Empty Chambers

Daddy always acted a bit silly when he’d had some of his special juice from the big glass bottles. He wasn’t able to walk properly, or speak, and he always drove the car all wobbly too.

“Shhtay in the house.” Daddy said, leaning against the door.

“Yes Daddy!” Melanie answered.

“Keep your sith’ster ssathe. I sshoo’d be back ina’owr.”

“Yes, Daddy!” Melanie repeated.

“G'hbaii.”

“Bye bye, Daddy.” Daisy mumbled. She was sleepy.

Melanie wasn’t. Daddy hadn’t said where in the house she needed to stay. He always forgot to tell her not to do things after he’d had some of his special orange juice.

The door thudded shut and Melanie picked up Daisy and ran to the garage. Daddy didn’t keep the car in the garage because he used the car to go to work. The garage was Daddy’s special place. Melanie wasn’t allowed in there because she was too little, and a girl. But she was old enough. She was five, and that was two whole years older than Daisy. Daisy could come too, though. Melanie didn’t mind.

Melanie heard a noise in the driveway. Cars went BRUM-BRUM, so she knew Daddy was leaving to go to work. 

She grabbed Daddy’s small keyring from the table where he had left it yesterday, beside one of the big glass bottles and some runny orange liquid that had come out of one. The keys hit one of the bottles that was on the edge of the table, and it wobbled and wobbled and then fell on the carpet and broke. Melanie picked up two bits of the bottle and put them back on the table. The edge of the bottle was sharp and Melanie cut her finger.

There was a loud thud outside, and a BOOM and a flash. Then a WHEEHOOWHEEHOO noise started and people were shouting. It was very loud outside. Melanie froze. Had someone found out she had taken the key and broken one of Daddy’s bottles? She sucked on her finger until the blood went away but nothing else happened, so she carefully walked over to the door and tried to unlock it. The key worked. “YES!” Melanie shouted.

Melanie went into the room and put Daisy on the floor. The dog was inside, the big black and white dog who couldn’t hear very well and who licked her face, and Melanie didn’t want it to go, so she shut the door again and locked it with Daddy’s key. Daisy stood up and tried to reach the key, but she was too short, so Melanie took it out herself and gave it to Daisy.

Melanie liked it in the room. It smelled different, like Daddy’s special juice, and was almost all brown, like a little forest without the leaves, but Daddy’s big table in the middle was shiny grey. Daddy had left a big box with more boxes inside on the floor beside the table. Melanie looked inside. The littler boxes had lots of little tubes, pretty silvers and gold colours, like pirate treasure. They were heavy. Daddy also had lots of books, all over the shelves, but they were big and dusty and looked very boring. Melanie decided to open one, just to check. It didn’t have any pictures, so she put it back.

Melanie wondered if Daddy kept all the sweeties in his special room. She looked in some of the boxes butcouldn’tfind any. Then she saw a black metal stick like the one that they had at the paintball place, but smaller. She picked it up. It was heavy. Then she pulled the trigger. BANG! Daisy laughed. Melanie laughed too. There was no paint on the walls or anything, but that was good. Daddy would be angry if she got paint on the walls.

She pulled the trigger again, aiming it at a picture, pretending it was a real gun. 

BANG! 

Melanie tried to fire her pretend gun again, but it didn’t work this time. She shook it in case it was just blocked, but when she did, the bottom fell off and two little tubes fell out. Melanie looked at the little tubes and picked them up. They were less heavy than the little tubes in the box, but they looked the same.

Maybe theywere like the paintball tubes, but fired invisible paint? Yes, that must be it. 

Melanie went over to the big box and opened one of the little boxes. She took out six tubes and put them into the holes on the thing that fell out of the metal stick. Then she put the thing back in.

Melanie aimed the gun again, this time at the big clock beside the window. 

“BANG!” She said.

“BANG!” Daisy copied

BANG! Went the gun.

Melanie did it again.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

She refilled the holes with new tubes.

BANG!

Again.

And again.

And again...

“Me next! Me next! BANG!” shouted Daisy.

Melanie aimed the gun at Daisy.

She pulled the trigger.

BANG!

Daisy laughed happily.

She refilled the metal stick again. The first hour passed long ago, but the shiny black stick was fun to play with, so Melanie hadn’t noticed. She didn’t notice that the new tubes looked different from the rest, either, or that the box said a different word on the front. 

“You now!” Daisy giggled.

Melanie, also giggling, put the gun up to the side of her head. 

“BANG!” she said

“BANG!” said Daisy, still laughing.

Then she pulled the trigger.

The bullet thudded into her skull. It came out the other side. Melanie saw herself in Daddy’s mirror, covered in red paint, and laughed. Maybe the paint in the pretty tubes weren’t always invisible. This paint made her head really hurt, but she looked like Frankenstein the monster with the holes in his head.

She fell to the floor, and the black and white dog stood up and ran across the room. He licked her face, but she was already dead.

Another hour passed.

Then a day.

Daisy and the dog were still inside, but the door did not open.