by Eddie Patin
But maybe they were still too far.
There were no sounds of monsters, at least...
“Come on,” he said, cutting across the grass and up the incline toward the street. They walked across the bike path, their feet crunching in the gravel. Then, he helped Jody over the metal barricade that went up to his knees, running along the side of the street that passed in front of the school. Tommy could swing his legs across it just fine, but Jody was still too small.
All sorts of cars and trucks and vans lined the street, all dark and quiet and dead.
Tommy wondered if any of them still worked.
“Is that the school?” Jody asked, pointing at the huge building that blotted out the stars on the other side of the street. Tommy could barely tell that there were several trees in the way.
“Yeah, I think so,” he said.
On the other side of the cars closest to them, Tommy paused before crossing the street.
Left, right, left...
Safe.
His dad instilled the habit in him years ago. The boy chuckled quietly to himself that he still instinctively stopped to check for traffic at the end of the world with dead cars and killer alien monsters. Then a flood of sadness welled up inside his chest and the boy choked, clenching his eyes shut to push the emotion down.
He felt a squeeze from Jody’s little hand on his, and looked down to see her looking up at him.
“I’m sad too, Tommy,” she said, her eyes glittering in the dark.
Tommy wiped his eyes with his jacket sleeve.
“Come on,” he said, pulling his little sister across the street and up the grassy embankment.
Eventually, they ran into a chain link fence that went up higher than Tommy’s head, so he guided his sister to the right, following along the barricade through grass and skinny trees until the fencing opened up and let the children step into the main turn-in for the school.
The school parking lot was big and flat and had a few cars, but was mostly empty.
Well, the electricity did go out at dinnertime, after all...
Following the big, asphalt “U” of the school’s main entrance and pick-up/drop-off point, the children were almost at the main entrance of the building when a blinding white light suddenly flashed Tommy in the face!
The boy reached up to shield his eyes with one hand, and pushed Jody to stand behind him with the other.
The light stayed focused on him.
“Who’s there??” a man’s voice called out.
Tommy heard footsteps on the pavement up ahead.
Adults.
“Who’s with you kids?” another voice shouted.
The light bobbed a little, and Tommy peeked out from behind his hand.
“I’m Tommy. It’s me ... and my sister.”
The blinding light moved down to the ground in front of him.
“Tommy Shelton?” the voice asked. “Where’s your father, son?”
Tommy opened his mouth to speak. He felt Jody move in to clutch him from behind.
Footsteps approached in the dark.
The boy found himself looking down at his shoes. He struggled to find the words to tell the grown-ups about what happened on the road. People were alive here, in the school, so clearly the four-armed monster didn’t continue on and kill them all...
Several men suddenly appeared around Tommy and his sister, moving through the darkness—tall, hot, and swishing with the sounds of backpacks, shell jackets, and other outdoor gear. He felt a big hand grab his shoulder. Jody pressed in against him tighter.
“What happened, boy?” a deep voice said.
Tommy opened his mouth, started to tell them that they were walking up the street from home when ... but only a long, shuddering cry came out.
And then the boy fell up against the large man next to him, and all he could do was cry and wail...
Tommy reached out for his little sister and pulled her close to him.
Multiple voices said many grown-up things, and the boy felt like they were trying to make him feel better, but all he could do was cry.
The next several minutes were a whirlwind of Tommy feeling like he was going to die, like all of the fear and heartache and pain of seeing his mom killed, his dad knocked down and fighting the monsters, hearing the gargoyles eat them while the two kids hid in the ditch underneath the road—it all came out and threatened to crush the boy’s heart.
He couldn’t breathe.
The two children were gradually ushered inside where, through bleary eyes, Tommy found himself being pushed into the big school gym, where lots and lots of grown-ups and kids were set up with sleeping bags and cots and candles and lots of backpacks, suitcases, and stuffed trash bags.
At one point, amidst the voices of a few men and many women pouring over the two of them, Tommy very distinctly heard Jody, with her little voice like a clear bell, declare that “they were killed by the Zahnan.”
When things calmed down, Tommy found himself eventually sitting on a large wooden box with his little sister. A stiff, wool blanket was wrapped around the two of them as they sat side by side, drinking Power Ade.
Tommy took another sip of the lukewarm green juice. It tasted like candy.
“Jody, what are the Zahnan?” he said.
She looked up. Her upper lip was stained blue from her own drink.
“They’re the monsters, Tommy,” she said. “They’re the Zahnan.”
“How do you know that?” he asked.
Jody took a drink.
“Dream Mommy told me,” she replied.
“Dream Mommy?”
“Yeah,” his little sister said with a small voice. “The Mommy in my dream with the black hair.”
“Where’d she come from?” Tommy asked.
“She was in my dream when the monsters were eating real-life Mommy.”
Tommy looked out across the crowd of refugees in the gym. Many of them were crying quietly.
“Zahnan?” he said. “That’s a weird thing to dream up.”
“I didn’t dream it up, Tommy,” she replied. “Dream Mommy told me. I believe her.”
“Why? She’s just something you thought of in your head.”
Jody looked down to her lap, then took another sip of her blue drink.
Tommy leaned over and kissed the top of his sister’s head, then looked out across the gym and all the people, wondering where the two of them were going to sleep...
9 - Megan McKinney
Zion National Park, UT
When she opened the door to the hotel room, Megan was struck by the beauty of the place. The floor was smooth, stained hardwood, and the two double beds were impeccably made with green and brown striped comforters that matched their dark headboards and rustic decor of the room. The vaulted ceiling brought the interior design together with darker beams running over the more natural-colored stained planks.
In the corner of the room was a fireplace with a large-brick mantle that looked like real stone, and the walls were two-toned and accented with bump-outs around the windows and doorway to the bathroom.
Beautiful colors...
The several matching lamps probably glowed in a way that warmed the room even more, but with no electricity, the only light there was in here came in from the two curtained windows that looked out to the park and the other lodge building closer to the Centennial Tree field.
No tree, she thought.
Now there was only the golden obelisk-thing...
Walking across the room and casting her backpack onto the far bed, Megan thrust the curtains open to let in more light.
Ramon followed her, closing the door and looking around the room.
She sat on the bed, then gave in to the strong temptation to lay back onto its soft, welcoming surface...
“Nice,” he said, wandering into the bathroom for a moment, then putting his pack down next to hers.
Megan closed her eyes and felt her body buzzing around her.
It was late afte
rnoon, but she was already exhausted for some reason.
Maybe it was the stress...
“You know,” Megan said, listening to Ramon walk around on the hardwood floor until he was in front of her, “I’ve never been in here before. I don’t even know how much these rooms cost.”
“Probably a lot,” he said.
She felt Ramon’s long and slender hands suddenly on her knees, sliding up her slick leggings to her hips.
Megan sighed.
“What a nice room,” Ramon said, his voice slow and playful. “What a nice bed.” She could hear him smiling.
Ramon’s hands ran up over her hips, then slipped under her shirt, feeling dry but cool against her stretched out stomach.
“Yeah,” she said with a smirk. “It’s a bed, alright...”
Megan could feel his legs up against the inside of hers as Ramon leaned into her, still smoothly sliding his hands up her stomach, around her ribs. Her breasts tingled as his fingers made their way under her shirt up to her sports bra.
Opening her eyes and looking down at him, Megan saw her boyfriend grinning, looking at her, his dark hair framing his face. He breathed slow and long, then sighed with a smile.
Ramon’s fingers dug under the hem at the bottom of her bra, and she quickly sat up, pushing his hands back down.
“Are you nuts?!” she asked. “We’re sharing this room, you know. As in with other people...”
“Yeah,” he said, smiling broadly. The gold in his brown eyes glittered in the light of the sun streaming in from the windows. “But there’s no one here yet.”
Megan pushed his hands all the way out of her shirt and pulled the edges of the fabric back down to her waist. He frowned.
“Yeah, right this second, Ramon,” she replied, shaking the sleepiness out of her head. “Whoever was next in line behind us will be here any second. Duh, come on...”
Ramon stood up fast and straight with a huff and shook himself out.
“Come on, babe. Let’s mess around!” He smiled again, and leaned into her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and moving in to kiss her neck.
She scoffed, kissed him on the cheek, then stood up, making him frown again and back away.
A moment later, the door to the room opened again, and another man and woman stuck their heads in.
“Excuse me, hi,” the man said. He was balding, middle-aged, and wore a bright red t-shirt. Under one hairy arm, he carried a rolling suitcase. “Sorry—this is ... 140, right?”
Megan folded her arms and leaned back against the fireplace.
“Yep,” she said, looking straight at her boyfriend. “This is it.”
Ramon looked away.
“Hi there!” the man’s wife exclaimed in a high voice as she pushed her way in. She was also middle-aged, a little chubby, and splotched with red over her fair skin. Long, wavy blonde curls clung to the sweat of her face and neck. She wore a basic blue dress. “I’m Amy, and this is Derek. I guess we’re roommates for the time being, huh? Sure is nice of the park to let us stay here, huh? Our car is dead out front...”
Ramon stalked away a few feet, agitated and dark.
While Derek and Amy situated themselves and their luggage around the other bed, another man came in a little later, all by himself. He introduced himself as Chuck, a car salesman and Mormon from Salt Lake City who was here on vacation. Chuck’s dark, military-cropped haircut and tan, Italian-like skin was a far cry from the fair, blue-eyed appearance that Megan usually associated with Utah Mormons.
As Ramon busied himself with chatting with the three strangers sharing their room, Megan stood at one of the windows, watching the Centennial Cottonwood field. In the slanted light of the afternoon, she could see the shining, golden reflection of the monolith in the center of the park-like space, hovering a few feet above the stump of the massive, old tree.
People still crowded around the anomaly, and much to Megan’s surprise, tourists were still walking up and touching the strange metal thing with regularity.
“And then we were planning to stop in South Dakota to—” Amy was saying when Megan interrupted her.
“Hey, have you guys seen that man ranger any time lately?”
Megan realized that she hadn’t seen the guy with the gun since she and Ramon walked back to their campsite earlier. Where was that guy? People were touching the golden monolith left and right. It was only a matter of time before another bad thing happened—another man going insane from the weird and unknown powers inside; going ballistic and attacking everyone in sight, tearing his eyeballs out like the last guy...
“I did,” Chuck said. Megan looked at him, and saw that his dark eyes were tinged and speckled with gold. “He left here some time ago, heading back to the Ranger station south of here, trying to communicate with State Patrol.”
“How do you know that?” Derek asked, sitting on the other bed next to his wife.
“He told me so,” Derek replied. “I saw him trying to get his truck started earlier. I tried to help him. It didn’t start. So he decided to walk.”
“How far is it to the nearest town?” Amy asked.
Megan spoke up. “Well there’s a little town just outside the Ranger station called Springdale. Just a tourist spot, really. But the nearest big town is St. George—like ... forty miles away or so.”
The night went without event.
Ramon tried to hold Megan as they slept, but she could feel a strange energy coming from him—an intense insecurity that only repulsed her even more whenever he tried to paw at her under the covers.
Why was he being so weird?
Twice, she woke in the night, cold because of the dead heating system. Half-asleep, Megan was relieved that her boyfriend’s body was under the covers with her to keep her warm, but she also hated that she needed his warmth...
Whenever she opened her eyes in the quiet darkness, Megan listened to Derek snoring with Amy in the next bed over. Chuck slept on the floor without a sound. But both times Megan woke up, she saw Ramon staring back at her, his golden eyes clearly metallic in the cool, dim light of the night.
Either she was still dreaming those times, or his eyes were growing more golden as they slept.
It must have been a very clear night with lots of stars lighting up the inky sky for Megan to be able to see so well...
The next day, Megan and Ramon did what everyone else did. They ate the breakfast that the staff provided—pieces of fruit, bread, and individually-wrapped cereal packs without milk. Megan ate fruit loops. She assumed that by now, the milk had gone bad.
Later, she ate the same scraps of food that everyone else did—whatever the restaurant could ration that was still safe to eat. Megan bolstered her meals with small bits of beef jerky, nuts, and trail mix from her pack.
By lunchtime, though, things were getting weird...
Ramon stuck to her side, only speaking to her when other people weren’t around; otherwise quiet and sullen. He was as needy and clingy as ever.
But everyone else had started to regard Megan ... differently.
As she wandered around the Lodge complex, through the halls and open lobby, taking time to sit and look out of the back windows of the restaurant, or lean up against the railings of its outside deck, Megan was starting to see the gold flecks in the irises of almost everyone.
And it wasn’t just that...
Some of the throngs of tourist refugees around her—especially the men and teenage boys—were losing their natural eye color to the gold entirely. Some of them looked back at her with irises like brand-new, gleaming pennies, just like the few people she noticed with the affliction the day before.
There were so many more of them now!
And no one talked about the eyes.
Megan was afraid to ask.
She thought that maybe she was going insane, herself. Perhaps none of their eyes were gold, and she was just imagining it...
But one thing was for sure.
They were treating her differently
... unless it was her imagination.
As Megan walked through the halls of the beautiful but dark building, people quieted at her approach, and she glanced around on multiple occasions only to see that everyone was staring back at her.
And the men with the fully-golden eyes; their gazes felt like the watching of wolves—like a clutch of predators staring back at her. She felt their eyes flickering over her body, lashing up and down her flesh, blazing on her chest and in between her legs. Her skin became hot when she passed golden-eyed men in the Lodge, because she could feel their pulsing lust as something heavy and tangible in the air...
At times, standing out front in the sun to get fresh air, or watching from the window of Room 140, Megan still saw people approaching the golden monolith in the field. They approached cautiously, reverently, and touched its gleaming metallic surface with tentative hands.
“Have you touched it yet?” Ramon asked, hanging onto her one of those times.
“No,” she said.
“You should,” he replied, and Megan stared at him, trying to understand why he would try to convince her to.
“I won’t,” Megan replied, and pulled away.
Her boyfriend hardly touched after that, only following behind her like a lost puppy as she paced around, seeking refuge from the intense glares of the many creepy tourists around her. Ramon’s eyes were also completely gold by now, and she found herself avoiding his gaze, which only made him act even more crazy.
Later, Megan turned on the tap of the Room 140’s dark bathroom. The water was slow, but it was still there, and she splashed a couple of handfuls of it onto her face.
It was cold.
She stared at her own blue eyes in the dim light, then closed the door so that she could pull out her working flashlight without anyone noticing. Megan shined the light into her eyes, one by one, to make sure there were no gold flecks in there...
Her eyes were still normal.
As she stared at her face in the mirror, peering into the sharp, blue lines of her irises, searching for the smallest glittering speck of gold, it finally occurred to her...