"Never listened, always talked back, ended up marrying some whore," His father spits out.
Henry lets out a long, drawn out sigh and scratches his beard wearily. He knew this would happen, yet he agreed to sit at his fathers bedside for these final days anyways. He had no obligation to the man - really, but he knew that down the line there would be guilt over not seeing his father at least once before he passed away. As it is Henry couldn't believe the man still had the energy to speak at all.
"Where is that useless girl anyways, did she finally run off with all your things? Or perhaps pregnant again," His father pauses to let out a cough, "I wouldn't be surprised."
"Its such a shame we never had any other children, its a waste leaving my money to you. If only your mother were still here..." Henry stops listening to the words spewing forth from his fathers lips, instead standing abruptly and heading for the only window in the room. He peers out across the expanse of suburban housing and notes that there seems to be quite a bit of activity today. Several cop cars roll by with their lights blaring. Henry shakes his head and closes his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. He hopes his headache will disappear on its own, but with how chatty his father seems to be he doubts it.
"I'm going to go get Elissa. Henry says to interrupt the maddening ramblings.
He quickly leaves the room to search for said woman. He finds her in the laundry room, folding bed sheets and humming loudly to herself. Henry wonders how the young woman can put up with taking care of dying people - Henry could sure never do it himself - but Elissa doesn't seem to be too affected by his father; which leads Henry to wonder if she's actually a saint in disguise.
"He's off on another rant, I'm going to step out and clear my head for a while. In other words Henry is going to find the nearest liquor store. However Elissa doesn't really need to know that. "Okay," she says simply, never once stopping her folding.
Henry nods to himself and leaves, hoping that by the time he returns his father has stopped acting the way he has been.
Its nearing noon by the time Henry returns with a bottle of cheap vodka. He first notes how quiet the house is when he enters and secondly realizes that the usual beeping of his fathers heart monitor has stopped. His hands clench around the bottle tightly as he feels anxiety well up inside of him. A light sheen of sweat has broken over his forehead as he marches up stairs. A feeling of grim despair floods him and he doesn't exactly understand why he's feeling these things. He focuses on the fact that the beeping is gone and has been replaced by a stranger kind of noise - a sort of grumbling groan, followed by the sick sound of crunching.
"What the hell?" .........
Present Day
For a moment Henry flounders, his body having been brought to ground level quite suddenly. His knee throbs, but he continues to thrash around against the hands that restrain him. He doesn't remember how he got here and it makes him all the more angry. Blood rushes to his head and he lets out a guttural noise.
"Get the hell off of me!" He shouts.
He feels a fist connect with his face, knocking his head back to the ground and causing a wave of dizzying nausea to stir up his stomach. He curses wildly and gets an arm free, reaching out to one of the people restraining him and striking out with a closed fist. He doesn't know if it connects because all he can feel is a distinct pain in his knuckles and another strike hit him.
He remembers with sudden clarity how he got here. Henry had been in the tunnels for only a little while, maybe a day but with his watch having broken a few days before he doesn't quite know how to tell the time down here. He could have been down there for a week for all he knows - though he hopes it hasn't been that long. Since things went to hell top ground he figured it would be safer down in a place like this, with less people there are less problems. He remembers stumbling upon these people; he had been angry that they were compromising his safety and had attacked one of them - a woman he thinks, but he isn't quite sure now.
Henry looks up at the two that are trying to restrain him, spitting out curse after curse before finally falling limp in exhaustion. His body aches and his legs are throbbing wildly. there's a distinct pain radiating from his head and black dots swim in and out of his vision. When they knocked him down he had hit his head pretty hard. Hard enough he probably has a concussion; he fights to stay conscious because of it.
"God."