C.L. Who on subscribestar.com (original) (raw)

Adeline and The Stranger

A Stranger knocked on the door of 1608 S. Clark St. He wore a dark trench coat with a button down shirt and bluejeans, a flat brimmed, flat topped hat, and a raven stood on his right shoulder. He looked half Native American and half White. A thick fog surrounded the house.

He had knocked on the door multiple times, waiting patently between knocks. Opening the door only a few inches a young girl looked out at The Stranger.

“Hello Adeline?” The Stranger said.

“Do you know where Mom and Dad are?” The girl asked in a sad and scared voice.

“I’m sorry Adeline, I don’t. May I come in?” The Stranger replied calmly. He spoke with a slight southern drawl but his accent didn’t fit any one region.

“I’m not allowed to talk to strangers.” She replied.

“I’m not that kind of stranger.”

“I’m not allowed to let strangers in.”

“Alright.”

The Adeline shut the door. The Stranger stood next to the door, his back to the wall. He took out a new paper back book from his coat. He knew it was better to let children come to him.

He was four chapters in when the door opened. Adeline wore blue jeans, white and blue shows, a blue graphic t-shirt with Stitch from Lilo and Stitch sitting, and she was four foot three inches tall. She looked at him with sad eyes, “My phone and the internet are not working. Mom and Dad should have been home. Are they okay?” Tears welled in her eyes.

The stranger put the book in his coat, turned, put his hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry Adeline, I don’t know.”

“What’s happening? Where’s Mom and Dad?” Adeline asked, then began crying.

The Stranger knelt down. “It’s going to be alright, everything is going to be alright.” He took a handkerchief out. “Adeline, look at me.” He wiped her face with the handkerchief. “You’re going to be alright.”

“Do you know Mom and Dad?”

“I have not met them.”

“How do you know my name?”

He had to choose his words carefully, with adults he could push to get them to remember, with children it was different. In many ways they were more durable than adults, in others they were more fragile. “How ’bout I introduce myself, people call me ‘Cowboy’.” The Stranger offered his hand. She took it, they shook hands. “Are you hungry? Did you eat breakfast?”

“No.” Adeline answered in a low sad voice.

“If you let me in I will make you a good breakfast, I am a pretty good cook.”

“Okay.” Adeline said in a low voice. She wasn’t allowed to let stranger in but she was scared and lonely.

A thin fog hung in the house, Adeline suspected the truth. The door opened to a living room with a TV and several game consoles against the left wall, the wall painted off white. An unfinished wooden coffee table with several ring stains stood next to a blue faux leather couch. Photos hung on the wall, a photo of baby Adeline just a day old, photos of the grandparents, few photos of Adeline’s parents when they were young, a wedding photo of Adeline’s parents, a photo of the whole family at Adeline’s fifth birthday, and a photo of Adeline and her parents at Six Flags taken seven months before at Adeline’s last birthday. A book shelf stood in the left corner with a small collection of books, a random collection of twelve Funko Pops, on the top shelf a framed folded flag with two photos of Adeline’s maternal grandfather, one of him holding his new born daughter, the other of him in Afghanistan. On the back wall was a door leading to the laundry room and in the back left corner the hallway to the bedrooms. The dinning aria was to the right, with a wooden table and four wood chairs, and a wood patterned linoleum floor. The kitchen was to the back right, cabinets with black countertops separated it from the living room, the cabinets were painted the same off white as the living room. A double door refrigerator was at the edge of the kitchen on the right wall, the range in against the back wall, a dishwasher under the counter separating the living room and kitchen, and the sink next to the dish washer.

The Stranger walked to the refrigerator, Adeline sat at the table, the raven flew to the table. The refrigerator was semi-well stocked, he took two eggs and bacon out.

“Can I pet your bird?” Adeline asked.

“You have to ask her.” He replied.

Adeline looked at the raven, “Can I pet you mister bird?” The raven hopped from the table into Adeline’s lap.

“She’s a she.” Cowboy informed Adeline as he looked in the cabinets. He found a cast iron pan and seasonings. The Stranger started with the bacon, cooked the eggs in the bacon grease, added salt, pepper, and paprika to the eggs. Cowboy plated the eggs and bacon, placed the plate with a fork on the table with a “bon appétit”. The raven flew back to the Stranger. Adeline ate, pausing to say “This is really good.”

“Thank ya ma’am.” He replied.

In the middle of eating Adeline stopped, dropped the fork. Again tears welled in her eyes. “Where is Mom and Dad?”

Cowboy looked at her with a sad expression, sat at the table. “What do you remember from this morning, when you woke up.”

Adeline thought. “I- I don’t.”

“You must remember something.”

“Being home, alone. Mom and dad never leave me alone this long. If I can’t go with them I stay with Aunt Rita.”

“What do you remember about yesterday?”

“We went to the park, then to the store. And then- and then- I don’t know. People were screaming, I heard a bunch of pops, like firecrackers,” she put her hand on the right of her chest, “my chest hurt, it was wet. I couldn’t breath.” She was shaking, tears streamed down her face.

“That’s enough.” The Stranger told Adeline, he swallowed, breathed. She was remembering too fast, he was worried about how she would react if she remembered what happened too quickly, and he wasn’t prepared to feel it himself. “I saw you have a game console, why don’t you show me your video games?”

They sat on the couch, she turned on the TV, scrolled though the installed game. “Dad likes these games,” Adeline said, referring to couple Call of Duty games, “mom really likes this game,” referring to Grand Theft Auto V, “but they don’t let me play those.”

“What do you like to play?”

“Spiderman.”

“Oh, Spiderman, he’s cool, he shoots webs and climbs on walls.”

“Yeah.” She started the game, loaded a save, “you can swing around and the swinging is like it’s real, and you get to fight bad guys.” She swung around New York until she found a bank robbery. “Yeah, see, you fight bad guys and you use webs to-”

An enemy in the game started firing a gun. The sound effects triggered something in Adeline. She dropped the controller, her hands shook, she grabbed her chest as in if in pain. “I can’t breath!” she exclaimed. Adeline remembered trying to breath with fluid in one of her lungs, a warm wetness on her shirt, pain in her chest, her mother saying “It will be okay baby, just stay with me.”

“Adeline-” The Stranger began to speak, putting his hand on her shoulder.

Adeline knocked his hand away, pushed herself away from him, falling onto the floor. She got up, walked backwards away from him. “Who are you?” she demanded, “Where’s Mommy and Daddy?”

“Adeline-”

“How do you know my name!? Who are you!?” Adeline yelled in a panic.

The fog in the house grew thicker.

“Adeline, I’m sorry.” The Stranger said with sympathy.

“_No!_” she screamed, “_No, no, no! Leave me alone!_” Adeline ran to her room, slammed the door.

“I hate this job.” Cowboy thought aloud.

He waited ten minutes, walked to her room, knocked on the door.

“Go away! I want Mammy and Daddy!”

Cowboy didn’t even try going into the room, it would only have made things worse. “Let me tell you a story.” He licked his lips, breathed, “in the old west there was a man named Ashkii, he waited in a house on an abandoned farm. His mom was Indian, his father was White. He never knew his father, his father had come to the village with other white men. His mom never liked him, she just named him ‘boy’. He never fit in with the Indians or the White men.

“He was hiding in the house, he was blamed for something he didn’t do. A-” he paused, “-attack on a women. A posse was looking for him. A woman, a different woman, with a raven on her shoulder, knocked on the door. Ashkii peeked out the windows, he saw fog, something rare in the desert he lived. Ashkii saw an Asian women, from what is called Vietnam now, a little tall, with her hair in a bun.

“He told her to leave, that people were after him but she refused, she even forced her way in. The woman started asking him questions, questions that made him remember. He did not want to remember. He was scared and scared people tend to act irrationally, especially if they lived hard lives and he lived a hard life. He yelled at her and threatened her. When he began to remember he shot at her to stop her from asking questions. The bullets did nothing to her, not even a mark on her clothes.”

“She was a ghost?” Adeline asked.

“No.”

“He was a ghost?”

“Yes, Adeline. She was there to take him to the next world. But he had to remember that he wasn’t alive anymore.”

Adeline sat the corner in her room, curled up into a ball, she stopped fighting her memory.

Adeline sat in a McDonald’s with her parents, she was playing with her Happy Meal toy, having only having eaten half her food.

“Can I go play in the play ground?” Adeline asked her parents.

“Okay, but you have to eat the rest when you get back.” Her father replied.

“Yes sir.” Adeline said, jumping from her seat.

She was half way there when she herd her parents yell, “Adeline! Get down!”

She turned, briefly saw the man who would kill her. The killer fired, sweeping across the dining aria with an AR15. Two bullets struck Adeline’s chest. Her father grabbed her, pulled to him trying to shelled her with his body. His blood sprayed on her as a bullet went through his body. They fell, her father covering her, her mother jumped on them covering both of them. Adeline cried in pain and fear, not knowing what was happening. She heard screams and gunfire, the bullet wounds hurt, blood spread across her chest.

The gun fire stopped, Adeline father tried to get up but couldn’t use his legs. Adeline felt blood filling her right lung. “Mommy, I can’t breath!” Adeline exclaimed.

“It will be okay baby, just stay with me.” Her mother told her, her mother’s face expressed her fear and sorrow.

As Adeline lost consciousness her father pleaded “don’t go to sleep baby. Please. No! Adeline!”

Tears fell down Cowboy’s cheeks, he could feel her memories as she remembered them.

He cleaned his face in time for Adeline to come out of her bedroom. “We were at McDonald’s,” she said in a crying voice, “a man with a gun came in. He- he shot me.” she sobbed.

The Stranger knelt in front of her, hugged her. “I’m sorry Adeline.” She hugged him back tightly, crying into his chest.

“Are Mom and Dad okay?” Adeline sobbed.

“I think they survived.”

“Why? Why did this happen?” she pleaded.

“I don’t know. I’m sorry but I don’t know.”

Twenty minutes passed, she let go of him. “Can I take somethings with me?” She asked him before noticing the house had vanished. They stood in a void, only them and a thick fog. Looking at the fog, “But it’s all gone now.”

The raven flew onto her he shoulder. “Close your eyes and think of your home.” Cowboy told her. She did, the raven cawed, when she opened them it was all back. He took bags from out of his coat. “This is why I have a big coat, lots of pockets.”

Adeline took her favorite shirt from her closet, even though it was too small for her now, took her lucky underwear from the hamper, took her stuffed rabbit, stiffed octopus, toy’s her parents gave her last Christmas, and her pillow that her Dad recently bought.

Cowboy had bags with the consoles and their cords and controllers. “I got your games,” he told her.

“One more thing!” she exclaimed, ran to the living room, “can you get me that.” She pointed to the framed photo of her and her parents at 6 Flags. He took it from the wall, handing it to her. She hugged it.

“I can hold the pillow for you.” He put the billow under the arm he held the bag with the Playstation 4.

The raven flew from Adeline’s shoulder, the house vanished, the fog split revealing a bridge over a river of fog.

As they walked down that bridge, “Will grandpa be there?” Adeline asked.

“Yes Adeline, Your Grandpa waiting for you.”