It was around 7pm and Freezy and I were returning home after a long day of walking around town, playing at the beach, and talking about life. She was skipping a few grades and as a treat I decided to take her for some ice cream. It was nice and all, but I was finally ready to have some alone time. However, I knew something was horribly wrong when I grabbed the door knob and realized it was unlocked.Freezy looked at me curiously, wondering what was the matter. I knew I locked the door after we left the house. Why was it unlocked? Did mom and dad go out?

  Ignoring the anxiety in my chest, I opened the door. The house was still illuminated like someone was home but it was too silent. There was no sound on the television and I didn’t hear my mother fumbling about in the kitchen. Freezy grabbed my arm and pointed to the inner middle of the front door. There was a long crack where the locking mechanism was.

  “Someone kicked in the door.” Freezy whispered, confirming my worst fear.

  My heart sunk upon hearing those words.

  “Stay here.” I told her.

  “No! I want to go with you.” She grabbed onto my sleeve.

  It might’ve been more dangerous to leave her outside alone, seeing as how we didn't know the extent of the situation. I told myself I needed to stop treating Freezy like she was a child. She was twelve. She gave me an encouraging smile and I took the first steps into what used to be our welcoming home.

  Just walking through the living room, I could tell that there was no ordinary break in. The coffee table was smashed right down the middle as if someone was thrown into it. Some items from the mantelpiece were scattered about the floor like confetti. Our house phone was on the floor with the screen shattered like it was stomped on during some kind of uncontrollable rage.

  When we entered the main hallway, Freezy grabbed my sleeve and pulled me to a stop.

  “They’re still here.” Freezy quivered, “I can hear footsteps upstairs.”

  I felt my heart skip a few beats. I listened and sure enough, I could hear someone moving about upstairs. I hoped the noises were from my mom or dad, but deep down inside I felt that this wasn’t the case.

  “I’m going up there.” I told her, “Stay behind me, but run away if you need to.”

  “Wait!”

  She did a quick jog to the fireplace and grabbed the fire iron. She passed it to me with her shaking hands. That was good thinking. With a weapon, I wasn’t as scared.

  I quietly ascended up the stairs, making sure not to make a single one of them creak underneath my weight. I kept telling myself that this was all just a bad dream and I was watching too many movies. Any minute now I would wake up and my mom would be standing over me like she always did, alerting me that I was late for school.

  But I didn’t wake up. Instead, I followed the noises to my parent’s bedroom. The door was closed but I could hear someone moving objects and chucking them around, like they were failing at juggling bowling balls. My sister nudged me, mostly out of impatience but also out of fear. My grip on the fire iron tightened as I reached for the door knob.

  I swung the door open and I couldn’t believe what I saw, even though I saw it with my own blue eyes. Standing there amongst the havoc and damage of my parent’s ransacked bedroom, was a burly 6 foot tall man wearing a full black spandex suit, and a semi-realistic gorilla mask.

  The guy took one look at me and then dropped the night stand he was carrying in surprise. It went straight down like an anvil and collapsed into nothing more than wooden scrap.

  And then-- With lack of a better term, he went ape shit!

  “Bach, look out!” Freezy screamed.

  The Gorilla Man was already just inches away from my face and he gave me one big push. I flew out of the room and onto my back. I nearly landed on top of Freezy but she moved out of the way before she could get hurt. I was so confused, I had forgotten about the fire iron I was still holding tightly in my hand. The Gorilla Man continued to approach me and that semi-realistic dead stare of the eyes made my body tremble something awful. But I picked myself up because I knew that if I were to die right there, I would never find out what happened to my mom and dad. I held the iron like a bat and swung it right into the side of the Gorilla Man’s stupid latex face. He stumbled a bit, off kilter from my impressive blow.

  “Where’s my mom and dad!?” I demanded.

  “Ya cheeky son of a gun!” Came the Gorilla’s rough voice, “Ya git a weapon on ya!”

  “Where are they?!” I repeated, hoping that the adrenaline made me seem more threatening than I really was.

  “I ought to punch ya right in the jaw for giving me a twatted fancy that one!”

  I couldn’t understand a word of the witchcraft that the oversized Gorilla was saying. I looked around, wondering if it was a mantra used for summoning demons. Freezy gave me a shrug.

  “Where are my parents!?” I asked once more, trying not to lose my resolve.

  I swatted at the Gorilla Man again, but he caught the rod in his big fist. He yanked it right out of my hands. He chucked it over his shoulder like it was a ball of tissue.

  “Run, Bach!” Freezy cried out.

  I didn’t want to, but I knew that I couldn’t beat him. I hated it. I took one last glance at this big imposing Gorilla, making sure to scar the seething hatred I had into him like a branding iron on a cow’s behind. I followed Freezy, running down the stairs and outside of my battered family home.

  We stopped at the end of the block, panting and out of breath. I punched a gate in anger, and even though my hand throbbed my taste for vengeance was a far greater feeling. I decided right then and there. I had to find out what happened to my parents. I needed to do that at any cost!

  After Freezy and I composed ourselves, we started to walk towards the park. Neither of us were in a talkative mood. My mind kept flashing back to that huge Gorilla in mom and dad’s ransacked bedroom, holding my parents possessions like they held no value. I was so angry about being powerless that I didn't notice I was grinding my teeth together. My sister's comforting sleeve tug made my thoughts come to a halt. She looked frightened and exhausted. Her little face was pale from worry. She needed to get some rest. I had to do something. That's when I realized that we had nowhere to sleep.

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  The cold night time breeze tingled against our faces and bought chills to our skin. The lit street lamps reminded us of the warm light of a home we had to abandon. But where could we go? All of my friends were from different schools. I wasn't close enough to them to know any of their phone numbers or even their last names. We would often meet up at the scrapyard and watch the machines crush and smash cars together. Then we’d wander aimlessly through town looking at girls. I wouldn't want Freezy to spend the night at any of their houses, anyway. Some of those boys were too perverted even for a teenager.

  When we arrived at the park, my sister went straight to the swing set. I sat down on the bench to think about what we could do. We had no other extended family that I know about. My parents were the kind of people who kept to themselves so it's not like we could go to the neighbor’s house. It looked like we would have to camp out on this very bench for tonight.

  “Freezy!” I called out to her, “Why don't you get some rest?”

  She jumped off the swing and approached me. Her blue eyes were watering like she was going to cry any minute. She sat down beside me on the bench and closed her eyes tight. My sister could be a real trooper when she needed to be. She was taking it much better than I would at her age.

  I was more exhausted than I thought. As soon as I closed my eyes I felt myself drifting off to a rather fitful sleep. I woke up hearing a masculine voice shouting. A man and a younger woman were yelling at each other in front of the swing set. The girl had a great body and she was wearing a tight black tube dress to show it all off. She was extremely top heavy and her long legs were pale and smooth. Her wild caramel coloured hair was big and wavy.

  “That man dragged her in the park by her wrist,” Freezy told me.

  She must have been awake for a while, “I think she's in trouble.”

  I didn't want to intervene because it was none of my business but suddenly the man twisted his arm back and slapped the woman across her pretty face. I jumped up at once and charged over there but I got the biggest shock when I saw the woman roundhouse kick the man right in the ribs. He went down to the ground like a limp noodle.

  “Nah, you ain’t shit!” She belted out with a voice that sounded like it belonged on a fifty year old smoker.

  The man slowly pulled himself onto all fours, cringing at the pain.

  “Yo get out of here,” She said, “before I shove my boot in yo ass!”

  He picked himself up and left as fast as he could, still limping too.

  “Are you alright?” I asked, still flabbergasted.

  “Huh?” She turned to me. She was scratching an itch on her inner thigh.

  “Sorry. You seemed like you needed help, but obviously you had the situation under control.”

  “Aww nah, I’m fine. He just being the third clown this week who be trying to deflower this poor seventeen year old girl, here. Without even taking me to see a movie!”

  She’s seventeen with a body like that? Wow! She looked and acted nothing like the other girls at my school. Something about this girl was different. Maybe it was the way she actively wiped the boob sweat off her tight cleavage in front of me which made me think this way.

  “Right. Well, good night.” I told her. I walked back to Freezy and sat beside her.

  My sister was staring wide eyed at that girl as if she was watching a circus show.

  “Who is she, Bach?”

  “What's with that look, Freeze? That woman is not a good role model for you!”

  “But she looks lonely like we do.”

  We both watched the girl take a seat on the swing. She was staring down at her lap as she raised higher and higher, like she was either deep in thought or very tired. I didn’t want to pry because our own problems were severe enough without worrying about the problems of a stranger. But Freezy was kind hearted and very naive. She walked over to the swing adjacent to the enticing lady and smiled at her.

  I didn’t want to linger too far away from my little sister at night so I reluctantly followed her.

  “What’s your name?” Freezy asked her.

  “Naw, I don’t wanna jive to some dumb ass kid.” The woman replied on the swing down.

  “You’re really beautiful.” Freezy said, “I hope I look like you when I grow up.”

  The girl came back down and forced the swing to come to a halt. By the look of her softened expression, she seemed to melt her icy and aggressive exterior into nothing but putty. I couldn’t help but smile. Freezy always knew the right things to say to another person, tonight was no exception.

  “Hey, What’s your name?” She asked my sister.

  “Everyone calls me Freezy. What’s yours?”

  “Carmella.”

  “I’m Bach.” I spoke up, “Freezy is my sister.”

  “You should be knowing better than to have your little sister out so late at night. Don’t you know there’s creep-os out there who wanna be getting with little girls?”

  “We don’t have much of a choice!” I argued, “We have nowhere else to go.”

  “Damn. Your parents throw you out?”

  “Something like that.” I mumbled.

  “Y’all could stay with me! I don’t live too far from here and I got plenty of space.”

  Freezy gasped, “Oh! Really?”

  “Yeah! Come on, I’ll take y’all to my apartment!”

  “Now hold on!” I said, “We don’t even know you.”

  “But we don’t have anywhere else to go.” Freezy countered, “We might as well. We have nothing else to lose. As long as we stay together I don’t see how anything bad can come out of this.”

  I trusted Freezy’s judgement more than anyone else’s. She was the only family I had left. I took her hand and followed Carmella out of the park and down a few sketchy alleys. Her apartment was on a particularly shady side of town. I was on edge the entire time for Freezy’s sake. But my sister was looking at everything in bewilderment. I have to say, I was shocked at how pink the inside of Carmella’s apartment was. Everything was pastel pink. There were fluffy stuffed animals on nearly every surface, no kidding. Freezy grabbed a little white kitty cat and squeezed it, unable to contain her giggles. It was the first time she laughed since the home invasion.

  “Make yourself at home,” Carmella said with a shrug, “My sugar daddy be paying this crib so whatever you take he can just replenish later.”

  “Sugar daddy?” Freezy wondered.

  I covered my sisters ears, “She’s twelve years old! What the he are you trying to teach her?”

  “Pfft, every girl be knowing about them sugar daddies. As soon as she turns thirteen and gets the goods she obligated for that dough.”

  “Aw man, stop! I don’t want to think about my sister having ‘goods’. That’s not an image I want to have in my mind!”

  “But she gonna get the goods, and when she do, she needs to know how to use em. They’re not gonna stay young like that forever.”

  Freezy squirmed out of my hands and curled up on the pink sofa. She looked so exhausted.

  “Go to sleep, Freeze.” I urged, “It might be safe enough to go back home tomorrow. We can try to work something out then.”

  “Okay. Goodnight, Bach.”

  I gave Freezy a little smile and then turned to Carmella to ask about where I was going to sleep.

  “In my bedroom?” Carmella replied, digging out a wedgie right in front of me.

  “What? I don’t even know you! Don’t you have a spare bed or something for me to sleep on?”

  “Well fine, if y’all wanna be like that you can sleep on the airbed.”

  I felt conflicted. Carmella was very hot, but she was also just as repulsive as she was busty. One part of me thought the airbed was the safe choice as it was the polite thing to do, but on the other hand she had really big boobies. What was I supposed to do?

  I spent that night with my face buried in her caramel hair. It should have been one of the greatest nights of my life. I mean, it certainly was top bragging material. But I had anxious thoughts about my missing parents which continued into my dreams as terrifying nightmares. I guess I can say that it was a rather bittersweet experience.