Dwellers of the Night: The Complete Collection (32 page)

IV

A few days pass. Mark had wrapped chain-link around the truck’s tires, and now the truck sits outside a large brick building, the tires dripping melting snow. The boy moves around the side of the building in the morning light. Most of the snow has turned into an icy slush, and the holes in his tennis shoes leak water. He reaches the front door, grabs the handle, pulls. It’s locked. He steps back and kicks his foot into the glass. It webs outwards. Another strike. More webs. He kicks once more, and the glass shatters, raining down on the inside of the door. Using his elbow, he knocks stray shards of glass from the opening and then crawls into the dark atrium. His eyes slowly adjust, meager light filtering through the windows, long since covered with a fine line of dust; the dust is thick, and it makes him cough. He moves forward in the darkness. A few tables, chairs placed upright. A quiet desk with a dark computer screen. An empty coat-rack. Rows and rows of shelves line one side of the room, and on the other are several filing cabinets labeled with the names of different newspapers and subsequent dates. Mark stands there for a moment, engulfed in the silence, hearing only the occasional crinkle of falling glass from the door behind.

He takes one of the chairs that sits upon a table and brings it down to the carpeted floor, swinging it around. He sets a few books on the table and then sits in the chair, pulling his jacket tighter around him. He opens one of the books and flips through the pages. The text is small, and in the dark, it can hardly be read. He stands and moves towards the window on the wall. He wipes his hand through Anthony Barnhart

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the dust, and a pillar of sunlight shines into the room, falling upon the polished wood. He smiles to himself, proud of his accomplishment, and he returns to the chair and to the book. He turns to the first page, reads the table of contents. Along the top of the page it reads Vampires: The Occult Truth. He begins reading, and he doesn’t stop for lunch.

Mark opens the front door and steps inside, shaking snow off the cuffs of his pants as he slips off his shoes. The man appears from the kitchen, relief washing over his face. “Where the hell have you been?”

“I went for a walk,” the boy replies. “It’s starting to snow again.”

“I went to the store and got some SPAM.”

“I thought we’d eaten all the SPAM?”

“So did I. But I went into the backroom and found a can lying in the corner.”

“Wonderful. And you waited for me to fix it?”

The man doesn’t answer. “You’ve been gone since this morning.”

“The air is always crisp and clear when it snows. It’s relaxing.”

The man shakes his head. “If you don’t want to tell me what you were doing…”

“I’m all right,” Mark says. “Want to get drunk tonight?”

“You’ve been getting drunk every night.”

“Is there a crime in that?”

“You’re going to become an alcoholic.”

“It’s not like I’m going to get a DUI.”

“If you’re a drunk, you won’t be reliable.”

Mark doesn’t say anything as the man lights up a cigarette. “So is that a ‘no’ to getting drunk?”

The man shakes his head. “Pour us some shots. Just be careful. That’s all I’m saying.”

The man throws back another shot, swallows. His stomach curls, throat burns, the liquid ignites a fire within his gut. He bends over, coughing, then relaxes, breathing deep. The world begins to spin, and his vision twists and contorts. He leans back against the sofa, takes a deep breath. Night has fallen. Boards are thrust against the windows. The wind howls like a banshee in a hurricane, and they cannot hear the dark-walkers outside the house. Such a thought does not frighten them; it has become commonplace, and they would be surprised if the dark-walkers did not surround the house. Somehow the dark-walkers knew that there were others, not infected by the plague, dwelling within; and yet they were not smart enough to break in, and their numbers were dwindling with the intense cold and the lack of food. Slowly they starved themselves, even turning upon the weaker and elderly of their kind, devouring them in a frenzy.

Mark ponders, “What do you think would be the worst way to die?”

The man is sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, smoking. “Drowning.”

“Drowning. Yeah.” He takes a shot. “I always thought being strangled would be the worst.”

“Yeah, that wouldn’t be fun, either. Probably more enjoyable than being torn apart by those fuckers outside.”

“What about being impaled?” He pours another shot, knowing he should slow down.

“Being impaled?”

“Yeah. A stake being driven through your body till you die.”

“They don’t do that anymore. That’s from Medieval times. The Assyrians did it, too. They would impale their prisoners and ring them around the cities they were trying to invade.”

“No kidding?” Mark croons.

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They sit back, listening to the wind shrieking outside.

“I think a gunshot to the head would be the best way,” Mark says.

“Or carbon-dioxide poisoning. You just get tired and fall asleep.”

“No,” Mark says. “That would take too long. Too much time to regret what you’re doing.”

The man pops the cap off a bottle of beer. “I don’t regret anything anymore.”

The night’s snow-storm had erased all tracks of the truck, and Mark had to navigate the winding uphill road with care. He parked the truck outside the library, and now he stands beside the door, using his boot to kick snow away from the entrance he had carved in the glass the day before. The wind picks up, cutting through him like an icy knife, and he ducks down and scurries into the darkness of the library. A few shards of loose glass tangle in his jacket, and he stands in the gloom brushing them off, cursing as a razor-sharp edge wedges itself into his finger. He pulls it out, admires the blood, and decides that a cigarette is appropriate. He stands listening to the wind outside, finding the inside of the building much colder than yesterday. He tells himself that he should bring a Bunsen burner and set it by the table to keep warm. The cigarette ember burns bright, and in a moment it flares as he takes his first hit. He leans against a wall that leads to a bathroom, and he glances over several posters, illuminated by the faint splash of light coming through the shattered door. He smokes half the cigarette and tosses it to the tiled floor, stomping it out with his wet boots. He trudges into the interior of the library and heads towards the desk, spotlighted by a pillar of light coming from one of the—

The attack comes quickly. The sound of rushing feet. A scurrying movement. He swings around to see a figure leaping towards him. He ducks down and swings his leg out, and his foot connects with the shins of the attacker. The assailant tumbles over him, and the boy is scurrying along the floor, through the darkness. He hears the sound of splintering wood; he scrambles to his feet and glances towards the check-out desk. The figure’s head appears, and it stares at him with glazed eyes. The skin is pulled taught, and the hair is a matted mess. In his mind he sees the figure, a beautiful woman with a smiling husband, taking her children to the park on a warm summer day. Now the woman has become a creature from hell—a vampire?—and leaps across the table, landing hard on the ground, rolling, jumping to her feet. Mark turns and runs between two aisles of books layered with dust. The figure follows; he glances back and sees that she runs with a limp, and he imagines a sprained ankle. She is completely naked, and her breasts are bruised and discolored, and the growth of hair around her vagina has stenciled outwards into the calves of her legs. He spins around the bookcase and runs down the next aisle; suddenly books fly out from the bookcase, spinning into him. He turns and sees arms and hands reaching through the bookshelf, groping at him. He steps back, and with a shout, he charges the bookcase, throwing his right shoulder against the wooden frame; it wobbles for a moment, then careens backwards. The woman screams as the books falls upon her, and there comes the sound of cracking bones, and a geyser of blood shoots up, quickly drowned into the tumbling of hard-backed mysteries. Mark steps back, breathing heavily, staring at the fallen bookshelf and the books scattered about; the dark-walker is hidden, except for the arms poking through the bookshelf, the fingers and wrists twitching.

Mark gathers the books in his arms and quickly leaves the library, keeping his eyes from the convulsing digits of the fallen dark-walker. He emerges into the brilliant morning sun and throws the books into the truck. He grabs a cigarette and lights it up, leaning against the hood, smoking and staring into the shattered-glass doorway.
That’s where they’ve been staying. In the buildings, where it’s
warm. That’s how they survive; that’s how they keep from freezing to death
. His eyes dance out to the street Anthony Barnhart

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and to the surrounding buildings. A rundown theater. A Greek gyro restaurant. A DOLLAR GENERAL. He imagines them crowding together in the darkness, perhaps sniffing the fresh blood running like honey through his veins. The image sends shivers through his spine.
They’re keeping out of the cold…

The cold is our curse and our weapon, and spring shall be a blessing but an even greater curse, for then they
shall walk in strength once more
.

Dinner is baked beans mixed with a package of BACON BITS. The man stirs the baked beans in the pot above the Bunsen burner. Mark lights a cigarette, offers one to the man, who takes one and continues to stir the beans.

Mark stands looking out through the back window, into the pearl snow covering the fallen oak.

“I ran into one of them today,” he says.

The man pauses in his stirring. “How close?”

“I was attacked.” He takes another hit.

The man thinks of the girl. Hesitantly, “Were you bitten?”

“No. And don’t worry. I’m not lying.”

“But they don’t come out during the day…”

“They’re hiding in the buildings. In the darkness. Where it’s warm.”

The man glares at him. “You went into a closed building?”

“I didn’t know.”

The man shakes his head. “Which building?”

“I was looking for supplies,” the boy lies.

V

The boy comes downstairs to find the man slouched over the table, head buried in a book. The boy walks over, reaches towards the man’s pack of MARLBORO, but pauses. His eyes dance over the glittering title of the book. He leans to the side and eyes the page that can be seen, a page decorated with torture devices and a screaming girl with blood streaming from her lips. The boy smiles to himself, the first smile in a long while, and taking the cigarette, ducks outside for a smoke in the pearl-white morning air.

They eat in silence.

Mark finally speaks: “I saw the book you were reading.”

The man rolls a brussell sprout with his fork. “You got it from the library?”

Mark nods. “Yeah.”

“I thought so.”

Mark is quiet for a moment. “So do you think they’re vampires?”

The man shakes his head. “I read the book, and I imagine you did, too. Vampires as we know them are a myth, spawned off of historical characters such as Vlad Dracula of Romania and Elizabeth Bathory of Hungary. I imagine that people started telling their children about vampires to keep them in subjection to the government so that the rulers wouldn’t impale them or bathe in their blood.” He pops a sprout into his mouth. “Vampires are just a myth, just like zombies. There’s no reality to them at all. These people are sick. I gave your theory a chance. A hell of a chance, and that chance almost got you killed at the library. But I’m sorry. Or not sorry. I don’t know.” He shakes his head. “They’re not vampires.”

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“Maybe you should check first.”

The man looks up at him. “Check?”

“You know. Find one and put garlic in their face. Or sprinkle holy water on them.”

“All of that stuff is just myth.”

“Have you researched it? Have you experimented? I mean, if they
are
vampires—and, sure, it’s a long stretch if they are, in the true sense of a vampire—but if they
are
vampires, then it would be beneficial to know if garlic hurts them, and stuff like that.”

The man pauses for a moment. “We could ring garlic around the house.”

“Around all the windows and doors, yeah.”

The man nods to himself. “Maybe…”

Mark suddenly stands from the table. “Hold on a second.”

Mark had left the table, disappearing up the ladder that leads to the second story, and now he returns with a new book in his hands. He sets it down upon the table, next to the man who continues to sit and eat, and he spreads the book’s leafs wide.

“Look at this,” Mark says. “Here’s the most basic definition of a vampire: ‘A dead person who rises from the grave to feed upon the blood of the living.’” He looks up at the man. “So they
are
vampires.”

“Seemingly, yes. But I don’t think so. These people, these dark-walkers, they’re not dead. They never
were
dead. Dead people returning to life? Impossible. I imagine they were in some sort of coma. It can happen: the heartbeat and breathing rate slows down so much that even a highly-trained medical doctor can tell they’re still alive. Remember that story about the girl in Massachusetts? She died, right, and her twin sister kept having nightmares where the dead girl is clawing at the coffin, six feet under, trying to escape. Her nightmares drive her crazy, and she puts doubts as to her sister’s fate into her parents’ minds, and they have the coffin exhumed to settle their stomachs. When they opened the coffin up, what did they find?
Claw marks
. All up and down the coffin. Twins have strange connections, and somehow, the girl’s twin sister knew that she wasn’t dead.”

“I thought that was just a myth?”

“So did I. But I researched it in college. Well, Kira did. And she told me all about it. Apparently the girl had been stricken down with some kind of fever, and the doctors later said that there was a very
minute
possibility that she could have still been alive. I think that’s what we’re seeing here. The disease—be it a germ, or a virus, or a bacterium, or whatever (what it is and where it came from isn’t really relevant at this point)—made these people go into a coma, and when they revived, the disease had completely ravaged their bodies.”