Dwellers of the Night: The Complete Collection (36 page)

will eventually rot and be consumed by insects.” He pauses for a moment. “In only 10,000 years, if an alien were to visit earth, there would be no traces that we had ever existed.”

Anthony Barnhart

Dwellers of the Night

167

Chapter Eleven

Aim Snap Fall

“Destroying is a necessary function in life. Everything has its season, and all things eventually lose their effectiveness and die.”

- Margaret J. Wheatley (late 20th century)

I

Mark stands as still as a romantic statue in a renaissance graveyard, the only movement that of his ragged breaths and flaring nostrils. His shirt, his arms, his hands, his jeans, his hair, his face—

everything is saturated in warm blood that issues brilliant white steam. In his hands is the Russian rifle, and the butt is streaked with blood and bits of broken bone. He closes his eyes, feels the blood upon him, crawling down the sides of his face, fetid in his hair, a beautiful sensation. The images flash before him—Ashlie clutching her stuffed Dalmatian dog, Cara holding the purple lilies he’d picked for her so long ago, Lindsey hunched over in bed and drawing a cartoon of three smiling figures. The images fade to nothing as he opens his eyes, and all he can hear is the wind rustling against the house, the floorboards creaking underneath him. He feels the breath in his lungs, so sharp and full of life. His sensations are heightened, and suddenly the world seems so vibrant and alive. A crimson smile crosses his face, and the echoes of an old professor ring in his ears.

∑Ω∑

He had almost missed class that night; traffic had been heavy due to an accident, and he had been pulled over by a police-car for a broken tail-light. He had slumped into class and sat in the back row. The professor hardly acknowledged him. He zipped open his backpack, pulled out his notepad, and with a pen in hand, began taking notes. The great clock on the back wall ticked incessantly, and the professor’s words nearly became lost:

“Rage, in psychiatry, is the mental state on the extreme spectrum of anger. Rage is a behavior that everyone experiences in some form, some way, somehow. Rage is often used to denote hostile, affective, reactive aggression. It denotes aggression where intense anger is present, and this aggression is motivated by the desire to cause harm to others, and is often characterized by impulsive thinking and a lack of planning. This behavioral side is one that many would not like to see, but it often becomes dominant in extreme situations. Rage itself, as an emotion, is often distinguished by distorted facial expressions, and is often brought forth due to the threat of, or the reality of, an attack of some sort. Some psychologists believe that rage is physiologically based upon a reaction to high levels of pain or displeasure —whether physical or emotional. Others believe it is the natural, animal response to one’s past injuries. Rage should not be confused with mere anger, however. Anger is explained by current dissatisfactions in one’s life, and this type of anger or frustration is common. Rage, which is less common, is the result of many angers compounding one another, and is often a result of past traumas needing to be dealt with.”

Anthony Barnhart

Dwellers of the Night

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II

The man had gone downstairs to get a drink of water. He opened up the refrigerator, long dead and warm, and grabbed the jug of distilled water they’d taken from the local DRUG MART. He had poured himself a glass, and stood standing beside the kitchen island, listening to the wind rub against the house, and he sipped his water and closed his eyes, trying to escape. Sleep-deprived. He had heard the sound of scratching as a mere whisper, and curiosity drew him towards its source. He slowly walked barefoot past the dining room table and into the living room. He rounded the sofa and stood staring at the boarded-up window. The sound came again. Gripping the glass of water, he took a few steps forward until his face was but inches from the boards. The sound vanished. He shrugged, raised the glass to take another drink—the window behind the boards shattered, and the wooden paneling splintered as twin fists shot through. Shock ran through him, and he dropped the glass, which shattered at his feet, the remaining water soaking into the carpet. His eyes went wide, and he took a few steps backwards. The fists opened into hands, and the arms protruded from the broken boards, one of which now hung from a single nail. The hands groped for him. The man spun on his heels, realizing what was happening. The muscles in his legs flexed to run back towards the ladder, which was now descended, which he would scale to retrieve his rifle; but the sound of more shattering glass and arms breaking through the half-rotted wooden boards tore through him, and he found his feet glued to the carpet as every window in the kitchen and living room broke apart, hands reaching through, groping blindly about in the darkness.

Mark awoke to the sounds of the breaking glass and shredding wood. He leapt up from the mattress and ran into the den to alert the man, but when he shoved open the door, he saw that the cot was empty. A frightened curse escaped his lips, and he ran over to the ladder. He looked down to see the front door bulging, shrieks flooding in through the cracks. His face went pale-white, and he staggered into the den and grabbed the Russian rifle. He returned to the ladder just as the front door burst open, the wooden boards splintering and collapsing to the ground. The door hung from one hinge as a flurry of dark-walkers blitzkrieging the house from the gloomy night beyond. Acting on impulse, Mark raised the rifle, aimed along the knotted sight, and shot off a single round: the first dark-walker to enter swooned to the side and collapsed as the back of his skull issued forth a waterfall of blood and brain matter. The other dark-walkers paused, turned, looked up at him, and with a shriek, rushed for the ladder.

The man had been thankful that the dark-walkers that had come through the front door had been averted, but he turned around on his heels just in time to leap out of the way of an assailant. They had begun climbing through the windows, carrying with them snow that melted on the carpet and tile floor of the kitchen. The dark-walker he’d dodged slammed into the wall and regained its balance; another had leapt at the man, but he grabbed it by the arm and swung it around, hurling it into its companion; both tumbled onto the ground and rolled about, snapping at each other like wild animals. The man ran into the kitchen as he heard more gunshots from upstairs. He grabbed the empty bottle of cognac from the counter as a dark-walker leapt over the kitchen island; the man swiped the bottle into the creature’s skull; the bottle shattered, and the dazed 28-year-old-accountantturned-monster fell headfirst onto the floor at the man’s feet. Without hesitation, the man raised his heel off the ground and drove it into the dark-walker’s skull. He felt warm blood coat his foot, and he stumbled backwards, stepping onto shattered glass from the cognac bottle; with a shout of searing pain, he fell to the ground.

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Dwellers of the Night

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The dark-walkers quickly scaled the ladder. Mark took several steps into the interior of the upstairs hallway and leveled two who had reached the top of the landing. Their bodies fell back down the ladder, taking those climbing behind with them. More managed to reach the landing, and he turned and ran into Kira’s old bedroom, slamming the door. He quickly locked the latch and stepped back. He moved past the end of the bed and towards the far window; the rifle raised in his hands, and he aimed at the door as the dark-walkers threw themselves upon it. The hinges creaked and groaned. Splinters began to emerge from the impacts of their shoulders. Mark held the rifle at the ready and waited, sweat crawling down his face and burning his eyes; he dared not blink.

The man limped to his feet as the two dark-walkers from the parlor entered the kitchen. He limped towards the far wall, looking back over his shoulder, unable to breathe from the terror that lodged itself in his throat. But the dark-walkers fell short of chasing him and knelt down beside their fallen comrade; one bent over like a dog and began to lap up his blood with his tongue; the other, a fortyyear-old housewife, grabbed the dead dark-walker’s limp arm and began to chew. Blood quickly surrounded her lips, and her eyes were glazed over with delight. The man’s stomach curled like sour milk, and without tearing his eyes from the creatures, he began feeling his way towards the garage door: he couldn’t reach the upstairs, where his guns were located, but he knew he had an axe in the garage. Just as he reached the garage door, the boards from the back door burst apart and the door fractured wide. Countless dark-walkers surged inside; the man went still. The dark-walkers, eight or nine of them, stood beside the dining room table. The man’s heart pounded as one of them—a fourteen-year-old-girl, he imagined—picked up the Mexican ashtray and examined it with beady eyes. One of the creatures let out a shriek, pointing towards the man with an almost human gait. The girl dropped the ashtray and they raced towards him.

Mark waited. And waited. The hinges finally snapped, and the door flung open. Three dark-walkers flooded inside, stumbling over their own legs in their attempt to reach their prey. Mark aimed, squeezed the trigger.
Click
. “Fuck.” With the gun still in hand, he ran to the bathroom, entered, quickly shut the door. Wan moonlight came through the skylight. He looked for a lock on the door, but he did not find one. The door suddenly flew open, bashing him in the forehead. He dropped the rifle and fell back into the sink; the edge of the sink sunk into his back, sending lightning pain up and down his spine. He gripped the edge of the sink with both hands, lifted himself up, and slammed his feet into the door. It sagged backwards and clicked. He jumped off the sink and threw his shoulder into the door. He spied the Russian rifle lying on the ground. He kicked towards it, trying to reach, as the dark-walkers threw themselves into the cheap wood. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

The man managed to open the door to the garage and sagged inside. A ring of dusty light came from a window next to an old workbench, and the light dimly illuminated the garage. The man tripped over the heavy cable that ran from the chugging generator into the house; his knee burned with pain when he fell, but he quickly hobbled to his feet. He spied the axe hanging from a shelf, the handle sticking out. He limped over and took it by the hand, swinging it out. The dark-walkers poured into the garage. He held the axe at the ready, knowing he didn’t stand a chance. His eyes fell upon something in the corner: an old floodlight used to work on the car.
Battery powered
. Keeping his eyes on the dark-walkers, he crept towards the corner. The dark-walkers slowed, surrounding the corner of the garage in a semi-circle, closing in like wild animals circling their meal. The man held the axe with one hand and with the other fumbled with the POWER switch on the floodlight. The darkwalkers continued to close in. Anthony Barnhart

Dwellers of the Night

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Mark had managed to pull the rifle towards him with the tip of his toes; he reached down to grab the barrel, and as he did so, the upper half of the door splintered, and hands reached through. He grabbed the rifle and crouched at the foot of the door. The hands of the dark-walkers, skinny and purple from the cold, groped at his wavy hair. One hurled itself against the door, and one of the hinges creaked. The impact shook the bathroom, and the mirror above the sink fell free from its moorings and crashed to the ground, falling to a stop propped between the edge of the sink and the far wall with the window. Mark gazed into the webbed glass and could see his reflection: the haggard façade, the fear in his eyes, the emaciated skeleton he had become, his jaw contorted into a menacing scowl. As he gazed upon the fractured mirror, he hardly noticed the fingers of the darkwalkers caressing his scalp, almost massaging it as Cara had done so long ago. He gazed into the mirror, and everything went quiet, and he saw Ashlie’s reflection beside him: she was crouched down with him, horrified, tears crawling down her cheeks, squeezing her stuffed animal tight. Cara appeared on his other side, grasping him with shaking fingers, her head buried into his shoulder. He clutched the Russian rifle with white fingers. All he could see were their faces, and he didn’t comprehend his actions as he flipped the gun upside-down, moved away from the door, stood, and let them enter the bathroom.

The man found the switch. He pushed it down with his thumb. Brilliant white light flooded the garage, a light so bright that it burned his eyes. He fell back into several empty cardboard boxes, and he dropped the axe as he instinctually reached up to protect his eyes from the light. The dark-walkers shrieked, groping at their own eyes, spinning around and bumping into one another. They scattered from the garage, terrified, and the beam from the floodlight entered the kitchen, and it reflected off the shattered glass from all the windows, and it carried its way in swooping bows throughout the house. The dark-walkers who had been feasting on the fallen friend leapt up and ran, tripping over its body; the dark-walkers emptied from the house, carrying their screams of fright into the darkness.

The man grabbed the axe and ran into the kitchen. He could hear the sound of a fight upstairs, and his heart reigned with horror. He ran around the kitchen island, leapt over the fallen dark-walker, and spun down the hallway into the parlor. The front door was wide open, revealing an icy tundra vacant of inhabitants; several bodies, some covered with melting snow, lie in bloody pools at the foot of the ladder. The man quickly climbed the ladder while clutching the axe, and he jumped over another body before bursting into Kira’s old bedroom, axe raised high, ready, afraid of what he might find: but what he saw confounded all explanation.

III

The man is staring at Mark’s back, which heaves back and forth in a slow, rhythmic motion with each seismic breath. Sweat cascades down Mark’s face, blending with the blood covering his body. He grips the gun tight as he stands over the mess before him. The man’s eyes are drawn to the bed, the furniture, the walls: streaks and goblets of blood cover everything. The boy stands at the end of the bed, facing the far wall next to the bed’s headboard; all the man can see are spindly, naked legs protruding from the other side of the bed, the mattress hiding the rest of the body, except for an arm with overgrown fingernails that lies sprawled amidst the twisted bed-sheets, the fingers twitching as rigor mortis begins to set in. The man calls out Mark’s name, but Mark does not respond. He moves Anthony Barnhart