police report, and I do remember orange fur on the cop's face as he held me, while the red and blue lights flashed closer and closer in front of my eyes. Who knows? Maybe it was fate.
All I know is, as I sit in this van with my best friends, right here and now, I'm going to hold true to the promise I made years ago, as I stood in front of Happy Camper Orphanage and lamented my parents' untimely death. I'll find all of those low-life shitheads, beat them to a bloody pulp, and steal back my birthright, page by tiny page. I will avenge my parents.
I'm not Sly for nothing.