In the Aftermath: Burning of the Dawn Read online

  “Dad?” The raucous Sayona had awakened Joseph.

  “Quiet, son,” Louis replied in a soft, panicked tone. “Do not make a sound.”

  “Dad, what is it?”

  “They’re outside… just be quiet for me, okay?”

  Joseph spoke no more; Louis could hear his son breathing heavily. They both listened to the Sayona that were still at the edge of the rye field. The beasts were, thankfully, moving away from the family’s house. About six houses down the Sayona cut between the homes and headed in towards the street; all noise abruptly ceased and everything was quiet. Louis stood from his spot on the floor. The sounds of the Sayona were bad, yet this sudden quietness they had left behind was even worse. That notion was soon shattered as one of the beasts let out a horrifying shriek, followed by the sound of all three Sayona racing down the street back towards Louis and his family. The Sayona stopped in front of the Doniphans’ house; the beasts were even noisier and more unruly than before.

  Louis went to the bedroom door and opened it gently. There was a window down past the second bedroom which looked out into the front yard where the Sayona currently rampaged. Louis cautiously made his way out the bedroom door.

  “Dad, wait, don’t…” Joseph spoke, both frightened and confused.

  “I’m just gonna keep watch,” Louis answered in a meek voice. “I’ll be right here.”

  The short walk towards the noisy Sayona seemed very long as Louis made his way to the window. Two of the Sayona were on his car, one on the roof and the other on the hood, while the third crouched just outside the driver’s side door peering into the car through the window. Louis alleged that they had attacked his car because it was new in the neighborhood; in actuality, the Sayona likely wouldn’t have even noticed his car had it not been for the little, red light from the unarmed car-alarm blinking on the vehicle’s dashboard. All three Sayona studied the light a moment more, until the one on the hood abruptly slammed her tail down onto the windshield. The impact of the blow caved in the glass. Following that, the Sayona on the ground leaped headfirst through the driver’s side window glass and into the front seat – her tail still hanging out of the window. The blinking, red light was subsequently annihilated. The Sayona on the roof quickly lost interest; she jumped off of the car and headed further into town on her own while her sisters continued in ravaging the vehicle. The beast on the hood climbed into the car through the broken windshield, over her sister, and into the backseat.

  The dread in Louis continued to mount. He and his children had left recently worn clothing in the backseat of the car and he presumed that the Sayona had now picked up their scent. He was mistaken, the Sayona’s sense of smell was no better than a human’s. Nevertheless, Louis still had good reason to worry; the capricious Sayona in the driver’s seat soon lost interest inside the car and eventually leaped back outside. She then walked over to the front left side of the vehicle and sank her needle-like teeth into the nearest tire. This roused the interest of the other Sayona still inside the car. The outside Sayona then moved on to the back tire and tore open that one, too, as her sister leaped through the back windshield sending shards of glasses all across the driveway. She then took out the two remaining tires on the right side. It was a common Sayona practice to disable all vehicles they came across, despite them being more than capable of outrunning most of them. The Sayona on the left side of the now defunct vehicle began to form suspicions as she looked over to the home were Louis and his family were hiding.

  Louis backed away from the window as the perceptive Sayona made her way to the front door. Joseph breathed a bit easier as his father returned; a relief that was short lived. Louis did not fully enter the bedroom; he listened from the doorway to the sound of the doorknob as the Sayona twisted it in an attempt to enter the house. The door was locked, so the attempt was ultimately unsuccessful. A moment later the Sayona gave up on the door handle. The quiet lull afterward was violently brought to an untimely end as one of the living room windows exploded as the Sayona leaped through it. Sophie awoke from her sleep as her father hastily closed the bedroom door. There was a small table in the corner of the bedroom with an old, green lamp on top of it. Louis grabbed this table to use it to try to barricade the bedroom door. The lamp slipped off and broke on the floor. Louis cursed under his breath as he lodged the table beneath the doorknob, fearing that the Sayona would come to the sound of the breaking glass.

  Like their sense of smell, the Sayona’s hearing was no better than that of a human’s. That, along with the Sayona and her sister—who had followed her through the broken window—incessantly purring to one another, rendered them both ignorant to the sound of the breaking lamp. The leading Sayona scanned the living room for any people; her superb eyesight made short work of that room and so she continued on into the kitchen. Her sister stayed behind nosily examining random items strewn about the home. With a year and half of human hunting to her credit, the lead Sayona knew that the usual hiding spot people chose was in the basement. She soon discovered the door to the cellar in the kitchen and wasted no time rushing inside.

  “No, daddy, no!” Sophie cried in a panic as her father tried to quiet her; though he, too, was beyond terrified.

  “Sophie, no, Sophie! Shhh! Please…” her father spoke. “They’ll find us if you’re not quiet.”

  Sophie stopped speaking, but her crying was still uncontrollable. Louis looked around to the window. The only plan he could fathom at this point was escape, and the window was their only option. He walked over and lifted the shade; the light from the moon fully poured into the room. Some of which escaped beneath the bedroom door. From the first floor this small influx of light would not have registered to a person, yet the lone Sayona in the living room noticed it instantly. She briskly, though quietly, rushed up the stairs. The Sayona knew it was moonlight, but that change in brightness roused her curiosity. She stopped as she neared the bedroom door and flattened herself fully against the ground like a cat preparing to strike. It was not her intent to strike just yet; she only lay motionlessly staring into the moonlight beneath the door.

  “All right, we’re getting out of here.” Louis whispered to his kids, and to himself. He now had the window itself open. There was a slight overhang, and beyond that waited a fifteen foot drop. They had no other choice. Joseph tried to move Sophie, but she would not cooperate. She sat limply, making it difficult to carry her. “I’ll get her, Jo… you go first; we’ll be right behind you.”

  Joseph left his sister behind and walked over to his father; by doing so he crossed in front of the moonlight. The Sayona lying outside the door saw his shadow and her quietness ceased. She growled and hissed at the interlopers on the other side and then slung her tail violently into the door. Her tail busted through right above the doorknob; the Sayona then charged into the door, but the table on the other side held. Sophie began screaming as her father pushed her brother out through the window and onto the ledge. Louis ran over to his screaming daughter. The attacking Sayona made use of the hole she had made in the door by reaching through with her hand to try and locate the obstruction keeping her at bay. As Louis picked up his daughter, the Sayona tossed the table away from the door and smashed her way inside.

  The Sayona first spotted Joseph standing outside the window directly in front of her. He was frozen in fear, staring directly into her horrible, green eyes. She normally would have attacked instantly, but to her left were Louis and his frantically screaming daughter. Louis and his daughter would prove to be the better catch, so the Sayona turned on them instead. She hissed aggressively towards the father and daughter as she closed the distance between them. Louis dropped his daughter to the floor and raised his flashlight to the Sayona. He turned it on just as she was in striking range. The Sayona reared back as the light hit her in the face. Her cat-like pupils instantly sealed shut; so long as the light was in her eyes she would be completely blind.

  “Go to the window, Sophie!” Her father yelled. “Go to the wind
ow!”

  Sophie did not move. The Sayona reached out with her long arms in an attempt to locate the father, or daughter. She could’ve blocked the light with her hands and arms to retrieve some of her vision back, though a light of that brightness would still cause the Sayona intense pain. So long as her pupils remained sealed the light had no effect, other than her blindness. The Sayona had no fear of her victims, so the blindness was little more than a temporary inconvenience.

  Louis kept the light in the Sayona’s large eyes as he reached for his daughter. The Sayona’s hair-like tentacles writhed and undulated like the serpents on a Gorgon’s head. As Louis grabbed a hold of his daughter’s arm, the Sayona lunged blindly in their direction. She grasped onto Sophie’s bare ankle; the thorn-like appendages on the Sayona’s hand—along with her short, dull claws—dug into the little girl’s flesh.

  Louis dropped the flashlight. It rolled into the corner and angled away from the wall, lighting up the entire room. With his newly freed hand, Louis grabbed a handful of the tentacles on the Sayona’s head and pulled her away from his daughter. Instantly, the little bards in the tips of the tentacles extended forth and buried into Louis’s hand and arm. The Sayona released his daughter and grabbed onto him instead. The aquiline bards and prickly thorns stung like little needles, yet that pain was trivial compared to what the venom in her mouth could do. Louis had to keep her from biting him. Her tail was the most dangerous of her weapons, but for now the Sayona kept her stinger in its club-like sheath.

  Releasing his daughter’s arm, Louis grabbed the Sayona by the throat, lifted her up off of the floor, and slammed her down upon her back. The lightweight of the Sayona was unexpected and Louis easily overpowered her, yet there was nothing he could do. He tried to choke the creature, but her scales would not budge. The light was no longer directly in the Sayona’s eyes, so she could see once again. The room was still bright, however, so it did cause her pain, but not enough to give up her vision, again. Louis ripped has hand free of the Sayona’s tentacle-hair and brought down his fist with a massive blow aimed at one of her large eyes. She telegraphed the punch and closed her eyelid – which was a dense, solid scale. It was like slamming his fist into a slab of iron. Louis shattered two of his knuckles; the Sayona was unaffected. She reached up and clawed Louis across the face, but he did not relinquish his grip on her. Holding her down was all he could do. He kept a watch on her tail as best he could; she still had not utilized that weapon. The neurotoxic venom in the Sayona’s tail was extremely effective, but the delivery device itself—the stinger—was very delicate and could easily be fractured or even ripped out. This would be exceedingly painful to any Sayona and could take weeks to recover from, so they chose their opportunities to strike judiciously.

  Sophie had stopped her screaming and had slipped into a catatonic-like state watching her father fight with the monster. Louis realized that there was no chance of him making it out of this house with his children. If he could somehow rouse Sophie out of her state, there was still a chance she could make it to the window where her brother waited. Joseph was in a fear induced daze of his own, but still well aware of the terrors in front of him. Just as Louis was about to make an attempt to incite Sophie to move, he heard a rumbling coming up the staircase. The second Sayona was on her way. She charged directly into the bedroom, but was met with a face full of flashlight which temporarily stunned her. Unlike her sister, this Sayona valued her vision and attempted to block the light with one of her long arms.

  The appearance of the second Sayona was too much for Joseph. He turned from the window and leaped off the side of the house. The ground was a long drop; Joseph landed on his feet and fell to his back. His legs stung and tightened, but nothing was broken. His first instinct was to charge into the rye field ahead of him, but the field was unfamiliar and would be difficult to navigate once inside. Instead, Joseph ran around the house, past his family’s car, and into the streets of the neighborhood. He cried as he fled from the gruesome fate befalling his family.

  Louis picked up the Sayona from the ground and threw her against the wall. She bounced off and landed on her feet; not losing a single step, she was ready to strike again. Both Sayona hissed at Louis with their mouths wide open, showing rows of icepick-looking teeth, and at the back of their jaws two menacing fangs awaited. The Sayona Louis had been fighting with leaped at him. He caught her with both hands, but before he could throw her back to the ground she brought down her tail and clubbed him solidly in the groin. Louis fell back and the Sayona landed on top of him. At the sight of this, Sophie began screaming again. The second Sayona was about to make its attack when Sophie—whom the Sayona had not noticed—began to scream. The Sayona turned to the little girl, looked her over for a moment, and then slowly crept her way closer. Sophie kicked her way into the corner as the Sayona approached. Looking into the grotesquely oversized eyes of the looming Sayona, Sophie was quietly mesmerized and completely traumatized by this elegantly vicious creature. Sophie put her arm up in a futile effort of defense. The Sayona buried her sharp teeth into the child’s arm. The bite was not sufficient, so the Sayona had to bite again – taking Sophie’s arm further into her mouth. This time she was successful. The pointed teeth of the Sayona were terribly painful, but the fangs in the back of her mouth felt like they were injecting pure fire into the little girl’s skin as the beast discharged her venom. Sophie yelled out in agony as she tried to pull her arm away from the monster. The Sayona released her without a struggle and slowly backed away.

  The other Sayona and Louis struggled with each other on the opposite side of the room. She was trying to bite him on the neck, but he was keeping her just out of range. He had an assist from the nearby flashlight which was, again, currently blinding the Sayona. As Louis fought her off, he heard his daughter scream and then witnessed what the other monster had done. In a last surge of strength, he threw the Sayona off of him and scrambled to his feet. He grabbed the Sayona that had just bitten Sophie and tossed her aside. Louis seized his daughter’s arm; it was covered with dozens of small puncture wounds and two large ones which had turned a hideous shade of purple that was rapidly spreading across Sophie’s arm.

  “No!” Louis cried. “I’m so sorry, Sophie…”

  Louis turned away from his daughter and charged at the Sayona that had bitten her. The Sayona came back at him with claws and teeth. He tackled her to the ground, pinned her to the floor, and began hitting her with what remained of his strength. The other Sayona, his original opponent, had had enough. The club on the end of her tail split apart into a claw-like contraption. From behind Louis, she flung her tail forward and clamped the claw down upon his shoulder. He grabbed the claw with both hands, but its grip was unyielding. Within seconds the stinger was triggered, shooting out of the core of the claw and burying deep within Louis’s shoulder. A heavy dose of neurotoxic venom soon followed. The Sayona retracted the stinger and released Louis. He fell to the floor and crawled towards his wounded daughter. Sophie’s entire arm was now purple with her veins a solid black; all of the puncture wounds inflicted on her were bleeding profusely. Within seconds Louis had lost complete use of his right arm, his eyelids grew heavy and sharp, stabbing pains had begun to manifest all over his body. The flashlight in the corner was smashed by one of the Sayona, leaving only the moonlight to illuminate the room with an eerie glow.

  Violent muscle contractions in his abdomen halted Louis’s final attempt to reach his daughter. He could no longer form any words to speak as the venom conducted its macabre orchestra of paralysis and death. Louis rolled over onto his back as the venom took full control. Within a few minutes more he would die from suffocation, yet the Sayona saw no reason to wait any longer. Still alive and still conscious, Louis could feel the Sayona claw at his clothing. They tore away his shirt to expose the flesh of his belly. The Sayona then sank their teeth deep into his delicate abdominal wall. Their teeth were not designed to cut or chew, but to hold fast and tear; so the Sayona pulled viol
ently, ripping away the flesh and muscle so they could access the tender internal organs… the Sayona’s favorite delicacy. Louis would eventually succumb to asphyxiation as the Sayona voraciously consumed his entrails. His abdominal cavity was swiftly cleaned out by the ravenous beasts, so one of them moved on to his flesh while the other approached Sophie.

  Sophie was not quite the meal her father was; nevertheless, her innards would be just as delectable to the insatiable Sayona. The one that had bitten her in the arm was now sitting before her again. She studied Sophie closely to see if the child had any fight left in her – it appeared that she did not. Her arm was now little more than oozing muscle and strands of dead flash – all the easier to digest for the Sayona (not that they needed any help with that). The Sayona took hold of the little girl’s foot and dragged her away from the wall. Sophie turned over and tried to crawl back. The Sayona was instantly on top of her. She pinned Sophie’s face to the floor with one of her prickly hands and tore off the child’s clothing with the other. Once her soft, bare flesh was exposed, the Sayona bit down into the small of her back. Sophie let out one last, terrifying scream before the monster tore out her spine.