Until... | Book 3 | Until The End

by Hamill, Ike

  “Nope, he’s right here with me. We’re getting ready to stuff pillows.”

  “Oh. Good.”

  “What’s wrong, Alan?”

  “I don’t know for sure,” he said. He cleared his throat and tried to sound normal. “I was just thinking about my house and about how there’s no dog to greet me when I pulled up. I got this strange feeling that there was something important about that? Not important—that’s not the right word—significant maybe?”

  “I thought you guys were out of town,” Mary said. She sounded distracted, like she had returned to work but kept talking instead of hanging up.

  “We are. I just came up to drop off Joe at school and it’s easier to hang around the house until it’s time to pick him up, you know?”

  “Half of my life used to be as a valet for every kid within ten miles—at least that’s what it felt like. I tell myself that I don’t miss it.”

  Alan laughed as he stared at the plywood that was covering the kitchen window. He still hadn’t gotten out of the car. He was starting to wonder if he would.

  “Well, if you get bored, you know where I am,” she said. “I’ll put you to work.”

  “Actually, I don’t know where you are. Ricky said you were staying at Amber’s?”

  “We are, but at the moment, I’m at home now. I still have some branches to move from that tree, and I’m working on my pillows, like I said. I’ll be here until, I don’t know, maybe a couple hours before sunset.”

  “Okay,” Alan said. “Take care.”

  “Will do. Bye.”

  Alan stuffed his phone in his pocket and got out. He approached the house and paused about halfway to the door. The sun was still low in the sky. Alan thought about how dark the living room would be. He only had a couple of things to retrieve from inside. It wouldn’t hurt if he put it off until afternoon. Walking back, he didn’t realize where he was going to go until he opened the door and sat behind the wheel.

  # # #

  He knocked twice.

  Tucker came to the door and looked up, wagging his tail furiously until Mary opened it and let Alan in.

  “I didn’t think you were going to take me up on the invitation,” Mary said.

  “Well, you know—idle hands,” he said.

  He came into the kitchen and took his boots off to put them in the tray next to the door. The driveway was a bit torn up from having logs dragged across it and Alan had already tracked in a little mud.

  “We’re working in here,” Mary said, pointing.

  He followed her to the living room. Alan’s plan was to just kill a little time talking to Mary and then he would go back home and make another attempt at entering the empty house. When she showed him what she expected him to do, Alan regretted not heading the other direction to stop by his friend Robert’s place. There, they would have been patching drywall or framing in a new closet or something. Alan felt comfortable doing those kinds of tasks where his work would never be judged. Mary had him cutting out patterns and hand-stitching seams. His fingers were both too sensitive and clumsy.

  “I’m terrible at this,” he said. “You’ll never be able to sell any of these.”

  “Nonsense,” Mary said. “People will actually gravitate towards the ones that look like a child made them.”

  “Thanks,” he said.

  She smiled and raised her eyebrows.

  “Where’d you grow up, anyway?” she asked.

  Before he knew it, Alan was telling her his life story. Halfway through, when he was telling her where he met Liz, he realized that he still didn’t know anything about her other than she was Ricky’s mom. He interrupted himself and started to ask where she grew up when Tucker jumped up and went through the door towards the kitchen.

  “Hold that thought,” she said and followed the dog.

  Alan finished the stitching on the pillow and held it at arm’s length to consider it. She might have been joking, but it really did look like a child had worked on it. His stitch meandered left and right down the length of the seam. A moment later, he heard the door open and Mary greet someone. Then, before he could stand up, the door closed and she was returning with a package.

  “Good news,” she said. “I got some more walnut shells so…”

  She saw the look on his face and stopped talking.

  “Alan?”

  “Tucker doesn’t bark,” he said.

  “Nope. When he was a puppy, he used to be a complete nuisance whenever anyone came to the door. Ricky trained him to go politely to the door and wait instead of barking and jumping everywhere.”

  “Romeo trained his dog to hide,” Alan said. “I thought he was just being careful, but Ricky said that people will only be careful for so long. He said that eventually they get sloppy or lazy if they’re not still face-to-face with the problem that made them careful in the first place.”

  “Sounds about right,” Mary said.

  Alan put down the pillow and stood up. “I have to make sure they’re okay.”

  # # #

  The satellite messenger was still on the seat of his car. Alan opened the door and picked it up—there were no new messages from the kids. The last thing Amber said was that they were going down into the hole.

  Mary walked up slowly as he tapped out a message. Her arms were crossed—she was practically hugging herself.

  “What’s the problem?” she asked.

  “No response. I just asked for an update,” he said.

  “But what made you jump up and run out to check on them?”

  “Oh,” Alan said. He looked her in the eyes and saw her worry. He measured his words carefully, not wanting to spread his fear just based on a hunch. “I was thinking about Romeo, and thinking about some things that he said. At the time, I trusted that he was telling the truth, but Ricky was more skeptical. If Ricky was right, then what else might Romeo have been lying about?”

  “Like?”

  Alan took a deep breath and blinked as he looked up towards the sky. The sun was almost overhead.

  “Well, I have to wonder why he was tending to that graveyard off the side of the road. At the time, I figured he had some survivor’s guilt and was paying his respects. Then, he reached out to Ricky to say that they had ended hibernation early this year. Maybe he told us that so we wouldn’t bother to go out and hunt for them anymore.”

  “Why would he care if you were hunting them?” Mary asked. “If he’s afraid of the things—as he should be—then wouldn’t he want them found?”

  “If he’s lying, then I guess who’s to say that he’s afraid of them?” Alan asked.

  Mary frowned and looked away.

  Alan looked down at the satellite device again. It had a feature that he hadn’t used. The two devices were linked, so he could hit a button and get a report back on the location of the other one. The answer he received didn’t make any sense. It told him the last location of Amber’s device, but said that it hadn’t made contact in almost two hours.

  “What?” Mary asked, seeing his concern.

  “Well, unless the battery ran out or they took the thing underground, I guess I don’t understand this. There’s no contact with the other unit.”

  Mary looked back towards the house and then down at the dog. When she looked back to Alan, all the worry and concern were gone from her features. All that was left was determination.

  “Your car or mine?”

  # # #

  Before they got out of range, Mary called Vernon. Alan couldn’t help but overhear the conversation with her husband. He only asked one question.

  “What’s my share?”

  Alan understood the question when Mary answered.

  “Make spears or stakes or whatever. Like the ones that Amber had. Get some of that powder she had too. Take everything back to her uncle’s house and get it ready in case the fight comes back there. If you don’t hear from me again by sunset, bring everything up to the address I’m sending you.”

  “Got it,” Ver
non said.

  Alan’s conversation with Liz couldn’t have been more different. They still had a chance to protect their son.

  “Alan, make something up. Call the fire department or police if you have to,” Liz said.

  “Not until we know,” Alan said. “The only advantage we have right now is surprise.”

  “Right,” she said. “I’m pulling Joe from school. We’re going south.”

  “Good,” he said. “Go as far as you can and don’t stop until dusk.”

  “I’ll message you with the details,” she said.

  “No,” Alan said. “Not until you hear from me.”

  “With our password?”

  “Exactly.” He disconnected after they said goodbye and she wished him luck.

  Mary was looking at him with surprise on her face.

  “You have a password?”

  Alan nodded. “We have a lot of code because we can’t talk about… things. You understand.”

  “Right. I remember,” Mary said. “That must be hard.”

  “Somewhat,” Alan said. “But it’s also just the way things are.”

  “True.”

  In the back seat, Tucker stood up and looked through the window. Alan kept thinking about what wasn’t back there. He had flashlights—two of them—but no stakes or weapons. When he and Amber had gone out, those were things that she had always packed.

  “So you say he’s working with them,” Mary said.

  Alan glanced at her.

  “No, I never said that.”

  “It’s what you implied.”

  Alan didn’t bother to correct her. It was an interesting idea. Maybe it was the natural conclusion of what he had been saying earlier, but he wouldn’t have put it like that.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Why is he working with them?”

  “Or for them,” she said.

  “I don’t know. I guess maybe they have some leverage over him. Maybe… I don’t know, maybe some of the monsters used to be people he loved and he’s just sentimental.”

  “You’ve seen them,” Mary said. “Would you feel sentimental about them?”

  “I wouldn’t, no,” Alan said. “They didn’t seem human at all. They were more like lizards.”

  “Lizards,” Mary said to herself. “Why would a person help lizards?”

  “I do believe that he’s afraid of them,” Alan said. “I mean, fear will only motivate a person for so long, but he did seem afraid. But, back to your point about him working with them…”

  “Or for them.”

  “Right. That could explain how they were able to get from way up north down to… The tire tracks!”

  “What?” Mary asked.

  “I’m just connecting dots,” Alan said. “When Ricky and I were up north, we saw tire tracks near the cemetery that were really similar to the ones I just saw near my house. We were wondering how those things could have possibly traveled so far so quickly. What if they had help from Romeo?”

  “Lots of things make tire tracks, Alan.”

  He nodded.

  # # #

  “How much time do we have?” Alan asked.

  “Still forty minutes until sunset,” Mary said after checking the clock.

  In the back seat, Tucker was sitting up and fully alert, as if he knew they had reached their destination.

  “That’s Jan’s house,” Alan said, pointing as they rolled by. “Looks like she’s home. There’s Amber’s car.”

  He pulled up next to the car and then began to steer towards the side of the road just past it.

  “Hold up?” Mary asked.

  Alan punched the brakes.

  “Hood’s popped,” Mary said.

  “Huh.”

  Alan pulled over. The tires sank into the soft shoulder at the side of the road. Mary was out before Alan had his seatbelt off. She opened the rear door to let Tucker out. As he got out of the vehicle, Alan checked his satellite messenger one last time. They were close the location where it had sent its last signal, but there had been no communication for hours and hours.

  He went around to the trunk. Mary was investigating Amber’s vehicle.

  “We should get moving,” Alan said. “It’s a decent hike and I don’t want to be in the woods after dark.”

  Mary lifted the hood.

  Tucker was still sniffing around behind Amber’s car as Alan started down the side of the road towards where the trail to the Prescott cemetery started.

  “Mary?”

  She had her head buried under the hood of the car. Alan walked back. His car had sunk into the soft shoulder of the road. He made a mental note to take it easy pulling out so his tires didn’t dig in any farther. There were already ruts there from some other vehicle.

  “Alan, I think this battery is gone,” Mary said.

  “Yeah,” he mumbled.

  She shut the hood and looked at him.

  “What’s up?”

  Alan pointed.

  “Lots of things make tracks, but I swear those are the same ones I saw.”

  She turned to look.

  Mary slid by Alan and rushed to the back of the vehicle. She crouched in front of the dog.

  “Tucker, where’s Ricky? Where’s Ricky?”

  Alan was about to ask if the dog was trained to track when Tucker’s nose dove to the pavement and he started sniffing around. He turned a tight circle, went to the side of the road, down the length of the vehicle, and the galloped across the pavement. On the other side of the road, he ran down to a patch of grass and then disappeared.

  Mary put her fingers in her mouth and let out a shrill whistle. She trotted after the dog.

  Alan stopped paying attention. Instead, he pulled up the map on his phone to check a hunch.

  “Mary, we’re at the wrong place,” he said.

  She emerged from the grass, hunched over and leading Tucker by the collar.

  “Where should we be?”

  Alan pointed west. “If they went that way, then they’re headed towards Romeo’s.”

  Mary opened the back of his vehicle and guided the muddy dog up into Alan’s car.

  “All roads lead to Romeo,” she said.

  Thirty-Four: Ricky

  “Get in the light!” Ricky yelled at his mother.

  Her legs were completely in shadow and she was just standing there, frozen. It was maddening how slowly she moved as she shut the car door and stepped into the beams of the headlights. Her form cast deep shadows into the garage and Ricky shot a panicked look upwards. They were all waiting up there, reading to drop down.

  Ricky’s head pounded as he pulled the strap free from his chin. He threw himself forward to free his legs, but was jerked to the side when his left arm reached the extent of the strap. When he twisted to get it loose, his weight tipped the table. It fell in slow motion, gaining speed. Sliding a little to the side would have righted it, but he was too focused on releasing the straps to do that. His left hand popped free as the table banged into the truck and stopped at an angle.

  Ricky screamed when something pulled at his ankle. He saw his mother working the straps and glanced to see Alan helping Amber and George.

  When Tucker barked, fresh terror washed through Ricky. The dog was in the car—trapped and helpless if the monsters came after him. His mother loosened the last strap and Ricky climbed off the table. Amber cut in front of him as he dashed for the car. The light from the headlights spilling out of the garage quickly faded. The night was a big ocean of blackness around them.

  Ricky opened the car door and Tucker rushed to him.

  “Come on,” he said to the dog. “Into the light.”

  There was a flashlight and a big bag of bird seed on the seat next to Tucker. Ricky grabbed both and raced with the dog back around into the headlights.

  “Stay here. Stay in the light,” he said to Tucker, knowing that the words meant nothing. He ripped open the top of the bag and began to hurl handfuls of seeds into the darkness and across
the clean garage floor.

  “George!” Alan shouted. Mary pulled George from the table as shadows shifted above them. They fell backwards into Alan and he dragged them into the light.

  “Where’s Amber?” Mary asked.

  Ricky opened his mouth to answer and then realized he didn’t know. She had run past him just a moment before.

  The overhead lights came on.

  Bright purple light above made them all flinch backwards. A shadow near George erupted with horrible shrieks and the creature was visible. Tucker barked as the thing twisted and smoked. A moment later, there was nothing left but a quickly evaporating puddle on the garage floor.

  Amber jogged back towards the headlights.

  “I found the switch,” she said, pointing up towards the light. “The switch locks on, but we shouldn’t trust the lights to stay on.”

  Ricky understood what she meant. Beyond the confines of the garage, there was still a thumping sound reverberating in the air. George shielded his eyes from the lights, trying to see up beyond them. His mother had her phone out. The screen reflected purple up into the shadows above. Ricky didn’t see any of their eyes. He wondered if the creatures up there were already dead.

  George wasn’t content to simply wonder. He went fast to the truck and picked up the table that Ricky had been strapped to. Lifting it high, George brought the table down on the truck’s side mirror, snapping the closure. The side mirror was encased in a cloth bag. Ripping it free, George used the mirror to reflect the purple lights up into the space above the rafters. The bright beam of light worked like magic. When George exposed one of the things, it screamed a high-pitch whine and tumbled down from the framing. As the creature tumbled down into the lights, it nearly vaporized before it even hit the floor. Tucker barked at the twisted mass of dissolving flesh.

  “I’m so glad you made me attractive to these things, Ricky,” George said.

  Alan and Amber moved in opposite directions. Alan smashed a window and pulled a big chunk of glass from the frame. Amber opened the door to Romeo’s truck and wrenched the rearview mirror off so she could imitate what George was doing. That mirror was bagged as well.

  “Watch it, Amber,” Mary said. She pointed as Amber was sliding out of the truck. Ricky saw it too—there were glowing eyes in the shadows under there. Crouching, George managed to reflect a beam of light under there and the creature screeched and fled deeper into the darkness.