by Sergio Gomez
Ignoring him, Alejandro said, “Boris was right. Goddamnit, he was right.”
“What?” Charlie asked.
“What Boris said…he asked me who the monsters were, and he was right.”
Charlie had no idea what his dad was talking about, but he was starting to think he had made a mistake by coming in here. His dad’s eyes—and mind, for that matter—seemed to be glued to the wall of drawings.
“Dad, we saw it, let’s go now.”
Alejandro nodded and lowered the lantern. “Yeah, let’s get out of here.”
They turned and ran, but before they got too far from the wall, Alejandro looked over his shoulder to look at it once more. When he turned back, the image of a Herculean Noche standing over a pile of dead humans seemed to be burned into his mind.
9
Out in the daylight, the sudden brightness almost hurt their eyes, but not enough so that they couldn’t see the predicament they were in now. Standing out in front of the big hut were six long-claw Noches, and coming from the opposite side of the hut were eight more—two of them regular clawed Noches, which meant that their van was sandwiched in between two groups of Noches coming for their heads.
“In the car, rapido!” Alejandro yelled.
Charlie opened the door and hopped in, a second later Alejandro was in the driver’s seat and putting the van in drive before his door was closed all the way.
He floored the gas pedal and turned to the right, heading east of the village. There was no rhyme or reason to this; it just felt right to go this way.
“Where are we going?” Charlie said, holding on to the van’s clothing hanger for dear life.
“No se,” Alejandro said, and the SUV ran right in between two huts and went into the woods.
*
Dodging trees like he had done this all his life, Alejandro felt adrenaline coursing through his veins. He had never really understood what exactly adrenaline was, but if it could be quantified as something spiritual he was filled with it right now.
All that mattered was getting to safety. He didn’t care that he had failed his group of survivors, no, that seemed long ago, a lifetime ago when he had been upset about that. Now all that mattered was that he and his son—mostly his son—got out of this unscathed. If they could do that, he would be forever grateful and never doubt the existence of God again.
In the rearview mirror he saw Los Noches were still stampeding after them, running routes through the woods, the woods that were their backyards.
Fuck, Alejandro thought. So much for losing them in here.
The thought prompted him to hit the gas harder.
Charlie screamed as the truck maneuvered through narrow and strange shaped gaps between the trees, barely missing.
Up ahead the ground inclined, and Alejandro thought, if the ground begins to decline on the other side he would be hidden behind the hill from Los Noches’ sights for a few moments. An opportunity to lose his pursuers would arise. He hoped.
The van went up the incline. Charlie closed his eyes and gritted his teeth as they headed toward two narrowly spaced trees.
“Pa, we’re not going to make it! We’re not going to make!”
Charlie felt the smack of a leaf hit him through the open window on the cheek. He opened his eyes just as the van drove in between the trees. There was a small clink as the side mirror hit the tree and went flying off.
Alejandro’s thought had been correct, the ground did begin to decline, but he wasn’t going to turn. No, not unless the SUV could float through a river because either way, left or right, the river at the bottom would be there.
The SUV came to a halt that would’ve been a screech on pavement, but was just a sputtering as the tires kicked up clumps of mud. The vehicle stopped just short of the riverbank.
Alejandro reached for the door handle.
“Pa, where are we going?” Charlie asked.
“You’re going to run, now get out, hurry, hurry!” Alejandro said, standing outside of the truck. He slammed the door shut.
Charlie got out and hustled over to his dad’s side.
“GO! Get the hell out of here!”
It was the loudest his dad’s voice had ever gotten with him, and he felt like peeing. “Pa, what are you—”
Alejandro turned and smacked him across the face, busting the side of his lip open. “Largate!”
From above the incline of the hill, they could hear the stammering footsteps of the oncoming fleet of Noches, only seconds away from spotting them down by the river.
“Go on, go. Swim across the river and start running as fast and as far as you can. If they can’t swim you’ll be fine.” Alejandro was facing the direction where they would be coming from, and his voice was low and cool now.
“What about you?” Charlie felt as if he was on the verge of tears, but nothing was coming out because he couldn’t believe this was happening.
No, this was all just a nightmare and he’d wake up and they would be on the couch. Dad would be asleep with the TV remote on his stomach and his hand half inside the bowl of chicharon. It would be Halloween, and this would just be a nightmare manifested by the monster movie playing on the TV.
That had to be it…but it wasn’t. Deep in his heart, he knew it wasn’t.
Los Noches appeared at the top of the hill. It only took them a second to spot them, and then they were racing down the incline right for them. Their claws shone silver under the sunlight.
“I’m going to hold them off as long as I can,” Alejandro said, and drew his gun. “Now, GO!”
“You’ll come after you kill them all, right dad? Right?”
“GO CHARLIE!”
“Tell me you’ll be right behind me, tell me papi, tell me pa, tell me!” But he was already inching towards the river, ready to dive in and swim.
“You promised me, Charlie,” Alejandro aimed the gun as the first Noche came within shooting distance. “Now get out of here.”
Charlie ran for the river, and jumped into it. As soon as he felt the water hit his body, he was swimming. Between the frantic splashes of water he heard his dad’s pistol going off…once, twice, thrice, four times, then nothing.
10
Alejandro had never felt surer of a choice. As Los Noches came sprinting down toward him like tribal warriors, his nerves were unflinching.
He had already come to terms with death, and dying protecting his son was a lot nobler than being killed in a stinking barn house or by a kooky kid with a gun. He had no qualms about going out this way and his mind was tranquil enough for his aim to be precise.
Alejandro shot the first one, hitting the Noche in the hip. It tumbled down the hill, breaking its neck in the process.
He shot the second one, the bullet went right through its throat and it died instantly.
The third one he got in the chest, and it clambered to the floor and by the time it hit the bottom of the hill it was a corpse.
The fourth took the bullet through the chest, only a few yards away from where Alejandro stood, with a few more seconds it would’ve been close enough to pounce on him.
The fifth and sixth ones, which were on the heels of the fourth one, did pounce on him.
The last thing Alejandro Ramos felt in his life was a hotness spreading throughout his abdomen as the claws tore his insides out. Then the curtains closed.
11
He thought he had known loneliness. When his parents left him home alone for the first time three years ago, and only midday reruns of Monday Night Raw and his superhero action figures kept him company in the stillness of the house, he thought he knew loneliness. When his friends abandoned him at recess to play with Johnny’s Gameboy—and he wasn’t invited because Johnny hated him—he thought he knew loneliness.
But he didn’t know it until the moment he heard his dad’s gun go off for the last time. Now he was truly alone, alone at the end of the world. John the Farmer was dead, the fat man from the carnival was dead, Claire, Boris, Paul, all of them gone from
this earth.
Just him now.
He got to the other side of the river and sprinted out of the water. To his dismay, he heard water splashing behind him, which meant they could swim, and swim fast.
He sprinted as fast as he could even though his lungs were as dry and small as raisins. Knowing he had to keep going, if for no other reason than to keep his promise to his dad, he pressed on.
Behind him he heard the stomps of feet, he craned his neck to get a peek, and saw the claw heading toward his shoulder. It ripped through the skin all the way down to the bone, and then he was pulled off his feet. The back of his head hit the ground and a star show played before his eyes.
Then there was a pain in his stomach, deep, deep in his stomach, in an area he wasn’t even aware he had.
Then he felt nothing and saw nothing.
12
The Noche looked down at the boy. His stomach was ripped open and the side of his head was slashed open. The Noches who had gotten to him had done a number on him.
He and the other guy had been sent here to dispose of the bodies. They weren’t told how to do it, which usually meant to do whatever they wanted to them. Eat them or throw them in the river, as long as they were disposed of so the woods wouldn’t get littered with dead bodies.
The Noche turned to face the river just as the other guy came out of the river carrying the adult human under his armpit like a sack of potatoes.
Since he was the the bigger of the two this put him in the lead, so he grunted the orders to the other Noche.
The other Noche nodded and then walked past him to the grove of trees where they would be leaving the humans. Behind them a trail of red from the blood spilling out of the human’s stomach formed.
The leader picked up the human boy and followed the other Noche.
*
Inside the grove the smaller Noche was waiting for further orders. The leader grunted and motioned with his chin towards a fallen tree covered in bright green moss.
The smaller Noche put the human boy against the tree and then looked at the leader to ask if it was alright. The leader grunted, and then ordered him away.
The leader put the adult human next to the human boy, and after looking over his shoulder to make sure the other Noche was gone, he brushed back the hair covering their faces.
Then he stepped back to get a better look at them. Although he was the bigger of the two Noches who had been sent to dispose of the bodies, he was still young. He had just become an adult a month ago and had never been this close to a human.
But now that he was seeing them up close like this, he wasn’t sure what made the other villagers so afraid of them. They looked frail, what with their small shoulders, and scrawny limbs. They weren’t muscular and built for hand to hand combat the way Noches were.
He stepped closer to the humans to look at their facial features. The boy and the adult shared many similar features; the nose, the brows, the chin and lips. A lot of similarities, and it became clear to him that these were father and son.
That would explain the father sacrificing himself so the boy could get away. A father trying to protect his son, and he wondered if maybe these humans weren’t so different than them after all.
Maybe the humans weren’t the monsters that the villagers made them out to be. Maybe all these humans had wanted was to survive in this cruel world.
He ran his hand across their clothes. It was soft and wouldn’t protect them from anything. He had no idea why they all wore it, but the thought disappeared when his palm touched something in the adult’s jeans.
With two fingers the Noche reached in and pulled out four shiny river rocks from the pockets of the jeans. They were the same ones they used to decorate their graves.
He dropped the rocks in between the two humans, on a pool of light spilling in through the treetops, and took a giant step back to get one last look at them.
Despite the blood running down from their gashes, and the greasy unkempt hair, and the death in their eyes—despite all of this, the humans looked at peace.
The Noche turned, and headed back for the village, hoping he could still get some sleep since a whole day still lay ahead.
*
No one knew how many humans still survived, or if there were even any left. Perhaps Los Noches had just wiped the entire species off of the planet, it was anyone’s guess.
But one thing was for certain, lying underneath the trees shoulder to shoulder there would be no more chaos for Alejandro and Charlie. No more worrying. No more pain. No more nightmares.
This was the end for them, the last turn of their path, but the river rocks would continue to shine for them. They would shine forever.
AFTERWORD
If you happen to be a geography buff, you’ll notice that the locations and distances covered in the book do not match up to real life. That’s because the Northern Pennsylvania is completely fictional. I was originally planning on making it true to real life, but ultimately I found it too distracting to go back and forth between writing and checking my map. So, if you happened to notice how off my scale was—you’re going to have to take my word for it, I did too.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This endeavor was not accomplished on my own. I had endless support from multiple people. They were my sounding board when I needed one, they were there when I celebrated any milestones, they were there when things got rough, and some of them were there to read the first draft and provide valuable feedback.
I feel cheesy putting names on here, but you know who you are, I’m sure of this because I talked endlessly about this project to you over the year, but thank you. I appreciate it more than you could ever know.
And most of all, I want to thank each and every person who bothered to buy this book and actually read it. With such a busy world we live in and with so much entertainment out there, I feel honored that you spent your time reading my writing. Even if you hated every single word, I want to thank you, sincerely thank each and every person who read it.
Because at the end of the day, without readers to give this book life, without you, it is nothing.
-Sergio Gomez, 3/2/2016
