Dwellers of the Night: The Complete Collection (107 page)

“It’ll have to wait.” The girl winks at Sarah: “She had a
long
night.”

“I’m not her fucking partner,” Sarah says. She shoves the girl out of the way and enters the room. The room is smaller than their apartment, with nothing but a Queen-sized bed, two chairs, a desk, a dresser, and an adjoining bathroom. There is a figure lying in the sheets. Rebecca shouts at Sarah, tells her she’s trespassing, but Sarah ignores her. She goes to the bed, leans over, pulls the sheets back, revealing Katie’s bare chest. She grabs her by the arm and shakes, and drool crawls down the corner of Katie’s cheek as she pulls her arm away from Sarah’s grasp. She blinks in the awful sunlight, and she rolls over, moaning.

Rebecca is right behind Sarah, yelling at her; the man has moved forward, into the room, and he grabs the girl by the arm, rips her away, shoves her into one of the chairs along the far wall. He glares at her, and she stares back at him, hatred boiling in her eyes. She doesn’t move. Sarah is on the other side of the bed now, and she leans down, whispers: “Katie.”

Katie moans, digging her face into the pillow.

“Katie,” Sarah whispers.

The man curses, moves around the bed. “Step aside,” he says. He grabs Katie by the arm, violently shakes her. Katie awakes with a start, yanked from her dreams, and she bolts upright in bed, the blanket falling to her waist, revealing her bare breasts. The man looks away, face flushing red. She grabs the blanket and pulls it up to her neck. She looks back and forth at Sarah and the man, confused, and then her face scowls, and she snaps: “What the fuck are you doing here?!”

“We’re leaving,” the man says, looking at her again. “Come on. Get dressed.”

“Leaving?” Katie asks. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Yes,” the man says. “You’re coming with us. We’re leaving.”

Rebecca, in the chair, grins: “No one leaves.”

The man points at her: “You shut up.” Back to Katie: “Get dressed.”

She pulls the sheets tighter around her. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Katie…”

“Do I have to write it out for you?”

The man’s breathing is more rapid, more intense.

Sarah touches his arm: “Please. Just go outside.”

“We don’t have time for—’’

“Go outside,” she says. “I’ll join you in a minute.”

The man looks back and forth, between Sarah and Katie, and with a grunt and a bitten lip, he moves towards the door.

Sarah says, “Take Rebecca with you.”

The man moves towards the chair.

Rebecca tenses up: “Hold the horses, this is my fucking room!”

The man grabs her by the arm, and he drags her into the hallway.

Mark shuts the door, leaving Sarah and Katie alone.

Sarah sits on the bed, and Katie pulls the covers tighter around her. “Let me go back to sleep,” she says.

Sarah shakes her head. “Katie. We’re really leaving.”

“All right,” she says, burying her head into the pillow. “Good luck.”

“That’s it? Good luck?”

Anthony Barnhart

Dwellers of the Night

499

She lifts her head from the pillow, looks at her. “We’re finally safe, finally secure. We don’t have to worry about the dark-walkers anymore. We can go out at
night
. And there’s people here, too. Really nice people.”

Sarah thinks of Keith. “Not all of them are nice.”

“No place is entirely full of nice people,” Katie says.

“Katie… This place… This is just…”

“Why do you want to leave?” she asks.

“I don’t feel… good… here.”

“Well, I
do
feel good.”

“You’re just trying to escape your loneliness.”

“It’s working.”

“Katie…”

“I’m happy here. I’m
finally happy
. I don’t have to be scared all the time. I don’t have to always run and hide. And I don’t have to worry about a friend shooting me in the fucking head.”

She takes a deep breath. “He was doing it to protect you.”

“Can you tell me how that makes one
bit
of fucking sense?”

“He didn’t want you to suffer.”

“The last thing he said to me was that I was a bitch.”

“He was just frustrated. He was scared.”

“He was going to kill me, and you’re defending him.”

“He was going to kill all of us,” Sarah says.

“Oh. Well. In that case, let’s all hold hands and run into the sunset.”

“He was thinking of our own interests. You’ve seen what they do.” After a moment, she prods Katie’s memory: “Remember the church?”

She is quiet.

“Katie. Please. We’re a team. We move together as a team.”

“A team?” Katie asks. She laughs to herself. “All this has been so far is ‘follow-the-leader.’ How many of us have gotten to make our own decisions? How many of us have really had a say in what we do? It’s always
him
leading the way, always
him
making the decisions. Well guess what, Sarah?

I’m happy here. I can enjoy myself. I don’t have to spend every night terrified out of my fucking mind. I’m going to make my own decisions. And don’t you dare tell me what to do, because you’re not my fucking mom. We’re practically the same age.”

The man stands in front of the door to the room. Mark is beside him, and Rebecca is against the far wall. Mark points to the rashes crawling up and down Rebecca’s side. “What’s that?” he asks.

“Gangrene?”

Her eyes are iced with malice. “None of your fucking business.”

“It looks venereal.”

“I’ll look into it.”

“Do they not provide condoms in the room?”

She rolls her eyes.

“Oh, wait,” Mark says. “That’s right. You wouldn’t have anywhere to put them.”

“You’re an ass,” she snarls.

He muses to himself, “I guess she could put them on the end of the dildo…”

She rolls her eyes again, trying to ignore him.

“They might have cream or something…”

Anthony Barnhart

Dwellers of the Night

500

“You’re an ass,” she says again. “You’re why I don’t like men.”

“So it’s a choice now? You guys need to make up your damned minds.”

She doesn’t respond, moves towards the door.

The man stands firm, not letting her pass.

“So what are you, like, her bouncer or something?” she asks.

“I’ll bounce your ass down the stairs if you don’t back up.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Keep it up.”

Mark snickers under his breath.

She rolls her head on her shoulders, stares at him. “What in the hell is so funny?”

“That’s what she said.”

“What’d she say? Who’s she? Me?”

“No. ‘Keep it up.’ That’s what she said.”

The man understands, laughs, too.

Rebecca returns to the wall, crosses her arms. “You’re a pair of jackasses.”

The man says, “I’ve heard those lyrics a lot, but always to a different tune.”

The door opens inwards. The man steps away.

Sarah emerges. “She’s not coming.”

The man curses under his breath. “So what do we do now?”

“We can’t force her to come. If she wants to stay…”

“That’ll be another that we lost.”

“Maybe it’s better for her here.”

“You don’t believe that.”

“No,” Sarah says. “I don’t.”

Rebecca approaches, squeezes past them, into the room. “It was nice meeting you,” she says with a wanton grin, and then she slams the door shut.

“What a bitch,” Mark says under his breath.

“She’s all right,” Sarah says. “I’ve met worse.”

“What was that on her side? Did you see that? Katie must have been fucking blind or drunk to sleep with her.”

“It’s just a rash. It’s not an S.T.D. Probably an allergen to the sheets.”

“God, I hope so,” he says. “For Katie’s sake, I mean.”

“You really don’t like her?”

“No,” Mark says. “I don’t. She didn’t even remember Katie’s name.”

“This is the life that Katie wants?” the man asks.

“It’s the life she
thinks
she wants. But that’s the most beautiful and wretched thing about free will. We can decide what we want, even when it’s the exact
opposite
of what we want. And even though I think Katie is being an
absolute idiot
, she’s just as capable as any of us, and we need to respect her decision.”

The man shakes his head. “And just leave her here?”

Sarah takes a breath. “Yes. We can’t force her to come. And we all know that.”

Mark proposes, “Maybe we should talk to her again.”

“We’d have to fight Rebecca off with a stick.”

“I’m not fighting her,” he says.

“Afraid of the girl?” she asks.

Anthony Barnhart

Dwellers of the Night

501

“I’m afraid of that god-awful rash.”

The man moves down the hallway. “Forget Katie,” he says:

“Let’s hope she wises up before it’s too late.”

VI

They take the elevator to floor 184. Down the hall, in front of the door to Keith’s suite, are the two bodyguards. Another bodyguard stands at the far stairwell. The man leads the way, and the four of them reach Keith’s door. The bodyguards remember Sarah and snicker. The man tells them that they want to see The Boss. The bodyguards shake their heads—“Not without an appointment.” Sarah steps forward, tells them that Keith invited her and her friends up. The bodyguards exchange glances; one opens the door to ask The Boss if the story is true, and when the door is opened, Sarah sprints inside. The other bodyguard curses and follows, and Mark and the man slip into the main living area behind him. Keith comes out from his bedroom, wrapped in a robe. He has just woken up. There are bandages on his face, and he scowls at Sarah. The man can only imagine what Sarah did to him.

“What do you want?” Keith demands, not taking his eyes from her.

“We want to leave,” Sarah says. “Today.”

“No one leaves,” he says.

Sarah is resolute: “We’re not asking.”

Keith nods, then bursts into laughter.

Mark asks, “Why can’t we go? We are meeting some friends in Aspen.”

“Your friends are probably already dead,” The Boss says. “Hardly anyone makes it there alive. The mountain passes are buried in snow. There’s no food. It’s twenty miles of barren wilderness, and people nearly always get lost. They die from the cold, and they become frozen mummies that will never be found.”

“How the hell do you know?” Mark asks.

“I just know,” Keith says. “It’s my job.”

Mark and the man exchange glances.

Keith walks over to the kitchen, pours himself a glass of Italian SPUMANTE. “New Harmony takes some use getting used to. I’ll give you that. But you can’t make a decision in less than twentyfour hours. Besides, we have our rules.” He takes a sip of the wine, looks at Mark. “You want to know why no one’s allowed to leave? First of all, we don’t want bandits to know our weaknesses. We don’t want them to know about our guard-towers and our weaponry. And second of all, it’s safe here. A good parent doesn’t let the child gorge himself on candy. A good parent doesn’t let the child run around with knives or scissors or saw blades. Because it’s not
safe
. I am the father here. You are my children. I care about your safety. Within these walls, you are safe. All of your needs are provided-for. We have hot water. We have electricity. We have walls and guns and guard towers. No infected has
ever
gotten inside here since the walls were constructed. We’ve suffered
no
casualties to the infected. Out of my concern for you,” and he looks at Sarah when he says this, “I cannot let you leave.”

The man is adamant: “We’ve only been here twenty-four hours. We don’t know enough about this place to give any information to raiders.”

“It’s a dangerous world out there.”

Anthony Barnhart

Dwellers of the Night

502

“But it’s a dangerous world we’re willing to brave.”

“Oh, how
heroic
,” Keith sings.

He looks over at Sarah. “How badly do you want to leave?”

The man doesn’t answer.

“Give me Sarah for one night,” Keith says, “and I’ll give you a fueled bus with ammunition.”

“Fuck that,” the man growls, moving forward.

One of the guard grabs him by the arm, pulls him back.

Keith laughs. “Too bad.”

He nods to the guards.

The guard holding the man throws him to the floor; the man tries to stand, but the guard is upon him. There is a syringe in his hand, and he thrusts the needle into the man’s neck. The man lets out a piercing cry, but his world slowly darkens, and he collapses into a stagnant heap. Mark leaps forward; the other guard grabs him, injects him as well. Mark falls onto the coffee table, which shatters on impact. Sarah turns and darts for the door, and she runs out into the corridor; the third guard is waiting, and she runs straight into him. He wraps one arm around her, squeezing her tightly. She can feel his warm breath on her neck as the needle enters her abdomen. She lets out a stifled cry, a tear tracing down her cheek, but then she knows nothing more, except the world growing hazy and dark, and the strength leaving her muscles. She doesn’t even feel the impact as she hits the ground, and the last thing she sees is Keith kneeling down beside her, smiling with his toothy and evil grin, his bandaged face.

Sarah lies sleeping on the bed. Keith kneels down beside her, strokes her cheek. He looks towards the door, stands, opens it. The living area is empty, the two collapsed figures taken away. A piece of glass still clinging to the frame of the coffee table succumbs to gravity and crinkles on the carpet. Keith steps back and shuts the door, throws the lock. He moves back to the bed and kneels down on the floor, looking straight into Sarah’s sleeping face. “We will love one another,” he says, keeping his voice low. “You will be a faithful and obedient wife. My Sarah, how precious you are to me…” He stands and slowly moves to the closet. He opens the door, ruffles through his clothes, pulls out a white wedding gown covered with a plastic drapery. He looks back at Sarah. “We have waited till our wedding night for this. How self-controlled we are, Sarah. This will be the night you fall for me—

for I have already fallen for you.”