November Town

Only now, the area had gone to seed. House after house seemed darkened, the yards overgrown with piles of unraked leaves. The trees looked like black skeletons against the orange sky, and the modest-sized houses behind them like mere hulking black shapes. In some of the houses, lights could be seen, but at these, there would be sheets over the windows on the inside, and bars on the outside, and in the driveway, as many as a half dozen vehicles would be parked- rusted peeling 80's vintage GM cars, old VW beetles, early 90's vintage Toyota Tercels- and maybe one of those lowered Japanese cars with the huge rear wing that was supposed to look sporty but only looked utterly tacky and cheezy- basically, those sorts of cars. And those sort of people Christian would be only slightly happier to see than that creepy guy in the parking lot of the auto parts store. These houses were oddly more sinister than the dark, abandoned looking ones. Not just homes gone to seed, but people gone to seed as well. And everywhere, both at the inhabited homes and uninhabited alike, piles and piles of fallen leaves, unkempt brush, and skeletal trees. He began to hear the leaves starting to rustle as they brushed against each other, although air felt unnaturally still as the evening temperatures started to drop.

He passed a stop sign, made a right, and continued down the block. He was only a couple blocks from the main drag, but yet, the silence along this street was almost eerie. He had seen nobody, no signs of any people except from the houses he passed with the sheets on the windows and the fleets of run-down cars parked in front. And even those houses were quiet, as if the inhabitants inside wanted to conceal whatever it was they were doing indoors and out of sight. The only sound was his footsteps and the rustling of the fallen leaves.

But along this block, virtually all of the homes were dark, and there were almost no cars, save for a forlorn looking Nissan Altima parked on the street, its hood and roof covered with fallen leaves, and with a plastic garbage bag in place of the rear passenger window. The letters "LCPD" and below it, the date "7-14" were spray painted in orange across the windshield, and the right rear tire was flat. He began to notice that several of these homes were not only empty and abandoned, but in some cases, were partially ruined. One house had half the roof missing, and the one across the street from it looked like it had been damaged in a fire, with blackened timbers exposed on one side. And on one lot there was nothing but a foundation, four concrete steps that ended at a low overgrown concrete wall. He continued on, thinking he ought to start doubling back to the car before he got totally lost, and it got completely dark.

The next block was much the same, with more dark, seemingly abandoned homes amid the piles of rustling, fallen leaves and tall, dead weeds. Homes that were boarded up, with plywood over the windows, and one had a roof was almost entirely caved in. At another, junk was stacked up along the side of the house, rotting furniture, piles of timber and pipe, basically nothing of value. He saw graffiti everywhere, but most notably, across a plywood sheet covering a boarded up window in a sad looking half ruined bungalow; he read the words "Stay Out Of Lonely Places" scrawled in black paint. This thought prompted him to think about doubling back to the car and getting the heck out of here. As unpleasant as the encounter back there had been, he had an uneasy feeling being out here on this empty, abandoned street after dark. He really ought to be heading back uptown towards home, he thought. And that creepy guy by the car- maybe he DID just over-react to some weird vibe that was all in his head, and there was nothing wrong with the guy at all- he was just some fucked up tweaker. Probably lived (or squatted) in one of these houses, in fact.

Suddenly an idea occurred to him- he could save time by cutting through the yards of the abandoned properties and reach the street on the other side, and get back to the car quicker. If the homes were empty and nobody was around, he figured nobody would say anything, and if they did- well, he was just leaving anyway right? The glow in the west was starting to turn from orange to deep red. It was getting cold, too- he could see his breath starting to fog in the damp chill of the early autumn darkness.

Christian approached one of the black hulking ruins of a house. Even when the place was new, it could not have been that impressive, it was basically painted cinderblocks with a tar-shingle roof, and like all the others, wasn't much more than 1000 square feet, if that. His feet crunched through the leaves and the tall brown grass and weeds, some of which were waist high. As he had hoped, both the two neighboring properties were in a similar state of abandonment and neglect, and the house behind appeared dark and empty as well. But as he paused to scout it out, the rustling, which he had at first dismissed as mere background noise, seemed to increase. Something in the corner of his eye caught his attention and he turned to look. There, across the street, was something moving in the shadows? It was getting dark, maybe his eyes were playing tricks on him, okay, maybe it is just a squirrel, he thought. No biggie.

But then he saw more movement, from the corner of the front yard off to his right. Something moving beneath the leaves. He couldn't tell what it was, only that it seemed to be moving, scurrying...right towards him.

THAT made him nervous. He quickened his pace, and entered a ramshackle gate to the back yard of the forlorn house, which he closed behind him. But as he did, he saw the thing that was pursuing him. It was no mere squirrel. It was a rat, covered with coarse dark grey fur. Only it was the largest rat he had ever seen. Its black beady eyes, pitch black orbs, glared at him menacingly. As he paused, it bared its teeth and charged at the gate, showing no fear, only unbridled aggression.

"Shit!" Christian exclaimed. This thing was big. It was no mere hamster-sized rodent; just the body of this thing was almost a foot long. He backed away from the gate, turned and ran for the low chain link fence in front of him.

Only as he was running, he saw more movement in the back yard he was crossing through. Several ill-defined things were moving under and through the fallen leaves. At first, they looked only like nameless, drifting black shapes- perhaps just a trick of the fading light and his eyes adjusting to it. Only they were moving towards him, and he realized with horror, as they drew near, that they were rats, just as large and as vicious as the one he had just seen in the front yard. He vaulted over the back fence and into the adjacent yard. The house here, like the one behind him, looked like it hadn't been lived in for at least a decade. The windows were boarded up and the boards spray painted, and the weeds were waist deep. The yard was also thick with piss-elm seedlings, many of which had grown taller than the blackened husk of the house itself.

Then suddenly, an inhuman screech from the corner of the yard made his hair stand up. This sound was indescribable. It was not a human sound, not even the sound of a feral cat in heat or a fox mating call- sounds Christian was familiar with. It was like a hiss mixed with a high-pitched howl. There was a tall stand of maturing piss-elm seedlings in the far corner of the yard, which was in deep shadow, but somehow he sensed, rather than saw, pitch black eyes on him, stalking him with utter malice, like some inhuman demonic THING had just caught his scent. A black shadowy mass started moving from the corner of the yard after him. Paralyzed with fear and utter deathly panic, like a cornered prey, he waited nearly a second before the shadowy thing somehow resolved itself into a rat- only a rat- but like the others he had seen it was of unusually large size, nearly as big as a raccoon. And it was driven by hunger, or by whatever unseen force was at work- into pure unbridled aggression. It was coming at him. And so were the others, the rest of the pack. They had scaled the low chain link fence behind him and were closing in. In terror, Christian took off running, across the front yard, not even looking at either side of him, just running, down the darkening street and away from this abandoned property.

He wasn't even sure how far they chased him; only that after about a block of panicked running at an anaerobic full sprint, he turned around and saw no signs of them. His heart pounding, he had only one thought, he just needed to get the fuck out of this weird neighborhood and find his car, creepy meth hitchhiker or not. Then, the ever present rustling sounds seemed to increase once again. He froze where he stood in the middle of the street. From the boarded-up house to his right, was that something moving under the leaves?

Two things, three. Just things tunneling under the leaves, all heading toward one single point- him. Right where he stood. Then he saw the rats- all of them nearly a foot long, feral, vicious and hungry, as they emerged from under the leaves leapt onto the pavement, and without thinking, he took off running again. He made a left and started running in the direction of the main road. On his right, he passed a house that was lit from within, one of the few he had seen. But as he passed, he noted the feral thump of rap music from within, noticed the sheets over the windows facing the street- actually the windows on the side of the house were actually boarded up like many of the vacant structures, and the fact that this house and yard was as neglected as any of the others in this decrepit neighborhood. He quickly moved on. The inhabitants within this house would no doubt be just about as welcoming- and as safe- as the hungry pursuing rat pack.

He reasoned that Mormon Coulee Road would have to be just on the other side of this block, but to reach it, he would still have to detour one block to the north to a connecting alley. So he turned to the north and resumed his brisk jog. But there were shapes; more rats, he saw- scurrying directly towards him from down the street. No escape that way. He turned left abruptly, quickly thinking that if he could cut through these last two rows of houses, then scale the fence behind the auto parts store, he could reach his car and be out of here.

Christian ran into another deserted yard, his feet crunching through the piled dried leaves. But suddenly, something large sprung up, right at his feet, like an explosive land mine, and nearly knocked him over.

It was a rat; large, rabid and slavering, its eyes like black holes, blacker than darkness. It had rushed out of the tall weeds in front of the house and had sprung at him. The thing was now climbing him, clawing at his chest, ripping through his clothes with sharp claws, its jaws an inch from his face. Christian screamed in terror and surprise. Acting on instinct and pure panic, he staggered backward and with a heave, flung the creature off of him in a split second as its jaws snapped shut barely an inch from his face. The thing landed on its back before rolling over, regaining its footing, and rushing back to spring at him again. This bought him a split second. Christian ran through the overgrown yard to the back gate, able to outdistance his attacker and the rest of the pack, which, by the sound of the rustling leaves and inhuman rodent-like shrieks, he could hear were still chasing him and starting to close in. He climbed up a pile of stacked lumber stacked next to the ramshackle wood fence and quickly jumped over it. As he turned, the things that were now moving toward him seemed dark and shapeless, like nightmarish terrors that all kids are afraid of. Once his feet hit the ground on the other side, he had only to clear the front yard of the house beyond and he would be reach the narrow alley that separated this neighborhood from the main drag.

But his feet never seemed to hit the ground, in such a blind panic, he remembered only that he simply ran. In a rush of adrenaline, he scaled the six foot tall wood fence separating the neighborhood from the main road by clambering atop a garbage can, then vaulted over it and landed by the dumpster behind the auto parts store. More rustling sounds came from the dumpster, but he never stopped to look, he just kept running, at a full sprint to the front of the building. The car was still sitting in the empty parking lot, under a sodium vapor light- which to his immense relief, was lit. And- another relief- there seemed to be nobody around. Never breaking stride, he dug in his pockets, fumbled for his keys, still shuffling his feet while he unlocked the car door. He scrambled into the car and slammed the door shut and locked it.

He gunned the engine and peeled out of the parking lot and onto the road. Let the cops pull him over, he was beyond caring. All he wanted was to get back uptown and as far away from this place as possible. His heart was still pounding and he was out of breath and starting to cough. The dang windshield was fogging up on him too, making it harder to see to drive.

As he made his way back uptown, he started seeing gradually more and more cars on the road, and more and more signs of human activity. And when he reached the stoplight at West and Jackson Street, it felt like a return to civilization, or waking up from a bad dream. Here was Powell Park, the laundromat by Walgreens where they had pool tables and video games, Taco Johns, the Mayo Clinic, and the spire of St Johns church; the familiar sights of "almost home." A feeling of calm relief settled in. There were cars on the road, people hurrying home to fires in the fireplace, dinners with family, warmth and companionship in the cold, dying long late autumn evening.

But a thought occurred to Christian- he had no companion, no family to dine with, a warm house to build a fire but no warm body to share it with. He suddenly wanted nothing more than just to hang out with someone- even if all it amounted to was sitting in front of the TV watching two college football teams from some far-flung part of the country he never cared about go head to head- heck, bring on Cal vs. South Florida- just, SOMETHING to do and someone to do it with. He thought about calling his friend Jane Pietroski, who he sometimes hung out with. Jane was never really a romantic interest to him; she was one of those people who seemed to like doing little else but hanging out drinking and smoking weed all day, and he was not particularly attracted to her either. But sometimes he almost felt he could make it work with her in a loveless but "let's keep each other company" kind of way.

He thought about it for a bit, then, changing his mind, swung the car around and headed up to his buddy Tom Sladowitz's pad. Tom was an old friend Christian had known forever, and was always down for a few beers, TV and conversation. Because right now, if there was ever a time he could use a beer or three, this was certainly it. Tom lived alone in an older fixer upper type of house a few blocks away from his own place. On the way over, Christian swung into a nearby convenience store, stopped in, and bought a twelve pack- Pabst Blue Ribbon, since that was about the only twelve pack of semi- drinkable beer you could get for fifteen bucks. He was calmed down by now, the memory of his freakish ordeal quickly fading, but yet, all he wanted more than anything was to just hang out and drink a few beers to mellow out. It would normalize things, anyway. Tom might not be up for doing much, but that was fine with him. Because who else, really, was around? Nick and Erika Pender had their new baby and didn't really hang out anymore, and ever since Sara and Ryan had gotten engaged and moved in together, Christian felt awkward just dropping in on them unannounced. Josh Agnetti and Karla had gotten married the summer before last, and ever since Karla had gotten pregnant- it was the same thing; they had both kind of dropped out of the social circle. So that pretty much just left him and Tom. Everyone's got their family, and shit.

He slowly cruised up to Tom's pad. By now, it was totally dark, and the moon, just a crescent, was already visible. In the neighborhood, Halloween was long past, and the cartoonish ghosts, skeletons, vampires, and pumpkins were gone. And it would still be a few weeks before the lights of Christmas decorations would brighten these homes once again. In some yards, raked piles of leaves lay waiting to be bagged and composted, while in others, a bumper crop of crisp fallen brown leaves blanketed the ground still waited to be harvested. But yet, most of these homes were bright, lived in, and loved. In fact, on this block, only Tom's house stood out with its need for maintenance. The paint was peeling and the siding needed repair. And his yard still had not been raked. The other day, when Christian had jokingly commented on the lack of home maintenance, Tom had replied "When I'll get around to it, dude."

Christian pulled into the driveway. It looked like Tom was home, or at least, his Ford pickup was there. And the light was on. He parked, and stepped out of the truck, but then realized something. The light he saw was only the light by the front door; the front window was actually dark. Was Tom even home? He didn't know where else he would be, but then again, it wasn't like he had called him ahead of time. His two garbage cans were sitting by the gate to the side yard. It was dark, so he couldn't quite tell whether the rustling he heard was just the wind or the branches scraping the roof in the stillness of the air.

The stillness of the air... the rustling of the leaves. In the dark shadows, something was moving by the garbage cans.

Christian didn't wait this time. He jumped back in his car and peeled out of the driveway, and drove home without looking back.

In the comfort of his house, on an early November night in an upper Midwestern town, Christian Bowmont sat alone, sipping his beer and thinking about the brand new set of rims he was going to put on his classic Mercury the next day. He was watching a meaningless football contest. Colorado State was playing Wyoming, or some dang team like that anyway; he didn't really care who won. The Badgers had already lost earlier that day anyway. There just wasn't anything else on. "The Big Bang Theory." "NCIS." "Ghost Adventures" (fuck that! He thought.) And there wasn't anything else to do. How long, this time, before the rats came? He wondered. But it mattered not. Locked safely and securely inside the sanctuary of his own home, Christian was warm, comfortable, and safe. But he was totally alone against the chill and darkness of the late fall.