Dwellers of the Night: The Complete Collection (14 page)

at a geriatric clinic in Maine. He feels awful, for he should care, he should wonder if she is alive, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t think about her. He knows her fate. He can see her stumbling around the clinic, foaming at the mouth, ripping open the bedridden patients, holding their innards in her hands, feasting. A shiver runs up his spine. Ever since the accident—
the accident
. Memories swarm: fire, screams, his own high-pitched wailing: “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!”

He comes to on his knees. He is buckled over, hands on the warm pavement. A raven perches on the sidewalk several yards away, eyeing him. He stares at it, feeling his head pounding.
I need more
alcohol
. The raven hops closer. He swings out his arm—”I’m not fucking dead!” he shouts, his cry echoing through the corridors of the dead city—and the raven takes flight, disappearing into the air, Anthony Barnhart

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growing into a mere speck over the Ohio River. He lays down on the dry grass, staring at the sky. The clouds tumble over one another. Thunder rumbles. He turns his head, looks into the hills of northern Kentucky, and sees rivulets of lightning coursing down, sparkling and dancing among the distant hills. A raindrop crawls down his face. He grunts. It is time to leave, and he begins getting to his feet.

That is when he hears it. He is nearly to his feet when the sound reaches him. At first he cannot pinpoint its source: a gentle thumping, the cutting of the air. He then recognizes it, his brain cells clicking, but he refuses to believe it.
No. It can’t be. No.
He stands staring across the river, into the hills. And then he sees it. Flashes of red light coming towards him, flying low. “Fuck me,” he growls, voice surprisingly sharp and crisp. The helicopter—a slender-bodied chopper, painted blue-and-white, reminding him of those hospital helicopters—flies over the Newport Aquarium, and it soars over the river, one thousand feet above his head. He slowly turns, following it with his eyes, heart pounding. Energy suddenly courses through him, and he finds himself running up the grassy slopes of Riverfront, and he rushes around the wrecked S.U.V.—the driver’s window is shattered, and a smear of dried blood leads into the dark confines of the Great American Ballpark loading docks—and he sprints up the concrete steps. His body screams at him, muscles roaring. He doesn’t care. Adrenaline surges through his blood. His head is pounding so hard it feels as if his brains are going to squirt from his eyes. He reaches the top of the promenade and runs up a new flight of steps. There is an iron gate blocking his way into the stadium. He hurls himself against it. It rattles and creaks. He wraps his fingers around the grilled iron chains and shakes them madly, screaming. It won’t budge. He kicks it several times and stumbles back, heart lodged in his throat. He falls to his knees, still shaking the gate, but now tears stream down his cheeks, and he rolls onto his side, choking on his own sobs, body quivering. The thumping of the helicopter’s propellers disappear, and he is alone once more, privy only to the sound of his fresh tears and the beating of his stillborn heart.

He stands under an overhang on the promenade as the stiff rains fall. Thunder booms and echoes, and lightning crisscrosses in the sky. He shivers in the cold: the wind blows ferociously, sending spears of rain into his face. He turns his back to the rain and stares at several posters on the wall: 2012

REDS TICKETS NOW AVAILABLE and MEET THE REDS! LISTEN TO 700WLW FOR YOUR CHANCE TO WIN!

None of this registers with him. He can only think of the helicopter.
I’m not alone. There are others.
Other survivors
. This repeats itself over and over in his mind like a broken record.
I’m not alone. There
are others. Other survivors. I am not alone. There are others. Other survivors. I am not alone
… The rain is still coming down hard, the storm throwing its entire weight upon the City of Death. He looks down at his digital watch. Dusk is at hand. The sun will be setting—and they will be coming out early, for the darkness from the storm is already enveloping the city. He has to go. He braves the wind and rain and runs down the promenade to the purple Escort parked below.

III

He can hear them outside.

He sits upon the edge of the twin-sized bed, a CAMEL LIGHT smoldering between his fingers. The smoke rises in concentric circles as he taps the filter up and down with his finger. He brings the cigarette to his lips, takes a deep and refreshing drawl, holds the smoke in his lungs, then exhales.
Paradisio
. The tiny oil lantern burns low, casting ribbons of rippling light through the room. There are crates filled with alcohol, a shotgun propped against the wall, and his bed with its covers stashed in Anthony Barnhart

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the corner. The single window is boarded up with a large, black, thermal blanket hung over it to keep the light from reaching outside. The wind is roaring and rushing, and the house creaks and groans. He shivers and pulls the blankets tighter, casting the cigarette into the cheap plastic ashtray. It is a cold night. He leans back against the wall and closes his eyes.

He can hear them outside.

“I dub thee THE DARK-WALKERS!” He sees himself standing before an auditorium filled with students. Notebooks are splayed in the desks before them, pens and pencils held at the ready. He paces back and forth behind the podium, and a projector screen behind him flashes several different images. He speaks loudly, his voice amplified. “They were once innocent people, just like you and me. Mothers. Fathers. Brothers. Sisters. Sons. Daughters. Friends. But all of this changed on the eve of August 11, 2011. It has been called The Apocalypse, the Cleansing of the Earth, the Great Judgment, the Second Black Plague, the New Era. Where it came from, no one knows. What it is, no one knows. We only know that there were hardly any survivors—except for myself and a few others, who dwelled in the daylight and hid when the sun fell to avoid falling to their teeth. Whatever the reason, these people became monsters. They began thirsting for fresh flesh. They began attacking anything that did not belong to their possessed kind. They hide in the daylight, avoiding the sun, for the sun will illuminate their true natures: their hideousness, their vileness, their ugliness. They act on impulse, killing and fighting and slaying. But only at night! Stay in the sun, and you will be fine; but at night, you must flee! You must flee and hide and pray that they do not find you. For weeks I was holed up in my own home, listening to them gathering outside my house, trying to find me. They knew I was there. They sensed it. They sensed my presence, my innocence, my hatred for them. How? I do not know. But they were there, every night, moving around my house, trying to come in through the windows, salivating, growling, howling—animals! Some have said that after the Plague—if it were such a thing!—the world became home to zombies. This is ridiculous nonsense. Zombies are characters of fiction; these were merely humans, transformed into animals, given over to their most basic primal impulses: their rage, their selfishness, their greed, their hunger, their desire to survive. Some pity them. Do I pity them? No. I do not pity them. I never did. Night after night I dwelled alone in my home, listening to them, knowing they wanted to sink their teeth into the soft of my neck. Did I pity them? I cradled and stroked the shotgun, and part of me wished for one to get into the house, so I could unleash my wrath. This plague took my fiancé from me, and I would not go down without a fight.”

I am not alone. There are others. Other survivors
. And with these thoughts resonating in his mind, he has been filled with a new fervor, a new desire to live. The helicopter fills his thoughts, and he believes it may belong to a band of survivors who are searching for others like himself. Knowing this, he cannot give up. He must endure. The house stinks of his own guilt over taking Kira’s life, but he pushes it out of mind.

He goes to the Wal-Mart and breaks inside, grabs white paint, and paints a giant S.O.S. on the street outside his house. He then burns down the opposite houses next to his house with controlled fires, and he cuts down the oak tree in the back yard to protect from any clever dark-walkers who might scale the tree and find their way onto the roof. He erects a fence around his property to protect Kira’s grave, which he adorns with a headstone and some fake purple flowers. The flowers he took from the airport now sit beside his bed, in a vase, and he is constantly staring at them.
Purple was
always her favorite color
. He boards up the windows with plywood, turns the upstairs storage room into his bedroom, and barricades the room where Kira died, thrusting a coffee table with several Anthony Barnhart

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books against the closed door. He installs sliding metal bars over all the doors—the door to the back, the door to the garage, and the door to the front patio—and smashes the stairwell, replacing it with an aluminum ladder from the garage (he raises the ladder every night; in case they get inside, they will be unable to get to him on the upper level).

He stocks up on supplies: flashlights, extra batteries, two first-aid kits, non-perishable foods, a non-electric can opener, several crates of bottled water, extra clothes, personal hygiene supplies, toilet paper—he has dug a latrine in the backyard—as well as several sleeping bags, blankets, pillows, and battery-operated heaters—it is the last week of August, and winter will be here soon. At night he uses multi-fuel Petromax lanterns and Aladdin Mantle Lamps that burn kerosene and lamp oil, and he covers the windows at night with heavy thermal blankets that keep the light from bleeding outside and attracting more dark-walkers. He also raids the gun shop and steals several weapons. He feels as if he is living in the Stone Age:

No

electricity.

No

running

water.

He cooks cans of food over a battery-operated Bunsen burner.

He has a glass of wine every night before bed.

He has stopped drinking heavily.

He must be sober to keep his wits about him.

Because one day they will get inside.

And if he is drunk, he will fall to their gnashing teeth,

and his wails will resonate throughout the dark hills of Cincinnati.

Prior to the Outbreak, he never shot a gun in his entire life. Now he spends three days a week outside, on State Avenue, setting up trash cans, alcohol bottles, and miscellaneous targets down the street, past the smoking ruins of Ben’s house. He goes through all the weapons he stole from the Arms & Accessories shop on Harrison Avenue. He takes three handguns—a SMITH & WESSON

Military & Police issue, a TAURUS PT1911, and a BERETTA 92FS 2008 model. He also takes two rifles—

the British Lee-Enfield and the Russian Mosin-Nagant, both World War II-era weapons yet very reliable—as well as a double-barreled shotgun. He also takes a long, serrated-edged BR7180

Browning Guthook lockback knife, which he keeps fastened to his belt, hoping and praying he’ll never have to use it—yet he practices throwing it into the wall in case he must ever defend himself when a gun is not available.

And so the man lives: holed up in the house which has become a prison. Working his hardest to not go crazy despite not having anyone but his own face in the mirror to converse with. He eats. He drinks. He sleeps. He smokes. He remembers. Oh, how he remembers! All those sweet and wonderful memories with Kira play themselves over-and-over in his mind. And the cigarette smolders between his fingers, the smoke rising like incense to unseen gods. And he hears them outside his house, moaning and groaning, searching and thirsting.
You are not as alone as you think.
You always have THEM to keep you company
. He grimaces at that thought.

IV

Night has come.

The wan glow from the Petromax lantern dances over his features.

Anthony Barnhart

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He holds the journal in his hand, staring at the fading blue-ink lettering.
How long has it been?
The day he met Kira. It is stenciled forever in his journal:

FEBRUARY 7, 2007

The snow came down in torrents yesterday afternoon. I borrowed Nate’s truck to grab some food; when I entered the restaurant, a few snowflakes began to fall, and when I left, the roads had turned into a maelstrom. A ten-minute drive took me forty minutes, and I fish-tailed every which way. Nate met me at the bottom of Grand Avenue to somehow navigate the truck up the slippery road, around a snow-coated corner, and finally into the overflowing parking lot (we almost saw a car spin out of control and smash into a police cruiser). Stranded on campus, I rounded up some people to play “snow soccer.” Caleb, Trista, Emily and I met on the quad and kicked a snowball back and forth for close to two hours. Nate joined us near the end. Trista lost her cell phone. We searched for thirty minutes, and when I finally put my hands on my waist and said, “We’re not going to find it, Trista. I’m sorry,” she looked down in sadness and saw it glinting in the sun. With Trista’s phone discovered, we went sledding down the hill behind the girls’ dorm, using laundry baskets and large Rubbermaid lids as sleds. Kira, Kirby, Shelby, and Candace joined us. It was a great time. The cold burned at first, but eventually it felt strangely warm. Curling up under my blankets afterwards felt like a taste of paradise.

That was the day he met Kira. He and Kira didn’t talk much, but one of his friends started dating her roommate, and so they got to know one another. Over Spring Break, when he went to Washington, D.C. for a conference, he and Kira sent text messages to one another all the time. When he returned to campus, they started hanging out. At first they didn’t hang out very much, but then they got to know one another and realized how special the other person was. Every night they would go to Newport on the Levee in Kentucky and stare at the lively city. They would smoke and drink coffee, they would laugh and tell stories, contemplate life, and express their dreams. One evening on the Purple People Bridge, a walking bridge jutting out from Newport over to Riverfront across the river, he and Kira cuddled. They went to Eden Park to watch the stars, and there they kissed for the first time. These memories hurt him. He reads the journal entry the night of their first kiss: