Dwellers of the Night: The Complete Collection (98 page)

“The mosquitoes,” the man says. “They’re from the Mississippi.”

“I know.”

The man continues smoking his cigarette, watching the dark-walkers.

“They look so stupid and clumsy,” Mark says.

“It’s just an illusion. We know that.”

“Yeah,” the boy says. “We do.”

The man drops his cigarette to the floor, stomps it out. “I’m going back to bed.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t wake me up when you come in.”

“Okay.”

“I mean it,” the man says. “I’m exhausted.”

“I won’t wake you up,” Mark says.

Mark can’t see them anymore. Rain-clouds moved in from the northwest and blanketed the city. Now the rain continues to fall, and Mark smokes his fourth cigarette. His lungs feel heavy, and his heart beats quicker. He stares into the rain, and in the lightning that reflects off each raindrop, creating a sparkling sea of dazzling light, he can see Cara’s face, and he remembers when the rain fell on that ancient night so long ago.

∑Ω∑

He had picked her up at her house. Rain-clouds had been building all evening, and as he stood in the foyer, waiting for her, the rain began to fall. She came down the steps from her room, and he had been absolutely mesmerized. The yellow dress wrapped around her slender waist, and it was lowcut, revealing her small breasts. She bit her lip as she descended, and when she reached him, she took Anthony Barnhart

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his hands in hers. He had spent two hundred dollars on his tuxedo, but faced with her beauty, he suddenly as if he were dressed in rags.
She’s so beautiful
. She leaned forward and planted a kiss on his cheek.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

“It’s raining,” he said. “I didn’t… I didn’t bring an umbrella.”

“It’s all right. We’ll just have to run to the car.”

Mark pointed at her feet. “Can you run in high-heels?”

“Probably not,” she said. She bent down, took them off, handed them to him.

“On the count of three?” Mark asked, opening the door.

“One, two, three!” she shouted, giggling, and raced out the door. He chased her to the car, fumbled for his keys in the rain, opened the door, helped her inside. He ran over to his side and got in, shut the door. The rain tapped delicately on the roof. Cara shook her head back and forth, droplets of water spinning through the air. Mark laughed: “You look like a dog.”

She gasped, playfully slapped him.

“I meant by how you were shaking your head!” Mark exclaimed. “I didn’t mean…”

She squeezed his arm. “I know. But you’d better watch what you say. If you call me a dog in front of your friends at the dance, then I’ll probably have to kick your ass. You wouldn’t like that.”

“Not as much as you would,” Mark said with a wink.

They drove three miles to the school. There were limousines parked in front of the rotunda entrance. Mark looked over at her. “I couldn’t afford a limousine.”

“It’s fine,” she said. “I’ll bet most of those guys are jocks who had their rich parents pay for their ride. They spend their money on alcohol and tennis shoes and sports cars. You spend your money on rent, paying the bills, putting Ashlie through school. You’re far more of a man than any of them are.”

He parked the car as close to the entrance as he could. “Wait here,” he said. She undid her seatbelt. “Where are you going?”

“To get an umbrella.”

He left and returned with one he borrowed from someone inside. He opened the door, extended his hand. She grabbed his hand and swung her leg out, stood.

RIP
.

The sound seemed extraordinarily loud. Cara looked down, saw a great rip in the swell of her dress. “Shit!” she exclaimed.

Mark’s heart broke; she looked as if she were about to cry.

She exclaimed, “I can’t go to the prom like this! Everyone will make fun of me. And this dress was fucking
expensive
.”

“It’s all right,” Mark said. “No one will say anything.”

“Take me home,” she said.

“Cara…”

“I don’t want to be embarrassed!” she shouted at him.

“All right,” Mark said. “Okay.”

He shut the door, leaving her in the car, and he returned into the school. The dance was just beginning, a disco ball showering its light over the dance floor. Couples held hands and started dancing. Fruit punch was being offered in the corner. He had been looking forward to this for weeks, Anthony Barnhart

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and now it all came crashing down. He handed the umbrella back to the lender, and he returned outside, tried to calm down his nerves, got inside the car, started the engine. Cara was in tears, running her fingers over the rip.

“I’m sorry,” Mark said.

“It’s not your fault.”

“I’m still sorry.”

They made their way towards her house in silence.

Suddenly Mark took another road, heading out of town.

Cara eyed him. “Where are we going? My house is back that way.”

“I know,” he said.

“Mark…”

“It’s a surprise. Okay?”

Something sparkled in her eyes. Excitement. “I like surprises.”

“I’m hoping you’ll like this one.”

“I’m going to beg you to tell me, but you’d better not.”

“I won’t.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

“Pinky swear?”

He offered her his pinky. “Pinky swear.”

She took it, wrapped hers around his, released. “So…”

“Don’t ask.”

“What is it? What’s the surprise?”

He shook his head. “I’m not going to tell you.”

“But Mark,” she cooed, “I’m
begging
you!”

He grinned, was resolute. “Nope.”

“Mark…”

“I said ‘No’, Cara. ‘No’ means ‘No’.”

She crossed her arms, scowled. “You’re a jackass.”

They crossed the Brent Spence Bridge and entered Kentucky. They drove down the highway for a while, the sprawl of northern Kentucky turning into rolling wooded hills on either side. The rain became more intense, and lightning fought in the skies above. He took the exit towards BIG BONE

LICK STATE PARK, and after navigating the narrow and winding road for a while, he pulled into a gravel drive. An old graveyard next to a decrepit and abandoned PRIMITIVE BAPTIST CHURCH.

“Mark,” Cara said, looking around. “This is a graveyard.”

“I know,” he said.

“This isn’t Halloween. There could be creepers out here.”

“It’s raining. No one’s out here.”

“What about zombies?”

“Zombies aren’t real. You know that.”

“They could be one day.”

Mark laughed. “You think what you want to, okay, Sweetie?”

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He leaned forward in his seat, twisted the knob on the radio, turned up the music. She recognized the lyrics: OUR SONG by Taylor Swift.

“Is this our song?” Cara asked.

“It could be,” Mark answered. “If you wanted it to be.”

“I didn’t say that,” she said.

“Okay.”

They listened to the song together.

Mark opened the door, stepped out into the rain.

Cara shouted at him: “It’s raining, Mark!”

He didn’t answer. He moved around to her side of the car, opened the door. She shook her head. “No. I’m not getting out.”

“Come on.”

“I said, ‘No’, Mark.”

“Your dress is already ruined.”

“You’re going to get your suit wet.”

“It’s already wet. Come on.”

“Mark,” she said, mocking him: “‘No’ means ‘No’.”

He grabbed her hand, pulled her out.

She stumbled out of the car, and he held her in the rain. She didn’t protest. They began to dance, the rain falling around them, the tombstones silent. She almost complained once, but she didn’t even finish her sentence. The song continued to play, muffled through the speakers, and with the lightning dancing overhead, they looked into one another’s eyes, raindrops crawling down their cheeks. Their lips graced each other’s, and they kissed in the rain, clothes soaked. She was totally lost in the moment, and she knew nothing except him holding her, and she knew that the dance in the rain, in the middle of the graveyard, was far better than anything she could have experienced in the high school gymnasium.

The ruined yellow dress was well-worth every minute of it.

∑Ω∑

Mark stomps out his cigarette, enters the dark kitchen. He opens up the cupboards, finds what he is looking for. He grabs the bottle and moves to the couch. He sits down and screws off the cap. It reeks something awful. He tilts it back, takes a giant gulp. He swallows the ABSOLUT vodka, leans forward, coughs, lungs searing. His throat burns as if it’s been coated with acid. He sits on the couch and takes several more shots. He begins to feel warm, and then the vodka hits him like a sledgehammer. He is soon sitting on the floor, back propped against the feet of the couch, the bottle of vodka lying on the carpet, the contents spilling out, spreading like a urine stain. He leans his head back and stares at the ceiling, eyes unable to adjust. The world spins. “Cara…” He mutters her name over and over before he passes out, falling onto his side. Bile streams from his mouth.

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Anthony Barnhart

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Chapter Thirty-Three

The Angel & Her Dress

“Character contributes to beauty. It fortifies a woman as her youth fades. A mode of conduct, a standard of courage, discipline, fortitude, and integrity can do a great deal to make a woman beautiful.”

- Jacqueline Bisset (Born A.D. 1944)

I

“Did we relapse?”

Mark blinks his eyes, awaking. Morning sunlight comes through the windows facing the park. Sarah and Katie stand in the kitchen, staring out the window. The empty lake. The man stands over him, holding the M16. He extends a hand. Mark takes his hand, and he stands, wobbling, nauseas. Mark apologizes, doesn’t even defend himself.

The man says, “It’s all right. Come on. Let’s get out of here. You can sleep in the car.”

The movement of the car makes Mark even more nauseas, and a cold sweat pops over his brow. The man curses and pulls off at an exit west of Saint Louis, amidst the suburbs. They clamber into a MOTEL 8 and find two unoccupied rooms. Katie asks what they’re doing. The man says that he doesn’t want Mark to be on the road with them if he’s passed out because of a hangover. If they run into raiders, he wants the boy to be able to shoot straight and keep up on his own two legs without falling over. He says he’ll let him sleep it off. Sarah begins to protest, but the man glares at her, and she goes quiet. Mark says, “No,” doesn’t want to be a burden, but the man slaps him across the face and shoves him into the room. “Go to sleep,” he growls, and he shuts the door. He hates the fact that they’ve lost another day.

Mark sleeps. Sarah and the man decide to go “shopping,” and they invite Katie to join them. She declines, wishing to stay with Mark—“In case he wakes up, so he doesn’t think we’ve just abandoned him.” Sarah and the man get into the RAV4 and leave the motel. They snake around several different roads, passing business complexes and restaurants. The man pulls into a large, empty parking lot. A mall. The mall was closed when the plague struck, so there are no cars, except for a few semis in the back rows and a mall security cruiser parked by one of the main entrances. The man takes the first M16 and gives the other to Sarah; she asks if the mall is safe. The man says they’ll soon find out. The glass on the doors is untouched, and he peers inside, sees nothing but murky shadows. Dust covers the other side of the glass. He stands back and fires several rounds into the glass, which breaks apart, scattering onto the floor along the inside of the door. The man knocks the remaining jagged glass fragments from the edges of the window and sticks the nose of the gun through to the other side. A waft of dust hits him in the face, and he coughs. He pushes himself through, shoots the lock, shoves the door open. Sarah comes in after him. The various shops—DISNEY, NATURAL OUTFITTERS, ABERCROMBIE & FITCH, FOREVER 21, CLAIRE’S—are barred with the steel gates down. There are benches down the corridors, several closed and quiet stands for cell phone booths. The man remembers back in the day when he and Kira would walk through CINCINNATI MILLS and always get Anthony Barnhart

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hounded by the cell phone merchants. Sometimes he would entertain them with a fake sense of curiosity just to see them squirm.

The man is walking when he realizes that Sarah is not behind him. He swings around, raises the gun. His heart begins to race. He trots quickly back the way he had come, then starts to run. He turns a corner and sees her standing beside a glass display case of the BRIDAL SHOP. He tries to catch his breath from running and approaches her.

She points through the window, at a beautiful white flowering dress with a veil.

“Yes,” the man says. “It’s nice. Can we go?”

“That’s the exact same dress I wore for my wedding,” Sarah says, looking at him. “I actually got it from the same store. I mean, not the one here in Missouri, but one back in Cincinnati. It was Florence, actually. In northern Kentucky. Anyways. It was that same exact dress. I went to the store with a bunch of girlfriends, and they had it in the display just like they do here, and every one of us wanted it for our own. When I bought that dress, it was like I bought my future. It was expensive. Several hundred dollars. But I felt as if I were buying peace and security and love. I felt as if I were buying my dreams, and no one could take them away from me. Patrick’s birthday is today. He would have taken off work from the construction company, and we would have gone to see a movie and then out to a fancy restaurant. He always liked TEXAS ROADHOUSE. He was such a… ‘manly man’. He didn’t care for sushi or caviar or anything like that. ‘Rich foods pompous jackasses eat’ he would say about them. He wanted his big steak, the kind where the juices would just squirt out with each bite.”

“Rare,” the man says.

“Yes,” Sarah reminisces. “He was rare.”

“No. The steak. He liked it rare.”