Fall

You are never all alone

After we left the shelter we spent several weeks traveling at night and hiding in abandoned homes during the day, it was terrifying neither of us got much sleep those days. We had been traveling north, trying to make it to Canada. December 20th we entered Toronto. It was snowing and I remember being so bitterly cold I thought my toes were going to fall off. That night we stayed in an abandoned motel, it was cold and leaky but it was better than sleeping outside and praying that there weren’t any monsters hiding in the dark. The next day I woke up before the sun rose after having yet another nightmare. In this one they had almost caught me I could still feel Goosebumps from where the monster grabbed me in my dream. My mother woke up a few hours later and much to my surprise we slunk out of the back of the motel into the frigid winter air in broad daylight. As hard as we tried not to our feet still mad crunching noises in the snow, we had almost made it to the end of the street when my mom stopped me. “Krystal, did you hear that?” she whispered into my ear softly, I shook my head to terrified to reply. She spoke to me in an even softer voice then the first time “when I say run, run around the corner and keep running till you see a dock. When you get to the dock there should be a ferry, you are going to get on it go to the control room and start the boat.” without thinking I blurted out “What about you!” she shouted run and turned around and ran the other way. I ran as fast as I could through the snow and slush down towards the docks, I could hear heavy footfalls behind me an disturbingly loud breathing. I was almost tempted to turn around and see how it was making that noise but then I decided I could live without a few more nightmares at night and put all my energy into running faster, it felt like my lungs were going to burst. I turned and slid down the ramp onto the wooden dock and ran up to the ferry and jumped on, unfortunately I wasn’t able to do the awesome action movie jump instead I feel and cut open my knee. My rust colored blood dripped onto the surface of the ferry and mixed with the thin sheet of snow, I pushed myself of the deck and rain up the stairs and into the control room. I looked down at a ship steering wheel and a panel of buttons, there was no convenient on button but there was a ignition, now if only I had the key. I scanned the room and spotted a keychain hanging on the wall. I grabbed it and jammed it in the ignition and heard the wonderful noise of the ferry coming to life and feel it move forward but then jerk to a stop. I opened up the control room door and looked back, I was still tied to the dock. At the end of the dock two of the slimy, tar colored monsters were slowly lumbering toward the ferry, and my mother was no where in sight. I raced down the stairs and headed towards the end of the ferry, I grabbed some ice that was floating in the water and began to saw through the rope. The creatures were almost upon my when my shard of ice broke, I had cut through most of it and I didn’t have time to find more sharp ice so I grabbed onto the rope and started pulling hoping that the rope would break. The rope snapped just as when of the creatures grasped my wrist a fiery pain shot up my arm and the only thing I could do was sit there and scream as the ferry pulled away and the creature fell into the icy water and let go of my wrist.