Dwellers of the Night: The Complete Collection (133 page)

Dwellers of the Night

620

morning. It is the third day since his encounter with the dark-walker and her children, and he wonders how much longer until he reaches Aspen. He continues down the highway, and the wind picks up, and the cold intensifies, and the wind blows the snow up from the ground and it stings him in the face. He finds it difficult to walk, and soon the cold begins to overcome him.

He thinks of nothing except for keeping one foot ahead of the other. He does not think of the cold, he does not think of the lonely road, he does not think of Aspen, and he does not think of Kira. All he knows is his step-by-step march through the wintry wind.

Left.

Right.

Left.

Right.

He begins to shiver, an uncontrollable shivering that begins in his fingertips and extends through his veins and even into his heart. He lurches through the snow, cresting snow-banks and dodging trees, following the creeks with the water bubbling under sheets of ice. He thinks of nothing, knows only the walk, and then he is forced to stop. He looks up and sees a towering fence, and beyond is an airport with an abandoned runway, several unused hangars with closed doors. He tries with all his might to wrap his hands through the rings in the fence to climb, but his fingers are not responding, and his limbs are heavy. He pitches against the fence and tries to call out, but he feels as if he in a dream, for all that ushers forth is a high-pitched, rasping whisper. Tears begin to crawl down his cheeks, and he looks beyond the airport and in the evening twilight can see twinkling lights, and he can almost hear the distant sounds of music and laughter.
Utopia
.

But he is forced to a halt at the fence, and he cannot scale it, cannot overcome. He has come this far only to fail, and that realization sinks into him like a stone sinking to the bottom of the sea, and he collapses to his knees in the snow, and he presses his head against the fence, and his tears freeze on his cheeks as he loses strength and pitches to his side. The snow wraps around him like a blanket, and it feels so warm, and he feels so sleepy, and he closes his eyes, and he draws a deep breath, and he lets the warmth run through him as the sun continues its monotonous descent beyond the snowcapped mountains. Anthony Barnhart

Dwellers of the Night

621

Chapter Forty-One

No Baptism, No Reprise,

No Sweet Kiss

“My fate is to live among varied and confusing storms. But for you, perhaps, if as I hope and wish you will live long after me, there will follow a better age. When the darkness has been dispersed, our

descendants can come again in the former pure radiance.”

- Petrarch (A.D. 1304-1374)

I

He sits upon the sofa and watches the embers smolder in the fireplace. Their inflation and deflation fascinates him. He looks down, and in his hands he holds the bayonet, that sweet-singing blade that has delivered death countless times. He cradles it in his hands like a newborn infant, excited yet nervous at the same time. As a mother gazes at her newborn child and ponders the future her child will have, so the man looks upon that blade and ponders its own future: how its blade will be stained with his blood. He looks back up at the fire, can feel the warmth spreading through the room, can hear the gentle rapping of rain on the window. He draws a deep breath and looks out the window, can see the streetlights below, can almost hear the laughter as a couple makes their way down the street towards the warmth of their own bed. He looks back to the fire and then back down at the bayonet. Nothing has ever felt so wonderful and beautiful in his hands. He had told Kira, “I wonder what it will be like to hold our first child in my hands…” He will never know, but he imagines the feeling will be somewhat close to the feeling he has now as he clutches the blade in his palm. The blade cuts into his fingers, and he begins to bleed, but he doesn’t care. He closes his eyes and lets the pain run through him, a beautiful pain. He had thought he’d find something different here. He had thought that upon reaching this beautiful town, he would be delivered from the troubles that had plagued him. But nothing can suave the pain in his heart, and hope? It is but a damned illusion.

∑Ω∑

He had been found shortly after collapsing and rushed into town. The freak snow storm had stranded a truck coming in from a nearby town laden with supplies, and the driver and the crew had come across him just moments after he fell. They picked him up and carried him through the gates and to the town, and he had been nursed to health in what had at one time been the local hospital. He had been in and out of consciousness for nearly thirty-six hours, and upon awakening found an old man with a stethoscope and a white gown standing over him.

“Was it all a dream?” he had asked.

“There is no such fortune,” the old man had replied.

The old man went on to explain the man’s circumstances, how he had suffered hypothermia.

“You lost several toes due to frostbite, but you should be able to walk fine.” In several days he was Anthony Barnhart

Dwellers of the Night

622

walking down the hospital corridors, albeit helped by a walker. A man had kept coming to see him. He identified himself as Malone, the town mayor. He promised to take the man through the town once he was well enough to be discharged. The man spent his evenings and nights lying in bed staring at the ceiling, overcome with nauseas guilt: he had made it, but he was utterly alone. Everyone else was left behind, past the rugged mountains, their bones scattered and bleaching in the swelling August heat.

The snow from the freak storm had melted by the time the man got to leave the hospital. Malone met him out on the front steps, and they got into a SEDAN, which Malone drove around town.

“We have electricity, open streets, music and bars, parks, even a theater,” Malone told him as they navigated the roads.

The man barely listened, kept his eyes glued outside the windows. It was strange seeing so many people walking around, some with dogs on leashes, groups of children playing on a swing-set, a man erecting a white picket fence.

“There are three hundred houses here in Aspen,” Malone said, “with 450 people. Many of them are families or friends. You’ll have your own place, since you came here alone. Ah. Here it is.”

He pulled into a driveway and stopped the car.

“Want to check it out?”

It was a one-story ranch house. They went through the front door, which opened to a parlor. There was a living room off to the left, and on the other side of the living room the kitchen and dining area. Down a hallway to the right were several rooms. One was a study, another a bedroom. A bathroom. All furnished.

“We’ve kept the rooms in good condition,” Malone said, “anticipating the arrival of more refugees. The number of refugees is declining, however. Last December it had been a flood, but now it’s become a trickle. You’re the first one we’ve had in seventeen days.”

He showed him to the bedroom and opened the drawers and waved a hand at the clothes. “We have all sizes and shapes in here. We never know who to expect.”

The man walked out onto the back porch. It overlooked a stand of trees back-dropped by the pinestrewn mountains. Malone stood with him, said, “Everyone has a job here, and we have one lined up for you. It’s something special.”

The man asked what it was.

Malone just smiled. “It’s something right up your alley.” He took a deep breath, said, “We’ll let you get settled in. Feel free to explore the town. Three blocks down is a pub, and four blocks down is the Aspen theater. I believe there is a play scheduled for Thursday night.”

The man asked what day it was.

“Tuesday. You should try to make it. Meet some people. Make some friends.”

The man didn’t say anything.

Malone excused himself and left the house.

The man stood on the back porch watching the mountains, heard the car engine start, then fade into the distance.

He stood alone once more.

Anthony Barnhart

Dwellers of the Night

623

The man found his bayonet sitting on the desk in the study. Someone must have delivered it to the house during his stay at the hospital. He slowly dressed in the bedroom, fumbling with the buttons on his shirt. He headed for the door, felt strange, realized what it was. He went back into the study and grabbed the bayonet, set it into his belt. He wondered if he could ever feel at ease walking around without a weapon. He doubted, after all he’d been through, that such a day would ever come.

The man went to the pub down the street. There were only a few people inside. A young couple playing cards in the corner. An old man at the bar. A whistling bartender. He sat down on the far side of the bar and ordered a shot of whiskey. He quickly downed it, rested his head in his hands, and allowed his eyes to pool upon the carvings in the wooden countertop. He heard someone sitting down next to him and looked over. The old man from the other side of the bar.

“You’re the new one,” the old man said, his voice gravely and rasp.

“Yes,” the man replied.

“Okay,” he said. To the bartender: “Give this man another shot. On me.”

The bartender laughed, poured another shot.

“Why is he laughing?” the man asked.

The old man grinned. “No one pays for alcohol here. There’s no money.”

“Then why isn’t
everyone
in here?”

“People have to work. And not everyone drinks.”

“I thought everyone would be drinking by now.”

“People deal with their problems in different ways.”

“And how do you deal with your problems?”

“Apparently the same way you do.”

The man threw back the shot. It burned in his throat.

“You visited the bars much before this happened?” the old man asked.

“No,” the man replied.

“I did. I would always sit at this bar in Oregon. I would sit there, and I would hope.” He eyed the man. “This plague didn’t change much. I still sit at the bar. And I still hope. Hope is ignorant. Hope is naïve. But it keeps a man alive.”

The man remembered Samantha, aches. “Yeah.”

The old man asked, “What do
you
hope for?”

“I don’t hope for anything.”

The old man laughed. “Really? Because those who drink are those who hope.”

“Maybe those who drink are those who have lost hope.”

“So you hope to have hope?”

“No.”

“That’s the essence of hopelessness. Hoping to hope.”

“Maybe hopelessness is just acknowledgement of the way things really are.”

“Perhaps,” the old man said. “But let me ask you this: if things are truly so hopeless, then why continue living? If hope is just an illusion, then why not take your own life? Everyone who comes to Aspen has hope. Hope of security. Hope of safety. Hope of being able to sleep peacefully at night once again. But not you. That’s not what you hope for.”

“Really?” the man sarcastically mused.

“Yes,” the old man replied. “Really.”

“And you know this how?”

Anthony Barnhart

Dwellers of the Night

624

“You asked why the bar is empty? Because drinking is made to lift one’s soul. If a person’s soul is already lifted, what purpose does he have in drinking? The bar is empty because people hoped for security, and they found it. They hoped for safety, and they found it. They hoped to be able to sleep peacefully at night, and they found it. Their anxiety has gone. They have no need for the bottle. But you, Sir, still sit here. You still drink. Which means you didn’t hope for any of those things. Not deep down, at least. But you still hoped. And I am curious: what is it that you hope for? What is it that beautiful little Aspen failed to deliver?”

The man had no reply.

He returned to the bar the next day, following a fitful night of sleep riddled with nightmares regarding Kira. They were wonderful dreams, and he had seen her face brightly, but they became nightmares when he awoke, finding the bed empty except for his own equally-empty heart. The old man did not come to the bar that day. The man sat down at the bar alone and pulled forth a pad of notebook paper and a pen he had found in the desk in his study, and he took a few shots and began writing.

The bartender asked, “What are you working on?”

“I don’t know,” the man replied.

The bartender took the notebook from him, flipped it around, read it. The man angrily pulled it away from him. “Mind your own business, all right?”

“You’re writing a story?”

“No. A memoir.”

“A memoir? Of whom?”

“Of everyone,” he said.

“You’re writing about what happened?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Because I don’t have anything better to do.”

“Okay,” the bartender replied. “You going to the play tomorrow?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think you should.”

“Thanks for the recommendation.”

“It’ll help you meet some people. Make some friends.”

“I don’t need to meet anyone. I don’t need friends.”

“Then why are you so miserable?”

“Maybe because I understand that if you make friends, you have to lose them, too.”

He decided to go to the play the next evening. It was packed, entirely filled with townsfolk. It seemed the entire town had descended upon the theater to watch the next scene in what had been an unfolding story. This scene depicted people dancing and singing in a house, the cut-out walls constructed of cardboard. Outside the walls, actors dressed in black clothing crawled around on their hands and knees, crept up to the house, tried to get inside. But the people kept dancing, ignorant of it all.

This is what this community is
, the man thought to himself.
A place of ignorance. Outside the gates the
dark-walkers remain, and they are multiplying, growing stronger, smarter, wittier. We live in ignorance,
believing we are truly safe. This is no different than the church with 89 steps. Complacency begets disaster
. Anthony Barnhart

Dwellers of the Night

625