Just Before Dawn Read online

  Just Before Dawn

  by

  Joshua Christian Hernandez

  Copyright © 2011

  Joshua Hernandez

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in review, without permission in writing from the author.

  To Cassie and Kaelynn,

  You are the reasons I do what I do.

  Locks

  The first “lock” (that is what I've come to call them) I came across caught my attention for no real reason whatsoever. I had just come out of the grocery store with a full shopping cart and was loading the food into the back of my car. The day was warm, our first really warm day before summer, and I was ready to get in the car and blast the A/C in my face. I rolled the cart into the spot next to mine, walked around the car, and was about to get in when I noticed it. It shouldn't have caught my eye, but it did just the same. You know those little cement planters they put trees in in those big parking lots to make it look a bit prettier? Well, there one of them was, right in front of me, three carts parked around the square of the cement curb around the tree. Each cart had their front wheels pulled up over the cement, their handles facing out, their plastic ends neatly coming to rest against the tree trunk. One faced south, one north and one west. I stood there, my door open, one leg in the car, looking at that tree and those carts for at least five minutes. There was no reason for it, but I had to anyway.

  A woman in a silver Malibu pulled up on the other side of the planter. I watched as she got out, looked at the three carts on the planter, and then proceeded to go across the parking lot to grab a cart that was loose. I watched her roll her cart right past the three around the tree, look right at them, and keep on going. I knew it didn't mean anything, but at the same time, it meant everything. I looked around and saw that almost all the carts had been taken from this side of the lot, except the one the woman had taken and my loner in the spot next to mine. And also the three on the planter, I couldn't forget those. Some part of me was irritated that they were there, arranged so methodically. I felt insulted. Annoyed. Angry. I slammed my car door and went to go move the carts. My hand touched the handle of the one facing south and I pulled it away with a loud yell. It had burned me. Not the “it's been sitting in the sun all day” kind of burn. It burned me like I had stuck my hand in a furnace and then had it welded to the bottom of said furnace. I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. Instead I looked at my still aching hand half expecting to see the flesh of it slide off like melted wax. My hand didn't so much as blister. In fact, it was barely even red. Yet it still ached with the fire of the burn, the pain white hot in my mind.

  I looked back at the tree in the planter, the carts ever so carefully placed around it, and was ready to jerk the carts away, burns or not. Instead Something flashed before my eyes. Something so big, so incredibly big and just...foreign to everything I could imagine in my worst nightmares. And there it was, looking at me through a keyhole in the shape of a tree, its single eye staring at me through an infinite space behind an infinite oblivion. That eye like sunlight, dry, blazing and pale. In that instant I could hear Something breathing, wet and alive, along with the sound of ancient machines squeaking and whining with age and overuse. I could hear the pressure of a massive Something pressing against a doorway infinitely thin and strong. The tree was suddenly less real, so much so that I could almost see through it to what it really was; a door. The door was real, the tree was not. It flickered and shifted with the sounds behind the door. One second I saw the planter with the tree and carts, the next it would be an immense door far larger, far more solid and real than the world around it, a door seeping with oil and rust and the smells of the Something on the other side. My mind wanted to do nothing more than cower in the corner and babble while the Something looked at me through the keyhole of that door, but I couldn't do even that. I could not look away, though I ached with the want of it.

  Instead, I screamed.

  Then, when my legs finally decided I’d had enough, I ran. I got back into my car, still screaming, and drove out of that place as fast as I could. On the drive home I convinced myself it was the heat that had brought it about. I was tired and thirsty and the heat had gone to my head. That's all it was. I went home, rushed inside, kissed my wife, hugged my daughter, and fell on the bed in a heap of limbs and near frantic sobs that I hid in the pillow. It was cool and dark in the room, on my bed. Here I was safe. There was no Something behind a door waiting to come across. There was no horror in the daylight, or even waiting for me in the shadows. There was nothing to be afraid of. I convinced myself of this better than any lie I had ever told before. And then I slept.

  I woke up in time for dinner, spent the rest of my night with my family, and then tried once again to forget the thing behind the tree in the bliss of sleep. Some hours later I was startled to be awakened by the sound of heavy breathing. My wife is a quiet sleeper and I knew it wasn't her. The breathing was too raspy and labored, too frightening. I rolled onto my back and would have screamed by my mouth seemed to have forgotten how. What I saw had struck me dumb. It was tall, so tall in fact that it appeared like it had actually made my ceiling grow to accommodate its height. It was draped in a dark covering that gave it a square, yet even longer appearance. Its legs and arms were hidden, making it a slash of dark in the shadows of my room. Its egg shaped head was slopped backwards and two neon green eyes peered at me like the coals of an alien fire. Long, thick strands of hair(if that is what it was) writhed on top of it' head like a clutch of snakes and even in the dark I could see an overlarge lower jaw hanging open with a long, leathery tongue lolling out.

  It gestured in what I can only call a shrug, though I don't think it meant it as such. Its hands splayed out as the creature's shoulders rose, the moonlight through the window on the far wall showing its body in horrific detail. The hands though, my god, how its hands scared me. There were seven long, spindly fingers on the left, and three thick, clawed fingers on the right. And then the creature beckoned. My heart raced, my skin became covered in goose-bumps and I nearly wet myself. It hissed a string of words at me, and when I said nothing it seemed to grow agitated. Then it went over to my wife. Painstakingly slow. It smiled as it looked at her, and I saw nothing good in that grin. One long finger reached down to stroke her bare shoulder.

  I sat up stock straight in the bed and reached for my wife. It was gone, whatever it was. My wife moaned and rolled over, reaching for me. I lay back down, putting my arms around my wife, and tried to go to sleep. No time during the night, or in the time following, did I ever think that it had been a dream. I couldn't have been that lucky.

  I woke up the next morning sure that everyone in the house would have been butchered or some nonsense like that. Instead I found my wife making my daughter cereal with a smile on her face. Nothing was out of place. Everything was all right. Some part of me made the decision to put the creatures, and the tree in the parking lot, out of my mind for good. I stretched and then kissed my daughter. Everything was all right.

  “Oh, babe,” my wife said and I knew this was not going to be good. I looked at her waiting, but she took her time pouring the milk before she said, “Something came for you in the mail. I put it on the table. Hungry?”

  I walked over to the table and saw the envelope sitting on a stack of junk mail and bills. It was a regular letter envelope, no return address, with my name on the front in long, slanted letters. I picked it up and it felt heavy. It bulged in the middle like it was very full. I opened it and a wad of cash fell out onto the table. Stunned, I picked it up and counted it. A thousand dollars in twenties, just stuffed into an envelope. I heard my wife gasp and I turned to her, a stupid expression probably
stamped on my face. I took the folded piece of paper that had been stuffed in with the cash and opened it, dreading what was coming. My heart thumped in my chest and I was pretty sure I was having a heart attack. It was choppy and simply written, and every word of it chilled me to the bone. It read:

  “You'll need cash. You'll get it. Threes are good, fives are better. Keep them shut, and shut good. Ignore the Watchers. Mostly, they ignore you too. Unless you stop. Threes are good. Fives give better. Fours are bad.

  Keep and eye out for the Red Guy, he's up to no good. Thanks for watching (really, thanks and thanks much!), I think I'll go somewhere dark. Maybe Alaska.

  Threes give good. Fives give better. Miles and miles left to fly, run those roads until we die. Threes are good, Fives give better. Shut the doors, locks are better.

  Simon Mojarra”

  Underneath Simon's signature was a squiggly design that would have made no sense to anyone else but me, but it made me shiver nonetheless. It was a stylized drawing of a hand. With seven fingers. I threw the letter away and tucked the cash in my wallet. I paced around for a bit, wondering what to do. I was scared. I didn't want to go back to the tree, but now more than anything else, it was what I wanted, no, what I needed to do. I shook my head no, over and over again. My wife kept asking me what was going on but I ignored her. It wasn't easy, but I had no way of explaining what I had seen the day before, or even about the creature, what I now thought of as a watcher, the night before. I didn't have a clue of what to do or where to begin.

  But I knew one thing I was going to do. Like a damning wave of sorrow, I knew what I was going to do.

  “I'll be back,” I told my wife, a fake smile firmly planted on my face. I saw the strange look on her face and I wanted to comfort her. I wanted to tell her everything, explain about the thing in the night, and the Something behind the door in the parking lot. Desperately I wanted to tell her about the Something, even if just to warn her to be on the lookout for it and to turn away. I wanted to. Instead, I said, “Everything's okay babe. I just need to check on something.” She looked at me doubting, asking questions even as walked out, still more as I got in the car and drove off. I hoped I was keeping her safe. I had no way of knowing really. Telling her would have felt like damning her, and I wasn't about to do that. That was the beginning of the avalanche my life became. I drove down one of the main roads, Cecil Avenue, heading towards the grocery store across the railroad tracks. I wanted to see the tree, to really see if it was there, locking something that I couldn't comprehend out. I HAD to see it. I came to a stop at red light and found myself itching to just look. So I did. I looked all over; at the furniture store across to the south, at the high-school to my right, at the skate-park across to the north. It was there I saw the second “lock”. I don't know how I knew, I just knew. Without looking I slammed on the gas and pulled into a “No Parking” zone on the busy side of the street. I left the car running as I ran out into the grass of the park. The skaters in the cement pools the city had built for them pointed and laughed as I tripped and fell down. I felt blood squirt into my mouth as I bit my tongue from the fall, and yet even then, I crawled forward. I could see the door, and I could see the lock.

  What scared me was that I knew, deep in the darkest reaches of my soul, that the lock was breaking. There was a small brick memorial at the south edge of the park with a faded and worn bronze plaque mounted atop it. There used to be trees around it, giving it shade and whatnot, but the trees had recently been cut down. I knew immediately they had also been the lock for that door. All that was left of those trees was a single stump from the largest of them. I threw myself on the ground in front of it and pulled out my knife which I didn't even remember grabbing at home. Then I began to write in the hard ground before the memorial. I didn't know what I was writing, all I knew was that it felt right. I wrote a line of what could have been words and then spiraled it under itself. I finished it off with a triangle around out, a reversed one touched the point of the first above it. I repeated the process again, first west, then east. I looked at the memorial and it looked like it always had. But there was something there regardless of what I told myself. I could feel it; the heavy thrum of an ancient machine, the weakened door and the Something lurking behind it. Then, I heard Something slam against the door. I could feel it give and sparks flew out from behind the shadow of the memorial. No one but me saw this. So I drew two more locks with my knife, one north west and one south east. I heard, felt even, the lock slide into place before the door. I was safe. For now.

  But what about the other door? Had someone moved the carts? I hurried back to my car and rushed to the grocery store. The carts were still there. I got out and checked just in case. The one on the south needed to be moved a couple inches to the right, and the one on the north had been set crooked. I set them right and looked at it. Then I grabbed two more carts and set them up, one north west and one south east. The groaning of the machinery quieted. I looked at the tree and the eye was no longer there. I could still feel it, oh god, I could still feel it boring into me with hate and hunger, but that Something was still locked away.

  But it wasn't enough. I knew it wasn't. So I got in the car. I called up work and gave them some excuse, and then I jumped on the highway. I drove as fast as I dared north. There was no reason to, just a feeling. I found two more locks that day, one in a city named Tulare at an old airport (I used trashcans and spray-paint to fix that lock) and one just beyond that behind a house in the richer part of town. That one was harder. I had to climb someone's fence to find the door. It was a little outhouse thing that had been turned into a decoration. The dirt around it looked ready for a garden, so I locked it with flowers. It took me a long time to find the right flowers, but I did it. That door had been so close to breaking that I cried as I locked it. Hell, I locked it twice; one ring of flowers outside the door, and another ring beyond that. Then I got into the car and cried. All through the drive I could hear the ghostly thrum of ancient machines, and every time I blinked I saw the eye of that Something staring at me with such loathing that I wanted to die.

  That night, as I lay in bed (my wife was angry at me and hadn't spoken to me since I got home) I saw another of the Watchers. This one was even taller, if that was possible, and it grinned at me all night long. Those pupil-less green eyes stared and stared at me and every now and then it would shrug and raise its hands, showing me those asymmetric hands; seven long, spindly fingers on one and three thick, clawed fingers on the other. When I finally did sleep I dreamed of pyramids and cubes, spirals and lines of writing in languages long forgotten. I dreamed of the Watchers, the terrifying, death-shrouded Watchers and of creatures in the shadows. Worst still, I dreamed of doors. Countless doors that were just waiting to break open, and no one to close them up.

  I woke the next day and drove to Los Angeles. It took me nine hours. I found four doors on the way and had to lock them all. I spent two days in L.A. and I locked another ten doors. I came home and my wife was gone. She had left a note, but I never read it. I had no time to. I had to check the doors. My writing had started to fade at the park and I had to re-do it. The grocery store door had to be adjusted. Then the others. Over and over. I had to fix them, to keep that Something, that terrible eye glowing with dry-light and malicious hunger, that hate-filled Something out.

  For months all I did was check the doors. I found three more; one in Fresno and one in Visalia. I drew symbols in Egyptian, runes from other lands and created locks from everything I could get my hands on. I lost my job. My wife stopped calling to check on me. Every week an envelope would arrive with seven thousand dollars. The envelope always had that same stylized hand drawn on it; Seven fingers. I hated it, but I couldn't help myself. I dreamed of things in the dark, of that hungry eye. More Watchers came. First it was one. Then two. By the end of two months they were constantly in my house, all shapes and sizes of the horrid creatures, smelling of death and tepid decay. I learned the patterns of the doors. Every other
door I found needed three locks. The worst ones needed five. I could smell a door from miles away. They always smelled of ancient oil, of aged fabric and blood. I could hear them too, when I got close enough. It was always the same; the whine of the machinery, the wet breathing, the hunger.

  Never did I think of stopping. I was too afraid of the Watchers, after all, the letter had said they would notice me if I stopped. I did not want to try out the wrath of their terrible three-fingered hands.

  In November things calmed down. I spent a week at home with no urges to check the doors. The Watchers had disappeared. I ate in silence, had no anxiety to check on things, and dreamed of that Something not at all. When, after a week, I still felt nothing I thought maybe it was over. I even drove down to the grocery store to check on the first door and lock that I had come across. The carts were still there, though now they were faded and covered in dirt. It was over. That for me said it more than anything else.

  That night I ate dinner alone (my wife hadn't spoken to me since she left, and I didn't blame her. I also didn't want to damn her, so I had let it be) and when I finally slept there was nothing that woke me. The next day there were no Watchers, there were still no urges. I was free. I spent the rest of the day cleaning the house, washing the car, and doing my very best to make it look presentable. That night I would call my wife, explain what I could, and apologize like hell. The next day I would start finding a job and things would go back to normal. I still had several thousand dollars in the bank (all that driving burned most of it, but I never spent much money. There was no reason to) and perhaps she would come back. And if she didn't I would convince her to.

  Then, the red guy showed up. Or maybe I should capitalize it; the Red Guy. As I was cleaning my house, throwing out a large quantity of pizza boxes that had somehow turned into a veritable fortress in my living room, I noticed this guy walking through the alley. He was completely normal in every way; his face was plain, his hair longish but taken care of, his clothes clean but not too clean, his eyes the shade of brown of every other guy in the world who had brown eyes. What had caught my eye was the red hoodie he wore; it was too...normal. He looked normal, he had to be normal, but I knew he was trouble. He had this...smell that followed in his wake. It was the smell of rust, musk, oil and something else too alien to properly describe. It was the smell of the door. He turned, and realizing I was starring, I tried to turn away and failed. He waved at me and smiled, and when he did I saw the faint imprint, almost a shadow of light, if that makes sense, of a great eye of dry-light behind him. I screamed and ran back into the house.