Before Dawn: The Lobo Cliff Incident

by Rod Martinez

She walked up toward him.

  “Uh hi, Miss Lewter.”

  “Alex. Really? Didn’t you learn anything from our last meeting? One of the kids saw you run off into the woods, so I decided to come before Principal James found out.”

  She walked up to him, took him by the hand.

  “Wait Miss Lewter… there’s this thing here in the woods… like a wolf or…”

  “Or a vivid imagination? Let’s go Davidson…”

  “Aw man.”

  CHAPTER 4:

  On the school bus ride home, Alex sat staring out of the window. Marcie was talking to him but he didn’t hear a word of it.

  “Hello, earth to Alex, Alex – come in…?”

  “Oh, sorry – what did you say Marcie?”

  “I’m going to Dorian’s house when we get off the bus, wanna come? They say he’s really sick.”

  Dorian Garcia was Alex’s best friend too. He knew Dorian before he met Marcie. They played on the neighborhood baseball team together and Dorian was the most athletic kid on the block. Alex and Dorian first met at the neighborhood BMX race. They were both seven. Dorian’s skills on the bike amazed Alex. He had to learn his moves, and that brought them close, Dorian did things on a bike that no one had ever even thought of before, he was the envy for blocks. Then he got sick. It got to the point that Alex couldn’t even visit him anymore. Every time he walked into his room and saw Dorian lying there, he wanted to cry. And no one could explain why he was sick, he always looked tired, the nurse would come in and change bandages. It all looked pretty painful. Doctors came to the house, he had to have a lot of blood stuff done, but nobody could explain. And it wasn’t pretty; he looked like he was ready to die.

  “Alex! Are you even listening to me!?”

  “Huh? Uh, yeah, sure.”

  “No, as usual, your head was somewhere up in the clouds, geez!”

  “Sorry Marcie, kinda worried. Miss Lewter says she emailed my Dad, so when I get home, I’m really in trouble, so I may as well see Dorian first.”

  “Well honestly Alex, what would make you run into the woods behind the school?”

  “Remember that thing we saw yesterday?”

  “I didn’t see it, you saw it.”

  “Well it must have followed me because it was in the woods at school too.”

  “What, the deer?”

  “It wasn’t a deer, Marcie.”

  “So what was it?”

  The kid sitting in the seat in front of them turned and faced him; he wanted to hear it too.

  “FabianRoss, why are you so nosey?” Marcie asked.

  The kid sat back down.

  “Uh… never mind Marcie, I’ll tell you later.”

  The bus stopped at their corner and the two friends, along with a couple other kids hopped off.

  “Hey Marcie, Alex,” the kid nosey kid from the bus called, “… you guys wanna go to the library later? They’re having a manga program, should be fun.”

  “Na, I’m probably going to be grounded again, FabianRoss.”

  “Ok, well I’m going. I started drawing on my iPad, I’m working on a manga comic about the constellations.”

  “Great.” Marcie shrugged, rolling her eyes.

  The two friends walked off to their cul-de-sac approaching Dorian’s house. Of all the families in their neighborhood, the Garcia family had been here the longest time. They inherited the house from Dorian’s great-grandmother, an immigrant from Cuba. His family has been in Lobo Cliff longer than most of the others.

  Alex’s father was born here, but moved away to Tampa to go to college, where he met Alex’s Mom. When Alex’s family moved ‘back home’ after his mother’s death, Dorian was the first friend he met. They became best friends instantly. Then Marcie’s family moved in. Her mother and father divorced. They lived in Panama City, Florida up to the north of the State, but then her mom got a job at the hospital here. Her father stayed in Panama City. The three friends took to each other quickly, Marcie was a welcomed third to the duo, though FabianRoss tried, they just didn’t give him the attention he wanted. The three friends planned everything together, but it all came to a screeching halt when Dorian got sick.

  As the two friends approached the house, they could see Dorian’s mother on the porch, she looked like she was crying. Alex hopped the stairs and stood in front of her.

  “Hi Mrs. Garcia… uh is Dorian ok?”

  She looked up at the two friends.

  “Oh hello Alex, Marcie. Uh… mi Dori no se siente bien, uh… Dori is lying down. He is not feeling too well.” she offered a fake smile through her bi-lingual reply.

  “What’s the matter?”

  Marcie sat down next to her, put her arm around her.

  “Marcie, he has a rare sickness. He might not… see his tenth birthday.”

  She was wearing wooden beads around her neck and was rubbing her fingers on each one, one at a time.

  “Oh man, I feel so bad. Dorian is so active, can I go in and see him…”

  “Come on Alex, let’s leave her alone, Dorian needs his rest.”

  Marcie bent over, kissed the woman on her cheek.

  “We hope he gets better, Mrs. Garcia.”

  “Thank you, kids.”

  They walked off the porch and headed home, Marcie’s house was just before Alex’s.

  “Man she’s really upset. I wish we could help her some kind of way.”

  “I know Alex…”

  “Uh, son?”

  The two friends turned around, his father was standing on the porch.

  “Uh oh… well, see you tomorrow in school.”

  “Ok Alex, good luck.”

  He walked alone to his house, heading straight for the porch; his dad had his hands on his hips.

  “Uh, Hi Dad.”

  He couldn’t tell if his father was upset or worried, the look on his face was right between the both of them. He raised his eyebrow, staring at his son.

  “Ok, so you and Marcie going to do some work for me today?”

  Alex smiled.

  “Uh, sure Dad... uh… did you get an email today?”

  “No, our computer died this morning. Now I’ll have to pay some geek to come fix it.”

  “Oh.” Alex smiled.

  “But I did get a text from your counselor, Ms. Lewter.”

  His face dropped.

  “Oh.”

  “She says you and she took a walk into the woods behind school, I guess she likes nature like you do. Glad she takes an interest in you, son, keeps you out of trouble.”

  “Uh yeah…?”

  “So anyway, I need to show you what I want you and Marcie to do. I can go in with you, but I’m going to give you this gadget and I can take readings off it here at home… I’m kind of developing this unit so if it works like I think it will, we may end up rolling in the dough. And think about it, you guys get to ride your bikes and work at the same time, deal?”

  “Sure Dad!” he smiled.

  “Ok but first I want you to finish your homework, then call Marcie and you can start, ok?”

  Alex ran inside the house.

  * * * * * * *

  Within an hour, after both kids had frozen pizza at Alex’s house, they were standing out front with their bikes. His Dad walked out of the house with a weird looking contraption that looked almost like an old cell phone with a neck chain attached to it.

  “Ok guys this is called an Alexometer, the way it works…”

  “Dad? Alexometer? Couldn’t you think of a better name?

  “I named you, and I named my contraption… is there a problem? Anyway how this works… well never mind you don’t need all the specifics. Ok son, put this around your neck. See this blue button? I want you to push it when you get to the spot I’m going to tell you. Marcie, this is basically an electronic tape measure, I want you to attach it to your handlebar with this Velcro strap. I already set the measurement in there, so it’s going to tell you where to go. Once you start into the woods, it�
�s going to talk to you like a GPS and tell you go straight, go left, stop, etcetera… ok?”

  “Ok is that it?”

  “Yes, when it says stop, you stay there and Alex you go about ten yards north of her… you know how far ten yards is, right? That stop sign on the corner is about ten yards from us, get it?”

  “Ok.”

  “I’ll call you on the cell phone and you push the blue button and start reading out to me the numbers it tells you ok?”

  “That’s all?”

  “Yeah… you guys get treated to ice cream after this, so don’t fail me.”

  “We won’t Mr. Davidson.”

  They quickly set off into the forest. It almost became a race, they were both very familiar with the paths in these woods, but this time they had to allow some machine to tell them where to go. Ironically, the directions sent them straight to the “Y” tree. They stopped.

  “Start transponder” the robotic voice said.

  “Ok I guess that means I stay here and you go ten yards, Alex.”

  “Ok.”

  He faced his bike north and rode up ten yards then skidded on the leaves. He pulled out his phone and dialed.

  “Man this is fun.” Marcie smiled.

  “Ok Dad,” he said putting it on speaker, “…I’ll leave it on speaker and it’ll read the numbers.”

  “Good choice, son.”

  The transponder started making a series of mechanical beeps then started shooting out numbers. Alex got off his bike.

  “Don’t move Alex, it might change numbers or something!” Marcie screamed.

  He took the transponder off his neck and hung it on the handlebars, then took a step to walk back to her. Then he heard the growl.

  “Oh, oh… Marcie did you hear that?”

  “No, what?”

  He didn’t take his eyes off the area where he heard the sound, and he motioned for her.

  “Come over here, hurry.”

  As she started to walk toward him, a twig fell off the tree next to him and dropped right on his head. He jumped. Marcie looked up in the tree and saw a quick flash of brown fur leap from that tree to another one.

  “Whoa!” she pointed.

  It was at a third tree by the time Alex’s eyes could focus.

  “It’s him! See I told you!”

  It landed yards away and started running off.

  “Wait! Wait!” Alex screamed chasing it.

  “Alex no!” she barked.

  “Uh, son… you still there?” his Dad’s voice said on the phone.

  He ran off after it, jumped over the rock next to the tree and tripped. His head hit the loose hanging branch and Marcie could hear the thud as he fell hard to the moist ground, then the branch fell and locked his legs to the ground from where she stood.

  “Alex!?”

  She ran over to him, he was out cold.

  “Alex?” she shook him, he didn’t budge.

  Marcie looked around, she normally didn’t feel fear or nervousness here, but it slowly started to happen now. She pulled out her cell phone and frantically dialed Alex’s father’s number.

  “Hurry, hurry!”

  “Hello?”

  “Mr. Davidson, he’s hurt. Hurry! Come into the woods, I can’t pick him up!”

  She heard static, then…

  “Hello?”

  “Mr. Davidson?”

  “Hello?”

  “Oh great!”

  She threw the phone down, reached for Alex, and moved his head.

  “Alex? Come on, it’s getting dark… come on, Alex!”

  She was too overcome in trying to get him up to realize someone, or something… was walking up behind her.

  “Alex?” she started to cry.

  She heard the snap of a twig, and she turned. The first thing she felt was the warm breath on her back. It felt menacing, angry. Then she turned fully and saw fangs, then its eyes that were closed in on Alex.

  “Alex… the monster... I believe you... he’s right here... and he’s going to eat us, Alex please get up.”

  She never took her eyes off of it, it looked like a wolf, but the eyes almost looked human and it got closer to them. The thick brown fur covered its body and she had a hard time keeping her eyes in one place, its face, then legs, then claws, then fangs. She swallowed from nervousness, then turned fully to face it, whimpering a she moved.

  “Please don’t hurt us, he’s my best friend… he’s, he’s hurt.”

  It got closer to her, she could feel the breath as it exhaled. It bent down to Alex, reached out its claw.

  “NO, please, don’t hurt us…”

  It grabbed the branch and lifted it like it was a pencil, tossed it off into the woods. Then it turned to Marcie.

  “Uh… thank you?”

  Its claw got close to her face… then one finger touched her forehead. As soon as it did, she fell into a faint.

  * * * * * * *

  “Marcie, Alex!? Get up! What happened?”

  Alex slowly opened his eyes. His father was kneeling over him in the dark woods.

  “Dad?”

  “You know, if you kids wanna go camping, maybe next time you should bring a tent and some sleeping bags… I mean, really. All I asked was for you two to hold my equipment and let it send me readings.”

  “Mr. Davidson?”

  Marcie was rubbing her head.

  “How long have we been here?”

  “Well about two hours, I had a time trying to follow the signal on my detector; I guess the batteries are dying on this thing. Next time I’ll use rechargeables.”

  They got up, walked back with Alex’s Dad. Marcie grabbed him by the arm.

  “Alex, I saw him, he pulled the limb off you.”

  “Saw who?”

  “The wolf.”

  “Did you say you saw a wolf?”

  He stopped, turned and looked at the kids shining his flashlight on them.

  “Well, yeah Dad, there’s a wolf... that stands on its hind legs. He lives in these woods.”

  “Oh,” he smiled, “… stands on its hind legs, huh?”

  “Yeah, and he helped Alex by moving the log off his legs.”

  “Sure.”

  “We’re serious, Dad!”

  “Yeah, like the time you were serious when you saw the UFO land outside your school?”

  “Well, see… I was kidding back then…”

  “Son, do you remember the story about ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf’?”

  He turned to Marcie.

  “Grown ups never believe us.” he whispered.

  They walked off into the night. When they finally came out of the woods, they noticed an ambulance at Dorian’s house. Alex ran off to see. Marcie soon followed.

  “Son!?”

  His dad was soon close behind. Alex hopped up on the porch while the ambulance driver walked out the front door.

  “Hey, what’s going on? Is Dorian ok?”

  Dorian’s Dad stormed out, trying to comfort his wife, who was beyond grief.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Garcia, is Dorian… ok?” Marcie asked.

  She looked at the kids and started crying and ran back in the house. Alex’s Dad walked up, stretched his hand out to Dorian’s Dad’s.

  “Hey Mike, everything ok? Anything I can do?”

  “Uh, No Tony… he’s on a respirator now in his room. I don’t know how much longer he has…”

  He turned away, his voice broke after that last word.

  Marcie put her arms around Alex, her eyes started to well. She turned to her best friend and he too was on the verge of tears.

  “Aw man Dad, there has to be something we can do?”

  “Son, the best we can do is to be here for Dorian and his parents. You’re his best friend, he would want that.”

  The two fathers shook hands.

  “Thanks Tony, I’ll let you know if anything happens.”

  Alex’s dad patted both kid’s shoulders.

  “Come on guys, let’s go.
School tomorrow you know?”

  “Bye Mr. Garcia.”

  “Good bye, children.”

  Marcie walked off to her house and went inside, next door leaving Alex and his Dad to walk across the street.

  “What’s wrong with him, Dad?”

  “I don’t know, son. They never said. It’s one serious form of illness that has the doctors baffled.”

  Within minutes, young Alex was bathed and in his room. His father knocked on the door.

  “Son?”

  “Yeah, Dad?”

  He walked in and stood by the bed where his soon was sitting. Alex was looking out the window.

  “I never asked if you were ok after the incident in the woods. Marcie said a limb fell on you?”

  “I don’t even remember that, dad.”

  “Ok, well you weren’t walking with a limp, so that’s a good thing. Uh, about Dorian… you know son, if he doesn’t make it, there’ll be a funeral. Just thought I’d warn you now. I know after your Mom died, you swore you’d never go to another funeral again, but he’s your best friend. I know how devastated you get when you lose family.”

  “I… I know Dad…”

  He turned and stared out the window again.

  “Ok, good night son.”

  “Night, Dad.”

  He kept his stare out into the woods as the bright full moon shone over the horizon. Felt like minutes, but it could have been a whole hour, he wasn’t sleepy and Dorian’s situation was in all his thoughts. Remembering back when they used to ride bikes and purposely lose Marcie in the woods, and the three legged race they won at the Lobo Cliff Spring Jam last year. They broke the trophy in half so both of them could have a piece in their room. And the time Dorian put a frog in Bethany’s bathroom so they could hear her scream. Alex let out a deep sigh as he sat, still staring out the window. It was dark and quiet outside, then just as he turned to lie down he saw something move out in his yard. He got up, knelt on the bed with his face against the glass. He could barely make it out, a shape… a form out in the yard coming out of the woods and toward his house. He dug into his night stand and grabbed the flashlight, pointed it out into the yard. There was nothing there. He opened his window and shined it all over the yard, nothing, just trees willowing from the night breeze.

  “Geez, what’s wrong with me?”

  He sat back on his bed, turned off the flash light, and buried his face in his hands.

  “Man what about Dorian, what are we going to do about Dorian? I have to help him some kinda way.” he whispered to himself.

  The scent caught him first, it wasn’t something he was used to smelling. He grabbed his flashlight again and turned to the window, then jumped at the sight before him - the wolf was standing right there staring at him. He held in his scream, put the flashlight down and stared back at it. They were both frozen, both contemplating the other one’s next move.