The Attack
“Mommy, are we there yet?” I asked as I looked outside of the window.
“Christian, I told you to sit down and be quiet,” my mother said. I loved my mother. She was very pretty. I always thought she was the prettiest woman in the world. She had long brown hair and dark brown eyes. She was light skin and very petite and whenever she smiled at me, she’d made me feel great, no matter what I did wrong. She was also very cautious with me. I always thought she had eyes behind her head, because when I was about to do something wrong, she’d tell me to ‘watch out’ or ‘don’t do that’. Especially when I was in the van. I knew she kept an eye on me from the passenger rearview mirror. Sometimes when I knew she was looking at me, I’d stick out my tongue at her. In return, she’d stick her tongue back at me. We always played around like that.
But that day I didn’t listen to her. My father bought me two Hot Wheels and I got off my seat to play with them. The van was very big to me because I was a small kid. Whenever I had toys, I would always roam around the van and play with them.
“Mommy and daddy, are we there yet?” I asked again. I was eager to get home because of the road we were driving through. In order for us to get home, we’d drive through a back road called farm road 2528. The road was very scary and lonely because all the houses there were empty and cars hardly passed through it. And it made it worse because we were driving during the night. Home sounded like a better place.
“Christian, sit down and listen to your mother,” my father said. I did as he told me. My mother was always easy with me, but when it came to my father, I listened. My father was a serious and very big man, not fat, but muscular. He’d always stayed in shape. Every morning he’d wake me up for breakfast because he jogged for thirty minutes. Even his voice sometimes scared me because it was a deep tone. He didn’t try to scare me, but that’s they way his voice was. Sometimes my friends would never come over because of my father. He had brown eyes and he always kept his hair very short, as if he was in the military. My family always said I looked like him. I was proud of that.
“Okay,” I replied. I sat right by the left window and buckled my seatbelt.
You see we were driving back from Lubbock because we were grocery shopping. We lived out in the country, or what some people called it, ‘the boonies’. But I loved it out there because it was very quit and peaceful. The town near us was Abernathy, which was a small town north of Lubbock, and because it was small, the grocery stores there were expensive. But in Lubbock, they were a lot cheaper, and my parents always found a way to save money.
As I sat by the window, I looked out of it and up at the bright stars and the moon outside. The stars glimmered and I noticed the moon was an orange color. I always wondered how they stayed up there. They’re always pretty to look at. Minutes passed and I got bored so I started playing with my Hot Wheels again. But this time I stayed in the seat. I didn’t want father mad at me.
“Daddy, are we there yet?” I asked again.
“We’re almost---,” but he didn’t finish what he was saying because my mother cut him off.
“David, watch out!” she yelled at him as she grabbed the steering wheel. The van jerked as we hit something. My head hit the window on the left side. Both mother and father grabbed the steering wheel and twisted it to the right. My father pressed the brakes and the tires screeched as the van was making a stop. The van swirled to the right side of the road and finally came to a complete halt. Good thing I buckled my seatbelt. We hit something, something big, but we didn’t know what it was.
“Dammit!” my father said furiously. I knew he was angry. He made a fist and he punched the steering wheel. I didn’t know if he was angry with me, or if he was angry because we hit something. I apologized to play it safe.
“Daddy, I’m sorry,” I said.
“Christian, it’s not your fault. I should have kept my eyes on the road,” he said. That’s one thing I loved about him, he’d always made me feel better whenever something bad happened. “Is everyone alright?” he asked.
“Yes. Christian you all right?” my mother asked.
“Yeah. My head is just a little sore from hitting the window,” I said as I rubbed my head, but I knew I would live. It was just a little bump on the head.
“Carrie, Christian, stay in here. I’m going to check what we hit. It was probably a coyote or a wild dog,” he said.
“David, please be careful. What I saw was too big to be a coyote or a dog. Please be careful,” my mother said. She then grabbed his arm and squeezed very tight. Dad looked at her.
“Calm down, Carrie. You’re scaring Christian. Everything’s going to be all right,” he said as he gently lifted her chin. He kissed her on the lips and tried to make her feel safe, but the kiss didn’t work. She was still scared. I smirked at the kissing because I thought kissing was weird, especially when my parents did it in front of me. “Now open the glove compartment and hand me the flashlight,” he said. She did so. However, she was very scared that she had a hard time opening the glove compartment and nearly dropped the flashlight while handling it to dad. “Carrie, calm down,” my father repeated again. I followed him with my eyes as he got off the van, except the only thing I saw was the flashlight.
It became cloudy outside, the fog settled in, and the orange moon and the bright stars were gone. It became extremely dark and the flashlight looked as if it was floating. “Carrie, I found what we hit!” My father’s voice came from behind us. We looked toward the sound of his voice and we could only see the yellow light of the flashlight he was holding.
Mother stuck her head out of the passenger window. “David, what is it?” she yelled.
“I…I think it’s dead. It’s…it’s not breathing. It looks like a dog, maybe a St. Bernard.”
But, I knew it wasn’t a St. Bernard because no one lived on this road and that dog couldn’t survive on its own. Especially, dogs like that. Then all of a sudden we heard howling. At first mother and I thought they were the coyotes that were out in the country, but the howling sounded a little too close. Coyotes are generally afraid of humans, but this one didn’t sound like it was.
“David, please be careful!” mother yelled.
“It’s okay, Carrie. I’m going to roll it over and see what it is.” I heard him use all his might to move the animal. “It’s… on… its… back.” It had to be huge. “There, I moved it. It’s-, oh my God!” He started yelling and we could see the floating flashlight fall to the ground. Then we heard growling and we heard struggling. Then we heard the sound of something tearing. “Carrie! Carrie! Get out of here---,” he yelled, but then the yelling stopped. It sounded as if he was gurgling on something. I became very scared because the only thing I saw was the flashlight rolling back and forth and the yellow light turned red.
“David?! David?!” my mother yelled. Except, he didn’t answer. I started crying after the silence. I knew something terrible happened to him.
My mother started crying. She rolled up the windows on both sides and I rolled mine too. Then she locked the doors. She checked them twice to make sure she locked them correctly, because she was trembling so badly. She tried to turn on the van, but the keys were not in the ignition. My father had taken them. I jumped to the front seat, sat with her, and closed my eyes. She hugged me very tight crying my father’s name and rocking back and forth. I continued crying and I begged my mother that I wanted to go home.
Then we heard a growl very close. First it was at the back and then it was at the front. It was extremely dark to see what it was. The growling became louder and louder. Whatever it was came closer from both sides. I wondered if there was more than one. I never opened my eyes. I put my hands over my ears and hoped that maybe this would make the noise go away. I whispered to it, whatever it was, “Please, go away, please leave us alone.” Then the noise stopped. Mother and I stopped crying. I thought whatever it was, was gone.
Mother then wiped our tears away.
“Christian, go to the back seat,” she said. I opened my eyes and looked at her.
“Are we going home?” I asked as I jumped to the backseat. I was very scared and I just wanted to be in my bed, asleep.
“Yes Christian. I have to see daddy first,” she said.
“No mommy,” I said and I grabbed her arm. Then I noticed that there was pair of yellow-glowing eyes peeking in from the passenger window. “Mommy!” I yelled as I pointed to the window. She looked toward the window, but she did not see what I saw. The yellow-glowing eyes had disappeared. She then turned her head toward me with a questionable face.
“Christian what---.” She did not finish her question. The noise of breaking glass stunned her. It came from the window beside her. I looked at her as she looked at a creature breaking in. She tried to jump to the back seat, but the creature swung an enormous claw through the window and grabbed her by the throat. It pinned her to the seat squeezing her throat tightly. She held on to the creature’s arm and struggled with all her strength to get free, but she was losing.
“MOMMY!” I yelled as I tried to reach for her but she wouldn’t move.
“Christian. Chris---.” Blood started pouring from her throat and she started choking when she tried to say my name. Finally she let loose of the creature’s arm with her left hand and held her hand out to me, but it dropped like a puppet’s hand of no string.
“MOMMY!” I yelled at her once more, except there was no answer. She leaned her head forward and the creature swung the other claw inside. It sliced the back of her neck and blood raged out. I looked at her again, but could no longer see her eyes. Her head was no longer there. The creature had torn it off. Bits of flesh scattered among the seat and then blood gushed out of her neck. She was dead.
All I could do was yell and cry. I cried for my mother and I cried for my father, but there was no answer. They were dead. The only things that I heard were the monsters outside as they growled and howled. “I just want to go home,” I told myself, hoping that someone would hear me.
I sat in the middle of the backseat. I lifted my legs and hugged my knees to my chest. I held myself very tight and I kept crying for my mother and my father. I didn’t want to believe that they were dead. I closed my eyes and covered my ears again. Then the noise stopped. There was no growling or howling. I knew they were hiding, but I needed to get out of there.
I opened my left eye first and looked around slowly. Nothing happened. Then I opened my right eye and looked around and still nothing. I looked toward the front seat to see my mother’s lifeless body, but it was not there. I slowly lifted my right hand and reached for the right door, then a creature zoomed at me with its glowing eyes through the window.
I jumped back to the middle of the seats as the creature pounded at the door with its body. I could feel the van rocking back and forth, as it tried to get in. It looked at me, snarled, and showed its razor sharp teeth. The teeth had stains of my parent’s blood and the huge snout it had, had also covered in their blood. Saliva and blood slowly fell from the creature’s mouth. It wanted me dead. I backed up to the left side of the van as the creature broke the window with its claw. I backed up all the way until I touched the left door. I crossed my arms in front of me and I held myself. I was very frightened. It’s yellow-eyes just looked at me with hunger and then made a deep growling noise. Then I heard another window break on my backside. I yelled and I tried to run, but another creature grabbed me. I felt it’s hairy arms as they prickled my skin. Then I felt a sharp pain on my left shoulder. I looked at my left shoulder and I saw blood as it poured down my arm. Then my left arm went numbed. I heard sirens and the creature let go of me. I looked toward the front of the van, and the last thing I saw was the red and blue lights. I fell to the floor and blacked out.
The next day I woke up in a hospital and I was in good health. The doctors thought it was strange of me healing so quickly because after the night of the attack, I needed twenty stitches on my left shoulder. But the next day, the wound had healed. I wanted to leave, but they wanted me to stay overnight for more tests and because I didn’t have an appetite for any food. I told them, I just wasn’t hungry. I thought it was weird that I wasn’t hungry, because the last time I ate was at lunchtime before the night of the attack. I wonder what attacked me?
