Sunday’s Serving – Willow in the Desert

 

 Jon Stanton, ten years old going on eleven, skulked from shadow to shadow as the sun slid beneath the earth.  He kept a careful eye out for the monsters that had come to Gander’s Gulch. 

He had no idea if his parents lived.  Every scream that rang out made him cringe, thinking perhaps it was one of them being captured and eaten alive as had happened to so many.   Every gunshot made him hope it was them too, fighting off the monsters and surviving to someday find him.

Besides the dying light of sunset, distant fires lit the sky.  He had to be careful, had to keep hidden, or he’d be eaten too.  He was a child born less than five years before the Pyramids and knew all too well that death came for everyone, no matter how young.  Came more often for children in fact, because children had more accidents, got sick more often, and didn’t have all the survival skills their parents did.  And they certainly couldn’t outrun the fanged horrors that had taken over the Gulch.

But Jon knew how to hide and being small made him easy to overlook.  He darted from building to building, his sealed jug of water sloshing softly.  He kept low to the ground, making his slight body as invisible as he could. 

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