Dwellers of the Night: The Complete Collection (35 page)

“Cara…”

“I loved you, Mark. And I always will. We’ll be together, Baby. But not yet. Not yet.”

The sun sinks behind the pines, and darkness envelops the meadow. He can hear their breathing, their calls to one another, and he can hear them moving through the tall grasses which split before them and crunch under their feet. He tries with all his might to move, but he is caught by an invisible force and raised from the ground. He can only watch as the dark-walkers merge upon his Love, and he can only weep as she looks up at him and blows him a kiss as they swarm over her…

And she is lost in their feeding.

Mark asks the man, “What do you think Heaven is like?”

The man shakes his head. “I don’t believe in Heaven.”

“I always learned it was this spiritual place where our disembodied spirits go, and we sit on clouds and play the harp and have no emotion except joy.”

“That sounds like hell,” the man muses.

“But what if Heaven is a physical place? A place like earth? And there are mountains and waterfalls and jungles and deserts and oceans and seas and bears and tigers and giraffes and zebras?”

“So?” the man asks. “If Heaven does exist, we’re sure as hell not going.”

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“She said she would be waiting for me by the brook…”

“Who said that?” the man asks.

Mark shakes his head. “No one. Never mind.”

Mark awakes from the throngs of sleep, screams echoing in his ears. His blood runs cold as sapphire, and it takes him a few moments of heavy breathing and shivering even under the layered blankets to realize it is nothing but a dream. He lays his head upon the sweat-soaked pillow and stares up at the ceiling. He closes his eyes only for a moment, then opens them quickly; for in the serenity of closed eyelids are their poisonous, yellow eyes, their fangs dripping blood, the ferocity of hell unleashed upon what had once been a human being. He lies there until sunlight begins to creep through the corridor window, and he pulls himself from his covers and walks over to the end of the corridor to let down the ladder. The ladder is already down. Mark looks over at the door to the man’s bedroom, and walking over, he slowly pushes it wide. The man’s covers are thrown back and the bed is empty. Mark quickly descends onto the first floor to find a cup of cold coffee next to smoldered cigarettes in the Mexican ashtray. He stands looking around in the silence for a long while, then goes out the front door. The man’s footprints in the snow lead to where the truck had been parked, and the truck with its cargo is gone.

IV

Mark emerges from the shadows, a banshee from the darkness, fingers wrapped around the icy steel. The movement is quick and furious; the man turns around, raises his hands, but his pleas are lost in Mark’s rage. The iron train-track rail cuts through the air like a knife through jelly, and the man lets out a shout as it crosses against his chest. He stumbles backwards, lungs searing, falls against the side of the box-car; he slides down into the snow, groping at his chest. Mark’s shadow looms over him, and Mark raises the iron rail high into the air, gripping tightly, breath fogging in the snow as if he were a race-horse in the arctic. His eyes are wild. Maniacal.

The man lies in the snow, and he splays his hands outwards; “I have a gun, Mark. Don’t make me use it.”

Mark stands there for an eternity. His strength evaporates, and the iron rail slides from his hands and lodges in the snow. His weak knees give out, and he falls against the side of the box-car. He slides down into the snow and sits with his knees folded against his chest. He stares at the diamonds in the snow. The man crawls over, sits beside him. He reaches into his jacket and with shaking fingers withdraws a pack of CAMEL LIGHTS 100S. He hands one over to the Mark, who takes it gingerly, and he flares the lighter; Mark bends forward and lights his cigarette, then leans back against the box-car, exhaling plumes of acrid smoke into the crystal-clear air. The boy speaks after a moment: “What the fuck are you doing here?”

The man’s voice is rough. His chest aches. “Learning.”

Mark had followed the tracks of the truck through the snow, and he had found the truck parked behind a trailer a good ways down State Avenue. Footprints led down the snowy embankment to the creek. He had followed them, carving a path through the snow. The creek had frozen over, and he could see footprints heading over it to an iron suspension bridge that crossed over a man-made canal, now drained of water. The canal had once been used to ferry materials from river boats to the railyard for shipment throughout the country. The suspension bridge had creaked and groaned but had Anthony Barnhart

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not faltered. The footprints led to a maze of abandoned box-cars, and had ended at a single box-car covered with graffiti. The door was shut. The boy had pressed his ear against the iron door and had heard nothing within. With two hands, he grunted as he slid the door open. He stepped into the blackness of the box-car, the morning light cutting into the interior: a few scattered beer bottles, crunched cigarette filters, and a few books on vampires sat on the floor. The boy also noticed several wooden stakes and a wooden box holding garlic cloves. He became aware of heavy breathing, and as his eyes adjusted, he could see a small figure in the shadows of the box-car, chained against the wall. Emaciated, bony, eyes fiery red, teeth hanging open as it panted. Chills ran through him as he understood, and he tumbled from the box-car screaming-mad.

“It’s not Lindsey anymore,” the man now says as they sit outside the box-car. “Its not Lindsey.”

Mark doesn’t listen. “That’s why you locked me up.”

The man sighs, nods. “You wouldn’t have understood…”

The boy takes another hit off the cigarette. “She’s sick and in pain.”

The man rubs his swollen chest. “Do you want me to bring her into the house?”

The boy extinguishes his cigarette into the snow. “No.”

“Then what do you want me to do? I’m learning about them.”

“Learn on someone else. Not on her.”

“Mark…”

“Every time I see her, I think of Ashlie.”

“Mark…”

“Put her out of her misery. Let her rest in peace.”

The man is quiet, saying nothing.

Mark’s eyes burn red like the sun. “I spared your life. Now take hers.”

The boy watches the cigarette paper at the cherry flare and burn. The cold suddenly feels so cutting, and a swift wind ducks down and blows between the box-cars. Snowflakes rush up between his legs. The gunshot rings out. He squeezes his eyes shut, grips the cigarette tight between his fingers. The ember burns against his skin and he hardly notices. He tosses the cigarette as the man dejectedly emerges from the box-car, the pistol in his hand. The boy’s ears ring and the world seems to come to a nauseating halt.

“Can we bury her?” he asks.

“No,” the man replies, shaking his head. His eyes are swollen. “The ground is covered with snow. It’s frozen solid.”

“Then can we cremate her?”

The man glances back over his shoulder, into the dark confines of the boxcar. “No. Just leave her in there.”

They stand outside the boxcar for a few moments, and the man lights a cigarette. He winces at the pain; his chest still hurts, and he hopes nothing is broken. Mark stares without comprehension at a graffiti-stained box-car across the opposite tracks. The man flicks his half-smoked cigarette into the snow. “Come on,” he says, taking Mark by the arm. “Let’s go.”

Mark doesn’t move.

“Come on,” the man repeats. “It’s getting fucking cold.”

Suddenly Mark tears away, turning on his heels. The man shouts after him, begging him not to do it. But Mark doesn’t listen, and he fumbles into the boxcar. The man almost runs after him, then Anthony Barnhart

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stops. He steps back and hangs his head low. A moment later, Mark stumbles from the darkness, staggers through the snow, and collapses onto his knees. He pitches forward, catching himself by his hands, and the snow burns fiercely against his palms as his stomach curls and twists, spewing bile from an empty stomach onto the ground.

They walk quietly through the rail-yard. The wind howls between the boxcars.

“Look at that,” the man says.

Mark follows his gaze. A scraggly dog sits on his haunches several cars down, eyeing them. A collar is around its neck, worn and frayed. The creature’s body is stiff, the skin pulled taught against aching bones. The eyes are sunken and dead, and its tongue hangs from its mouth, swollen and purple. The two men watch, and as their eyes connect with the animal’s, the dog leaps to its feet and runs back amidst the boxcars, lost forever.

V

The man finishes boarding up the door and returns to the kitchen. The boy sits at the table, wrapped tight in his coat, warming his hands amid the heat of an oil lamp. The man picks up the pack of cigarettes, lights one, pulls out the chair on the other side of the table, and sits down. A few days has passed. The snow melted, but a new snowstorm brought a fresh batch of snow. The footprints of the dark-walkers vanished, and they had slept peacefully. Mark’s dreams had been overcome by nightmares, but he had begun sleeping peacefully. The man imagines it is somewhere near the end of January, but he has not kept track on any calendar. He figures he can find a FARMER’S ALMANAC and calculate the day based upon sunrise and sunset times, and even by the moon if he dares step outside at night, but he realizes there’s no reason to. It doesn’t matter what day it is. Nothing changes. Not anymore.

“It doesn’t affect me anymore.”

The man looks up at the sound of the boy’s voice. “What?”

“Their deaths,” Mark says. “I’m… used to it. I’ve accepted it. Everything we knew, everything we’ve believed, is gone. This is our world now. And I’ve come to accept it.”

The man takes a few hits off the cigarette. No words are said.

“I miss Ashlie,” Mark continues. “I miss Cara. And it hurts. It hurts like hell. But I’ve accepted it. And what happened to Lindsey… she got sick, became one of them… We had to kill her. The same with Cara. And if you wouldn’t have done it, I would have pulled the trigger myself. Because this is our world now. That’s how things have to be.”

More time passes. The man finishes his cigarette, extinguishes it in the Mexican ashtray.

“I saw a girl’s brains blown out all over the side of a box-car. And I sleep peacefully. What does that make me?” Mark now looks at the man, his eyes full of horrific contemplation. “What does that make me?” he repeats; “Some kind of monster?”

The man has no response.

The next day, they head to WALGREENS PHARMACY to collect supplies. They meet up near the cash registers and begin bagging their canned goods and toilet paper.

“Did you learn anything?” Mark asks, bagging the groceries. “With Lindsey?”

“They’re not vampires,” the man replies. “At least, not in the legendary sense of the word.”

“Then what are they?”

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“They’re sick.” The man looks up, glares at Mark. “Why do they have to be anything more?”

“Because it’s not…” He searches for the right words. “It’s not
natural
.”

“Natural?” the man retorts. “I’ll tell you what’s unnatural.” He turns and grabs a dust-covered PEOPLE magazine from the rack. “
This
,” he says, shaking it in Mark’s face, “is what’s unnatural. The commercialized, western world with its media and the values, and its priorities being sex, pleasure, popularity… That’s unnatural. People obsessing over celebrities, people going in debt, people watching NBC and SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE and getting lost in their own ignorance as to how the world really works…
That’s
unnatural. This is the most natural it’s ever been. Have you ever been to Washington, D.C., in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History?”

Mark shakes his head
no
.

“They had this fantastic exhibit on cave men once. Pre-Neolithic humanity. The origins of
homo
sapien
. The cave men lived hard, bitter lives, faced against arctic cold, roves of hairy mammoths, and pitted against the ferocity of the saber-toothed tiger.
That’s
the natural life. Living in our airconditioned homes with satellite television and bumper stickers that say PROUD MOM OF AN HONOR

STUDENT are the hallmarks of what civilization had become, and that’s
unnatural
. What we’re living
now
, though:
this
is natural. We don’t just live anymore. We survive. That’s how it was when we first evolved, and that’s how it is now.”

“The cavemen conquered their dangers,” Mark says. “Maybe we will, too.”

“I hope to God that’s not wishful thinking, but I don’t know what I believe anymore.”

The snow falls unbroken. Dusk is approaching. The man sits at the dining room table, smoking a cigarette. Mark is sitting across the table, reading a GLOBE magazine he’d lifted from the grocery store while searching for supplies. He flips the page and stares, and his eyes go wide.

“What is it?” the man asks. “Did someone ‘prophesy’ that this would happen?”

Mark doesn’t answer.

“What are you reading?” the man asks again.

“I’m reading,” Mark replies, “about a world after people. They have an article in here about what our planet would look like if humanity just suddenly vanished.”

“Vanished? You mean like the Rapture?”

“Or humans died due to disease,” Mark said slowly, “and were unable to upkeep civilization.”

“Oh,” he says quietly. He taps ashes into the ashtray. “What’s it say?”

“Weather, corrosion, earthquakes, bacteria, and animals will reduce buildings to rubble. Within weeks, electrical systems will fail.” He is reading by the light from the lamp and smiles to himself.
Yep
. “Within 20 years, animals will have overtaken our cities. It says here ‘picture bears and wolves roaming freely along Wall Street’. Within the same amount of time, buildings made of wood will break down or be consumed by termites. In another 20 years, steel buildings will corrode due to the elements and begin collapsing. Cars will rust away to nothing. Ground water will elevate, turning cities into swamplands. All of the electronic and paper documents we have—like CDs and books—