The Panic of My Family

The older boys chased me, their blood roused by the spectacle of my rabbit-y flight. They kept after me for a hundred yards or so and then fell back. The seriousness of my panic confused them, put them off their stride. Such panic. Where did it come from? It couldn't have been just the situation at Freddy's. My shakiness of my own family was becoming more and more apparent. At the time, I didn't admit to this knowledge, not for a moment, but it was always there, lingering in the gut. A sourness of foreboding. A cramp of alarm at any sign of misfortune or weakness in others as if such things