Rise of the Night Stalkers

by Kurtis Eckstein

  Was I just hallucinating?

  I mean, it had to be a hallucination, yet it seemed so intentional.

  Having no real explanation to go with, I took a deep breath as I dropped to my heels to grab it, holding the kid’s upper body with one arm, while I balanced his legs in the crook of my elbow. I had assumed the boy was only nine or ten based on the way he looked, but now that he was in my arms, I was starting to have doubts. Either he was younger than I assumed, or I was significantly larger than I realized.

  Plopping the toy onto his stomach, so that it rolled between us, I started walking down the alleyway with no real goal in mind at this point. I knew I had to find other humans, but with him unconscious, I wasn’t sure how. Surely, they would be close by, wouldn’t they?

  I considered flying to scope out the place again, but I had no idea how flight would affect him, especially the landing part. Not to mention I doubted I could easily catch him if he woke up, freaked out, and fell. I felt confident in my strength to hold him still, and yet walking just seemed like the better idea.

  And so, I walked.

  Once I exited the alleyway, I scanned the trashed vehicles along the side of the road, searching for any signs of life. Of course, there was nothing though, at least not at first glance.

  As I passed a partially gutted car, I noticed a small marking on the ground just behind the front tire, as if someone had spray-painted a small arrow with pink paint. It looked fresh too. Not wet, but bright like it had only been a day or two. And I realized the location was probably to avoid being bleached by the sun, in order to ensure it stayed bright even longer than usual.

  For half a second, I couldn’t believe the stupidity of such a mark, until I considered the beastly nature of most of my kind. No doubt an arrow would be meaningless to the creatures I had heard and seen the previous night, no matter how big it might be. They could have painted a giant arrow in the middle of the road, and while it might be a waste of resources, it would only lead humans to their location – not monsters.

  But the freshness of the arrow began to get the gears turning in my head.

  It was possible they had sent out a search party for this boy, marking arrows on the various streets to lead him in the right direction when they couldn’t find him, sort of as a last ditch effort in hopes that he would find his own way back home. It was definitely something they would have been required to teach someone his age in advance, but I was sure it wouldn’t be hard for him to learn to look for and follow the arrows if he ever got lost.

  It seemed like a tedious task, but if they had a general idea of where he disappeared, then it might not be so daunting for a handful of people to mark a couple mile radius.

  The actual reasons why or how didn’t really matter now though. The point was that the path they laid out for him was now directions that would easily lead me.

  I began walking again, my eyes scanning the desolate scene before me.

  A few of the streetlamps had been snapped, possibly broken by a monster, but the poles were lying on the side of the road like they had been moved to make way for a vehicle to travel through. The streets were lined with more trashed cars and trucks, with broken windows and bent roofs, as far as I could see. It was obvious that whatever happened in this city didn’t give people much time to escape.

  Glass and concrete walls alike were smashed on random buildings, some of them relatively untouched while others looked like a bomb had gone off.

  Without any effort, I picked out the pink dot on the side of a building to my right, turning onto the street when I reached it, only to spot another arrow positioned behind another car’s wheel in a similar manner.

  It was in this way that I made my way from street to street, until I was just walking down a long road with no indication that I was supposed to turn anywhere else. I then quickly realized that I was heading towards what appeared to be a hospital on the right side in the distance, just before a highway overpass not much further beyond.

  I stopped briefly when I got to an intersection and noticed a fast-food joint I recognized. It gave me an eerie sense of nostalgia, though I couldn’t remember ever eating the food there, having no idea what kind they even served. Still, I had no doubt I had eaten at such a place.

  Maybe not this one in particular, but another like it.

  I shook off the feeling after a moment, refocusing on my goal.

  I didn’t need the markings for directions now, even if there were any to be found, because I could see the logic in holing up in a hospital. For one, the medical supplies were invaluable in this kind of situation, but also the thick walls of most of these types of buildings made for a natural fortress, not to mention a hospital would have everything a person needed to get by, even food to an extent.

  Depending on how long ago this all started, the hospital might even still have food, and if not, then there were plenty of places in the nearby area to scavenge, including the fast-food joint I had just passed.

  As I got to the hospital, and turned into the parking lot in front of a large emergency drop-off, I paused to consider how to approach this situation. The area was full of abandoned vehicles, a few of which had been moved to create a barricade in front of the enormous set of glass doors underneath the covered entrance to the ER. However, there were two other entrances off to the left side, one labeled emergency for people not arriving via ambulance, with the other saying Radiation Therapy, giving me three doors to choose from.

  But that alone wasn’t really a major problem.

  The issue was how to greet them without freaking them out.

  Obviously, they would view me as an enemy, and I had no idea how a shot from a gun would affect my health. Would my seemingly armored body absorb a bullet without any damage? Or would it still pierce me much like it might penetrate a bone?

  I felt like I could handle quite a few shots from a normal rifle, but I had no memory to back that up.

  Thus, my only hope was that the boy in my arms would give them pause – to ask questions before shooting. And maybe once I had the opportunity to speak with them, they would trust me enough to share what they knew.

  That’s all I really wanted. I’d leave them in peace after I got the answers I was searching for.

  Unexpectedly, a young woman bolted out of the entrance labeled Radiation Therapy, a rifle pointed at me as she made a beeline straight in my direction.

  “Savannah!” an older man called out to her, his tone gruff, before he cursed as he chased after.

  The girl, who looked like she was barely out of high school, had exotic green irises, fair skin, and dark brown hair tied back into a high ponytail.

  Despite her evident courage, her tight eyes revealed panic and terror to see someone she obviously cared about in my arms.

  She looked like a crazed suicide – determined, yet scared, to the point of irrationality.

  The man chasing her had a lighter shade of those same green eyes, along with completely white hair like mine. The similarities in their appearance, along with the obvious wrinkles in his face, were enough details to identify him as possibly being her grandfather, not to mention I doubted a stranger would care enough to follow her to what was likely a certain death in their eyes.

  Seeing these two people also made me realize I was either taller than the average human, or they were both a little on the short side. Certainly, I wasn’t a giant, but I’d say it was safe to assume I was somewhere between six-and-a-half feet to possibly even seven feet tall, which was significantly taller than I felt like my human-self had been.

  One more person, a middle-aged man, appeared at the Radiation Therapy entrance as well, gun raised, but I paid him no attention, focusing on the girl drawing near. Given that it looked like she was almost a foot shorter than me, I began suspecting that I was closer to six-and-a-half feet tall, since I knew women over six feet weren’t common, not to mention it would mean her grandfather was abnormally tall himself.

  But that was only an ancillar
y thought passing through my mind while I took in a deep breath for the moment I had been waiting for.

  This was it.

  I would finally get some answers. I just needed to calm her down first, before she tried shooting me.

  Thus, wanting to reassure her that I meant no harm, I opened my mouth to speak, only to discover that…

  I couldn’t…

  My attempts to talk only resulted in a low grunt escaping my throat.

  Chapter 2: Complications

  Shit!

  All this time, I’d been thinking so clearly that I had never even considered that I might not be capable of speech! And I couldn’t ask them questions if I couldn’t even talk!

  Dammit!

  Why in the hell couldn’t I speak?!

  My thoughts were crystal clear, and yet I couldn’t seem to form the words I so easily created in my mind. What in the hell?!

  Shit!

  Shit! Shit! Shit!

  Realizing I was unexpectedly out of options, I raised the kid’s body slightly, prompting the girl called Savannah to stop dead in her tracks, almost tripping over her own feet in the process. She was dressed in jean shorts and a camisole tank top, along with black boots, with the combination revealing most of the fair skin on her legs, arms, upper chest, and shoulders.

  Despite almost losing her balance, the gun was still pointed directly at me, the barrel trembling violently, her green eyes wild.

  “Put him down!” she shrieked, her voice breaking.

  I tried speaking again, knowing it was pointless, but desperate to communicate.

  Yet I only produced another grunt that sounded more like a lion preparing to growl rather than a human trying to speak.

  Dammit!

  “I said, put my brother down!” she shrieked again, shoving her shoulder forward a little, the gun with it, as if to emphasize her point.

  Beginning to accept I was at a loss, I slowly began lowering myself onto my heels, causing her eyes to turn as wide as saucers, as if she hadn’t expected me to actually listen. The stuffed puppy fell between my armored legs as I gently laid the boy down on the pavement, prompting me to reach to grab it and then place it on his chest, watching it rise infinitesimally with his weak breathing for a moment before standing up to meet Savannah’s gaze again.

  She was just staring at me dumbfounded, her expression one of complete disbelief.

  I heard the older man behind her, wearing khaki shorts and a utility vest full of ammunition, curse under his breath. “The hell?”

  He didn’t lower his weapon though. No one did.

  However, he also didn’t fire either, even though I now didn’t have a hostage, possibly because he knew what I already suspected – that I could take all of them out before I died from their guns.

  Shoot, I was fairly certain I could take the girl and old man out with my tail from my current location, only to leap toward the last one and finish him before he even had a chance to get more than a few shots off. Which meant, coming out here and revealing themselves was a mistake on their part, assuming their goal was survival. And even now, they might understand that along with their first error, firing their weapons to provoke an attack from me would be a fatal second error.

  Or so I hoped.

  “M-Move back to the road,” Savannah finally added, her tone a mixture of confusion, fear, and shock.

  Dammit!

  It was finally sinking in that this was completely a lost cause at this point. If I couldn’t speak, then I’d never get anywhere with them. Which meant I’d never find out what happened to the world. Could I learn to talk? Would practice allow me to develop that skill? Or was that a lost cause too?

  Maybe if I spent some time trying, and then came back later…

  Frustrated with the situation, I huffed out a sigh that turned into a growl as I whipped around and began marching away, having no intentions of just stopping at the road.

  I was leaving.

  My extra appendage swung behind me over the boy’s body, before moving into a tight rhythm near the ground as I departed.

  The old-timer called out urgently to his possible granddaughter. “Watch out for the tail!”

  But I was already out of reach by that point, moving quickly. Granted, given my tail’s current length, the fact that this grandpa was aware I had been in reach at some point meant I wasn’t the only one with extendable limbs. They must have seen such an appendage before.

  Good to know.

  At least I learned something on this trip.

  As I reached the street and began heading back the way I’d come, I heard the girl call out again urgently.

  “Wait!” she exclaimed.

  Irritated, I growled again as I turned my head towards her, seeing the blood drain from her face as my piercing red eyes stared her down.

  She spoke again, her voice trembling. “T-There was a girl too.”

  There was?

  Well, there certainly hadn’t been one in the makeshift cave of fallen concrete. And I had already considered the possibility that the reason the boy escaped death was because something had chased him into hiding, only to satiate its hunger with the young human’s companion. Which of course meant the girl was dead.

  But that was only a scenario I imagined.

  For all I knew, nothing had attacked them, which was especially possible since there hadn’t been much blood. Maybe the kid cut his leg on a piece of metal from the overturned dumpster and then hid when night fell. But that still didn’t explain where the girl was, or why she hadn’t been with him.

  Well, at the very least, I didn’t really feel like being an errand boy for them. If these people wanted to find some other kid, then they could do it themselves.

  But, I supposed that meant I did have to at least show them where I had found the boy in the first place, to give them a location to start with…

  Damn it all…

  Growling more loudly in frustration, I waved my hand for her to follow me, glad I could at least do that much, before continuing to march off, not about to wait around for them to discuss it.

  She quickly spoke to her grandfather. “Get Ethan inside, I’m going after it.”

  Shit, did she just seriously call me an ‘it?’ Stupid girl!

  “Like hell am I letting you go!” he hissed in return, already having drawn closer to the brown-haired fiend.

  “I’m going grandpa!” she retorted. “Harper is still out there, and I’d rather risk dying than knowing my sister is alive and all alone!”

  “Dammit, Savannah,” he cursed before raising his voice, speaking over his shoulder. “John, get him inside, and barricade the entrance. If we’re not back by sunset, then we’re probably dead.”

  The middle-aged man in question, who had blonde hair and blue eyes, cursed under his breath, before speaking louder. “Hold on, Randy. Like hell are you leaving without a radio. Worst case, and we’ll pick you up in the truck.”

  I just shook my head as I drew further away, not about to slow down while they discussed everything anyway. I assumed that a lack of gasoline might be the reason why they didn’t use the vehicle in the first place, or possibly just because the noise might draw unwanted attention. Thus far, I hadn’t noticed any of my kind being active during the daytime, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a loud sound might cause them to rouse.

  Still, hearing them discuss it was annoying as hell, even more so since I couldn’t just ask ‘why.’ Why couldn’t they use the truck now? Thus, as a reflex, I tried to shout for them to get their asses in gear, only to growl loudly again.

  Dammit! Why was this so hard?! They were going to think I was stupid at this rate! Just an unintelligent growling beast!

  At least now I understood how stroke patients must feel, still being ‘all there’ inside their minds, but having a disconnect between their thoughts and body. That was exactly what I was experiencing in this moment – my words just wouldn’t come out.

  Needless to say, my snarl certainly got the
ir attention.

  I had them both running after me to catch up, with it becoming obvious that the grandfather, Randy, was well aware of my tail’s capabilities, because he made sure he and Savannah gave me a wide enough clearance to stay out of my reach.

  I could hear them whispering behind me, but I couldn’t quite make out the words. I felt like my hearing was a little better than a human’s, but it wasn’t like I could hear everything.

  Which meant, their conversation remained elusive.

  It wasn’t hard to imagine what it might be about though. I assumed they were wondering about me, debating why a mindless creature was showing signs of intelligence and civility, while possibly also wondering if this was a trap. After all, in exchange for one prey, I had gained two, although I hadn’t been the one to force them to come along. They had made that decision on their own, in hopes of finding the second lost child.

  Lost child…

  That seemed familiar, though I couldn’t recall why. Maybe a bedtime story I once read? I had no clue why the idea was affecting me, but it made me slightly nostalgic much like the fast-food restaurant had, like a memory just on the edge of my mind – or a word on the tip of my tongue.

  I gritted my teeth and moved my tongue around in my mouth, just to make sure it was all in working order. As far as I could tell, there was nothing wrong with my mouth or throat. If anything, the issue was in my head, like a barrier that wouldn’t allow me to form words – just like my stroke patient example.

  Or maybe not a barrier, but a disconnect somewhere between my brain and mouth.

  Irritated again, I reached up to scratch my scalp, realizing for the first time that I had a stumpy pair of horns coming out of the top – probably pitch-black, like the rest of me that wasn’t gray. I hadn’t really been thorough when grabbing my long white hair to cut it off, so I had missed it before, with their existence being similar to my incapacity to feel my clawed fingernails.

  They were certainly present, but if I closed my eyes, I couldn’t feel their existence – neither my fingernails, nor horns.

  Needless to say, being unable to speak, combined with the associated frustration, made the return trip pass surprisingly quick. Before I knew it, I had found the appropriate alleyway, my curiosity getting the better of me as I tipped the large dumpster upright with minimal effort to look inside.