Low Budget Productions Proudly Presents,
A Starfall Comics Comic:
Swamp Patrol
#11: Eighteen Hours in a Young Man's Life
He wakes at 5:30 to make her lunch, and breakfast too.
In the past, after she ate breakfast at six they'd watch cartoons until the school bus showed up. These days he was lucky if he'd get a 'Good morning.' She thought she was all grown up now, and in many ways she was. But he was still her brother, and without their parents around anymore he had to take care of her. Some day she might understand why that meant they had to move.
Some day.
Breakfast is a cold affair today, despite the warmth of the oatmeal. She finishes quickly, and goes outside to wait for the bus. A bus that they both know won't arrive for another forty-five minutes. He watches quietly from the kitchen window.
At 6:55 the bus shows up and she gets on it without so much as a wave back to the house. He swallows his hurt and finishes his coffee, then washes the dishes. The last few weeks he would follow this up with a thorough reading of the Classifieds to look for work, but since he got the job in Pennsylvania he'd stopped. It was only a week before they had to move.
He logs onto his FreeNet account at precisely 7:37 am, as his employer specified. Sitting in his mailbox was one message - other people may have taken it for some sort of encoded or corrupted file. But he can recognize it. That was what had gotten him the job in the first place. The message leaves explicit instructions only he could read - the location, time, and exact nature of his first job in Pennsylvania.
It is as he'd expected. Not the specifics, but he had had a general feel of what this job would entail - the secretive nature of the ads and the instructions, the wording of it once decoded, had all pointed him toward one thing.
Murder.
At half past eight he logs off of his FreeNet account and begins to tidy the house his parents had left to him when they died, the house he and his sister will be leaving in only a week. Carefully he has suppressed any feelings he may have had about his future employment - it's only a job now, one that will hopefully give him the money he needs take care of Marie, to give her a life as close to the one she deserves as he can manage.
As he vacuums he notices the cyclic whirr of the machine - too subtle and seemingly erratic for anyone else to notice. Today it sounds slightly off-kilter - he makes a note to have a look at it later in case it's broken.
As he dusts he carelessly notes the air currents, as illustrated by the way small particles of dust float through the air.
He clicks the radio onto the all-talk station at 9:05 for the news. It's the only station he can enjoy now, the music on all the other stations too distracting in its arrangements, its rhythms and patterns. At least with speech he can focus on the meaning.
After the news he goes outside for a walk, locking the door behind him. While he walks feelings come back, that he would rather had stayed away. Guilt about the job. Guilt about taking his sister from her life, her friends. About not being able to find some other way. About not having been the one in the car, instead of his parents.
Never mind that. He came out here to enjoy the fresh air and trees, the small ecosystem functioning in intricate patterns and correlations. With some effort he pushes his feelings of guilt down, inside, and returns to his idle enjoyment of nature.
It's noon when he gets back and wonders if she's enjoying the lunch he made for her. Probably not. They were running low on groceries and he'd had to make her a peanut butter sandwich...she hated peanut butter sandwiches in her lunch. It probably made her like him even less.
He kills a roach in the bathroom before grabbing himself a slice of bread and a carrot - he really should have done the groceries, but they're moving so soon that it doesn't really seem worthwhile to get a whole order. Still...
He arrives at the grocery store at a quarter to one, buys all of her favourites - well, all the ones he can afford, and heads back home, several dollars poorer than when he left.
It turns out the vacuum cleaner isn't broken, just has an old marble stuck in it. By 2:18 he's gotten the marble out, cleaned it off, and put it in the jar where they keep all the marbles they used to play with when they were younger. Then there's really nothing to do until she gets home at four.
She enters the house with the same silence she left it with. Sits in front of the tv, flicks aimlessly (13...21...17...31...34...17...03...) for half an hour before heading to her room to do homework. He starts making dinner, and at a quarter past five calls her down.
Over dinner he asks her about school, her answers are monosyllabic and curt. Then she goes back up to finish her homework while he goes over the message he received from his employer. That feeling of guilt returns again, but quickly he pushes it aside by focusing on the logistics, the planning.
At 6:30 he catches the evening news on television, feels her in the room out of his view for a few minutes before she leaves. After the news he turns off the tv and checks his e-mail again. No new messages. He clicks off the computer and goes to his room to study a book he has to return to the library in the morning. He would have had to buy it if he were still going to classes at the University, hadn't had to drop out.
At 9:30 he checks on her - she's fallen asleep in her clothes again, but he doesn't dare disturb her because she dislikes him enough as it is. Leaving her room, he turns off her light and heads to his own bed. Less than a week now.