Chapter 9: Bumps In The Night

  Two nights after the attack and successful hunt, Niles is woken up for his shift on patrol.

  He had only gotten about five hours of sleep because of the amount of firewood he had cut just before bed, making him too sore to just drift off right away. Still, it was more than he needed, since he napped for an hour or two during the day to preserve energy.

  A small luxury, given their circumstances.

  Niles met up with Eric, and they kept watch just outside of where he kept his stuff and where the Fairbanks were currently sleeping. Despite it being the dead of night, the moon was big and bright, and the vast mural of stars surrounding it made it quite easy to see beyond the fires.

  As had been the norm, some of the kids woke up in the middle of the night crying. Of course, they would cry, since it had been weeks since they had seen their parents.

  The one this night is a three-year-old named Max.

  He was one year older than the other children, and had been getting close to Niles and Bruce, as one had brought them food and taught him to fish, while the other was, in his own words, ‘as big as a superhero’.

  He snuck out of the hovel, sniffling, and started walking to where he heard Niles’ voice.

  The daycare lady, Olivia, looked at him apologetically, but Niles just gestured for her to go back to sleep while he handled it.

  “What’s wrong, bud?” He whispered to the kid, picking him up so they could talk quietly.

  Max tried to hold back his tears, failed, and whimpered, “I had a bad dream that– that Mommy and Daddy were stuck under the house, and I couldn’t get them out.”

  “Oh, buddy…” Niles held him closer to comfort him. “You know that dream wasn’t real, right?”

  “Y-Yeah… because Mommy and Daddy… aren’t here anymore.”

  Hearing a three-year-old struggle to, yet bluntly mention that his parents were dead, was like a knife to the gut, for both Niles, Eric, and those who were awake enough to overhear. It was a reminder that, no matter how nice the days or nights were, the situation was dark and impossibly cruel.

  Unable to handle the bleakness, he put the boy down and knelt in front of him.

  “Listen to me very carefully.” He instructed, wiping tears from the child’s cheek. “You may not be able to see them right now, but your mom and dad are still with you.” Niles’ chest tightened, recalling his own father and how much he missed him.

  Max looked at him with doubt. “They are?”

  He nodded back. “Yeah. They’re in your heart at all times. Any time you think of them, that’s them hugging you. It might hurt a lot, but the more it hurts, the more they’re sending you love. Can you tell me what your favorite memory with them is?”

  The boy fiddled with his hands for a minute, slowly calming down as he pondered, then answered.

  “Mommy brought me to the beach in the summer and taught me how to swim. And Daddy showed me how to bowl.” His words were shaky and varied in tone, but he spoke them clearly without pause.

  Niles smiled and placed his palm on his head. “Good. Keep those memories at all times, and never forget.”

  After a bit more crying from the boy, Niles led him back to the little tarp-covered hovel and returned to his post. For a while, the night was quiet and serene. A handful of clouds swooped in to cover the moon for a few minutes, and the breeze that carried it washed over the valley.

  As it dragged on, though, something profound was shifting. Everyone on patrol felt uneasy, and some of the next shift were waking up early due to a similar feeling.

  Niles looked out to the northern treeline, praying in his heart that nothing would suddenly pop out. Of course, nothing did. In fact, the trees were completely still, and the wind had died down — the silence and stillness caused a chill to run up the backs of those currently conscious.

  *CRACK!

  A loud snap followed by countless tiny creaks, then another, and some more mixed with low thuds of something hitting the ground hard, echoed in the north.

  *Hssssss… Hsss Hssssss…

  As if that wasn’t ominous enough, somewhere farther to the south of camp, a concert of reverberous hisses resounded through the trees. It was impossible to tell how many creatures it was, since the sounds were bouncing off trees left and right.

  Niles’ blood ran cold for a second. There were now two monsters coming in the dead of night, both trudging their way to the survivors’ camp.

  ‘No, no, no! Crap! Dammit!’ Niles cursed as he looked around at what the others were doing.

  Many were still sound asleep, some having difficulty waking up, even after the loud, threatening sounds of trees snapping in two and hisses rolling in from the opposite direction. Meanwhile, those who were awake or on patrol were looking around, terrified.

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  He took several deep breaths, trying to focus on what he could do.

  Heart racing, only one plan came to mind.

  He ran to the hovel where he left his bag, reached in, and pulled out a small cylindrical object with a conical release at the top. It was not much bigger than his hand, making it easy to slip into his pocket.

  Afterward, he gestured to the two nearest patrolmen, Eric and Bruce.

  “You guys wake everybody else up. I’ll go try and lure the one in the north away.” He said, taking a few steps forward before getting stopped.

  The one who interrupted his charge was Eric, whose balding head reflected the moonlight into his eyes. “No way in hell you’re going alone. I’ll go with you.”

  “No. You should stay and help the others scare off whatever’s coming from the south.”

  This time, Bruce cut in with a stern look. “Dumbass. One person isn’t going to change anything about that. Besides, if you fail, who will try to get its attention after that? Take him with you. I can wake the others.”

  Not wanting to waste anymore time, Niles reluctantly nodded, rolling his eyes, and started running. Eric followed close behind.

  They ran through the woods quickly, trying to intercept whatever monster was headed their way before it got too close to the camp. Neither spoke a word, not wanting to alert the threat to their presence any earlier than necessary.

  After twenty minutes of this, they reached a spot where the trees were thinner and froze.

  Both men were facing north, but their eyes were to their left. There, something all too familiar to Niles stood there, side eyeing them back.

  An eldritch abomination the size of an elephant, with dark pink skin and massive black eyes the size of dinner plates. It resembled a cross between a hippo, pig, and alligator, with a hide akin to a naked mole rat or a worm. Although Niles knew about the secret of its head. That its appearance to a gator’s snout was only a disguise.

  After all, he had witnessed a much smaller version of this bite down the tree in his backyard only a few weeks ago.

  Both sides stared at each other for what felt like ages, then, as if having sized up the two smaller creatures, the monster continued forward. It was completely uninterested in them, while seeing the camp as more promising for its next meal.

  ‘The hell?!’

  Niles was baffled by its choice. Not acting like a typical predator was the one thing he hadn’t expected from it.

  Normally, even larger carnivores would opt for the easier prey, as there was less risk of them fighting back and making it waste energy to get it. But this thing just ignored the two standing just a few feet away.

  ‘No! This isn’t the time.’ He chastised himself for his momentary focus on what he had learned about large predators.

  It was already several feet farther and had toppled a few trees while he was in his own mind.

  Eric bumped his shoulder. “What do we do? That thing’s set on getting to the clearing where the others are.” As he spoke, Niles could tell he was anxious by how white his knuckles were, holding onto the ax he had for his patrol.

  Heart sinking into his stomach, all the younger of the two could think of was the item he had brought in his pocket.

  “Get ready to move,” was all he said in reply as he ran for the creature’s head.

  Niles’ hand reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the small white canister with the red, conical release. In his hurry, he almost tripped and dropped it, but narrowly kept his composure.

  With a swift motion that made the monster turn its head in interest as to what he was doing — not a shred of fear or anger in its eyes — Niles raised the can of compressed air directly into its ear. A brief whine escaped the nozzle of the airhorn, which quickly evolved into a loud, high-pitched squeal that echoed through the night air.

  He kept his hand on the button until the small can was completely out of compressed air and held it up high, concentrating on the ear.

  When it was empty, he jumped back and looked down to see if it was going to react.

  The moment his eyes locked onto its eyes, though, it was like the world had lost all of its color.

  The pitch-black eye on the left side of its head was glaring at him. It also wasn’t all black anymore. The massive pupil, the only thing visible from afar, had shrunk down to a small point, revealing the kaleidoscope of red, brown, and yellow hiding behind it.

  Those colors were only visible thanks to the soft glow the eye gave off.

  An eerie sight to have bearing down on you after having just bruised its hearing.

  The lumbering monstrosity turned its body slightly and started to open its mouth. A flashback ran through Niles’ mind of when the smaller version of this creature had completely contorted its face. His eyes widened as his feet turned on their heels to run away, but that’s when he noticed his companion running towards it.

  “Nooooooo!”

  It was too late.

  Eric had jumped into the air, ax ready to come down onto its head in Niles’ defence. However, the snout vanished, and the head had narrowed out of his reach, transforming into a massive, undulating wall of needle-like teeth designed to pull anything it got its jaws on into its gullet.

  Seeing this, the idea that things could potentially go back to normal vanished from their minds. Hope for how things were couldn’t survive such an impossible sight.

  This was no longer their world.

  Niles felt the wind starting to pull towards the monster’s maw as its throat opened, so he hurried to hide and grab onto the nearest tree. His eyes were still locked on it through, and he couldn’t stop staring.

  Eric, the poor guy, had misunderstood his intention when he said to get ready. He never wanted to fight it. He wanted to pull it away from the camp.

  But now, as the abomination’s throat opened, exposing the endless darkness beyond it, the light in his eyes left along with him a fraction of a second later. It was just that quick, before he could even land and realize his mistake.

  He hadn’t been eaten or swallowed, but inhaled.

  It only took the time it took for a blink to close one’s eye to suck in a ton of air. Niles could feel the pull, even from behind the tree. Heck, even the tree itself groaned, held in place only by the vast network of roots under it.

  Of course, he also felt regret for being too panicked and absorbed in the situation to explain anything.

  Eric was gone, and Niles had no chance to mourn. Not when the monster that had stolen him from the world was right there. Nor was he able to move away, as the very next moment, a spine-chilling, blood-curdling, and mind-bending roar escaped its enormous head.