Evolution

Journal entry: 2 March 2012.

The cities are now completely deserted. Communication says the country side was first to be abandoned that makes sense, what with all the grass and trees. Wooded areas no way we would be safe there. This is it for us; the last place for us to make our stand. Here it is now where we fight and win or fight and die.


12 months earlier:

I knew it would happen I knew it would come to this. I told them, told them all. They thought I was crazy. They all laughed at me.
I was teased and got the oddest looks…but I knew and I was RIGHT! They would be the ones. I told them they would be the ones. They were the next ones… to evolve. I knew and “they”, knew I knew. I had seen them, looked right at them. I looked right into their beady black eyes. I had seen the hatred...hatred of us! Everyone believed it would be some four legged mammal. Some thought it would be the sweet and, friendly communicating dolphin. Instinct would make them helpful and useful allies for us. Not me though, instinct my ass! I knew they wouldn’t be the ones.

Now, here we are less then ten years have passed since then and “they” have evolved. They challenge us at every turn. The only ones to give them hell were us. The few of us that realized before it was too late. We live hid from them. We keep to the warm places. They don’t like warm and sunny places. That’s where we make our homes. Yeah, now and again they cross our paths.

When they do it’s for some bounty on one of us. Oh yeah, they have their freaking flunkies. The ones of us that sell their own.
See they need to eat and would sell their own mothers for food. We watch out for traitors of our own and theirs too. It seems with evolution came laziness. They no longer hunt. Unless they have to, they will wait until some trader comes along and hunts for them. The cats were the first to go. They made quick meals. Cats weren’t as intelligent or as fast as we thought they were. Sure there are still one or two cats somewhere hidden or living in camps like ours. Nope the cats weren’t lucky. The dogs, now they are a different story.

The dogs help us in our daily fight against them. The dogs knew something was happening too. Maybe even before we did, they knew “they” where changing. Dogs are intelligent you know. I don’t know why it was them and not the dog to evolve it beats me. Hell why them, at all? About eleven years ago I started to believe they were going to change. I don’t know why or what made me notice them. I mean they’re everywhere they live in our homes, in our cars… They move right in like they think the place is vacant. I started to think they were watching us. You know the way they duck back into the shadows when you see them. You’re not sure you really did see something.

You go down on one knee to look and…nothing right? Nothings there, or is it? Yeah, I started noticing they didn’t always hide; some would come right out and walk around. Those I’ve since learned were volunteers on suicide missions. They were studying us all along. Watching our behavior towards them is what they were doing. They couldn’t understand why we hated them. Why would kill them on sight.

Right, like they were harmless. Yeah, who were they trying to kid? I had begun to watch them too. I told people what I thought was happening. No one took me seriously. They all thought I was just joking, rambling on about nothing. They all thought I was just a storyteller at heart. A storyteller that was insane. Yeah I told a few stories to the kids. But this was different, I wasn’t telling a tale. I really was feeling the change in the world at that time. See I was a teller of stories in those days. My job was just that. I was a gifted teller, that’s what I was called. I use to just make up a tale on the spot. The kids and everyone else loved my strange and cleaver mind. I could tell a wonderful tale when ever I told one. The kids loved to be scared. I use to love it just the same. I use to tell them tales of the creepy and strange.

Funny, this would be one of my best… if it weren’t true. This one I wouldn’t make up. This one is to horrifying and true!  Like I said I watched and “they” watched. I saw how they froze when they knew they were seen. Little things like that kept me watching them. They would stay frozen in whatever position they were caught in. Then there was the fact that every time you’d kill one a day or so later there’d be another one just like the first. It’d just be there suddenly and startlingly. Those black shinning eyes taking in your every move. Gathering information and relaying it... if they were lucky and got away. I could chase them and chase them and still they got away sometimes. It was as if they were already testing and using their intelligence. A day or so later there they would be again. They wouldn’t be moving again just staring at you from the shadows.

Those times when you could feel someone watching you, but you were alone... Something was always watching, just watching. Yeah it was them. They were every- where, EVERYWHERE! Any nook or cranny, they were there. I knew they were there communicating with the others. See unlike us once that banded together they stayed together. They completely forgot their differences. They became one, one large fearsome mob. Once they realized they were having cognitive thought, and that it was not just instinct...It was then that our species was doomed!  Doomed to suffer what they deemed retribution. They begin by quick raids here and there signaling silently to one another.

There would be two, one a decoy, would show himself. Once you went after him, the others would hurry on to the real mission. They had to find places were they would be safe to watch every one of us. We had blindly been their life long enemy. From the beginning of time they were there walking along side us. Fearing us so they say, yet how can you fear something you can kill with a blink of an eye? Yes we could kill them too, only our fear of them was justified? Oh yea, “they” said that too! It was justified, their hatred of us that is.

It was about five years ago that it all started to happen. They begin making guttural sounds. At first so low they were indictable by us. Then they were able to make little chirps or clicks. None of these were things you or I would notice. Or did we?

They kept practicing sounds until they had the ability to speak, words. Words became what they had once been to us, Power! You know how it was for a kid when he begins to speak. There was always joy and rejoicing for baby’s first words. It was the same for them, joy and a sense of achievement. Once they had speech they truly begin to see things differently. Just for the hell of it they would mimic a cat, the low whining meow of a kitten.

They even were able to mimic a puppy’s sweet and forlorn whining when they are deprived of human companionship. Next it was the small cry of a little child. All of the things we thought were just our imagination. With time became tricks in their plan. My guess would be thirty percent of it was them. They were making us think we were hearing things.

They took pleasure in toying with our sanity. The speed at which they learned about us was staggering. They slowly begin to organize themselves. Once that was done they begin to put their plans in motion. They stalked their victims. At first they only questioned their captives. So many homeless people disappeared... in the thousands.

They wanted to know everything about us. No one ever suspected anything like what was happening. I mean after all people have always disappeared in our world. No one really cared about these people, did they? None of them were ever seen again. If they had been what would they have said that would have been believed.

Who would have even listened, we all had them in our houses. All of us had seen them all our lives. They scampered into the shadows and disappeared themselves. They were just a part of life no one gave them a second thought.; except  for me. I knew I had a policy that I adhered to.

If they stayed in their territory then I let them live. If they came into my territory then life for them was forfeit. I felt that was fair and so believed it would be respected. After all they didn’t belong in my territory. That hasn’t changed much, oh my territory has changed and I am ever vigilant in my daily life.

In our camp we have twenty-four hour guards posted. We have had to since I made their wanted list. See before my suspicions were proven there was an incident in my home one night. I was minding my own business when I turned and there blocking my exit she set. I knew from her size (she was FREAKIN HUGE) she was female and well, remember my credo. In my territory it’s a forfeit. So I did what I did. There was a struggle, and I won that one.

Days later, right on time there he sat, two a.m… just watching me. I wasn’t surprised. I made it my habit to watch for them when ever I thought about it and I thought about it often. Anyway there he was watching me I immediately went into kill mode. He seemed to be ready because before I could move he turned his back on me and walked away.

It was obvious he saw me; he sat there until I saw him. Until he was certain I saw him. Then he turned and was gone. I searched and searched for him, but I haven’t seen him since. Oh I knew he was still there somewhere watching me, waiting, just waiting. Now here I am living life on the edge of nowhere. In a camp guarded on every border because my life has a price on it. Yelp, it’s on me because of him, see when they began to evolve he was on of the ones that evolved fast.

He watched and plotted revenge on me because of her. He had seen me do the killing. The night I had seen him he had wanted me to. Within the time it took for them to perfect their voices, a kind of raspy sinister hiss, He had grown and he returned one night.

I never saw him but I heard him. He whispered one night after it all begins to be noticed by others. Their size seemed to be larger then ever previously. I heard him whisper his hatred of me for taking her life. No I had not seen him since that first night but I heard him. I knew then it was not a dream and that I needed to do something.

I bought a dog and some poison and waited everyday for the showdown. I knew it would come. Nothing came then however. I was put on the back burner while it seems he was in command of his kind. They hadn’t expected to grow with their evolution. They didn’t become the monstrous giants of the horror movies of old, but they are nothing to laugh at.

Some of the larger ones can be the size of a large rooster. That vision my friend is a sight to see coming at you across the room. They were no longer able to hide in our houses. They had to find new places to live because we were now all killing them on sight. This was something unexpected and unexplained to us lay people.

Most people moved out of the suburbs and out here. The cities were over run with them. They were living in alleys with the rats for a while. Soon they had eaten them all. Stores began to run out of guns, and every kind of poison available was purchased. I knew by now it was an all out war.

There were more of them then there were us. They were hungry and people of every ilk were disappearing.

Some of us banded together and fought them. We went into the caves with guns and flame throwers. We killed hundreds and hundreds of them and I lead the raids. Yeah, it didn’t do much to endear me to “him”.

So it went we raided them by day and they raided us by night. It seems as big as they were they didn’t like moving in the day hours. They liked the darkness to hide their movements. Lights were our best friends. Some of my rebels moved into the power plants and made them headquarters.

We knew what we were up against, the government was slow to act and so communication was inadequate at best. The truth was kept out of the news as long as they could keep it out. I did my best to spread the word even when no one would listen. When some finally did listen and believe we were ready for them. Yeah, it’s a hard life. Here on the beach, we can see in every direction and the salt water is something they don’t like. We keep our perimeter electrified with the batteries and the dogs keep us alert.

I know eventually he’ll chance sending some of his soldiers for me. I don’t worry for my life though; he won’t let them kill me. No, he wants me alive. He wants to have the pleasure of that little task to himself.   As for me, I want the same thing. I want the pleasure of ripping those eight hairy legs right off his body!

Until that time comes, I wait here on the edge of nowhere with my dog, and the other rebels. We watch ever vigilant and watchful in this war of, EVOLUTION.