Dwellers of the Night: The Complete Collection (27 page)

The boy holds the dwindling cigarette in his fingers as he talks. “After you left, I heard screams coming from the woods. It scared me at first, but then I heard crying in the screams. Like someone was sobbing and screaming at the same time. So I ran into the woods—it was dark, and foolish, I know—and I followed the stone trail down near the creek. She was under the bridge, curled into a ball, soaked from the creek, because it was overflowing. She screamed when she saw me, but I spoke to her, and I think that calmed her down a bit. I was trying to get her to trust me when we heard them coming into the forest, howling at one another like they do. A whole bunch of them, coming from the north into the woods. I grabbed her by the hand and we took off. I knew we couldn’t go back the way I’d come, because that just led to the overlook, and we’d be pinned by them with nowhere to go. So we took off down the creek-bed. The sides of the creek rose up on either side of us as we ran, or walked quickly, I guess. I had her by the hand, and her legs seemed unable to move. Eventually I just picked her up, and she fought me, but that’s when they got close. She stopped fighting. They were coming down the creek-bed behind us. I kept running. I slipped a couple times but never fell. Water came up to my waist at times, and I kept imagining one of them being under the water, grabbing me by the ankles, yanking me down until I was totally submerged. The creek-bed went downhill a ways, and it opened up into a little meadow filled with junk. The meadow was no more than a few trees and dried grass, but there were mattresses, old television sets, box-springs, plastic chairs, and all kinds of other junk down there. The meadow went over a rise and down towards Route 50. Right along the road was a church surrounded by a high-wire fence with curled barbed wire on the top. I remembered passing it every now and again with Cara, and we’d always wonder why the church was fenced in. We thought it was dumb at the time, but now I couldn’t be more thankful. The gate was unlocked, so we went through, and I shut it and locked it behind us. We got into the church through one of the stained glass windows. There was a pile of bricks near the shed, so I grabbed one and just chucked it through. We crawled inside, and I set her down in the dark, and I pushed a heavy pew against the window. I then took her to the baptistery and lowered her inside. She was sweating coldly, shivering, she had the fever. Maybe the coldness had gotten to her. I don’t know. Whatever it is, she’s still got it. But I lowered her into the baptistery and found a blanket in a backroom and wrapped her up in it. I stayed there in the baptistery with her all night. The dark-walkers never got through the fence, I don’t think, but we sure as hell could hear them. Anthony Barnhart

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When daylight came, they were gone, and we went through the fence and made our way back here. She was doing fine for a little while, but then she broke out into the fever again, the cold sweats, the shivering… And she screams. God, she screams.”

“I know,” the man says. “Her screams woke me up.”

Mark lights another cigarette. “Hell of a night.”

“So she was fine earlier and now she’s sick?”

“Yeah. It came and went several times throughout the night.”

“Maybe it’s just a cold. Or the flu.”

“I don’t know,” Mark says, looking at the girl.

“You have a bad feeling about it?”

“What? Me? No. She’ll be fine.”

II

The next morning she is wide awake. The man goes downstairs to check on her, half fearing she will be dead, and finds her sitting on the sofa, playing with her golden curls. She smiles at him and thanks him for keeping her safe. He finds himself stunned at the apparent flux in her health, but he says thank you and calls for the boy. She is ecstatic to see the boy, and she runs up to him and gives him a gigantic hug. The man opens a can of peaches, and she devours them hungrily. A can of pears is peeled back, and she eats most of those, as well. She sits at the kitchen table, juice running down the sides of her mouth, eyes alight. She tells them her name is Lindsey—”Miss Lindsey Campbell”—and they give her their names. Mark takes her for a tour of the house. The next morning, she is curled up on the sofa, a pile of bloody vomit staining the carpet.

It becomes expected: every two or three days, she is struck with intense fever, shivering, vomiting, and sometimes convulsions. When the convulsions strike, Mark holds her gently and lets it pass. Sometimes she spits up on his shirt. She doesn’t remember the incidents at all, as if her brain shuts down. Mark finds the bucket for waste tainted red, and he asks Lindsey about it, and she tells him that she peed red that morning.

“Did it hurt?” he asks.

“No,” she says. “It didn’t hurt.”

She is fine all evening, but by nightfall, she complains of being cold. She sleeps next to Mark upstairs, and he gives her all of his extra covers so that she will keep warm. It doesn’t help. He feels her forehead, and it is burning: it feels as if he is placing his palm against a lit stove. He checks her fever every hour. Her fingertips begin to twitch, and then her limbs quiver. A cold sweat breaks over her forehead. All he can do is watch with tears in his eyes as she leans over and pukes onto the floor: bloody, reeking vomit. All night long this continues, and Mark eventually falls asleep. When he awakes, she is gone. He is panicked, and he races downstairs, only to find her scolding the man for smoking—”You know it’s not good for you!” The man doesn’t seem to care, and Mark asks that he doesn’t smoke around the girl.

The girl is feeling better one day, and Mark decides to take her to the grocery. They hop into the truck and drive to the Kroger’s on Warsaw Avenue. One of the large glass windows is already shattered from the man’s excursions to the grocery, so Mark and the girl simply hop through. The cash registers are cold and layered with a heavy filament of dust, and several carts are pushed together Anthony Barnhart

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like a deck of cards in a corral. The place stinks of spoiled milk, and packets of once-fresh meat are now laden with maggots that have torn through the plastic-wrap coverings. They wander between the aisles, and the girl fills a shopping cart with her favorite foods: donuts, brownies, maple cookies, ho-hos. They head to the canned goods aisle, where most of the cans have been taken. He grabs a few and throws them into the cart. He browses some Spam, takes one, looks at the paper wrap around the can, and places it into the cart.

They are heading back to the front to bag their goods when the girl says, “They would have gotten me in the woods if you didn’t save me.”

“Maybe,” Mark says. “But they might not have found you. You could have hidden.”

“No. They would have found me. They always find you.”

The boy stands beside one of the registers. “Paper or plastic?”

“My big brother worked at a grocery store. He liked bagging plastic better.”

“Plastic it is, then,” and he starts bagging their groceries.

She fidgets in the shadows, curling her hair with a single finger. “Can I tell you something?”

Mark looks over at her, pauses. “Yeah. Sure. Of course.”

“I think you should know.”

“Okay…”

“Daddy died when the disease came. He was sleeping upstairs and just died in his sleep. Everyone died, except me, my big brother, and Mommy. Mommy cried a lot. So did my brother. I did, too, but I tried not to. Daddy always told me that big girls don’t cry. But he was dead, and we had to bury him. We took him to a cemetery and buried him. That was before they started coming out at night. We didn’t expect them at all, and Jason, he died. They got him. He was keeping Mommy and me safe, and they killed him. But they didn’t get us. Mommy told me that he was a real man, and that he was just doing what had to be done. She cried a lot more, but she always talked about him like he was a hero. Some wanderers found us. They called themselves wanderers. They came from a big city. Indianapolis, I think. All of them survived. We joined on with them. Mommy was really protective of me at first, but none of them tried to hurt me. They were good people. They were going to New York City. They thought there were more survivors there. They said they heard it on the radio. So we were on our way to New York City, and our car broke down, and we were in the country, so we couldn’t find anywhere to stay. Lots of them died. But Mommy hid me in the car and locked all the doors, and she covered us with blankets. I cried a lot that night. We could hear them outside. They didn’t try to get in, though. In the morning they were gone. They’re always gone in the morning. Mommy and I were alone, and we found another car. A truck. Kinda like the one you drive. It was at this old farmhouse, and she found the keys inside the house. On the radio we heard that there were survivors here in Cincinnati, and—”

The boy’s ears perk up. “You mean more than just me and—”

“Yeah. A whole bunch of survivors.”

“Where?” His heart sprints. Adrenaline tingles in the tips of his fingers.

“I forgot where. Some church. On the Eastside. Mom called it the Eastside.”

“I’ve never heard of the Eastside Church.”

“It’s in the Eastside. It has a weird name.”

“Okay,” Mark says.

The girl continues her story, as if her news of a survivor’s holdout means nothing at all. “So Mommy and me were staying at this house close to here when they got inside. Mommy locked me in a closet and pushed furniture on the door to keep them from getting me. She told me she’d be okay. But I could hear her screaming. I was in the closet for two days. I finally got out, and there was blood Anthony Barnhart

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all over the place. But Mommy was gone. I knew she would want me to find the survivors, so I tried to get there, but I didn’t know which way to go. I stayed in houses every night. One night one of them attacked me, but I escaped. I ran and ran and wound up under that bridge. And that’s where you found me.”

Mark stares at the girl. “You’ve been through a lot.”

“Mommy always said I was a fighter. Daddy said it, too.”

“Your mom and dad are right,” Mark says.

The girl is playing in the backyard, climbing among the bare branches of the fallen oak, oblivious to the cold and the sparse snowflakes falling in an early December mist. Mark watches her from the window of the kitchen. The man comes in from the garage, wiping greasy hands with a worn towel. He watches Mark for a few moments.

“She’s sick,” the man says. “Really sick.”

“I know,” Mark says. “But she’s getting better.”

“No, she’s not,” he replies. “It comes in waves. And her symptoms are getting worse.”

“How would you know?” Mark demands, glaring at him. “You aren’t with her at night.”

“I can hear her,” he says. “And I can see it in your eyes. You know she’s getting worse.”

Mark turns away, watches her fall to the ground, laughing and rolling in the grass. The man lights a cigarette. “I wouldn’t get too attached.”

Mark winces at those words. “Why do you think she’s so sick?”

“Who knows?” the man asks. “She’s just a kid. Kids get sick.”

“Maybe it’s the cold.”

“I don’t know.”

“Or maybe she caught something in the woods.”

“Again,” the man says, “I don’t know.”

“I just wish I could help her,” Mark says. “Make her better.”

“You can’t. There aren’t any doctors.”

“I know,” Mark says. “That just makes it that much worse. She’s so innocent. Look at her.”

The man peeks out the window. She is dancing around, mouth wide open, trying to catch snowflakes on the tip of her tongue. Her eyes sparkle like newfound diamonds. The man sighs, takes another hit. “No one’s innocent anymore.”

III

The first snow falls, only a light grazing that speckles the brown and curled grass with white dust. The air is cold and the heaters are barely working. The man goes to get more heaters and sets them about the house. He is able to lug a portable generator from a home appliance store, and he carries it to the house in the bed of the truck and sets the generator in the garage. It takes him a few days to get it working, and then he runs extension cords into every room, even tracing them up the wall into the upper story, pinning the cords between closely-hammered nails in the wall. The girl gets sicker, and for a time it seems as if she will never be better. Her shoulders protrude against her pale, taught skin, and her ribs become a washboard upon her chest. She is weak and coughs. Mark’s face is etched in worry. The man can see that Mark has found another sister, and he is dedicating himself to her; perhaps he can justify Ashlie’s death by caring for this little girl? The man believes it to be a false hope. She is only getting sicker.

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The symptoms subside, and one morning she is dancing around the living room, laughing and singing children’s songs. “This is the song that never ends, it goes on and on my friend! Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was, and they continued singing it forever just because this is the song that never ends, it goes on and on my friend! Some people started singing it…” The man tells her several times to stop, but she refuses, leaping around. He tries to catch her, but she escapes him. Finally he grabs her and begins tickling her. She laughs hysterically, and they fall onto the floor, sprawled over one another. She continues to laugh, her blond hair falling before her azure eyes, and the man takes deep gulfs of air, the laughter searing smoke-ridden lungs. A great smile dapples across his face.

“They sound like dogs, don’t they?” the girl asks. Mark, the man, and the girl are sitting upstairs in the man’s bedroom. The howls can be heard as the dark-walkers awake and rise to prowl the dark streets once more.

“Yes, they do,” Mark says. “Very mean dogs.”

She nods in agreement. “
Very
mean.”

The man hands the girl a donut, then gives one to Mark.

The girl munches on it happily. “They’re not like they are in the movies, are they?”

“What’s that?” Mark asks.

“Them. Outside.”

“In the movies? What movies?”