Little Rockridge, Oklahoma

Jacob was never intrigued by lofty aspirations. Nor had he been persuaded by selfish ideals. He did not feel the same suffering or could imagine that which the others had experienced. A desperation to train harder and harder; approaching that breaking point that he knew was coming soon. He was not tormented by a blood relative, and he wasn't given the world to claim as his own. A drifter is what some may describe him as. Not once in his seventeen years of life on this planet had Jacob disagreed with those words.

He wandered side by side with his Dad and Mom. School wasn't his thing. Jacob studied enough to remain at whatever place they went to that month, not a worry bestowed to "learning" the material. No, learning was for those wishing to stay stuck. He would never stay stuck. The longest he could remember staying at a single spot would have to be Little Rockridge, Oklahoma.

See, in Little Rockridge, Oklahoma, the people are kind fellers. It was mainly a resting point for those on the run, escaping a relationship gone bad, or simply not knowing where to go. The latter may have applied to his Dad.

Rockridge was quiet and well-mannered among the people. A single Evolved lived there, some old geezer who chewed tobacco subsequently spat into a tin can every hour of the day. He owned the largest plot of land converted to wheat fields for farming. A large expanse but not large enough for government supervision. The geezer's ability wasn't commonly known in the town either. The town's majority concluded that his ability involved the geezer's abnormal abundance of food produced each harvest season. The geezer's beard was long as well as his graying hair which hung close to the tip of his rump. Despite his grumpy grandfatherly stern attitude, Jacob would shack up on his patio every morning to hear the roosters cry.

The family's month stint in this town diverged into half a year then an extra five from then. The place was comfortable, accompanied by warmly welcoming people.

No questions were asked about what the broke Dad did or why the Mom never left her house. The Dad left from midday to arrive home early morning the next day while the Mom gracefully glided through the kitchen then up the stairs cleaning as she went to her study. A study where she wrote and wrote without a care in the world.

Even young, Jacob knew that his parents were an odd bunch. They reminisced about events that when researched hadn't occurred stalking up plenty of befuddled expressions from the neighbors who attended the housewarming parties. At night, he swore his Mom talked in her sleep like his Dad was directly beside her despite his absence. They would devolve to shrieking expenditures on the most ghastly of days.

When bored from watching his Mom and playing with his Dad in the cramped parking lot of the motel, Jacob went to the geezer. The geezer gave him work some days, if he needed it, then paid the child his dues. Jacob would sometimes carry bags of mulch or plant seeds that would grow into great corn stalks. On occurrence, Jacob spied the grand barn which overlooked the territory of the man's land. The geezer never ordered Jacob to enter, only his eldest son opened those steel doors disappearing in the depths to grab machinery. It remained locked otherwise.

This pattern would continue all the while his Mom's graceful movements slowed further and further. Until Wednesday at precisely 1:59 pm with twenty-six seconds before the turn of the hour, his Mom's life on earth had come to a halt. Everyone in the town assembled. Her womanly friends that approached her on occasion cried with sweeping cloths to dot their eyes and so did Jacob and his Dad. The Dad knew her life was coming soon to a close so decided that this should be her resting place. A quaint backwoods area where they could visit every once and again without worry.

They buried her in a garden, one of the last hidden by the purview of authorities, lined with lilies plucked from an overturned truck a while ago. Her burial lay beside the carpentry workshop that frequently gave birdhouses for free. Jacob's Mom loved the colorful birds, often wondering aloud whether she would be able to hear one's pleasant song when the morning was low in its moisture. To the right of her grave the Dad and son planted a bird house conjoined with a feeder to attract the most colorful of birds.

A few nights later, Jacob was startled awake by the howling of their neighbor's dogs. Dogs which quickly yelped, cooing in pain. Jacob had leapt from his bed dashing to his Dad's room to remember his absence due to work. On a whim, he braced himself slamming the front door open only to find a trail of blood. This blood was not red, instead a sickly putrid green. He followed it discovering the trail was brought to the barn of the geezer.

Jacob's hand fiddled with the handle just as he broke into a clamminess. His body froze up warning against his curiosity. The gnashing of razor blades on bone echoed across this lonely landscape. A burp or two slobbered saliva to his spot. A warm trickle rolled down his leg. The trickle puddled formulating a scent that ceased the vulgar noises from the monster within. Then, the handle turned. The barn had not been locked that night. As a gust of wind pushed them in echoing the moonlight on his back, Jacob peered into the yellow starlight eyes of the monster feasting on an unseen prey.

A moment was not left to worry as Jacob dashed back down the path and into his Dad's room, locking every door along the way. The child flung the closet door open clutching the double-barreled shotgun to his chest aiming at the door until the morning sun rose caking him in relief. That morning his Dad returned home to a shuddering son unable to relinquish control of the firearm. He was soon told the story of the monster which slipped from the jittering teeth of the boy. An uncharacteristically cold expression washed over his mug that culminated in him peering out the blinds to their window. It would have been in the direction of his wife's grave. The two packed light then the next day Jacob and his Dad had left, never to return to Little Rockridge, Oklahoma.

A week after, they were given a call by the county sheriff. His Mom's grave had been desecrated with bird corpses surrounding it while her remains remain missing. The Dad gave a single recommendation to look into the geezer's barn. Months later Jacob read a magazine that detailed how four county deputies did just that, only to be murdered by the eldest son and the very geezer. Not long after this event, two Heroes came to town to arrest the man; however, all that was left of him and his son were some bones decorated alongside a torn apart barn shimmering in their guts.

He came back to this reminder every now and again of the cruelty that the world could bestow. How monsters were real, living well unabated among humans. Humans see these monsters as animals, possibly pets but that pet could still easily rip your jugular if it so wanted to.

Jacob found his way to the open area where Daniel and Sam fought a similar category of monster. They stood, covered in the mess of battle, back-to-back against ferocious beasts of a greater caliber. The same clammy texture enveloped his skin, but…

There was no urine. He was no longer the same child he had been in Little Rockridge, Oklahoma. He couldn't be, for there was no time to worry. Worry would come later as it strangulates the will of man in regret. Yet, in the caves of his soul a piece of that worry from childhood bloomed as his heart pounded out from his chest.