Geronimo thought it was too early to tell, if they could work together, as a team. So Geronimo put that question away because he knew that the answer would reveal itself, sooner or later.
"Get away from there." Geronimo said to his brother.
"Why? I'm hungry. Aren't you."
"We'll find something in the morning."
"No."
"Joe, We have to go. We have to find shelter before dark."
Geronimo no longer could go back home. Like his brother, he too was thrown out of the house by his mother.
Joseph continued picking through the garbage, pulling out styrofoam cups, plastic straws and white paper bags. Maybe there was some food that someone carelessly tossed away.
Maybe.
Geronimo stood on the east corner of Milwaukee and Western Avenue. This area used to be so crowded with people getting off the Blue Line train. Like ants, they marched home along the sidewalks of Western Avenue, one after the other.
Geronimo once wanted his life to turn out that, to turn out like them.. Now, that time was now over and the future held only something black and unknown.
Geronimo listened to the sirens echo in the street. It was a god awful sound. The sirens produced a single continuous tone that rose and fell, high and low.
The sirens always went off an hour before sunset and after sun rise.
Geronimo held a lime-green pamphlet that explained sounds of the siren. The pamphlets were distributed to every man, woman and child who remained in the city. It instructed the public to seek shelter in a sturdy building away from windows and glass. It ordered everyone to stay inside, until the following morning. At sunrise, the sirens would go off again. The second sound of the siren meant that the threat was over that the night had passed and that it was safe to step outside again.
The pamphlet was titled, When the Sirens Sound.
When the sirens sound, there's nothing around, Geronimo thought.
Then, he looked at the street. It was shocking to see all the cars and trucks off the road. The sidewalks were almost empty, with only a few running toward safety in a group. Everyone was off the street before they blared into the sweet light of the evening sky.
As all the traffic lights turned red, Geronimo walked into the middle of the intersection to look at the world from a different angle. He wondered why he had not done this before. Maybe, because he was still living in the old world when rules mattered.
Geronimo stared down Milwaukee Avenue toward the center of the city, where the glass skyscrapers held the last glow of evening light.
He heard the leaves rattle as the wind blew through a corridor of buildings. This was the first time he had seen anything like this. The world was different more than ever, unrecognizable.
The once vibrant life on the streets of Chicago had been drained away by the cold and treacherous hand of night.
Geronimo saw the, he saw a group of gutter punks walk together into the Easy Loan Store that was now abandoned. They marched inside as quickly as they could, shoulder to shoulder. When they were all inside, they closed the door and barricaded it with wooden planks. Before the last plank was put in place, a woman looked out and noticed Geronimo in the street. The woman looked sorry for Geronimo, before she nailed the the last plank in place.
Now, the streets were completely empty and he was alone in the middle of the intersection, with only the green pamphlet in his hand. He stared at the Milwaukee Avenue Blue line station, where the lights were being turned off. No train would run tonight, not until the following morning.
Geronimo felt a a hand on his shoulder.
"Let's go Geronimo." said Joseph, his brother
"Where?"
"To the church on Moffet Street. Let's go before the sirens stop."
Geronimo said nothing to Joseph and looked at the sky darken. At that moment, he knew that it was time for him to leave the city. There was nothing here, anymore.
8
His Smile was a Mask
GERONIMO DREAMED OF A TIME BEFORE THE WORLD WAS TURNED UPSIDE DOWN, OF A TIME BEFORE THE NIGHT BECAME THE TERROR. For Geronimo, the dream was good, where as the real world was not. No matter how many times he died in his dreams, it always felt better than what the night had become.
At first, the dream comforted him, like a cotton blanket that had just been pulled out of the dryer. The dream warmed his chest and the real world went away, a world made of steel wool and barb wire. Geronimo held on to the dream with all his strength. He held on to it, until all the warmth within its fibers would be eventually be drained away by the cold hands of night.
Into the dream, the boy went.
Geronimo slept soundly that afternoon in the forest with a blue pack back underneath his head and he dreamed of a time before the night became the terror. He dreamed of a time when only a few people disappeared underneath the stale orange glow of Chicago's blue collar streets.
The boy's name was Geronimo and he once lived in one of the rougher neighborhoods with his mother, Diane. But there was nothing motherly about her. It had been years since she prepared a warm meal for him and left it on the table. It had been years since she said anything gentle to him.
His mother, Diane, was a talented graffiti artist who worked part time for an insurance agency. Her friends usually called her by her nickname, D.
D wanted to create something in her life that matter to someone else other than her and her friends. Geronimo once thought that was him. But he was wrong. So, D attacked the night, spray painting her dreams onto the wall of strangers.
That afternoon in the forest, he dreamed of a photo that he once took of D, as she walked through the streets of Chicago with her crew of midnight marauders. She was a short woman with wavy almond hair. Every night, she ventured into the dark with a mission to place her fingerprint on any wall that she wanted.
The nights used to be safer, back then. But, that was along time ago when people once danced underneath the stars.
However, there was a time when D was kind to Geronimo, even motherly. When he was young, she once taught him how to make a cat from the number eight.
One day after elementary school, D called Geronimo into the living room. He sat on the arm rest of the couch. As he stared, she wrote down the number eight on a page of her black leather sketchbook, a book filled with graffiti designs drawn in fat colored markers. Her hand moved across the page, like a ballerina skating across ice. Geronimo watched as Diane drew a pair of circles and added a pair of pointed ears on top. Then, she finished the drawing with a curly tail and long whiskers.
There it was on the white page in red maker, a cat. It looked so simple to make, so obvious.
That moment meant so much to him. Everywhere he went, he carried that time with her close to his heart. He remembered it when he needed to create something out of nothing. However, those moments between him and her soon disappeared and D changed toward him. Soon after, she became cold and kept Geronimo at a distance.
Geronimo never understood why she changed.
On top of that, D never gave him the piece of paper where she drew the cat. Instead, she kept the drawing in her sketchbook and never showed it to him again. But, that did not stop him from holding it in his hands. When she wasn't looking, he would take the drawing out of her sketchbook and look at it with wonder.
He never asked why. He knew that she was not the kind of girl that felt the need to explain herself to him or to anyone else.
As time went on, Geronimo only understood that his job was to become less of a burden to her which meant that he had to learn how to take care of himself. He did this as best as he could, while D carried on, doing her own thing, living her own life. Most of the time, she wasn't even home when he came back from school. After the night changed everything, he ended up stealing it away from her. He carried it, as he hiked across the roads of Illinois and Indiana. Eventually, the drawing tore and broke apart. Even that gentle memory of the past would not survive in this new world.
Being alone most of the time, Geronimo learned to rely on himself.
In spite of his relationship with his mother, these were the good times for Geronimo.
This was a time before the night became the terror. Even in his dreams, he knew this now more than anything else.
Back then, these were the times when he carried a smile everywhere he went. Everyday, he learned to cover his emotions, covering up anything real. He carried on like that for such a long time that his smile became automatic.
Even though he had little to call his own, he carried around that piece of paper with the figure of the cat drawn in red maker in his back pocket.
As Geronimo dreamed in the forest, he smiled.
His smiled on good days and bad days. When it rained and when it shined. His smile created a facade that keep people from asking anything personal. He learned that a simple smile could carry him throughout the day and keep him in good spirits. It was his smile that he wore like a mask. It was the smile that made most of the neighbors, who lived in his building, think of him as a boy who was curious, gentle and innocent.
With his smile, he was a boy like any other, a boy that wouldn't even hurt a fly.
The masked worked well.
9
A Time Before The World Was Turned Upside Down
GERONIMO WAS THIRTEEN AND TALL FOR HIS AGE. HE WAS TALLER THAN SOME OF THE GROWN MEN THAT LIVED IN HIS APARTMENT BUILDING. His curly black hair was puffy and usually hung just above his eyebrows. Most of the time, his brown-skinned arms were covered in scrapes and bruises from fights that he got into at school. But, they were also the kind of scrapes and bruises that curious and adventurous young boys usually carried. And that was the story he stuck to whenever anyone asked.
As Geronimo walked home alone through the back alley of his apartment building, his stomach growled. He knew that there would be no food inside the refrigerator at home. There was only sour milk and stale bread. The apartment was empty, except for a few pieces of furniture and a colorful mural spray painted on the largest wall. Alone, he did homework, studying as hard as he could. One day, he would be fee and he would travel the country and visit all the places that he learned about in history book.
Diane had not been around for the last couple of days. But, that was okay with him because he was happy to have a warm place to sleep. He had shelter for the time being. As long as his mother did not change the lock, he usually did not care about where she went.
However, his time living with D was not a waste. He had a roof over his head and he learned something important, something that he used even now, in a world that was turned upside down. He learned to cope with the lack of things. While people filled their lives with gadgets and things, he was satisfied with having nothing.
He owned nothing. In return, nothing owned him. He also learned not to care about anyone else.
Her lack of attention prepared him for a world that was to come, where the only objective was to survive the terror of night. In the new world, he would better prepared than others. Through her neglect, she had inadvertently prepared him for a future that was so different from the time he grew up in Chicago.
It was a future where he could not rely on only himself.
In the end, he understood that his apartment was better than any home filled with a family and useless things. It more important than having a warm place to stay. His apartment was a safe house from the night and that was all that mattered to him.
For now, this was all he needed to survive.
She taught him well.
10
An Animal living On His Hands and Knees
In the dream, Geronimo smiled as he walked through the rear alley of his apartment building off of Western Avenue. It was filthy. A month before he left Chicago, that same alley would become filthier by the day. The trash would pile up and the vermin would reign free.
There was one time time, when he found a body part sticking out of the trash. It was an arm and it looked pale, almost bloodless.
He told one of his neighbors about what he found and the police came to take the evidence away. They handled the severed body part without any care. They shoved it in a plastic bag and threw it in the trunk of the squad car. The following day, detectives questioned all residents on the block. Usually, no one ever saw anything, so no one said anything. When the detectives left, nothing was resolved.
It remained that way, until the next time. Until some else stumbled upon another bloodless body, somewhere else in the city.
Many times, Geronimo walked through that alley.
In the dream, it was exactly as he remembered it. The garages in the alley were frail, abandoned and boarded. Wooden planks prevented squatters from taking shelter. The pavement of the alley was broken and exposed red brick. Above his head, the power lines hung low, no longer taut.
In the alley, Geronimo saw a homeless man foraging for food through the plastic garbage bins. His long coat and pants were dirty and ragged. His hair was kinky and long. His cheeks were hollow. Looking at the man rummaging through the trash, Geronimo felt sorry for him. But there was a part of him that saw himself in that same man. But after a while, he did not see a man, not anymore. Instead, he saw an animal living on his hands and knees.
Geronimo held on to the red strap of his blue backpack, the same backpack that he carried since elementary school. He kept using that particular backpack because he did not have any money to buy a new one. He wore it, even though the kids at school made fun of him.
Regardless, Geronimo smiled. At least, he had a safe place to stay.
Geronimo saw the homeless man stick both of his arms deep in the trash bin, searching for something. The bottom of the plastic bins were partly chewed through by rats that scampered throughout the alley. The homeless man paid no attention to Geronimo or the rats. He ignored it all. The bum ignored the world around him. He ignored the loud noise coming from the construction site on Western Avenue. He was too busy looking for something to eat.
The homeless man sifted through the trash, searching for anything that could give his body sustenance. And if there wasn't any food to be found, then he kept searching for something that could give his life meaning.
Before the world was turned upside down, it was so easy to buy something like. It was so easy to buy something that made us more special than someone else. But, not anymore.
The homeless man didn't find any food. So he dug through trash, looking for anything of value. He searched for anything that he could keep for himself, for anything that he could take and own.
Geronimo thought about his empty apartment. He knew that he would be alone in his home with his only thoughts. He knew that his mother would not be there when he walked through the front door of his apartment. There were no big hugs, no kisses, just an empty place that was barely furnished. Lately, it seemed like she was never home at night. It had been three days, since he last saw her. For a moment he wondered, if the night had taken her. A part of him still hoped that that was not the case. He still needed her to pay the rent.
Every time he dreamed, he hoped to see his mother, D. He hoped to relive the good times that they once shared. But, he never did. The dream always ended before he could get to the front door of his house.
Sometimes, his neighbors in his apartment building felt bad for him. But, he smiled anytime he ran into them on the stairs or in the laundry room or in the courtyard But, everyone knew his situation and talked about him behind his back. There was a time when some one reported his mother to the Department of Family Services for neglect. It was an anonymous caller. But that trigger only made things worse for Geronimo.
In the end, Geronimo was okay with the lack of attention from her. He was okay with it because having shelter was all that mattered at this point in his life. Even though his stomach rumbled with hunger, he figured that he could last till the next day. In the morning, he would go back to school, where a group of old black ladies wearing hairnets served soggy cereal in
a cold cafeteria.
As he turned away from the homeless man, he knew that he could make it to morning on an empty stomach.
11
Home Before Night Falls
Walking down the alley, Geronimo felt like he walked for miles. He felt that way, because he did. Someone stole his paint-chipped road bike. His thighs and legs were exhausted and his feet were cold. His shoes were thin and his toes felt stiff and numb. But, Geronimo was close to home.
Home sweet home.
There was construction on Western Avenue and it shook the ground beneath his sneakers. And the machines dug up the road to unearth and replace old sewage pipes with wider ones. As the machines roared and screamed, the construction workers shouted back and forth to each other. They worked fast, as if they knew the night was coming.
The scorpion digger struck the road with a heavy spike, breaking up concrete. Every time, the heavy metal pounded the pavement, all the buildings shook down the block, creating ripples along the length of the alley. The puddled carrying that last bit of evening color away.
Eventually, the construction project on Geronimo's block would stop midway. And one day the construction workers would not return. The night would do the unthinkable. It would stop the city that works. Eventually, the night left in its wake abandoned machines and a torn open road where rats came and went as they pleased.
In the distance, Geronimo noticed the orange sun turning red at the horizon and the last ember of sunlight slid down between two houses. The sun disappeared into the dark foliage of the trees.
The day ended.
In the dream, Geronimo was glad to be home just before nightfall. He always felt safe at home at the end of the day. Even though the night was not the terror that it was to become, he still needed be careful while traveling through the streets. Geronimo always thought that it was best to be careful. He moved on the street with two eyes in front and two in back, as if there was someone out there who wanted to do bad things to him.
Purge of the Vampires (Book 3): The Night Never Ends Page 7