23"Jophnee! Druet!" What horrible, horrible names they had. There mother called and they headed but oh, what a sound those names brought! Chilling to the bones making the very life of the air grow…wary.
"Yes, momma?" Druet the youngest called back in a small broken voice, hoarse but innocent.
"I managed to find a bit of cake for you two, as well as some dinner. When you finish, I will tell you a story if you tell me what new word you can spell today." The mother croaked and coughed, but managed to get her words out as she petted her daughters lovingly. Her sickly voice danced away the distance of the empty ruins of parking building and finally echoed away.
The mother was only twenty years of age, yet carried herself in a weak hunch, frail and thin, looking much older. Sighing she looked at the pathetically meager meal she had brought for her children. Some old left-overs from a restaurant dumpster, her money spent on coats and socks for her girls. So badly she wanted a better life for them. It seemed no matter how hard she worked, her children were still eating garbage half the time and still living in building ruins. Now that winter had come, she worried day and night that they were warm enough.
"Glasses. G-l-a-s-s-e-s." Druet smiled but then coughed hard, shuddering at the cold, but still sported a wide smile at her correct spelling. She had finish her meal of old chicken and stir-fry and shivered patiently for the smile from her mother she knew was too come.
"Mute. M-u-t-e." Jophnee did not smile but looked at her mother, hungering for approval.
"Great job!" the mother clapped smiling big, proud that she could still aid her girls at least in this way. The girls beamed in unison and hugged at their mother's coat.
Paled, their mother crumpled in their grasp like an uneven stack of laundry.
"Mom! Mom!" Jophnee screamed as she wriggled from under her mother's limp body in the midst of her sister's crying, crumbling into wailing.
"Druet… it's okay. Momma's still here. Love you." Their mother whispered in a broken exhale.
"Mom…MOM! Please be okay….please." Jophnee cried and sank next to her sister by her mother's side, feeling her mother's neck for the ticking of blood underneath the dark skin.
Despairingly, the mother could answer no more, feeling something griping her heart and crushing…so painstakingly slow. Sucking her life away as if the very air were retreating from her aid and gravity itself had left her to die, leaving the floating feeling left over to drown her like a waterless sea. The river of life little by little ceasing to give animation to the fingers of veins, taking even the energy for her to speak away.
"Momma! Momma!" the younger shrieked and cried enough for her screams to rain like attacks on the streets below. Though, being only four years of age did not fully understand that her cries could draw danger.
"Shh. She's still alive Druet, we just have to tell somebody to help us. You stay here, I'll go get help. You have to be quiet though. Mom said if bad people find us, we'll get hurt." Jophnee tried to calm her sister's tears through a fear shaken chill battered voice as she scuttled to her feet on freezing concrete, numbly scraping her knees with her haste.
NO! The mother wanted to scream for her child to stop…anything! Anything to protect her baby…but she was dying. Already her soul lay snagged in a lifeless body waiting for death to release its loose, yet stead fast grip on life.
The older sister ran down the stained, fowl looking stair ways, cringing as if hit from the overpowering smells of rancid urine, mildew and exhaust embedded as stains on the walls and rotting rat carcass's to which large roaches feasted in piles. Whimpering at the vile looking display, the girl crept by, trying not to invite any of the hissing roaches that terrified her. Still one of the bolder of the varmints flew at her, making a violent sounding buzz at it raced straight for the little girl.
Howling in fear, the girl ran towards the broken down emergency exit door almost bringing it down as she fell into the outside world, wiping anyplace the bug might have gone madly.
Falling hard, a cracked uneven street came to meet her scratching and tearing her skin through her clothes with its rough concrete flesh and tar filled wounds.
Cry as she may, she got up, the fear of losing her mother greater than any fear she ever felt, making her heart get ensnared in her stomach for worry's torment.
Down through a garbage littered alley in between a showgirl building and a crumbling shell of a salon, Jophnee ran, looking nervously for predators that were guaranteed to be somewhere.
Screeching tires from the main street made her duck behind a pile of trash, causing the flies therein to go into a crazed frenzy.
"Lyin' bitches!" a voice roared backed up by a round several gunshots and more angry but inaudible yelling.
A boy's voice cursed in pain as the sound of old cars going to fast cushioning the sound of gunfire came closer.
A grungy looking man in a dirty coat and jeans stepped into the alley with a grunt at the cold. The cars that were approaching fast finally came to the mouth of the alley, the sound of gunfire like a violent storm.
In those few seconds, what was once just a grimy man walking the streets became a bloody carcass, one bullet to the neck, and another to the face, caught in the crossfire. And then the cars were just a fading sound once more. Spattered with blood, and flooding tears, Jophnee ran into the street, hoping the danger was past as she searched for a place with a phone.
Two bodies lay in the street near an apartment building, each pooled in a sauce of their own blood.
That couldn't stop her now! She had to find help, no matter what. A party store sign boasted of liquor, beer, cigarettes and food items in black bold letters underlined in red on a putrid color of yellow as a background. Jophnee ran across the now nearly vacant street to get to it, shuddered twice. Wide eyed the stare of an old man spooked her, as he stood rock still in a eerie hunch, the yellow in the whites of his eyes and the greasy dirt in his clothes made prominent by his burnt chocolate color of his skin.
"Do you have a phone?" upon pushing the door open in enter; she gave the stony expression at the front counter a needy look.
"Yeah. Some poor fool get himself shot out there?" the man said callously, picking up the phone.
"Yes, but they're dead," Jophnee sobbed, not even noticing the impact of her words. " but my mom is alive, but she got sick and she needs a doctor."
"Alright, then. Were do you live?" the man said looking worn and tired as the collapsing buildings that littered the city.
To this Jophnee just sobbed. " I dunno…I want my mom!"
"I'll tell the ambulance to come here or something. Will you show them were you live?" the man, obviously losing patience, grumbled.
She nodded and waited, silently crying and waiting for help to come.
Every minute seemed to drip by…every now and again the cashier's hatful gaze landing on her spot in the corner, as he stared around the store.
Finally, a loud sounding truck came, men and women rushed into the store to see who needed help.
"She's the little girl. If she's got any sense, she'll show you where she lives." The cashier said lifelessly and continued looking about the store.
Silently, the doctor's led the little girl to the ambulance, looking eerily at the bodies, and making the necessary phone calls to take care of them.
"Okay, you just tell me when you see it, okay hun?" the driver said compassionately, seeing the child's fear.
Buildings passed by, but it only took a few moments to recognize the large vacant parking building looking naked next to the building around it that had truly become rubble.
At Jophnee's small finger pointing out the building, the truck came to an abrupt halt, killing the sirens. Running past the few patches of dirt in the cracks of side walk, she threw open the east side door and began to run up the stairs with the doctors behind her. Hope began to picking at her raging thoughts of worry, but not enough to slow her.
Finally the floor came, no different from the other concrete caves save the small bodies on the floor almost completely cloaked by the dark.
Druet, still folded in the same position next to their mother, only moved to wipe her tears with a grimy sleeve.
Solemnly, the doctor stepped up to the mother, putting a gentle hand on her neck. Looking worried, she took out her trademark tool to listen for the heart beat, pushing aside the bundles of clothes with care.
"Pericardial congestion. She died of heart failure." Turning to the hopeful faces of the children, she sighed guiltily. "What are your names? How old are you?"
Carefully, Jophnee doled out their names, still expecting news of their mother. "I'm Jophnee. I'm six. She's Druet. She's four."
Shivering a bit from the sounds of the awkward names, the doctor quickly recovered and tried to report the death as kindly as she could. "Well, you mother was sick for a very long time, and I'm sorry but she's resting in heaven now-"
"She's dead." Jophnee spat accusingly, showing that she knew what had taken place. Druet howled and fell at her mother's feet, clinging like the death that had settled in.
"You poor kids. We'll try and find a place for you to stay." Another doctor added to soften the atmosphere a little.
But nothing could soften, lighten or cover the fact…
That the mother was dead.
New story! I would work on the old one, but yet again, I'm waiting for my new computer to be fixed. I think I'm cursed or something…but the newer parts of my story are stuck in the computer that doesn't work for diddle.
Any way, I hope you guys like the start and stay for more. I know half of you are saying 'what? Jophnee and Druet are NOT horrible names!' but we'll get into exactly why later.