Charlie's Memory

Drawn out, loud mutant screams echoed off the dark frozen wasteland. Teyo whipped his head around in the direction of the noise, fiercely searching for the threat. Large shadows met the hazy grey skyline. His entire being jumped. Piercing cries sent his half frozen feet running like a mad man down the detoriating pavement. The littered grey ghost town amplified the noise of his frantic movements.

The steps grew closer. His gloved hand found a door handle to an abandoned apartment building and he scattered up the steps, so panicked he was not even upright. Even though it had been ten years of this, he had not gotten used to it. Every time it happened, he just hid. It had been all he knew how to do.

His joints ached for rest. They ached worse than they did after the many hours of day he used to work at his two jobs to stay alive. By now his two feet felt too heavy to carry any more. A rush of heat surged through him as he panted in his gas mask, from inside of a closet he'd found to hide in. Suddenly, the bulky black clothes seemed to suffocate him. He couldn't let them find him. They'd take him and he'd be gone in an instant, just like the others. Teyo squeezed his eyes shut and tried to focus.

The taste of liquid iron brought him to the present. He'd been bitting his lip. The wooden door in front of him was all that stood between him and his future and yet it was immulating the veil of death, ready to break. Electric panic shook his hands as they pressed against the wood. The pounding of his heart beat in his ears.

Everyone's gone. The creatures did something with them. The creatures appeared after the Great Fall. No one knew what they were. Many humans lashed out and hunted them. Every time the creatures were attacked, they searched for people to take. The moment these creatures find you, you vanish. It was over for him.

He tried desperately to focus on the present, as if to keep himself from vanishing.

The creatures' heavy walking hit the concrete outside. Teyo didn't dare to breathe. Thud. But his heart might give him away. Thud. He couldn't wait to get out of there. Thud. Maybe they'd leave. Thud. Maybe they wouldn't see him. Sudden stillness hung in the air.

He scrunched his face while focusing on his large booted feet on the closet floor, the cold musty air constantly surrounding him, the heart shaped locket beneath his shirt, the truly flimsy wood beneath his fingertips, but definitely not the soft sheets of a bed and certainly not his sweet homemade tembleque that melted in his mouth. He wanted to be anywhere but there. Teyo froze. A thick toxic smell filled his nostrils. Fast paced breathing accompanied him from the other side of the door.

The door ripped off the wall and a 10 foot tall eyeless creature greeted him with a toothless smile. His brown eyes bore into empty eye sockets. Suddenly, everything was black. His body thudded onto the dingy carpet.

Soft, high pitched mechanical laughter sprang his eyes open. Four creatures who reeked of turpentine were walking in a small circle in front of him. Still disoriented, his pulse quickened as he realized what was happening and dizziness set in.

One of them was now milimeters from his face and it's long pointed fingers pressed into his shoulders, his muscle pain instantly leaving. "Relax," it spoke in a quiet snake-like voice. It. Spoke. Teyo did not want to be here. He didn't want to be here. He closed his eyes and whimpered.

Teyo looked down at his body and it was not his own. It was the creasture's. The panic of being in body that was not his own sent him over the edge and he screamed in gut-wrenching confusion. One of the injured creatures stepped out of the circle and neared him with a concerned look on it's face, however barely discernable. It offered him the heart shaped locket he'd been wearing. "Remember Charlie?" Teyo was terrified it was talking to him, but he wanted to focus on anything except what was happening. "Charlie?" He grabbed the locket.

Teyo was suddenly looking down at his own hands holding the locket, and there were no weirdos in sight. He turned to see his old hippie bus, alive and well, yellow as ever. Relief lifted him out of the pit of his stomach as he broke into a grin. His dog Charlie barked and hopped out of the steel car. Teyo collasped in crying laughter, hugging his dog and letting the golden retriever trample him in delight.

After a couple minutes, Charlie calmed down and Teyo was buried into the pup in a hug. He was out of breath, and the sharp pain of a migraine struck his head. Confused, he pulled away from Charlie. "You're....you're not real. You died. My bus, you...it caught fire, and...and you died. This...You're a memory," he managed, slowly standing to look from Charlie to the old bus. He turned around and saw that they had encapsulated the memory in a pocket reality.

He'd thought it all just myth, but he'd heard this before. Survivors mentioning people being taken away and put into bubbles and never came back. He didn't want to leave them. He didn't want to risk going back to the terrifying, lonely and dangerous city. "If you're not real, and this isn't real, then maybe I'm not really here and my body is out there somewhere. They might be harvesting my organs out there, Charlie. Who knows how this works. I can't stay. " Teyo said.

He turned back to look at his dog and bus. Charlie was gone. The bus was scorched. Teyo's heart sunk as he approached the soot soaked busted out windows. He let his hand fall over a drawing of a heart, remembering his locket encapsulating his fallen companion. It was easier now, to look beyond the bubble. Grey wasteland lay beyond the blur.

He braced himself for stepping back into the darkness with a deep breath. He made it through. What he saw bewildered him. It was a person. No other creatures in sight. The person looked at him through the eye of a water gun, petrified. Teyo raised his hands and smiled beneath his mask, pleased to see another person. "I'm Teyo." He mustered. The gunman lowered the toy, "Luis," he replied. Teyo was ecstatic to see him. And then a deep confusion washed over him.

"Where...was I...just now? Did you see the creatures?"

"The only creature I seen was you walking around in circles."

Luis noticed the exasperation in the stranger's voice, another human voice, something he hadn't heard in a long time. And the voice had wavered, on the brink of complete exhaustion. "You got a place to hole up for the night? I know a place," Luis offered. Teyo's legs nearly buckled beneath him, apparently already ready to take him up for the offer. "As long as it isn't a closet. That did not pan out for me the last time," Teyo snorted nervously. He noticed Luis' toy, "Why?" he asked.

"No one wants to get cold out here."

"You have water in there?"

"No water. Everyone overlook everything as a threat when they're scared enough."

_

Later, Teyo and Luis were on a bench outside as they looked up at the night sky, or, what they could still see of it. Teyo was fiddling with his locket around his neck. "Who's in the locket?" Luis asked. Teyo opened it. "It's a dog."

"Who's dog?"

"I don't know...But I enjoy it's presence."