“The Soulless” XI

 

 We’re bundled up on the couches, Jeb tends to the fire. It’s silent except for the snaps and pops from the fireplace. The fire is really pretty. This soft blue and yellow glow, a golden, buttery glow. The logs are all black and shimmering. I want to look at it, but the heat bothers my eyes- like it’s something very special, something  you can’t look at, something sacred.

Frank is cursing at the radio, punching the table with frustration. 

“You’re not gon’ get it to work, Frank,” Jeb says as he smacks on a piece of stale, frostbitten bread. He sticks it over the fire to toast it and blows on it to cool. 

“Shut up, would ya?” Frank hisses without turning from the radio. He switches with the knob intently. Off. On. Off. On. Nothing. 

I hear Anya humming in the kitchen. Then the soft clapping of a helicopter. She drops a pan. A fucking helicopter. I hear them so often I hardly noticed its significance. 

“Guys! Guys! Tom! Frank! Look!” She, without hesitation, runs out of the porch, onto the front lawn. 

“Get ‘er back inside!” Frank yells coarsely. He grabs his gun and rushes to the porch. He climbs a pipe onto the roof and begins to wave. 

“They’ll never see him out there, damn fool. Here!” Jeb stretches a stick into the fire, it lights and he waddles to the porch, adjusting his pants. I run after him and grasp Anya’s arm. The helicopter has seen us and they’re dropping altitude. 

“Oh! oh!” Frank cries and runs inside to gather his things quickly. The helicopter whips around our hair and our clothes, I shield my eyes from the viper sharp wind. The ‘copter drops a rope ladder and it sounds musically as it hits the tree branches and the porch. I push Anya to it and she clings to it as if she were hundreds of feet in the air. They raise her into the helicopter and drop the rope again. 

I’m on the helicopter now, then Jeb and Frank. The helicopter sweeps over the dark land, rocking and singing, clapping. Anya holds onto me, she’s deathly afraid of heights. She creeps to the window, a little round one, and looks at the stars- brighter than I’ve ever seen them. 

“Good, eh!?” Frank smiles happily and grabs my jacket’s arm. He’s overjoyed. His brilliant smile and jubilant laugh fill the cabin, high over the engine’s squeals. 

“Who are ya?” Asks the copilot, turning to us: all bare and dirty. He’s wrapped in a tight leather jacket, protected by a shiny helmet and beetle-black glasses. His industrial face is almost too perfect, too clean amongst all this machinery. We say our names and he smiles. “We’ll get  ya there safe.” 

It all seems too good to be true. Safety, warmth. Yes, finally. Safety. But, I felt safe before, we were secluded in our little box, our little brown, basic box, with the crispy bacon and salty corned beef. I liked my chewy stash of old Oreo cookies I found in the back cabinet. I hid them from everyone and ate them in my dusty, cardboard hide-out. I liked all that, it was safe. Now, I have the feeling that I will never be safe again. We just left safety- we’re on our way to Hell.