Frightened Boy by Scott Kelly (easy books to read in english txt) 📕

told you. We watch cartoons or nothing.”

I wondered how God must have felt when it was just Him and Adam kicking it. How long had it taken before Adam got bored, and how much did that depress the Big Guy?

“Alright…well, I’m gonna be late anyway. You stay out of trouble. Find a job or something.”

“Worshipping you is my job. I told you that already. I tied all of your ties for you. They are hanging on those hooks in your closet door.”

“That’s weird.”

It was weird, but it only scratched the surface. I found little altars, shrines, and prayers scattered about the house, some with scented candles burning alongside them, others with crude drawings of my face. I think she was bored.

As I prepared to leave, the phone rang. Erika dashed from the couch, slid across my tile floor and snatched up the receiver before I could make a step toward it.

“Is that for me?" I called into the kitchen.

“It’s no one. Just go to work,” she commanded.

I waved goodbye to her and stepped out my door to Banlo Bay. There was a choir of birds chirping, a sun shining. It almost felt like I was living sometimes, like I’d put the past behind me and I would really get a chance at a normal life. Never mind that I’d be one of the only ones who would.

A job, a pretty girl living with you…not too bad, considering the world is on the edge of collapse.

It was hot out already, even in the morning. The heat was relentless in Banlo Bay. There was hardly anyone on the bus, and half of those who were had face masks on.

I realized then I must have missed something. I grabbed a newspaper off the seat next to me, and saw a front-page reminder that it was migration season, and we were all supposed to be watching out.

Birds chirping. Shit.

Too many geese had flown through the chemtrails, and the feathers they dropped could make you sick or sterile. I’d forgotten my mask, and half of my coworkers wouldn’t even be coming to work.

Still, no point in going back now. Instead I went on to work, and resolved to fix the television issue with Erika as I sat down at my desk. If I could have watched my news like I usually do, this wouldn’t have happened. She thought it was too negative. Except, now stuck at work with no coworkers and no work to do.

So when three armed figures appeared on the cameras outside of the building, I was alarmed. Two of them were tall, cloaked and with wide-brimmed hats. Strangers. The third was a man who seemed to be leading them, a man who flung open the lobby doors and strode in with purpose.

Normally, the tower would be surrounded with security, but because of the migration threat, the place was barren.

Between his short beard and wide aviator glasses, it was hard to see any face buried behind the accessories of the man who led the Strangers. He may very well have had kind, small eyes or a weak chin, but I couldn’t tell you. His long legs stretched out in front of him like an insect antennae, and he sauntered everywhere he went, never rushing—even with a gun in his hand. At times, the leader seemed to move about the room as though dancing to music only he could hear.

I pressed the alarm that would send the police to the tower. Sweat dripped from my face and onto my keyboard, and my fingers trembled. Years of working here, and never anything like this. Still, I was locked away in the center of the sprawling skyscraper, and surely I was safe. Right?

Right?

I watched their leader leave the two of them in the lobby, travel up the elevator to the eighty-third floor, shoot two men, and use their computers.

Then, with my knot of dread tying itself tighter and tighter, I watched the leader take the stairs, slowly working his way down from my top set of monitors to the very bottom left. And that’s where he stopped.

These were the cameras that watched the floor I was on. He was heading toward me.


4. Horseman

The door banged against the frame like war drums. It was clear that the wooden sheet wouldn’t last; the force of his kicks vibrated the barrier savagely. I was trapped inside the dark security room with only the dead faces of gray monitors for light.

“Open…the fucking…door!” he shouted between kicks. He shot through the door; the bullet tore through the panel.

There was a long pause as he tried the doorknob again.

“If I can’t see you, you can’t be you,” the leader mumbled angrily.

I crouched underneath my desk and pulled my knees to my chest. All I could do was pray that one of those bullets didn’t rip through me.

I shouldn’t have come to work today.

“I don’t necessarily want to kill you, whoever you are. I just need that footage.”

I remained silent. The last thing I wanted was for him to know I was in there.

“I know you’re in there!” he shouted, exasperated.

Fuck!

“I know this door only locks from the inside, and I know there’s only one door that leads into that room. Just open the door; I will stand back. I just need access to those computers. Do as I say and you won't be harmed.” As though he had only just realized he was screaming at me, he softened his voice. “Hey, it’ll be fine.”

I didn’t say anything. My vast experience in hiding had taught me that assailants often talk to you kindly and offer empty promises just to lure you out.

Then he started kicking again, and in moments his boot was through the door. He cursed and struggled to pull his foot out of the hole he’d made.

I pressed myself into the corner underneath my desk. I saw his thick hand, adorned with a single large ruby ring, reaching through to turn the doorknob.

The leader stepped into the room and pointed a large silver pistol at me, as though he’d known where I hid all along. I noticed his beard and hair were a striking dark crimson color—the color of fresh blood. He was maybe six feet tall, but seemed ten from the way he towered over me.

The intensity of being in the same room with him was unbearable. It felt like I was standing in the same room as Napoleon, Hitler. This guy was some kind of Genghis Khan, I swear. There was some presence to him that was overwhelming just from. I held my breath until he looked at something other than me.

“Where is the footage stored?” he asked angrily, staring directly into my eyes.

I cowered and stuttered, “It’s—"

“It’s where?” He cocked the gun meaningfully and pressed the long barrel to my temple.

“In that locker,” I said, pointing a trembling finger toward the security box that held the taping mechanism. The security boxes were made of heavy steel with large locks.

He tried to open it, to no avail. The lock didn't seem as scared of him as I was.

“Key,” he said simply.

My heart dropped, and I couldn’t respond. I didn’t want to have to tell him that I’d lost the key, but I truly had no idea where it was. I’d never used it.

“Key!” he roared, this time pushing the gun into my face again. “I am going to kill you if you do not give me the key.”

I was too petrified to respond. No one ever told me how to unlock it. My head shook back and forth again.

“Shit!” he screamed, kicking my chair with his alligator-skinned boot and sending it tumbling. “Get up!” he shouted. When I couldn’t move, he grabbed my wrist and yanked me from my hiding place, banging my head against the top of my desk as he did. I stumbled up. “Are you there?” he asked, shaking me violently.

“Yes,” I mumbled.

“Where is the key to this locker? I don't have time to waste standing here. I need this footage. What is your name?”

“Clark,” I said.

“Clark, normally, I would spend time with you and help you to change your mind about me. You see, I am not a bad person—if you knew why I killed the people I killed, you would most likely even agree with me. But I don’t have time for that.” He stopped shaking me and put an arm around me so that the gun was resting against my chest. He tapped the barrel against my sternum to accent his words. “I’m not a bad guy, Clark. Just open the lock for me,” he said.

“I can’t,” I forced out.

“Okay, look, I actually am a bad guy. I’m going to do horrible things to you until you give me that key.”

My mind was caught in the same endless feedback loop of terror—I couldn’t form thoughts, make plans, or argue. Just that constant Fsscccccccccccchhhhh, the static of over-stimulation, running through my head.

He brought his pistol up to my shoulder, and it looked like he was going to shoot me.

“Last chance to…” his words trailed off, and his eyes averted to the host of monitors in front of us. “Shit,” he said. He released me, and I crumpled to the floor in a fetal position as he stalked out of the security room. He turned out the door and pointed his gun at me; he fired a shot without looking, as though it were an afterthought. The sound was deafening in the closed quarters, and the bullet hit the floor only a few inches from my left eye. Dust and fibers erupted from the carpet and into my face.

When I could breathe again—when I could think again—I looked up at the monitors and saw what had worried him. Police cars were filling up the camera view outside Tasumec Tower.

I watched as he rushed down dozens of flights of stairs, a cell phone to his ear. There were several police cruisers outside the building, and I could see officers approaching the lobby.

The two people he’d brought with him—the Strangers waiting for their leader in the lobby—were apparently talking with him over their phones. One of them repositioned himself so he could ambush any police officers who dared entered the building. The other, a woman, pulled out a large revolver and lazily loaded it, pinching one bullet at a time between two fingers and dropping it daintily into each chamber of the six-shooter as though she thought they were filthy things.

Their uniforms—if you could call them that—consisted of the vast tumbling granite gray trench coats that stretched out over their bodies until they seemed impossibly large and nebulous, a mummy of layers meant to announce their presence as nothing other than unwelcoming. The female—a fact made apparently by her long dark hair and tall stiletto heels—was crowned with an enormous black Sunday hat, fashionable a century ago, if even if then.

I wanted to scream to the approaching policemen and warn them of the ambush, to tell