Horror - Short

This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious and any similarities to actual persons, locations, or events is coincidental. This work cannot be used to train artificial intelligence programs.  No AI tools were used in the writing of this story.

All rights reserved. Clack Clack Clack Copyright © Eddie Generous 2026

 

CLACK CLACK CLACK

The house leaned, slightly sunken to the southeast corner of the vibrant green lawn, its upper windows like lidded eyes that kept a suspicious watch over the neighbourhood. Two stories of dull yellow wood, sheet metal boot room on the first like a brilliant white tooth snaggling outward from its row. The roof was as much moss as asphalt. The driveway was washed out grey with softball-sized potholes and basketball-sized potholes and beach ball-sized potholes dotting its surface. On the sidewalk someone had spray-painted in navy blue, capitalism is our extinction event.

Lui Zhan, or Jan Lee-ewe as he’d been called the entire year he’d been in small-town Canada, and all day everyday since starting school three days ago. He looked up to the home from the odd graffiti. They’d only just been approved to move into the house—something at the bank that was beyond his maturity; he knew money was serious here; he’d seen the people huddled up on the street trying to fend off the British Columbian Autumn. Having no money was a very scary thought.

He shivered as he walked from the bus, which had stopped directly in front of his driveway to let him out. Absently, he turtled his head while lifting his shoulders to block the wind.

There’d been rain every day for two weeks now. But he wasn’t thinking about the weather, even as a cool drizzle darkened his clothing and dotted his eyeglasses, nor was he thinking of the spying eyes of the massive, old-timey house they’d moved into. His gaze darted left to the lot next-door that stretched to the end of the cul-de-sac. The tombstones looked like fingers reaching from the soil as he blinked away raindrops and charged up the driveway.

“Pìhuà,” he said—bullshit—unable to stop thinking about what the kid on the school bus had told him: ‘That part of the boneyard next to your house is full of zombies. At night they clack their teeth; that’s how you know they’re coming for your brains.’ A wide-eyed Zhan tried to turn away; he didn’t really believe in that stuff, but then the kid said, ‘My cousin Brian used to live there. I slept over once, and I heard them.’ The kid then clacked his teeth in three loud chomps. ‘We slept in that little room next to the upstairs bathroom, the one with the slanting roof.’ Zhang had to glance his way then; he slept in a little room with a slanted ceiling, next to the washroom.

Inside, his mother was at the kitchen table that belonged with the house. She had her laptop open and was on a call with her sister. They always had to watch what they said, even in Canada, because Xi was always listening, and his reach stretched as far as the globe allowed.

The house was massive when compared to the apartment in Ningbo. In China, his mother had been a schoolteacher and writer, and his father had been a nurse and painter, but in Canada, his parents both worked part-time at Tim Hortons. They had less money than they would if they’d stayed, but here, maybe, they could express themselves closer to freely. Which was very important to them, though Zhan thought the nice apartment with all the nice restaurants around was pretty important, too.

His mother said goodbye to his aunt in Traditional Chinese and turned halfway round on a dark wooden chair that didn’t match the dining table it was sat beneath. “How was school?” she said, speaking in English. They’d agreed to practice at home, to acclimate more quickly.

Zhan’s English was better than his parents’ English, though they both spoke well enough to handle themselves in public.

“Easy,” he said, and meant maths and science, leaving out that English, gym, and music class were not quite what he was used to. In Rush, BC, he looked more like an eight-year-old than an eleven-year-old. He was slimmer, shorter, and slower than average.

“Home studies?” she asked, meaning Do you have homework?

He did and nodded.

Upstairs, his father was in the washroom, painting over hideous brown and yellow tiles on the shower/tub walls. He’d started white, but he’d cut stamps from rubber pencil erasers and pressed blue and green flowers intermittently throughout in a steady pattern. In the middle of it all was one golden tile with 福 written upside down in red, for luck.

“Need toilet?” he said.

“No,” Zhan said, slowing only momentarily through the hideously wallpapered hallway, into his spacious bedroom that felt nothing like home.

—

He awoke in the night. The corners were all wrong. The shadows longer than they should be. There was a tall man in a hood. Zhan gasped a to-be-screamed breath, then swallowed, recognizing his bedroom. He exhaled and deflated balloonishly into the rough, second-hand bedding.

There was a light on somewhere beyond his mostly closed door. With the light came a clacking, that seemed to draw closer with each heartbeat. Immediately, Zhan thought of the kid from the bus…and zombies.

He sat up. “Dad?” he said, voice hardly above a whisper.

The clacking sound stopped, and Zhan’s father scolded himself under his breath. “Sorry. Go sleep.”

“Go to sleep,” Zhan said, falling back, snuggling into the comforter.

His father leaned into the room, pushing the door wide. In his left hand was an antique toy made of felt and tin. A moose with symbols for antlers.

“Goodnight. Sleep good.” He pulled the door closed behind him.

Zhan shut his eyes, a smile curling the corners of his mouth.

Zombies? Pfft.

Zhan began to drift, his body becoming weightless, his mind spiralling through a memory as it slipped deeper and deeper into his subconscious and closer and closer to sleep. He took a breath. Exhaled. A blackness settled over him and—

Clack!

The noise came from inside his room. In fact, it sounded as if it had come from right under his bed. Zhan didn’t dare move. Didn’t breathe. He waited, mummy-stiff. And waited. Calling out was not an option now. Something was in the room, he could feel it, and that something was looking at him.

He remained still.

Waiting.

Waiting.

Waiting.

Nothing.

He exhaled.

“Nǐ zài zuòmèng,” he whispered—you’re dreaming. He then thought of the jackknife in his drawer and decided it might be better suited to sit beneath his pillow, starting tomorrow.

—

The sky was steel, the thin, low-hanging clouds like spots of oxidation. Zhan’s mother was at work, but his father had the day off.

“Come on. You not sit around all day and do Minecraft.”

Zhan’s shoulders softened and his bottom lip pouted forward about a centimetre. That wasn’t the title, but he had indeed planned on spending at least a chunk of the day playing games online. Often, he’d find himself in a lobby with at least one first-generation Chinese Canadian; most seemed to live in Vancouver or Calgary. He’d asked his parents why they didn’t live in a city, and with a shrug, his mother suggested they’d go where the government wanted them to go.

“Old train track and walk path, maybe find mine. Not far.” He had a sketchbook and pencil case in his right hand.

Zhan dressed for the chill, then followed his father outside. They walked from under the carport out to the street, and to Zhan’s dismay, started toward the cemetery. There was a two-metre wrought iron fence surrounding the property, with big ornate gates opening onto the main section.

Instead of heading there, they stepped through a walking gate and started along a slim gravel path. This was clearly the original cemetery site. The tombstones were old limestone, gone soft and illegible with time. All were the same skinny, about a foot across, and two feet high with an ovular top. Many were broken, though the pieces remained within reach, as if the markers my come to life and puzzle themselves back together.

They moved quietly, their steps crunching leaves and pinecones, their matching Walmart slacks swishing plastically between their thighs. At the far end of the path was another fence, as well as a small monument. Moss had crowded the edges, and weather had dulled the granite finish, but the words written on the front were clear:

Original MacDonaldville Cemetery site

1886-1891

Zhan read the browned plaque, then looked back to the rows of leaning, broken, ignored tombstones and wondered if they could really be so old. He wondered if the kids at school made up zombie stories in those days. Probably not.

When the reverie faded, he took a step toward his father. The man was clearing away moss from one corner of the monument—carefully, obviously not wanting to damage the natural border framing the stone.

“Canadian Pacific Railroad,” he said, then looked at his son. “Zhōngguó rén.” Chinese people. He then pointed vaguely to the ancient stones.

“All of them?” Zhan said, eyebrows high as they could go.

His father shrugged, then rose, brushing his hands together. His sketchpad and pencils had found their way into a back pocket of his stretchy slacks.

They exited the cemetery through another gate, this one creaky and rusty. Beyond was about three yards of tamped footpath, then the raised earth of a former train track bed.

“Pick some for mother.”

Zhan followed his father’s pointing finger to the sporadic offering of wildflowers. For but a heartbeat, he pictured his mother’s expression when she saw the flowers after a hard day and forgot all about the cemetery.

—

“You be careful on Saddonda.”

Zhan turned to look over his shoulder. There was a large-faced Indigenous woman with wild grey hair that was nearly impervious to gravity. She was in a lime green Chevy Spark.

“Always watch where you’re going on Saddonda Street.” She crinkled her dark eyes. “Better also watch your butt.”

Zhan didn’t know how to respond, so he simply nodded, which turned out to be the correct answer as the woman drove off without another word. He hadn’t been able to take the bus on account of having After School Club and had walked home three Wednesdays in a row now. His parents both worked Wednesdays, but his mother was home by 4:35. This was the first time anyone had spoken to him outside school or on the bus.

He carried on toward home, only now noticing the MISSING sign that showed all the telltales of hanging there for months: faded ink beneath the packing tape, staples rusty, paper itself going yellow from the elements. A boy named George Sims had disappeared back in February, last seen in a hooded Canucks jacket, blue pants, and black boots. A little ways closer to home, on the opposite side of the street, Zhan spotted a lifeless house with a for sale sign driven into the patchy front yard. He wondered if George Sims had lived there.

It was possible.

It was also possible George Sims was from some other street, in some other town.

He hadn’t taken two steps up the driveway to the old house when he saw his mother hip open the carport door. She grabbed a rake that had leaned against a wall, and Zhan sighed.

“How much homework you have?” his mother said. She had her hands in her pockets; the rake leaned against her shoulder. She wasn’t dressed for the chill.

Zhan put his head down and hurried across the lawn. “Uh, twenty minutes,” he said.

“More like five.” She unfolded her arms and held out the rake. “You want gloves?”

He traded her the rake for his backpack. “No,” Zhan said. His hands were hot from his coat sleeves. It was a parka, a half-size too big, overkill for a West Coast November.

“Put leaves in bucket.”

She meant the large black compost bin that sat at the back of the property. It was all but empty, so they’d decided to give it a try. Quickly, taking food waste became one of Zhan’s many duties.

The front yard took four swipes with the big plastic rake to complete. The nearest leaf-shedding tree was two doors down. He set the comb flat and piled the leaves.

The backyard was going to take a lot more than four swipes to gather. There was a maple tree next-door. It had lost most of its coat, which then managed to relocate itself onto their lawn.

He wasn’t long at the job when the backdoor opened, and his mother set the radio outside on a cinderblock by her foot. The audio was scratchy, coming all the way from Vancouver, FM1390 KOOL was the only Chinese station they could get. At least on the old Sanyo they’d found in the woodpile leaning against the carport wall. Pop music, same as they’d had on the radio stations back in Ningbo.

He thought about his old home. They’d been like anybody else, at least until his parents got into trouble over a painting, which included a poem written in slashing red strokes in the bottom left corner. Things happened quickly after that. They’d trended. They’d been flown on a private jet. They’d arrived in Canada and visited beige rooms, under the supervision of men in navy blue costumes—though the final one, oddly, had let him pick out a pocketknife from a bin of confiscated knives; ‘Just don’t tell your parents.’ They were strangers in a strange land because the internet chose his family and his parents’ art. He didn’t know what would’ve happened if they’d stayed; he’d still never seen the art that changed the familial trajectory.

That hardly mattered now as he raked the crinkling leaves into small piles to take to the compost. His hands were growing cold and pale, his nose dripped a steady, annoying trickle. As he worked toward the gate to the path, he began uncovering large, dragging footprints in the mud. The dimmed light created expressive shadows that cradled those prints like an aura.

He sped up.

In time with the swipes of the rake’s big green head, he could hear a vague clack. He stopped, waiting.

Nothing.

He shook his head and swiped the final scattering of leaves into a pile. He heard another sound but not a clack…and maybe not even from the right direction; possibly it had even been the radio. He shook his head; he was freaking himself ou—

Clack!

Zhan jumped. Likely it had been nothing more nefarious than a distant neighbour, maybe working on a lawnmower, and only echoed, somehow, from the open end of the yard, where there weren’t any neighbours. He picked up the pile and hurried over to the unlidded compost bin.

Four swipes, five, six, the sound didn’t return; the chill was now solely a physical one. He dragged the final collection of leaves toward the pile—

Clack!

It was much closer now, louder, fuller.

Clack!

It was almost loud enough to make him blink.

Clack!

That one, a smidge louder yet, enough to rattle Zhan from terrified revery. A Sa Dingding operatic pop song soundtracked him as he raced to get the final leaves into the bin, almost amplifying the—

Clack!

He ran two steps, then stopped and spun on his heels to put the bin lid in place.

Clack!

That sound was a starter’s pistol and he was Usain Bolting, the rake bouncing behind him like a sodden peacock’s tail.

Clack!

He reached the backdoor and turned. That close to the radio, he couldn’t hear anything. He lowered the volume and listened to the silence cut by the gentle rumble of a private jet. Zhan looked up. Kids at school had talked about seeing their exhaust trails in the sky, a few swore they saw jets, too. They came at dusk, they said, if someone wanted to see one.

He hadn’t meant to, but now that he had, he forgot all about the clacking and watched the jet begin its descent toward Rush’s small airport. The rake returned to the wall beneath the carport where it lived. The radio in hand, he wondered if they really were going to build a hydro dam here; ‘that’s why all the private jets,’ his dad had said.

His dad had also said those jobs paid very well, meaning it was unlikely he would ever land one.

—

Zhan went with his mother to the farmer’s market they held in the park by the algae-infested pond. The sun was up. It was warm. The atmosphere was lively, people in animated packs, people buzzing from stall to stall. The brunt were groups of women, a couple in each featuring moms with children clinging to their thighs. The men were mostly business, it seemed, though some lingered like moons to their wives’ gravities, babies papoosed to their chests. The way their knees bent and straightened, bent and straightened made him think of trampolines…and birthday parties he wasn’t invited to.

Everybody else—everybody but for the social misfits, and him—was at Aaron Hopkins’ eleventh birthday party. Aaron’s parents had won the lottery at some point, so they had an indoor pool and a games’ room, were ordering Panago Pizza for supper.

As always, his mother pulled him along through the market. At the far end, her friend Rebecca Smyth-Musa had a stall where she painted a new watercolour every weekend, selling it to the highest bidder. In the summer months, when tourists on their way elsewhere took a whizz break in Rush, and happened upon the market, she could sometimes earn a few thousand. The rest of the year—about eighteen markets—locals could score a deal on some interesting, original art, inspired by the market they visited for about eighty bucks. Her main works were precise, capturing realism with surreal subjects and scenes, so the slapdash watercolours didn’t oversaturate or drive down interest in what kept her afloat.

“I will be fifteen minutes. Go see.” His mother waved, speaking from the side of her mouth to Zhan.

He nodded once before turning away. He pulled the crappy old phone from his pocket. Soon, his father had said, he’d have a proper phone again: ‘things not same here.’

Whatever. The clock said it 10:02 AM. His mother had said fifteen minutes, which meant at least twenty. Though he sometimes grew selfish and impatient with waiting, he didn’t really begrudge her taking a long time with her friend.

In China, she’d had many friends.

He’d head back here at 20-after. He meandered by the stalls of preserves, pies, Christmas ornaments, leather goods, and so on. Nothing much interesting about any of it, until he came upon a man selling handmade knives. Most were kitchen knives, but a few were fit for jungle excursions, maybe for gutting polar bears to climb inside like Han Solo did with Luke Skywalker in that Tauntaun. Survival knives.

Ones that kicked his knife’s ass.

Zhan stepped closer. The knives where on a table behind a bulky man in a brown leather vest and pale blue jeans. A bandana held back a very thin white ponytail. The man eyed Zhan, but Zhan pretended not to notice.

Behind the man, the window of a rusty, old VW van was open. The radio was on talk: “…under attack. Christianity is the single most persecuted religion, and it’s not even close. Which makes the Conservative Party of Canada the single most persecuted party that has ever…”

“Where you from, kid?”

The deep gravel of the knife salesman’s voice rattled Zhan from the shining blades.

Zhan had discovered an easy out that typically worked about half the time; he bowed as he shuffled backward, his hands teepeed beneath his chin. He hurried toward a fudge stall, then detoured. One glance over his shoulder was enough for Zhan to know the man wasn’t watching him. Sometimes, they did. Men.

Across from the fudge was a single white man in light blue overalls. He sat behind a white folding table, his big knees poking out like tree branches. On the table were more than a dozen railroad spikes, as well as two chunks of tie and about a foot of shiny black rail.

“Hi.”

Zhan offered a cautious mini-nod.

“Do you want to know about trains? I always ask before I start off or I’ll talk forever,” the man said, his smile a poor facsimile.

He knew about trains, knew enough. Those old trains were boring anyway. Zhan shook his head.

The man’s shoulders fell as he let out a long sigh.

Zhan started away, thinking maybe his mother wasn’t going to be long after all and—

“Is it because you’re Chinese?”

Zhan turned to look at the train man.

“Because, I mean, basically sacrificing people because they wanted to live here but were too strange; that’s how the railway system was built. Human sacrifices. Much of it. Chinese labour and death sentences. Wait, are you Chinese? I have to be very sure before I say things like I just did, and I wasn’t. I mean no offense.”

Zhan thought about it. “I’m Chinese. My mom…” He pointed vaguely to the far end of the market.

The train man let out another sigh, this one decidedly relieved.

Zhan resumed his trek, hardly registering the plethora of stuff on sale, nor the shoppers and their offspring. His brain was stuck; he knew the important bits about trains, okay, but he didn’t know anything about human sacrifices.

He stopped dead. “Mùdì,” he whispered, cemetery.

—

Hushed tones played through the class: “Skyla Williams was kidnapped,” “I heard it was her dad,” “I heard she had a twenty-year-old boyfriend.”

“Who’s Skyla Williams?”

Three whispering boys looked at Zhan. He’d begun to acclimate; enough so to ask what, apparently, should’ve been obvious to him.

“She’s a year ahead. Black hair down to her butt.”

“Indigenous.”

“I saw her smoking a cigarette between classes once.”

Zhan knew immediately upon hearing the first descriptor; the rest was excess.

The teacher re-entered the room and the chatter faded into oblivion even as chair legs continued to squeak and canvas bags continued to rustle.

—

“It is happen all over this country.”

Zhan had just told his mother about Skyla Williams. They were peeling potatoes in the kitchen. Outside was total dark. The world ceased to exist beyond the windows, squeezing the walls in on them. On the stove, two saucepans had just begun heating water. In the oven were three chicken breasts, freckled in spice.

Acclimating.

“There’s an old poster on a pole down the street for another kid,” Zhan said.

His mother had begun cutting the potatoes. She didn’t lift her face.

After a moment, Zhan said, “Gěi wǒ kàn kàn nǐ de huà?” Can I see the painting?

His mother dumped the cut potatoes into the larger of the two pots. “Not now. Future. It make sense when you older.”

Zhan huffed through his nose, but did not argue, his hands busy gathering peelings into a margarine pail.

—

A dark blue swathe of light played in through Zhan’s window. All that was not within those few feet of light at the bottom of his bed was in thick shadows.

Clack!

Zhan covered his ears with his pillow.

Clack!

He bit down on his tongue—but not too hard—trying to wake himself up.

“No!”

Zhan sat up straight. That had been his mother shouting. Footfalls slammed through the house. There were men. Zhan’s door burst inward. He reached beneath a warm pillow for his pocketknife. Two men holding a white sack came at him. They said nothing until they needed Zhan to hug his arms to his body. He’d gone limp. He did what they asked.

He floated then, rocking gently in the firm grips at either end. It would’ve been all right if not for the obvious terror and that his chin was pressed to his chest. In seconds, he heard the outdoors. The sack was thick enough that he didn’t feel the chill. The men walked in a silence that Zhan dare not break. He felt rises and dips; they were walking along the path to the old railroad line. Had to be.

He held the knife before him, the biggest blade open. Five centimetres of steel. The urge to slip the blade through the canvas, confirm his certainty, was strong. He fought it, his fear stronger than his curiosity.

Suddenly, the footfalls of the men were audible again—Zhan hadn’t noticed when they’d gone quiet. Gravel. An echo. They were in one of the old mines. The forward motion ceased; he began to sway. Nearby a motor growled. An elevator. Going down. Down. Down. Zhan put the tip of the blade against the stiff canvas at his side. He pressed, and pressed, and pressed—they rocked to a stop, and the blade sliced the material, creating a birth canal for his hand. He yanked his arm back into the sack, scarcely clenching down a yelp.

He dare not breathe.

The men said nothing about the flash of his hand to his wrist. Nor did they slow, moving in a similar motion to before. Now he experienced the great CLACK! live and in-person. His teeth slammed upon hearing each strike; his eyes snapped closed. Heat played in through the hole in the sack.

CLACK!

“There!” said a new voice, shouting over the general hum.

Zhan rocked, then thumped onto something moderately soft, which initiated a handful of groans.

CLACK!

There was no more movement. Zhan shifted to look through the hole: black stone walls and floor, glistening at the damp heat, piles of strange whitish bags, almost cigar shaped.

CLACK!

“Can anyone hear me?” The voice was young, younger than Zhan.

Zhan attempted to look down.

CLACK!

He put the knife blade to the edge of the hole; his left hand pressed the canvas taught.

CLACK!

Zzzup.

The blade was too effective and Zhan spilled from the hole like dough from a tube. He looked to the pile. The sacks were translucent when stretched. There were others beneath where he’d been piled. Aged about ten to sixteen, boys and girls. There were six piles in the great room…six he could see.

CLACK!

He spun at the sound. In the middle of the room was a huge, horrible face. It had milky eyes in crusty white, white sockets. Several eyes, they continued all the way around, spaced a few feet apart. Between alternating eye pairings, two feet below were matching shadowy slits about the length of Zhan’s gym sneakers. Another two feet down came a set of slimy pink lips. Behind the lips was a set of steel teeth—

CLACK!

Motion to his right, Zhan threw himself flat against his sack-bound brethren. A man tossed aside his vacated sack, clearly thinking nothing of it. He then grabbed from the far side of the pile, at a handle by his leg. He had blonde hair that had gone almost white. A pudgy red face. Zhan recognized him from when his dad watched the news.

CLACK!

Doug Ford. The premier from Ontario.

Inside the bag, a boy pressed himself against the sack. He had buzz cut black hair. The sack thumped to the shiny stone floor. His chest was visible for a moment when his tanned arms shot to his sides. A slobbery cartoon wolf was bracketed by the word SUDBURY on top and the word WOLVES below.

CLACK!

It took many seconds, many strides by the premier to cross the greasy room. The jaws did not clack but instead sat yawning in wait. The premier lifted the sack and—

CLACK!

A spray of blood misted free. Screams rang from within the sack. The boy jerked and wrestled. The premier simply repositioned, as if feeding a woodchipper, and fed the boy’s head into—

CLACK!

The screams ceased and Zhan turned away. He looked for a quiet place to hide, instead. There was a shadowy hallway across the room—about forty metres. He broke, getting two steps before—

CLACK!

He jerked around. He stabbed his knife into one sack, then another, and—

CLACK!

He dropped the knife as hands began freeing themselves. A boy landed on the knife, immediately grabbing for it.

CLACK!

He held it in his left, absently, as he looked at blood on his right palm, collected from his back.

Zhan nodded once at the kid. “Cut them fre—”

CLACK!

“Cut everyone free!” he said over his shoulder, now breaking for the hallway—from the corner of his eye he saw his own province’s premier, Eby, head to toe in blood. Zhan had to look full on: Eby, machete in his right hand, dead and mangled orca slumped a couple feet from one of those clacking mouths. They weren’t only feeding children to this insatiable thing.

CLACK!

Distantly, he heard, “Hey, too many got out!” He faced front and ran and ran.

CLACK!

The hallway was hotter than the main chamber had been. It was dark enough that Zhan ran his hand along a wall as he walked. He was rounding.

Clack!

There, ahead of him was a red EXIT sign, glowing above a steel door with fire instruction spelled out on the handle.

Clack.

Zhan broke for the door. It opened smoothly and he stepped into a pink room, the walls aglow, organic, a membrane. The light was even everywhere with the glow. The door clicked closed behind him. The sound made him think of walking through heavy snowfalls, everything soft and muffled.

Ten steps from where he’d stopped was a white pipe rising from the floor. Veins and arteries danced its length in hideous partial figure eights. From behind him came a voice.

“It’s amazing how they just know which boy to give the knife to.”

Zhan jumped into a spin, gasping, eyes bugging. It was Mark Carney—the Mark Carney. The prime minister of the country, Mark Carney.

Zhan couldn’t speak, started backstepping to match the PM’s pace.

“You almost always show up. I think that’s why it so prefers you. Now, hand over the knife.”

“I—I dropped it.” Zhan bumped into something behind him and was disgusted to realise he’d walked far enough to bump into the veiny pipe. He jerked away—into the PM’s ready hands.

“Oh, oh well. And I’m truly sorry, but it wouldn’t do to let it go hungry.”

“No! Bù! Qiú qiú nǐmen! Jiù jiù wǒ!” No! Please! Help me!

The PM lifted Zhan high, maneuvering him in a way that suggested he was more than familiar with the act. He clanked Zhan’s knees together.

“Oooh!” he said, his hands going to his legs.

The PM stuffed Zhan into the pipe, legs first. Zhan pushed out at his sides, refusing to sink.

“Come on, elbows up,” Carney said as he reached into the tube. “The Economy needs you.”

“But, but, but I’m a kid!”

“It’s futures that taste best to it,” Carney said, eyes aflame like an old-timey prospector staring down an especially shiny nugget.

“But…but I’m not even from here!” Zhan shouted through clenched teeth, using all he had to keep from sliding deeper into the horrible pipe.

A grin lit on the PM’s face. “We prefer it that way, always hav—”

The door across the room slammed open and four teenaged girls raced inside. Three bared nails. The fourth had a small pocketknife, not unlike the one Zhan had selected from the airport confiscation bin. All wore flannel jammies, though were clearly unrelated.

“Excuse me, this room’s off limits to the public.” The PM started toward the girls in their PJs like a man in charge. The first leapt. The PM stopped, as if he’d been expecting something else. The second girl leapt. They were on Carney then, fully. He wore them like earmuffs as they clawed and bit at his face and head. He tossed one, then the other.

“I am the prime minister!” Carney stamped his right foot. His face was a swollen, bloody terror mask.

The girl with the jackknife used the opening and began slamming the blade into the PM’s cheeks and eyes. Two others ignored the man and raced toward Zhan, blocking his view of the slaughter. The pipe began to throb, clearly trying to ingest him as the girls pulled him out.

Once he was free, his saviours raced back to help drag the PM to the pipe. Zhan was a statue, forced to bear witness to a hideous, biological machine consume a man, up close.

—

The children poured from the mine in BC because Zhan remembered the way out. Other paths to elsewhere seemed endless. Tunnels and tracks and elevators. They rode up and up and up. Upon seeing the night sky at the mouth of the mine, the children screamed and ran, chasing something that had been taken from them to buttress the countless failures of capitalism.

Thirty-one children followed Zhan to the leaning house on Saddonda Street. His parents held him and listened. The others spoke, too. The stories were more or less the same and never contradictory. Children began phoning home.

Police came for the children. Contact with family members created instant havoc online and in the neighbourhood. The CBC appeared outside. Locals appeared with broomsticks and baseball bats. The children let them all inside.

Zhan’s parents clutched him to their chests as they shuffled around the crowded living room. Zhan stumbled over the shaft of a wooden hockey stick; the blade was gone. He looked to the broken end, the jagged violence it promised.

“We speak English here!” a police officer said a moment before driving his tattooed fist into the face of a teenager demanding his parents.

Blood began spilling around them. The police were beating heads and knuckles and shoulders and arms. The locals were wild cards—half ready to violently uphold their idea of ‘old stock,’ while others stood stoic, using their voices and non-violence to witness the pummeling with clear consciences. The freed children stabbed and bit and cried, hapless against the adults imposing their dichotomies.

Zhan again looked at the stick; somewhere in the back of his mind, a future him asked if it wasn’t better to die today in a fight than to be used as down in a greedy man’s pillow for years to come.

“Jī bùkě shī, shí bù zàilái,” he whispered and bent to pick up the stick, it’s now or never.

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