Dwellers of the Night: The Complete Collection (77 page)

“Okay. Well, we need his help. He’ll have to go romance-reminiscing later.” He looks over at Katie, who is sitting on the couch. “Can we get your help for something?”

She nods, standing. Her cheeks are bloated and eyes bloodshot. Her voice is weak: “Yeah.”

“Thanks.” To both of them, Kyle says: “We need to fortify this place. We’re staying here tonight.”

“We should go back to the church,” Katie says.

The boys stare at her, shocked at her words.

“I mean…” She doesn’t say anything else. “Never mind.”

“Okay.” Kyle says. “Now. I’m going to go find Anthony. Get his ass back here.”

The man stops at a gas station. An old MARATHON. Most of the gas stations are unable to be used, the pumps operated by electricity, which had been gone for months. Some of the older gas stations, many of which are around the Cincinnati Metro, are older, with pumps that can be manually activated. He stands in the coolness of the March morning, feels the pump’s hose quivering as gasoline travels through the nozzle and into the Explorer’s tank. He thinks to himself,
An S.U.V. probably wasn’t the
best choice. I should’ve gotten something good on gas mileage
. But he doesn’t care right now. He finishes pumping the gas and hangs the handle upon the hook. He opens the door to the vehicle to get back inside, but he pauses: he stares at the gas station marketplace, the glass windows shattered, the door swinging listlessly in the wind. Several birds perch upon the shattered windowsills, staring at him with curious eyes.
How long has it been since they’ve seen a human being standing in broad daylight?
He gives them a salute and climbs into the Explorer. He ignites the engine, and the birds scatter, becoming mere specks in the blue sky, twirling over one another in their acrobatic dances. He pulls out of the gas station and turns left.

He heads away from the house, towards the interstate.

Anthony stands in front of the house. It had been months since he had last been here, and the nostalgia is sickening. His heart feels heavy in his chest.
It was raining the last time I was here
. He takes a deep breath and moves forward. The grass is spongy beneath his feet. Dandelions are beginning to sprout between the cracks in the cement of the uncovered front porch. The door is unlocked. He enters the house and shuts the door behind him. From across the street, Kyle stands in the shadow of an oak with budding leaves. He looks down both sides of the street, tightens the jacket tighter around himself, and he crosses the street, begins to jog as he nears the door. He reaches the door, reaches for the doorknob… And stops.
Give him some time
, he thinks to himself. He curses and sits down upon the front porch. He picks at the grass and stares at the sky.
Just give him ten minutes. Ten minutes is all he
needs
.

∑Ω∑

Anthony Barnhart

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Anthony and Katie stood within the gas station, just listening to the sounds outside. The howls and cries of the dark-walkers had drawn closer, and Anthony feared that they were following their scent. He imagined them walking single-file, hunched over, noses to the ground, weaving up and down the streets, slowly coming closer and closer. Eventually his heart began to hammer like a Greek chime behind his ribs, and he took the shotgun, and they left the station. They merged once more with the darkness, moving farther down the road, hearing the zombies in the distance. Katie began to sniffle. Anthony checked and rechecked to make sure the shotgun was ready to be fired. The road descended, apartments and hole-in-the-wall bars lining either side of the street. They meandered around several wrecked vehicles, and came to see a line of cars and trucks stretching far into the distance, hogging the road. A banner fluttered in the wind, tied between two stoic light-posts: THE

FAIR OF SAINT AUGUSTINE. Anthony thinks,
The disease struck as the fair had begun to close down; people
died in their cars, stuck in traffic
. They walked between the lines of vehicles, most of the windows shattered, some of the doors hanging open, the hinges rusted.
What a sight it must have been: the doors
opening, the windows shattering, the undead lumbering from their vehicles to search the night for flesh and
bone
. The road began to rise along an incline, and suddenly Katie stopped, gripping Anthony’s arm. He mouthed,
What?

She pointed up ahead, into the blackness.

And then he heard it, too.

It sounded like a car engine.

Brilliant white light washed over them as a vehicle crested the hill. The vehicle bore down upon them, the headlights flooding over the street. Katie screamed and dove between two stalled cars.

Anthony stood, staring into the brilliance like a deer in headlights. The sound of screeching rubber and metal tore through him.

The vehicle came to a stop, and the stench of gasoline wafted over him. Anthony raised a cupped hand to his eyes, a protection from the brightness. There came the sound of a door opening, and a moment later a figure emerged. Anthony felt his arm grabbed, and his immediate thought was,
Raiders!
But the headlights illuminated Kyle’s face, and Anthony took a deep breath, relieved. Katie emerged from her hiding spot, shaking once more. No words were spoken.

Kyle led them to the Explorer, and they got inside.

The dark-walkers crested the hill just as the doors were shut and the engine flared.

Anthony Barnhart

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Anthony Barnhart

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Chapter Twenty-Four

The Princess Diaries

“Empty-handed I entered the world.

Barefoot I leave it.

My coming, my going—

two simple happenings

that got entangled.”

- Kozan Ichikyo (ca A.D. 1360)

I

The wooden steps leading down to the basement creak underneath his weight. Anthony takes them slowly, feeling about in the darkness. He reaches the bottom of the steps and stops, letting his eyes adjust to the gloom. Images begin to come into focus: the blank television, the couch, the assorted boxes, the drain on the floor. He remembers spending four hours sweeping water into that drain when the basement flooded. He moves forward in the coldness, and he reaches the open doorway leading into the bedroom. He takes a deep breath and enters. Sunlight creeps into the room through the single window, reflecting off the shiny faces of the porcelain dolls lining shelves nailed into the walls. His eyes are drawn directly to the bed. The bundle of sheets wraps a cocoon around what had, at one time, been the most amazing and mesmerizing girl in the world. He doesn’t know how long he is standing there, but then he walks over to the bed and kneels down. He doesn’t dare pull back the sheets, revealing what lies inside: he knows she has already withered away, that time has brought about nothing but a skeleton covered in clothing. He weeps for a time, remembering their most precious moments together, wonders how it ever came to this.

He rummages through her dresser drawers, searching for mementos, anything to carry with him on the journey that he knows lies ahead. He finds several Chinese stone elephants; she had given them out to all her friends, but she had let him have the largest. He finds a folded-up straw cowboy hat, something she had purchased on a trip down to Mexico. He continues searching, hunting for that perfect memoir that would hold all their richest memories, and he comes across a folded-up piece of paper. He unfolds it, and by the sunlight entering the room, he reads the familiar cursive, realizes it is a letter he had written to her during his business internship in Minnesota.

These past several weeks have been rough. I knew it would be hard, me leaving for Minnesota for three months, but I never imagined it would be this difficult. The only thing that keeps me sane is hearing your voice every night on the phone. It is the only thing that can put me to sleep (and I mean that in a good way! You’re not boring, I promise!). Yes, hearing your voice is bitter-sweet: it is the most precious and beautiful thing, but it is not the same as feeling your warmth and looking deep into those beautiful blue eyes! I was told some time ago that completeness is found only in God. My experience teaches me otherwise. God designed us for one another, and without Anthony Barnhart

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your love, I am incomplete. I can’t express how much I adore you. These three words I’ve said too much and not enough… but how else can I explain it? I want to marry you and grow old with you and lie next to you in death, our pine caskets lying next to one another in a grove of spruces and cherry blossoms. I have been in many relationships, and I told my friend Josh today, “There’s something different about this one. There’s something different about this girl, something I can’t put into words.”

But now I
can
put it into words: you’re different than every other girl because you’re
The One
. Every night when I go to bed, after hearing your sweet voice on the phone, I imagine us living in a little yellow house with a portico; and we live in the mountains, and we drink iced tea and cuddle under the stars; and I imagine us lying together in our bed, covered in quilts, a fire burning in the hearth. But what warms us is not the quilts nor the fire, but the warmth of our own bodies as we fall asleep in each other’s arms. I can’t wait to see you, Karen. I can’t wait to hug you, to whisper sweet-nothings into your ear, to fall asleep in your arms. Words fail to describe how much I miss you, and in fear of doing it injustice, and in the words of Martin Luther, “Here I stand.”

Love, Anthony.

He remembers writing that letter. He folds it up and slides it into his pocket. He returns to the drawer and begins to shut it when he sees her diary hidden underneath several skewed socks. He sweeps the socks away with a finger and grabs the journal by the spine, pulling it into the light. He opens it, and several papers fall out. He unfolds them, and he sees Karen’s handwriting, and as he reads them, he realizes they are letters she wrote for him while he was in Minnesota, letters she never got to send.

I wish I didn’t miss you. If only you could be with me always. I know I could never be any happier. But then again, I know that the day will come when I will be able to spend my every waking moment with you. I even miss you when I am sleeping! I love you so much, Anthony. You are my first

and only love, and I thank you for being so kind with my heart. Hopefully, soon I won’t have to hate missing young.

♥ Karen

I know we don’t get to talk for hours everyday like we used to. But though you are far away in Minnesota, that doesn’t change the way I feel about you in my heart. Sure, I’m lonely, and sometimes I’ve overwhelmed with this emptiness in my chest. But I love you, Anthony, with everything that I am. That’s what gets me through every minute that I’m without you. You don’t know what I would give just to kiss your lips, to feel your touch, or even just to see your sweet crescent smile! I don’t care if you forget our first kiss, our first date, just as long as you remember that I love you with every aching bone in my body no matter what.

♥ Karen

From day one, I knew there was something in you that no other guy has. I had always searched for my blonde-haired, blue-eyed, tan dream-lover… and I dreamt of having my fairytale wedding. You may not be tan, but, Anthony… you’re perfect! From your gorgeous smile, to your warm and loving eyes, to your strong arms, to the way your Anthony Barnhart

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hands fit into mine… Everything about you is fantastic. I was scared to love you after everyone said we wouldn’t even make it two weeks. But we did. It was after those first two weeks that I knew something just
clicked
between us. We made it through the best 10 months of our lives, and then that’s when you left. Now you are 750 miles away, and I can’t be with you until August! Although these are the hardest months of my life, I would wait forever to be in your arms again. People have been saying we won’t make it through this… but I dare to believe that we can prove them wrong!

Anthony, I live for you, and only you. I dream of the day I can be your wife. I want so badly for that dream of mine to come true. You have
no idea
how much I long for it!

When we talk about getting married, about having kids together, my heart melts. I know that we’re young, and I know that you want what’s best for me. But I know in my heart that
you are the best thing that has ever and will ever happen to me
. You have been my sweetest sin since Day One. My parents didn’t want us to last, some

“friends” didn’t want us to last… But you have no idea what it’s like to be me when I get to sleep with you, to feel your hands caressing my body, to feel your body next to mine. Marry me, Anthony. Marry me! I love you!

♥ Karen.

Anthony, it’s difficult for you, as it is for me, to be separated for so long. Life seems to be full of trials of this type, trials that test our inner strengths, and more importantly, our devotion and love for one another. After all, it is said that “True Love” is boundless and immeasurable and overcomes all forms of adversity. In truth, if Love is genuine, it will grow stronger with each assault upon its existence. Anthony, our love has been assaulted many times, and I am convinced that it is true, because the longer I am away from you, the greater is my yearning to be with you again. I cherish any thought of you, prize any memory of you that rises from the depths of my heart, and I live for that future day when our physical separation will cease to exist, when we will be together once more. Until that moment arrives, I send to you across the miles my tender love, my warm embrace, and my most passionate kiss.

♥ Karen

Tears are crawling down his cheeks, inching towards his mouth, tasting of bitter salt. He clutches the letters in his hands, and he leans back against the dresser, stares up at the ceiling. He can hear birds singing in the distance, returning from their migrations to the south. He sprawls his legs before him on the floor and closes his eyes, hears her sweet laughter, feels the brush of her lips against his, remembers running his hands through her hair, drifting his fingers along the tips of her hair; it would give her shivers, and she would push up against him, bury her face into his shoulder, make cute sounds of enjoyment. Sometimes they would act like animals and crawl around on the floor, growling at one another. Immature and foolish actions, but their most beautiful moments together happened in the arena of spontaneity. These moments of reflection consume him, and the tears blur his vision. He lets the letters fall from his hands, and they drift to the floor. The journal unfolds on his lap, open to the last entry; his lips quiver and shake, and the tears turn into a waterfall. He knows nothing except the richness of their love—and the depth of its absence.