Welcome To The Neighborhood

I walk in the house and he follows soon after, checking to make sure there wasn’t anybody there. When he comes inside he puts his shotgun on a shelf by the door and shuts the blinds. I take a better look around the small house and see that it's not that great of a place. Aged walls, stained furniture, and a pizza box in the sink. Sitting on the very edge of a torn green chair-because I didn’t know what the brown stain on the back was.
“What’s the cement block for?” I ask.
“What?” he asks back.
“The cement block? By the tree?” I explain.
“Oh. That. It’s nothing.” He barely gets out.
“It has three handprints. Is one of them yours?”
“…Yes. The biggest one.” He tells me as he walks toward the kitchen.
“Who do the other two belong to?”
“They uhm…belong to my wife and daughter.”
“Oh, are they here?”
“…No. Not anymore.”
“Oh…I’m sorry…”
He shook off our conversation with obvious discomfort, “We need to hurry. The Sun’s gonna go down soon. We need to get ready.”
“Uhm, that’s where you’re wrong, I’m afraid. I need to get back in my car and hurry home. Otherwise we’re gonna have ourselves a heap of a mess.”
“Look. I know what lies in the darkness. In the woods of your town.” He explains as he walks towards the door and puts a wooden board in two grooves on both sides.
“How could you know? I mean, you live 15-20 miles away.”
“Yes…but my family and I went there one summer, years ago.” He starts. “It was the summer of 2000, and my little girl just turned 10.
“We were going up to stay in a hotel for our vacation, it wasn’t much, but it was all we could afford. We went to the beach to watch the sunset and were surprised to see how many people cleared out just as the Sun was going down. We thought nothing of it at the time and just sat at the end of the pier. Me and my wife, Megan, were watching the sun go down while Laura, our baby girl, took her last swim of the day.
“The Sun just got below the horizon when we heard the noises. My wife and I looked toward the shore confused, Laura was still splashing in the water and didn’t notice anything.
“They were hideous, those creatures, those..things. They had glowing eyes and the skin was peeling off of them, they had finger nails that were as long as their fingers, and sharp jagged teeth peeking out from their lips. They were snarling and growling at us, I looked back at Laura, she saw them now.
“I grabbed Megan’s hand jumped to my feet running off the pier and toward Laura. I was practically dragging Megan behind me to make sure she was keeping up. I just got to Laura when they attacked. They pulled me and Megan apart and one of them jumped on me, I could hear Laura and Megan yelling in panicked voices. The one over me hit me in the head with something hard and knocked me out.
“When I awoke, I was alone. My family…my life…was gone. I had a large gash in my chest. I don’t know why they didn’t kill me, too, but I wish they had…” He barely finishes before he starts crying softly. I get up from my chair and walk over to him, I hesitantly put my hand on his shoulder. He snaps out of it and turns to me. “We have to destroy them. Every last one of them. I will not rest until they’re all gone.”
I stare back at him for a few moments, “Just tell me what I need to do.” I state. This is gonna be one interesting night, I think to myself.
As I come back to reality, he hands me a gun. “Oh, I have one in my car actually. I can go get it-“
“No.” He cuts me off. “It’s too late for that. Besides, I think you’ll do more damage with this one. It’s military grade.”
“How the hell did you get these?”
“I have my ways…” He explains. “By the way, my names Max.” He holds out his hand to me. I can’t believe it, this guy held me at gun point, led me into his home, told me a tragic story about his wife and daughter ‘them’, and handed me a military grade gun…and I didn’t even know his name until now.
“Emily.” I situate the gun in my other arm and reach out to shake his hand.
We share slight smiles and turn toward the windows, I see the shadows grow and become more threatening as the Sun goes below the horizon. The Sun is setting behind us and I can see stars on the other end of the world. The moon glows down overhead and casts a silver light on everything. It would be a beautiful night if I didn’t have to fear for my life.
I hear the wind brush against the trees and bushes outside Max’s small home, ‘they’ should be here any second now.
There’s a strange noise about 20 yards away. I look over at Max and he nods to me, I get down low and hold up my gun. ‘They’ are here, we both know it.
I quick take out my phone and send a text message to my mom, saying that I love her and that I’m okay. I know she’d be freaked out if I told her where I really was, so I tell her that I’m safe at Leo’s, my boyfriend. I send him a quick text to tell him the story but leaving out the part about being at some strange man’s house.
Max elbows me lightly and we both get ready to defend ourselves. I take a deep breath and raise my gun once more.
This is something that should have been done a long, long time ago. Before they got to Max’s family.