Brothers

San Leandro 1976

“Malcolm, where’s your brother?”

“He’s in the backyard, he’ll be ok for two minutes, I just came inside to get us some water.”  

“Well, okay, just hurry up. You know he can’t take care of himself.”

“Mom, he’s not as hopeless as you think. He just needs help.” My mom disregards me and goes back to cooking our supper. I can smell the cornbread in the oven. It almost seems like it’s inviting me to eat it, but last time I tried to eat something out of the oven, mama beat my ass, so I think I’m good.

I go to the sink to fill our cups, and walk into the sun drenched back yard but when I get there I don’t see my brother.

“Oh, shit.” I say quietly.  I set the glasses of water down on the table and walk into the back yard shutting the door behind me. “Calvin!” I say not wanting my mom to hear me. “Goddammit, Calvin where’d you go?” I look around trying to see a way he could’ve gotten out, but everything is closed. Did he just get up and decide to leave? He’s never done this before. All of a sudden, I hear a loud noise coming from down the block. It kind of sounded like a firework or gunshot but I’m not sure.

I rush to the gate and look down the street to see Calvin in front of a police car. He’s on the ground pinned by a bald white cop with a large trimmed mustache, and his face being shoved into the hot, rocky concrete. I run up to them and as I approach I can see a puppy lying in a pool of its own blood. The pool is growing and Calvin’s head is now wet with blood, but I can’t be sure it wasn’t already, seeing how this fucker is treating my brother.

“Hey! What are you doing?! He’s mentally challenged and he can’t even speak!”

“Watch how you’re talking to me, boy.”  The cop says angrily.

“But what did he even do?”

“He fits the description of a shoplifter not far from here.”

“Didn’t you hear me? He’s my 13 year old brother and he’s mentally challenged! He’s been at my house all day.”

“This big gorilla is only 13?” He says laughing. “What are you, his little nigglet helper?”

“I’m his older brother.”

The officer’s radio goes off and it says something about how they found the shoplifter headed towards bayfair. We give each other a sort of stare and he gets off of calvin. The cop gets in his car  and drives away without saying another word. I rush over to help Calvin up and get him out of the street. “Are you okay Calvin? Jesus, where did the puppy come from? Is that why you left the backyard?” Calvin look at the ground and starts rubbing his head.

“OW!” he yells
“Shit, well let’s take you back home and mom will drive you to the hospital okay, Calv?”

Holding in tears, he looks down at me and gives me a sad nod.

As soon as we get into the house mama sees us and begins panicking. “Jesus, Calvin! I thought you two were in the back playing? Oh lord, my poor baby’s bleeding! Are you alright? Malcolm, What happened?!”

Terrified at the thought of what she might do if I say the wrong thing, I carefully explain the situation.

“I went out into the backyard but Calvin wasn’t there. The back gate was left open so I ran to go find him before he got too far. He hurt his head and I think we might have to go to the doctor.”

“Well, yes Malcolm, I can see he hurt his head. How?” She asked with a piercing stare.

“Well, I don’t really know. When I got there, he was already on the ground. I just brought him back home and over to you.”

She looks at me for a second with a blank face. I know this face. It’s the face any parent uses when they’re trying to figure out whether or not their kid is lying. “Fine, we’ll continue talking about this later. We’re going to the hospital.”

There are two hospitals in San Leandro. Well, probably more but I’m not actually sure. There’s the one not so far from our house that everyone in my neighborhood goes to and then there’s the one I sometimes will see when my mom takes us to get groceries. Its really big and seems much nicer than ours. I remember when we first moved here I asked my mom why we didn’t go to the hospital that actually had all of the letters in “Hospital” written outside. She just answered “We’re supposed to be able to, but things here aren’t like that.” It took me a few months to understand what she meant by that.

The doctor took Calvin into a big room and my mom followed. The doctor didn’t seem that worried but he wanted to do some scans and x-rays just to be safe. They don’t think he has a concussion but they’re very careful with these things. This doctor has always been pretty nice to my family, Dr. Yu. I think he’s Chinese but he’s never actually said where he’s from. But every time we’ve come to visit him,r he makes the same joke. “Hello, I am Yu!”  

Today it felt a little inappropriate.

It’s been about 3 hours, I think. There isn’t a clock out here so I might just be being dramatic. This whole hallway has a dark, depressing atmosphere.  I’m sitting on a very worn-out wooden bench and it feels like it’s giving me splinters in my ass. It’s odd how they decided to paint this room a horrible brownish yellow color as if it isn’t already depressing enough in here. There’s a hole in the floor which they decided to cover with some cheap plywood and  a few drops of blood trailing from the hole. I feel like I know everything about this room and I really wish I didn’t.

The door opens with Dr. Yu leading my mom out into the hallway. Her eyes are puffy and red with a few tears still rolling down her cheeks. “Where’s Calvin?” I ask anxiously.

She opens her mouth in an attempt to say something but instead bursts out crying and runs down the hall into the girls bathroom. Dr. Yu turns to me and says, “Calvin is still finishing up with the scan, but I think we may have to run some more tests.”

“What do you mean? I thought you were just checking to see if he had a concussion.” Dr.Yu hesitates for a quick second. “Well yes, but we’ve found something.”

“Found what?” My right eye has a small tear emerging but I force it back in. I can see that Dr. Yu is thinking very carefully about what he’s about to say. It feels like an eternity before he actually says something.

“It could just be a cyst which is like a pocket of water, but even a cyst in the wrong location can be fatal or cause serious harm. This ‘growth’ is located right above the medulla oblongata; the control center for the heart and lungs.”

I shake my head in disbelief, I’m not sure if I’ve even understood all of what he just said.  “ Is he going to die?”

“I don’t know, if it doesn’t grow then he could be fi… he could live for a long time. But we’re going to have to run some more tests to find out.

I can’t believe my mom made me come to school. Yesterday that bullshit happened and now I’m stuck here in math class learning about a triangle. I’m sure there’s more to this but I can’t really focus on shapes when my brother may or may not be dying. The worst part of this is that I think it’d probably be easier if they just told me he was going to die. This tiny bit of hope I have is driving me insane.

My whole body jumps  at the sound of the bell. You’d think they’re using a goddamn air horn. As I walk out of the humid classroom, I can feel the cool wind on my face. Unfortunately, there’s not much shade to be had. This whole school is essentially five portables in a parking lot and a building for the administration. I guess the city of San Leandro doesn’t want to pay much for less than a hundred kids.

The only thing good about math is that right afterwards is lunch. Since Calvin stays in the Special ED building most of the time I really only have one other friend. An asian kid a year younger than me named Ryan. I really should figure out what part of Asia he’s from.  

“Hey Malcolm how was your weekend?” Ryan asks pushing his straight black hair out from in front of his eyes. I pause for a second unsure of what to say, other than sunday the weekend was actually pretty good, Saturday we went to a park nearby my house. Well if you could call it that it was like a quarter the size of the school and it was basically just one tree and patchy unkempt grass but Calvin didn’t seem to mind, he climbed that tree like a champ. I could barely pull myself up without needing an oxygen mask. Friday my mom tried to take us to the zoo but when we got there it was “at full capacity” and they wouldn’t let “anyone else” in, so my mom took us to get chinese food instead.

“Ugh you ok?” He looks at me concerned.

“Oh, yeah yeah the weekend was good. You?” I say trying to get the topic off of me.

“Great! I went to my cousins house up in San Francisco we got food and went to see Rocky. Oh yeah, then I fucked your mom.”

“Jesus, Ryan you’re lucky no one wants to have sex with your mom.”

“Haha, yeah I guess, least this way it’s just my mom telling me what to do and she doesn’t really tell me to do much other than my hw, see she doesn’t want me to go out at night but she isn’t gonna come check up on me randomly like your mom.”

“Yeah but I have Calvin. When she’s checking up on me she’s really checking up on him.”

“Hey what happened to your dad anyway? Your mom’s pretty smokin’ I’d be surprised if any guy just up and left.”

I could feel my skin crawl as soon as the word dad slipped out of his mouth.

“He didn’t leave.”

“Ok. Then what?”

“He fit the description of something.”

Damn these wood bleachers are making my ass itch, I wish this school had at least enough money to get some decent chairs for these boring assemblies. It’s a miracle this school even exists.

After several minutes of non chalantly scooting my ass on the bench in the hopes of taking care of this itch, a white man in a black suit with bright orange hair that looks like it could be a combover comes out. He has two police officers with him for protection. He looks familiar, I know I’ve seen his face  but I’m not sure where from.

The Principal of the school steps out with a microphone and says “Please welcome the Mayor of the city of San Leandro Elliot Johnson.”  While there was some applause many of the kids were whispering to each other. “Why is he here?”

He takes the podium and says “Hello children, you all look wonderful simply fabulous. Now some of my associates have informed me about this school, very well I might add, about how it does business, now one thing I’ve taken real concern to is that you don’t have any school lunches here at this school. Not one. So my own personal “THE ELLIOT” brand food truck will be coming to your school and will be selling hot fresh meals with only the freshest ingredients for only a dollar a person. Thank you and have a wonderful evening.” He hands the microphone back to the Principal who says “ Thank you Mayor Johnson. Alright kids it’s three o’clock please meet back with your teacher and you will be dismissed to go home.”

On my way to get Calvin from his special E.D. class Ryan runs up to me and says. “Hey I stole some money from my mom’s wallet let’s go and see “Taxi Driver” tonight after your mom and Calvin go to bed?”

I look at him for a second thinking does he not realise that we’re fucking fourteen and we look like we’re twelve. “Dude that’s an “R” rated movie we can’t get in without our parents.”

He laughs and says “Yeah but I know a place where when this one guy is working he’ll let anyone into any movie, and he’s working their tonight.”

I think about it for a second and say “Fine but you’re paying for snacks.”

One thing I’ve always liked about San Leandro is that even when it was hot, it never got unbearable, but right now after I’ve been walking in the sun for about an hour and I haven’t had anything to drink since lunch time I feel about ready to give up on life. To be honest this doesn’t seem like such a horrible place to just pass out. Calvin on the other hand, it’s like he doesn’t even notice the heat.  Nothing ever really seems to bother him.

“Calvin! Slow down I don’t want to have to run right now!”But Calvin is so preoccupied looking at a butterfly that’s flying near his head it’s like he didn’t even hear me. The butterfly whisks of to the left down into a slightly forested section of the neighborhood and Calvin sprints after it.

“Calvin!Stop!” But he doesn’t stop. “Shit!” I yell and run after him.

As we’re running I can see the concrete turn to dirt and a mixture of grass and dead leaves, The walls have moss and leaves growing on them from lack of cleaning. The sunlight pierces through the leaves of the trees spotting the ground I’m running on. This would be really nice if I wasn’t exhausted.

Calvin turns a corner and I can see him fall to his knees. He lets out a kind of giddy laugh. I turn the corner to see more butterflies than I’ve ever seen in my entire life, I didn’t even realize some were colored like this. Each butterfly has it’s own unique color pattern and different spots. They whisk all around almost as if they’re performing just for us. A few land on me but not nearly as many as Calvin has on him. As I’m watching I’m noticing they’re not flying in some random order. They’re circling Calvin, dancing all around him.  In all the whirring of the butterflies whisking around you can hear Calvin loud as ever giggling like a baby.

“Malcolm, have you done your homework?” My mom asks me while serving me a plate of mashed sweet potatoes and green beans. “Yes mam. Finished it right when I  got home from school.”  She looks at me gauging whether or not she thinks I’m lying. “Ok. Well eat up I got some chicken in the oven coming out in a minute, I just gotta get something from my room.” She steps off out into the hallway. While I gorge myself on amazingly creamy sweet potatoes I can see Calvin staring off into nothing. Normally he has a bigger appetite than I do.

“Calvin? You alright buddy?” He shakes his head and points into the hall.

“What? Mom? What about her?” He sticks his hand out again pointing in the same spot like he’s telling me to go there.

As I go into the hallway I hear a small whimper, I look back at Calvin but he’s fine and I don’t think it came from that direction. As I’m looking at her door I can see a through a small parting from where she left the door open, and I can see my mom at the foot of her bed holding a picture frame to her chest with tears rolling down her cheeks.

“Alright Goodnight mom.”
“Goodnight Malcolm, goodnight Calvin, I love you both.”

“I love you too mom.” Calvin just gives her a big crooked smile and waves.

After she shuts the door I turn away from Calvin and try to mimic snoring. After what seemed like an hour of just laying there pretending to be asleep, I mustered the courage to check to see if Calvin is asleep. I remove my blanket hiding my street clothes, and I put on my shoes. As I go up to Calvin I see he’s turned away facing the wall, and as I get closer I can hear him softly snoring.

I open the sliding door leading into the backyard and attempt to hop over the gate, but after about a minute of struggling the gate just swung open with me hanging on. I hopped down and shut it again. As I walk down my poorly lit street I realise I have no idea where we’re going, we didn’t plan this out at all, all we said was what movie we’re going too why the fuck am I out here when I don’t even know where to meet Ryan.

Out of nowhere I’m tackled onto one of my neighbors lawns. I’m being slapped over and over all around.
“Fuck mom I’m sorry I wasn’t doing anything!” My assailant releases me and stands up. “Dude you are way too fucking ugly to have come out of me.”

“Fucking jesus Ryan, we could’ve woke up my neighbors! How long have you been out here?”

“About an hour. Honestly what took you so long?”

“We didn’t even set up a time to meet up at or a place.”

“Haha oh yeah. Well come on move it we gotta get there before the theatre closes.”

“So where is this theatre anyway?” I ask Ryan hoping he does know where the theatre is.

“It’s a few blocks away from the Oakland Zoo. Don’t worry we’ll be there in half an hour tops.”

“Jesus Ryan do you not know where the Oakland Zoo is? It’s going to be way longer than that.”

“Well maybe at your pace, but with me I actually walk. You just get tired after like two blocks then bitch about how your thighs rub together. Come on man you got this I’ve seen you do some things that could be considered athletic.”

“Well… ok but…” Out of nowhere I hear a second set of running foot steps at me from behind, It has to be my mom I know it. I turn around and quickly spit out “We were just talking!” But instead of my mom standing there scaring the shit out of me it was Calvin.

“Holy crap Calvin don’t run at me like that, you scared the bejesus out of me! What are you doing here?” He just looks at me with a disapproving face. “Oh right, well just come on. Did you atleast sneak out quietly? He nods his head giddily.

Ryan Comes up to Calvin and says “What up man, I hope you're up for seeing some boobies.”

“Shut up Ryan, Calvin there’s not gonna be any boobs, well maybe in the movie but I don’t know.”

“Goddammit Ryan It’s been well past forty five minutes where’s the theatre?”

“Ugh really nearby man, you’ll see.”

“Come here Ryan, I’m about to smack you upside the head for dragging me and my brother all the way out here.”  I say to him partially joking.  

He starts to back away saying “ Haha come on man it’s right over here!” He quickly turns around and sprints In the opposite direction.

“Jesus, he’s fast. Hold up Calvin. He’s mine.” I start to sprint for him, it doesn’t take long for me to realise it’s been a while but Ryan dragged me and Calvin all the way out to some random part of San Leandro so I keep going. He turns a corner and heads into the alley leading into Mills park, I start to hear noise coming from there, maybe the theatre is nearby.

But when I turn the corner I don’t see a theatre,  Ryan is Hiding behind a garbage can, I can see a burning flame, it’s in the shape of a “t” there is a mexican couple hanging from the old tree that overshadows the park. And a group of men in white sheets laughing. In the back there’s three with their masks off draped in red. I can recognize two of them, that shiny headed rat faced fuck cop who nearly gave Calvin a concussion, and in the middle the mayor of San Leandro egging them on. I can recognize him by his terrible orange wig and skin. I start to step back but I accidently bump into a metal trash can, I save it from being tipped over but not the glass beer bottle sitting on top. It breaks in a way that couldn’t have possibly felt more loud.  Ryan runs out towards me and yells “RUN!” we both sprint back the way but I hear a series of loud shots and fall to the floor. When I look at myself I can see a hole in my jeans and blood is running down my sneakers. Ryan is on the floor and He’s not moving.  I always knew I’d die in this shithole.

Suddenly I feel a big moist hand pressing on my face and another pulling me back. I really hope it’s not that cop. I hesitantly open my eyes to instead find Calvin pulling me dragging me backwards at incredible speeds. I look up to see Ryan lying face down with blood quickly stretching around him. I can see a few Klan members far in the back on the other side of the park casually walking towards what they think is two fresh kills.

Calvin drags me around a corner behind a red bricked old building and attempts to stand me up straight. “OW! Fuck, no I don’t think I can stand.” Calvin nods understandingly and throws my arm over his shoulder and he tucks his under my rib cage helping to carry me. He’s basically jogging and dragging me upright with him. We cross the poorly lit street and go up to a home with a for sale sign in front. Calvin carries me to the fence leading to the backyard and throws me over. I land hard on the other side. But I kept it to myself out of fear someone would hear me. At least It wasn’t concrete. As Calvin attempts to climb over the gate it slowly pivots open with hanging on the side feeling foolish. He hops down to quickly and quietly shut the gate.  He rushed over to me and looks me over inspecting my wounds. The bleeding isn’t as bad as I once thought but I am still bleeding. Calvin looks to find away into the plain yellow house when he notices a hole leading into part of the house. The hole was made by some sort of animal. Possibly a rat? Maybe something bigger? He goes in without a thought. As I lay in the grass filled backyard I can hear voices. They are indistinct and far away, But they are angry. That I can tell. And they are searching.

Suddenly the back door of the house opens. Calvin quietly comes to me and puts his finger over his mouth telling me to be quiet. He drags me inside to the living room laying me flat on the floor. He gestures for me to take off my pants while he runs into the kitchen and grabs a rag and some water. He comes back and as I take off my trousers  You can see not a whole but a large gash running across the side of my right leg. The bullet had only grazed me but it did damage all the same.

Calvin took the steaming wet rag and wrapped it around my leg. He then took my hands and gestured for me to keep it together. He quickly ran back into the kitchen looking for something when suddenly down the stairs to my left I heard a purr. Not a cat’s purr but something larger. As I looked up I saw it. One paw in front of the other climbing down the steps. Blacker than night. A panther climbed down the steps with his bright eyes fixed on mine. As he makes it to the bottom of the steps Calvin slowly approaches it with his hand out.

“Calvin, no get back!” I Said in hushed but frantick tones. But it was as if he had not heard what I said. The Panther approached him. Fangs drawn and the purr had steadily grown into growl.  But none the less Calvin Approached hand in front of him almost like a peace offering. I want to avert my eyes but I can’t.

Suddenly the growl had stopped and the panther had gone from having his fangs drawn to merely sniffing Calvin’s hand. The panthers wet nose grazed up and down Calvin’s hand. And had even started to gently and playfully nip and his finger tips. Calvin tussled the top of the cat’s head and the panther joined his side clinging to him like an affectionate puppy. Calvin patted it on the head and returned to the kitchen where he had found some duct tape under the sink. He gave my wound an improper bandage. But if I really think about it it’s not that much worse than what I would get at the hospital.

The sounds of angry voices are growing closer. Calvin turns off the light and the long muscular cat almost seems to be leading us upstairs. Calvin takes me on his arm and helps me up the stairs.

We get into the room where the panther had went to find two other cats laying in the corner with their heads cocked up in attention. They arise inspecting us and then go back to their respective corners. They are almost identical. But it is Clear which is the leader. For he was decorated in scars from a hundred battles.

Calvin guides me to an empty corner and takes off his old soft leather jacket and fixes it into a pillow for me. Resting here makes me uneasy. But what else can we do with those Klan men out there searching for us? “Thank you Calvin. We should try to leave as soon as the coast is clear. Calvin lays next to me facing the wall and I slowly shut my eyes. I’m afraid.

We awaken to the sound of a large crash. It came from down stairs. The sound was so large It almost seemed that they broke down the wall. The two panthers arose, their scars much more visible in the daylight, they slowly and calmly sneaked out into the hallway. While the leader had gone into the room opposite the hall.

“Come out lil Nigger! I’ll make it nice and quick for you. But if you hide, Well I’m gonna have me some fun.” I heard a familiar voice say. But I heard two sets of foot steps. I heard one loud thump on the first step and then after that a roar unlike anything I’ve ever heard. And a bloodcurdling scream. Two screams. And even more sounds from the cats that I cannot Identify. But it sounds as if I could hear their claws ripping into the flesh of the men downstairs. But then I heard a loud pop… a second… a third… then nothing.

“Calvin we got to get out of here.” I Said hoping he had a plan. But before he could answer the door burst open, And there towering was the bald mustachioed cop bleeding heavily out of his arm. He made eye contact with Calvin and they rushed at each other head first. But he was bigger, and he slammed Calvin on his back and punched him hard in the cheek. He raised his arm up to deliver a massive strike but before it even started he was tackled from behind. The muscular black panther on his back ripping and biting away into his shoulder trying to make it into his neck, He screamed but he quickly turned away and through the panther off of him. He tried to pin the beast but before he could attempt to Calvin was already on top of him. Calvin pinned him to the floor on his back, and Calvin put his knees on top of the officer’s already bloody arms to prevent him from fighting back. Calvin raises his right hand high and it crashes into right into the cop's  nose sending it inwards. Again and again each blow you could hear a loud crack of bone and the mush of  wet flesh .Calvin raised his fist sending it crashing into the now indistinguishable man’s face.  Again and again.

“Calvin.” I approach him but he does not react “Calvin!” I yell this time grabbing his arm and hugging him. “It’s ok… It’s ok. He can’t hurt you anymore. Come on we have to get out of here.” I stand and and hold his hand that I can now feel is wet and warm with blood but that does not bother me now as much as it might would have in a different situation.

As we walked out of the door the I could feel the panther’s rough tongue brushing the back of my ankle. It stayed close behind and cleaned the dried blood from off of my leg, but it never once bit me. We walked into the bleach white hallway to see what looked like a painting. Red sprayed all around the white walls, many straight lines stretching across the walls with little bits of it spattered covering up the lines and making them heavy and drip downward. Four bodies lay on the floor. Two police officers with unrecognizable faces

I could tell they were police officers by their uniforms, they were once blue but were now a dark purple. One panther was still laying on top of an officer  while the other had made it towards the kitchen, that was the one with the most bullet holes in it.

As we stepped out into the early morning I felt the warm rays of the sun on my face. This was something I wasn’t sure I’d get to feel again. “Alright Calvin, I think home is this way.” I pointed right. The opposite way from the park. “We should be able to make it home, but I don’t think we can go unnoticed with a four foot black panther following us everywhere.” I pet him on the head as a thank you and I start to walk off, but I don’t hear Calvin walking with me. I turn and he’s just standing there on the bottom steps of the porch looking right at me. “ Come on Calvin! We have to go! Someone would have heard that gunshot.” But he just looked at me and shook his head. The panther then took his side and they started walking the opposite direction. “Fuck Calvin!” I try to catch up to him but the pain in my leg grows every time I place my right foot on the ground. I limp behind him from a short distance. “Goddammit Calvin wait!”

When he finally comes to a stop we are outside of the Oakland zoo. I’m at the bottom of the hill struggling on all fours trying to make it up. I hated hills enough when my leg didn’t have a hole in it.

When I do make it to the top I can see Calvin on the other side of the fence. “Fuck how did you get there?” I mutter quietly to myself. When I look around I do not see any holes in the fence, and on the top there is barbed wire. I start to look around for my way in when I see a fat man in an ugly brown jumpsuit. He was a janitor on his smoke break. He propped the employee entrance open with a broom and he puffed away at his strange smelling cigarette in his car. I moved quickly and quietly and I tried to keep myself low as so he wouldn’t see me. I made my way from car to car and then i quickly did a low to the ground sprint to behind the dumpster and into the building grabbing the broomstick and keeping the janitor out.

As I walk into the zoo I feel a cold draft of air. And a strange silence comes over me. “Strange” I whisper to myself. “Where are all the animals?” on a normal day you could hear them from the bottom of the hill. In fact even today as I made my way up I could hear the sounds of birds chirping. But now nothing. Nothing but the wind blowing through the leaves.

As I walked through the tunnels I could start to hear something. I could not tell what it was. It was very jumbled. Like a thousand noises all happening at once. And as I walked deeper into the zoo I could hear it growing louder.

At the edge of the tunnel I was greeted by a blinding white light and after the light had faded I saw him. Calvin. But he wasn’t alone he was surrounded on all sides by different animals. Lions, tigers, monkeys, two giraffes towered overhead. He even had an elephant with tusks stretching out far beyond its trunk. There was a fleet of birds flying around him. Surrounding him. Going so fast I could not actually see them but a grey blur that seemed to wrap around him.

“Calvin.” I said to him as he approached “What is all this?” He looks around waving his hand showing me pride swelling up in his eyes. He puts his hand down on his chest.

“You?” I say to him questioningly? He smiles and nods. “Calvin this is incredible. But we have to get home. They have cameras in this place! They probably already know we’re here. Those cops are sure to be after us!” He looked at me his smile had faded, and he nodded.

I heard a loud crash coming from the entrance to the park. A man’s voice called out. “Those little shits are this way!”

I turned to Calvin with tears in my eyes. “Please Calvin…” But before I could finish Calvin put his hand on my shoulder and said “Bye Malcolm.” The black panther then sprinted under my legs carrying me off in the distance. I attempted to jump off and stay but It grabbed me by the back of the shirt and dragged me through the grass down the hill. As I was being dragged I could see a sea of men dressed in blue coming into the area of the zoo. And the birds had once again formed around Calvin as a protective barrier. We came to the edge of the hill and I saw them all lurch at each other, but I could see no more. But I could hear it, The sounds unlike anything I’ve ever heard of. A roar of gunfire and the shriek of hundreds of animals and men as they had their flesh ripped apart. Part of me still felt like I could hear each individual claw tear into flesh like the sound of a fine knife cutting through beef.

The panther had let me back onto its back and carried me for what seemed like forever.  He let me off in the field in the back of the school. He nipped at my hand and I patted him on the head. And he ran off into the fields back towards the hills.

I walked for about fifteen minutes before I made it to the front door of my house.

My mom instantly whisked the door open as if she had been watching out the window the entire time waiting for my return. “Oh my God Malcolm! What happened? Where were you? Where’s your brother?”