Dwellers of the Night: The Complete Collection (67 page)

Katie’s world spun as she nodded. “Uh-huh.”

They moved to the bed. Elizabeth lied down, and Katie crawled atop of her. They began kissing, the passionate kisses they always shared. She began pulling at Elizabeth’s pajama pants, and she pulled them off. Elizabeth wasn’t wearing any panties, and her shaven vagina stared up at her. The naked Katie worked with Elizabeth’s shirt; Elizabeth extended her arms, and Katie pulled the shirt off of her, revealing that she was not wearing a bra. Her breasts were small, too, but they were soft and the skin felt like silk, her pink nipples growing hard. Katie smiled and leaned down, sucking on Elizabeth’s nipples; she would suck on one and, with the other hand, roll the other between her fingers. Elizabeth let out a long, soft moan, and they began to kiss passionately once again.

∑Ω∑

“We didn’t leave the hotel room until that night,” Katie says. “We spent the entire day there. We ordered room-service and enjoyed one another. It was different than all the other times with other girls. This time it wasn’t just about sexual attraction. That was there, of course, but… But it was something so much
more
than that.” She can tell Adrian feels slightly awkward, but she continues Anthony Barnhart

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telling him her story. “It was with Elizabeth that I realized I could truly love a girl. I told her that night. We were walking along the beach, and I pulled her close to me, and I confessed, like a childish school-girl, that I loved her. She smiled back at me, and a tear crawled down her cheek, and she told me that she loved me, too, that I was the first woman she ever truly loved. She was older than me, had been with a lot of women. But she had never enjoyed sex with anyone as much as she enjoyed it with me. We returned to the room that night and had sex again, and after we both experienced the most intense orgasms of our lives, we passed out naked in each other’s arms. She kissed me so gently on the lips, and she told me that we were going to be the best of roommates, and she invited me to live with her in Cincinnati.”

Katie stares into the darkness. “I moved to Cincinnati a month later. I lived with her for three months, and she moved to Dayton. I still had a job here in Cincinnati, but I would go visit every weekend. I was working late at night, at a bar in Harrison, when the plague hit here. THE DEW DROP. It was owned by a retired firefighter, and all kinds of firefighter paraphernalia decorated the place. My favorite was a blow-up sex-toy doll with a shirt on, and the shirt said: I HEART FIREMEN. Anyways, that’s a night I’ll never remember. We were just closing down, sending people out the doors, when everyone got headaches. You know the drill: bleeding all over the face, going crazy, screaming and shouting… And then death. But the deadness didn’t last very long. Only a few days.”

Katie draws a deep breath, tears daring to slip between her half-closed eyelids, the memories of that night traumatizing, something she only relives in her worst nightmares and in moments of spontaneous vulnerability. “I tried to go see her, tried to see if she was okay… But the roads north of Cincinnati are blocked with cars. You can’t get through. That’s when I discovered the church. I’ve been here ever since.” She looks over at Adrian. “Love is real. It’s something that’s remarkable, something that can’t be explained, but something that is undeniable. You and Rachel
loved
one another. I don’t know why she took her life. But it wasn’t because she didn’t love you. She
did
love you. And don’t you
dare
forget that.”

Anthony Barnhart

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Chapter Twenty-One

When The Sun Shall Never Die

(or “Kyle’s Story”)

“Tell me not, in mournful number,

Life is but an empty dream!

For the soul is dead that slumbers,

and things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!

And the grave is not its goal;

Dust thou art; to dust returnest,

Was not spoken of the soul.

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (A.D. 1807-1882)

I

Two weeks have passed. The man never left the church: he couldn’t stand to leave Mark behind, and he mentally kicked himself for his softness. But he and Mark had bonded, and though at times they could not stand one another, the man could not imagine the journey northwest without him. But as the days passed, and as the man continued gathering the goods for the trip—he hijacked a 4x4 S.U.V. from inside a vehicle dealership (keeping it parked several blocks away from the church so as not arouse suspicion), stocked the vehicle with weaponry and extra gallons of oil and several blankets and first aid kits and canned goods and anything else he could imagine—, Mark found himself agreeing with the man. Adrian continued to become more reclusive, the members of the church were becoming hostile towards one another, and then there was Carla: she had begun spewing her religious profanities towards the people at the church, especially towards Katie who was an open lesbian. The dark-walkers would surround the church every night, and their numbers had reached close to ninety. It was then that Mark agreed to go with the man, under one condition: two others could come along. The man had agreed, though reluctantly. He imagined that extra people meant extra baggage and thus even more time until Alaska would become a reality rather than a fantasy. As the sun continued to warm, and as the buds began to appear on the trees growing greener, and as the spring rains continued their march across the Ohio River Valley, the man could finally put a date to their departure: four days, March 24th.

Now Mark stands before the house that had silhouetted many of his dreams. It is 1:00 in the afternoon. Birds fly overhead. The grass is overgrown and bursting green, insects leaping stalk-tostalk. The trees are sprouting, the limbs casting shadows against the brick walls of the house. Mark takes a deep breath and moves onto the front step. It has been months since he last came to this spot. He knows what lies inside. He pushes the door open and enters. It stinks of mold, and he can see that the walls are damp, the drywall crumbling in spots. The fan in the living room has fallen to the floor, nuts and bolts scattered over the carpet. A rat runs across the parlor floor right in front of him, disappearing into a gnarled hole in the wall. Mark makes his way into the kitchen. The book-bag Anthony Barnhart

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stares at him, still zipped up, the school-books remaining untouched for nearly eight months. Mark turns and looks into the television room. He spies the couch, and upon it the skeleton. Had he seen this skeleton anywhere else, he wouldn’t have been able to detect its age, its sex, nothing. But he knows who this is, and Cara’s name escapes his lips, a bare whisper. He moves over to the couch and kneels down beside the skeleton. He reaches out with a shaking hand and touches the bony hand; the toothless skeleton smiles at him, and twin beady eyes stare at him from one of the eye sockets. The mouse disappears back into the brain cavity. Mark’s face falls, knowing that a rodent has made a home in the place where the personality and dreams and hopes and fears of his only true love had, at one time, resided. He doesn’t know how to get the mouse out. He doesn’t want to touch the skull inappropriately; he tiptoes back into the kitchen, waits several minutes, and then the mouse appears from the hollow socket, races down her bones to the couch, down the side of the couch to the floor, and across the floor into another hole in the wall.

Sweat pours down his face. He wears only jeans and a t-shirt, and dirt and grime cover his hands and knees. He steps away from the freshly-dug-and-refilled hole. Cara’s grave. He looks around her backyard, at the lopsided swing-set and the garage that has collapsed in on itself. He doesn’t have anything to mark her grave with… nothing except for the shovel in his hand. He moves to the front of the grave and drives the shovel into the earth, stomping his foot down upon the shovel’s lip to dig the blade deeper into the soil. He releases the shovel, and the handle points straight into the cerulean blue sky. He kneels down beside the grave, and tears trickle down his cheeks. “Everything has changed…” he says. “Everything has changed… Including me. I’m not the boy you knew back then. I’m not the boy you loved. I wish… I wish I could have been there with you. When it happened. I wish I could have said goodbye.” He looks up at the sky, an empty blue bowl with no horizon. He looks down at the grave once more. “I have to leave now… And I can’t come back. We’re going to Alaska. We think… We think it will be safer there.” He touches the soft earth, bites his lip. “I still have a picture of you… in my wallet. I look at it all the time. I’m not going to forget you, Cara. And I’ll never replace you.” He stands, takes a deep breath, and returns to the front of the house, climbs into the car, and drives away. He doesn’t even look back.

II

The man is thankful for the brief intermission of clear blue skies, and he takes the time to continue working on the vehicle. He had gone to WAL-MART and taken various vehicle fluids. He checked the brake fluid and is now lying underneath the engine, back pressed against the cold cement of the abandoned house’s garage. Sweat drips down the sides of his face and burns his eyes. He twists the knob from the oil tank and rolls out of the way as oil begins gushing down into the tin pan. He squirms out from underneath the vehicle and stands. He grabs a towel from the bench along the far wall and begins rubbing his hands, smearing the oil. He curses and reaches for a bottle of cleaner fluid when he feels the presence behind him. He grips the KA-BAR on his belt and swings around, ready to defend himself; he sees Harker standing in the doorway, a look of amazement and shock written over his face.

“So it’s true,” Harker says, eyeing the vehicle. “The rumors are true.”

The man releases his hand from the knife and returns to the bench, cleaning his hands. “And what rumors would those be?” he asks.

“That you’re leaving. And that you’re trying to convince other people to leave.”

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“You’re half right,” the man says, turning to face him.

“And what half is that? There are whispers dancing in the hallways of the church.”

“And what kind of whispers are these?”

“That you’re seceding.”

A crude smile crosses the man’s façade. “Seceding?” He laughs.

“I fail to see how this is comical.”

“I’m not content to stay at the church,” the man says.

“Then leave. But don’t bring down the entire church in your efforts to—’’

The man holds up a hand. “Wait. I’m not quite sure I understand what you’re talking about.”

“You’re leaving. And there’s talk around the church about people joining you. They’re frightened. Scared. They think that the church isn’t safe anymore. I don’t know why. Experience has taught us just the opposite. We’re secure on the hilltop. The sick may want to get inside, but they can’t. We’ve never had any issues. But now that you’re leaving, and trying to win people over to your side—’’

The man shakes his head. “I’m not trying to win over everyone.”

“That’s not what I hear.”

“The only person that’s coming with me is Mark.”

“Mark and who else?”

The man bites his lip. “Two others.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. Mark is choosing. He’s the one who wanted more.”

“He’s going around, asking questions, probing. People are getting nervous.”

“If you have a problem with that, talk to Mark. Not to me.”

“You’re the one who started all of this.”

The man eyes Harker. “What are you worried about?”

“I’m worried about the people in the church. I’m worried about—’’

“Losing control?” the man asks.

Harker glares at him. “What?”

“You’re afraid of losing control over the people.”

“That’s absurd.”

“You’ve been in control for half a year now. And you’re afraid to lose that.”

Harker’s eyes glower like emblazoned embers. “I’m afraid that people will die.”

“People are going to die,” the man says. “That much is for sure. The only question is where?

Stuck in the church? Or pursuing a better life somewhere else? Sitting on our asses? Or actually
doing
something meaningful and worthwhile? I can’t speak for everyone at the church. And you have my word that I haven’t breathed a word to anyone. The reason I’m gathering supplies and getting ready for the trip in this secluded garage is because I
want
it to be a secret. The more people that agree with me is the more people that will just slow me down.”

“Let me see if I understand,” Harker says. “You’re leaving the church because you’re sure that the church isn’t a safe place to be. But you don’t want to tell anyone your fears because you’re afraid they’ll want to come—and thus escape death—but slow you down in the process.” He shakes his head. “It’s all about you, isn’t it? You’re nothing but a selfish bastard, and you’ve been nothing but a selfish bastard since you got here.”

“I may be a selfish bastard,” the man says, “but it’s what’s kept me alive this far.”

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III

They stand beside her grave, the two of them amidst the cemetery with its withered tombstones and their faded carvings. The lake ripples in the intermittent spurts of wind, and several geese prowl along the water’s edge, eyeing the two human figures with caution. Kyle watches several of them teeter along the bank, then slide into the lake, paddling with their webbed feet and poking at the first hints of spring algae. He hears Adrian breathing deeply beside him. He turns back to his friend, and Adrian is kneeling in the grass beside the grave. He presses his hands down onto the moist earth, feels the mud sticking to his fingers. He wipes the mud on the blades of grass by his feet and stares at the wooden cross. Rachel’s name had been stenciled along the epicenter, and he feels tears brimming behind closed eyelids as he remembers their romantic moments, the way they experienced happiness amidst the pain of a fallen world.