Playing a New Game
fiction • #8
During an apocalypse, a father and daughter try to preserve their lives and their sanity.
By Carson Fredriksen
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“Daddy, why are you boarding up the front door?”
Steven glanced at his five-year-old daughter. Her right pinkie finger was tucked into her mouth while her eyes held a quiet innocence that the older man often longed for.
He wished more than ever he was her age, looking up at his parents and knowing they could handle anything that life threw their way. Only, he found, as his face aged slowly in the mirror every morning, that every adult was just as scared and feeling out of control as he did.
And the end of the world was no exception.
“Uh...” He quickly hammered the third board against the door before he knelt down. “It’s a new game, Alice. You remember playing hide and seek right?”
Alice’s face glowed like a plugged in Christmas tree as she nodded. “I was just playing that yesterday with June! Can she come over and play too?”
The muffled screams made their way through the door and into Steven’s ears. He only prayed his daughter hadn’t noticed or wouldn’t ask.
“No sweetie, because... this is just an exclusive game. Only you and I get to play it.”
His daughter raised an eyebrow. He didn’t even know she could do such a thing. However, she quickly threw on a smile like the world outside wasn’t going to Hell.
“Okay! What do you need me to do?”
“You remember hiding in the crawlspace?” His daughter nodded. “I want you to grab the biggest blanket you can find, curl underneath it and stay there.”
“Aren’t you coming?” Alice asked.
“I just have to grab some things and then I’ll be right down, okay?”
Alice nodded as she ran down the hallway and stopped just short of the basement door. She tilted her head to sneak a better view through the window blinds in the kitchen.
“Daddy, why's the sky turning red?”
“Get your ass downstairs now!”
Alice recoiled and her eyes began to sting with warm tears. Regardless, she threw open the door and galloped down the wooden stairs. She was thankful she had her slippers on. She definitely didn’t want to get another splinter like last summer.
As she grabbed the bulky red quilt from a nearby storage bin, Alice heard the walls around her vibrate with the hammering above. Her father was keen on making sure every window and door in the house was sealed.
Curling up underneath the blanket, Alice tried to think of happier thoughts. Her mind instantly drifted to her mother who often played hide and seek with her. No matter how well the little girl hid, it seemed her mother knew every nook and cranny of the house.
In those days it was all fun and games. This version of hide and seek simply made her head become full of static and her stomach full of lead.
After listening to the various knocks for several minutes, Alice heard her father throw open the basement door and slam it so hard it caused some of the wooden beams above her to splinter. A few more furious poundings followed before footsteps raced rapidly down the stairs.
Steven dropped the hammer to the floor as soon as he reached the bottom. By now the sweat was clearly visible on his forehead and his collared shirt was rumpled and torn in a few places. His wide eyes scanned the room for a moment before they focused on his daughter.
The young girl cringed when they made eye contact. After her father’s outburst she feared that more would be on the way. But much to her delight, her father frantically crawled into the crawlspace and cradled his daughter the way a starving beggar would hold a fresh loaf of bread.
“Y-You’re not still mad at me are you, Daddy?” Alice asked softly.
“No, no honey... I’m just...” Steven paused. He wanted so badly to tell her the truth, how these moments together may very well be their last. But every time he was about to put the plan into action, his tongue swelled, his mental circuits short-circuited and every nerve in his body told him not to.
“I’m just a little stressed today, that’s all.”
Alice glanced up at him. She could feel his racing heartbeat through his hand as he held her own.
“Why are you stressed, Daddy?”
“Because... because this hide and seek game is very important. The whole town, heck, the whole world, is in on it.”
“Wow! So we’re in a club?”
Steven laughed. Parenthood definitely had its ups and downs but times like this made him realize how grateful he was to have such a gem of a daughter. It made the approaching end feel much further away.
“Yeah... something like that. But this game of hide and seek has a few certain rules we have to follow.”
Alice nodded, deciding to let her father continue.
“First, we have to be very quiet so the seekers don’t find us,” Steven whispered. “Next, we can’t leave our spots until it’s safe to do so.”
“But I might get hungry,” Alice whispered back.
“I think there’s some popsicles in the deep freeze. If it’s quiet later, I’ll get you some, okay?”
Alice’s face returned to its natural sunny disposition as Steven continued.
“And if the seekers find us...” Steven felt his mouth grow numb as the horrifying possibility crossed his mind. “We have to run away from them as fast as we can.”
“Like tag?”
“Y-Yeah, like tag. But you have to make sure that whoever’s chasing you doesn’t catch you.”
“Do we have to run, though?”
The axe crashed through the basement window. Steven and Alice both let out a loud yelp as the blade embedded itself in the nearby wooden stairs.
The sounds of cars honking and crashing along with several people screaming floated into the basement. Steven and Alice ducked their heads under the blanket and curled up with each other tightly, hoping the sounds would stop just as soon as they came.
Soon another sound began to take shape. It sounded as if something was flying nearby, its heavy wings moving up and down in a frenzy. A high-pitched screeching soon followed. Steven couldn’t even make a comparison as to what this sound was. It was just that foreign.
“Daddy, I don’t like this game,” Alice whispered, the quiver in her voice was noticeable by now. “I wish mommy was here.”
Steven nodded as his hand slipped into his right jean pocket. The handle of the automatic felt cool to the touch. “Me too Alice, me too.”
Sirens echoed from out in the streets. Some sounded as if they came right beside the house before they drove off into the country. Others were cut short by the explosive sounds of a crash.
All around the father and daughter, bits of plaster rained down. For a moment, Steven thought the entirety of the upper floors would collapse upon them. Then everything around them was silent.
It was so abrupt that it honestly disturbed Steven more than the various sounds of chaos outside.
“Is it safe now?” Alice asked with a whisper so low that her father almost didn’t hear.
The screeching suddenly returned. Only now it caused splinters to rain down on the father and daughter as if they were caught in a wooden snow globe. Up above, they could hear the glass of the windows shattering into the living room and the heavy thuds of boards breaking away as if they were children’s blocks. Alice and Steven ducked back under the blanket, hoping to avoid whatever was out there.
The sound of the front door hitting the floor caused the father and daughter to yelp louder than they wanted to. But the sound didn’t freeze their blood as much as what they heard next.
“Honey, Alice dear, I’m home.”
Alice’s head popped out of the blanket like a well-timed Jack-in-the-box. It had only been a year since her mother had been taken from her due to cancer. But she hadn’t forgotten that sweet voice that started her day with a smile and ended it with a bedtime story.
Alice glanced at her father, whose own face began to lose color by the second.
“Daddy...”
“No... No.” Steven’s hands clenched into fists as he lightly pounded them against his temples. “It’s not possible, it’s not possible...”
The footsteps above them began but Steven didn’t recognize them. Whether she surprised him in his study, or moved freely in the kitchen, his wife’s footsteps were barely audible. He remembered, only a scant two years ago, when he would joke that his wife would make a great assassin with such quick but light steps.
The footsteps above them were slow and methodical, as if whoever was upstairs was truly taking their time. Whoever it was certainly didn’t care about the apocalypse or just saw it as a minor inconvenience.
“Oh, I remember this game,” the voice masquerading as Steven’s wife said. “You’re hiding from me. Well don’t worry... I’ll find you.”
Alice clenched her father’s sweater in her hands, only now noticing the rips in the fabric. The footsteps slowly moved through the living room, into the kitchen and quickly through the front hall before they climbed the stairs.
“We’re safe down here, right Daddy?” Alice softly asked, the shakes in her hands clearly apparent.
Steven felt the long handle of his automatic in his jean pocket. He had a growing suspicion that it may not be effective against the unknown presence upstairs. But it gave him slight comfort that he could use something to defend himself and protect his daughter.
They couldn’t hear many of the footsteps upstairs but whatever it was it seemed to be performing the same ritual of slowly walking from room to room. Occasionally a loud thump or crash would resonate down to the basement. Alice would grab her father’s sweater tighter every time this happened.
Just as Steven heard the footsteps make their way down the stairs, a low guttural growl came from beside him. He almost jumped to his feet but soon realized that his daughter’s stomach was growling.
“Daddy I’m hungry... I didn’t eat breakfast remember?” Alice had her face turned away as she whispered to the floor.
Breakfast? Steven thought as he tried to pinpoint where the footsteps had gone, but all was silent. What’s breakfast?
“Okay, honey,” Steven rubbed the back of his daughter’s head frantically. “I’m going to head to the freezer and get some popsicles. Stay here and don’t make a sound.”
Alice barely had enough time to nod before her father slowly manoeuvred out of the blanket and into the cooler open space.
Feeling how chilly the air was now, Alice wrapped herself in the blanket but kept her head poking out.
The freezer sat in the furthest corner of the basement. Steven placed one foot in front of the other as slowly as if he were walking across a tightrope. He stopped when he heard the heavy steps move from the stairs and into the living room. He held the position for so long he almost forgot what he had gotten up for, until he heard another guttural cry from his daughter’s stomach.
As the silence lasted longer than five seconds, Steven placed one foot in front of the other as he eventually reached the arctic box. He slowly opened the lid, silently thanking the hinges for not squeaking in protest, as he swiftly grabbed two ice cream sandwiches, a Fudgesicle and a Popsicle sealed in plain white plastic. The Popsicle’s flavour was a mystery.
The footsteps remained silent for another ten seconds. It should’ve brought Steven some comfort as he closed the lid and walked slowly towards the crawlspace. But it seemed to make his blood pressure only rise even more.
As Steven crawled into the tiny space, he allowed himself to let out a breath he had no idea he was holding. Alice swiftly snatched the ice cream sandwich as her father sat beside her. The bounty of frozen treats lay in front of her like a king’s ransom.
“Thanks Daddy!” Alice whispered with a mouthful of vanilla ice cream and cookie crumbs.
Steven laughed to himself as he grabbed an ice cream sandwich. He was only able to unwrap the top portion before the three fingered scaly hand burst through the beams and clenched around his head fully.
Alice felt her voice box freeze as her wide eyes saw her father’s arms and legs swing around rapidly. His fingernails tried digging into the black flesh of the creature but the thing dragged the man upwards.
Alice could hear her father’s erratic, guttural screams grow fainter as his feet eventually disappeared through the hole. She could still hear them as they seemed to move out through the living room, through the roof and further and further into the sky.
Normally, Alice would’ve wanted to see just what exactly had grabbed her father, or even just where the creature was taking him.
Today, she curled up under the blanket and began to shed tears of fear, hoping that she could somehow win this new game.
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Carson is a neurodivergent writer from Calgary, Alberta who often enjoys rummaging through his dark, albeit unique, imagination to enhance his everyday life. His previous works have appeared in such online publications as: CommuterLit, Rooster Republic Press, Tales From the MoonlitPath and Howling Wolf Press. He can be found at www.carsonfredriksen.com
