The Man of Metal

The tall man came into the warm house, soaked by the cold rain outside. When he looked up we all froze. The first to talk was mom, she said “Hello, would you like to-” Bang. I didn’t realize that he had brought out a gun while mom was talking. He is standing up now, less hunched and more straight in his back. Mom is laying on the floor with a pool of blood that is pouring out of her shoulder. We all run, heading to the back door afraid and worried that if we gave him a chance, he would shoot us.

I start to run as fast as I can, I look back and see that the hood of his hoodie was down.

I stop. His metallic face looks as if he is scanning for us. His red eyes move to my brother, Harold, or Harry as we call him at home.

“Harry!” I yell across the room. But it’s too late when Harry turns his head the bullet smashes into the side of his jaw, making his head whip to face the other side. Sending blood splattering everywhere onto the floor. I turn my head, wiping tears from my eyes. And I turn back to look at him. But now he is looking at me.

I run into the wall trying to dodge the bullet he is about to fire at me, but it hits me in my right arm. The bullet sinks into my flesh and the edges of my vision go black so I can only see one thing. The Exit.

The house is in ruins when I get out. Smoke rising from the roof. I see bits of light peeking out of the holes that the bullets made.

I look at my arm and wince from the sight and pain in it. I rip off the sleeve of my shirt and wipe away the blood around my arm where I got shot. The blood is gushing out of my forearm. I take the sleeve off of my arm and look at the hole in my arm and see a hint of white and a bronze color. I start to get dizzy from the sight,  but I start to try to focus hear sirens getting louder and louder, as if they are coming towards me I look up and realize that I am sitting on the ground.

There are men coming towards me wearing white clothes.  Two of them pick me up. I wince when they grab me because they grab my arm. They lay me on my back in the ambulance and they seem to see the blood now dried on my arm. They pull down a red box with a white cross on it from a shelf above us. The woman with the box looks frantic. She takes out a long white bandage and starts steadily wrapping my arm in it.

“Hi, what’s your name?” she says with a smile on her face.

“Vincent Hicks” I say.

“I’m Sherry. Now you’re going to have to answer a few questions. Okay?” She says, now a bit more serious.

I nod shyly.

“Okay, so was that your house?”

I nod again.

“How did your house catch fire?”

I pause for a while, not sure how to put it. I finally say “There was a robot, I think, with a dark cloak, or hoodie, and he… he was shooting at us, and he killed my mom” I say.  The muscles in my face starting to get slack, causing my worried look to get tired. I look up at her. She looks at me pitifully, like I’m a little puppy who has a hurt paw. I don’t like it, but I decide to ignore her. She looks at me normally again and says “Do you have any family who wasn’t at this… um… event?”

“Yeah. My stepdad Charles. But we aren’t very close.” I say glumly.

“Do you know his phone number?”

“Yes. I think so. I’m pretty sure it’s 1(949)701-8093.”

Rapidly, she picks up a telephone on the wall, and in less than ten seconds, she is done dialing the numbers and puts the phone up to her ear. I hear the ringing noise coming out of the phone. I hear the voice of Charles. “Hello” he says with his strong Scottish accent. “Hello. This is Sherry from the San Juan County Hospital. We have your stepson with us. The house that your wife lives in was attacked by a…”  She takes the phone off of her ear and says “What did you say it was honey?”

“It looked like a metal man” I say.

“... It seems that it was some sort of robot,” She says. I hear Charles murmuring to himself for awhile, then suddenly says “I’ll be at the hospital in ten minutes.” he says, then before she can respond, I hear the click of the phone being set down. He hung up.

We arrive at the hospital, and Sherry has been staring at me for the past ten minutes until we arrived. I try to remember what happened in the past hour.

So I arrived home from school. I had a granola bar and went to our new computer to do my homework, which was on why World War IV happened. I had barely started when mom called us for dinner. I came to the dinner table and we were having pork chops. My four brothers and my seven sisters were at the table already. We said grace and started to eat. We finished and put the dishes into the sink. Right as I set mine on top of the other’s plates, the door flung open and the robot man had his hood down. He fired and we ran. I only know of Harold and mom getting shot. I look up at Sherry  and ask “Do you know if anyone else was picked up, I think some of my siblings?”

“There are some ambulances behind us, I can’t be sure how many, but I am guessing that some of your siblings are in it.” Sherry said. “How many siblings do you have?”

“I had eleven siblings, but I already know that one of my brothers is dead,” I say, fighting back tears.

We arrive at the hospital. Some of my brothers and sisters are there. I count and find out that there are only seven of them. I look to see if there are more ambulances coming, but there aren’t. I look around to see who is there. Out of my sisters, Megan, Maureen, Shawna, Leela, and Rachel. Out of my brothers Leon, Robin, and Ram.

I walk over towards them.

“Hey guys,” I say glumly. They all look up at me. The only one who is smiling is little Rachel. She is only 10 months old. But she is only laughing because one of the nurses are playing with her.

“Okay kids. Now let’s go inside to see if you are hurt,” one of the nurses say, trying to make us feel better.

We go into an elevator. The roof of the elevator is a mirror. The side’s are a gold color. When the elevator starts to move, we don’t jump up and down like we normally do. Instead we just stand in silence. Complete silence.

We all go to the third floor. I go into room number 308. There is a nurse there. She checks my pulse and blood pressure, then leaves the room. I am sitting there for ten minutes, I am guessing, when I suddenly hear a loud bang.

I hear loud screaming in the halls. I hop off of my bed and walk to the door. I open the door, only so I can see outside. I see fire on my left, where the elevator is. I look to the left, but it is a dead end. I can only get out through the window. So I open the window, stand on the ledge, and look down. It is less than 20 feet to the ground. I look more and see a large figure that is shining in the light. I know who it is. It is the man of metal. He points his gun at me. I start to think. If I jump, he may miss me. If I stay- BANG. It is too late. I feel the bullet hit me in the hip. I fall backwards. I hit the ground with a thump. My head is throbbing. The sides of my vision start to blur. I start to close my eyes. I start to drift away. I feel the last bit of breath come out of my lungs. The last thing I think of:

the Metal Man.