Dwellers of the Night: The Complete Collection (64 page)

“Rachel?” he asks. “Rachel, it’s me. Adrian.”

She takes several deep breaths, closes her eyes…

and sees that horrible creature again, with his dangling eye and hellish grin. She snaps her eyes back open.

“What happened?” Adrian asks. “Did you have a bad dream?”

“Yes,” Rachel says, trying to collect herself. “Yes, I think so.”

“Well. It’s okay. You’re here with me. Lie back down, okay?”

She does, and he holds her.

He quickly falls asleep.

She stares at the wall, and every time she closes her eyes, she can see his face. Exhaustion overcomes her, and she slips back into the dream-world.

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A hospital looms in front of her. She makes her way inside, calling out for help: she’s going into labor. She is taken to a room, and doctors and nurses in ]\ blue gowns surround her. She gives birth, surprisingly painless—there comes no crying from the baby. She demands to see her child. The nurse tells her that it was stillborn. She demands to see it anyway. The nurse agrees, revealing the infant: the baby girl is blue and cold to the touch. Rachel takes the child in her arms, and a tear crawls down her cheek. She can feel a heartbeat, but convinces herself that it’s only wishful thinking. Suddenly the baby opens her eyes, deep and toxic yellow pupils, and the infant’s mouth opens, revealing twin fangs dripping with venom. Rachel lets out a scream as the child reaches for her neck.

She stumbles down the dark corridor, the walls closing around her. She doesn’t wear any shoes, and the floor is icily cold. She finds the doorway and pushes it open. The old janitorial closet. The makeshift bathroom, where she had discovered her pregnancy. She falls down upon her knees, her mouth opens, and her stomach churns: dark vomit sprays into the toilet, and she leans her forehead against the wall, heaves again. She wipes the bile away from her mouth, reaches down to her stomach, the image of the sterile baby still burning into her mind. She takes several breaths, shaking. Delirium overtakes her, and she staggers to her feet, leaving the bathroom one last time. She places her hand upon her stomach, can almost feel the infant playfully kick. Vomit creeps into the back of her throat

at the thought of a little fanged cretin swirling inside her womb.

The door to the roof is thrown open.

She staggers out into the cold night air, a thick wind blowing against her. The raindrops are heavy and dizzying.

She reels against the railing, leans over, stares down at the sloping hill. At the foot of the hill is the fence,

and surrounding the fence are dozens of dark-walkers,

their murderous eyes set upon her,

their

mouths

dripping

with

drool.

She violently shakes her head, tears tracing her cheeks: “No… No… No…”

She can hear footsteps racing up the stairwell behind her.

Resolution grips her. She crawls upon the railing, rocking back and forth in the wind. Adrian emerges from the door. “Rachel!” he shouts. “Rachel!”

She shakes her head. “No… No… No…”

He moves towards her. “Rachel!”

She looks back at him. “Forgive me,” she pleads. “It’s for the best.”

“Rachel!” he shouts, surging towards her.

She releases her grip.

The wind greets her, and for a moment she feels as free as an eagle. Adrian races to the railing, screaming her name, and he turns his head as her body hits the hard earth below, organs rupturing and bones splintering. Blood forms in a pool beneath her body. Adrian stumbles backwards, world spinning, and he claws at his face, screaming for himself to wake up. He falls back into the outside wall, slides down onto the ground, knees curled up against his chest. He rocks back and forth in the rain, eyes staring forward, wanting to awake, but knowing he never shall. The rain falls harder, and the dark-walkers howl.

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Chapter Twenty

Cherry Kisses & Autumn Blossoms

(or “Katie’s Story”)

“The love expressed between women is particular and powerful,

because we have had to love in order to live; love has been our

survival.”

- Audre Lorde (A.D. 1934-1992)

I

Rachel’s death struck the community hard, but no one suffered anywhere near the suffering that Adrian endured. They buried her body the next afternoon, at the Spring Grove Cemetery. It rained constantly, and Adrian watched from a distance, standing underneath a marble gazebo beside the lake that wept back and forth in blustery winds. Everyone departed, but Adrian stayed longer. He had approached the dug earth, knelt down next to the crude makeshift cross, and he tenderly kissed the memorial to Rachel’s already-fading memory and forgotten legacy. As he made his way back to the church, several blocks down the road, he couldn’t help but wonder at the cruel fate of his life: he had lost Kristen to the same fate many years earlier, and now he had lost Rachel. The vision of her leaping from the railing chewed through him, and he could not begin to imagine why she would have done such a thing. Sarah kept quiet, deciding to give him the news, knowing that the loss of Rachel
and
a first child would have torn through him like a serrated blade. The days went by, and Adrian turned into a recluse, spending the daylight outside the church, wandering the streets, sitting at the overlooks and watching the dead city. Tears became his diet night-and-day, and his soul quickly became hardened, and he refused contact with others. Katie approached him, always the one seeking to deliver comfort, and she asked why, in the midst of unbelievable tragedy, he isolated himself from others and sank deeper and deeper into the dark chasm that had become his life. She was surprised to receive a genuine answer.

“I’ve given up,” he told her. “I’ve gotten to the point where I have given up on my hopes and dreams. I’ve always wanted to love and be loved. I’ve been called a hopeless romantic, and in college, my friends harmlessly joked that I had the romantic heart of a preteen girl. I’ve experienced my dream, Katie. But whenever I experience my dream, hurt follows suit. Giving up… Giving up on caring, giving up on loving… It’s scary and frightening at the same time.”

“You can’t give up,” she told him. “I know it’s hard, but you can’t give up. You’ve been hurt a lot, Adrian. But you
can’t give up
.”

“The last seven years of my life have been marked by constant emotional suffering, broken only by moments of temporary and fleeting happiness. They say this plague changed everything. In a way, it did. But it didn’t change me. It didn’t change the way my heart feels. It didn’t change the pain that I feel every single day. I am no longer fighting for my dreams, and I squash whispers of hope before they grow too loud. I’ve been constantly hurt by those whom I care about, so part of me wants to grow cold and resolute, closed-off from others, so that I will not begin caring for someone only to have my heart ripped apart at the seams. It’s miserable and pathetic, but I see no other viable options. Anthony Barnhart

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The noose of resignation tightens around my throat, and it takes every ounce of strength for me not to kick the chair out from under my feet.”

“Rachel is just the beginning,” the man says. He and Mark are sitting in a small German pub that overlooks the city, only a few blocks from the church. The snow has completely melted, and the spring rains are incessant, night and day. The man has taken many walks away from the church, exploring, and today he invited Mark to come along with him. At the pub, he broke open a bottle of whiskey and poured them each a shot. GLENFARCLAS 25. He knew it from a layover in Germany before the plague. Mark throws back the shot, feels it burning down his throat, blinks the tears away. It has been months since he’s had any kind of alcohol. The man continues, smoking a CAMEL WIDE,

“The community is falling apart, and Rachel is just the beginning. We’ve become complacent. We’ve forgotten what life is really like outside the church walls. When Malkovich died, everyone was distraught. They wondered how it could have happened. Rachel’s death severed an artery in the veins of the church, illuminating the fact that we are small and miniscule, a tiny statistic in a world that’s gone to hell.” He takes another drag. “It’s just a matter of time, Mark. Just a matter of time before the church falls apart completely, before its walls are stained with blood.
Our
blood…” He glares at the boy. “Unless we do something about it.”

Mark pours himself another shot. “And this is when you try to convince me to do something insane. Am I right?”

The man shakes his head. “It’s the most sane thing I’ve ever come up with.”

“All right,” Mark says, taking the shot. He coughs, sets the glass down.

“We need to leave this church,” the man says. “I know what it means to all the people. It’s a beacon of hope. A spark of normalcy. It’s a sanctuary, a haven. But to me, it’s a prison. Everything that we’ve installed at the church to keep the dark-walkers out also keep us
in
. And when the darkwalkers get inside the church—and they will, I promise you—then we’re going to have one hell of a party. This city, it’s flooding with dark-walkers. They’re emerging from their hiding places, roaming the streets once more in the warmth of the night. There have been more and more situating themselves along the fence-line of the church. I know: I’ve been counting them at night. There were nearly seventy around the perimeter last night, groping at the fence, watching us, staying out of the ultraviolet beams from the lights Rachel installed. If we want to survive, we need to get out of the church. And we need to get out of this city.”

Mark eyes him. “And go where? South?”

“South? Hell no. It’s warmer down south. The snow here kept them at bay for a few months. In the Southern states, like Florida, they were probably roaming Palm Beach and getting lost in the Everglades on Christmas Eve. We need to go somewhere that’s not populated, but somewhere that has lots of resources and lots of protection.”

“And this is when you tell me where, exactly, we should go.”

“Alaska,” the man says.

Mark laughs. “Alaska? Do you know how far away that is?”

“It’s not very populated. It’s mostly wilderness. Along the north and western borders is ocean, and along the south and east there is rocky wilderness. The Yukon of Canada. Vast forests. Along the shorelines are thousands of islands, most of them abandoned. Dark-walkers don’t go into the water. They wouldn’t get to the islands. We could build our own cabin, we could live off the land, fish for food, have a constant water supply if we find a way to get the salt out. Look.” He extinguishes the cherry of the cigarette on his jeans, flicks it onto the floor. “I know it’s far away. But it’s
safe
. And we Anthony Barnhart

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can map a route that will take us away from the major cities, keep us in places that are relatively abandoned.”

“How are we going to get a car? And how are we going to get gas
for
the car?”

“Just like we did before we came here.”

“If we’re driving out in the wilderness, what happens when we run out of gas?”

The man scowls.

“Didn’t think about that, did you?”

“Fuck,” the man mutters.

The boy thinks for a moment. “You could fly.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. There’s no power. I’d be flying blind. And what happens when I run out of fuel over the middle of god-forsaken Canada?”

Mark shrugs. “You could parachute out.”

“And end up parachuting into some densely populated city in the dead of night.”

The boy pours himself another shot.

The man grabs the shot glass, pours it onto the floor.

“What the hell?” Mark demands.

“You’ve had enough. Look. I’m going to go to Alaska. In a week. I’ve already begun writing down lists of supplies. You can stay here if you want, but consider this a formal invitation. I’d rather you come with me and stay alive than stay here and eventually die. Or, worse, become one of
them
.”

The boy doesn’t say anything for a moment.

“What?” the man asks.

“I’ve made friends here,” Mark says. “Kyle. Katie. Anthony.”

“We don’t have room for all of them.”

“We could drive two vehicles.”

“It’d just be more complicated.”

“I’m not going to just leave them behind.”

The man hands him the shot glass. “Then drink up. Because soon, you will die.”

The pursuit of normalcy lulls them from the confines of the church. With the snow melted, many of the men in the church had talked about starting a football league. To most, the idea was laughable—

but yet it held the promise that some things would never change, that escape from the terrors and horrors of life could be experienced through that which had served as an anti-depressant and a brand of escapism since the dawn of time: sports. And so they loaded up the snow-mobiles and headed down OH-50, branching off at a road that led to the parking lot of the Bengals Stadium against the River. They broke in and carefully swept the decks of the stadium to make sure there were no

“visitors”. Once it was found to be safe, the men grabbed a pigskin from a display case—one covered with the signatures of former NFL players, all who had become dark-walkers themselves—and started throwing it down on the field. They formed opposing teams, assigned positions, and began laughing and cheering and yelling, cussing and joking, upon the field with its decayed grass. Katie and Sarah sit upon the bleachers, watching the men dive for the ball, proceeding to argue about whether the call was legitimate. They had asked one of the girls to be the referee, but neither of them had known enough about football to take the job professionally.

Katie watches storm-clouds moving in from the south, tumbling over one another. Sarah says, “I’ve been thinking about something a lot lately.”

“What’s that?” Katie asks, looking over at her.

“What’s it like to be one of the… vampires. Or zombies. Or dark-walkers.”