#45 – Reality
Wylie
1
Life was better for me than it had ever been; I kept expecting to wake up from the dream and find myself back in the real world. Mom was passed out when I got home and Dad was gone, and I slept like a baby and woke up with a smile on my face. I wasn't too optimistic - I was a big believer in the motto "if seems too good to be true, it is." I still am – a believer in that, I mean. But even my pessimistic side had to grudgingly admit that it had been a pretty good Friday night.
In the morning, Elena picked me up for a day in the park with the group. She drove us there by the long, roundabout way so we could talk, just the two of us. She was giving off the distinct vibe that she liked me, maybe as more than a friend, but I kept dismissing it. She was gorgeous; she could have had her pick of the guys at The Sharing. There was no way she'd choose me with people like Alan around. Even knowing that, I couldn't help thinking she was maybe interested in me all the same.
We got to the park, which was a whirlwind of activity. Work was first, which I appreciated. I've had to learn the value of hard work and earning what I get, and so far The Sharing had given me a lot without getting anything out of me in return. I was happy to help the others repaint all of the metal trash barrels throughout the park; they had brought them all to one spot before I got there, and I had a great time joking around with the others as we gave them all a nice coat of green to cover up the graffiti. Joe and Alan were there, and they talked and kidded with me like we'd all been friends for years.
After the trash cans were painted, the group went over to the barbecue pit, where some of the older members already had hot dogs, chicken, and burgers on the grill. Even though I'd worked up an appetite, I limited myself to two hot dogs – even though things were going well, I could still hear the fat jokes in the back of my mind. I didn't want to go back to that. I leaned back on a bench, sipping a Sprite, and just kind of soaked in the atmosphere the way a sunbather will soak up UV rays.
I saw Elena walking toward me with an older, good looking guy, and tried not to let the way my stomach dropped show on my face. This is it, this is the part where she introduces me to her boyfriend and I get to feel like a moron for entertaining the thought that she was into me, I berated myself. I did my best to smile as they got to where I was sitting.
"Wylie!" Elena smiled. "This is Tom. He's a very senior member, in charge of recruiting. I told him about you, and he wanted to meet you." Tom stuck out his hand and shook with me.
"Elena's been telling me some great things about you, man," he said, swinging to take the seat beside me on the bench. Elena threw a wink at me and went back to the grills, and I felt a little better. "I think she's got a little crush on you, Wylie," Tom grinned easily, and my spirits soared.
"You think?" I asked, blushing furiously.
He just shrugged with a look on his face that said Girls? Who can tell? "I know she's impressed with how well you've taken to The Sharing. I am, too. Everybody said you busted your butt this morning with the trash cans; usually, newbies like to hang out and goof off. A lot of times, when they realize it's not all fun and games and that we actually do work, they stop showing up." He studied me for a second. "You're not like that, though."
"No. I was glad to help. Makes me feel like I deserve all of this a little more, you know?"
Tom grinned and cuffed the back of my neck lightly; it was a big-brotherly thing, and I liked it. "That's a great attitude…but you do deserve it," he said seriously. "Everybody deserves a place where they can feel comfortable and safe. Everybody deserves friends. Are you getting that out of The Sharing?"
I nodded. "This is the best day I can remember having in a long time," I said simply. Tom liked that answer.
"I think you're going to fit in here. I think you're going to fit in just fine." He fixed me with a level stare. "Usually we don't do this this fast, but I want to offer you full membership. It sounds like it's just a title, but it's not. It's taking on a big responsibility; it means making a big change in your life. A permanent change. It's a commitment to helping others, whether they want it or not. People don't always know what's best for them…but us full members do, and we're going to give it to them whether they want it or not. Sound like something you can handle?"
"What do you mean?" I asked, confused. It sounded like he was trying to recruit me, even though I was under the impression I was already in. "What kind of help are you talking about?"
He just grinned cockily. "You'll see. It's something you find out after you're officially a full member. If you want to make that big change in your life, if you're ready to move on from where you are now, we'll have a ceremony to bring you in. We'll do it tomorrow tonight. But, like I said, it's a commitment. It's for life. If you think there's a chance you might want to leave The Sharing later on, you shouldn't take the offer. But if you think what we do here is for you, we'll be happy to have you."
I thought about the full members. Alan and Joe, Elena, and Tom, the charismatic guy sitting next to me. How it could only be a good thing to be a part of what they had. They had all made the commitment Tom was talking about, and they all seemed like good people to look up to. I thought about my home life again, how getting away from that and making connections could only be a good thing. I thought about school, and how different it could be for me if I were to take this offer. I looked at Tom as steadily as I could and said, "I'm ready to make a change. I want to be a full member."
He patted me on the shoulder and smiled proudly. "That's all I needed to hear. You're not gonna regret it, man. We're happy to have you, and we'll make it official tomorrow tonight. For now, though, just go enjoy your day." He looked over to where Elena was throwing a Frisbee with another girl; she saw us looking and waved us over. "I don't think we have a choice, Wylie my man," he said, getting up. "When a girl that pretty beckons you, you go. Tell her the good news," he urged, and I smiled happily.
2
I nervously tried again to tie the tie Tom had advised me to wear, but I just couldn't seem to get the knot to look right. Why did I wait until twenty minutes before he picks me up to try to figure this out? I thought in a panic. I had almost resigned myself to admitting to Tom I didn't know how to do it and letting him show me when my mom walked into the bathroom quietly.
If you knew my mom, you'd understand how weird that was. She walked, not stumbled. Even though it was twenty till six o'clock on a Sunday, I was shocked to see that she wasn't hammered. Without saying anything, she just took the tie in her hands and quickly knotted and adjusted it. She flipped down my collar, made sure the tie was hidden underneath it, and smiled.
"Where you going?" she asked. "Did you fall in with a church group?"
"No," I said, then told her the whole story. I told her about Tom, and Elena, and Joe. I left out the part about the fight, but I told her everything about The Sharing and the meetings on Friday and Saturday. She looked a little concerned.
"I know I haven't been a great mom, lately," she said. "But I still love you, Wylie. This group trying to bring you in…it sounds kind of like a cult. Are you sure they're okay?"
"I'm sure," I said, trying not to get defensive. "They've been good to me, and there's nothing weird about them." I thought about Jeff's reservations at the first meeting when I said that, but I smothered it. "They're a good group, and they want me to be a member. I want to."
She chewed her lip nervously. "Okay, I trust your judgment. It's better than mine. Just…be careful, okay?"
"I will," I said as I heard a horn honk in the driveway. As I was leaving the house, I heard my mom call, "I love you!" I had to work to keep the neutral expression on my face as I walked to the station wagon Tom was driving; it had been a long time since I'd heard either of my parents say that.
Tom smiled as I slid into the passenger's seat. "You look good, man. You ready for this?" I nodded. "Good. Relax, it'll be over before you know it, and then you'll be one of us." He took a left at the end of my street instead of a right.
"Aren't we going to the community center?" I asked.
"No, we're going to our headquarters for this. The community center is fine for some stuff, but we do all of our private business at the HQ. The Induction Ceremony is…private."
The way he said it made me nervous. "You guys aren't going to haze me, are you?" I asked, trying to make it sound like a joke. It came out sounded way more serious than I wanted to. I relaxed a little when Tom laughed.
"No, man. We're not about pain and humiliation. We're giving people an easier life, not a harder one." I noticed the buildings were getting seedy outside of the windows. We were heading into a more run-down part of downtown. He pulled up outside of a small building with a sign on the front that said, "The Sharing – Building a Better Life." When I got out, I noticed a huge guy standing outside the door with his arms folded across his chest.
"You have bouncers?" I asked, half-amused and half-concerned.
"He's security, yeah," Tom said. "We thought he would be a good idea after a crackhead came into a meeting last month waving a knife around." He gestured around us. "We're not exactly in the best part of town. This is just a temporary headquarters, though. Don't worry, The Sharing is just getting on its feet. We'll be able to afford better digs in no time."
We walked past the security guard, who nodded gravely at Tom, and into the building. We entered a big room with about thirty people seated around tables, and they all turned as I walked in. I spotted Elena, Joe, and Alan sitting at a table, and they all smiled and started clapping, which brought a round of applause from all of the members there.
Even with the members clapping for me, I noticed some things around the room that made me uncomfortable. Why wasn't there a coffeemaker in the corner, or at least a Coke machine? I didn't see any garbage cans, nowhere to throw away snack and gum wrappers. Not one of the members present had a drink in front of them. It was like a meeting hall for people who didn't require anything or make any trash. Tom waved to everyone, but instead of going to table, he led me down a hallway, toward a closed door at the end.
All of my instincts were screaming at me that this wasn't right. I stopped walking, and Tom stopped a step later and turned back, looking impatient. "What are you doing?" he asked in an annoyed tone of voice.
"Why are we going back here?" I asked.
"We're just going through that door – come on," he said, gesturing impatiently.
"Why are we doing it back here?" I asked, feeling more hinky. "Why not out front? You guys own this building, right? And nobody's going to walk in off the street, not with that guy out front. What gives?"
"Wylie, if you'll just trust me enough to take five more steps and go through that door, you'll understand everything. I'm telling you, it's fine."
A hand touched my shoulder, and I jumped. I spun around to see Elena standing there, smiling at me. Instead of making me feel better, I felt even more creeped-out; her smile was meant to be friendly, but there was something predatory about it. "Trust him, Wylie. The Induction Ceremony takes five minutes, and then you can join us for the main meeting out there."
Tom was now showing his true feelings. For some reason, he was nervous and impatient. "You take him, Elena. He will be here any minute, and we should have already started when he arrives." He tried to reassure me. "I'm serious, Wylie; it'll be quick and painless. You'll understand everything, you'll be a full member, and then you can join us." He went back into the main room, and I could hear him calling a meeting to order.
Elena took my arm and guided me toward the door. It was the only one, at the end of the hallway, and my choices were clear. I could either go through that door against my better judgment, or I could turn tail and run back the way I came. Back through the meeting hall, where Alan and Joe would see me running like a coward. Back to the way things had been before I had known about The Sharing.
I made the wrong choice. I let Elena take me into the little room at the end of the hall. I saw the steel chair and the weird whirlpool-looking thing beside it, but I was in the room before I could even start to figure out what it was. The door closed behind me, and the man standing beside it asked a one-word question that somehow chilled me to the bone. "Voluntary?"
Elena shrugged, as if to say We'll see. "Sit in that chair, Wylie."
I had had all of the weirdness I could take for one day. "No," I said, turning back to the door. The guy slid over to block my way. I heard my voice shaking as I said, "Move. I'm out of here."
"No, you're not," Elena said. There was no attempt at smiling or making my feel comfortable anymore. As she said that, the man reached under his sport coat and produced a handgun. He pointed it at me, and my brain screamed, This isn't real! This isn't happening! This isn't real!
It was, though. "Sit!" he commanded, gesturing toward the chair with his pistol. The barrel was pointed dead-center at my chest – it looked big enough to fit a baseball. Looking down that dark gun barrel was like looking into death itself. The words I heard Tom speaking from the other room seemed to amplify the feeling of unreality, the feeling of being caught in a nightmare.
"Brothers and sisters, the day is here at last. It is time to strike the decisive blow in the invasion of Earth."
I wanted to follow the guy with the gun's order. I wanted to sit, just so he wouldn't put a bullet into my chest. I was so scared, though, I couldn't make my legs move. The only thing that seemed to work were my vocal cords. I heard myself saying, "What? Elena, what? Why? What?"
"Wylie, I recommend you sit down in that chair. Right now," was her only reply. Her voice was hard and cold. She did not sound like she had a crush on me anymore.
Suddenly, the guy with the gun took a quick step forward and pushed me with his free hand. The gun stayed trained on me, but he pushed hard. My knees were locked up, and the shove sent me flying toward the metal chair. I cracked the top of my head on the edge of it, it brought new meaning to the term 'knocked some sense into me.' All of a sudden, it didn't feel like a bad dream anymore. It felt like a real life-or-death situation that I was going to have to get out of myself. I felt the sticky, warm wetness spreading as blood started to drip into my eyes, but I ignored it as I quickly scanned the room for anything that could help me out of this. Anything small enough to throw and big enough to cause damage was what I was looking for. I needed something to distract the guy with the gun for long enough to close the distance and wrestle with him. One thing I knew for sure was that I was not going to leave this room alive as long as he was holding that gun.
The water fountain/whirlpool thing gurgled senselessly. I heard a new voice speaking to the assembly, even though I couldn't make out what it was saying. Elena spun toward the guy with the gun and hissed, "You moron! How many times have you been told not to damage the hosts?"
He looked back at her and sneered. "It'll be easier with him unconscious, anyway." Unconscious! Sure, I could play that game. Maybe that would get gun-guy to let his guard down. Maybe he'd get close enough for me to snatch it away. I tried to look unconscious, but they weren't paying attention to me, anyway. A call from the other room got all of their attention.
"Visser! Forgive my interruption, but there are several small insects here!"
I heard snatches of words after that, but the one thing that I heard clearly was, "Someone kill this fool for me."
Two gunshots rang out, and Elena and her friend forgot all about me. They turned and ran toward the sound of the gunfire, leaving the door open behind them. With the door open, I heard the voice scream in an insane, enraged voice, "Kill those insects!" I thought I had taken a harder knock than I'd originally thought, but I just acted. The only way out was straight through the fire corridor. I decided to bolt at full speed and hope nobody was a good enough shot to kill me.
Down the hallway and into the fray. The fray was the only way to describe it. Everyone was going crazy. People were running toward the walls, stomping their feet like they were all in some insane dance competition. Nobody even looked at me as I bolted for the front doors; they were paying too much attention to whatever they were trying to stomp. The guy at the podium urged them on. "Kill them! Kill them!" he screeched over and over again. Insanely, I somehow made it out of that building without being noticed. I ran until I felt like my lungs would burst, and then I ran some more.
They know who I am. They know where I live. They know who I am. They know where I live. These two thoughts chased each other in circles around my brain. It didn't even matter where I went; I just wanted to get as far away from those people as I could.
3
This all happened two weeks ago. I'm still on the run. I can't tell you where I am. I still don't know what The Sharing is or what they wanted with me, but it's something terrible. It scares me shitless just to think about it. I've tried to tell myself it's just a dream, but it wasn't. I can't pretend away those gunshots, and the way the gunpowder smell hung in the air and burned my nose as I ran through that room full of crazy stomping people.
I'm officially a runaway now. I've had to leave my life behind, such as it was. Disappearing seemed like the only thing to do. I don't know if or when I'll be able to go home, but it's not going to be until after I figure all of this out…if I ever do.
All I know is that the thought of going back to Santa Barbara scares me way worse than being a fifteen year old out on the streets, in the world, by myself.
I don't know what that metal chair and whirlpool were for, and I don't ever want to find out.
Author's Note: Look, I'm sorry if my last A/N hurt anyone's feelings. I'm not the type to threaten to hold out on people, and that's not what I was doing. I feel like I've got a legitimate right to ask for feedback when I'm putting this much time into a fanfiction, especially one that's fairly popular, according to the traffic stats. I'm not assuming people are reading, I know they are. It's in black and white in my traffic graph. So if you can't understand why I'd offer two choices – leave thoughts and suggestions, or don't, and don't be upset when I drop the project and move on – then we're just on two different wavelengths. If you don't understand why I feel like one person leaving a review out of over 100 readers is totally ridiculous, then don't read my stuff. If you feel like it's fair to let me continue to provide material for you and unfair for me to ask for feedback in return, then just don't read it.
That said, thank you to bonewing, W R Tennant, completelyoriginalusername, DarthPhoenixFire, Sweetbriar, Salad Shooter, jesusisabiscuit, Chiroptera Jones, ohmygoodness, and Kimjledford for their continued feedback and support. I really appreciate you guys, and anyone I left out, I'm very sorry and I appreciate your feedback, as well. I hope you enjoyed this piece =)