Dark Inside (16 page)

“There have been earthquakes before,” Mason said.

“True. And maybe there were bad things lurking about during those disasters too,” Twiggy said. “Maybe some were
misdiagnosed. We’d have to go back and look to see if there’s a connection. But that’s a moot point right about now. I doubt I’d be able to get my hands on any research material these days. Just think, maybe millions of years from now they will find our cities buried under the dirt and try to understand what brought on our demise. Imagine what they’ll think of our laptops and microwave ovens.”

“I don’t believe in evil.”

“Once again, we’re only tiny pawns in this game. Belief has nothing to do with it. For all we know, this evil could have killed off the dinosaurs. Or maybe it really was a meteor. Or maybe history was just created from God’s hands to give us something to argue about over dinner parties.”

From beyond the closed window, the muffled sound of glass breaking reached their ears. Mason’s body stiffened, and it annoyed him that such things were still affecting him. Twiggy didn’t even twitch. How long would it take before screams and breaking glass wouldn’t even have Mason blinking his eyes? Would he ever become as calm as the old man in front of him? Maybe if he wasn’t this highly strung he might be able to get some sleep at night.

“It’ll be dark soon,” Twiggy said. “I’d invite you to stay, but as you can see, I’m not exactly set up for company.” He pointed at the single bed.

“I should get going anyway,” Mason said, standing. “You wouldn’t happen to know where a car dealership is, would you?”

“Hold on.” Twiggy hobbled over to the dresser and opened it. Reaching inside, he pulled out some keys and tossed them at Mason. “Downstairs in the garage. Not much, I’m afraid. Just an old, beat-up Honda. I don’t drive it a lot, but it’ll do you well enough. There’s a full tank of gas.”

Mason squeezed the keys tightly in his fist. “Are you sure? Do you want to come with me? I’m not sure where I’m going yet, but you’re welcome to—”

“Let me stop you right there,” Twiggy said. “I’m not going anywhere, Mr. Dowell. It’s not my world out there. I’m safe here. I have everything I need and the fancy grocery store down the street from which to steal. I’m not a man who deals well with change. I have no desire to join you in your adventure.”

“Okay,” Mason said. “I had to ask.”

“Yes, of course you did.” Twiggy laughed. “And now that you’ve asked, you can move on with a clean conscience. It’s good for the soul. Now thank me kindly and start moving on.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Twiggy saw him to the door. “Just follow the stairs to the basement. It’ll be parked in the back corner. I doubt there’ll be anyone down there. The door’s automatic; you’ll have to do it manually. Try not to let anyone in when you leave.”

“Thanks for all your help.” Mason turned to go.

“Oh, Mr. Dowell? One last thing.”

Mason turned back to face Twiggy. “Yeah?”

The coffee mug sailed through the air, smashing into the side of Mason’s face. White stars exploded in all directions, and the edges of his vision instantly distorted. He couldn’t control his body—knees buckled, arms became dead weights, and his legs fell out from underneath him like some slow-motion dream. He cracked his head on the doorframe on the way down.

He couldn’t move. Through blurry eyes he watched Twiggy hobbling toward him, his crutches stopping dangerously close to Mason’s face. He wanted to do something, but his eyes weren’t focusing. He couldn’t breathe.

The last thing he saw before the darkness took him was Twiggy leaning over him, a crooked smile showing yellow teeth. His eyes were funny. Bloodshot. But the veins weren’t red. They were black.

“Trust no one,” Twiggy said.

Then nothing.

I don’t feel like talking today. Go find someone else to bother.

I mean it. Stay away.

Don’t make me hate you.

She was cold. Freezing. Her fingers were white and stiff. Something was wrong. October never used to be this cold. And wet. The tiny Gastown apartment was waterlogged. Vancouver may be known for its precipitation, but this was over-doing it. It’d been raining for a week and there was still no sign of it giving up. The clouds were fat and gray, the land pregnant with swollen tears.

Funny how a gray sky made her want to curl up in a ball and start crying, especially after everything else that had happened in the past few weeks.

Depressing.

She pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. It was itchy and stained and smelled faintly of mold, but at least it kept her somewhat warm. There was no such thing as luxuries anymore. Besides, she hadn’t showered in days; she probably didn’t smell like roses either. When was the last time she saw her own reflection in a mirror?

Through the window she watched the solitary person walking in the rain, pushing a squeaky shopping cart. The person had no face, at least not one that was visible, and was
covered in a makeshift raincoat; the eyes were blurry through the clear plastic.

“It’s one of them.”

She turned toward the voice. “How can you tell from this distance?”

“No one sane would be outside in this weather.”

“Har-har. Very unfunny.”

Jack shrugged. “I’m still not going to take any chances and invite him up here for a cup of tea.”

Aries nodded. “Yeah, I hear you. Better safe than dead.”

“The saying is ‘better safe than sorry.’”

“I wouldn’t be sorry. I’d be dead.” Aries closed her eyes and leaned back from the window. She was tired. They all were. No one got much sleep these days. Who has time for napping when staying alive requires so much effort?

They’d done well so far. They were still alive. At least some of them were. That had to count for something. How many people were left? Ten percent of the city? Five? It was hard to tell when so many were in hiding. There weren’t as many screams these days, and that was a blessing in disguise. But less meant less—not more. Should she include the monsters in her head count? Could you consider them human anymore?

“You should take a break and get some sleep.” Jack leaned over and grabbed the water bottle from the window ledge.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“You’ve been here for at least six hours. We’re supposed to be doing this in shifts, remember? It’s okay to give someone else a chance. They aren’t going to come breaking down the doors if you close your eyes. I’m here. I’ll watch over you.”

“It’s not that.”

“You don’t trust me?” He brought the bottle to his lips, but she could still see the smile concealed behind it.

“I trust you.” She grabbed the bottle back before he got a sip. Water sloshed out, soaking his nose and forcing her to grin like an idiot.

It was nice having these moments when they could forget what was going on outside and share a silly laugh. The problem was, it didn’t happen often enough. Aries placed the bottle back on the ledge and scanned the street below her. The shopping cart person was still moving steadily toward them. In a few minutes they’d be within earshot. That was enough to sober her up.

Whatever humanity had become, it still had good hearing.

They waited silently while the figure moved past the building. It moved slowly, pausing once to sniff the air and glance back down the road from which it came. It kicked an old soda can into the gutter and picked up something off the street: a bicycle helmet with a long crack down the side. It rustled around in the shopping cart for a few moments before pulling out a human head. Jack gripped Aries’s shoulder. They both watched silently as the plastic-clad person placed the helmet on top of the severed head before stuffing it back under the tarp. Eventually the person started moving again, heading back down the street in a continuous shuffle. It wasn’t until the monster turned the corner that Aries realized she’d been holding her breath.

“I think we’re safe,” she muttered. Her heart was thumping hard, and she was angry that she was still scared after three weeks. She wanted to be stronger. She had to be stronger if she was going to run this group. They all looked toward her, except Colin, but he still grudgingly went along with whatever she suggested. Well, most of the time.

Movement on the street caught her attention. A stray German shepherd stuck its head out from behind a parked car.
A smaller dog, maybe a shih tzu, crouched behind it. They’d obviously been waiting for the monster to leave too. The shepherd sniffed the air before cautiously moving out toward the middle of the road, where it stuck its nose into a pile of newspaper. When it raised its head, it was chewing something. Plenty of garbage for the animals these days.

“There are other survivors out there,” she said suddenly. “There have to be. We can’t be the only sane people left in the world. It would be nice to find them. We’d be stronger. We don’t even have any weapons.”

“We’ll find others eventually.”

She took a sip of water. Her throat was always dry these days. “We should be looking for them. Sending out search parties. It wouldn’t be too hard to do.”

“It would be suicidal. You said it yourself, we don’t have weapons.”

“Then we’ll get some.”

She yawned, and tried to cover it up by coughing.

“You’re tired,” Jack pressed.

“I just don’t feel like sleeping right now.”

“Who do you see when you close your eyes?”

Aries shot him a look. “That’s personal.”

“I see Ms. Darcy.”

She nodded. “Me too.”

And a million others.

It wasn’t sleep that she feared. It was the time before sleep when she rested her head down on the pillow. She couldn’t turn off her brain; it became an open invitation for all the events she’d witnessed over the past weeks. There were too many thoughts, and this was the prime time for them to creep their way into her head. Closing her eyes meant seeing and imagining the bodies of both strangers and the people she
loved. Their screams echoed like a scratched record on an endless loop. She wanted sleep. She wished desperately for it to come to her. But she couldn’t clear her head. She didn’t know what tricks to use to make it all go away.

She blinked several times to try to ease the soreness from her eyes. Clutching the blanket, she pulled it back over her shoulders. “Where are the others?”

“Second floor. They’re trying the laptop again, but I think the battery’s about to die. Personally I would have given up on it a long time ago. It’s broke, can’t be fixed. Thing’s useless anyway without the Internet. Colin’s on the roof. He said something about needing fresh air, but I think he’s just tired of the smell. Can’t say I disagree with him. I wish we had drugs. If my head gets any stuffier it’s gonna explode.”

The building in which they were hiding had a foul odor of mold and fried eggs. It had been the brunt of bad jokes over several sleepless nights. What smells worse than ten-day-old maggot breath? This place. What smells worse than Colin’s feet? This place.

They laughed silently in the darkness. You had to laugh if you wanted to live. But you did it quietly. Who knew what lurked in the shadows outside?

Six of them lived. Colin, Joy, Jack, and Aries were the only ones lucky enough to make it out of the school alive. They’d met up with Eve and Nathan a week later. They were a brother-and-sister team that managed to survive inside a 7-Eleven by hiding behind a bunch of boxes in the store room. Together they were six. Alone they were, well, alone. She remembered what Daniel said to her before he disappeared. Groups were a bad thing. People do stupid things when they’re together. She disagreed. Being part of a group gave her strength. She’d never have made it out alive if it hadn’t been for her friends.

Daniel. Was he out there somewhere, hiding in an abandoned grocery store or holed up in some earthquake-ravaged building like hers? She thought about him often, more than she’d ever admit. She wondered if he was still alive or one of the numerous corpses that littered the streets like the aftermath of some bizarre death parade.

When they’d escaped the school and ran blindly into the street, she’d been surprised that the group automatically headed toward the bus stop and the grocery store. Her heart exploded in her chest when she recognized the overturned bus, knowing that her best friend was still trapped inside with Daniel’s jacket thrown over her. It would be her final resting place; no one was coming to give her a proper burial. Thankfully they ran straight past. No one thought of taking cover there.

Luck was on their side and they found shelter in someone’s garage. They huddled in the darkness, listening to the screams, waiting for someone or something to open the door and find them. It was a miracle they made it through without detection.

“They’re going from house to house,” Jack informed her during the first night. It was three a.m. and everyone was dozing except the two of them. Jack was peering out through the window, cautiously.

“Who?” she asked. A waterfall of cold ice ran its way down her spine.

“Six or seven of them,” he said. “They just dragged someone out into the street. She’s in a bathrobe. Oh God, there’s a child, too.”

Aries joined him at the window. She couldn’t help herself.

“Are you sure you want to see this?” he whispered.

She nodded and he pointed farther down the street where she could see the group of people circled around and tearing
apart their victims. A soft cry involuntarily left her lips, and she covered her mouth with both hands.

Jack put his arm around her and pulled her close. She buried her face in his chest for a few moments before anger overcame her. No. She wasn’t going to cower. She’d have to be stronger if she wanted to get out of this alive. Pushing away from him, she forced herself to watch the group finish up their job before moving on to the next house.

“They’ll get here eventually,” she finally said.

“There’s a car cover in the back,” Jack said. “We can hide under it.”

“We need weapons,” she said.

Luckily for them, the murderous mob never checked the garage. By the time they reached that house, dawn was breaking in the sky and the killers must have been exhausted. They broke down the door of the house across the street. Aries clung to Jack when one of the monsters threw a helpless woman through the living room window. After checking to make sure she was dead, the killer casually wandered back inside and closed the door. They must have decided to rest, because the house grew quiet.