They Came in the Night

The city is the new forest. That is the law of my tribe. My name is Pin; I am one of the last humans left on the continent. Years ago the human race was forced out of existence by the creatures. Creatures that no one has ever seen, they came in the night, on no particular day, and spread their poison around. The poison caught the air and slowly killed its victims. Only a few of us survived, because of a special mutation in our DNA we were able to live through the attack. We have now gathered together and formed a colony, but still we are not strong enough to take back what is ours- the cities, the towns, the farms, even the lonely hot dog stand, it’s ours.

The few of us left have gathered together in a forest just outside of what used to be known as Washington State. We have no leader but are given orders by a council of elders; the elders have divided us into groups, the hunting group, the cooking group, the fighting group and the lookout group. I am in the hunting group; we go out every other day into the forest and find meat for the rest of the tribe. But lately we have stopped going to the forest, under direct supervision of the fighting group we all go into the cities, to find the monsters.

It is extremely dangerous to go peeping into the windows of abandoned houses, sometimes you can see one of the dead humans, lying on the ground with a terrified expression etched on their face. Or at least you think you see them, no human or human skeleton has ever been found here- or anywhere. We once found a corpse of one of the monsters, but smaller, perhaps a child. By the time we took it back to camp the body had disintegrated and we were left with only ashes. That was when someone came up with the brilliant idea of burning the monsters; we tried lighting the cities on fire, but that soon proved to be extremely difficult because we could not find enough flint for a whole city. So we went back to just looking in windows- hoping to find another monster but secretly wishing we wouldn’t.

“Help!!” A scream pierced the pin drop quiet and every head snapped to the source, it was a young man lying in the street as if he had fallen or tripped.

“Hush, you! You can’t just scream whenever you feel like it!” The captain of the fighting group hissed at the young man.

“It’s got me!! Help me!” The young man was screaming his head off and people were crowding around him, I left my post at a window and ran over to see what was happening.

All around the man people were staring, trying to see what had grabbed him. As far as I could tell nothing was touching him, then I saw a shadow move in the corner, “There!” I shouted and pointed to what I had seen. The fighting group rushed over and dragged out a man, a very old man, starving, sick, dirty, he looked like he lived in the city.

“Who are you? Why do you live in the city? Answer me, fool!” The captain of the fighting group said to the poor old man.

“Stop! You’re hurting him!” I shouted this before I knew what I was doing and got in front of the man and the captain.

“Who are you? State your name, age and group.” The captain said to me with a snarl.

“My name is Pin, I am fifteen years old and I am in the hunting group. But you have to stop terrorizing this man; he has been through a lot, living in the city.” I turned to the man and said in as kind a voice I could manage, “Who are you? What is your name?” The man looked at me, smiled and said,

“Jaden, my name is Jaden. Years ago, when they first came, I did not die like others, but I also did not flee. I have lived here, in secret, and they have never found me. Oh, and I matters not if you scream during the daylight, you could blast fireworks right next to one of them and they wouldn’t notice, the only awake in the dark.” The man paused as if he was going to say something else but then quieted again and said no more.

“Where are they hiding?” I asked. The man looked at me again and said,

“Jaden, my name is Jaden. Years ago, when they first came, I did not die like others, but I also did not flee. I have lived here, in secret, and they have never found me. Oh, and I matters not if you scream during the daylight, you could blast fireworks right next to one of them and they wouldn’t notice, the only awake in the dark.” Again he paused and looked another way. It was obvious that he was not sane but I refused to believe that was all he had to say. But before I could say anything else the captain got hold of Jaden.

“Look you, where are the things hiding? Answer me now!”

Jaden slowly turned his head to face the captain, smiled then turned to me and said,“Get out of the city before sundown, you must.” With that his head drooped and, staring at me, he died. I turned to look at the horizon of the city and my pupils dilated, the sun was falling. All around me people were running back towards the forest, scared of what they would encounter if they stayed.

“Stop! Stand and fight them you cowards!” The captain was screaming at the fleeing crowd, I was about to run too but the captain grabbed my arm and said to me, “You, Pin, are staying with me, this is your city! Stay and fight!” Everyone else was gone now and the houses around us were making disturbing creaking noises. The stars were emerging and black figures could be seen in the growing shadows. I could feel the captain getting scared, his grip on my arm weakening.

One minute he was standing next to me, the next he was face-down on the road, gashes on his back with a black figure on top of him. The monster was about as big as a bear, all black with six inch claws coming from its massive paws. The huge head swung towards me and I saw foot long, gleaming white fangs dripping with saliva and puce red eyes. The creature snarled at me, then started to devour the captain.

My legs felt like they could not support my weight; much less carry it to the camp in the forest. But I still had to try. The distance from the city to the forest was about one fourth of a mile, could I make it? I looked from the forest to the beast then back to the forest and broke into a mad dash. I reached the forest and broke through the line of trees, about four of the monsters were close behind me and more were probably to come. But now all I could do was run. Run and run and run and run.

Finally I broke through the boundaries of the camp, every monster in the city chasing after me. Ready to die I did the last useful thing I could; I grabbed a bow and arrows and started to randomly shoot them at the monsters.

“Pin! Wait! Use this!” Another member of the hunting group caught up with me and handed me a cup of berries. Then it hit me, these were the poison berries that we used to throw out all the time, I started to stab the berries with my arrows, then aim for one of the monster’s mouth. Because they had so many over sized teeth there were many gaps that could not be closed and on my first try I sent a shish kebab of poison into the beast and within moments it was on the ground. That was the key. Soon everyone had arrows and was shooting them out at the monsters. One by one they fell and disintegrated on the ground.

The next day we moved back into the city to recolonize and prepare for the time when we would go to another city and rid it of the monsters. We would do this until all of the monsters were gone or we all died out. But that wouldn’t be for a while.