I think I was loading the dish washer when I got the call.
“Hello, it’s Jason.” I took the call with my usual cheerful tone.
“Hey Jason, its your uncle, listen I don’t have much time, it’s your brother.”
My voice turned icy cold. “What about him?”
I heard my uncle take a sharp breath before he spoke again. “He escaped.”
The plate that I had been holding with my spare hand fell out of my grasp and shattered on the ground.
“Escaped?” I angrily whispered into the phone, clutching it tighter, I could hear my fiancé’s shuffling towards the kitchen to investigate.
“Yes, this morning, him and another seven convicts.”
My fiancé spoke up, just a few feet from the doorway to the kitchen, “Is everything okay, what did you drop?”
“Yes everything’s fine honey.” I replied in a calm tone, as calm as I could muster. My blood was boiling.
She peeked over the corner to look at me.
“Who are you talking to?” Her eyes dropped to the ground, the shattered porcelain plate.
“Uncle Johan.”
She nodded, and then mouthed, “Clean that up after.”
“Are we in danger?” I whispered into the receiver, picking up conversation with my uncle again.
“You might be.”
I sighed loudly and sat down on one of the chairs.
“I called to inform you- and to warn you. He might want to finish what he started.”
“If he shows up at my house, I’ll kill that son of a bi-“ I snarled, but cut myself off.
“It’s too dangerous, grab your fiancé and drive down to my house, we can bunker down here together.”
I sighed again. “What do I tell her?” My tone was frank.
“The truth Jason, it’s about time you tell her.”
The third sigh escaped my lips. “I’ll call you when we’re in the car.”
“We’ll be okay Jason.” My uncle said encouragingly before I hung up the phone.
I nodded to myself and walked out of the kitchen and into the living room, my fiancé was watching the news.
“How’s Johan?” She asked as I walked up behind her.
“He’s okay Laura, we need to go stay with him.”
She turned her head to face me, her face ridden with a puzzled expression. I noticed the program she was watching. News, a picture of brother’s face was displayed in the second to last left corner, among another seven faces. I tightened my knuckles.
“What’s wrong?” Laura asked me with worry, now sitting up right.
“We’ll leave in fifteen minutes, pack the essentials, we’ll only be there for a couple of days, I’ll explain the rest in the car.”
“Jason?” She called out to me questioningly, but I ignored her as I made my way to our basement door.
I suspected this day might come. No, I was told as much. So I prepared myself. I turned on the light and walked down the few flights of stairs, ducking my head on the last one. My eyes were trained on the glossy stained steel safe under a table at the far back wall.
The combination was 10/01/2013. The gun lay there, still in its original packaging. Last time I loaded one was last year, it’s been a while since I went to the shooting range, I got too comfortable. And my fiancé didn’t like me shooting guns.
I unpacked it and after a couple moments of confusion loaded it. I fastened the holster to my waist and holstered the loaded gun, taking a deep breath to calm myself.
A part of me hoped that Hue would come for me. He wouldn’t be the one finishing things, I would. I hated him for the last decade, and all that hurt still felt fresh in my skin, a prickling sensation of helplessness. But I’m not thirteen years old anymore. And I’m not scared anymore.
I bolted up the stairs after another deep breath. I could hear Laura muttering to herself in our bedroom.
I jumped as my phone rang in my pocket. I was on edge. It was a private number.
“Hello? This is Jason.”
“This is the Bluemound police department, are we speaking with Jason Lynch?”
“Yes, yes you are.” I said, somewhat annoyed.
“Your brother, Hue, has escaped the Bluemound maximum security prison.”
“I already know that.”
“You do?” The woman on the other end sounded surprised.
“My uncle Johan called me ten minutes ago informing me of this.” I said matter-of-factly.
The woman ignored my response. “Do you have any friends or family you could stay with that Hue wouldn’t know about?”
“Do you think he’s coming for me?” I asked without missing a beat.
There was silence on the other end. “We cannot be sure.” A different voice, male, responded after a long moment.
“Who am I speaking with?”
“Detective Piper, I was in charge of your brother’s case.”
“Me and my fiancé, Laura, are about to make the drive to my uncle’s house.” I responded to his previous question.
Laura entered the living room, with luggage in one hand, and a large duffel bag in the other. She gave me a warm smile, but her expression remained perplexed.
“Do you have an address for us? We’ll set up a patrol car to monitor the area for any suspicious activity.”
“Yes, it’s Green Street 13a.”
“Great, can we always reach you on this number?”
“That’s correct.”
“We’ll keep in touch then.” The detective said, and then hung up the phone.
I nodded to Laura. “Let’s go.”
“Are you going to explain what’s going on?” Laura asked as we began the twenty minute ride.
“I have a brother, he’s one of the escaped convicts.” I replied after taking a sharp breath.
Laura remained silent for a long moment, before finally asking another question. “Why did you never tell me?”
“I wanted to leave that part of me behind. I didn’t want you to know that I have a killer brother, or worry that he might come after me, or after you to hurt me.”
She turned to look at me. “Killer? What happened? Who is it?”
“His name is Hue.” I replied calmly. “He killed our parents when I was thirteen years old.”
She gasped. “And you thought it was a good idea to hide this from me?”
“I-“ I sighed in defeat. “I didn’t hide it from you, it just never came up.”
She gasped again, this one more exasperated than the other one. “Never came up?” She repeated my words. “I asked about your family countless of times, and all you’d tell me is that they’re all dead.”
“We’ve been dating for close to five years, engaged for a year, and during all of this time, you didn’t think it’d be a good idea to tell me about it?” She sounded hurt, confused, angry.
“It did, of course it did, and I wanted to tell you, but I was afraid, I didn’t- I don’t know..” I responded at a loss for words.
I really did want to tell her numerous times, but I didn’t. Maybe I was afraid of a reaction exactly like this.
“And what now? Is he after us? Is that why we’re running?”
“I don’t know- Maybe?” I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel in an anxious tick. She remained silent for a couple of minutes.
“It was the night before Halloween.” I began.
“My brother was turning eighteen on Halloween.”
“He was staying with our uncle Johan and his ex wife, Susan, he had a falling out with our dad a few weeks back, it had gotten a little rough.”
“After my dad picked me up from my friends house, we drove home.” Laura was looking at me now, listening, nodding along. This was the first time I opened up to her. I hated opening up, I hated talking, but words were just pouring out of me now.
“We talked about all the costumes me and my friends were going to wear the next day, he was so happy for me, so excited, we made a bet on how much candy I could collect, I still remember the number he told me. he said I wouldn’t get more than 255 candy.” My vocal cords were wavering.
“We parked in our garage, and I remember getting out of the car and seeing Hue walking up the driveway, dad got out of the car too and looked at him, they spoke, I think dad asked Hue what he was doing here, and that they had an agreement, they started shouting, Hue started walking into the garage and it got up close and personal, that’s when I ran inside and screamed for mom. I told her that Hue and dad were fighting”
I sighed shakily. This was the second time I had told this story, and the first time took me over a year to finish.
The next words wouldn’t leave my lips, as if sealed behind layers of hurt I had not gotten through. But I had to force them out, for me, and for Laura.
“My mom, she told me to go to my room, she- she gave me a kiss on the forehead and a winked as she walked off towards the garage door. I could still hear their shouts and screams.” I whimpered out, feeling a stray tear rolling down my face.
“I ran up the stairs and hid in my room, my heart was thumping. I heard screaming and shouting for another three or four minutes and then everything grew silent. The door into the house was opened and I could hear heavy footsteps coming up the stairs. But they were heavier than my moms, and lighter than my dads. Hue tried the door handle, and when he realized that it was locked, he banged against the door, he screamed and shouted at me to open up, and that he was going to kill me.”
I wiped away the tears rolling down my face, Laura was crying too.
“I was crying, I was so scared, it was maybe a minute later that everything grew silent again. I could hear sirens off in the distance, and hurried footsteps running down the stairs. Last thing I remember is police knocking my door down, because I was too terrified to open it to anyone but my mom and dad.”
Laura wiped her face with a tissue. I felt her hand land on my knee, and she gripped it firmly. I placed a hand on her hand and smiled at her.
“I wasn’t lying when I said that my family is dead. My mom and dad are buried, while my brother is no longer my brother, he’s dead to me.”
Laura stayed silent, I think she didn’t know what to say, but who would know what to say after a story like that.
We got to my uncles house just a minute or two after that. He was waiting for us at the front door.
I smiled at him. This was the man that raised me after my parents died. The man that I could also call my father. Then I saw Susan step out of the house behind him.
Before I could say anything, Johan spoke first. “Relax, she’s in just as much danger as all of us here, she was part of Hue’s life too, his therapist for over a decade.”
I swallowed and nodded. Laura looked at her and nudged me. “Who’s that?”
“That’s Susan, Johan’s ex wife.”
We grabbed our few bags and walked inside.
My uncle eyed the holster on my waist. “Take that thing off.” He scolded me.
“And what if he shows up?” I snapped back at him.
“Then we’ll deal with it, but we’re not shooting him.” He snapped back.
Laura and Susan looked between us two, seemingly in agreement with my uncle. I sighed in defeat and gave him the holster and the gun. He nodded and walked off somewhere to put it away.
We all sat down at the kitchen table, there were four cups of freshly brewed coffee set on it.
“What’s next?” Laura asked.
“We just sit and wait until he’s caught?” She added. “That could take weeks, months even, and there’s seven other convicts for the police to worry about too.”
“You’re right, we can’t just stay here for that long.” Susan responded in agreement.
“Maybe you’re overreacting?” She looked at me.
“This was Johan’s idea.” I responded defensively.
“Don’t point your fingers at me, this is temporary, the police should figure out where Hue is headed within a couple of days, and if he’s intending to come after us or not.”
We talked for an hour or two before Susan went to her room, and another fifteen minutes later Laura wanted to go sleep too.
I couldn’t sleep though, I just couldn’t. I laid there with my eyes closed, thinking of all the possible scenarios, trying to think of what he’d do now that he’s free.
With time to kill, I wrote this post to get things off my chest. Maybe I’m over reacting and Hue is going to be looking to start a new life as a changed man, or maybe he’ll be looking for the best opportunity to finish what he couldn’t all those years ago. I’d like to see him try.