Somewhere Behind Black

Eyes

Somewhere behind black eyes …

The teenage form watched as juveniles

came in droves to the party which was
taking place inside the geographical,
Target’s residing place. He was not
prepared to dialogue this scene. He was
only practiced and instructed to interact
with the Prime Target. But the Target had
left.
He hadn’t been there for hours. Days.
All he could do is watch and be helpless in
his training as in antiquate as it presently
was. He had to approach each social
hurdle with methodical calculations. He
stabled himself as the booming bass from
the stereo within shook him to his core.
His hunger was hitting him, it made him
feel even more of the emptiness which
hunger brought. He leaned again against a
tree to stable him from the waves and
waves of bass emanating from the targets
home.
Unblinkingly, he noted the way their
individual frequencies, once singular,
gathered together and intermingled and
entwined to become one collective
frequency. Young as he was he still was
very infant to this plane and didn’t know
how to do what they did every night and
day.
He did know they were
inexperienced in the art of dimension
jumping. This was close to no feat for him
whatsoever. He had so much to learn and
he is starving and frustrated in his hunger
of their frequencies. Not too much, but not
too little was what he was told; if he had
to draw from the non-prime targets.
Yet, when he was able to draw from
them he had noticed when he felt the
transfer, his empowerment was their
demise. Last time this happened he was
met by looks of disappointment and head
shaking from his creator. A dim part of him
was relieved he was not skilled yet to
read, facial expression, body language and
vocal cues. He couldn’t do anything about
this, especially since empathy was not
constructed into the fibers of his DNA.
Even if he had the inclination to do so he
only could do as his nature instructed.
Under his breath he repeated his
lines, “Can I use your phone? My mom is
worried about me.” Then he hesitated, he
couldn’t remember the next line. He had
to remember to heighten the treble of his
voice. It suddenly, came back to him, “It
won’t take long. I need to call him.” He
paused, blinked and then drew silent. The
frequency was still too bass to be
believably, a human child’s voice. He had
to `practice to make perfect’; it was
something his instructor told him the
humans said. He liked the sound of it, but
not when he said it out loud; it came out
booming, commanding and monotone.
Even though it sounded like the best
pronunciation to him, it came out a deep
series of identical sounds. He was pleased
with his vocals. He’d practiced hard. He’d
have to get it perfect.
Imposing was the second part of the
way into the target; his required eye
contact with the Prime Target to hypnotize
them. He had to say it in a demanding
vocal sound. It was to be followed through
on if the first line of the predicted dialogue
didn’t work and the target didn’t allow you
in, but he was confident he would gain
access. He was trained well for the hunt.
He still, stood there, unmoving and
then decided he wanted to get closer to
the windows of Prime Target’s house.
Flashing back to him was and voice of his
instructor, “Prime Target, or PT is the only
one you talk to. He is the one we need to
dispose of. Do you understand?”
Yet, he felt a tug towards the house
and his curiosity was becoming as aching
as his desire wrenched inside of his dim
soul. He moved from behind trees of the
woods ten feet from Prime Target’s house.
 His black eyes scanned the ground.
There were twigs, leaves and fallen
branches his feet needed to avoid. These
two elongated limbs called, legs could be
lost in them and then he could be thrown
forward, not having control of his upper
torso and head part. If he remembered
correctly the humans called them feet.
This could end in catastrophe.
Humans had a bi-molecular make up
which healed better than 5th dimension
beings. A human could break a bone and
they could have the bone mended within
three earth months. For 5th dimensioners it
took three human years. Hopefully, in few
human years everything would change.
The whole lot would alter.
Even though Prime Target wasn’t home
for him to complete his task, his
inquisitiveness was getting the best of
him. Concentrated curio was pulling him
toward Prime Target’s house, when he was
instructed not to approach unless the
mark was available to him.
 Before he noticed he was walking as if
on auto-pilot. He had to stay hidden from
the humans. They could not see him yet.
He had to be very careful. He reminded
himself to stay far away until the time was
right, but his limbs kept carrying him
closer.
He was ten feet away when he spotted
a window he wanted to try to investigate.
Before he reached it, the front door of the
house, still pulsing from the dance music
within, was thrown open and two
teenagers came rushing out.
The girl from what he could see seemed to
be very upset. Why she was upset, he
could not decipher. She was making a
clamor he couldn’t figure out and what the
humans, call “rain” was pouring out of her
eyes. A few seconds later a male teenager
came bolting right behind her.

After the blinding light triumphed over

him, the relentless thumping of the bass
was done assaulting him, he was able to
adjust his eyes to the brightness spilling
over the concrete.
Somehow the ten feet turned into four
and half feet. He had not meant to get this
close, but it was too late to retreat now. If
he moved the humans might become
aware of him. Discerning back, he didn’t
think he had been ever detected on Prime
Target’s property. He watched in grave
silence and watched the humans’ motions.
He cocked his head to the side to better
hear what was going on.
Maybe he could pick up on some
human words? Perhaps, he would
remember their language and refer to it
later for further study? Directing his head
part, the humans called “ear” he listened
and watched their frequencies. There was
much discord in them.
He couldn’t stir. Watching this sway of
their energies was intoxicating. Slipping
away from each other then colliding. They
would separate and then blend when they
put their human forms close. He wondered
if they took sustenance from each other,
or if there was one who fed from the other
and watch the weaker one slip into a slow
and painful death. His intrigue of the flood
of questions kept him entranced. Who will
be the fed? Who will be the bled?
Intensely, he focused. His need gave him
no comfort as the limbs failed beneath his
torso.
He was in trouble now. Mother would
not be happy. He lay there. His coal black
eyes fixated on the sky above him. He
could feel the coolness of the Earth’s,
grainy soil beneath his frail body.
He couldn’t move as if in a coma his
limbs would not budge. He heard crackling
sound from something rolling across the
soil. It was Mother’s car. The crunching
hauled. No solace would come to him, as
he was scooped up by two men wearing
black. They threw him in the trunk of the
long, dark car, closed the hood and drove
away into the night.
No one noticed. No one cared. The
music of the party inside Prime Target’s
house continued its persistent pumping.
The teenage couple outside of the house
stood, engulfed in each other’s lovers
embrace, not knowing the night was
empty of the predator which for hours and
had lurked outside only four and a half
feet away from them.

Somewhere Behind Black Eyes…

Two children were weary from

dimension jumping. As far as the older
could tell they were on a gravelly road
in the middle of a world; which wasn’t
anything like the worlds of the
constellation of Vela.

The defining tune of black winged

crickets were tuning into the
frequency of their presence. The
insects chirped at four beats end
slowed expressly at two and then one
beat per four counts. The frogs and
toads in the hills were the most
pronounced vibration, until their song,
too slowed and then halted to a stop.

When they reached to the bottom

of the rocky road there was the sound
of a canine. They didn’t know what it
was, but they didn’t like the noise it
made. It was attached to a chain with
the end of the link fixed firmly into the
ground. The other end of the link was
secured around the thing’s neck. This
infernal noise would not cease. Then
when the oldest looked it in the eyes
the thing’s hair stood up. Then it tried
to run into the wooded area behind
the trailer home, wasn’t looking where
it was going and ran into a tree,
knocking it unconscious.
 Kiilsae’s vision was interrupted by
her Older’s voice. The lowered Vox of
their static voices zipped through the
atmosphere of this dreamy like world.
“The Prime Target is two.”

Two? What did it mean? Her

confused facial expression must have
asked the question before it could be
verbalized.

“There are two Prime Targets. One

a male and the other a female.”

She verbalized her next confusion;

“How do we know who they are?” This
was only her first, available chance to
get prey. The last time left them
hungry with nothing to satiate them
except a drained Lithium battery and a
fainted girl.
 Brandone didn’t even let her in on
who the Prime Target was this night.
They hadn’t reached the Prime
Target’s home. A lithium battery, a
passed-out girl and a row of street
lamps; in which they were instructed
not to take too much energy from was
all they had to survive on until they
were given the next Prime Target or PT
assignment.

Brandone was relieved this was a

smaller abode for the two Prime
Target’s. This was going to be simple.
Brandone snapped his head to the
side and glared at Kiilsae. She became
silent then fell in step with her Older.
She knew what to do; or not do.
Ten steps forward landed them in front
of a small wood porch with four to five
additional stairs to walk up. There
stood before them was one aluminum
door with a Plexiglas. When
Brandone’s eyes met with the
reflective surface and he saw the
voids of his black-holed eyes he
quickly hung his head down as Kiilsae
was already poised, in her dirty,
slightly torn and oversized dress.

Brandone went to task. He knocked

on the door three times. There was
some stumbling on the other side of
the door. Then it opened standing
before them was a skinny girl with
stringy blond hair wearing glasses.

They kept their eyes down cast when

Brandone’s spoke Kiilsae didn’t speak
at all.

“Could we come in and use your

phone? Our ride is late, and I think I
need to give him directions on how to
get here because we are lost.”

The girl looked at them after she

yelled over her shoulder of who was at
the door. She waited until her father
was done speaking, then turned back
to them looking them up and down
she led them in. The two small figures
sat upon the couch as the human
female stood there staring at them
unusually and waited.

My name is Shayann. They didn’t

look up or offer their names.

“Oh yeah, you wanted the phone.”

She popped out of her chair to go and
retrieve it where it was resting on the
counter, in the kitchen which was
behind the couch.
 Her father came in the room. He
asked the kids if they needed to be
driven anywhere. Brandone said,
“Yes.” When the man’s wife came in,
he told her he was going to give them
a ride home. Kiilsae asked if “The nice
lady could come along too”; meaning
his wife. She agreed to go, but
reluctantly, these children never
looked up but spoke self-assuredly.
This was contradictory behavior for
children. After several minutes of
making excuses not to go; they
somehow talked her into the
excursion.

All four of them were in the car,

when a sharp pain went into the guy’s
head. The wife feeling nauseous, ask
him if he needed her to stop the car.
He told her he would be fine. But this
wasn’t true because his nose was
starting to bleed. She remembered
there were napkins in the glove box.
He went into the glove box and
retrieved the package of napkins. He
pulled out two of them and proceeded
to blot his nose, as he did the bleeding
started to stream out of his nostrils.
He was freaking out as they pulled
onto the turn pike of the highway.

The children sat calmly in the back

seat not saying anything. They hadn’t
given an address or instructions to
where they needed to be dropped off.
Brandone could not help himself, he
was growing hungry for their
frequencies. He had started drawing
from them as soon as they were all
locked in with their seat belts. The
woman was trying to drive, swerving a
little, she tried to calm her husband
down.
 Finally, on the highway. They made
it in the car eight meters, when the
woman pulled the car to the side and
started puking outside her car door
onto the paved road.

The guy was holding his head and

rocking back and forth, for a while he
hadn’t noticed the car was not in
motion any longer. He pushed the car
door open, pulled himself out of the
car and then with a cry, shielded his
eyes from the blast of sunlight. He
also started puking.

Brandone who had been sitting

behind the man in the back seat,
opened the door and slid off the seat,
as his feet softly hit the paved cement.
Kiilsae took this as her cue to do the
same and once they looked at each
other their minds were aligned. Then
they snapped back to their feast,
going to their individual Prime Target’s
to finish the job.

The night was upon them and the

married couple’s, doors ajar, bodies
limped over, one over the steering
wheel and the other against the
dashboard. Traffic on the highway was
fluid. No one pulled over to investigate
the strange scene until the previous
day. The Police, Coroner and
Newspapers were at a loss as to what
had transpired. The only evidence
which was found outside the couple’s
belongings was a small ribbon found in
the backseat.
Brandone and Kiilsae were nowhere
to be found.
Somewhere Behind Black
Eyes Part 7

Somewhere Behind Black Eyes...

It was about three in the afternoon.

Any other time in Claire's life she
would be in school and in her eighth
period English class. Why was life like
this? One day she's in school and has
her cell phone handy. The next day
she doesn't dare go to school for fear
her parents will find her. All this after
she snuck out to a party, stayed the
weekend, because she lost her phone!

The weekend was cool. She went to a

big party at her friend's house. She'd
slept there for the whole weekend
while her friend's parents were out of
town.
It was okay for her to stay there until
they were expected back. She mostly,
stayed there to help clean up the
house with hopes of finding her phone.
It wasn't until she realized it might
have been stolen instead of lost. "Just
great!" She thought out loud, now she
was going to have to not only lie to
her parents about where she had
been, but also make up a story as to
what happened to her phone! The
odds she would be successful at
pulling off both lies were nil to none!

She decided to go to a different

friend’s house. Tamara snuck her into
her bedroom window and let her stay
over Sunday night, then when school
started Monday morning, instead of
going to school she walked Tamara
most of the way and before anyone
saw her she slinked off.

Now she was sitting in the park on the

top of one of the slides and debating
what she should do next. If she sat
here any longer a cop could come by
and take her down to the police
station. No way! On top of all the
things she had gotten herself into up
to this point, her parents coming to
pick her up at the police station in
handcuffs was not the way she wanted
to go home. She had to go home at
some point. How she was going to
weasel her way back in, she hadn’t
figured out yet. There had to be a
clever plan on how she could do it
without being lectured or punished.
Maybe she could sneak in her window?
Then she remembered her window
was locked. Also, her room was on the
second floor. There was no way to
climb up there, no rose trellis, nothing
to give her even a partial boost.
She thought for a minute she could
climb in the kitchen window. She’d
have to discount this idea too. The
kitchen window was the only one
opened. She imagined the sink she
had left full of dishes. She was
assigned to washing them but snuck
out instead. Why couldn’t this get
better? The ideas she had weren’t
working and all she was doing was
envisioning herself getting into more
and more trouble, instead of
calculating a way on how to get
herself out of her state.
She had to get a reprieve from this
torturous mind frame.
What was something she always
wanted to do in which she was
forbidden up to this time? She was
always told she couldn’t go to rock
concerts, but she could wish upon a
star for any band to play and it still
wasn’t going to happen since it was
Monday afternoon. She really wanted
to put soap bubbles in the fountain
across the park where the water
trickled from the stone carved
monument. She didn’t have any
bubbles or dish liquid with her.
If she went to the store two blocks
from here she could buy some! “Oh
crap!” Claire wasn’t carrying any cash
and she wasn’t old enough to own a
credit card. Besides, with the mode
things were going in now, the next
thing to happen would be, there would
be a cop in the dollar store, or the
cashier would tell the manager to call
them.
It was autumn, so the slide wasn’t
covered in snow, it was littered with
colorful leaves, which brightened her
mood. She sighed and slid down it
then landed into someone. “Shit!” She
exclaimed. Claire was going to get
mad and cuss someone out, but then
she looked up.
It was Tyler! Oh my god, Tyler! She had
been crushing on this guy since the
tenth grade! Now Claire had to
apologize profusely. Instead, he
laughed and held out his hand to her
to help her up!
“Sorry about the collision!” He
smirked. “I saw you up there on the
top of the slide. I waited until you
decided to come down to jump right in
front of you.” Then he snickered again.
“You’re the last person I imagined I’d
see in the park.” His hand was still out
waiting for her to grasp. His hand was
huge in comparison to hers. This made
her even more nervous, as her
teenage hormones made her feel
jittery. She didn’t dare speak. What if
she said something stupid?
She reached out to him, her hand was
so tiny it was engulfed by his. His hand
was warm. Much warmer than the
chilly fall day she got herself caught
up in.
The only thing she could squeak out
was, “Where’s Chloe?”
He laughed again. “Chloe and I were
never official, but to hear it from her
we were. Chloe’s kind of clingy. I don’t
fare well with clingy.”
Once Claire was up on her feet she
dusted the leave debris from her. She
looked up at him and smiled
awkwardly.
“You’re the last person I thought I’d
see out here.” It came out like a half
question.
“Yeah, I don’t even know what I’m
doing here. Except I have no place to
go right now. I was at Tamara’s last
weekend. I lost my phone.” Her voice
trailed off from there.
“Ah, no paddle!” Then he laughed.
“What do you mean?” Claire tried not
to get defensive.
He smiled at her sweetly, “Up shit
creek without a paddle.”
“Oh yeah. Definitely. I am scared to go
home. My parents are going to kill me.
I went to a party, stayed the whole
weekend looking for my phone and
now I’m afraid to go back to school.”
She paused. “Is that stupid?”
“Nope! I don’t know your folks, but I
can tell you from experience with my
folks sometimes going home is not
comforting.” He pulled up the sleeve
of his left side hoodie and pointed to a
rounded, distinct mark. It resembled a
burn scar. “This is what I got from my
dad when he caught me smoking in
the garage. He said if I was going to
someday burn the house to the ground
I might as well get a little taste of what
it would feel like.”
Tyler started walking towards a park
bench and Claire followed him. She
was pleased she was able to get to
know him as a person. Part of her
wondered for a few seconds whether
this was fate. After all, he was single
and so was she! One thing she didn’t
need to do was get her hopes up. So,
she put a tight rein on those musings
and just decided to hang out with him
for now.
She was having trouble keeping her
thoughts in the fashion in which she
had convinced herself just less than
two minutes before.
He was beautiful. Tyler stood six feet
tall, he was a little stocky, but not fat.
He wore black tight jeans, which
looked as if they had been painted on.
His hair was short, flattened to the left
side of his face were his bangs, the
back was curly and cut short to his
neck. She tried hard not to think about
the back of his neck. He reached the
park bench and sat down. She sat next
to him. Near, but not too close. She
didn’t want to appear clingy.
He sighed, then looked around him,
returning his gaze back to her. He had
high cheekbones. His eyes were dark,
so deeply brown, his eyes seemed to
appear black. Oh my god, his eyes are
so sexy! Her heart jumped a little. She
didn’t know what to do, so she
shuffled her feet, pushing the leaves
around with her Chuck Martins and
tried to keep her eyes to the ground.
Then it got quiet, too quiet and he was
observing her. She tried to pretend she
didn’t notice.
She giggled to break the silence then
said, “Do you have any soap
bubbles?!”
His penetrating gaze turned to one of
confusion and amusement. “What.?!
What for?”
She gestured towards the water
fountain.
Tyler threw his head back and
laughed, slicing through the dismal
mood the atmosphere had taken. “Ah,
no I don’t! I wish I did! I can see all the
bubbles running down the fountain
and flying! My god this is brilliant! Of
all the times I have been down here, I
have never dreamt that up!”
He leaned back against the bench and
rested his right arm across it. Almost
like he had put his arm about her.
The spell was broken for the moment.
She didn’t want to distract him or for
him to leave, but her curiosity won her
over. “I wonder what time it is?”
Tyler pulled out his cell phone and
looked at it. While he had it out Claire
noticed he had eight messages
waiting to be read. “I think you have
some messages.” she stated.
He shook his head and shifted
uncomfortably. “If I had to take an
educated guess, it would probably be
Chloe. I don’t want to be mean to her,
but I have explained to her she’s not
the girl for me. We got into a gigantic
fight last Friday night. She caused a
huge scene. She ran out of the party
and I didn’t know what else to do, so I
followed her outside.”
He rolled his eyes and continued.
“When I got out there, she was leaning
against someone’s car sobbing. I tried
to calm her down, but then she threw
her arms around my neck and started
kissing me. I’d had a few drinks, so I
caved and kissed her back.” He
dramatically, palm slapped himself in
the head.

He paused, then the story took a

strange turn. “I stopped her when I
heard a car pull up on the road. It
didn’t seem like it was someone’s car
at the party. The vehicle was black
with dark tinted windows. Two men got
out of it, they opened the trunk of the
car, then boosted someone into it,
shut the trunk and then drove away.
Whomever it was, was laying in the
middle of the road before they pulled
up.”
Tyler snickered slightly then said, “I
don’t care how pissed my parents
would be at me. They would never
pick me up off the road and toss me in
the trunk of their car. I don’t think I’ve
ever been extremely drunk either
though.” His forehead crinkled into a
pondering and worried expression.
“Not only, but it appeared to be two
men. I am not making this up! Both
were wearing black suits and they had
sunglasses on. It was night and they
were wearing dark sunglasses!”
Claire felt bad because the story was
so bizarre she was unknowing on how
to respond to it. There was no
explanation for any of it. She offered,
“Well, you were drunk, maybe you
remembered it wrong?”
He shook his head this time more
profusely. “No way! After the fight with
Chloe and hearing a car which I
thought might be a cop, I know what I
saw. My buzz was killed through all of
the weirdness.”
Claire giggled again to break the
darkness, “The story you just told,
truly sounds like something out of a
Will Smith movie.”
Tyler laughed along with her. “It does!”
Tyler’s facial expression changed, and
he quoted from the movie, “Boy,
Captain America over here! "Best of
the best of the best, sir!"
They both roared with laughter
together. When they stopped, Tyler
gazed into her eyes, soft look on his
face and then said, “Wanna hangout
for the rest of the day?”

“Sure. What are we going to do?” Then

it occurred to Claire what she would be
doing if her life had continued its
original course. She would be
watching her little brother. Did she
change her mind and tell him no?
Would her showing up at home
redeem her to her parents for
disappearing on them? She wondered
if they had called the police to fill out a
missing person’s report. After all, it
had been more than twenty-four to
forty-eight hours since they had seen
her.

Just as she was about to tell Tyler

she should probably head home, he
reached out and grabbed her hand to
hold it in his. He looked down to her
reassuringly. She hoped, he would
never let go.

“Where to first?” Claire asked.

“I was thinking we’d stop by the

school since everyone is getting out
about now.”
 She hesitated. If she went there
she might be spotted.

Tyler stopped and turned around to

face her. “We don’t have to, but I
thought you might want to live a little
dangerously. Besides, there will be a
lot of people there and we can mix in
and they’ll never find you. I can hide
you behind me if you see anyone you
recognize. What do you say?” Tyler
flashed his irresistible smile again.
How could she say no to him?

Claire smiled coyly then said,

“Alright.”

Two shortcuts and a couple blocks

south, Tyler and Claire were at the
school yard. All the smoking kids hung
out at the metal building behind the
gym. Tyler stopped briefly, to talk to
his friend, Cody. Cody had invited
them to something that was going on
out in the woods, but Claire didn’t take
note of it because she was too busy
being hyper vigilant of the people
around her.

Then she spotted Chloe. She

tugged on Tyler’s arm. He bent down
so she could whisper in his ear and
then they took off by the flagpole
giggling all the way there while still
holding hands. They had to be careful
while at the flagpole. Many
gangbangers hung out there had
knife, fist and sometimes gun fights. It
didn’t seem risky today though. Tyler
was positive Chloe would not think to
look over here for him.

The excitement was too much for

Tyler though. He pulled Claire towards
him and held her to him fast. He gazed
intensely into her eyes before he
kissed her very passionately. He back
off a bit as Claire struggled to coolly,
catch her breath.
She’d never been kissed like that and
she was pretty sure of all the times
she imagined how he would kiss it
grossly, dimmed in comparison to her
fantasies.

The effect of the kiss was broken

after Tyler said, “Claire, the cops are
here.”

“What?!” She was stunned, her

blood raced, and her stomach fell.

“I’ve got the perfect place to go.

No one will find you at this place we’re
going to.” He assured her.

Claire wanted to go home, but she

was indecisive because she wanted to
stay with Tyler too. If she did go over
there and turn herself in, then this
could end up the huge mess she was
trying to avoid. Wherever Tyler was
going to take her seemed like the
much better option. “Okay.” She
responded.

After a few miles walking down a

back-road Claire never even knew
existed. There was a fence with a
minimal opening in it. When they both
walked through it, there was old rusty
things, old toys, litter and dead
animals. The dead animals must have
been where the stench was coming
from. It smelled like dead things,
sewage and rotten eggs. They walked
through a sparse wooded area and
came upon an old shack. It was so old
it’s, once sturdy frame was leaning to
the side. This house reminded Claire of
the little houses her mom use to read
to her about in fairytales. But only the
ones trolls and witches lived in.

“Who lives here?” She asked trying

not to sound freaked out. She was a
bit freaked out though, because she
had a fleeting thought that there
might be homeless people inside.

“No one lives here. Trust me it’s

better looking on the inside. Cleaner, I
know because I did the tiding up.” He
smirked back at her.

When they walked in directly in

front of them was a love seat with a
foldout bed. The covers were rumpled,
and the bed was unmade, but there
were two small pillows. To the left of
them was a tiny window, which had
been painted over with black paint. It
had a semi-rounded hole scraped on
it, so someone could peek outside. To
the right was a tiny kitchen nook.
There was an insignificant stove, a
couple of antique chairs and a table
big enough to hold a table setting for
two.

The bathroom was to the left of the

kitchen. Claire walked into the room
while Tyler vacantly, stared into the
refrigerator. The bathroom was slight
all that was in there was a miniature
sink, toilet and a standup shower.
Claire could tell nothing in the
bathroom had been tidied up. She
groaned when she noticed there was
no toilet paper. She wasn’t sure it was
safe to sit on the toilet seat anyways.
“No toilet papers?” She asked over her
shoulder.

“Aw, crap! No.” He paused and

then he said, “How about paper
towels?”

“Um, okay.” She shrugged.

Minutes later they were back in the

living room area, lying on the pull-out
bed and talking. Claire’s stomach
growled real loud and they both
laughed about it. “I guess I should find
us some grub.” He said.
 With perfect comedic timing, Claire
retorted, “Rub a dub dub, can’t live
without grub!”

Tyler roared with laughter and then

fell backwards off the bed; which was
easy to do because of its size.
“Claire trying hard not to continue
laughing, but holding her stomach,
poked her head over the bed looking
down at him on the floor. He was still
laughing, “I think I pulled a muscle in
my stomach!” She got up off the bed
and offered him a hand.

Things got silent. All they could

hear over their beating hearts was the
crickets and the frogs outside the
screen door.

Tyler ran into the kitchen and

grabbed his bookbag. “I’ll be back in a
jiff.” He swiftly bent down and peck
her on the lips. Before she could
respond he was gone into the night.

It being so silent outside of the

sounds of the night, Claire took in her
surroundings more closely. There was
no TV, no radio, no board games and
she still didn’t have her cell phone. As
far as she could tell there wasn’t even
a LAN line. She couldn’t call her
parents and tell them she was safe.
She didn’t even remember the route
back into town. She looked
everywhere and couldn’t find a map or
a flashlight and fumbling around in the
pitch blackness with dead animal
corpses was completely out of the
question.
Laying on her back, staring at
the ceiling, Claire started counting the
cracks in it. After she got a glimpse of
how many cobwebs and spiders were
up there the mild entertainment
became to make her creeped out. She
decided after a few hours she would
take a nap and wait for Tyler to return.
The next day he hadn’t come back
yet, and she was stressed out and
depressed. She slept all day and
waited in the darkness for the last
three days. Whenever she thought
she’d wake up and find her way home
she’d awaken to find it was getting
dark outside again.
Another thing she noticed was the
rotten egg smell was increasingly
getting worse. She tried to see if she
could track down some air freshener,
but the only candle she found had
burnt down to nothing.
All the reasons and excuses she
could come up with for Tyler being
gone for so long came and went, like
the passing hours, nights and days. He
wouldn’t abandon her out here!
Nothing he did or said denoted he was
a cruel person. What if his parents
grounded him and he couldn’t escape
to come back? What if he got hit by a
car and was lying in the middle of the
road? None of it made sense, except
he might be dead.
Claire couldn’t take it any longer.
The hunger, depression, worry and
feeling of helplessness was too much
for her. She broke down in wracking
sobs. She cried even harder, angry for
feeling sorry for herself. What was
worse, was she knew no one would
hear her out here and no one would
rescue her. She would be considered
just another runaway. Her crying took
an abrupt halt.
She heard something outside.
Whispering. Several voices and they
were speaking just below the line of
hearing what they were talking about.
“Tyler, is that you?!” She waited to
listen again, this time she closed her
eyes, so she could concentrate on
listening closer. Then there was a
shadow on the door. The light of the
moon might have reflected on
whatever it was.
 She heard what she had said out
loud mimicked back to her. “Tyler, is
that you?” It resonated perfectly like
the perfected pronunciation by a
child’s voice.
“Who are you?! What do you
want?” She heard a popping sound,
perhaps it was a tree branch on the
ground being stepped on. No, it didn’t
sound like a twig breaking.
Claire listened again. She heard
something on the roof. A tree branch
scratching the roof? No. It resembled
footsteps. She turned her head
towards the door. There stood a six-
foot shadow. “Tyler, is that you?! Come
in, I’m scared.” Her voice cracked a bit
as it came out.
The screen door opened, and Tyler
walked in. She threw her arms around
him and held him tightly. He was eerily
silent. She looked up at him, his eyes
were pitch black. Not like they were
before. There was no white in them.
His face was pallid, there was no color
in his face and he had dark circles
around his eyes which were now voids
of nothingness. She was frozen. He
mumbled one thing as he wrapped his
arms about her tightly. “Don’t worry.
This won’t take long.”