Until... | Book 3 | Until The End

by Hamill, Ike

  “Forty years,” he said, standing up straight. “Romeo Libby has stayed in the same place for forty years, Liz.”

  “The guy from the commune?”

  “Yes. He said that they don’t return to a place where they’ve been killed. Maybe it’s that simple. Maybe all we have to do is kill one of them and our house will be safe.”

  “That’s a big assumption.”

  “Is it?” Alan asked. “Romeo is still alive and he seems like a reliable witness to me. Where’s the evidence that he’s not? Isn’t his continued existence proof?”

  Alan didn’t mention Ricky’s assessment—that if Romeo was really convinced that his property was safe he wouldn’t have been so careful after four decades.

  “There have to be a dozen of them out there. How would you plan to kill just one?”

  “Same way we did at the hotel. Throw some seeds out, let them get distracted, and take one out.”

  “The time we barely escaped with our lives? You want to recreate that experience?”

  “On our terms, maybe,” Alan said.

  “We’re locked in a closet, praying for dawn. I wouldn’t exactly call these our terms.”

  Joe started to stir. He groaned and pushed his way up as he rubbed his eyes.

  “What’s that noise?” Joe asked.

  Alan and Liz looked at each other.

  “What noise, Joe?” Liz asked.

  “That stupid banging. I can’t sleep with it.”

  # # #

  Liz pressed her ear to the wall. Joe and Alan hunched over the tablet and flipped through the views. Alan could barely believe what he was seeing. The kitchen window was just a black hole. The glass was broken and the lights were out. While they looked at the screen, the lights upstairs went out.

  “It’s impossible,” Alan said. “The generator is still working.”

  “They’re probably unplugging the lights or breaking the bulbs,” Liz said.

  “How?”

  “Maybe they have tricks that we don’t know about.”

  Alan changed the view on the screen until he found the one that showed the side yard. The dark shape was gone. Alan couldn’t breathe.

  “There, Dad,” Joe said, pointing at the corner of the display. He let his son move to a different view, where they caught a glimpse of the black shape moving off the screen again. The next view show the creature slipping in through the window.

  “It’s in the house,” Alan whispered.

  “Lots of them are,” Joe said.

  Alan didn’t care so much about most of them. He had dealt with them before. There was something different about the one from the side yard. It frightened him to his core.

  “How long until dawn?” Liz asked.

  “Seven minutes.”

  “We can make it,” she said. “We just have to hold out. You still hear the banging, Joe?”

  Their son shook his head and then closed his eyes, concentrating. A moment later, he opened his eyes and nodded.

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s going on,” Liz wondered aloud. “I don’t understand.”

  Alan was closest to the door. He reacted quickly when the mechanism snapped and the door began to swing inwards. He threw himself against it, forcing it shut. In an instant, Liz was by his side, holding it too. The force against the door was unbelievable, like they were trying to hold back a flood at the base of a dam. It was a battle that they were quickly losing as the door inched inwards.

  “This is impossible,” Alan whispered.

  Joe was holding the screen with the views from the cameras.

  “There’s nothing out there,” Joe said. “Look.”

  Alan could only spare a quick glance. All his effort was focused on trying to make sure that the door didn’t move any farther.

  “He’s right, Alan,” Liz said.

  “Don’t tell me there’s nothing there. Can’t you feel it?”

  “Alan, let go.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “Keep pressing,” she said. “Just let go of the handle.”

  “No. How much time?”

  “Four minutes,” Joe said.

  “We just have to keep them out for four minutes. They won’t risk being out in the sunlight,” Alan said between gasping breaths. His energy was starting to give out. He didn’t know if he would be able to keep up his effort for four seconds, let alone four minutes.

  “Three and a half,” Joe said.

  “Alan, there’s nothing in the hall. The lights are on. Living room, too. They’re only out in the den, kitchen, and upstairs.”

  “They move fast, remember?” Alan asked. “You’re crazy if you think I’m going to open this door. They’re in your head, Liz. Remember the trance we fell into in the hotel room?”

  “I never fell into a trance,” she said.

  She still had her shoulder against the door, but Liz took her hands away and moved them to Alan’s hand. His white knuckles were gripping the inside handle. She was trying to peel his fingers away.

  “Liz, what are you doing?”

  “Keep pushing on the door, but let go!” she said.

  “You’re not making any sense.”

  “Three minutes,” Joe said.

  “They’re going to have to hide in the cellar,” Alan said. “Or the barn. I don’t know where else they will go.”

  “The ones on the roof are gone,” Joe said. “I just saw a couple leave through the kitchen window.”

  The door opened another quarter of an inch. There was enough of a gap where Alan could imagine taloned fingers probing into the room. He almost hoped they would so he could slam shut the door and guillotine them off.

  “Alan, let go!” Liz said.

  She balled her hand into a fist and started to beat at his strained fingers.

  “Liz! Stop it! Are you crazy? Joe, help me out.”

  “Maybe Mom is right,” Joe said.

  Alan’s eyes went wide. “You’re both crazy. He’s in your head—don’t you understand?”

  “But, Dad, why are you pulling on the handle?” Joe asked.

  Alan looked down at his own hand. The door swung inwards, yes, but he was gripping the handle in order to give himself more grip to push with. He didn’t understand why his family couldn’t comprehend that. He was the only thing keeping them from being mercilessly attacked by the monsters on the other side of the door.

  Liz pounded on his fingers and then his wrist, trying to break his grip.

  Alan yelled in pain and pressed his head against the door.

  That’s when he heard the drumbeat of the thumping. It was impossible to him that he hadn’t heard it before. It was like a low heartbeat, thrumming through the structure of the house. Alan immediately understood that it was a form of hypnosis, just like their eyes had been. He couldn’t remember for sure if Liz had been entranced at the hotel or not, but he remember that he had been. He realized that it might be happening again.

  Giving in to faith in his wife and son, Alan let go of the door.

  It immediately slammed shut.

  He reached with sore fingers and closed the mechanism again.

  “Ninety seconds,” Joe said.

  Alan kept his hand on the latch. It was supposed to be electrically and mechanically interlocked, so nothing would open it when it was engaged from the inside. Somehow, it had opened.

  “Dad,” Joe said.

  He tiled the screen so both of his parents could see it. They watched a dark shape exit through the kitchen window and walk down the sloped surface of the bulkhead door. It disappeared out of frame. Joe switched the view but wasn’t fast enough to see the thing before it slipped into the woods.

  “It should be sunrise now,” Joe said.

  “Give it time for the sun to really come up,” Liz said.

  Joe nodded. He flipped through until he found the highest camera—the one mounted on the barn. The three of them watched until the sky brightened and the sun finally began to peek up from above t
he trees.

  “I have to go,” Alan said. “I want to get to Ricky’s.”

  Liz nodded.

  “Be careful.”

  “Put the barn door up, would you?” he asked Joe. His son pulled up the controls and the door began to rise, letting the first sunlight into the barn.

  Alan took a breath and opened the door.

  Twenty-Three: Ricky

  Ricky’s headlights swept over the road as he made his turn into the driveway. The sun was just starting to brighten the sky in the east. All he could think about was the long day ahead. George or Amber would have to drive up to SE Prescott’s former house so he could catch a little bit of a nap on the way. A few stolen hours of sleep were all he had managed to get in the past twenty-four hours.

  He slammed on the brakes just before he hit the tree that was laying across the driveway. His father was on the other side, walking towards him and squinting into the headlights.

  Ricky stopped his car and got out. He left his headlights on to illuminate the mess.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Your brother left me without any gas for the chainsaw is what’s going on.”

  Vernon was holding his chainsaw in one hand and the gallon tank in the other.

  “I mean what happened to the tree?”

  “It fell over. Took out the phone line and cable. Just missed taking out the power, too.”

  Ricky pulled a flashlight from his pocket and walked towards the trunk of the tree while his father filled the chainsaw and bent over to try to start it.

  There was no sign of rot or disease, as far as Ricky could tell. The tree had simply split near the base and then toppled over the driveway. Aside from the saplings that had been crushed in the fall, none of the surrounding trees looked damaged.

  “George broke this thing,” Vernon said with a curse.

  “Did you try the choke?”

  His father stood up slowly, put his hands on his hips, and stared at Ricky.

  “Did I try the choke?”

  “Sorry.”

  “No, I want you to ask me that again,” Vernon said. He wasn’t angry—Ricky knew better than to jump to that conclusion about his father—but the question had been dumb enough that it was going to be a topic of conversation for quite a while.

  “Sorry,” Ricky said. He approached and picked up the saw.

  In between pulls of the cord, he heard his father mumbling, “My own son asks me if I tried the choke.”

  Ricky was lucky that the saw started. He handed it to his father and started walking towards the house. Amber was in the kitchen, sitting at the table with her hands wrapped around a coffee cup.

  “Hey,” she said. Her shoulders were up and just her toes were touching the floor.

  Tucker wormed his way out from under the table and came to Ricky to sit next to him and press against Ricky’s leg.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “They were here,” she said.

  Ricky stopped in his tracks.

  “They?”

  “They’re gone now,” Amber said. “I’m sure of it. I could feel them when they were in the woods. Your dog woke me up and I felt it. I turned on every light I could find and I was just about to wake up your parents, but then… I don’t know. I felt them leave.”

  Ricky noticed that one of Amber’s stakes was leaning up against the wall next to her. He went and took the seat across from her. He wanted to reach out and take her hand, but kept his hands to himself.

  “You’re certain?”

  “A moment after I felt them retreating, the tree came down. Your father heard it fall and he got up. I don’t know. I think maybe they wanted to trap us here. I wish I knew why,” Amber said.

  “What about Alan and his family?” Ricky asked.

  Amber’s eyes went wide.

  “I was so preoccupied that I didn’t even think of them. My phone is upstairs.”

  She jumped up and ran for the stairs.

  Ricky patted his own pocket and remembered before his hand touched the empty space—he had left his phone at his house. It had been two shifts since he had checked it.

  Amber came running back down the stairs while Ricky was pouring his own cup of coffee.

  “Nothing,” she said. “No messages. Let me send him one to see what he’s…”

  Ricky turned as he saw that a new set of headlights had joined the ones from his car. He went to the window.

  “Don’t bother,” Ricky said. “I think he’s here.”

  # # #

  “Is everyone okay?” Alan asked over the sound of the chainsaw.

  “Yeah,” Ricky said. “Just a downed tree, although Amber thinks there might have been foul play. Everything okay at your house?”

  Alan shook his head. “No. We had a long night. They were trying to get into our place. I mean, they tried and succeeded, but we all made it through. We have a safe room that we put in several years ago, after the troubles.”

  Ricky nodded.

  Behind him, the chainsaw cut off. Amber and Vernon were rolling a big log out of the way.

  “I’m going to take a shower and then I have to get to work,” Vernon said. “Can I trouble you two to move those cars so I can get by? Ricky, I assume you’ll have some time to finish cleaning up some of these branches.”

  “Sure, Dad. Alan, why don’t you pull up over there, next to where I park. We can coordinate which vehicles we’re going to take to go up…”

  Alan stopped him with a raised hand.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t go with you.”

  Amber stepped up, joining their conversation to ask, “Why?”

  “It was him, Amber. I’m certain of it. I saw Prescott—the current form of him, at least—at my house. I think he was controlling the others. They’re just foot soldiers, maybe, and he’s the commander. I think he’s angry that we disturbed his resting place.”

  “Alan,” Amber started.

  “I’m sorry,” Alan said again. “Listen, I just came to make sure you guys made it through okay and to tell you that we’re going away. We haven’t decided how far we’re going, but we can’t be around here. They know where we live and I think they’re going to try to turn this into a war. I wish I could stay, but…”

  He shook his head.

  “We understand,” Ricky said.

  Amber shot him a sharp look, but didn’t contradict him.

  “All I can say is that maybe you should consider going too.”

  “Where, though?” Ricky said. “We don’t have the ability to just pick up and move.”

  “Then try to kill one of them on your property,” Alan said, glancing around. “I don’t know how safe that would be, but remember what Romeo said. If you get rid of one of them here, the scent will stick around and keep them away.”

  “Maybe,” Ricky said, mimicking Alan’s typical delivery of the word.

  Alan blinked and took a long breath.

  “Yeah. I have to get back. Like I said, we spent a long night hiding in the closet so now we have to hit the road. Please be careful, you guys. Whatever happens next, I don’t know if you’re going to be able to take it back to their turf.”

  Alan backed away and got into his car after a sad wave.

  Ricky and Amber stood side by side for a moment.

  “Should we hit the road?” Amber asked.

  “Give me a minute. I told Dad I would clean up some of these branches first.”

  Ricky sighed and started slow as he moved towards the limbs. His father had left them in big chunks so they could be roped up and dragged off to the burn pile. Ricky just needed to get them clear of the driveway. His body ached from the double shift. Most of his job involved simply sitting and walking, but even that took its toll after so many hours. Pulling on the first branch, it came easily and Ricky saw that Amber had joined him. Even Tucker pitched in, although the sticks that he grabbed didn’t go far before the dog gave up interest. They finished and Ricky moved his car out of the way while Amber wal
ked back to the house.

  They went into the kitchen together. Ricky grunted as he bent to remove his boots. He felt like he was turning into his father, one noise at a time.

  “Maybe we should wait a day,” Amber said. “We could really plan things out and you could get some rest.”

  “I’m fine,” Ricky said.

  “There’s a lot we could probably figure from the maps. If we guess how they got down here so quickly, it will give us an idea of what path they took from Prescott’s house. I’m guessing the train tracks. Is there a schedule we could access that shows us when the freight trains went through there?”

  “Amber, we have to get this done. We can’t have them coming back here. How will we defend ourselves?”

  “I wish I had gone out and gotten one last night,” Amber said. “Maybe Alan is right—that might be the perfect way to set up a home base.”

  Ricky slumped down into one of the chairs and propped his head up with his hands.

  “You have my brother’s number in your phone? I want to make sure he’s ready before we go over there to pick him up.”

  “Ricky, we’re talking past each other,” Amber said as she took the seat opposite him.

  He raised his eyes to her.

  “I’m not willing to wait. It’s too dangerous,” Ricky said.

  Amber studied him for a moment.

  “And I’m afraid that if we rush into this, we’re going to make a mistake. Yesterday, I was mad and ready to do anything. Now that I’ve had a night to sleep on it, I want to make sure we go in with full strength, and I’m not sure that we can do that today.”

  “If you’re worried about me, don’t be,” Ricky said. He could tell by the way she immediately shook her head that he had found the source of her resistance. “Listen, I can sleep in the car and I’ll be fresh by the time we get there.”

  “If we had a safe place to plan, would you wait?”

  “Yes, but we don’t, so what’s the point in…”

  “My house,” she said.

  “In North Carolina?”

  “My great uncle’s house,” Amber said. “It’s close, and I killed one there.”

  Ricky was too tired to argue.

  “You’re right—we’ve been talking past each other. You and Alan have been deeper in this than I have for the past week. You’ve got the best perspective.”