Evil Maybe

Chapter 1- Max

My bedroom was silent, save for the keys of my old laptop. The whole desk shook with my furious typing, fingers flying across the keyboard like a fast-paced dance. A grimace of determination was pinned to my face. Tapping on the old, sticky white keys was a familiar sound to me, but now it was an urgent matter, and I did not find my usual comfort in the clicking noises.

Until finally, I hit the key to end it all.

“Maximus!” my father bellowed from downstairs in a cold voice that I knew meant business, “If you’re playing that ridiculous game in there again, I’ll burn it to dust.” Sighing, I shut the game off.

“Just call me Max, already,” I muttered under my breath, wondering what could possibly be so hard for him to fathom about me wanting to be called by my nickname.

Irritated and tired, I slid onto my rickety bed and laid on my back. I inhaled the familiar scent of my oak headboard, suddenly nostalgic for god knows why. Exhaling caused the curtain of brown hair over my eyes to part and splay across my pillow. I stared up at the ceiling, watching the shadows of the fan blades flicker back and forth.

I turned my head, feeling a familiar lump in the pillow right next to my ear. I reached my fingers under the pillowcase carefully, feeling them land on waxy paper and smooth metal. My hand lingered on the old wrinkled photograph and the MP3.

Though they weren’t especially fragile, I delicately pulled them out and held them to my chest. The photograph smelled like my mom’s favorite perfume. There were still a few flecks of deep purple nail polish on the corner of the picture, my sister’s favorite. Squeezing my eyes shut, I inhaled once again and the bitterness of the nail polish combined with the sweetness of the perfume to make a concoction of familiarity that felt like old times.

My only memories of the women I loved in my life.

Naomi and Annika went on an information thievery mission two years ago. They never came back.

Naomi, my sister, was 16 at the time, my age now. I was 13. My mom, Annika, was 45. There was nobody like them. I loved them both to the ends of the earth and my whole family was devastated when the higher-ups broke the news to us. Not very gently, might I add. Such are the ways of the Council. Each of us mourned in our own way, but the house felt- feels- empty without them. It sent my brother and I into a shocked state for a while, but Norman took it particularly hard.

Even my father put on a facade of dejection. He doesn’t feel much of anything these days. Never has. Pretty impressive for villains, considering we are not just an evil family, we are the evil family. Or, we were.

Nostalgia pulls my eyes open to look at the picture. My family is arranged stoically in black clothes on a white background, the picture children of rigidity. My parents are at the back, my mom’s left hand on my left shoulder, and my dad’s right hand on Naomi’s right. My brother, Norman, is in the middle. No one is smiling except for my mother, but that’s enough. Her grin lights up the room, both in the photograph and outside of it.

Once again, memories get the better of me and I hastily untangle the earbuds and push them into my ears. I hesitate only for a second before pressing play.

I hear my mother’s and my sister’s laugh over the background noise and a wave of memories floods in quicker than I can prepare for.

My sister is laughing at who-knows-what. The recording does not reveal this, and I’ve forgotten the bits and pieces of the memory over time. What I do remember is that we’re outside, on a hill some place whose name time has taken from me. We’re sitting on a red blanket and eating something my mother made. My father and brother are not there. Once again, Naomi’s strange, hiccupy laugh sends my mother into hysterical fits of giggles as well.

I hear myself telling my mom I’m recording and her smiling voice echoes in my ears: “I love you Maxy!” Not long after, I hear my sister’s voice getting closer as, I recall, she rolls over towards us.

“Me too!” Her voice is more of a grunt, probably because she’s still rolling over on the blanket. I hear myself laugh. Then the recording abruptly stops because she’s reaching over to rumple my hair.

I let their voices echo in my head for a while. I knew that if I ever forgot their voices, or the way their faces looked, they would be lost to time forever. For my father, he lived as if they’d never existed. My brother shut everything out altogether. I couldn’t forget the way my mom’s whole body shook when she laughed, or the passionate look she got on her face when she became determined. I couldn’t lose the memories of the way my sister’s cheeks dimpled when she smiled, or how she tugged on her hair when she was frustrated. If I forgot, then I would lose them. And I wasn’t ready for that yet.

And so I whispered- maybe to no one, maybe to my mom and sister, maybe to myself for closure, I couldn’t tell you- “I haven’t forgotten you Mom. You either, Naomi. I love you.”

And then the trance was broken. My father’s hollering shook the very walls. “Maximus Elias Corriner! Stop hiding this instant and get your dinner if you want to eat at all. Don’t keep me waiting any longer if you know what’s good for you.”

I scoffed, wondering if by “dinner” my father meant a microwave meal he bought from the store so he could keep us alive. Running a hand hastily through my hair, I stuffed the memories back under my pillow and stood up. I trotted tiredly down the flight of creaky wooden stairs that emptied into my kitchen, which was shoved with no rhyme or reason through a tiny doorway into the living room.

My father stood leaned against the counter of the kitchen island, broad arms crossed in front of his chest. The stature alone sent adrenaline shocks through my body. I could only hope his voice wouldn’t be ice cold, or I knew there would be trouble.

Mercifully, my father didn’t seem in the mood for talking as he slid the black tin of food towards me across the counter. Norman’s eyes followed me until I slid silently into the seat next to him. He nudged me reassuringly with his elbow, and I shot a grateful smile at him. My father exited the room shortly after, no doubt on “business” he had to attend to. That was always his excuse, although we never knew exactly what it was. And yet, he still found time to be hard on us constantly.

I felt my body relax. I saw Norman slump over slightly as well. We didn’t feel the need to talk. Silence was comfortable between us. But he still smiled at me, and I smiled back, and we began to go through the motions once again.