The Night Eats The Neighborhood

12:37 AM. Erik Welker closed his eyes and rolled over, so his back was to the alarm clock. It was a feeble act of defiance. He lay in bed for the past few hours, but he just could not fall asleep. The news reports he had overheard replayed in his head. Acts of violence were being reported in a near-by city.

His parents acted like it was normal; just another Tuesday night in America. 

“This is why we moved out here,” Dad had said. “Every year the cities get worse and worse. And you know it’s because of those people.”  

“Who?” Erik had asked.

“He’s talking about democrats, sweetie,” Mom said, before Dad could answer. Erik noticed she shot Dad a glare, a not subtle command to not answer for himself. Erik looked over to his twin brother, Justin, who mouthed a very nasty word referring to people of color. Thankfully, neither Mom nor Dad noticed, or else Justin would surely have gone to bed with a sore backside.

“Well, it’s the democrats who enable them!” Dad said.

“Oh, Bryan, that’s enough!” And with that, Mom killed the conversation before it ruined the evening. Dad took another sip of his PBR and went back to watching Fox News.

But Erik could feel that something was different about tonight. Hours later dread still coursed through his veins. It kept him awake, like drinking a soda before bed. Also, he probably should not have drank that soda before bed.

Now, just as his eyes started to grow heavy and he finally might drift off into sleep, a sharp and grating scratching noise roused him. It was sudden enough to make his heart skip a beat. It sounded like it was coming from outside the window. His mind conjured an image of a tree branch, blown by the wind, scraping against the siding of the house. Were there any trees that were close to the house? He could not remember any. In fact, he was pretty sure Dad had paid someone to trim all the branches two summers ago to stop that very problem.

Then he heard it again. And with it, he heard something else. It was a growling sound. But thick and…slimy. It sounded like something was breathing outside. Erik’s muscles tensed. His chest felt heavy. Something just felt wrong in a way he could not explain. His lizard brain was warning him of some imminent doom that the prefrontal cortex of a modern tweenager could not simply recognize.  

“Justin! Justin, do you hear that?” Erik said. No response. He booted the bunk above him with his heel.

“Huh? Wha-?” Justin said, groggy from suddenly being roused out of sleep.

“I heard something? I think something is on the roof!”

“That’s stupid. Go back to bed!” 

Erik sighed. But maybe Justin was right. Something on the roof? It sounded stupid when he said it out loud. And even if Erik was right, it was probably a raccoon. He closed his eyes again and tried to tell himself that whatever it was, he would be safe inside the house.

Then he heard a low, groaning creak. He shot up in bed; he was just short enough that his hair grazed the slats of the bunk above him.  

“Justin, did you hear that?”

“Oh my God, you’re such a fucking dork!” Justin groaned. “It was the fucking wind.”

Erik got out of bed and crossed the room to the window. At first, everything looked normal outside. Dad’s manicured lawn, bisected by a walkway to the sidewalk, looked peaceful. Gentle streetlights illuminated the empty sidewalks and the four-way intersection by the house. Erik was about to go back to bed when he saw two people run down the street past the house. His eyes followed them to the end of the street, where they ran through the intersection and out of his view.

“They’re people outside,” he said.

“People can be outside. It’s a free-fucking-country,” Justin said. Justin’s constant cursing was starting to annoy Erik. His brother had recently figured out that he could not get in trouble for swearing if Mom and Dad did not hear him. Since then, he had been excessively flavoring his language in the absence of adult supervision. Erik looked at the clock.

“It’s one a.m.,” Erik turned back to the window. Another person ran by, or rather, hobbled. His left leg dragged behind him; his left arm dangled useless by his side. Erik thought he could hear the guy plead, “wait for me!”

“Oh no! I think someone was in an accident.”

He could hear Justin climb down the ladder, muttering more curses under his breath he would never say around Mom and Dad. 

Then, Erik noticed something by the bushes. At first it looked like a shadow, until Erik fully contextualized the thickness of it. It had mass. It looked like a large dog. It crouched with two thick rear legs while its forelegs remained straight.  

As his eyes focused, Erik noticed that its arms - and they were arms - were far too muscular to be a dog’s front legs. When the creature turned its head towards him, he found himself looking into four shimmering orbs. Four eyes that glowed in the night.

“J-J-Jus,” he stuttered. “Justin! Something is in the yard!”

“What the fuck are you looking at?” Justin said. Erik did not answer. Even though he was always “the smart one,” he could not find the words to describe the thing he saw. He just kept his eyes locked on the monster, afraid that looking away would confirm that he was prey.

Then, he felt Justin grab his PJs and pull them down to his knees. Erik broke eye-contact with the beast and squatted down to pull his pants back up. The acute embarrassment flared onto his face since he was not wearing any underwear. 

“Hey! Why did you do that?” Erik said. His voice cracked. 

“Because you’re being a fucking dork! There’s nothing outside!” Justin said. Erik looked back out the window. The thing was gone. “Now go back to bed, we have school tomorrow and I wanna actually fucking sleep!.”

“I don’t think we do,” Erik said. He did not know why he said that. He just felt like it was true. Ever the smart one, Erik’s brain connected the dots, extrapolating an inference that something awful was happening outside.  

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“Stop saying fuck all the time! It’s not cool!”

“Oh, what-the-fuck-ever!” Justin said. “Go back to bed! I’m your big brother, so do what I say!” 

“You’re not really older than me, butt-face!” Erik said. Justin was born about twenty minutes before Erik. He always acted as if it leveraged authority over his twin.

“Then why do you still wear pajamas like a fucking baby?” Erik blushed again. Earlier that year, Justin had stopped wearing pajamas, opting for a pair of basketball shorts and a tank top. That was just another of the ways Justin had started to act like he was grown-up, in addition to the constant cursing.  

“I’m not a baby! And you’re only, like, twenty-minutes older!”

“Fucking cry about it! Baby!” Justin pushed Erik into the dresser.

“Ouch! Quit it. You’ll wake Mom and Dad.” Erik said, speaking with a hushed whisper.

“Bull shit! They sleep like the dead. Especially when Dad puts his CPAP machine on his face. Now I gotta fucking piss! Just go back to bed!” Justin stormed out of the bedroom, leaving the door wide open.

Justin was such an asshole now. He had always been the louder of the two, fearlessly leading them on adventures throughout the neighborhood. Lately, he had become something of a bully. He always made sure Erik knew that he was in charge just because he was born first.

Erik went back to looking out the window. The dog-thing was gone. He scanned the lawn. Every penumbra filled him with dread, as if the hellhound was hiding in the shadows. But when he could find no sign of the monster, Erik started thinking that maybe Justin was right, even if he was being a butt-face. 

A monster? Really? It must have just been some dog who wandered onto the front lawn. A big dog, sure. But it was dark and Erik was tired. The caffeine in his young body clashed with natural exhaustion. He nourished his young, active imagination with a junk-food diet of horror movies and comic books.  

It was just a dog. Those people running were just in some sort of accident and soon the police would take them to the hospital. All the violence he heard about from the news was just from those people - whatever that meant - in the city, just like Dad had said. It would stay in the city and they would be safe in their house.

Then, Erik saw a girl emerge from the darkness. She stopped under a street light. She was tall and petite, with long arms and legs. She hunched over to catch her breath and her brunette hair draped over her head, covering her face. Like him, she was wearing pajamas, but hers were a pink top and bottom set. She was not even wearing shoes, as if she had had to burst out from her bedroom suddenly. 

She straightened up and brushed her hair away from her face; Erik recognized her. She was Alexa Bennett. She was sixteen and she had been Erik and Justin’s baby sitter for years before their parents decided the twins were old enough to be unsupervised for a few hours. Erik had also developed an enormous crush on her; another thing Justin had relentlessly teased him about.  

What was she doing outside, running around in her pajamas? She lived several blocks away, almost a mile if Erik remembered correctly. Had she just sprinted here in the middle of the night? And barefoot ? Erik felt his stomach sink.  

Then, black shape pounced on Alexa from the darkness. Under the streetlight, Erik could see the monster better. Its muscular body rested low and wide, like a giant, black toad. It pinning Alexa to the ground. Its squat legs and lanky arms, also heavily muscular, boxed-in the poor girl under its trunk. Its head was long and narrow with an extended muzzle.

And those eyes. It had four horrible eyes, just like Erik had seen before. Two were directly on the front of its face and two lateral eyes sat behind them.   

The beast bared a mouthful of teeth and tore into Alexa’s neck. It latched onto her and thrashed. Alexa’s body ragdolled under the beast. Spurts of bright red glistened in the street light as the blood sprayed onto the road. Alexa did not have a prayer. Then, it dragged her still flailing body into the darkness, leaving a trail of blood like a dare for any would-be hero to follow.

Erik was not that hero. His heart pounded in his chest and his legs felt like jello. He tried to run, but he collapsed onto the puzzle piece floor mat. He forced himself up and ran into the hall. The hall was dark but the bathroom door was wide open with the light still on. 

Erik was about to yell for Mom and Dad when he heard a creak from the ceiling. His eyes shot up, the rest of him froze with his mouth hanging open. Another creak, but closer. Followed by another, and another. It was coming towards him. He ran back into the bedroom. He looked around, desperately needing a place to hide. The closet!  

Erik went inside and closed the door behind him. He furiously dug through the clothes and other items, burying himself in the corner. What should he do? He wanted to scream for Mom and Dad, but then the beast would find him. And them. 

Another creak, this time from above the bedroom. Followed by another, this one was directly above him. He heard scratching. Then the groaning of wood Shit! Erik remembered a hatch in the ceiling of the closet leading up to the attic. No one ever opened it. The creature found it quickly. 

The flimsy hatch gave way and the wood splintered, raining down on him. Claws burst through and swiped at Erik. The wicked nails just barely missed his face. Erik screamed. He bolted out of the closet, almost bursting through the door himself.

He ran into the hallway and towards the stairs. He ran in such a panic that he launched himself off of the landing, suspended for a moment before gravity caught him and pulled him down. He banged his ankle on the step and rolled down the stairs. He came crashing to a stop in a heap at the bottom.

“What the hell is going on!” It was Dad. Erik heard Dad stomp down the hall. “Are you boys okay?” He flipped on the bedroom light. “Justin? Erik? Where the hell are you?”

“Dad!” Erik wailed. Dad popped his head over the railing.

“Oh my god! What happened? Are you ok?” Dad said.

“Bryan, what happened?” Erik heard Mom say, her voice still groggy with sleep

“One of the boys fell down the stairs!” Dad said. Erik wanted to warn them about the monster, but before he could they heard a loud grow from the boys’ bedroom. Dad turned around.

“Mother of God! Janey, be caref-!” The beast lunged at Dad. Its whole weight slammed into him, smashing them both through the railing. Dad crashed onto the staircase with the monster on top of him.  

The tangled scuffle rolled down the stairs. The combined bulk of Dad and the monster rolled over Erik. A fresh wave of pain rolled over him next. When the two bodies stopped on the living room floor, the monster had Dad pinned. The beast roared. It savagely clawed into Dad’s belly. Spurts of blood gushed out of the gash, spraying the walls and the family photos.  

Dad wailed the most tormented, inhuman cry Erik had ever heard. He writhed and flailed, but he could not buck the monster. Every burst and spasm of his body sprayed more spurts of blood to coat the room. Blood sprayed the couch. Blood sprayed the TV. Blood sprayed the rug. More blood seeped out from under Dad, pooling on the hardwood floor.  

Mom screamed. It was another tormented shriek, only slightly less horrible than Dad’s had been. Erik looked up to see her leaning over the gap in the railing. Then, a roar erupted from the direction of the bathroom. Another monster pounced from the hallway, swiping at Mom. She disappeared from Erik’s view, but he knew she was a goner. A cascade of blood rained down on him, confirming in the worst way what he already knew.

Mom was dead. Dad was being torn to pieces. Justin…Erik had no way of knowing. He did the only thing he could do: he pulled himself up, fighting against all the pain, and ran for the front door. He ran on autopilot. Before he realized it, he was sprinting down the front walkway. He ran into the street and, as if on instinct, turned right.  

Right would take him towards downtown. Right would take him towards the police station and the emergency clinic. Right would take him towards anyone who could save him. If anyone could save him, that is.  

He ran across the intersection, passing through the light and narrowly avoiding the smear of blood from when a monster took Alexa. As he crossed the luminal edge back into the darkness, he crashed into something big. He fell backwards, landing on his butt. 

Something stood in the penumbra. It looked like a massive pair of boots. Erik lifted his gaze. From the boots grew a set of thick, muscular legs adorned in some sort of tight fitting black fabric. Erik’s gaze continued upwards over an armored chest-plate, adorned with spikes and some sort of runic symbols Erik did not recognize. 

Some sort of monstrous man towered over him. Except this man was massive. He stood almost twice as tall as dad. His armored shoulders were broad and his arms were as thick as Erik’s whole trunk

His gaze rising above the giant’s body, Erik met its black, beady eyes. Those horrible eyes were set in a bone-white face with, it seemed, no lips. The man snarled at Erik with jagged teeth. 

Erik was frozen until a whimpering noise caught his attention. He noticed the thick chain-links emerging from the giant’s right hand. Erik tracked the links and came, to his horror, to a man. He recognized him as Mr. Spangler, a history teacher from school. His eyes were both torn out: blood streamed down his face like tears

Erik screamed. He got up and ran away from the giant monster. He sprinted down the street until he crossed another intersection. At the corner he saw another one of the dog-monsters crouched over the bloodied body of a police officer. The cop even reached out to Erik, desperation in his eyes and blood gurgling from his mouth as the monster’s maw pulled his guts out of his body. 

Erik kept running. He ran past more monsters and more of the horrible looking giants. He ran past unfortunate neighbors emerging, disoriented and terrified, into this fresh hell. He ran and ran until his legs gave out and he collapsed onto the street, gasping for breath.  

The night all around him was a cacophony of growls, screams, and sirens that blared only just too far away. The occasional string of gunshots echoed through the darkness. But Erik knew he could not stop for long. He knew he had to get up and sprint through his burning lungs and the acid in his legs. The night was eating his neighborhood. It was tearing apart his neighbors. And if Erik stopped running, the night would devour him too.