A World Gone Mad

Friday the 13th dawned chill… and weird.

Eric had already left for work, Claire didn’t even hear him leave, nor did she feel his lips touch her forehead as he kissed her goodbye. She rubbed her eyes and nestled herself further into the bed, not wanting to expose herself to the cold air of their shitty apartment. The building was old, despite the landlord’s vainest attempt to make it look remotely modern. The original windows were still installed but were only effective at looking like windows. Cold air, humid air, wind, rain, snow, it all seemed to make its way past the windows. Their heating bill was horrendous in the winter.

Sunlight blazed through the bedroom’s east window, and it didn’t matter how hard she shut her eyes, there was no beating it back. Claire pulled the blanket back from over eyes and grunted.

“Let’s go, Max, time to get up.”

Max’s black fur gleamed in the sunlight, and his yellow eyes, bleary through his yawn, looked at Claire askance. The cat stretched with a whine as Claire stood in the room’s cool air. She bent to Max’s nose and they touched, Claire smiling at the moist contact.

“Who’s my good boy? That’s right, you are…”

Nothing made her smile like Max, for his appreciation and love was purer than any person could ever show her. Even as much as she loved Eric, she felt no love was as complete as the animals that have always been a part of her life. She slipped on her house shoes and hung a left out of the bedroom and down the hallway.

Another left took her into the living room and a right into the bathroom. The feeling shook her to the core as she entered the bathroom, an all-consuming shiver bloomed in her feet and shuddered up her backside and into her spine. And as quickly as it came, it left without a trace. With a groan, she crinkled her brow and turned to look at the spot where the feeling ran through her. What the hell was that?!

Claire watched as Max, who had followed her loyally, stopped in his tracks, eyes wide and tail puffed. “You felt it, too, huh?” Max growled in response.

The hot shower had pushed the feeling from her mind. Nothing made Claire feel “normal” like a sauna-style shower, pores deep-cleaned and hair conditioned to a silky softness. Dried and robed, she brushed her teeth and lotioned her body, her mind now focused on tea and oatmeal. Claire exited the bathroom without the spine-tingling explosion and made her way to the kitchen. The apartment’s lack of heat retention had no effect on her now, and she sat at the table checking her social media as she waited for the water pot to boil.

Max had made his way slowly to the kitchen, and as Claire stood up to pull the whistling pot from the burner, she bent down to pet him. In a flash, Max hiss-growled and left a deep laceration across her hand with his razor sharp claws. Claire pulled her hand to her robe and yelled, “Goddamn it, Max! What was that for?!”

The blood stain bloomed quickly on Claire’s robe, and she hurried to the sink to wash the wound. She grumbled loudly at Max as she cleaned the scratch, wincing more than once. Max had never done that to her before, and the memory of the moment she walked into the bathroom flooded into her mind. Rolling her eyes, Claire chalked it up to it being Friday the 13th. The remainder of her morning at home went without incident, and she threw on her coat and descended the stairs to the front door, the traffic of Main Street slightly muted behind her as she made her way to the car.

The last vestiges of the over night near-freeze evaporated from the windshield as Claire snapped her cell into the dash-mounted holder, her GrubHub app at the ready. She spent her day yesterday delivering throughout Harleysville and Lansdale, so she decided she would end her week right here at home. The business in town, especially the breakfast hours, was slow on a typical day, but she was hoping that the weirdness of Friday the 13th would be on her side. And she was right, for no sooner had she parked the Jeep and activated the app than her first order came in. It was a large McDonald’s order… very large! Marking her second eyeroll for the morning, she made her way to the front of the plaza’s parking lot where the newly built fast food franchise stood. An order this big would be a twenty minute wait, at least, and she was still uncomfortable standing indoors, in public, even though the pandemic ended a couple of years ago.

Ten minutes was a pleasant surprise, though it took her two trips to get all of the food into her vehicle. Claire looked again at the order on her phone, the police station? The Valley wasn’t a very large place, even it was half again the size it was in her youth. What could possibly be going on that would require so many of the local police to be awake and gathered together? The Halloween parade wasn’t for another two weeks.

It was then that the outside world penetrated her senses. As she pulled out of the parking lot and onto Pottstown Pike, her eyes caught the sight of the smoke. The pungent aroma of burning wood attacked her nose. The sound of sirens perked her ears. Claire hung the right onto Dotts Street and headed to the police barracks, all the while taking in the scene around her.

“What the hell happened here?” The confusion on her face was apparent even to those she passed on the sidewalk, as many were out cleaning up from the night’s activities. When she passed, one raised their arms in consternation, another shook her head and looked down to the concrete.

As a kid, the night before Halloween was known as Mischief Night, when some of the neighborhood kids would go around and throw toilet paper around certain properties, or throw eggs at cars and houses, and basically cause trouble that would get them in trouble, were they ever caught. But what Claire was seeing through her windshield looked more like Devil’s Night from the movie “The Crow”. Hoodlums with weapons chanting, “Fire it up! Fire it up!”, made a scene in her mind’s eye. However, she knew that this wasn’t the result of criminal gangs destroying property because they needed to prove their strength in the community they terrorized. Nope… this was a result of the one thing Claire hated the most. Politics. The last few years had seen the rise of out-of-control militia groups resulting from the outcomes of numerous federal and state elections. Those on the losing side of the last two presidential elections, the nuttiest of the bunch as far as Claire was concerned, were the ones making all of this trouble. It started out ‘honestly’ enough when the candidate they wanted to win for re-election lost. Online conspiracies spoke of his imminent return to save them from the coming socialism. Despite the untruth of such happenings, their anger grew as they felt their rights were being stripped away.

They became angrier and angrier, launching that anger, and their hate, at businesses and school boards and anybody else they felt stood in the way of their freedom. The instantaneous news cycles and popularity-seeking, power-hungry politicians stoked that anger as far as they could. Nationwide the protests and violence accelerated. But for so long they had been concetrated in the nation’s heartlands, and now they had spread. Claire declared all of them useless idiots in her own mind, and it killed her that Eric was a political person. He never advocated for violence of any sort, but just his like for the nation’s politics and the social media groups he belonged to that discussed it made the bile rise in the back of her throat. She could never understand it, though she was thankful that he never let it inundate him.

Yet it had come to her home, and the heartbreak she felt was neck and neck with the anger boiling up inside of her. The Valley was always a close-knit family, everybody knew everybody, and differences were, more often than not, settled peacefully over a drink. That all appeared to be the nostalgic past, now, and Claire feared how far this might go. The world’s gone mad!

Pulling the Jeep into the barracks’ parking lot, the drive was barely a mile and took but two minutes, Claire could see the scorch marks running up the entrance. The assholes were brazen enough to attack the station! She gathered the bags and lugged them to the door where Officer Traxton met her and provided help.

“Thank you, Seth! These bags are heavier than I expected.”

“My pleasure, Claire. Thanks for bringing this in… It’s a hell of a situation.” Seth Paxton was a strapping young man, twenty-six years old, with a goatee and deep-set eyes. His voice was deeper than one would think to look at him, but he always had a respectable tone.

“What is going on around here?”

“Come on in and find out for yourself.”

The police barracks were under the main halls of the borough building, and, usually, it was quaint and quiet. Now, Claire could see the bulk of the valley’s police force huddled in the conference room pouring over the map of the town. At the center of the throng stood Adam Joseph. A tank of a man, Adam was clean shaven with a high and tight haircut. His broad shoulders dwarfed the fact that he did have a staunch midsection, though he didn’t stretch any of the buttons on his uniform. Deep and booming came his voice, demanding command without demanding it. He was pointing towards the edges of the borough centers, seeking to drive the guilty parties towards a common point and not allow them to escape. None of them knew how many people were involved, but by the expressions on everybody’s faces, it didn’t seem as though it was a small number.

Adam looked up at Claire and his face softened. She could see in his eyes the struggle it was to smile.

“Thank you for breakfast. Some of us have been at this all night. Be careful out there,” and he nodded as he was handed a coffee.

“You’re welcome, Chief. You be careful, too.”

She turned to leave and was joined again by Seth. “Claire, none of us know where this is going to end. You should go home and stay safe.”

“No… Eric left and went to work, he didn’t say anything to me. I’m gonna go through this like a normal day. Besides, so many people are probably staying home that business will be through the roof.” Claire let out a little laugh to cover her nervousness. Why do people have to be so ridiculous?

“Just watch your ass,” he said sternly, eyebrows raised.

The cloud cover was already moving in, and the bright sunshine that woke her not an hour ago was already failing. A cool breeze popped up and Claire pulled her coat tighter about her, a small wince of pain erupted from the scratch Max had given her. Friday the 13th… I really hope this doesn’t turn into a movie.

The next three hours passed fairly quietly, from Claire’s point of view. Though, in the background noise outside of her car, she heard the constant blare of sirens. One or two times she even thought she heard a gunshot, but all that she could confirm was a couple of car accidents. Business for her was through the roof, but navigating the streets proved a challenge. Her customers were very thankful that she braved the situation to bring them their food. Betsy Allen had told her that Hell would have to freeze over before she left her house to venture out in this insanity. Jack Coulson, an old Army veteran of roughly 70, was a quite a bit louder than Betsy in his complaints, putting forth his veteran’s bravado, in spite of his eyes darting in fear as she handed him his food. Julie lived down in Colonial Village, the 50-year-old townhome complex on the northwestern edge of East Greenville, and she was a mother of five. Despite the improvements in the Village over the last couple of years, there were still a lot of bad seeds that lived there. The fear in her eyes was palpable, almost tangible.

“I’m not sendin’ my kids to school in this madness,” she said as Claire handed her a bag of food from the Pennsburg Diner. “I can’t believe the schools are even open!”

Claire nodded , her attention partially taken by what she saw over Julie’s shoulder. In the house, she could see four of Julie’s five children hunkered on the couch watching a movie, oblivious to the loaded shotgun with its barrel leaning against the end table. She could hear Jack Skellington singing on the television.

“Well, you take of yourself and those ki-”

The gunshot rang out muffled because of the distance, but it was obvious that it was a gunshot.

“Ah shit! Time to lock up! Thank you for the food!”

Claire’s head snapped towards the sound, her heart skipped a beat wondering what was on the receiving end. Her anger over the idiocy that continued go the better of her, “Son of a bitch! Why are you people so stupid!” The sirens that blared gave her an answer, even if it wasn’t the answer. She hurried to the Jeep to see what her next order was.

The smell inside the car was almost nauseating and seeing that she’d now have to go pick up Italian food provided for her third eyeroll for the day. In spite of the chill of the now overcast day, she lowered the window to get some fresh air in and made her way to Ciccione’s in Red Hill. A few minutes driving had her passing in front of the new Middle School, two police cruisers joined a state trooper cruiser around the building’s exterior. All appeared quiet as the students went about their education. A moment later and she realized that her daydreaming had forced her to miss a turn, and her face twisted in a grimace as she approached the high school grounds. Claire’s mood soured, and she knew that she wouldn’t abide any bullshit. She just wanted to get this day over with, now.

But this day slapped her in the face again as she walked into Ciccione’s. Why must she always run into him when Eric was not around? Yet there he was, John Friedman, her ex-boyfriend and immense asshole. John stood about six feet tall, but that’s where the good about him ended. He was fat. Not obese fat, but just lazy fat. His pants hung off of his hips, making it look like he shit himself from the back, and accentuating his generous belly from the front. The permanent five o’clock shadow was patchy and gave him no help in making his glasses and ballcap look respectable. And, of course, he was screaming at somebody when she walked in.

“No! I don’t have to keep it down, I can say what I want! It’s my freedom!”

“What about our freedom from having to listen to your bullshit, John?!”

“You will listen to it, Gary! You know why?! Because they’re coming for you! They’re coming for all of us! I wanna keep my voice, I wanna keep my guns, and I wanna keep my freedom!”

“Give it a rest, Friedman!” That was Flo from the back of the dining room. Her screeching voice went well with her lanky frame and beak nose. She was also very straightforward, which she was proving now. “You’re a coward! Nothin’ but talk! I bet you were hiding under your bed last night, pissin’ into your diaper!”

The restaurant erupted in laughter behind Flo’s cackle. The anger exploded across John’s face, and he stepped forward as though to rush at the elderly woman that just embarrassed him.

“Hold up there, sport,” said ‘Big’ Kyle Jackson. He stood in front of John, arms crossed and a “don’t fuck with me” glare.

“Get out of my way! That bitch needs to be put in her place,” and he pointed over Kyle’s shoulder to Flo, standing at the back of the restaurant defiantly.

“Sure, you can put in her in her place as soon as you put me in mine,” Kyle’s smile challenging John.

John backed off, but he played it off by stomping and yelling some more. “What’s wrong with you people?! The government is coming to enslave you, and I’m not gonna let that happen! Why will you? They need to pay!”

Claire could no longer stifle her laughter, which quickly turned into mild howls and bellows. John snapped upright and stared wide-eyed right into Claire’s eyes. Her laughter continued into near hysterics as his eyes seemed to bulge from their sockets. His eyes narrowed and he sauntered over to her, doing his best to appear threatening.

“Well, if it isn’t the ex-bitch! Maybe it’s time I shut you up again… You never could control that mouth of yours.”

His face was within inches of Claire’s, the smell of booze already on his breath, his mouth curled up in that sneering smile of his. She didn’t think there was any way that he could look any dumber. The laughing continued in earnest.

She watched as his lumbering body moved slow enough to telegraph the coming haymaker. But he never made it to full rear back of his arm before Claire’s right hand closed forcefully around his balls. The harder she squeezed the louder his squeak became. She kept the pressure increasing until the squeak was silenced, his knees began to buckle, and the gagging and dry heaves started. Claire didn’t want to soil the inside of the restaurant and let go. John fell to his knees, chin cradled in his chest as the pain paralyzed him.

Claire bent to his ear but made sure to speak loud enough for most of the restaurant patrons to hear her. “Just as little as I remember, eh, John?” And she calmly made her way to the counter to pick up the food that awaited delivery. The crowd inside the restaurant cheered her as she made her way out.

The remainder of the afternoon seemed oddly calm, and the residents of the Valley started making their way out of their homes to clean up the mess from the night before. The satisfaction of embarrassing John Friedman wore off quickly as she saw the horror-struck and weeping faces of her neighbors. Never did Claire imagine that something like this would happen. She was about to settle back into the Pennsburg Plaza parking lot to await her next order when the sound of multiple sirens broke the tenuous silence. An alert on her phone accompanied the sirens, telling of a militia making its way into Hereford from Huff’s Church. A militia?! For real?!

“Nope, I’m done.” She closed out the GrubHub app on her phone and made her way back home. She was fool enough to work an entire day in the aftermath of last night, but no way would she risk being out here if a band of gun-toting jackasses was on the way. The sight of five police cruisers speeding along Seminary Street and squealing their tires to get onto Pottstown Avenue was too much to take.

Pulling into the parking lot of her apartment, Claire received a text message from Eric. Things are getting crazy around here, babe. I’m coming home now.

Be safe, my love! Things aren’t much better here.

You know I will!

Max was there to greet her as she walked through the door, a beacon of calm and familiarity in the weirdness of the outside world. Claire hating taking baths, but the need to soak in some hot water overwhelmed her. There was no lightning numbness that overcame her as she walked in to run the water, and, glancing back at Max, she saw that nothing was bothering him, either. It wasn’t but ten minutes before she was immersed in the tub, the aroma of the Himalayan sea salts easing her frazzled nerves.

Max paced along the outside of the tub, rubbing his head earnestly on Claire’s outstretched hand, his fur making a strange noise as it rubbed against the bandage covering the damage he wrought that morning. A wash rag lay across Claire’s eyes and forehead, and the comfort of the bath had her nearly asleep when she heard the door open. Eric was home, and her heart fluttered just a bit, thankful he was safe.

“Claire?” His voice rang up the stairs, her own personal church chimes she always thought.

“I’m in the bath, honey!”

“A bath? Really? Must’ve been a hell of day for you,” his voice speaking in time to the footfalls on the stairs.

“She heard him lay down his backpack and lunch cooler, take off his shoes, and sanitize his hands. She liked to keep a clean style of living.

“Hey, baby,” his voice broke the silence of the bathroom and made her smile like a girl on Christmas morning. She always thought his voice sexy, and it got her every time.

“Hello, my love. How was your day?” The smile beamed from her lips.

“The workday was fairly normal. It was outside of work that was crazy. I’m sorry I didn’t say anything to you when I left about the state of things outside, but I was hoping it wouldn’t be as bad as it looked.” His expression was one of genuine apology. “But I already told them that I’m not going in tomorrow. It’s too damn weird and scary out there.”

“Yay! I’m not going out there tomorrow, either. We get to be together all day!”

She finished her bath and Eric quickly took his shower. They decided to keep it simple and had some soup with crackers for dinner. then they lay down as dusk turned to night and watched their favorite show, The King of Queens. They both fell asleep with the television on, which served them well. For the noise coming from outside would’ve easily awakened them.

Read Chapter 2 of Prime using the link below:

Hide and Seek