Dwellers of the Night: The Complete Collection (21 page)

Dusk is dawning. The sun begins to slide down to the west of the city, the western hills casting the western valley of Cincinnati in darkness. The railroad trains disappear in the gloom. The boy stands at the overlook at Mount Echo, looking down at the city. His heart labors slow, but yet he is filled with an eternal peace. A raven cries out above him. He imagines it is nearing October. At least the final week of September. He has lost track of the days. He wraps his fingers against the cold metal of the railing. The wind is stronger here, coming off the river below, rising up to the bluffs of the hill, where he stands. He doesn’t react as he feels the presence behind him. He simply says, “I didn’t expect to find you here.”

Anthony Barnhart

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“This isn’t the safest place to be,” the man says.

The boy replies, without looking back, “I have nowhere else to go.”

The man moves forward, joins the boy, stands beside him, looks out at the darkening city. The boy says, “This is where we sat the day before the plague happened. She told me, for the first time, that she was falling for me. She clung to me tightly and made me promise to never leave her.” He takes a deep breath. “I can’t break that promise.”

The man says, “It’s going to be dusk soon. We need to go.”

The boy seems distant, detached. “I have to go find her. She went home for the weekend. That’s where she’ll be. At home.”

“You know that’s not a good idea,” the man says.

“I have to know for sure,” the boy says.

“What if she’s one of them?” the man asks.

“Are you afraid I’ll kill her like you did?”

The man’s heart flares with anger. He pushes it down. “You weren’t there.”

The boy pays him no attention. “I have to find her.”

The man sighs. “I know.” He’s been there. He remembers his passion for finding Kira, how he was convinced she was alive. He knows that Mark suffers the same delusion. The man has no idea whom Mark is talking about, but he knows that the boy is suffering a great fantasy, that the mystery girl somehow survived the plague. That she was spared. “I know,” he repeats. The boy looks at him. “You think I’m crazy.”

“No,” the man says. “I’ll go with you. Tomorrow. Not tonight. They’ll be out soon.”

The boy draws a deep breath. “Okay.”

“Are you ready?”

“Yeah.”

They walk away from the overlook, down the paved roads towards the parked car. The boy says, “This is the second time you’ve saved me, you know?”

“You need to stop putting yourself in these damned predicaments.”

Anthony Barnhart

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Chapter Six

The Realm of the Night

“Think not disdainfully of death, but look on it with favor;

for even death is one of the things that Nature wills.”

- Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (AD 121-180)

I

Sparse car accidents dotted Interstate 75 as they headed north. Once they merged onto Interstate 74—

slowly meandering between a pile-up on the curving ramp—not many cars were seen. Now they are driving west, pearl cirrus clouds hanging high above them. The day is bright and warm, though storm clouds gather to the west, moving northeast and dropping heavy rains over the quiet Great Plains. The boy rides quietly in the passenger’s seat; the man has his window cracked despite the cold of the first day of October. He flicks ashes out the crack in the window and takes another drag. The left side of the expressway is coated with hills that display a magnificent panorama of oranges and reds and yellows. A flock of birds takes flight, having been perched upon a wrecked Sedan, as the Escort with the crumpled fender roars past.

“How much longer do we stay on this road?” the man asks.

“Not long,” Mark replies.

Off to the right, down a slight hill, are nestled several cottage-style houses in a row. Mark says, “We started dating my sophomore year at the college. We had known each other for a while. We had to do a stupid project together for one of our classes. We spent a lot of time together working on the project, and it was then that we kinda fell for one another. None of us saw it coming. But that didn’t stop it from coming. I remember us sitting in her basement, watching reruns of Seinfeld, completely oblivious to the loads of paperwork we had to finish by the end of the week. I pretended to stretch; she leaned in closer, leaning against me; and I brought my arm down around her, so my hand was on her opposite shoulder. We sat there watching it for a while. She put her hand on my leg, stroked my jeans with a single finger. And then we started to kiss. Passionate kissing. Kissing like I’d never experienced before. She is such an amazing girl. I’m sure you’ll like her. She listens to underground music. Wears punk t-shirts. And these big-rimmed sunglasses that make her look like some kind of bug. Like a centipede or something. It’s cute. Ashlie really liked her. And she liked Ashlie. It was perfect. She wanted to talk about marriage, but I didn’t let her. Marriage scares me, you know? It terrifies me. It’s like your whole life is open to you, and then—BAM!—the rest of your life is already planned out. But she wants to get married. She dreams of being a mother and a wife. I want to give that to her, you know? Being apart from her has made me realize how much I really do love her. I would never admit, before all this happened, that I loved her. Maybe I was scared. I don’t know. But I’m sure of it now. I love her. She’ll be so happy to see me.”

The man doesn’t say much. “What’s her name?”

“Cara,” the boy says, grinning wildly. “You’ll like her. I promise.”

“Okay,” the man says.

Mark points off to the right. The Exit sign reads NORTH BEND ROAD/CHEVIOT. “Get off here.”

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They pass several empty gas stations. Some of the windows are shattered. A car rests next to a gas pump, the pump still inserted in the gas tank. More buildings pass by on either side. A Daycare. A WAL-GREENS pharmacy center. A stone-built Presbyterian church. A park with overgrown grass yellowing in the noonday sun. Several dogs scatter across the street before the car; the man hits the brakes; the car fishtails; they come to a rest, and the dogs are darting into the shadows behind a MCDONALD’S. The man reverses the car from its backwards position and continues driving down the road. The boy points him down an adjacent street. This road swerves around steep corners surrounded by trees, up and down deep hills, and finally it opens up to a stretch lined with homes. The boy’s face is a whitish pallor, but his eyes are livid with energy. He points to a driveway nearly hidden. The man pulls the car off the road, and the gravel drive crunches under the tires. At the bottom of the rise is a two-story house with a walk-around porch and a single garage. There is a yellow sports-car and a minivan parked in front of the garage, and a truck with its passenger’s door open. A cobblestone path leads to the porch steps. The man stops the car, tells the boy to stay inside. He gets out, opens the side back door, and withdraws one of his pistols. He turns the safety off and, keeping his eyes on the porch, walks over to the truck. He peers inside. There are bloodstains on the dash, and the driver’s window is smeared with a spray of dried blood. The windshield is cracked but not shattered. He turns and waves the boy to get out of the car.

“Hurry up,” he says.

“I will,” Mark replies. “She probably already knows we’re here.”

Mark tries the front door. “It’s locked,” he says.

“Stand back,” the man says, raising the pistol.

A single gunshot. It rings in the dead silence.

The doorknob creaks open.

Mark quickly steps into the gloom.

“Damn it,” the man says, eyeing gathering storm clouds. “Be careful, all right?”

Mark goes upstairs. The man stands in the hardwood parlor. The stairwell runs adjacent to the left wall. There is a carpeted dining room through a doorway to the left. Fresh china sits on the table, and in the middle of the table, several tall wax candles rest in holders, the wicks unlit. Sunlight comes in through the window with the drawn drapes. A thin layer of dust covers the table. The living room off to the right is crammed with boxes and assorted toys. The clock on the wall above a dust-laden leather sofa continues to tick. The man moves forward and finds himself in the kitchen. Cupboards line two walls. A single table off to the right. In the chair sits a book-bag. He goes into the next room. A sofa and two chairs. A single blank television. A stone fireplace with skating trophies on the wooden mantle. Framed pictures atop the entertainment center. A door leading to a wooden back porch. The man returns to the kitchen and rifles through the book-bag. Some school-books. A digital camera. He toys with the camera, turns on the power. He hits the review button and clicks through the pictures. Some pictures of cats. An older woman with fluffy jet-black hair and lovely eyes. And pictures of a teenage girl with Mark. They are smiling, wearing shorts and t-shirts. They are on some sort of train with decorations all over the walls. More teenagers in the picture. The man then realizes he has never even asked Mark’s age…

He hears his name called out above. “Get up here!” Mark then shouts.

The man quickly ascends the stairwell. There are three closed doors and one that is open. He steps inside. He finds Mark standing beside a bunk-bed. The top bunk is littered with all kinds of stuffed Anthony Barnhart

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animals. Along the walls are overstuffed stuffed animals, the kinds won at fairs, carnivals, and amusement parks—the man thinks of Paramount’s King’s Island, the roller coasters stopped, the seats laden with rotting dark-walkers who were unable to escape the prison bars holding them down. The room is a mess, the floor obscured by notebooks, CD cases, clothes. Mark looks at the man and points to the window. It is broken open, and there is no glass on the carpet. It had been broken out from the inside. Whatever had been trapped in the room had sought to escape. The boy’s face is now white as freshly-fallen snow, devoid of color. His strength gives out, and he falls against the bunkbed, slides to the ground. Tears stream down his face. The man thinks he should say something. “I’m sorry…”

“Leave me alone,” Mark sobs.

The man fidgets. “Look… I know this is hard, but we can’t just stay—”

Mark glares at him with wild and bloodshot eyes. “Leave me the fuck alone!”

The man says nothing more, just steps outside of the room and shuts the door.

The man stands out on the front porch, a cigarette between his fingers. The smoke feels blissfully good in his lungs as he takes another hit. He looks out across the wide front lawn, at the Escort parked in the gravel drive, up to the road where no cars pass. Woods cling against the house on either side. The wind picks up, and dying leaves scatter at his feet. He looks down at the autumn leaves whispering on the roughly-hewn wooden boards and a mental image flashes before him: Mark and Cara, sitting together on this porch, carving pumpkins, wrapped warm in jackets and scarves, smiling as they put the candles within and let their light shine. A pain twangs in his heart. He can hear Mark upstairs. The sobbing has grown quieter, but he can still hear him. He is beginning to dry heave. A raindrop kisses the man’s cheek, carried in by a stiff wind. He tosses the cigarette to the porch floor and crunches it underfoot. He steps out under the aluminum overhang and can see the storm clouds swirling. He looks at his watch. 5:47 P.M. “Fuck,” he growls, and he goes back into the house.

The man has hoisted heavy blankets over all the windows. He pulls the blanket to the side and peers outside, through the dusty glass. He swipes some of the dust away with a fingertip. He can see up to the road. The moonlight filters down. The howls come as the night-walkers arise. His heart sprints in his chest. He no longer feels safe, and he wishes he were back at the security of his own home.
Coming here was a damn stupid fucking idea.
Several figures can be seen on the road, moving about, in no hurry. One of them looks in his direction, and moonlight coursing through storm-clouds illuminates its twin eyes. They look like pinpricks of flame in an ephemeral darkness. He ducks away from the window and presses himself against the wall. The blanket flaps back over the window. A mounted picture-frame shakes under his heavy breaths, and it falls and clatters on the floor. The glass webs out. He curses himself.

He can hear Mark coming down the steps. “What was that?” he asks, voice raspy.

“Nothing,” the man says. “Nothing. Come on down here.”

“Is it safe?”

“I think so.”

“You
think
so?”

“Yes, it’s safe. Come on. I found a FIRESTARTER log.”

He uses his cigarette lighter to ignite the self-burning log in the fireplace. He opens the chute as the smoke begins to rise. Plumes of ash filter down and nearly extinguish the flames. The house is cold, Anthony Barnhart

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and they sit beside the stone hearth in silence. The man lights a cigarette, offers one to the boy. Mark shakes his head
No
. The man shrugs and sets it aside for later. The boy stares into the fire. “Cara is walking around out there somewhere.”

The man eyes the boy. “You can’t think like that.”

Mark curses under his breath. “I just keep seeing her...”

“Cara is dead,” the man says firmly, snuffing out his cigarette on the brick hearth. “The Cara you loved, she’s dead. What remains is a hollow shell of what she once was, a nightmare living inside her body. But the girl you loved, she’s dead. Find comfort in this.”

The boy glares at the man. “How can I find comfort in her death?”

He answers morosely: “Because it’s far better than the alternative.”

II

The man wakes coughing. He pulls the blankets tighter around him, but they offer meager warmth. He sees his breath crystallizing before his eyes in the pallid darkness. His neck aches as he turns and gazes into the fireplace, where chunks of embers flicker among the smoldering ruins of the starter log. He coughs again, a tear-splitting cough. He rolls onto his side and looks over to the chair where Mark fell asleep. His eyes slowly adjust in the darkness, and he sees Mark’s blankets lying on the floor. The chair is abandoned. A ripple of fear sends sparks through him, but he pushes it down.
Maybe he is just getting a drink
. But the plumbing has been dead for weeks, and he can imagine the pipes frozen solid in the fierce autumn cold. He searches for any reason not to crawl out from under the blankets, but he finds none. Cursing under his breath, he pushes the blankets onto the floor and swings his legs over the sofa. He sits upright now, staring into the fire. He coughs again. And as his cough subsides, he can hear footsteps above him, on the second level.