The Beginning Hour

The Beginning Hour: Chapter One

Of Stink Bombs and Nightmares

Chester closed his eyes lazily. Bright sunlight beat down on his face and made the insides of his eyelids glow. If warmth could be seen--an element, perhaps, carefully charted on ancient periodic tables--it would shine the color currently infiltrating Chester's vision. Chester smiled.

Something tugged on Chester's fist. He tightened his grip.

Another tug. Chester yanked back. His heartless answer to Emma's bid for freedom elicited a pouting cry in response. Instantly, Chester's conscience scolded him--though not harshly enough for him to release her.

"Chesser." Another distraction entered the mix, this time originated from Chester's five-year-old brother.

Chester clenched his eyes tightly, allowing darkness to wash over him like an eclipse.

"Chesser, push me."

"Sure," Chester amicably agreed, without the slightest intention of following through. Grass prickled his ears and the back of his neck. He found that if he turned his head to the left by only a fraction of an inch, the noise of the freeway increased tenfold. With minimal effort, he could imagine himself on Pacific Beach. Brian's request became merely one call among many voices, shouting up and down the boardwalk. He could almost smell the stoners and the deep-fried chilupas.

Suddenly, something skittered across Chester's face. He darted up, eyes snapping open, scrambling backwards. His right hand released its captive to swat frantically at the invisible intruder.

Emma giggled. In her hand was clutched a broken dandelion, which she pointedly brushed across her own cheek. She then scooted away from Chester, innocently marring the rear of her dress with grass stains.

Pretty clever, for a two-year-old.

Boisterous laughter could be heard floating up from behind them, pausing now and then to interject, "A little push. Please."

"Fine. One push. One." Chester held up one finger to clarify the already clear and let his head fall back dramatically. He tilted his chin toward the sky. An up-side-down vision of Brian appeared, kicking at the bark dust below his swing.

Brian nodded meekly, knowing better than to press the issue. "Yeah, just one... to get me going."

As all older siblings can testify, 'just one' never ends up being just one.

Several hundred pushes later, Chester felt certain his arms would soon fall off. Emma had joined them, sitting contentedly in a baby swing with an inordinately large number of chains tying her down. She was primly shredding the dandelion, refusing to be pushed but equally adamantly refusing to dismount.

"I'm gonna touch that tree, Chesser. See it? I'm so close." Brian stretched his legs straight out, straining. "Just a little higher pushes." The tree stood at least five yards away. Brian frequently used the words 'just' and 'little' in contexts where they clearly did not belong.

"Yeah, well, you can touch that tree on your own. My arms are dying." Chester stepped back, rubbing his biceps and waiting for the inevitable complaining to commence. It never did. Brian's legs had gone lax and his eyes were trained fixedly on the sky.

Curious, Chester followed Brian's gaze. Four green smears could be seen floating above several of the houses in the neighborhood. As Chester watched, a fifth appeared, closer than the others.

"Fireworks," Brian cried with glee. "Let's go watch them." He'd already dismounted and was heading toward the spectacle.

Chester reached to pry Emma from the swing before hesitating. "They're all the same color," he observed aloud.

"Yeah," Brian cheerfully agreed. "Green. My favorite color."

Another whiff of drab green smoke floated upward; the closest yet. It wasn't a particularly stunning firework. There was no accompanying sound--no boom as it ignited, no crackles as it spread across the sky.

"Come on," Brian whined. "Hurry up. We'll miss them."

Chester untangled Emma from the baby swing and set her on the ground. She immediately leaned over and began to painstakingly collect the small shreds of dandelion that she'd strewn across the bark chips.

Someone shouted in the near distance. Chester turned his head in the direction of the voice. A green cloud suddenly appeared, hovering over Mrs. Patterson's house at the edge of the park. Chester snorted. The fireworks were clearly a prank of some sort; after all, the Fourth of July was months ago. Evidently, Mrs. Patterson didn't approve.

Another shriek came from the house next door. The same green smoke shot upwards. This time, Chester laughed aloud.

"Chesser." Brian had lost all patience (not that he'd possessed much to begin with). "Come on."

"Nuh uh." Chester sagely shook his head. "Those aren't fireworks; they're stink bombs. Look at how the smoke from the first one is still hanging around. I wouldn't go over there for a million bucks."

Brian wasn't so easily deterred. "I want to watch them," he insisted. "I haven't ever seen a stink bomb before."

"You have now. Pretty good ones, too, from the sound of it." As if to verify the claim, Mr. Taylor hollered. Chester grinned evilly: Mom's probably next.

Brian suddenly brightened. "We can watch from the tree fort. Then we'd see everything, I bet, and you wouldn't have to smell it."

To be perfectly honest, Chester was rather eager to witness the mayhem himself. "Not a bad idea." At Chester's praise, Brian swelled, visibly pleased with himself.

It took several minutes to coax Emma up on the rickety ladder, and several more to carefully help her mount it, but the final view was worth every one of her terrified cries. From the old wooden platform, they could easily see over the high fence surrounding the park and into the neighbor's yards below.

Three figures in dark, floor-length trench coats with the hoods pulled low ran through the Ms. O'Neil's yard. The McNary brothers. It figured. They were the only people Chester knew clever and daring enough to launch a campaign like this in broad daylight.

A woman, probably Ms. O'Neil, screamed in fright. A green cloud gathered above her house. Chester could easily picture the scene inside: Ms. O'Neil was probably Steve McNary through her living room with a Swiffer mop held high above her head. Sure enough, after barely half a minute the McNary brothers came darting out again.

Brian cheered, standing to get a better view of the stink bomb's fumes. "Look," he excitedly pointed. "It looks like a face. A scary one, with a long tongue."

Emma stood up, but Chester quickly pushed her back down again. "Scary?" she asked him with trepidation. Like all little girls growing up with two older brothers, 'scary' was certainly one of the words Emma knew and feared.

"No, not scary," Chester reassured her, "just green. No standing, okay? Mom would kill me if I let you fall off."

Emma nodded wisely and, though it was highly doubtful she understood Chester's warning, she settled back down on the floor. Within minutes, she was entirely engrossed by a long trail of ants marching across the rotting boards. The ants were in for it now.

Brian gave off a whoop as yet another stink bomb let loose a 'face' of green smoke. Chester settled back to take in the view. Within twenty minutes, nearly every house in the neighborhood sported its own personal olive green sentinel. Chester and Brian took turns guessing as to which neighbor would be the next victim. They named several of the faces: Java the Hut. The Jolly Green Giant. Sister Augustine Oliver (an insult to the smoke bomb). Chester laughed so hard that he feared he'd be the one to fall off the fort.

At one point, nearly halfway through the show, a robed figure appeared at the entrance of the park. His hood turned left, then right, clearly scanning the empty field. Brian insisted they remain perfectly still. "Spies," he earnestly informed them. Chester wasn't sure whether Brian was calling the man or himself a spy. To both Chester's relief and disappointment, the figure left without a trace of green smoke.

Eventually, the McNary brothers either ran out of stink bombs or were caught by one of their many victims. Emma similarly ran out of ants to torture and began to get antsy herself. Brian complained of hunger, and Chester concurred. "Let's head home."

Emma echoed Chester contentedly, drawing out her O. "Hoooome."

The streets were empty as the trio returned. Though the green clouds had not yet dispersed, there was luckily no horrid stench. In the almost eerie silence, Chester could hear a set of footsteps clacking at least a block away.

The door to the house wouldn't open easily. Something heavy lay before it, blocking the door from swinging inward. 'Mom must have left the vacuum out again,' Chester mentally hypothesized.

What Chester saw next would stay with him for the rest of his life; the haunting image permanently etched into his memory.

Instead of a carelessly placed vacuum laying on the floor, Chester found his mother.

She lay face down, very still. Deathly still. The door pressed against her shoulder as Chester forced it open. Instantly, Chester was on his knees, flipping his mother onto her back. Her eyes were lightly shut and her lips slightly parted. In the crisp pool of sunlight streaming in through the open door, she appeared serene, as though in an enchanted sleep.

Calling did not wake her. Lightly tapping her cheeks produced no effect. Brian tugging harshly at her hair failed to produce the slightest of flinches.

"What's wrong with her?" Brian tangled his fingers through their mother's hair. Her neck tilted toward him. "Make her wake up," he demanded.

"Stop doing that," Chester snapped in return, batting away Brian's prying hands. "She must've fallen and hit her head." As he spoke, Chester frantically inspected the prone figure. There were no marks marring her pale complexion... no bumps hidden beneath the flowing hair... not a speck of blood on the hardwood floor around her.

"She's passed out," Chester corrected himself after the quick assessment.

"She's cold." Brian, ever astute, was undeniably right. Their mother felt unnaturally chilled under Chester's fingers.

"It's okay. Everyone gets cold when they pass out." Though Chester had made up this 'fact' on the spur of the moment, he delivered it with such conviction that he nearly convinced himself.

Suddenly, a foreign instinct kicked in. Calming Brian and keeping this episode from being fodder for the kindergartener's nightmares seemed of monumental importance. Possessing a purpose had the happy side effect of calming himself, as well. "This is just like what you practiced in Kinder Care, remember?" Chester coolly explained. "Now, who do we call when there's an emergency?"

"Nine-one-one."

"Good," Chester praised in a forcedly upbeat voice. Brian beamed, so proud of himself that he momentarily forgot about their mother laying prone across the floor. "I'm going to go call 9-1-1. I'll be right back."

Chester pushed himself up and hurried out of the front entrance. He never made it to the kitchen phone. Halfway down the hall he tripped, landing hard on something both soft and solid. Slowly, he looked down with dawning horror.

Under Chester lay their father.

He was deathly still, unnaturally cold with lips slightly parted; yet there was one difference that separated the two unconscious forms, a small detail that changed everything. Chester's father rested on his back and his eyes stared up at the ceiling. They were open. Wide open. Wide open, and unseeing.

The world tilted dangerously around Chester. He withdrew his hand so quickly from his father's chest that he fell sideways against the wall. The hall seemed to dim and tunnel in alarmingly. 'This is a nightmare,' Chester desperately reassured himself. 'A nightmare. Nothing but some stupid dream.'

"Mommy isn't breathing. Chesser, come make Mommy breath! Wake her up."

The voice cut through Chester's mental mantra. Light footsteps pattered down the hall. "No," Chester wheezed, suddenly unable to get enough oxygen into his lungs. "Stay still. Don't come in here."

His warning came too late. Emma and Brian had already arrived in the hall. Chester looked up at them, unable to move, unable to think. Emma solemnly gazed upon the scene. She appeared to Chester like a rosy angel, coming to bare away his parents' souls.

It was Brian, however, that forced the hall to jump back into focus. The boy let out a scream. It wasn't a whiney scream or a temper tantrum scream or a shrill play scream. The sound resonating from Brian's open lips belonged not in a middle-class neighborhood, but in a B-rated mad slasher movie--the kind of film Chester wasn't allowed to watch.

Brian's scream, though perfectly capable of undoing a packed audience at the seams, pulled Chester together. He grabbed Emma and Brian by the fronts of their shirts and literally yanked them into the kitchen, slamming the door shut behind them. The phone was clumsy in his grasp. Over Brian's continued lament, he barely heard the lack of dial tone.

Chester slammed the phone down several times, but to no avail. There was no phone service.

It was a clear Sunday evening. How could the phone lines possibly be down? 'Maybe someone crash into a telephone poll.' Chester's mind gladly focused on the relatively inconsequential issue. 'Maybe the lines were cut intentionally.' This thought opened a new floodgate of fears: Who would cut the phone lines? The same people who set off the stink bombs, most likely. What if the stink bombs weren't just a prank? Cut phone lines... ugly green smoke... silent neighborhood... What if the 'bombs' were actually poison gas?

Chester swiveled sharply and leapt over to the kitchen window, jamming it open with an excessively forceful slam of his fist. Without bothering to explain, he lifted Emma and Brian by their armpits and set them on the kitchen counter before the fresh breeze. His actions started Brian into silence.

Outside the window came their first break of the evening. A white beater pickup truck pulled into the driveway across the street and Mr. O'Neil dismounted. "Mr. O'Neil," Chester hollered at the top of his lungs. "Help! Help us, please, fast."

Mr. O'Neil looked around, confused. The moment he spotted Chester waving from the open Matthews window, however, he began hurrying to their aid.

He didn't make it far. Before Mr. O'Neil had crossed the street, dark figure appeared from around the corner, sprinting toward them.

The man was wearing a long thin trench coat with the hood pulled low. From his close vantage point, Chester noticed something about the probable bomb-setter that had eluded him at the park: This person's hands were pearly white, not mocha brown like the McNary brothers'. The man waved a wooden stick at Mr. O'Neil. There was a streak of green light, flashing like a brilliant bolt of electricity, and then Mr. O'Neil crumpled to the ground. His eyes stared blankly up at the sky.

Emma watched the scene play out calmly, as though today were nothing more than a live-action Looney Toons rerun. Brian, however, understood what he'd seen. He turned and threw up on the counter.

The hooded head on the street turned directly toward their house. Chester grabbed Emma and Brian off of the counter just as a green light flashed through the window, singeing the opposite wall.

Frantically, Chester fumbled with the overhead cabinet, grabbing the largest knife he could find from the rack hanging inside. A loud crack came from the front hall, as the front door was forced open despite Chester's mother blocking the way. Chester crammed himself into the small gap between the fridge and the door, shoving Emma and Brian behind him with a wide sweep of his arm.

Footsteps drew near. "St. Michael," Chester prayed earnestly for the first time in his life. "Protect us in battle."

The next moment flashed by so fast that every action seemed to happen at once. Latter, Chester himself could not testify as to the order in which things occurred. The door opened. There was a lot of purple light, breezing past Chester's cheek. Emma clung to Brian's legs and began to shriek as only a two-year-old can. Chester swung the butcher knife with all his might, holding nothing back. He felt a resistance, saw a wooden stick fall to the floor accompanied by the bloody stumps of fingers, kicked at the stick and at the fingers and at the man as though his feet had developed minds of their own.

The intruder reached into his trench coat. A thrill of fear ran down Chester's spine. Was there a second electric gun hidden beneath the clothing? Chester slammed himself bodily against the man, bashing the handle of the knife against the cloaked temple. The hood tore back, revealing a head of curly red hair. A dark corked bottle clattered to the floor.

Chester kicked the bottle away. Something rammed into his head and he fell, twisting sideways, blinking at the stars dancing before him. He opened eyes, unaware that he'd ever closed them, to see Brian grabbing for the bottle. Emma still clung to Brian's side.

Chester knew what the glass container held. There wasn't a trace of doubt in his mind. Poison gas. If Brian accidentally uncorked the top, they'd all be dead in a matter of minutes. Chester stretched for the bottle to knock it out of Brian's reach. Their hands clasped the smooth glass at precisely the same second.

There was a whirling sensation. The world blurred and Chester felt himself falling, even though he was already lying on the floor. 'I must've been hit again,' Chester observed detachedly. He couldn't work up the energy to be concerned.

The falling gave way to spinning. Chester imagined himself years younger, playing on a tire swing at the park. He swung in circles, around and around, until the game was no longer fun. He couldn't stop. He began to feel sick, but the spinning didn't end, would never end...

Chester loosened both hands and forced himself to let go of the tire swing's chains. This miraculously worked. The swing suddenly snapped to a halt and Chester found himself lying on a soft, damp bed. 'Thank God,' he thought. 'The nightmare is over.'