Purissima, California

I walked up the street, towards the edge of the hill where the highway crossed into town. A feeling of forlorn depression started to set in, which certainly wasn't helped by the dreary, foggy weather and the sense of utter abandonment. I passed a darkened doorway of the bookstore, and almost seemed to hear something from inside. A strange snorting cackle, faint but audible. For some reason, this sound was not comforting, even if it did indicate that there was SOMEONE still in this town. Because frankly, the forlorn, deserted and run down appearance of everything was really starting to creep me out. Well, at least there's someone here, but yet, the store looked dark, abandoned, and long closed down; so who would be in there? The more I thought about it the less comforted I was. Between this, and who or whatever had been in the basement of the café, I was actually starting to get the creeps.

I crossed one street and proceeded to the end of the next block. A street sign, rusted and barely legible, indicated that this had been the corner of Main and Third. Again, I tried sending a message to Jen, but the text disappeared into the cyber netherworld with the mocking response "Message Attempt Failed." So, no phone service here either, then. For whatever reason, modern cellular service seemed to have bypassed this town entirely. Or, maybe this foggy, damp weather was messing with the signal. I don't know, all I knew was that I was getting frustrated. I was standing next to an abandoned gas station with a full service garage, its glass windows shattered and service bay doors ripped off their hinges. The cracked concrete was discolored by ancient oil spills. But I did notice something that might be of use- an ancient pay phone. I hadn't even used one of those since I was a teenager, fifteen years ago now. You hardly even saw them anymore. There really weren't many full-service garage/gas stations anymore either, I realized. This whole town had the feel of a place where time had passed it by. Only instead of being preserved, like one of those tourist trap ghost towns I had visited with my family as a kid up in the Sierras, this place seemed to be crumbling further and further into dust and decay with each passing year.

I tried to imagine this place in its heyday. Young people coming and going, laughing and partying, pretty girls like Jennifer Tayas sitting in the windows of the cafe while young guys like myself, full of life and optimism, would dream of hooking up with them. And eventually, guys like me would do so, and we would settle into one of the trim, brightly painted houses, and after a day's work at the mill, we would head to the beach together to watch the sunset. It must have been a happy place, once. Now it was dead and dreary. I thought about Jennifer's aunt, who she claimed still lived here. What had her life been like back then, assuming she had grown up and grown old here? And if she was still here, why had she stayed here so long, when so much of this town's life and vitality was long gone?

I reached into my pocket and fumbled around for a quarter- luckily I had one. I placed it into the slot and dialed her number. If I couldn't text her at least, maybe I could leave her a message so when she got here we could formulate a plan. Checking at my watch, it was still five minutes to noon.

The phone was dead. No dial tone, nothing. I flipped the receiver and pressed the buttons to dial the number, but got only silence. Flinging the receiver down in frustration, I swore into the damp air. Despite the fact that the pay phone appeared to be as defunct as the gas station it stood in front of, it had still eaten my quarter. What a waste of fucking time and money, I thought. I tried to text her again. "Message Attempt Failed." the phone replied, almost mockingly. "No Service." So much for technology.

With a sigh, I realized there was nothing to do now but wait for her to show up. I strolled the two blocks back up to the car. I was resigned to sit in the car and wait for her. During the whole time, not one other car rolled past on the highway. I began to think that was strange. Surely there must be SOME people who would be driving through, if not stopping- tourists and sightseers on the way up the coast, commercial vehicles or RVs, or other people out on and errand. But there was no traffic on the roads at all. What was up with that? This town may be run down and mostly deserted but it certainly wasn't THAT remote from civilization- Guerneville, for example, was only twelve miles inland. Plus, it was the weekend, so I would assume people would be out and about.

12 noon came and went, and no sign of Jennifer. But right as my car's clock flipped over to noon, I was startled by loud bells pealing from somewhere. Loud clanging bells, like a church carillon. I had thought I had noticed there was a church a couple blocks over, up on one of the two hilly streets that paralleled Main Street and looked down on it from above. So, at least there was SOME activity in the town, although it somehow struck me as creepy, all of a sudden. It was the first tangibly recognizable sound I had heard since I had arrived here. The fog had seemed to muffle even my own footsteps.

Five minutes passed by, then ten. The more I waited, the more anxious I got. Was she even going to show? And what if she DID know the café was not open, and she was planning on standing me up the whole time? Or was she somewhere in town still hanging around with her aunt? As I waited, I began to hear things from outside; noises. Like a barking dog, but yet, oddly, not quite. Something about the sound just seemed, well, off. I heard it again. Like a strange goat-like braying sound almost. Whatever it was, it sounded inhuman and creepy.

You're just imagining things, bud, I told myself. It's obviously just a dog, or maybe someone is keeping goats or sheep somewhere. I mean, seriously; what else could it be?

It got to be almost fifteen minutes past noon. Maybe Jennifer had meant a different place; there might be more than one café here, and maybe she was confused, or had I misheard her, and maybe I was the one standing HER up. This thought got me motivated. I'll just cruise around down to the waterfront, maybe there is another café down there, or on one of the other streets. The town wasn't THAT big, and if she isn't there then I'll head back up here and wait. Although, now that I think of it, I was almost sure she said "Shell Rock Café, Main Street." Was she confused, or, in my excitement at her actually agreeing to go on this date, was I just not remembering right?

Then, I finally noticed a car crest the top of the hill, from down the flats. I watched as it pulled into the closed gas station and park. It was a red car. Jennifer's Prius. Had to be. Only, the fog and the gloom made it hard to tell. The car had simply parked there by the phone and did not proceed down the street. It has to be her, I thought- why didn't she just drive on down and meet me down in front of the café though? Why is she stopped there, when the place is closed?

Maybe she's doing the same thing I did- trying to use the pay phone to call me, since of course her phone wouldn't work either. That has to be it. Relived, I resolved to go meet her, and I set out on foot, almost at a jog, down to the gas station. We could take her car, ride back up the coast and grab a sandwich or a bagel before hitting the beach, I thought- her car gets better gas mileage than mine anyway, though of course I'd help pay for gas. I was already picturing us walking along the beach, chatting, enjoying the warmth of each other's company in the grey, cool weather. Though I would have preferred a nice day, somehow I thought this would all work out to be a perfect afternoon.

Breathing hard from a rapid pace, the cool damp air made me wheeze and cough. I slowed down. I was almost a half block away from the gas station at Third and Main when I heard one of the strange braying noises again, from behind me. I turned around quickly. I thought, or almost thought, that I had seen a shape duck out of sight around the corner of the old bar. Was some creepy local weirdo playing a prank on me? If so, let him; we were leaving this place soon enough anyway. But it was nonetheless disquieting. I quickened my pace. "Hey JEN!" I called out. There was almost an edge of panic in my voice. Was it the fear of possibly being stood up by my date, or was it something else? For some reason, the disquieting feeling I had was only growing more intense. As I made my way down the street, the black yawning doorways and boarded up windows of the ruined and grey storefronts leered out at me.

Another sound, almost a snarl this time, came from across the street. Out of the front door of one of the stores- "Killian's Dollar Store" the sign read, a disheveled and drunk wino had staggered out. He was the only living person I had seen (or at least gotten a good look at?) since I had arrived in town. As soon as he saw me, he growled again, and began staggering and lurching toward me. God damn dude, lay off the crack pipe, I thought to myself. This guy wasn't as old as I had first thought; he looked to be about 20 or so, but had the vacant stare and pale complexion of a guy in the deep throes of drug addiction and mental illness. His clothes were ripped and half ruined. He had an odd gait, almost a slow lurch. Obviously stoned, fucked up, drunk, or whatever, but certainly not anybody I would want to deal with. But somehow, he seemed oddly fixated on me as he shambled toward me.

I arrived at the gas station. "Hey Jen! Jennifer!" I called out, breathlessly. "Hey, sorry, uh, it looks like that café's not open, so..."

But then I saw the car that was parked in front of the phone, and quickly realized, to my dismay, that the car I had seen was not Jennifer's Prius at all. It was an ancient Volvo, probably older than I was, it's red color faded to a rusty pink/beige color, rust creeping up from its wheel wells. Disappointment flooded through me. A quick glance back down the street verified that Jennifer had not arrived at the Shell Rock Café' either; though I quickly realized that I would have seen her drive by if she had. My own ride was parked back there, as lonely and forlorn as I was.

Because it was right then that the grim realization dawned on me- Jennifer Tayas WAS going to stand me up, after all. Wherever she was, she had no intentions of meeting me here in Purissima.

And, there WAS someone peering out from the entry way to the Forty Niner Club, that old tavern place. I was sure of it. When I turned around, he had tried to duck back out of sight, as before, but not before I had a good glimpse of him this time. Much like the derelict drug addled bum who was still openly following me, this guy looked fairly young, maybe 18 or so, but disheveled and seedy.

Well, this is just getting creepy. I may as well get out of here. I could at least head back up the road to Guerneville and try texting her from there, just on the off chance that she IS still planning on meeting me here. But either way, one thing was clear in my head: I did not want to spend another moment in this wasteland.

I glanced over at the ancient, rusted Volvo parked nearby. Its occupant appeared to be attempting to use the pay phone, much like I had done. I could see him, shaggy curly brown hair, early 20's, wearing faded ripped jeans and a torn, soiled white t-shirt. He was leaning over into the kiosk, and holding the phone up to his nose- wait a sec; what exactly WAS he doing? I wondered, suddenly alarmed. My blood froze as I realized what he was, in fact, doing.

He appeared to be sniffing the phone. Literally sniffing it, like a bloodhound, holding it up to his nose. Then, returning the phone to his cradle, he dropped to his knees and began sniffing the metal chain and bracket that had presumably once held a phone book. What the fuck was going on with this guy? My first thought was he was some kind of drug-crazed burnout, but the way he was doing it was just so WRONG, so unlike any normal human behavior, that it was utterly disturbing.

Suddenly he stood up, and stared at me. His eyes were vacant and his tongue lolled out. Just another burned out junkie. Only, suddenly his eyes flashed and everything changed.

"Um... I don't think that phone works, bud," I said, timidly. "It looks like there's no cell service here either but I think there is up the road a ways..." I said to him, almost to calm myself down as much as placate him.

As soon as I spoke, a low growl escaped his throat, his head cocked to one side, and he suddenly lunged forward, running at me, in a seemingly murderous rage.

"Hay, wait... whoa, what the fuck! BUDDY! What the fuck are you DOING!" I cried.

Then, the bells pealed again, from the church, off to my right. At that moment, I heard running footsteps behind me. To my horror, I realized that the lanky, disheveled bum who had been discretely tailing me from down the street was no longer slowly lurching along, but instead, was running at me in a dead sprint. Meanwhile from out of the darkened door of the Forty Niner Club, two more figures emerged, and almost as soon as they reached the sidewalk, they, too, sprang into action and started sprinting toward me. All three of them were rushing towards me. Almost before I realized what was happening, I felt my arm being grabbed and pulled. The creepy guy who, mere seconds before, had been sniffing at the phone, was on me and was attacking me.

In a mixture of blind panic and rage, I yanked my arm towards me out of his grip, and in an instant recoiling reaction, swung my right fist at him. I felt my fist connect solidly with his jawbone, but yet it somehow wasn't satisfying. It felt more like punching a bag of meat. Like cold, unyielding flesh. He recoiled briefly, in time for me to pull away, but then I glanced at his eyes.

Cold, foggy, and dead. There was no warmth or humanity in those eyes. Only a cold, dead, reptilian hunger. It hit me instantly. This was no ordinary junkie. What's more, his three friends were almost on me. And even worse, they were all between me and my car, which I had foolishly abandoned two blocks back. Thinking, perhaps out of a desperate hope, that it had been Jennifer who had pulled up here in her car, and this whole thing would turn out to be a happy afternoon on a secluded beach with a dream date, after all. I loudly cursed myself, and the situation. And ran.

With no real plan, my first thought was simply to circle the block, and reach the car from the other direction. I took off at a sprint, veering left down Third Street. I could hear the running footsteps behind me now. The street was cracked and broken. Debris littered the road, and the buildings, abandoned, crumbling, and dark in the foggy gloom, looked even more forlorn and wrecked out than those on Main Street. An ancient Chevrolet, clearly abandoned and of no more recent vintage than the early sixties, sat rusting away on a driveway in front of a ruined clapboard house where the roof had long since fallen in. It was the only vehicle I saw, ruined or otherwise on this street. But the main thing that registered in my mind was the name on the rusted mailbox: ELS E T YAS, the remaining letters read, and even these were faded and barely legible. But if this had been the home of Jennifer's aunt, she clearly had not lived there in decades. I had no time to ponder this. I had to keep moving, and quickly. They were still coming, and the pursuit was relentless. As I fled, I heard the church bell ring yet again; four loud, discordant peels.

From the next street over, I saw three more figures running. I had a brief, fleeting hope that perhaps they were ordinary citizens, and that help was on the way. My hope was quickly dashed. Like Main Street, Eckland Street was dark, decaying, and ruined, the houses just peeling grey husks fallen in, lawns and landscaping long gone to seed. Waist high weeds and wild, untrimmed hedges concealed yards with fallen in fences and houses with caved in roofs. What was worse, the approaching figures were coming from the same direction that I had hoped to circle back around to. They had effectively cut off my escape route.

I could see them, disheveled figures with lolling tongues and dead, white eyes. One of them was making a strange inhuman howling sound. Whatever "they" were, more of them were coming. My heart sank, and blind terror took over. I turned and ran down the street towards the river. I could hear more and more footfalls behind me.

After a short block, the street turned and ran down a hill towards a broad flat industrial area that had been built up on the banks of the river. I could see the highway bridge off to my right above me. If I could outrun these pursuers, maybe I could double back up another street heading back up towards Main, and the safety of the car. This occurred to me as I ran, but first I had to outrun these things, or were they people? What WERE they anyway? I could hear them behind me, slavering, growling; the inhuman noises of people who were not really people anymore.

At the bottom of the hill were a series of cracked and crumbing brick and concrete warehouses, their roofs caved in and opened to the sky. I saw the ruined skeleton of the old lumber mill, with its heaps of unidentifiable rusted machinery left visible and exposed by the slow decay of the vast building where the main wall had collapsed.

I fled up the street towards the foot of the bridge, across a series of cracked concrete plazas overgrown with weeds and choked with trash and debris. Breathing hard and in a full blind panic, I leapt over a pile of jumbled concrete chunks and kept running, my breath getting raspy as I got more and more winded. But they were still coming. I couldn't even tell how many there were anymore. The road dead ended at the overgrown, weedy remains of what had been a parking lot. I raced across it, through a blind alley, and scrambled over a low fence, but as I did so, I could hear them gaining on me. I looked back over my shoulder and four of them were there. Wearing soiled, stained and ripped clothes, hair long and disheveled, and those eyes: White slits, murderous and full of rage and hunger. Where I'd had to slow down and scramble over the fence, they simply leapt over it with almost animal like ease.

On the other side of the fence was another ruined parking lot, strewn with broken shards of glass and bits of metal. The gutted and burned remains of several unidentifiable vehicles were strewn in a corner of the lot. Across from it was a creek, clogged with vegetation, and across the creek was the woods. I made for the creek but in a panic, realized I would not be easily able to scramble down the banks and up the other side without being caught. So I turned and headed for the base of the hill, only to find, to my horror and dismay, that there was a long chain link fence running across the foot of the hill. And two figures were racing downhill towards it. I watched as they leapt over the chain link fence with almost superhuman speed and jumping ability, and ran towards me. The fence was nearly six feet high and there was no way I could scale it with the same speed and agility as they had.

I could see them closing in on me. I saw the concrete stanchions of the overpass just ahead and raced towards it, as it offered the only escape; the two coming down the hill had cut off my other option, and the rest were right behind me.

But when I reached the bridge, to my dismay, I found yet another chain link fence, bordering the edge of the creek bed. I whirled around, looking for a way out, but it was a blind dead end. I backed toward the bridge abutment and in a flash of a second, spun around and surveyed my options. There were none. They were closing in, nearly eight of them now, their slavering hungry faces lolling out as they raced toward me.