Dwellers of the Night: The Complete Collection (45 page)

“You’re going the wrong way!” the man yells over the roar of the engine.

“What?!” Adrian shouts back.

“The wrong way! You’re heading
into
the city!”

“I know!” the boy exclaims.

The man says something, but his words are silenced with the splicing wind as the snowmobile maneuvers around wrecked cars and heads south on Interstate-75 North.

The skyscrapers loom, the tops sparkling in the last rays of sunlight coming over the hills. The sounds of the dark-walkers can be heard even over the engine. The snowmobile passes under the I-74 bridge, entering the shadows. Figures flicker on either side underneath the bridge; the girl clutches the man Anthony Barnhart

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with tight, white-knuckled fingers, her teeth chattering from the cold and from fear. The highway continues to twist and turn. Adrian eyes what he is looking for, and cutting the throttle back, ascends an entry-ramp. He swerves around a pile of wrecked cars covered with snow, and he is soon driving down a narrow road surrounded by decrepit buildings. The man knows this place. Over-the-Rhine: once the denizens of crooks, criminals, prostitutes, drug dealers, and home of at least four or five murders a week. Now the streets are deserted, the stoops filled with snow, trash-cans knocked over. The boy lets out a shout and slams the breaks; the bodies behind him slam forcefully into his. A deer with its sweeping antlers stares at them, standing in the middle of the street. The man curses. “What the fuck?”

“It’s a deer,” Adrian says.

The man looks over his shoulder just as the deer trots away.

Dark-walker shrieks carry over them.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” the man says.

Adrian hits the throttle, and the snowmobile lurches forward.

The man looks behind them. Several dark-walkers fill the shadows in the street, fighting amongst themselves, waiting for the daylight to extinguish in its grand finale.

Adrian heads down Race Street, and soon they are driving between the skyscrapers. The ground floors of the skyscrapers are filled with movement, and creatures begin to stumble through the broken glass, emerging onto the street, into the shadows cast by the towering, monolithic buildings. Adrian swerves around a wrecked police-car. Dark-walkers snap and snarl at the intruders. The snowmobile turns left and drives over a bridge that descends into a parking lot, mostly empty. They ramp a petition of grass and are on a road that runs beside both ballpark stadiums. Dark-walkers lurk in the shadows of the stadiums, watching with a jealous fire as the three non-sick humans rush past in a blur, spitting snow behind them.

The girl begins to cry as the sun takes its final breath.

Adrian twists the vehicle to the right, and they descend along a steep embankment. They crash through several dead bushes, their legs torn apart by the whipping tendrils. He emerges onto the grounds of the Riverfront Park. He drives past several statues and through the playground with the swings that rock back and forth in the breeze coming up off the icy river. Adrian eyes Mount Adams, sitting quietly above them. He twists off the road, up an embankment, and onto another road: OH-50. He leans forward, giving the vehicle more gas. Up ahead is an exit-ramp that becomes a bridge stretching across the road, forking against Mount Adams. He takes the exit ramp, slowing, and they rush over the bridge. He jerks the snowmobile to the left, and they ascend a steep hill; the girl clutches the man, trying to hold on. The snowmobile chugs, nearly goes broke, before the incline levels out. Adrian cuts the engine and leaps off the vehicle.

“Where the hell are we?” the man demands.

“No time!” Adrian answers, running towards a fence that rises at least twenty feet, coiled with barbed wire at the top.

The girl sobs, “I can’t climb that!”

Dark-walker howls fill the night air. They are growing closer.

The man grabs Alyssa by the arm. “Climb.
Now
.”

They climb the fence. It is cold and covered with ice. The man remembers his ankle. How it doesn’t hurt anymore. They must have fixed it.
Maybe you just bruised it
. He finds it funny that he thinks Anthony Barnhart

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about his ankle as the dark-walkers in the surrounding German-style buildings begin to emerge. They throw themselves against the fence, reaching up for them. The fence wobbles and shakes. The girl screams, and one hand releases; she dangles. The man grabs her leg, and she slips; he grips her tight; she swings down, plummeting; he grips the coils of the fence between his fingers; she falls beneath him, and the wrenching force nearly tears him from the fence. She screams, hanging upsidedown, held only by the man’s one free arm; the dark-walkers below snap up at her and leap, slicing through the air with greedy fingers with overgrown nails. The man grits his teeth, can feel himself slipping.
Drop the girl. Drop the girl. Drop the girl
. He refuses. Gunshots ring out.

He opens his eyes; the dark-walkers below are scattering, and two lie dead. Adrian is on the other side of the fence, shouting: “Climb! Climb!”

Alyssa regains her composure, and she rights herself on the fence. They reach the top and navigate the barbed wire; it cuts at the man’s jeans. He drops down. Alyssa is poised at the top.

More dark-walkers appear, moving along the edges of the fence.

Gunshots sing. More fall, and the others flee into the shadows.

The man spins around as Adrian yells at the girl to keep climbing. He gazes up a flight of 89 steps and sees several figures with guns. He hears the sound of a shout followed by a crash. He spins around. The girl is lying in the snow, clutching her leg.

The man rushes forward. “Oh God.”

“The barbed wire cut me!” she exclaims.

“Does your leg hurt?”

“I’m bleeding. Yes. It hurts.”

“I mean, is it broken?”

She shakes her head. “No. I don’t think so.”

“Good.”

Adrian helps her to her feet. “We’re safe now.”

The man looks up at the church. “Where are we?”

“The Holy Immaculata Church of the Cross,” Adrian says. “My home.”

II

Adrian leads the way up the snow-laden steps, and the man helps the girl with an arm around her shoulder. The figures with guns materialize in the light of lanterns within the church, and they help the figures into the hazy warmth of the smoke. Figures stand around, half-masked in the shadows. A shout rings out, and one of the figures runs forward. The man sees that it is a girl. She rushes into Adrian’s arms, and Adrian grips her tight. A wry smile crosses over the man’s face, and suddenly he feels the sharp pains streaking through his stomach. One of the men with guns shuts the door, keeping out the cold night air, and two women move forward and take the girl from the man’s shoulder. The man sags against the wall and runs his hand underneath his shirt; he can feel the warmth of blood. He shakes his head, curses. He watches Adrian and the girl, clutching one another, kissing. A burst of jealousy runs through him, jealousy that he cannot do the same with Kira. A hand falls upon his shoulder.

The man turns, and suddenly he forgets the pain.

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Mark grins, embraces the man, squeezes him tight.

The man reels away. “Not too tight…”

The boy looks down at the man’s hand, now withdrawn from under the shirt, the fingertips speckled with fresh blood.

“What happened?” Mark asks.

“I was shot.”

“At the factory?”

“Yeah.”

“Well. It’s good to see you.”

“Good to see you, too.”

Mark looks over at Rachel, tears of joy crawling down her face. “She won’t hate me anymore.”

“What’s that?” the man asks.

“Nothing,” Mark says, turning back to him. “We have a nurse. She can suture you up.”

Mark didn’t sleep any last night. Nancy took the man to the upstairs room, and Mark hasn’t seen him since. He has wandered the empty and cavernous halls of the church, and he has found himself in what had at one time been a theological library. The binds on the books are covered with dust, and he peruses them only with mild interest. There are no windows here, and he holds an oil lamp and lets the light flicker about the room, dancing over the bookshelves and a few dusty chairs, an old coffee table with a broken coffee mug. There is a sound outside the corridor. He turns and sees Adrian enter. His eyes are tired, and he sits down in one of the chairs. Mark nods to him, begins to walk out the door, leaving him alone. Adrian protests, asks him to stay. Mark pauses at the doorway, then sits down in one of the chairs, setting the oil lamp on the coffee table. The flickering light cuts shadows into their faces, and their eyes are hidden in the darkness, empty bowls upon worn faces.

“I have something for you,” Adrian says, digging into the pocket in his jacket. He pulls out a pack of cigarettes, tosses it through the air. Mark catches them. “The man requested them.” He laughs. “So I went out this morning and grabbed some from a small convenience store. He said you’d probably want some as well.”

Mark fondles the pack of CAMEL 99S. “I used to think these things would kill me.”

Adrian says nothing. His eyes flit about the room. “You’ve known him long?”

“Yes,” Mark says, wishing he had a lighter. “A couple months now.”

“I thought you may have been his son.”

“No. He never had kids… And my parents died several years ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It was a car accident. But I think it’s better that they lie in their grave rather than…” He has an image of his parents stumbling around their old house, foaming at the mouth, eyes maniacal, thirsting for human flesh, parched for the drink of noxious blood. Adrian understands. “He’s a good man. I didn’t… I thought low of him at first.”

“He has that way with him. He’s not too… sociable.”

“It’s in his character?”

“I don’t know. His fiancé… She became one of them. And he killed her.”

“Oh.”

The silence is engulfing.

Adrian speaks. “I was on a road-trip with some friends when it happened. We were staying in a hotel. I didn’t know it had happened until the morning. My friend had stopped breathing, he had been sleeping in the bed next to me. I was terrified, so I ran out into the hallway and called for help. Anthony Barnhart

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No one came. I knocked on the door next to us, where our other friends were, but no response came. I managed to open it with my credit card. It was one of those old doors with actual metal keys, not the electric card swipes, so I was able to open it. My friends were dead, too. Or dead-
ish
. It didn’t take long for me to realize what had happened. The busboy at the front of the hotel had smashed his head into the glass several times, and he was laying on the carpet in a pool of his own blood. There was a gas station close. One of those that were open 24 hours, because it was right off the highway. There was a car sitting beside the pump, and the driver was on the ground beside it. The hose for the gas, it was… He had shoved it in his mouth, and his face was stained with gasoline. He drowned himself.”

“Whatever this is,” Mark says, “it made people go crazy first.”

“It has to be a disease. A virus. Or a germ.”

“I think so, too.”

“Why do you think some people are immune? And others… weren’t?”

Mark doesn’t answer; he has no answer to give.

III

“It’s beautiful at night.” They stand upon the roof of the church, together, the stars sparkling like an Arabian carpet high above. The wind has died down, and the starlight dances over the snow that fills the streets and the roofs of the skyscrapers. Clumps of ice slide down the Ohio River, jostling one another in an effortless ballet. The dark-walkers howl no longer, lost in the cocoons of their own choosing, slowly dwindling down in numbers in the sharp Ohio cold. A coyote howls in the distance, and several dark-walkers answer. It sends shivers up his spine. But the dark-walkers go quiet, and both of them stand unmoving. Her arms are wrapped around him, and she rests her chin upon his shoulder; he plays with her fingers, not minding the cold, and he can feel her warm breath kissing his rose-blotched cheek. “I used to stand just down the road from here… And I’d sit and just watch the city at night. The lights were beautiful, and I’d watch the cars driving along the highways and the exchanges. But now… the buildings aren’t lit. The highways are covered with snow and ice, and the only cars on the roads are covered with snow and have been dormant for months.”

“It’s just you and me now,” Rachel says, and she squeezes him tightly against her. He slowly turns and looks into her eyes. They sparkle in the starlight. Words are lost. Their heads lean closer together, the harshness and cruelty of the world forgotten with the delicious, slow, and awkward kiss, the taste of her lips and the pressure of her body against his a sanctuary from the nightmares that have so long accosted his sleep. They have stopped kissing, and now they just hold one another. She murmurs quietly, and he runs his fingers through her hair, the knuckles white with the frosty cold. He buries his head in her hair, and his eyes look upwards, at the carpet of stars twinkling in the atmosphere.
A solitary planet revolving around a solitary sun in a solitary galaxy in a
solitary universe. We are entirely alone
. He feels her breathing against him, and a faint smile drapes his face.
We are entirely alone, and everything is perfect
.

She pulls away, and she looks up into his eyes…

promising,

pleading.

Wholly needful.

Her lips move in a bare whisper: “What are you thinking?”

He bites his own lip and doesn’t answer for a moment. “This is perfect.
You’re
perfect.”

She pulls her jacket tighter. “It’s cold.”

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“I know. But I don’t notice it so much.”

“I think we should go inside.”