Dwellers of the Night: The Complete Collection (60 page)

The vet replied, ‘There was a hair in it.’”

Harker looks over at the man. “What about you? Got a story to tell?”

The man smokes his cigar quietly. “No.”

“Come on,” Anthony says. “You
have
to know at least one joke.”

“A joke?” the man asks. “Here’s a joke: we’re sitting around in the middle of the woods, closedoff from any kind of help, joking around about shit and dead girls, while we’re possibly surrounded by blood-sucking dwellers of the night. How funny is that to you? Because I’m the only one who seems to realize the fact.”

IV

The man opens the hatchway and climbs onto the roof. Adrian and Malkovich look over at him. The man tells Malkovich that he can leave, and the older man thanks him, hands him the hunting rifle, and climbs down into the hatchway, closing it behind him. The man joins Adrian behind the hunting canopy, rubbing his hands together against the cold. They don’t say much. The sun is setting, and the howls of the dark-walkers can be heard in the distance.

“How far away, do you think?” the man asks.

Adrian shrugs. “They could be in Florence for all we know.”

“How far away is Florence?”

“Maybe twenty miles.”

“That’s good, I guess.”

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They don’t talk anymore. The man stares into the trees. Poplars and oaks and elms, naked and dripping from the sun that had melted the snow and ice clinging to the branches. The ground is soggy, and the only sounds come from the distant howls, the river rushing against the bank across the street, and the droning of early spring insects.

“Last time we came out here,” Adrian says, “in November, they did something we didn’t expect. A deer had gotten relatively close to us, and Kyle was just about to take the shot when a group of dark-walkers emerged from behind the church. They rushed after the deer. Kyle didn’t shoot, obviously, for fear of giving away our position. We knew they weren’t going to catch the deer; the deer was much faster, and although it’s a chore for us to run from them, the deer has nothing to worry about. So it ran into a thicket. And that’s when we heard its screams. The chasing dark-walkers slowed down and joined the fray. When morning came, all we found were scattered bones and droplets of blood in the leaves. They had set a trap. Several dark-walkers hid in the bushes, and the others chased the deer right into their arms.” He looks over at the man. “Some people don’t want to believe it. They won’t talk about it. But these dark-walkers, these zombies, these vampires, they’re
learning
. They’re moving around in groups now. They have leaders. They’re using tactical maneuvers to take down prey, just like the lions and hyenas in Africa. I mean, they set a
trap
. A
fucking trap
. They’re not just blood and bones, absent-minded monsters roaming the countryside. They’re forming societies. Hierarchies. They’re banding together.
Working
together. They’ve been hiding all winter. They’ve been weeding out the weak. And guess what’s going to happen, now that the snow is melting and it’s getting warmer?”

The man shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

“Me neither,” Adrian says. “But I sure as hell don’t want to think about it.”

“How are you and Rachel doing?” the man asks, a meager attempt at conversation.

“I don’t know,” Adrian says. “She’s just been—’’

“Sorry about walking out of your wedding.”

The interruption captures Adrian unprepared. “What? Oh. No, it’s okay.”

“It wasn’t right for me to leave.”

“It’s okay.”

“I lost my fiancé… girlfriend… with the plague. And just seeing you guys getting married… It just made me think about her. Think about what we could have had. I’m a selfish bastard. I know that as much as anyone.”

Adrian doesn’t say anything for a moment. “I don’t have any reason to be mad at you. I can’t pretend that everything is okay just because I’m married now. I love Rachel. I really do. But I know that marrying her doesn’t change what’s going on outside the church walls.” He takes a breath, scans the tree-line. No deer. “I think Rachel thought that once we got married, something would change, like a switch would be flipped. I think she thought that everything would go back to normal. She’s always dreamed of her wedding night. But I don’t think her fantasy honeymoon involved standing on a church rooftop and watching the sunset, only to go back down below. She’s been really depressed lately, not saying much, really quiet. Sometimes she cries in her sleep. It tears me up. It makes me realize that… Nothing will be normal, never again. Even if this whole thing blows over—

which I doubt it will—nothing will be the same.”

Anthony comes onto the roof an hour into nightfall, excusing Adrian to go down for some dinner. He joins the man. They stand in silence for some time. Anthony finally speaks. “I’d been here, to this church, before the plague. One of my friends, back when I was in high school, went to this church, Anthony Barnhart

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and he was all ape about God and everything, and he invited me to start coming. I agreed to go just once, but I kept coming back. You know why? Because there was this girl here. This beautiful girl with golden locks of hair and the most
fantastic
figure. Her name was Samantha. We hit it off pretty well, and I endured many an agonizing sermon just to sit next to her. We started dating, but a few months later, she cheated on me. I was pretty heartbroken by it, and by that time, I had befriended the youth minister, a good guy named Benjamin with a cool wife named… Megan? Michelle? I don’t remember. They lived in the parsonage beside the church, over there.” He points into the trees, and the man can nearly make out a wooden structure. “It was a nice little house. When we decided to start hunting deer, I recommended this place. It’s out in the middle of nowhere, it’s a place that has some protection. And I secretly wanted to see if Benjamin and his wife had made it. When we got here for the first time, it was nearly nightfall. I made my way over to the parsonage and knocked. I laughed then, at the fact that I had knocked, but was instantly thankful I did: I heard scuffling inside, and it was coming towards the door. I jumped back, swung the rifle around, and the door burst open. Benjamin came right through, nothing but skin and bones, and his jaws were covered with blood. I shot him through the forehead, and I can still feel the gun shaking in my hands. Several of the guys came around, shouting. I went into the house, despite their warnings for me to stay outside. I found his wife. She was in the kitchen, lying on the linoleum, dead as a doorknob. Her abdomen was ripped open, and her intestines were draped over the floor like some elegant lattice.” He shakes his head. “I forgot about it that night. It was nothing unusual. They tell you that when you kill someone, you change. They’re right. I haven’t been the same since I… made my first kill.”

“Since you killed Benjamin?” the man asks.

“No,” Anthony replies.

He looks up at the man, eyes cold and empty.

“The first person I killed was my girlfriend.”

V

“Everyone says that this is my wet dream,” Anthony says, “that I am somehow so sadistic that I’m actually
excited
about the plague. Maybe it’s because I’m so sure that these are zombies. Maybe it’s because I am cool and collective when most people are shitting their shorts.” He shakes his head. “I don’t know. I would always watch zombie movies and read zombie books. There was this one I read, a comical book about how to survive a zombie apocalypse. It was funny at the time. When the dead began to rise, I started leafing through that book, putting together my plan. It actually helped me.”

He laughs. “Ironic, isn’t it? But there was a section in the book telling you, when faced with a person you loved who had become a zombie, to recognize that the flesh covering the zombie was not the one you had loved. The person who had become a zombie was no longer your mother, your father, your brother, your sister, your best friend. Makes sense, doesn’t it? But putting that into practice…” He stares into the shadows. “I never killed my parents, even though they… became one of them. I locked them in my basement. I could hear them screaming all day and all night. Eventually they quieted down, and when I went down into the basement a few months later, they were lying side-by-side, nothing but bones and tattered skin crawling with bugs.” A tear speckles his eye. “I couldn’t stand the thought of killing them, even if they weren’t… like they were before. I had joked with Karen, ‘If a zombie apocalypse comes, and you become a zombie, then I’ll kill you without hesitation.’”

“Did you?”

“No,” Anthony says. “I refused to kill her.”

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“But I thought you said…”

“I refused to kill her, until I had no other choice.”

∑Ω∑

They had gone out for a night on the town, and as the darkness began to settle, the sun setting, they found themselves in Cincinnati’s Fountain Square. The three flags hanging daily around the square whipped back and forth in the breeze cutting between the skyscrapers. He had treated her to dinner at the BOI NA BRAZA BRAZILIAN STEAKHOUSE, dessert at GRAETER’S ICE CREAM, and he even bought her a shot of whiskey at the ROCK BOTTOM BREWERY. His stomach was full, weariness leapt through his veins, and she had been teasing him above the steps around the bronze and granite, nine-foot-tall Genius of Water statue, called affectionately “The Lady.” Her arms were outstretched, and water flowed from her hands, sparkling in the last shards of light piercing between the towering buildings. She continued teasing him, and he jokingly slipped away, pulling his IPOD from his pocket and plugging the phones in his ears. He sat down on one of the steps and cradled his head in his hands, music playing in his ears. She followed after a moment, kneeling on the step below him, right at his height. He smiled at her, pulled out one of the earphones, and placed it in her ear. Together they listened to Snow Patrol’s “Chasing Cars”.

He smiled at her as the song played, drowning out the noise of everything else.

“You have no idea,” he said.

“I have no idea?” she asked, confused. “What?”

“You have no idea,” he repeated.

She began to understand what he was doing, and she played along. “Can I have an idea?”

His voice became a whisper, nearly inaudible over the song: “It depends.”

“It depends?” she asked. “What does it depend on?”

“If you want to have an idea or not.”

“I
do
want to have an idea.”

“When?” he asked.

Her eyes were like fire. “Now.”

As the chorus began to play over in the background,

he leaned forward on the step,

and he kissed her.

∑Ω∑

“It was like one of those kisses from the movies,” Anthony tells him, “but it was our first kiss, and it was
real
. I’ve kissed a lot of girls. But I’ve never kissed a girl like I’d kissed Karen. Just feeling her body close to me, the sweet scent of her hair, the way her eyes glistened with anticipation, the way our lips shook as we kissed, fueled by the passion.” He looks up at the man. “This is how I have to remember her…” He is quiet for some time. “We met one another at a coffee shop in Western Cincinnati. ZEN & NOW. That’s what it was called. And our second date took place at a Hookah Bar in Clifton. We hit it off really well, and we dated for two months before our first kiss. I fell in love with her instantly. I was planning on asking her to marry me, but I was still in college, pursuing my Master’s, and I was too in debt to buy a ring or even to provide for her. Looking back… None of that should have stopped me. Love is something surreal, yet at the same time it is something that, when experienced, cannot be denied. I loved her, and I shouldn’t have let finances hold me back from Anthony Barnhart

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making me her wife. When the plague struck, I knew I couldn’t get to Karen’s place. I was too terrified to leave the comfort of my own home, even with my parents locked in the basement. When my parents died, I was distraught, and I could think only of Karen. So I went to her house, desperate to find her… And I vowed that even if she were one of them, I would let her take me, because that’s how strong love is. It’s unbreakable… even in death.”

∑Ω∑

The rain fell quietly, the clouds churning over one another far above. He shivered underneath his wet clothes, standing in the overgrown grass lawn, staring at the front door of the house. Several birds flew past, spinning between the houses lining either street. Thunder crackled in the distance. He took a deep breath and moved forward, shoes sloshing in the muddy grass. He stepped up onto the uncovered front porch, gripped the doorknob, slowly pushed the door open. It was unlocked. He stepped out of the rain, into the dark living room. Rats were in the kitchen, scavenging the cupboards, and they disappeared into the chewed drywall at his appearance. He wiped water from his brow and moved forward. The television was dark, and the sofas were complete with their twin pillows. He could see the table where her dad always sat while flipping through “Days of Our Lives”

and “The Weather Channel.”

The boy entered the kitchen. One of the windows was shattered, a bird perched on the rim. It watched him in the rain slanting through the window and into the sink. He stared at it, and then it took flight outside, disappearing. He stood in the deathly quiet, hearing only his ragged breaths. And then came the sound:

something downstairs, in the basement.

His blood ran cold.

He closed his eyes, listened again. Yes. Something downstairs. He walked through the kitchen and came to the closed door leading into the basement. He opened the door slowly, calling out Karen’s name, voice crackling with fright. He stood in the open doorway, peering down into the inky blackness, the stairwell leading to the basement cloaked in a misty shadow. He took each step slowly, and as the darkness wrapped around him, and as his heart wheezed behind his ribs, he unfastened the flashlight on his belt, thumbed the switch. The light blinded him, and he swung the beam out over the railing, into the basement below. The flashlight beam splashed over the two reclining chairs, several boxes filled with books, a blank television screen with a dustcovered XBOX 360 sitting beside it. He swung the light back around…