Short Story: A Family Reunion

[Sr.I3oSS 2,546]

- A Family Reunion -

 

Twenty-three years of struggle and here I was today, meeting a day worse than the previous. I had no whereabouts of my brother, just an instruction: "Wait for the message". It wasn’t easy running my own company, on top of that there was no one to help me, help us. Eight months ago, mother passed away silently, as if she didn’t want us to know of her leaving us behind. But of course, we did notice. My brother, only two years younger than myself, was hugely affected by the casualty. Often, he’d lock himself in his room and wouldn’t eat. He blamed me and father for not taking care of mother well enough. Father wasn’t much of a help. Like always, he was probably at the local pub down the street. Father had always been addicted to drinking, but now he was a drunk brute.  My brother was the only family I had left now, and I was ready to risk my life to get him back safely.

 

My phone buzzed. A private number. “Come to the farmhouse”, it said. The farmhouse.

 

*************

 

I poked around for my keys and headed towards my car as thin needles poured out of the depressing grey sky. The sun had started to set and darkness had started to invade the light. I drove past the Old Devon Farmhouse and pulled over where the turn led to a by-street. I couldn’t see anyone, so I got out of the car. My shoes dipped into a puddle of muddy, murky water and I felt an instant shiver. There were terraced houses that had been neglected near the times of the farmhouse incident. I had memories of this place from when I was five. It had been abandoned by its owner, but many people suspected that the owner didn’t actually leave, but rather hanged himself after the demise of his wife. No one really drove past there ever since. Most of the windows of the houses were broken, as if there had been a riot here. As much as I didn’t believe in ghosts, I still feared entering the farmhouse. It was dark, horrifying, vague. It was as if it was alive, whispering death into my ear.

 

I grabbed the bag and headed towards the farmhouse, its blind forehead staring tauntingly at me. The front door was chained, so I walked around and entered through a collapsed opening in the left wall. The rain had died down but the air was still moist and it smelled like burning wood. I looked around but no one was there. At least that’s what I thought until a figure appeared from a passage in the other side of the farmhouse.

 

It was completely dark now, and I couldn’t see his face.

 

I couldn’t believe that I was foolish enough to not even bring a knife with me. I was like a sitting duck. “Where is my brother?” I questioned. I tried to sound demanding and strong, so that I didn’t openly present my defenselessness to him. No reply. He just stood there, as if staring right at my face in detest. The silence was broken with the sound of a car engine drifting past the farmhouse. My heart shrunk at the sight of a sinister object outlined by flashes of light that escaped through the little gaps in the chained door… A gun.

 

My hands turned cold, as if the blood had emptied out of them. “Look, I brought your money, where is my brother?!” I exclaimed, except this time, the fright was clear in my voice. A second later, something pierced through my chest and I hit the wet ground, unable to cope with the agonizing pain that had struck me. There, I looked up, my life flashing before my eyes. I heard footsteps nearing me, and then I saw a face staring at mine in utmost abomination; a face that I had least expected to see; the face of my sweet, little brother.

 

---

 

For anyone who read a version of this about 1.5 years ago; this is a redraft of that story. The introduction has been edited to make the plot more clear and the ending has been edited for better clarification as to what happened. Many minor edits have also been made to the main paragraphs.

Edited October 30, 2018 by Sr.I3oSS

[Flexoo 6,980]

Approved.

 

Only a few minor edits:

 

- "The silence was broken with the sound of a car engine drifting past the farmhouse." - added the "of" in this sentence.

- Replaced one colon with semicolon at the end.

[SkilL-KoRnEL 117]

Cool  :) 

[Aigaion 636]

nice story! I enjoyed it.

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