Van Garrido, Chapter 1: A Town Built on Silver

The eerie darkness of night falls over the town of Van Garrido. During the day Van Garrido resembles a lively settlers town. People riding through town on horses, waving to the children, most of whom wish to become cowboys or cowgirls themselves. This town is every westerner’s dream. Little to no crime, sheriffs that have their heads on straight and not abusing their power, a saloon that serves the finest whiskey and rum money can buy. Most of all, the 300 or so residents love this town because its cut off from the nonsense of the big cities. In fact, the only time that Van Garrido comes in contact with city slickers is when the government wagons thunder into town to claim Johnny Taxpayer’s share of the silver that’s mined here.

Van Garrido sits on a large silver mine. Not by any means the largest in the state, or even the country, but its enough to keep the residents in good health and wealth. While most of the panhandlers west further west to mine in the huge gold rush, Chester Van Garrido, his family, and a few friends settled on a large plot of land in hopes that they too would strike it rich. After months of digging, lack of food and adequate shelter, Chester found a vein of silver running through the ground. it wasn’t the gold that he was looking for, but it was better than coal. Eventually the Van Garrido’s made enough money from their silver mining that they built a house on their plot of land, as did their friends. As time went on, and those fools’ gold mines petered out, more and more people went to Van Garrido’s silver mine to make enough money to get back to the homes that they left for the gold rush. Many people mined enough silver to get to wehere they were going, but a few stayed. Eventually the silver mines started to thin out, more people left the land, but Van Garrido was determined to find silver again, and he did.

The silver vein that Van Garrido and the others were mining lead to another larger vein, and then another, even larger one. Old timers of the town say the silver veins must travel all around the settlement. Extending several meters out from the furthest house. Pure silver too, perhaps the cleanest in country, depending on who you ask. All this silver will take decades and decades to mine, maybe even centuries as long as no government types try to horn in on the fortune that Chester Van Garrido founded. It seems, however, as long as they get their share, they could careless what goes on in the town.

Chester Van Garrido and his family died many years ago. They now lay in their final resting place, in a graveyard on a small hill to the south of Van Garrido. But his tradition carries on in the small town. His Grandson, Jacob Van Garrido, is the oldest decendant still living in the town. Jacob’s age is catching up with him, however. At 63 Jacob lived long enough to see his son Tully, and his grandson, Chester Van Garrido’s great-great-grandson, Kip both grow up and begin working in the mines. Very few people in this town ever leave, and even fewer come into stay. It’s dozens and dozens of miles away from anything else that could be considered a town. Very few people other than the government and a handful of others even know about Van Garrido or the silver mines below it. The inhabitants of Van Garrido like it that way, too.

The nights of Van Garrido are very different. They are dark, disturbingly quiet and rather chilly. All citizens of the town are in their beds before 10 PM every night. There is no rules or curfew, but the businesses close at 9 PM and there isn’t much left to do. But this night there is one small soul still stirring around the outskirts of town. One charming and silent little girl, the youngest Van Garrido in town, Molly Van Garrido.

For whatever reason, the fifteen year old Molly cannot sleep. She needed to get out of her house to breathe some fresh air. In the strangely bright moonlight Molly saw a patch of the most beautiful yellow buttercups near the forest, adjacent to the grave site her Great Great Grandfather is burried in. While she is out of the town, the building and streets are still in plain view. She could skip her way back home in no time, in the case that her mother wakes up and begins to scream her name in vocal worry.

Putting a few buttercups in her hair, Molly skips around pretending to be the most beautiful girl in all the world. Molly’s world is simply no wider than Van Garrido, as she has never left the town, but that was all the bigger that Molly needed the world to be. She new everyone in town on a first name basis. She would always sit on the porch of her parents home cheerfully telling them about all the beautiful patches of flowers around the town, or explaining in wide-eyed detail all of the wonderful dreams she had. If anyone in town was feeling somber, all they had to do is listen to Molly for a few minutes. The listener would quickly forget his or her woes the moment they saw Molly’s perfect smile. Molly was in some ways a therapist to many of the townsfolk. If an older person of the town missed their long deceased spouse, or if a woman felt neglected due to her husband’s long hour in the mines, or even if another girl or boy Molly’s age complained about the overall boredom of Van Garrido, listening to the young girl’s description of her favorite flowers made them notice the beauty of life, and soon their frowns were erased. Indeed, Molly was the adorable epitomy of innocence, the brightest smile in all of Van Garrido.

Molly continued to skip around the edge of the forest, stopping to pick up a colorful flower here and there. Even in the light the full moon was providing, the forest was pitch black. So dark that it would seem to drown out the light of a thousand candles. There was a path through tthe middle of the dense trees. It was used manly by the government wagons that rode into town once a month, but also used if one of the residents needed to take a horse into the nearest town to pick up supplies. While the clear cut, narrow road wasn’t often used, it stayed worn. Two thin lines of dirt with a long streak of sparse grass in the middle, definently used by something with wheels. The path itself was lighted fairly better than the forest on each side. Molly grew more and more brave and skipped along the path. Normally she was scared of the dark and the unknown dangers that may be lurking in it. But the bright yellow buttercups along the way made her brave. After all, flowers were the most beautiful creation in the world, there was no need to be afraid of anywhere that flowers could grow.

She bent over and plucked a flower and put it in the tiny bouquet she was making to put in a glass next to her night stand. With every flower and every step deeper down the trail Molly looked over her shoulder to make sure her home was not out of site.

She bent over to snap off another buttercup and froze. the simplest, quietest snapping of a twig a few feet into the forest to her left seemed to drain all life out of her. Molly herself barely weighed enough to snap a twig, so whatever made that sound couldn’t be smaller than her, at least not by much. All movement in her stopped as well, even her heart felt like is was frozen in fear. She couldn’t, and didn’t want to move. Maybe whatever that was didn’t see her, or if it already saw her, maybe if she stood still it would lose interest. Seconds that slugged on like minutes past. She mustered the strength and courage to make the tiniest movement she could. Her eyes went from the flower pinched between her fingers to as far left as they would go. Whatever it was was still there and slowly moving towards tha path she was on.

She heard another twig crack, several feet closer to her. She could hear, almost feel, the rustling of feet on grass and leaves. It was inching it’s way closer. Molly could see the shadowy figure of some sort of animal, just outside of the pale moonlight. It stopped. Molly hoped that it would start heading the opposite direction. But it didn’t. It pounced out from behind the darkness into the middle of the path. The sudden, lightning fast movement startled Molly who spun around, towards it, and burst out in laughter at the sight of the littlest baby deer she had laid eyes on.

Her heart started beating again as she caught her breath and watch the big bad three-foot tall monster that has been stalking her. Her giggling slowed to a stop only to start again as the tiny fawn hoped around in circles, trying to have fun with the strange human that’s roaming around it’s forest at night.

“What?” Molly asked between giggles. “You wanna play?”

The deer answered by hopping towards Molly and then backwards to where it was. The little animal sprinted a few feet away from Molly, stopped, look back, and ran towards her. Molly took this as an invitation to a game of chase the cute deer. The deer sprinted a few more feet as Molly gave chase. Instead of stopping the fawn kept going until only its white spots and tail could be seen. Molly gave up the chase against the lighting fast deer. She then heard the deer’s little hooves take off towards her again. It must be chase the cute human time. Molly started playfully running away from the deer. Her laughter could be heard in town, which she was very far away from now. Molly only got a fraction of the distance with the baby deer’s superior speed catching up to her.

“Aw, you caught me!” Laughed Molly as the deer stopped and looked up at her with it’s big eyes that were more full of life than any she has seen.

The deer motioned to her to chase it again.

“OK, just one more time. I’ve got to get going home.” Molly explained, not really knowing how deep down the path she was.

The deer took off even faster than before. Molly ran a few meters after it, but it wasn’t long before it was completely out of sight. Molly listened to its footsteps going away from her. Eventually there was no more sound. The baby deer either stopped or ran so far away that it couldn’t be heard. Molly waited a minute to see if her new playmate was coming back. It didn’t. Molly was disappointed but shrugged it off. It must have ran back to mamma deer. She thought to herself. She needed to be heading home anyway.

She was slightly upset at the fact that she unknowingly took herself almost a half mile down the path. She must have chased the fawn farther than she though. It just gave her more time to pick flowers. Which she did when she needed a break from skipping.

She walked on for five minutes, she could see Van Garrido at the end of the straight path again. She decided that her handful of flowers was plenty enough for a bedside bouquet. Then she heard footsteps behind her, it was the baby deer darting at her, faster than ever. She giggled as she picked up her pace. She figured the deer just gave her a huge headstart since it caught her so fast last time. Molly didn’t get to her sixth step when the fawn bolted by her.

“Hey!” Molly playfully shouted. “Too fast! I’m back here.”

It was of no use. The deer was already past the first house in Van Garrido and still sprinting through town. She slowed her pace back to her normal walking speed as she watched the fawn run through the farms on the other side of town, getting strange looks from the bovine community that resided there.

She was almost out of the forest, she could see the mist surrounding the graveyard hill. Then she felt something. Some kind of vibration. Van Garrido has never had an earthquake or any kind of explosion in the mines as they never used T.N.T. Something else was causing the ground to shake,from behind her. getting frightened she picked up her stride. The shaking wasn’t getting fainter, and she could hear something behind her. She turned around as the air left her lungs and saw a large shadowy figure charging at her, straight down the path, big as a grizzly, if not larger. She didn’t bother with the no moving technique and sprinted out of the forest towards the silent town.

Whatever is chasing her wasn’t afraid of the town and had it’s sights set on the little girl. Molly got nearer and nearer to the closest house as the unknown beast got nearer and nearer to her. Molly dropped her handful of flowers and it was stepped on by her stalker the second it hit the ground. Molly could hear it snorting and feel it breathing right behind her as she past the first house.

Molly was taken down hard to the ground. Not by the beast pouncing on her, but it running into her. Molly landed on her back and immediatly tried getting back up. Molly was swatted by the thing and knocked back down. In her dizzyness she could see a gigantic wolf-like creature trying to get back to its feet. it had dark grey hair growing out of its back, on it’s legs and down it’s chest. It was bigger than a grizzly, much bigger. It had a large, hairy mane coming out of its neck and around it’s demonic head. It had a long thin snout and a mouth full of razor-sharp fangs.

It lunged and snapped at Molly. But it was too far away, and it seemed way too weak. It’s hind legs were stretched out behind it and it was pushing itself up with its forelegs. This wolf-like creature was acting erratic. It was making a strange noise, almost barking, but almost coughing, like it couldn’t breathe. It’s front claws dug deep into the dusty ground, shakingly lifting itself up. Molly didn’t want to wait to find out what it was planning to do when it got up. She sprung to her feet and ran to her house.

Molly looked over her shoulder when the beast started making a gargling, or drowning sound. The beast was back on all four of its feet, but still shaky. It shook its hear the way dogs would when something in their ear bothered them. The gorwling, gargling sound returned. The monstrosity vomited a torrent of maroon liquid. Molly knew what ever it was tried to kill her. But she hated seeing anything in pain, even if it just saw her as food. She stopped running, she was far enough away from it now.

The thing heaved another splash of dark red goo from its mouth. It started stumbling. It looked like, from Molly’s distance, that it was bleeding from its eyes and ears. It dry heaved again, only a small tickle of blood expelled from its mouth as it collapsed on it’s chest. The giant wolf moaned and coughed once more before all movement from it ended. Molly took a long look at it once more, lying in a pool of it’s own blood and vomit. Molly was getting sick to her stomach. She should have stayed in her bed. That was exactly where she was going to stay for a while.

She found herself at her front door, no flowers, no smiles, only the pale look of worry and fright. She went inside and directly to her bedroom. She climbed in and pulled the blankets tightly over the top of her head. She wanted this night to be over, she didn’t want to be reminded of that thing, or it’s death, or her near death for that matter. She laid motionless in her little cacoon and fell asleep.