Easton

The Ford Ranger Lariat sped off through Orchard Street, turning left on a corner, and disappeared into the night. Marcus, Roylan, and Paul went to grab the camping supplies at the outdoors store a few blocks away. Under his breath, Easton muttered a little prayer to keep them safe.

Never been a believer, Easton thought, but it shouldn’t hurt to start doing it now.

Easton looked up the sky, saw the two strange moons loomed over him, and wondered whether the same God was also present on where he stood now.

Easton turned toward the others huddled around the front door of the Boones house, watching Marcus and the others leave. The distant screech of the dragon echoed beyond the trees. Willie, the three-year-old son of Blake and Hyun, cowered behind his fathers’ legs, and even Jacob slunk back into the house’s shadows upon hearing it, his right shoulder hung heavier than the other.

Christ. I won’t ever get used to the sound of that, Easton thought, surprising a shudder. Still far, but reaching closer.

“Alright, let’s grab everything we can in our houses and pack them in boxes and bags,” Easton said as soon as the truck’s taillights disappeared from view.

“We have shipping boxes down in the basement that we can use,” Brett said.

“Yes. Let’s use that. Also, make sure that most of them are canned goods. That is very important. We can’t carry food with us that are perishable, or else it’ll get spoiled.”

“Unless we eat it first,” Kenny said, “besides, it’s cold out. We can cook most of them in the next three days. Maybe a week’s worth if we can place them inside a cooler? Let it be our lunch and dinner.”

Brett raised his hands like he’s in high school. Easton sighed, pointed at him. “My dad has two huge coolers. We can pack in some of the snow, put some meats and maybe vegetables in there? We can also bring our portable stovetop.”

Easton thought for a second if they could afford some space in the truck. Roylan’s Ranger Lariat might be able to carry more than fifteen hundred pounds of payload, but Easton also had to take into account that people had to ride out on the cargo bed, too.

“Fine. I guess we can do that.” Easton sighed. “And aside from the food, make sure to bring and wear warm clothes—that is very, very important. Then some batteries, medicine, and basic toiletries. Make sure to pack light. We don’t want to drag ourselves if we need to abandon the vehicles. We have less than forty-five minutes to do all of these, so make each second count. Understood?”

Everyone nodded, splintering off into different groups as they trudged toward their houses. Easton broke off from his father and Kenny, running over to Blake, Hyun, and their son, Willie, crossing toward their home at the end of the street.

“Wait up!” Easton called out.

Blake whispered something to Hyun, and the other man nodded before he took Willie into his arms and continued walking down the sidewalk.

“Did we miss anything?” Blake asked.

“No, but, I remember hearing dad that you bought a new Jeep this month,” Easton said. “Still works?”

“Yeah, it’s inside my garage. Wait, are you thinking of—”

“Exactly,” Easton interrupted. “Look, there’s seventeen of us. We can fit maybe nine or ten people on the truck, the kids mostly since they’re small, but we could use your Jeep to carry the others. As far as I know, you have the only vehicle around us that can take us to the woods. It’s a Wrangler, I believe? The newest model?”

Blake nodded.

“That works. It’s an Off-road vehicle just like the truck. Since your car is much smaller, you’ll have to take the lead.”

“Are you sure we can even fit in there?”

“It certainly beats walking.”

“Ah, hell. I guess you’re right. I’ll attach the rack at the back for extra storage. I have a feeling we’re gonna need every space we can muster.”

Easton smiled and clasped Blake on the shoulder. “That’s what I like to hear. And be quick about it. Remember, Roylan’s house in forty-five minutes.”

Blake waved him off with a hint of a smile, jogging to catch up to his husband, who just reached their front door. Easton marched toward his father’s house, where the others busily shoved everything they could into the three eighteen by eighteen shipping boxes that Brett gave them, as well as handing out the backpacks and suitcases his father pulled out of the storage closet from the second floor.

Easton climbed up the steps of the front porch and headed toward the kitchen. Since he had no clothes in the house, his own apartment hundreds of miles away in sunny and storm-free Los Angeles, he focused his attention on putting all the canned goods he could find in his mother’s pantry. With the backpack Kenny gave him, he shoved in blankets, towels, toilet papers, toothbrushes, toothpastes, dishwasher, garden shears, a hammer, recyclable cups, coats, jackets, over-the-counter drugs in his parents’ bathroom, and many other things, frantically putting them in each box that Kenny labeled clothes, the other as food, and one labeled Misc.

They filled up the three boxes for their house alone. Connor and Eli busily squeezed their clothes into their backpacks since the kids usually spent a weekend in their grandparents’ house at least once a month, having their private room upstairs filled with their clothes.

In Easton’s frenzied state of packing in the living room, he felt a tug on his elbow, whirled around to find Jacob standing there with a picture frame on his hand.

“Can I bring this with me?” Jacob asked, “I know it’s not food or anything.”

Easton recognized the photograph right away. It was the Wards’ Disneyland trip a year ago, the famous castle looming behind them on a bright and sunny day. Marcus and Claire smiled brightly with their five children gathered around them, with Marcus wearing a muscled Captain America t-shirt and Claire in a beautiful yellow floral-printed sundress; Lucy in a cute and sparkling Princess Belle costume; Amelia in an elaborate Princess Merida outfit, fully curling her natural red hair; Eli wearing his Iron Man shirt; Jacob and Connor both wearing Mickey ears as they gobbled up their slowly melting ice cream cones. Easton couldn’t help but smile as he looked at the photo, how long had those days left them now that he knew they would be separated a year later, and the longer he thought about it, a deep knot inside him soon replaced his smile. Easton gritted his teeth, realized that Jacob was waiting for his answer.

“Um, yes, Jacob. You can take that one. Make sure to take it out of the picture frame, okay? That way, you’ll still have more space in your bag.”

Jacob beamed a smile, nodding his head eagerly. “Okay. I will, Uncle Easton!”

Jacob sauntered over to the coffee table and quickly took apart the picture frame’s back skeleton and retrieved the photo, putting it in the front pocket of his backpack without folding it. Though, as Jacob zipped it open, Eaton caught sight of at least several more photographs inside stacked together. Easton quelled a chuckle, thinking that the boy might’ve gotten them from Andy and Gloria’s bedroom. His mother had a shrine of a dozen or so photographs over the years on top of their dresser. Easton let Jacob be, and the boy, once the photo was inside the bag, went running off to the second floor to join Connor and Eli upstairs.

Easton glanced at his watch. It had only been thirty minutes, but it felt like only five had passed. Hearing his father calling from the kitchen, he quickly finished placing two rolls of toilet paper inside the third box, briefly thinking how on earth they were going to unpack all of these things when they would need them.

A bridge to cross for another day, Easton thought. Be glad you brought them with you.

Easton entered the kitchen and found his father in the process of unlocking the basement door’s locks. The padlock gave way, dropping to the floor in a resounding bang, but his father didn’t spare a muscle to pick it up. Instead, he opened the door wide, motioned for Easton to follow him down the stairs.

Easton raised his brows, letting out a low chuckle. “Really, dad? You rarely let mom go down there, and rarer for me.”

“Bah, what’s the point now, eh? I don’t think we’re ever going back here ever again.”

Easton frowned. He never thought about what was going to happen when they make it to the woods and found a place to hide against the creatures. Maybe at the back of his mind, he still hoped he would find his way back here in the city, maybe find something valuable that they could salvage someday when everyone was safe and sound, when all the monsters were gone, and when all the chaos returned to silence. However, the thought of never returning ever again didn’t cross his mind. San Francisco had been his home ever since he learned how to walk, and to never see the streets he grew up on, to where he spent a lot of his time in high school sneaking out to parties and went to clubs with his friends, to where he had many of his first dates, wrenched a weight down his chest.

Taking a shallowed breath, Easton mocked a bow after his father, and said, “After you.”

His father rolled his eyes and went down the steps, carrying two mini LED camping lanterns; Easton followed after him, taking his own flashlight.

In the previous two homes that his parents owned, the basement always took a special place in his father’s heart, and his house on Orchard Street was no different. It was his office, his studio, his bedazzled alcove, his man-cave, or his hole to hide away from the world, or so his mother told Easton when he was caught red-handed sneaking into the middle of the night at a tender age of seven, curiosity nagging at the back of his skull to see the hidden wonders inside the room his sister always whispered to him at night. He had only been in it three times, and it still astounded him every time he was allowed to walk inside it.

Four now, Easton corrected, then frowned again. And the last.

Almost everyone had their own quirky or niche hobby. Easton did calligraphy on his spare time, collected first-edition or limited-edition books, or did Yoga on the weekends. One of them could get very expensive, depending on how passionate he felt at getting it. His father, however, was at the extreme end of that spectrum.

Almost a hundred thousand dollars-extreme.

His father, being a Medieval Europe historian and literary expert, had collected over a hundred artifacts ranging from Italian coins fashioned during the 14th century up to a replica of Charles the Great’s sword. The entire basement had broadswords, longswords, battle axes, claymores, rapiers, scimitars, and many different medieval weapons hung against the walls, most displayed on the racks and shelves that encompassed the entire right wall. Paintings—both real and fake—drawn by those who lived in the reign of Queen Elizabeth and the Tudors suspended side by side with the weapons, also flanked by 15th-century accurate medieval armor and plates worn by some famed medieval figure that Easton forgot the name of. Aside from the weapons and armor, there were old oak and mahogany wood dressers, cabinets, cupboards, white satin canopy, mocked-up buttresses of maple and birch, ashen hardwood floors, an office desk made of the same oak as the dressers, and ceiling-to-floor bookshelves with hundreds of tomes, which included his father’s own published works. His father used the entire basement’s space as a storage for his hobby, locked away from prying eyes to preserve and protect all of his collection he had accumulated for the past thirty years.

His father placed one of the LED lamps on the office desk while he put the other on a dresser across the room.

Easton sighed as his father began looking at the rack of swords next to the bookshelves. He had an inkling what his father intended to do. “Dad, I know you care about this stuff a lot. I mean, they are an investment, and an expensive one at that, but we can’t bring all of these with us. It’s not possible.”

“But son, these things are crucial and could help us. All of these are in the best condition, top-of-the-line relics—”

“Dad, you’re not listening. These things are too heavy, and they take up a lot of space! We only have two vehicles.” Easton interrupted.

“You didn’t let me finish!” His father snapped. “Can you let me finish, Easton? Can you do that?”

Easton mustered a shallow breath as he held his tongue. He made a curt nod for his father to continue.

“As I was saying, most of the stuff here is very valuable, you’ll see. How long do you think we’ll run out of ammo after we encounter one of those things in the woods, or worse before we even make its past the city-limits? What happens if the guns jammed, or we damage it beyond repair? How far will we last with a kitchen knife, a pair of scissors, or a screwdriver? I’d say, not far. No matter how good Marcus is as a soldier boy, but he can’t conjure gunpowder out of thin air or magically produce more bullets for all of us to use.”

His father spread his arms out, a wide grin forming as he pointed to all of the medieval weapons surrounding them. “That’s where my babies come in. Pretty, right?”

“Most of these are blunted, dad.”

“Yeah, but not all of them. We carry with us those that can make a grown man bleed.”

“And besides, we don’t know how to swing one. We don’t even know how to shoot a gun. Well, except for you, dad. Not the gun, but the sword thing.”

His father waved him away. “Bah, semantics. At least swords don’t run out of bullets.”

“If we end up using them, we have to be close to whatever’s trying to kill us.”

“Then let’s hope we avoid them as long as possible, eh? As I said, these are for emergencies.”

Easton scratched his chin and studied one of the shelves stacked with swords. Growing up with a professor in the house, Easton knew half of the things in the room, spurred mostly from the books he read in his parents’ library, and the occasional tests his father would give him and his sister in exchange for ice cream if they passed. Easton walked up to one particular sword that caught his eye, a Viking-inspired blade suspended by a wooden plate stand, at least 30 inches long with a slight taper, single-handed, broadly-fat, and double-edged, with old Norse inscription on its hilt. Touching it, he realized it was one of the sharp ones in the collection.

“How many of these are real?” Easton asked.

Even without looking, he could feel his father smile behind him. “Well, out of the thirty-four, twelve of them are sharpened. But that doesn’t include the dagger collection I have at the back inside that glass shelf over there. Out of that lot, seven of them are sharpened out of the eighteen.”

“These won’t break, right? I’ve seen the movies where—”

“These are not like the movies, Easton!” His father huffed, offended. “I can assure you that these won’t easily break. Our technology is much more sophisticated than it was back in the Middle Ages. These are 5160 High Carbon Steel, the toughest, high-end, and springed-steel alloy in the market, forged with chromium and silicone for rust resistance and extra durability. I’m not going to spend my dollars on some cheap-skanked composite just because I’m afraid to let my wallet loose.”

“Jeez! Calm down, dad. I was asking just in case it’ll break if I take a swing at it.”

His father let out another groan. “No. It won’t. All of these weapons are made with the same steel. Most of them were forged from Damascus, Dordogne, and Rome, so I'll attest to the talents behind it. I know the blacksmiths very well for many years.”

Easton bit his lip but didn’t say another word.

His father trudged toward the stairs. “I am going to call Kenny and the kids to help us pack all of these things. You can start laying the sharp-edged swords on the desk.”

“But I don’t know which ones are sharp.”

“I marked the plate stands with a small yellow dot. The scabbards are at that cabinet over there.”

As his father left to get the others, Easton didn’t waste any time looking for the yellow dot and took the swords off from the shelves. He found all twelve of them; the Viking sword he saw earlier; three of the two-handed and one-handed swords; a Scottish claymore; a couple of the broadswords; and the replica of King Charles the Great’s golden sword. Though, one, in particular, caught Easton’s attention. There was one sword out of his father’s collection that didn’t belong in the medieval world, existing only in one of his father’s favorite book. The Anduril sword, reforged for Aragorn with the runic elvish inscription displayed on the blade, stood inside a glass box mounted on the wall, separated from the rest, and marked by the yellow dot.

Easton chuckled under his breath. Lord of the Rings, he muttered, catching sight of the trilogy, and The Hobbit, The Children of Hurin, The Silmarillion, The History of Middle-Earth, and the rest of Tolkien’s Legendarium neatly arranged on top of the glass box.

He placed them on top of the desk as his father asked, just in time for the others to make it back down into the basement. Easton realized it was the first time the kids had been in his father’s office, wide-eyed and in awe, exploring every nook and cranny of the place. Kenny was no different.

“Okay, people, let’s get our heads together,” Easton said, clapping his hands to get everyone’s attention. All we need now are the daggers and a way to store these weapons so that we can bring it upstairs. We have”—Easton glanced at his watch—“ten minutes to do this.”

“The scabbards are in this dresser right here,” said his father, walking up to it. “Kenny and I will handle the swords in since they need specific sizes. How about you grab the cloaks and robes at the cabinet, Easton.”

“The cloaks?”

“For the children. Do you expect them to freeze out there in the cold?”

Easton walked up to the cabinet his father pointed at and opened it. It was a spacious wardrobe filled with medieval-inspired clothing ranging from cloaks, capes, doublets, surcoats, tunics, and many others, from kids to adult sizes, and most of all, in price tags from the simplest fabrics to the more complex embroideries. Easton let out a loud laugh.

Damn, I forgot about these, Easton thought, picking up one of the kid-sized medieval gowns. He remembered Claire wearing one when she was thirteen at the Shakespeare Festival up in Ashland. Behind the gown was the blue and white tunic Easton wore for the same event.

Can’t believe mom and dad kept all of it, Easton thought, smiling.

Aside from his father obsessing with anything medieval, he and his wife loved to play dress up in the dozens of LARPing events across the country, well-known around Northern California in those events, amassing a ton of costumes over the years. Easton and Claire also took part in them, holding many fond childhood memories. However, they didn’t inherit their parents’ hobbies.

Easton ran his hands over the fabric and could tell why his father thought they suit better against the cold than the clothes they wore. San Francisco very rarely received snowfall, mostly bombarded by a lot of rain and wind. Easton couldn’t remember the last time he bought or wore a heavy winter coat, right now dressed in a lightweight windbreaker.

There were several cloaks and robes in the cabinet. Easton didn’t know where to start, or what was best out of the lot.

“Which ones should we take?” Easton asked his father.

“Take all of them upstairs, hand them out to everyone, then pack those that are left.”

Easton nodded and started hauling all he could into his arms. Easton climbed up the stairs with Jacob and Connor following behind him with their own haul, and he laid the clothes down on the couch. Jacob and Connor put down their haul on top of Easton’s. Easton snatched a couple of the woolen clothed robes and handed it to both Jacob and Connor.

“Wear these over your jackets,” said Easton.

Connor and Jacob looked at each other hesitantly, but they put on the robes. After they were dressed, Easton grabbed two blue and khaki-colored woolen cloaks with fur-trimmed hoods out of the pile, and each bundled it around the two boys, fastening the neck with an ornate silver button, depicting a snarling serpentine dragon. Easton put on his own robe and cloak, finding out that there were small pockets inside the latter for extra storage.

“It’s a little bit short,” Connor mumbled, pulling at the hem of his cloak.

Easton snorted, trying to suppress a chuckle. “Well, that’s because I was a little shorter than you when I was your age, Connor. But these are one of the few sizes that fit you unless you want the ones that dragged along your feet.”

“It’s a little toasty and baggy, too,” Jacob said.

“That’s the point, kiddo. Once you are outside, you’ll be glad you’re wearing them,” Easton said, “now let’s go grab what’s left downstairs and help grandpa Andy with the rest, okay?”