the dread of red
by Sullivan Rex
The bright, white flash blinds me.
“Are you okay there, son?” a stern, deep voice asks.
“Y-yes,” I answer, “I’m fine.” Who is that? I rub my eyes until I can finally see again. I find myself in a dining room area, situated near a kitchen and a living room. The same yellow pastel wallpaper covers every wall, and there are no windows in sight, only a bunch of mirrors and a single door. I can’t remember anything before the flash of light a few moments ago, not even my own name. What happened to me?
Sitting at the dining room table in front of me is an older man wearing a dress shirt and suspenders, holding a newspaper up to his face. An older woman in a pristine, polka dot dress and white gloves is placing a meatloaf dish and a bland, grey casserole in the center of the table. She notices me watching and smiles from ear to ear. Also sitting at the table is a girl who appears to be a high-schooler like me, wearing a pink dress. The girl’s lips are quivering, and her eyes are bugging out. She looks terrified.
“Hello, sweetie,” the older woman says. “You must be tired after playing around all day with your friends. Why don’t you take a seat and get ready for dinner?”
“Th-thanks,” I say.
The older man puts the newspaper down and smiles widely in my direction. “Now, listen here, son,” the man says through his perfect, porcelain teeth. “What have I always told you? You’re supposed to say, ‘Thank you, mother,’ Thomas.” Both the man and the woman stare at me, their soulless eyes piercing through me as if they’re looking at the bland wallpaper behind me.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “Thank you, mother.”
The two of them stop staring at me and go about their business again. Why does my name seem so foreign? And are these two my parents? What is wrong with me? I look over at the girl, meeting her gaze. She twitches upon making eye contact with me and quickly darts her eyes down at the table.
“Are you okay?” I ask her.
“Your sister’s fine, son,” the man replies for her. “Mary’s not feeling well today. Right, Mary?”
Mary quickly nods, her body shivering.
Something’s not right here. My eyes scan the room, and I notice a few security cameras around, right out in plain sight. What the hell is this? Everything besides the cameras and lack of windows, from the record player to the lit fireplace, seems ordinary. There’s also an antenna television set that’s on, with a news reporter talking about the nation’s new domestic policies. Why do I feel like the reporter is making direct eye contact with me? I move my foot slightly and step into some kind of puddle. I go to lean back, but the older man suddenly grabs my hand.
“It’s time to say grace,” the man says.
I keep my foot in the puddle and wait for everyone to close their eyes. As the man thanks the Lord for our food, I pull my foot back and take a look at my shoe. It’s covered in blood. My limbs grow stiff, and I feel myself trembling.
“Amen,” the man and woman say in unison.
I quickly put my foot back under the table while the man and woman begin eating. I take a few deep breaths to try to calm down.
“So, kids,” the woman says, “Mr. Peterson from down the street said the craziest thing to me the other day. He said the government should confiscate properties from their owners and then give them out to everyone equally, even the people who don’t work. How do you two feel about that?”
“Uh,” I say. “I, um…“
“That’s bad,” Mary interjects. “Property belongs to the owner, not the government. Mr. Peterson is wrong.” Mary looks at me and nods her head at me, seemingly pleading for something.
The man and woman fix their eyes on me again.
“Y-yes,” I say, looking back at Mary. “Mr. Peterson is wrong?”
The man and woman stop staring at me and go back to eating their food.
Mary keeps eye contact with me and continuously nods, taking small bites of the food. I follow suit and begin eating.
“You kids know Shirley, the Darcy’s girl, right?” the man asks. “She said that the entire labor force should be put under government control and that income should be distributed equally for everyone. How do you two feel about that?”
I hesitate and wait for Mary to respond.
“That’s bad,” Mary says. “The government shouldn’t control labor. Shirley is wrong and bad for thinking that.”
“I agree,” I say. “Shirley is wrong and bad for thinking that, right?”
“That’s right,” the man says.
I grab the fork on the table and slide it off the table really slowly until it hits the ground. “Oops,” I say. I duck down to the floor and lift the tablecloth to see a huge pool of blood surrounding a severed arm. What the fuck is this?! I grab the fork and sit up straight.
“Everything okay, honey?” the woman asks. “Do you want some more casserole?”
“No!” I yell out. “Why the fuck is there an arm under the table?! Why don’t I recognize any of you?!”
The man and woman twitch uncontrollably. Their eyes turn a bright red, and they start emitting a loud, droning sound out of their mouths. The man grabs the butcher knife on the table and stands up. Mary becomes hysterical, and tears flow out from her eyes.
“Wait!” I yell. “I mean… I meant to say yes, I would love some casserole. That’d be great.”
Their eyes turn back to normal, and the eerie buzzing quiets down. The woman smiles and puts a large slice of casserole on my plate. She then puts a tiny slice onto Mary’s plate. “So, Thomas,” the woman says, “do you have any problems with me putting unequal amounts of casserole on your plates?”
I can feel beads of sweat roll down my forehead, and I shake my head.
The woman smiles widely as she and the man finish eating; Mary and I are visibly shaking.
A few minutes passed by. The man and woman get up and grab the dishes off the table. They take them into the kitchen and start cleaning them.
“Hey, over here,” I whisper to Mary.
Mary looks over to me with tears still dripping off her face.
“What’s going on here?” I whisper.
“This is some sort of test,” Mary answers. “They’re watching us through the cameras. Please, don’t get any answers wrong.”
“A test?” I ask. “What are they testing for?”
Mary stays silent.
“Mary, we may not know each other, but everything here is wrong,” I say. “The only exit I see is that front door. We need to leave. Now.”
“We can’t,” Mary says while sobbing. “They’ll kill us if we try to leave, just like Doug.”
“Doug?” I ask. “Is that Doug’s arm underneath the table?”
“I don’t know, he was just one of many,” Mary says. “They keep bringing in more and more teenagers every time someone fails the test.”
“Do they kill the ones who fail?” I ask.
Mary nods as she tries to calm herself. “They clean up the blood after each round of testing. I guess they missed the arm under there. They brought me in here a few hours ago and have been running this same dinner program with every new person they bring in. They keep flashing their minds with some device so that they forget who they are, just as they did to me. I’m not even sure if my name’s Mary.”
“Who’s they?” I ask.
“I really don’t know, they’re some kind of government types. They keep using military code and stuff. I just want to go home. I’m really scared.”
“I’m scared too, Mary,” I say. “But we need to leave. I don’t want to die.”
Mary hesitates, but then she nods her head.
We both creep up from our seats and try to tiptoe towards the door. As we get about halfway there, the loud droning noises echo from behind. I turn around to see both the man and woman twitching violently while rushing at us. I tackle the man to the ground and punch him a few times in the face, bloodying my hand. The woman grabs me and picks me off the ground, but I’m able to kick her away and into the fireplace. The fire engulfs her as the man grabs my leg and pulls me to the floor. As the man stands up, Mary grabs the fireplace skewer and whacks it across the man’s face, knocking him back through the television set. The man’s red eyes go dark, and he becomes silent. The woman crawls back out of the fireplace and stares at us. Her melted face falls to the ground, revealing wires and metal where her skull should be. She reaches out for Mary, who screams in terror and hands me the skewer. I jab it into the woman’s robotic head as sparks fly out. The woman falls to the ground as Mary and I run for the front door.
Bursting out through the door, I realize we’re in a cul-de-sac. There are several other houses in the neighborhood, but each house is identical to the others. Every house is painted beige, single-floored, and has the same tiny tree in the front yard. Hell, there’s even an identical red 1954 Buick Skylark in each driveway. The cul-de-sac is in the middle of some desert with a giant chain-link fence enclosing the entire area. I take a couple of steps out and stand on the front lawn. I look around and see windows on every house, including the one I just left. The mirrors, they’re all one-way. Each house has teenagers like us inside, all talking to identical copies of the same man and woman we just killed. I notice Mary isn’t out on the lawn with me, and I turn towards her, standing in the doorway, crying.
“Come on, Mary!” I yell. “I don’t know where we are, but now’s our chance!”
She shakes her head and slowly raises her finger, pointing behind me.
I shift my body, but I feel a sharp, bursting pain go through my stomach. I fall to the ground as blood drains out of me in every direction.
Two guards holding shotguns approach me, one aiming their gun at me and the other aiming at Mary. The guard with the gun pointed at me grabs his walkie-talkie. “Command, do you copy?” the guard asks.
“Go ahead, soldier,” the walkie-talkie answers.
“Camp Twenty-Two, Building Eight is compromised,” the guard says. “Two Reds in custody, over.”
“Copy that, soldier,” the walkie-talkie answers. “Move to exterminate potential Communists in Building Eight and scrub the house. Send in new MOM and DAD units and reset the program, over.”
“Copy that, Command,” the guard says. The guard pumps his shotgun and inches it closer to my face. “You damn Commies will never take away our freedom.”
Photo of Sullivan Rex
BIO: Sullivan Rex is a fiction writer based in northern New Jersey, specializing in short stories and screenwriting. A graduate of Stockton University, Sully has contributed several short stories to the horror website Haunted MTL and has been published in the anthology novels Fantasy Before It Was Cool and 101 Proof Horror. Sully also co-wrote and produced the short film “Viral” and helped produce the award-winning short film “Split Ends: The Final Cut.” When not writing, Sully passes the time visiting loved ones, watching and critiquing acclaimed films, and being anxious about not writing (it’s a vicious cycle).