by William Bebb
CHAPTER 10
Night Moves & Caveat Emptor
Long ago discarded empty beer cans loudly rattled, crashed, and clattered against each other and other things that Billy couldn't see while running through the mostly pitch-black trailer park. There were occasional patches of moonlight that the boy always tried to veer toward but most of time he was in darkness. He stumbled and nearly fell several times when he tripped over hidden obstacles but didn't fall. While sprinting between a pair of badly dilapidated trailers, and into another small moonlit area, the boy couldn't see what else he was running into but guessed there had to be a few billion beer cans scattered around the trailers. Haven't these people ever heard of recycling? That's all my teachers ever seem to preach about at school, he wondered, as Boris crashed through the mounds of beer cans beside him. Billy could hear his English teacher inside his head as he veered around yet another fairly large mound of aluminum cans, “We all have an obligation to save the planet by recycling.”
She can have all these stupid cans. All I want is to get out of here and make a phone call for help, the increasingly tired boy thought as his pumping legs began feeling rubbery and his breath came in quick gulps.
Billy was reminded of a class experiment they did a few months earlier at school called Blind for a Day. Running in the dark while being chased by monsters was a lot more challenging than simply wearing a blindfold and being led around the school by his friend Kevin. During the experiment, he ran into a few chair legs and managed to slip on some spilled strawberry flavored milk on the tiled lunchroom floor and fell on top of a couple of girls who'd been eating some of the tasteless crap purported to be food served by the school. But at that time, he knew when the experiment was over he'd be able to take off the blindfold, go home, and play video games or watch TV. But as he ran in the almost complete darkness of the trailer park Billy realized this was no experiment, except maybe an experiment in terror that stemmed from his own stupidity. Regrets about leaving the trailer filled his mind. The horrible feeling that he'd never see his mom or grandfather again grew steadily stronger as Billy's muscles ached and exhaustion began taking its toll.
Running hard, his lungs ached for air. The boy felt increasingly tired and uncoordinated as he ran into mysterious things he had no way to identify in the near total darkness.
A wide clearing ahead was awash in moonlight and he ran harder as the grunting and screaming things behind him sounded much closer. Boris ran through the clearing and he chased after him. After jumping a drainage ditch, he climbed over a three foot high retaining wall made of cinder blocks. Billy stumbled once more into shadows cast by an abandoned trailer and had to stop for a moment.
Stopping to catch his breath, he leaned against the wall of bricks and gasped for air. His trembling legs felt rubbery and without consciously doing so the boy slid down behind the wall until he was sitting in the dirt and shadows. He heard Boris panting next to him, reached out and petted him on the head, and again wished he'd stayed in bed. Seeing a nearby section of the wall was missing some bricks, he scooted over on his belly and looked back at the clearing they had just run through. But there was no visible sign of the pursuers as he slowly worked to catch his breath.
There were loud noises coming from where they'd just been. Most of the men made the same grunting noise he'd almost become used to hearing over the last few days. But a screamer in the darkness made the boy's body trembled uncontrollably until he felt Boris licking his face.
Billy pulled his BB rifle's leather strap off his shoulder and made sure the weapon was pumped up and ready to fire. Peering back into the moonlit clearing, the tired boy saw the ditch running through it that he vaguely recalled jumping across and wondered how he managed not to trip or fall into it. A clothesline hung up between the pole and the trailer was about five feet above the ground and a giant pair of old underwear and bra hung limply from it. They'd run right under the clothesline and Billy was very grateful he was still a fairly short kid.
Opening the backpack, he pulled out a bottle of water as his breathing gradually slowed down. Billy drank a little then poured some into the palm of his hand and held it out so Boris could drink too. He felt the dog's warm tongue as it licked the water yet kept a wary eye on the clearing while the sounds of pursuit grew louder.
To Billy, it seemed and sounded like an army of the undead was closing in. He felt like every bad person in the valley was chasing them.
There was a racket of running feet and snarling moments before an empty gallon size paint can was kicked out of the darkness. It clattered and bounced across the dusty ground then rolled into the ditch and made another brief but loud noise. A lanky man that was little more than a fast moving silhouette, from where Billy laid hidden behind the wall and watched, ran into the clearing and howled. After finishing his bellow, the lanky man bent over and sniffed at the ground. He howled again, stood up, and ran toward the ditch heading for the spot where the boy and dog had recently crossed.
There was a twang sound as he hit the clothesline.
The nylon line intersected with his neck and caused him to be flung backward, flip upside down, and tumble into the drainage ditch. The ditch was lined with bricks and as the man fell, there was a solid thunk noise followed by another clatter of the empty paint can. A yelping of pain filled the air as the man landed with his upper body in the ditch and his legs shaking gracelessly up in the air.
As the snarls continued although much quieter, Billy almost giggled at the sight.
Three more shadowy figures came out of the darkness and they went in a group to the flailing legs sticking out of the ditch. The fattest of the trio grabbed a shaking leg sticking out of the ditch and bit down on it.
The confused pained yelps coming from the ditch became a scream of fury.
One of the other two other figures stared momentarily at the fat man gnawing on the yelping man's leg, grunted, sniffed at the ground, then walked forward and promptly fell into the ditch. But he quickly climbed out on the other side. The last one with one of his arms badly torn and missing its lower parts looked on as the fat one began tearing large sections of muscle and flesh from one of the upside down man's legs while more yelping screams erupted from inside the ditch.
Billy watched as the one that had crawled out of the ditch moved to the low wall, leaned forward and fell with a crash only a few feet where they were hiding.
“It's time to run again,” he whispered to the dog before sprinting away from the clearing and once more into darkness.