Gone
They had all refused to believe it, at first, when David told them that their parents were dead.
When David had turned to them, still holding the phone even after the caller on the other line hung up with such tightness to his grip that his knuckles were visibly whitened, and told them in somber, slightly shaking tones what had been told to him, Darlene had waved it off as a joke, an attempt on the part of either the caller or David himself to rattle them, perhaps as some strange and sick form of revenge. Rolling her eyes at him, her black-painted lips twisting into a sardonic smile, she had not for a moment considered the possibility of his words being true.
"Right, David. Mom and Dad are dead? Yeah, me too, and all the rest of us. And in just a few minutes we'll all go pull out our coffins and have a good night's sleep in the basement too, right?"
Wendell was more direct about his disbelief, and considerably more aggressive in his feelings about his belief that he was being played for a fool.
"That's a fucking lie, David, don't even try to pull that kind of shit. They're not dead. It's one thing if you want to pull something like that on a pussy like Francis, but don't even try that with me or Darlene."
For Francis, it had seemed more likely that what he had just heard was part of a sick daydream or a nightmare, that if he simply walked away or otherwise refamiliarized himself with reality, then he would see that it simply wasn't happening at all. He had tried to walk away, shaking his head, and when David grabbed hold of his shoulder, trying to keep him in the same room, he had been stunned to see that David's hand felt solid, cold, and very real against him. It was hard to argue the reality of his circumstances in the face of physical touch, and so then he had had to default to simple denial without explanation of how such denial could be.
"No. No, that's not true. That isn't right…"
"I'm not making it up," David had said hoarsely over Francis's somewhat high-pitched protests, against Wendell's raised voice and aggressive tone, against Darlene's continued run of sarcastic insults. "I'm not. They are. They-"
"Give it a rest, David, we're not as gullible as you are," Darlene had exhaled, as Wendell pointed a finger in David's face, his other hand balling into a fist as he stepped closer to him, deliberately insinuating with his stance that he was, if further provoked, prepared to fight.
"Shut the fuck up, David, you keep making up shit like that and you'll have a hard time speaking for a month."
"I'm not making it up-" David had started, and when the twins advanced in on him further, both their voices drowning out his, he had startled them all by suddenly and forcefully throwing the phone against the wall, screaming over them all. "I'M NOT FUCKING MAKING THIS UP!"
This was enough to still them all, enough for the twins' faces to go slack with the first dawning realization that perhaps he was indeed speaking the truth, for Francis's breath to catch in his throat. And when David covered his mouth with one hand, bowing his head as tears filled his eyes, they were certain that this was indeed no lie, that in the span of one phone call their lives had forever changed.