Ken Douglas - Gecko

“ They would never leave us alone. They’d make our lives miserable.”

“ We don’t have to let them. We can go away. Someplace where they’ve never heard of you. Spain, maybe, or an island in the South Pacific, or Greece. There’s lots of places where they don’t watch the news or read the Times, places where the sun always shines and it’s safe to go out after dark.”

She hugged him tightly and he kissed her long and slow and his heart cried out to her.

“ All right,” he said, breaking the kiss, “I’ll go back with you.”

“ Oh Jimmy!” She squeezed him like a little girl on Christmas morning. “It’ll be okay. I just know it. Together we can face anything.”

He smiled at her through the dark and they started back for the inn. Roma, planning a new life and Jim already missing his old one. He loved his country and the thought of living someplace else made him feel like a traitor. He’d fought and paid dearly for America and he didn’t begrudge his country the price she asked. It was worth it and if she asked it again, especially in light of what happened on 9/11, he would pay it again.

But if he had to decide between his country and Roma, he would have to take Roma and make a life somewhere else. In Europe, England probably. He was too old to learn a foreign language.

“ We could live in England or Scotland. Maybe in a small town,” he said.

“ I’d like that.” She leaned into him as they walked under a dark, starless sky.

They stopped again, halfway between the inn and the interstate and hugged.

“ Listen!” Donna interrupted Jim’s thoughts.

“ Don’t move.” Jim tensed up as he whispered in Roma’s ear.

She froze, sensing the urgency in his voice. She clutched the handbag, looping her finger through the hole and onto the trigger and she remained perfectly quiet. She didn’t have to be told twice.

“ Something up ahead, between you and the inn, can you hear?”

He listened.

“ Yes.” He heard a faint breathing sound, like a man with asthma, trying to hide a wheeze, and it was coming closer, and the wheeze was getting deeper.

“ Time to move on. Now!” Donna urged.

Jim squeezed Roma’s arm to get her attention and they backed away from the wheezing, back toward the sounds of the interstate and the brightly lit up mini market on the other side.

The wheezing moved off to their left and away from them and for a second Jim thought about making a dash for the inn. But he didn’t want to run, to put his back to whatever was out there. He wasn’t afraid of the animal, it was probably only a stray coyote. It sounded sick. It wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle, even without the gun and Roma’s deadeye aim. But it only seemed prudent to move out of the dark and into the light.

Then the sound faded all together.

“ I feel like a frightened child,” Roma said. “Like I’m standing in the hall by the fire alarm, in school and the big kids are coming for my lunch money. I want to break the glass and call the firemen, but I’m too afraid.”

“ Don’t worry, you’ve got the fire extinguisher in your purse.”

“ I know,” she said, clutching the gun.

“ All of a sudden I want a cigarette,” he said, leading the way back toward the overpass and the mini market beyond.

“ But you don’t smoke.”

“ I do tonight.” He didn’t know why he needed to smoke, he never had, but the desire was strong and now the mini market was closer than the inn, presenting a safe haven.

“ It’s me, I want the cigarette.”

“ But I don’t smoke,” he thought.

“ You want to go to the market anyway, I can tell, and I really need a cigarette.”

He cut her thoughts off and stopped as Roma’s fingers dug into his arm. The wheezing coyote was ahead of them, still cloaked in darkness, blocking their path. Stalking them.

Her grip tightened as it moved around to their left and moved in closer, still in the dark, but Jim could tell by the sounds it was making that it was no coyote.

“ Come on.” He led her north, parallel to the interstate, but separated from it by a drainage ditch and a chain link fence. There would be no mad dash across the highway.

“ What is it?” she asked, fright beginning to creep into her voice.

As if hearing her, the animal responded with a deep throated sound, a cross between a raspy roar and a baby’s cry, that brought the fright rushing full force into her voice.

“ Come on, quick,” she urged, picking up the pace.

He hesitated. They had a gun. It made more sense to stand. There was nothing up ahead except cattle pens and they were a good quarter mile away. No, the sensible thing to do was stand and if the animal attacked, shoot it.

It roared again, louder and Jim changed his mind. Maybe the gun wouldn’t stop it. Maybe it was rabid. There would be someone at the cattle pens ahead. There would be light. He matched Roma’s quick walk.

The animal stayed behind, out of sight, until the smell of thousands of cows assaulted them. The raspy roars came closer together as they got closer to the pens, and it quickened its pace, forcing the pair into a jog and finally into a run.

It picked up speed, starting to close in on them. It let out a roar that ripped into the night, waking the cows, causing them to stir silently, resembling large ghost like animals in the murky night. And Jim knew the animal, whatever it was, was going to charge, to come for them, to kill them.

It roared again, closer. They were running flat out toward the pens, but Jim saw they would never make it.

“ Jump!” Donna’s thought-scream ripped through him, a lightning-warning. He grabbed Roma’s hand, pulling her with him as he jumped feet first into the ditch that ran along the highway. They landed in the bottom vee of the ditch, Jim on his feet, Roma on her rear, six feet below the beast above and they both shivered as it roared again and moved off. Jim helped her up and they hugged in the dark-cut off from the highway, the cows, the pens, the beast and reality-by the sides of the ditch.

The dark closed in and the fresh-grave atmosphere of the ditch offered no safety. It would only be a matter of seconds before their stalker came in after them. He took her by the hand and led her, limping and falling in the wet dirt, toward the pens.

Above and behind them, they heard the sound of sliding dirt and tumbling rocks. It was sliding down the side, coming in after them. They heard it hit bottom and Jim wished they could see, so that Roma could get off a shot. But all he could do was pull her away from the steady machine-like wheezing that was down in the coffin-like enclosure with them.

When Jim judged they were below the pens, he started to climb, pulling Roma up with him. The animal was coming fast. Roma jerked her arm free from Jim’s grip and turned, with her finger through the hole in the hand bag, on the trigger and waited. The wheezing increased its tempo and lowered its pitch. They felt its strength steamrolling toward them. Then they saw its wide set yellow eyes, glowing fire-bright in the night and Roma fired the weapon.

The moon peeked through a hole in the clouds, but Roma didn’t need the light, because the flaming yellow eyes presented her with a target too close and too terrifying to miss. She fired three shots between the two glowing yellow orbs and was rewarded with a roar that shook the night. The thing stopped, the light in the eyes dimmed, but didn’t go out.

Jim grabbed her arm and hand in a Viking grip and jerked her up and out of the ditch. They ran toward the pens, visible now in the full moonlight. He felt the weight of the cast on one arm and the drag of Roma on the other. He was afraid he wasn’t going to make it. Then he heard the thing scrambling out of the ditch behind them. He forced heart and muscle to give a little more, got his second wind and pulled her with him toward the wooden fence as the clouds again blacked out the moon. The gunshots had slowed, but not stopped the beast.