The Extinct

CHAPTER
24

The nights in Andhra Pradesh were warm and dry as the child walked home to his village. He’d spent the day in Hyderabad hawking wooden key rings his family had been making from the sycamore trees near their huts. It’d been a long day and he’d had little to eat, but he’d made more than ten dollars. Enough to feed his entire family for days.

Sometimes, when they went into the cities to buy supplies, he saw things on the television at the hotel near the store that made him wonder why some people had so much and some had so little. But mostly it was fun to see all the different shows. He would sit on the couch in the lobby and watch until the staff caught on that he wasn’t with a guest and they would chase him out. But it was fun to watch people with so much food and nice clothes and cars. He wondered if everyone in America was always happy. Were there any sad people there?

The dirt road was narrow and encased in waist-high grass. The moon was only a slit in the darkness but was still enough for him to make his way without much trouble. He stopped on the side of the road to urinate. The crickets near him were chirping loudly and he giggled as he listened to their silly calls that filled the night.

Suddenly the crickets stopped.

The boy glanced around. It wasn’t unusual for crickets to stop when people were near them, but this was different. Usually crickets in a certain area would stop and those farther away would not. Right now, he couldn’t hear anything but his own breath.

A cold chill ran down his back as he stepped away from the side of the road. He could hear the breeze rustling through the grass, but there was something else as well. A muffled crunching of vegetation. The sound was soft, but it was loud enough for him to hear. He looked down the road and saw the outline of the first hut of his village.

He began walking quickly, telling himself it was only the sounds of the earth. He’d walked this same route hundreds of times and nothing had happened. The larger predators liked to stay away from people and farther into the plains. He had nothing to be afraid of. His father had walked this route and his father before him. This was their road.

There was another sound behind him. The boy couldn’t tell where it came from. It seemed to come from the wind and swirl around in the grass before going to the sky. His heart was beating faster now. He looked once toward his village and then behind him. Making his decision, he sprinted for his hut.

There was a ruckus behind him, grass and weeds being torn from their roots as something crashed through the brush in pursuit.

He was now dashing with all his might, his legs burning and his breath hot like the air around him. The sounds had grown louder, it was right behind him.

The boy was close now to the first hut. It was two stories and made of wood and straw. He burst through the wooden door and saw a man and woman sitting by a small fire. He’d seen them before, they were friends of his mother.

Before he could say anything, a roar rattled the hut. Shaking the beams and causing bits of dirt and dust to fly off the roof. The boy looked to the man whose eyes were wide. He grabbed his wife and took the boy’s arm and ran to the back of the hut where a small ladder led to the second floor. He took his wife by the hips and helped her up as she climbed and disappeared into the darkness. The man then helped the boy up. The wife held him in her arms as the man yelled not to come down.

There was another growl, then dirt being kicked up near the walls. Heavy breathing circled the hut and was followed by clawing against the wood. Whatever was outside was looking for a way in.

More dirt and more digging and then the boy heard the man gasp. There was the deafening splinter of wood and laughter as the man stood frozen.

He jumped for the ladder and started to climb. The boy could see his head poke through the second floor opening before there was laughter again and the man screamed. The wife took hold of the man but he was ripped away from her and pulled down to the first floor.

The screams and crunching of bones made the boy start to cry. Then, the noise stopped. The wife had stopped screaming and sat in shock, trembling. She let go of the boy and kicked the ladder down before scooting to a wall away from the opening. The boy began to go over to her, and froze when he looked down through the opening.

The dark black of blood stained the ground and the walls. The man’s body was not there, but bits of flesh mixed with the dirt and appeared like large insects on the dry earth. There was a growl and the boy jumped backward. As he sat in the woman’s arms, they began to scream for help, pounding against the walls, tears running down their cheeks.

The wood began to creak. Both of them listened breathlessly. The hut shook again and bent, the woman screaming as she realized the hut was collapsing. It shook only a few more seconds before a thundering sound filled the boy’s ears and he fell with the collapsing building and crashed into the ground.

The woman’s screams stopped and the boy couldn’t see what was happening with blood dripping into his eyes. His head was cut and he felt the sharp pressure of a break in his leg. Then he felt something hot against the skin on his arms; it was breath.