Page 42 of Them

He sat on the toilet for several more minutes, elbows on his knees. The only sounds were his irregular breathes and the drip-drip of sweat and blood and alcohol onto the tile floor. Then he went to stand, but his legs wouldn’t move. They had fallen asleep, given away to static. Circulation needed a few more minutes.

When sensation returned, the man went to the kitchen and found a bottle of whiskey. Disinfectant for the soul. Took a swig, and then he took the bottle back to the bathroom. There, he began to pluck the splinters from his back, using tweezers, his flashlight, and the mirror. It took about twenty minutes, and a few modest pulls from the liquor handle, yet still he finished with a dozen or more wooden shards left embedded in his skin, too small to pick out by himself. It’s fine, he thought. The body will absorb them. The pain is inconsequential.

Back on the toilet, he wrapped his injuries in gauze and tape, nearly falling asleep as he wound an Ace bandage around his skinned elbows. Afterward, he forced himself up and to a teenager’s bedroom at the end of the hall. Beneath dueling posters of Cage the Elephant and Peach Pit, he riffled through a dresser and found plain black sweatpants and a Greta Van Fleet long-sleeve shirt. Socks and some underwear that was one size too small. Running shoes a half size too big. Close enough. He carefully got dressed and returned downstairs in a whiskey-induced daze. He was certainly feeling better.

On the couch, his head throbbed with distant, tiresome aches. The man could no longer tell which pieces of himself were cut and torn. His limbs blurred into his body, numb with hurt. Nerves fried from the disinfection. Alcohol on both ends. Taking a long drink of water, he challenged himself to stay awake and keep watch. It was only four in the morning; there was still plenty of time to make up more ground, get as far away as possible from the stench of all this human blood. Away from the Scorpions who were very likely searching for him. He tried to psyche himself up: C’mon, man, you can do this!

But his body disagreed and disobeyed. Twenty minutes later, he was sound asleep.

The nightmares stayed away, but for a fleeting moment, deep within the haze, the man believed he was back home in New York. He heard the sound of construction. Was that it? Were they finally tearing down that shitty apartment building on the corner? The burned-up one? Had they finally taken a wrecking ball to its charred frame? The same haunted apartments he and Bradley Dean had once snuck into, breathless, terrified, only to be frightened away by a family of bats they believed with all their young hearts were little furry winged vampires? Were they at long last tearing down that godforsaken place?

For one drowsy, dreaming second, he believed so. The sound came again, of old dominoes tumbling and crumbling. The sound of the world moving on—

The man jolted awake on the sofa. For a moment, he forgot where he was. Who he was. Then he spotted the Browning shotgun on the coffee table, and reality clicked back into place.

The clamor of destruction was coming from somewhere outside the house. It wasn’t a nightmare. It wasn’t a dream.

His watch read half past seven. Jesus, he’d slept fifteen hours! More than enough time for them to have found him!

He checked his backpack. Bottles of water. Canned food. Clean socks and underwear. Radio. Extra shells for the shotgun. He grabbed a few of those and stuffed them into the pockets of his sweatpants. Shoes untied, he made for the kitchen.

Shotgun cradled in his arms, the man eased open the back door and stepped into the sunset outside. A cacophony of splintering wood and smashed glass could be heard in the distance. Had the packmates come to help the Nightwalker? No, the man was almost certain that there was only one of them. The tempo of the destruction was much too slow for an entire hunting party. Hell, even two of them had taken down an entire house in mere minutes. As he strode across the field, he counted out the beats in his head.

“Kraaaaaarrrrkkkssss…”

The behemoth howled as it struck a distant foundation. One, two, three…

… nine, ten, eleven…

… seventeen, eighteen, ninet—

“Krrrraaaaaarrkkkssss…”

Another strike. Nearly twenty seconds between them. It was too weak a pace and too near sundown for a healthy Scorpion. It had to be the Nightwalker. The man had been wrong. His tormentor wasn’t dead. If it’s that hard to kill an adult, he thought, then no wonder we lost. Why don’t you just give up, Nightwalker? Go home and lick your wounds. Why are you still chasing me?

More questions arose, and no matter how hard the man tried to quiet his curiosity, they only grew louder. Did the others come to help it? Why is it still alone? Why won’t they help the Nightwalker? Stop this rampage and tend to its wounds?

Don’t ask. Just run.

He fled into the deepening dusk. Past empty houses and abandoned cars and the long-buried corpses of humans and animals alike. It took ten minutes for the renegade Scorpion to bring down another house, signified by a distant roof caving in with an echoing crumble.

The man counted the seconds between the lashes, the minutes between collapses. The gaps between the creature’s attacks were growing longer. Weaker. Maybe it was actually dying now. Or at least tiring.

Yet twenty minutes later, another house fell.

And then another.

The Scorpion with the three whirlpool eyes raged on. He wasn’t sure how it had found him. Probably followed his scent. Breaking everything in its path.

And the man kept walking north. Thinking.

What kind of people wake up in the dead of night and walk in circles? Or sit with themselves in the dark? People with bad dreams, nightmares, anxieties, fears, good dreams, and hopes and disappointment. What was your bad dream, brother boogeyman? Why are you all alone? Did something wake you? Did you dream of home, of whatever planet or place or dimension or hell from whence you came? Do you remember if it was beautiful there? Would you even care if it was? You cried out and no one came. Why? And why the hell do I need to know?

The sun sank below the horizon. The man was thankful for that. The Nightwalker fell silent soon after, along with the distant sounds of destruction. All that could be heard was the breeze in the trees and rusty alien lullabies, those gravelly voices calling each other to sleep.

One foot after the other in medium strides of urgency. For the first time in years, the night felt too long. His eyelids seemed to weigh ten pounds. All he wanted to do was curl up beneath a tower of blankets and sleep forever… but he had to keep walking.

The man was skeptical of Washington’s safety. L.B. seemed to know what he was talking about, but after the monsters had swept through New England, didn’t many of them nest in the Chesapeake? They spread everywhere eventually, but the bay was where She would be. That’s where She fled after the college shut down and the man begged Her to remain in the South, far from the monsters’ Maine origin. But She had a childhood home with a family and a dog and people that loved her. The man had only New York and that didn’t last very long because what ever does?