Chapter 1 #6
The man kept his eyes forward and chased the beam of his flashlight, stumbling over roots and rocks. He gasped for air. His legs burned, eyes watering, his—
Suddenly, then, the wicked light behind him began to fade. The thunderous shattering of trees continued, but like a dwindling storm, the booming sounds grew muffled and further apart.
Thank God, the man thought, tears of relief staining his filthy cheeks. Finally.
The Nightwalker was slowing down. Bleeding out. Dying.
But it’s still dangerous. It’ll still kill me if I let it.
Head eerily clear, battered body coursing with adrenaline, the man slowed his pace and tried to catch his breath.
He needed a second wind, to put as much ground between him and that freak as possible.
His leg ached and he was bleeding from a dozen places, shirt and pants torn and tattered, but he was still alive.
That’s all that mattered. He was still on his way to DC.
He hurried along. The forest soon gave way to the dirt shoulder of a narrow two-lane road.
Across the street was a dilapidated elementary school.
Two small brick buildings separated by an overgrown playground and a single blacktop basketball hoop.
The pickup lane out front was jammed with the corpses of minivans and SUVs.
The man leaned against a black Suburban, its hood wiped clean by tonight’s rain, and took the time to reload the shotgun.
Behind him, in the distance, trees continued to fall. The Scorpion’s speed and power had been diminished, yet still it persisted. How long would it keep chasing him? How long could it stay alive?
The man switched off the flashlight and entered the playground.
The clouds had cleared shortly after the rain stopped, and the emerging moon was barely bright enough to light his way.
He jogged past deflated footballs and basketballs, rusted-out jungle gyms with insects nesting in the mulch, and vacant, lonely swing sets.
His lungs were burning and he felt a dizziness coming on.
His body cried out for some Advil, anything to dull the pain in his leg.
He needed to tend his wounds, but all he wanted to do was just sleep again. For about a hundred hours or so.
The man forced himself to keep walking. Past the playground and into a weed-ravaged soccer field.
Two goals, their nets long lost to the elements, sat fifty yards apart.
Beyond the sidelines stood another stretch of wood, this one marked by the yawning dark mouth of a hiking trail.
The man sidestepped an old metal bench to investigate.
A wooden signpost, broken at its base, lay in the weeds not far from a faded Gatorade cooler. He stood there in the shadows, listening for the Nightwalker. All he could hear were the crickets and the shrill bellow of a toad. The owl was silent.
The man readjusted the backpack on his shoulders, turned on the flashlight, and entered the forest.
Before he made it even thirty paces, the man understood that the path through the woods had not been a hiking trail at all, but rather a well-traveled shortcut.
The flashlight beam fluttered over a crushed stone walkway that wound its way about the trees before splitting off into three separate paths, each one leading to what he assumed would be a different neighborhood.
A wood-slatted signpost, this one still standing, marked the juncture and pointed the way with a trio of stacked arrows.
To the left was FOREST HILL.
On the right, WILSON’S CREEK.
And dead ahead waited brOADVIEW ESTATES.
An “estate” with a big yard, a soft bed, and a packed pantry sounded divine right now, so the man soldiered forth on his original path.
Before long, the trees started to thin, and he could make out the dim outline of a white picket fence, the shapes of peaked-roof houses silhouetted against the moon.
“Rraaarrkkuuurraaa…”
A distant howl as angry as it was pitiful. The Nightwalker was finally dying.
“Good riddance,” the man whispered. He was shocked by how frail his voice was. He sounded like an old man. Was starting to feel like one too.
A rolling field spread out before him, the kind where horses once galloped as their rich owners picnicked in the shade and sipped wine, gossiping.
Grimacing from the pain in his leg, the man climbed over the fence and cut across the pasture toward the nearest house.
Feeling exposed now that he was out of the forest, he turned off the flashlight.
“… rakarakaraaa… raaa…”
Even weaker now. Before long, the Nightwalker would be—
“TA’AKAAAR!”
The man whirled around, stumbling in the tall grass, nearly dropping the shotgun.
Another Scorpion had answered the Nightwalker’s death knells. It was to the south, by the sound of it. Probably in the farm pond.
“KREEEEE!”
And now another, this one farther away, screeching from the distant west.
They’re waking up. Shit.
The man broke into a jog. They were still far away, just beginning to realize something was wrong. He couldn’t see those alien eyes anywhere along the horizon, but he wasn’t taking any chances.
The first house he came upon was but a fire-ravaged skeleton. All that remained was a blackened husk of collapsed ceiling beams and floorboards, all charred. A house fire, most likely. Not that it mattered now. The owners were bones and dust.
He didn’t reach another house for half a mile, when he finally stumbled upon a home that was thankfully still standing.
Still, it wasn’t what he’d expected. With its thick stone walls and twin turrets facing the tree line, it looked more like a medieval castle than a modern abode.
Surprised it doesn’t have a moat, he thought as he tried the massive wooden front door, only to find it locked.
More surprises awaited him around the back of the house.
A weathered trampoline and an algae-infested birdbath stood next to a large stone patio, which held the biggest grill the man had ever seen.
A pair of old dirt bikes lay on their sides in the lawn, grass growing up between the spokes. Just beyond them, a tattered golf net.
“ORA’KA!” another Scorpion shouted, its gravelly voice sending a flock of birds scattering from the branches of a nearby oak.
The Nightwalker was dead. The death wails had finally stopped, so it had to be. Did the creature’s packmates already know their kin was deceased? Would they realize a human had done it? Could they possibly think it had been another Scorpion? Or would they smell the gunpowder and just know?
The patio door swung open on rusty hinges, the screeching sound reminding the man of the juvenile Scorpion he’d killed in the cornfield.
Flashlight in hand, he stumbled into the kitchen and hurriedly closed the curtains above the sink.
Then it was on to the family room. It was huge.
Thick wooden beams formed a vaulted ceiling, an extravagant chandelier hanging from the center.
A pair of couches and matching recliners surrounded a giant coffee table before a massive stone fireplace, a cracked television mounted above.
The thick curtains in this room had already been drawn, blocking out the night. All of it blanketed in dust.
The man limped to the nearest sofa, set the shotgun down on the coffee table, and tossed his backpack aside.
Groaning, he removed what was left of his shirt and slipped out of his bloody boots and soggy jeans.
Sitting there in his underwear, he could finally witness the severity of his injuries.
His flashlight illuminated purple bruises blooming all over his body, cuts and scrapes etched into the plum flesh.
His leg was the worst. Deep, angry gouges encircled his calf.
Like someone had wrapped a length of barbed wire around the muscle and pulled.
He tilted the flashlight down. His torso, so thin. He could play his protruding ribs like a xylophone. His once-almond skin looked sickly without the sun’s nutrients. As if he were turning to stone.
His blood-soaked socks left a trail of wet footprints as he stumbled to his feet and shambled toward a window. After turning off the flashlight, he carefully parted the blinds and studied the nearby wood. No blue alien glow. Yet.
Upstairs in the hallway bathroom, he discovered a cache of first aid supplies in the sink cabinet. Bandages. Elastic wraps. Gauze. A bottle of isopropyl alcohol. A tube of disinfectant cream. There was a stack of washcloths too.
He stopped up the sink and soaked one of the towels in water from his backpack. Sitting on the toilet, he gritted his teeth and began to wipe away the surface layer of blood and grime. The pain was sharp, but fast to flee. The cleaning calm before the cleansing storm.
Then the man took a hand towel and jammed it in his mouth, biting down hard.
Before he could change his mind, he squirted the alcohol all over another washcloth, inhaled deeply through his nose, and began pressing the disinfectant into his wounds.
His toes curled in pain, fingers spasming, face snarling.
The man’s entire body began to sweat as he chewed his makeshift gag.
He wanted to scream but didn’t dare, settling for muffled huffs and grunts and insults.
Blissful venom seeped into his flesh, burning away whatever alien traces remained, along with his own nerves.
Bile crept up his gullet as he cleaned his road rash arms and worked toward the scrape on his chest. His belly convulsed as the alcohol dug into his wound, pouring over the carnage like hot lava.
He pressed the isopropyl to his cheeks, nose, and forehead, the burn devouring him as salty perspiration rolled into the canyons of his many wounds, the pain renewing itself over and over.