Page 37 of Them

A suburb on the northern outskirts of the city served his needs quite nicely. He stayed up late stirring a stew of last night’s beans and corn and other leftover veggies while studying the road ahead, taking note of the dozens of streams and creeks that the interstate would eventually traverse. Despite his exhaustion, he slept fitfully.

It was the nightmares, of course. Dreams of the corpse he’d left to rot in a Florida bathtub. The novel sensation of a gun firing to life in his hands. The bunker in the backyard that nearly became his own tomb.

The next night—the fourth since the man had returned to his walking ways—while traveling with the radio turned low and pressed up against his ear, static began to infringe upon the music. It started during a stretch of early rock ’n’ roll. Chuck Berry’s voice grappled with the annoying buzz, beating back the void, but in the end, it was no use. He’d gone too far and was losing the signal. But he couldn’t stop walking. Not now.

Perhaps someday, he thought, the world would sit still long enough for him to resurrect the music himself. He mostly doubted it, but it was nice to imagine.

On the fifth night after leaving the house with the basement bedroom, just past three in the morning, the man abandoned the highway and wandered down a winding exit ramp. He felt oddly relaxed. Almost tranquil. The only sounds he could hear were the crickets chirping in the tall grass around him and the tired shuffling of his own footsteps. His friend the owl had yet to make a return appearance. Up ahead, a family of deer scampered across the road, their eyes blinking red in the darkness, and disappeared into a stand of trees.

That’s the closest I’ll get to a good omen.

Not long after, less than half a mile off the interstate, the man stumbled upon a picket-fence neighborhood with plenty of open space and clear sight lines. The spacious homes and attached garages were practically begging for a guest. He knew he couldn’t afford to take a day off, but goddammit he needed a good night’s rest. And this looked like just the place to—

Clink-clink-gash.

What?!

His eyes grew wide in alarm.

Clink-clink-gash.

They’re awake? Now? In the middle of the night?

Clink-clink-gash.

Terror metastasized throughout his brain. His body, like that of a frightened rabbit that smells the stalking fox too late, seized up and froze. Now he was the deer caught in the gaze of that metallic blue light.

The man, gooseflesh spreading over his bare skin like an icy rash, slowly peered over his shoulder. Like a child peeking out from beneath the covers to face the boogeyman in the back of the closet.

Emerging around a long bend in the road was a shimmering blue so deep with current and turmoil that the man believed, in that moment of fearful awe, that he was staring into an ocean storm. A tsunami of glowing devastation.

Clink-clink-gash.

Why the hell is it awake?

Clink-clink-gash.

Jesus. Just. Leave. Me. The. Fuck. Alone.

He sidestepped into the grass to muffle his footsteps and dropped to his hands and knees, clambering behind a row of overgrown chest-high shrubbery. Pulling his knees to his chest, he held his breath, waiting.

Clink-clink-gash.

It was taking its goddamn time. If the beast had already spotted him, it hadn’t let on.

Clink-clink-gash.

Or maybe it was playing a game. Prolonging the hunt. A cat toying with a mouse.

Clink-clink-gash.

The man cursed himself for taking a shower earlier and for failing to procure more animal droppings. Stupid and lazy. Such indulgences had to be beneath him now. Above him. Behind him.

The Scorpion spiraled closer. CLINK! Its javelin legs shaking the earth with each powerful stride. A slat-thin fox erupted from the nearby brush and sprinted past the man’s hiding place, paying the human no mind at all.

CLINK!

The man’s chest felt like it was going to explode. His legs braced themselves to flee.