Heart shaped locket

Apparently, nights never used to be filled with screams, they would be filled with the hum of vehicles moving about going from a to b. The world my grandparents described to be when I was a boy, mimicked fairy tales of the old world, flying metal birds that could take you just about anywhere in the world. It was a time when it was safe to leave your home without fear of not making it back, this was all before it fell. Some kind of meteor hit the earth somewhere near Russia and the devastation was immediate. After the dust had settled the world became aware that it was more than just a part of the world gone that they had to come to grips with. Immigrants from the chunk of Space rock started stuttering about from any bit of debris left by its collision. It was a mere day before the bombs fell from all over the world and little did they know at the time, it would be the beginning of the end of the human race.

My name is Patrick Rindu, and I have never known life without the fear of death from just being outside, nothing to do with the air like it was years ago more just the hybrid creatures that seem to be hunting what little of us humans are left. I live in a community of about 230 people. It goes up and down regularly as people arrive looking for a haven or disappear while out scavenging. My parents are some of the regular scavengers heading out every couple of months searching for seedlings and anything that can aid in our survival. We live together in the plant house. One of the longer buildings in the community, one section of the roof has had part of it replaced with panels from something like a greenhouse, it’s something that I don’t understand all that well. It was made by my grandfather when the community was originally established and my family has been there ever since. My memories of them are faint, I remember small conversations but what I remember clearly is the necklace they both wore it was half a locket each, and when they would put them together it would make one heart-shaped locket. It had a photo of them on each other’s side, and my grandfather would say they had them so whenever they were apart they would be together.

It’s been about twelve years since they both disappeared, it was quite a shock to everyone, they were the last of the original family’s left. It was a standard run, nothing different than what they had done hundreds of times. Some of the elderly people in the community said it was because they were past their prime, but they were very skilled even for people in their seventies. Apparently when they were growing up people would get weaker and more fragile as they would age, but now it’s nothing like that generally as we are aging we our bodies seem to halt at about the age of forty.

I’m rambling, I’m trying to get my story out before it’s too late, before there is no one left to tell the story, You need to know that things aren’t really like they seem. It all started a week ago on a day like any other day, the golden rays of the morning sun hit the glass adorning the roof to my home, my best friend since I was a kid, voice brought my eyes from their dreamy state to saucers.

“Pat!… Patrick, the scavengers are back and there’s someone missing” bellowed Cody

My hand grabbed the first shirt it could find and dragged it on as I scampered out of my home.

“Cody do you know who it is, my dad was on this run”

“No idea Pat, I got word from the look-out just a moment ago then came to find you”

“Let’s move it to the gate and find out, have you seen my mum this morning”

“Yeah I saw her at the pond pulling in a fish I already told her, let’s move it”

The gate creaked open, with the okay from the lookout, and in walked a solemn group of people, I stood next to Mum while I waited to see Dad walk through the gate and give me his customary nod to say he was okay. To be honest I still don’t know what was first if it was Mum's sobbing or my scream but if I am being completely honest I didn’t fully realize that the scream was coming from me until Cody threw his hand over my mouth. It was clear who the missing person was as the gates closed and he wasn’t inside. The team gave their report but I wasn’t really hearing what they were saying, I was holding onto mum and she was holding onto me, Dad was gone, like gone. People that disappear never show back up again, it's not really a thing that happens, when they do disappear it's not like you see the creature that got them, it's more of a they turned the corner first you hear this kind of slobbering snap and when you get around the corner weapon drawn they are gone. It's been years since anyone has done some damage to the things.

It was a few days later when Cody filled me in with what happened.

“So apparently Pat, they were doing a routine sweep of one of the paddocks west of here, and the ground kind of opened up most of them got out of the way but your Dad and Brandon Trunderman, you know the fella with the two different coloured eyes, well they both fell in. Well you know what your Dads like, he lifted Brandon then kinda got him onto his shoulders and the others pulled him up they were working on tying a rope onto something to drop into him but by the time they had it sorted and dropped in he was, well he had disappeared. I really am sorry Pat your Dad was a great man”

“Cody oh my stars do you know what that could mean, he might be fine”

“what you mean, he disappeared”

“Yeah but there was no noise, there is always the noise, was it in the report”

“It wasn’t, but that doesn’t mean they just didn’t hear it, or that they didn’t think to put it in”

“it's part of our community laws to put it in, it's all about the closure for the families as Grandad used to say, and it's for this reason right here right now”

“…”

“…”

Silence fell between us as we both thought about what it could mean, like I said no one had come back from disappearing, but there had always been a sound

“Well that’s decided then”

“what's that Pat?”

“I'm going to go save my Dad”

“no, you’re not that’s a job for a team or something, ill go tell the scavenger team that’s next due out and they should move up the schedule or something and they will find him, just stay here and ill be back in like five”

Looking back now I think I should have listened then again I would never have known the truth, better to be home safe in bed and waiting for the scavengers to give an answer to if Dad was alive or not, or do what I did and find out what I found out, I think the second is the better of the two despite what has happened and despite what will, well yeah I'm getting to that.

The moment I heard the outside door shut I began my dive around my room, first grabbing my go-bag that everyone in the community always had set aside in case we had to run at a moment's notice. It had a few changes of clothes, a mini first aid kit, some dried-out meat a set of matches, and such. I put my journal into the bag along with some rope that my parents kept in the storeroom in the cellar. With that and a few moments racking my brain for what else I might need, I was off and heading towards my first challenge.

The trick with getting out of the community was well known with most of the population, most of the time one kid dared another kid to sneak out and see if they could get past the lookouts without being spotted, no one was ever successful, but when I was seeing Dads group off before they went out I noticed that a tree had fallen at some stage right across the tiny tunnel that was meant to be used for drainage but was used for this game spanning back decades.

Sliding out of the tunnel with dusk filtering its auburn and gold hues across the valley that the community was built in I saw my chance to leg it and leg it I did as fast as I could straight to the paddock I hoped in my heart would be harboring my alive and well Dad.

Night had settled by the time I had reached the paddock and had begun my search for the hole, it really didn’t take as long as I had imagined. I peered off the edge hoping to see something, some kind of sign that he was done there and okay, just as I saw a sliver of movement out of the corner of my eye, the ground around the hole gave way and I plunged into the hole my bag snagging on an old protruding root and hung uselessly meters above the opening. After a few minutes, my eyesight adjusted to the dark and I could see the outline of the platform higher up that must have been the original bottom and it had since given way and that’s why I was so far down and so screwed. Feeling around for some rocks to knock my bag down with, I cocked my arm and began my attempts, difficult to accomplish with how much my arm hurt but it finally happened after about the twentieth rock hitting the bag, it split open and some of my gear tumbled out. I was the proud owner once again of my journal, two flares and one sock. Helpful indeed. I think it was my whoop that had done it or maybe it was the many many bouncing rocks echoing in the hole I turned to see why the hair on my neck was standing on its ends. It was odd at first to be staring at something I was once so familiar with, not as gold as it used to be, and definitely more banged up and scratched than it was when I last saw it but id know it anywhere.

The pit the creature put me in stunk of things I can't even put into words, Dad is here, poor Dad. He was awake for a bit but I think he is gone now, weak from no food maybe or maybe it's what I am coming to see is happening to me too, and why I am writing this down.

The half of the heart-shaped locket that my grandad always wore is what really gave it away the reason we never found anyone, no bodies left behind, and why their numbers were said to be endless is because they were our numbers, our loved ones our hated ones and all that came between, well only after they had been taken and turned how odd is it though, how much of a coincidence that Grandad is who turned me, and hopefully stars willing that you will all know the story, the truth. All because of the heart-shaped locket.