Full Story
“And then I woke up.” — Andrew Kennedy regained his senses. — “After that flash of light that burned my eyes and violated my ears, I finally woke up. Stuck in a nightmare… I couldn’t see very well. That was…”
- Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey… — A “woman” spoke with a broken accent.
A bag of cloth was removed from the young man’s head and Andrew immediately wanted to be thrown back in darkness. Anything was better than to have eyes at that moment. He was tied down into a chair, with that cold sweat almost cutting through his own skin.
And in the table in front of him were human carcasses, partly eaten and completely rotten. And sat by the table, surrounding him, were four beings. Because the term human would be too generous. From his left to his right were an old man, a middle-aged woman and man, and a younger woman.
- What… Where am I? — Andrew tried to understand his situation.
The lighting in the room was minimal, only so many candles around the dinner room, let Andrew view the face of the others. Their eyes were wide and sunken, their skin was pale and dirty, and their lips where not present. Their mouths came to a short end, and their rotten teeth were always shown.
- Ya lost, ya shitfuck? Don’t know what’s going on yeah? — The younger girl spoke. She was the least ugly of them all. With long blonde hair and perky nose.
With his fist hitting the table and deep furious voice, the man next to her yelled:
- NO FUCKING SWEARING!
He stands up and grabs her by the ear and hairs. They were all considerably skinny and had thin limbs. Except one of the mans who somehow, rocked a hard beer belly. As the girl pleads “Father! Father!”, the man rips her ear off and throws it back at her.
- We got guests! Behave yer ass! — Father spoke.
- Please Jesse, no swearing! — Mother spoke.
- Ahh! Pops, I hate it when ya do this… — She says holding her ear and bleeding wound.
- Frank, why do you have to be so mean to her?
- Nicole, the dumb bitch gotta learn one way or another.
- What in God’s name is this…? — Andrew thought to himself.
- Now you… — Father turns to Andrew, walking around the table towards him. — Sorry for the rudeness son. Tell me ya name?
- A-Andrew. — Speechless and horrified, Andrew obliges.
Frank drags a chair and sits facing Andrew. With balding forehead and disheveled black hair in the back, he stared at his guest.
- Andrew boy. I’ll be blunt with you. You’re a nice supple lad and we gon’ eat you. But uh… ya gotta stay here for a couple more hours so the taste can rub off on ya.
- Who are you people?
- Name’s Frank, that’s my wife Nicole, my mean girl Jesse and the one next to ya is Grandpa Winston. And as you can see Andrew… we are a very happy family.
- And you guys want to eat me? What’s all this on the table then?
- Damn right we gon’ eat you, what else is there to eat?! — Nicole chuckled. — This one here was our last meal. A fella called Christopher.
- You’re cannib—
- SHUT UP! We don’t use the C-word around these parts!! We tryin’ be civil with ya Andrew!
- Can you tell me what the f… hell is going on?
- UH! UH! Can I tell ’em Father? Can I? — Jesse waved her hand.
She was so excited, it was hard to believe she had her ear torn off a moment ago. Looking closely, Andrew felt even more distressed, acknowledging that Jesse had put her ear back in place. Jesse went on to explain that Andrew was a meal provided by their machine. The sun was very lethal, and they had to live underground. Using their time machine, they could snatch people from healthier timelines and consume them to survive.
- That’s where you come in Andrew boy. You got all them nutrients we need and the radiation from crossing the time stream our way gives you some protection. — Frank spoke.
- So, until you’re nice and ready to eat, we gonna keep you in the basement. — Jesse laughed.
- While don’t you eat some of Christopher before you go. I swear is good! — Mother Nicole grabbed the rotten guts of the corpse and pressed them against Andrew’s mouth.
Andrew couldn’t help but vomit from the rotten smell, the slimy texture and horrendous taste. Jesse laughs while Nicole stands up in anger.
- FUCK YOU ANDREW, YOU SON OF A BITCH I SAVED SOME OF HIM FOR YOU AND YOUR NOT EATING IT!!!
- SHUT UP NICOLE! DON’T FORCE HIM TO EAT IT!!
- FRANK, DOESN’T HE HAVE ANY MANNERS?! WHY IS HE NOT EATING IT!?
- GET OUT OF HERE YOU WHORE!!
Nicole left the room crying and calling Andrew names he didn’t even know existed. Frank told Nicole to clean Andrew’s mess while he took him to the basement. While the Father dragged him by the chair, Andrew noticed the elderly man. Grandpa Winston didn’t say a single word.
But Andrew saw him mouth the word Kennedy to him a couple times during that meeting. He was definitely alive and awake, as he wouldn’t stop gazing at Andrew the whole time, but he would just stay quiet. Going down the stairs, Frank had a sermon for his next meal.
- Andrew, the rules are simple. One, you always treat others with respect. Two, you always eat everything on your plate. And three, you never go outside.
- Don’t go outside yeah? Is it because of the sun? — Andrew asked, tired and hostile.
- No. You don’t go outside because you don’t abandon family. No matter what, a family’s gotta stay together. Now you stay here, and Jesse is gonna come put one of her doohickeys on ya.
Anthony is set on a dark basement and, facing the stairs, he sees Frank leave him. Before he is locked away in darkness, Frank turns to him one more time.
- And Andrew…
With fearful and fearsome eyes, Andrew and Frank stared at each other.
- Welcome to the family.
Frank slams the door and locks his prey in the lightless room. Andrew began breathing slowly, he had to calm himself before thinking about anything. He calls back to what Jesse and Frank told him. “Crossing the timestream our way”. It seemed he was indeed in the future. A grim and horrible future.
Fortunately for Andrew, going by the words of the natives, crossing from past to future gave him some time. If neither the radiation, nor the family couldn’t kill him just yet, that meant he had time.
The goal might be simple, but Andrew knew it could cost him his life. On the other hand, not doing anything also meant his death. Yes. He had made up his mind. Andrew will find ways to confront the Family, ensure his survival, find their time machine, and escape this nightmare.
Before deciding his next move, Andrew is spooked by a nearby voice. From the dark, a flashlight was turned on, pointed at the wall, giving some much-needed lighting to the place. His eyes adjusted and he could see two people. A blonde man a bit older than himself, and a dark-skinned little girl.
Andrew would have been more afraid, but he saw that they were like him, normal humans from the past. Very likely captured as well. Except that they had large metallic bracelets in their upper arms.
- Are you okay? — The little girl spoke quietly.
- As well as I can be. Who are you? — Andrew followed with hush tones.
- Felix, and this is Marceline. They caught you too? — The man answered.
- Yes, can you untie me so we can get the hell out of here?!
- Not yet.
- What do you mean not yet—
Upon hearing the door get unlocked, Felix turned off his flashlight and Andrew turned his attention to the stairs. Jesse walked through the door and like a model on the catwalk, came down the stairs, grinning at Andrew.
- Hey bubba! Lookie here what I got for ya. It’s a tool I made myself!
She carried a large metal bracelet. While putting it on Andrew’s left arm, she kept blabbering on.
- See Andrew, if you try to escape the house, my “Holemaker” here is gonna stop ya. Daddy trust me to make sure none of y’all food could escape… He don’t like getting his hands dirty, so he asks me to make traps…
Andrew keeps himself sane, carefully watching her lock the trap on his arm, whilst paying attention to everything she says.
- Daddy don’t say it but I’m a pretty smart lassie… Yeah, I am… Hey Andrew, y’know if ya keep being a good boy for us, Father might make you my hubby instead of grubby…
Jesse finishes arming her device and gets awfully close to Andrew’s face. He could smell her rotting flesh and teeth but kept the same expression as to not offend his captor.
- I’d love to copulate with you… — She says while feeling his body with her disfigured hands.
The girl leaves while giggling and says her goodbyes to Andrew by blowing a kiss. After the door closes and heard being locked. Felix and Marceline come out of hiding again.
- And I thought my family was annoying with all that genealogy talk… They don’t know about you two? Why am I the one being served? — Andrew turned to them.
- As you can already tell, the radiation in this place messed with their heads. My guess is that after they slept, their memories get a bit hazy, and they forgot about us. — He answered with a bit of cynicism.
Felix goes ahead and unties Andrew from his chair. Marceline stayed in the corner holding the flashlight for them.
- Forgot? About their valuable food? If they’re so stupid, we can escape then.
- I don’t know how insane they might be, but a guy called Christopher tried to escape when we got captured. I just heard a blast after that.
Felix releases Andrew and he gets up, the two of them face one another.
- Her trap… Wait… if the sun would kill us already, why use the traps?
- That’s the deal. We can’t trust everything they say. Some of it is true like the traps. Some of it is false, like the fact that our ‘radiation shield’ would run out.
- If so, we can’t keep making assumptions either. If we don’t know the conditions, escaping is going to be impossible.
Looking around the room, he found small windows near the floor, from which the outside world could be seen. Andrew rushes to it and glimpses on the world of the future.
“The sun is dangerous, so we live underground.” — Was one thing Jesse told him.
- What is this… — Andrew utters to himself.
He was indeed underground. The house was upside down, built at the top of gigantic cave. The “sky” was the under-surface of the Earth, and the “ground” was hollowed out, a giant pit of blackness. There were other houses in the distance, stuck to the roof of the Earth’s hollow insides.
- Welcome to 2174… — Felix says with a hopeless tone. — By the way, I’m from 2046 and she is from 2053. Where are you from Andrew?
- 2021… — He says, still gazing at the outside. — Speaking of years…
Andrew recovers from the horrid landscape and turns to the survivors. Agreeing on the fact that they were brought here by a time machine, they now needed a plan to escape. Felix shared everything they had learned, and the genius Andrew caught up quickly. Together, the three of them made greater sense of their situation.
In the current year of 2174, the Sun had already killed the Earth after mysteriously changing colors back in 2099. The radiation it emitted, was now incredibly lethal and it mutated humanity, before a solution could be discovered.
Of course, the population died off by the billions, and the remained had to live in bunkers. It was impossible to know whether other humans were still alive, since radio, internet and any other kind of signal was killed by the New Sun. No one dared go to the surface. If staying underground was already damnation, since the “Omega Rays” from this New Sun almost completely altered matter, exposing oneself to its light meant death within minutes.
With no crops to reap, no cattle to cut down, and no plants to harvest, the remaining humans were left with little to survive on. Until it was that, some brilliant minds came with the solution to all the world’s problems. It was a time machine, able to travel between the ages.
Except that, if one were to travel from 2174 to 2098 and warn about the upcoming catastrophe, nothing would happen. That is because the time traveler, carried the Omega radiation, and coming in touch with people who weren’t born with around it, caused an even quicker death. Not to mention the other types of radiation that came with crossing the time stream to the past.
- The prolonged exposure damaged them completely. But they also gained somethings from it didn’t they? — Andrew asked, analyzing the Holemaker in his arm.
- Advanced recovery, inhuman strength, sharpened senses, and genius-level intellect. — Felix recounted.
- Like really gross supervillains… — Marceline spoke shyly.
- Intellect? — Andrew turned to them after his curiosity peaked.
- They are crazy, not stupid. — Felix comments. — The daughter can make use of their technology, the mother knows how to extract the nutrients from us…
- How nice… You learned a lot about them in so little time, haven’t you?
- They talk very loudly… — Marceline spoke with a small smile.
- I’ve been here for about a day and Marcy has been for a bit less.
- Hasn’t even been that long, how could they forget?
- Not sure yet, just glad they did. But judging from the commotion they caused because of you… they won’t forget you anytime soon.
- I’m just glad someone smart came through the machine. — Marceline noted.
- I’m guessing that not everyone gets a chance like this…
Marceline and Felix had overheard them, during what they called “morning”, Grandpa Winston went to the attic to use the time machine. They decided to traverse through the house and reach the attic, operate the machine, and leave to their original timelines.
They guessed that the attic, the basement, and the bunker door leading to the outside were all in different parts of the house, given that even though the Family is loud, sometimes their voices become extremely quiet, meaning that their house was much large than previously thought. Sharing a bit more about themselves, Andrew was a brilliant engineer student, Felix was a pharmaceutical researcher and Marceline was a 4th grader.
- Usually, they are heard together, so our best chance would be to go in a moment like this, where they’ve gone quiet. — Felix spoke.
- One slip up and we all die. We walk together, check every corner and every angle, make sure we are aware of our surroundings. And above all… — Andrew added.
- Not a peep. — Marceline said, scared, but focused, putting her trust in the adults.
Forcing the doorknob Felix proves his theory that the hinges on the wall were about to give, worn out by the time.
- Ready…
Together, holding on the gaps of the wooden door, Andrew, and Felix force it off the wall. Marceline, sitting under them, held the hinges against the wall, preventing them from falling and making noise. Realizing their team effort was successful, they carefully place the objects down and step out of the basement. Felix, Marceline, and Andrew walked in a line, crouched and close to the walls of that dark house.
Any stairs heading upwards would be a glorious sign. From the basement, they cross the dinner room and enter the living room. Stopping abruptly after hearing footsteps coming their way. Felix, shaking and holding his breath, aggressively gestures for the two to go back. As they do so, barely making any noise, Mother Nicole steps forward.
Walking into the dinner room, she fails to see the trio, after they hid under the table and cabinets. She was erratic, eating her nails and biting off the skin of her fingers.
- Damn you Andrew! How could you be so mean to me? I’ll chop you up… yeah…
The three of them tighten their bodies, trying to hide themselves even more from her. Sweating and distressed, Marceline even covered her mouth just to make sure not a sound would come out. Mother Nicole walked out, back into the indistinguishable darkness of the house.
After a few seconds of silence, Felix, and Andrew nod to Marceline. They had agreed prior, that Marceline, being the smallest and lightest survivor, could move more than them in order to avoid making the wooden floors creek. She breathes in, filling herself with some courage and slowly crawls out of the table, paying attention to the room and to her own ears. She lifts herself up, holding on to the table and acknowledges that they are safe.
Until it was that Mother Nicole came from the darkness and swung down a hatchet onto the table, cutting off four fingers on Marceline’s hand. In that split moment, Felix looked to Andrew, telling him, only with his eyes, that he had to act, since he was the closest to the girl. Before Marceline could scream, in an incredible act of resilience and courage, she covers her own mouth with her left hand. And Andrew, who lunged towards her also had his hand over her own.
Carrying her on his arm, running loudly through the building, Andrew could only congratulate Marceline. Jesse, who was busy in her room with her machines, Grandpa Winston, who looked over a family album and Frank who cleaned the tools on his shed…
- DINNER TIME!!!
All of them looked towards the source of Mother Nicole’s call.
She removes the hatched from the table and runs after Andrew and Marceline. While carrying the crying girl, who dug her remaining nails on his shoulder, Andrew’s mind was racing. He had to accurately navigate through the house and guess where to go to not immediately bump into another family member.
Andrew, running into the corridor, had two choices. The vague door on his right or the vague door on his left. Weighing his and the girl’s life on such a split decision, he choose the door on his right. Turning into that corridor, he hears Nicole scream behind him and before looking back, sees a hatchet carve itself on the wall ahead of him.
Before she could throw her other hatchet, Felix smashes a wooden chair against her. Felix goes for her dropped hatchet, but she grabs it with him. Andrew opens and enters the door on the right, without second thought. Before he could close it, the other door, in front of him opens, with a laughing Jesse running out from. Fortunately for them and unfortunately for Felix, it seemed Jesse did not see Andrew next to her.
After struggling, Felix stomps on Nicole and takes the hatchet from her. He quickly carves it against the Mother’s head before running away from Jesse. Uninterested in the pursuit, the daughter kneels next to her dying mother and speaks:
- Don’t worry momma! I’ve trapped the whole house…
Felix hears the girl’s deranged laugh.
- No matter how hard they try… there is no escaping the Kennedy estate… — Jesse was clearly having too much fun for someone who just saw their mother die. — I’ll get more tools to play with…
In, what he now knew was, the bathroom, Andrew sets Marceline on the floor. The girl was biting her other hand, to make sure she wouldn’t scream. “Not a peep”, she kept recalling.
- Keep at it Marcy! — Andrew whispered, frantically looking through the cabinets.
After finding little to no cloth, he gives Marceline their flashlight so she could bite on and ties her wound up. This time, the girl couldn’t help but to squeal and squirm from the pain. Andrew could hear her trying to apologize between her cries.
- It’s ok! It’s ok! You did great Marcy! You were amazing…
Outside, Frank reaches the living room. After seeing his wife’s corpse on the floor, turned to Jesse.
- What’s happening here?
- Daddy!! They all got out!! — She goes away laughing.
- Hm… I’ll get my gun.
Frank stomps his way out, irritated. Jesse rushes back to her room, that faced the bathroom. Marceline stops biting into the flashlight, ever so slightly better from her injury. Andrew starts thinking as hard as he could. He couldn’t hear Nicole scream anymore, neither did she go after him and Marcy. What would be the best possible move, considering their situation.
- Did ya know, I’m a fan of old school movies?
The survivors hear from the outside. A piece of the bathroom door breaks apart and explodes into bits. Through the broken gap Jesse peaks through and looks straight at the two guests.
- Here’s Jesse! — She says with the enthusiasm of someone who waited their whole lives to quote a movie.
The daughter had a mechanical glove known as the Vacuum Hand. The tool was common for construction workers after its invention in 2101. The gauntlet had the capacity to induce a vacuum condition into the object it touched, through a special mechanism on the palm, denying an object of its resistance.
- Common’ Andrew! Don’t be like that! — She says removing another chunk of the door.
If Jesse kept going, she would tear the door apart palm by palm. She tries to reach for the doorknob from the inside and Andrew whispers his plan to Marceline. Unsuccessful, Jesse gives up and goes for another use of her glove. But as she swapped positions, Andrew bursts through the door, and enters the daughter’s room just ahead. Jesse drops to the floor, with the weight of the door over her. And as Marceline runs after Andrew, the daughter grabs the girl by the ankle, thankfully, with her empty hand.
Andrew closes the bedroom door on Jesse, and the daughter let go of little girl, but still had her left arm and head peaking through the gap, refusing to let Andrew close the door. While he struggled to keep the girl out, he looked around the room searching for something that he could use against Jesse.
Out the corner of his eye, Andrew spots a large cabinet behind him. He lets go of the door and pulls the cabinet down, quickly stepping out of the way before it fell on him. The shelf broke down the door and almost squished the daughter underneath it, but she was still alive, struggling and stunned, but alive. Jesse couldn’t tell what was happening from under the cabinet, but her left arm was still sticking out.
And by the time she recovered her senses, noted that Andrew had armed a Holemaker on her arm. Given by its beeping sound, detonation was forced and imminent.
- Thanks for the lesson earlier, teacher. — Andrew said, making some distance between himself and the trapped woman.
- ARE YOU SURE YOU DON’T WANT TO BE MY HUBBY ANDR—
A loud bang is heard, a flash of blood is seen and then silence took over. The Holemaker was a device that injected a liquid explosive into a person’s blood stream. By the time the explosive reached the heart, it was already being heated up.
The explosion was small but powerful enough to create a hole through the chest cavity and even the base of the neck. Resting their breathing and their heartbeat, they enjoy the silence. It seems as if Nicole and Jesse had been dealt with. That left only two family members: Father Frank and Grandpa Winston. Coming back to their senses the duo hears a friendly whisper.
- Hey… I found it!
Looking around, they spot Felix, peaking his head through a hole on the wooden ceiling. He gestures for them to climb up to him. Climbing on Jesse’s strangely humid bed, Andrew lifts Marceline so Felix could help her up. After that Felix helped Andrew get up, and the man realized they were on the attic. The time machine could be seen on the end of the room. It was almost as large as the wall and had the looks of a glass isolation chamber with an interface for usage.
- Is this it? — Marceline asks, trembling.
- If it is… it doesn’t seem hard to use. — Andrew says, analyzing the interface.
- Marceline goes first. — Felix says.
A simple statement. The girl had all the right to leave after doing much more than it was asked of her. The pad was a simple selection of “From x to y years” and that almost frightened Andrew, who thought he could be missing something. They wave their goodbyes at the poor girl, apologizing for her suffering and thanking her for saving their lives.
- I hope we can see each other in 2054! — She waves with her good hand.
In a flash of red light, Marceline is sent back to her original timeline. As Andrew calibrates the machine for Felix, a loud bang is heard and the door to the attic is blasted down. Looking back, they see Frank step through, holding what seemed like a “modern day” shotgun.
Felix and Andrew looked at each other for one second. The best option was to run. Frank was going to shot one or the other before they could reach him.
And so, as they both ran towards the armed Father, Andrew sees Felix’s body fall back and his brains splatter against the wall. Frank decided to kill him first so he could focus on Andrew.
- FUCK!
Andrew runs past Frank, rushing downstairs as gun shots are heard and felt penetrating all the walls of the house. The weapon was too strong to be stopped by simple wooden walls.
- ANDREW!!! ITS NOTHING PERSONAL!!! WE’VE EATEN THOUSANDS ALREADY!!! ITS JUST A MATTER OF TIME UNTIL YOU’VE GOTTEN DRAGGED HERE!!!
Frank yells shooting up holes in the house, as Andrew tries his best to not get blown in half.
- A MAN’S JOB IS TO PROVIDE TO HIS FAMILY!!! YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT’S LIKE!!! WHEN MILLIONS WERE DYING AT EVERY SECOND!!! YOU WEREN’T THERE ANDREW!!!
Through all the rooms that Andrew could enter to separate himself from the Father, the firing was still as violent as he had heard from a point-blank range.
- WOULDN’T YA DO THE SAME ANDREW!? KEEP THE FAMILY WELL AND SAFE!!! ALL THE OTHER FAMILIES OUT THERE ARE DOING JUST FINE TOO!! AIN’T GOTTA FIX WHAT AIN’T BROKEN!!!
With rushing mind and blood, Andrew enters a large bedroom thinking that he could hide from the Father. He kept using his gun, but the sounds came a bit fainter. For Andrew’s luck, it seemed Frank was led to another side of the house. Andrew tried to maintain his sanity. He knew Frank was going to keep searching for him, so he had to come up with a way to leave.
- Kennedy.
Andrew snaps out of his panic and sees the room clearly. Grandpa Winston was just sitting there. This was his bedroom. Andrew had frozen. He couldn’t even think about anything else. That was until Winston lifted the book he had in his hands. It was a family album.
- Kennedy…
Winston showed everything to Andrew. In the pictures… Nicole, Jesse, Frank. All seemed like normal people. He sees Winston and his wife when they were younger. He sees the others that came before. All looked so well before the apocalypse. And then Andrew understood it.
Among the family pictures was him and his family from 2021. Andrew Kennedy. He takes the album from him. It was titled “The Kennedy’s”. Looking back to the old, withered man, he saw teary eyes. Andrew couldn’t help but to feel the same. Winston had understood who they were trying to devour.
There was nothing left to do. Andrew had gone to the main door. He tried exiting the bunker. At the very least he wanted to know what the wasted world looked like. Opening the bunker door, but not stepping outside, he takes it in. The sun was an ever-shifting black and white, and the world was brought to ruin. Perpetually locked into the densest and blackest night.
Frank comes from behind and grabs him, throwing him to the ground. Before Andrew could get up, he is shot in the waist. Frank closes the bunker door, talking about how it was dangerous to go outside. Squirming in pain, Andrew couldn’t hear him. From the floor he sees Mother Nicole and Daughter Jesse walk up to him. The mom was just fine, but Jesse needed a little more time to regrow her blown chest, so she was being carried by Nicole.
“What a mess…” - Andrew’s thoughts wondered off. — “They are my family… I can’t believe my descendants looks like this… Their mouths are moving but I can’t seem to hear them… It’s hard to see too… Can’t think straight…
“Wait…”
"But..."
“If I die here…”
“What happens to them…?”
“Would they… even be born…?
"Would they even… be here to kill me…?”
“Ah… right… it’s one of those annoying things…”
Frank pulls the trigger on Andrew’s face, killing him at the age of 23.
“And then I woke up.” — Andrew Kennedy, regained his senses. — “After that flash of light that burned my eyes and violated my ears, I finally woke up. Stuck in a nightmare… I couldn’t see very well. That was…”
- Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey… — A “woman” spoke with a broken accent.
