Out of the Dark (Light & Dark #1) (11 page)

I turn and watch as the monster explodes into flames when the sunlight hits it, its mutilated body shattering midair. Too much sun for this monster—flames alone were not sufficient this time. It lands on the ground in several pieces, each one of them twitching, but very dead, and fire engulfs it.

Lilly is finally on the ground, ignoring the monster and staring up at me expectantly. Her tears have ceased as she waits for me to join her. She knows she is safe outside, away from dark corners and shade. I climb up onto the window ledge and turn around, squeezing my body through the small opening and dangling my legs over before finally lowering myself down. The tips of my toes find the first rung of the ladder and I let go of the ledge and grip the wooden panels of the barn for support.

The sun is hot on my back, but the wood is hotter under my fingertips as heat, both inside and out, protects me. I breathe steadily as I climb down, my feet finally finding purchase on the dusty ground. I step away from the ladder just as the roof begins to collapse, and the screams from inside intensify. They chorus their pain together almost beautifully, a high-pitched chant of death.

Lilly’s hand slips into mine and we walk backwards, afraid to look away from the burning barn. Away from the monsters trapped within. Away from the place where we just nearly died.

Again.

Because it feels that if we look away, perhaps this won’t have been real, that perhaps we did die in that place, that barn full of hay and monsters. So we walk slowly backwards, our hands entwined, our breathing rapid, as we watch the wooden building burn, the screams and cries from within filling the sky.

Chapter Thirteen.

#13. It’s always the little things.

The barn burns to almost nothing. Small pops and explosions can be heard as it collapses in upon itself and the monsters fry in the sun. Their deathly smell hangs in the air like toxic fumes, and I encourage us to begin our walk. The daylight won’t last forever, and the stench of their bodies will no doubt attract others if they are hungry enough when night comes.

We walk, placing one foot in front of the other. Our steps are timid, almost, quiet in the now equable daylight. I watch our shoes, dirty and worn, moving over and over, disturbing the dusty road that we walk upon. We don’t speak. There are no words for or from either of us. Our fingers are wrapped around each other’s, and those are the only silent words that we need. We are here, together, once more. So we walk. The minutes tick by, the hours drift past, and we don’t stop.

The sun is warm, sweat clings to our skin, trickles down my face and into my eyes. I rub it away, feeling the smear of dirt and grease. Was it really only yesterday that we had been in a house? Fed, watered, clean? It feels like a lifetime ago, a dream upon where we once existed and now we don’t. That reality stolen. That home gone. That peace we had shared lost once more.

My eyes follow Lilly’s feet. She is becoming tired. Her shoes drag a little with each step, a scuff growing larger on the front of each small shoe. I stare, watching fascinated, almost too numb to do anything about it as we walk, walk, walk. A slow trickle splashes off the end of her left shoe as she lifts it, and as she lifts the right one to take her next step, a splash of urine drips off the end of that one too. I watch for a few more steps, as she pees herself but doesn’t stop walking. I finally look across at her face, my neck and shoulders glad that I have moved my neck and head.

Her eyes are almost glazed over as she stares straight ahead. Her face is paler than snow, and her eyes lost. I stop walking, but she doesn’t realize that I’ve stopped and her arm jerks backwards when she takes her next step forward. She slowly turns to face me, blinking twice as she stares calmly into my face, coming back to the here and now. Large black rings circle under her eyes, heavy shadows of exhaustion and weariness, and without a thought I scoop her up into my arms.

She clings to me weakly and falls asleep almost instantly. I glance up at the sun, seeing that it is at its highest, meaning that the day is halfway done. I look back the way we have been walking. The barn is completely out of sight now—not even the smoke can be seen—but it still seems too close. We still need more distance. And so I continue to walk, with Lilly’s small sweat-and urine-soaked body wrapped around mine.

My arms ache after several miles, burning with a pain and intensity that is unlike anything I’ve ever felt. My leg muscles twitch for relief, begging me to stop and rest. The day has been almost silent, apart from the sound of my footsteps, and I wonder how many nests of monsters we have passed. How many have heard us walking, how many will wake up when night falls and follow our scent, hunting and tracking us through another night. I shudder and almost drop Lilly, collapsing down to one knee, the gravel tearing through my pants and digging painfully into my skin. I don’t gasp, though. I don’t make a sound. I just wait, poised on one knee, feeling the slow trickle of blood trail down my leg.

Lilly’s face breaks free from my shoulder and she looks up at me groggily, the remnants of sleep still evident in her eyes. The corner of her mouth quirks up in a small smile, but I can’t smile back, no matter how much I try. She senses my weariness and climbs down from me, and then she holds out her hand. I push myself to standing and take her small, warm hand in mine. I stare unashamedly at the intricate black veins that peek out from under her cardigan, wishing that there was something I could do to save her, to save me. But I can’t. It’s just a matter of time. Our hands are clasped, and my own blackened veins seem stark and obvious against her pale skin. It frightens me.

My stomach rumbles loudly and Lilly smiles again. I finally find the energy to smile back as her stomach joins in with mine, and we both stand there, our stomachs wailing in hunger. Looking up the road, I see nothing. Just more empty fields, more highway, more broken cars, more overgrown plants, more sunlight. To the left is a field, overgrown with tall weeds and grass, and to our right is an empty, dusty field, as if the very life has been sucked right out of it. Stark contrasts to one another. One full of life, the other not. Neither providing us with what we need: food.

I look back at Lilly, seeing that the wet stain from where she had peed earlier has almost dried. Her face is dirty, dry tracks of tears trailing down her cheeks, and her hair is a tangle of knots. But she’s alive. She’s still smiling. She’s still my Lilly—my Honeybee. For now, at least.

“We need to find food,” I finally say as she watches me expectantly. My throat feels sore and painful when I speak; like there’s sand on my tongue.

She nods in agreement.

“And something to drink,” I add on, to which she nods again. I take a deep breath and look up the road once more. “I think we should go this way,” I say decisively.

I light a cigarette and we start to walk once more, just one step in front of the other. Because this road has to end somewhere, eventually. Every road leads to something, or someone. And this road is no different. Dusty, lonely, and unused.

I inhale the nicotine, feeling my hunger pangs subside but my thirst grow. I finish my cigarette, throwing it to one side as we come up on one of the many rusted cars at the side of the road. The door is hanging open like an invitation. I approach it carefully, but there is nothing and no one inside. No food. No water. No clothing. Nothing of use. And so we continue to walk.

Heat rises from the road like a mirage, and I fix my eyes on the distance, staring, hoping, waiting. What for, I don’t know. Anything. Anything at all. In the distance, at the very end of the road, I see something. A shape of something. I blink several times, trying to clear the fog from my eyes, but the shape is still there. Hope leaps in my heart. I stop and point.

“Look!” I say excitedly.

Lilly looks up, following my pointing finger, and then she looks at me confused. I scoop her up and point again. She narrows her eyes, and just as I am beginning to think that my mind is in fact playing tricks on me, she sees it.

“What is it?” she asks quietly.

“A gas station.”

“Will it be safe?” she asks.

“I don’t know, but it could be. And there could be food.”

We pick up speed, both of us excited and nervous to reach the gas station. The sun is hot, but neither of us complain about it, even though I am so thirsty that it makes my throat sore, and I know Lilly must be feeling the same way. As we get closer to the gas station we see two abandoned cars in the forecourt, and we approach them warily. I check each car carefully, because people leave the silliest things behind, forgetting things in side pockets or under seats. These cars are not like that, though. There is nothing of use in either of them.

We slowly approach the gas station. The doors have been wedged open, allowing light to shine into the darkness. The windows are all dirty, inches of thick dust and grime covering each one. The glass in the door has been broken, and as we step closer it crunches under our feet. The sound echoes around us, and I look down to Lilly with a grimace. I hear her swallow, and then it is as if every sound has an echo loud enough to wake a beast. Her swallow is loud but her breathing is louder, the crunch of glass reverberating around us, the wind whistling through the open door.

Lilly tugs on my hand and I nod as we go inside. It feels like dusk inside—not quite day and not quite night, that strange color that the world goes when it is almost time for bed, the stillness that settles over the earth as it readies itself for sleep. But it is neither of these times right now, and so it is even more unnerving as everything grows still.

I let my eyes adjust to the dimness and I take in our surroundings. Lilly stays by my side, unmoving. She knows to stay still and silent. I look across the room, the remnants of civilization a stark reminder of what we have lost. There is no food on the shelves—at least none that I can see from here—so we must venture further inside.

I take a timid step forward, and then another, becoming more emboldened with each one. Lilly follows, her hand in mine and her eyes looking everywhere as mine do the same. But each dark corner is empty, free of monsters. Our shoulders relax as we find the place empty. Even the storeroom and the breakroom at the back of the gas station are empty of monsters, and they only had one dirty window in apiece, making their spaces darker still. Happy that we are alone, I turn to Lilly.

“Let’s look for food,” I say.

“Okay,” she says.

Lilly stays with me as we traipse each aisle, looking at everything, searching for food and drink, but the store has been pilfered and there is nothing left for us to eat. My heart aches with disappointment, but I don’t let her see it. We go behind the counter and I sit Lilly on the stool there. She pretends that she works in the store and is serving a customer while I search the small cabinets. I find another pack of cigarettes. They were damp once and the pack is still misshapen, but I don’t mind. I search right to the back of the shelves, moving old, damp papers to one side, a pen, a stapler, and then my hand lands on something else. I grip it and pull it out. I smile and turn to Lilly. She is still playing her game of shopkeeper, but she stops and looks at me.

“What is it?” she asks.

“Gum,” I say proudly.

There are only four pieces inside. There were once seven, and the ones that are left feel a little stale, but I don’t mind. My mouth waters at just the thought of gum, of its flavor. I unwrap a piece a hand it to Lilly. She takes it and stares at me blankly, so I unwrap a piece for me.

“You put it in your mouth and chew it. You don’t swallow it, though,” I say.

“Why not?”

“Because it can give you a tummy ache. It isn’t meant to feed you.”

She examines the hard, thin strip of gum with curious eyes and then looks back at me, another small frown puckered between her eyebrows. “What is the point of it then?” she asks.

I smile at her. “Just chew it, and you’ll see.” I put my piece in my eager mouth and begin to chew.

At first it doesn’t taste of anything, and the strip of gum snaps and sort of crumbles, but then as my saliva softens it, it begins to form a small ball of flavor in my mouth and I groan in satisfaction. Lilly watches me and then does the same, grimacing as the gum crumbles in her mouth, and I know that she wants to spit it out.

“I don’t like it,” she says.

“Keep chewing, Lilly,” I say, and she does.

A moment passes and slowly her grimace softens until she starts to smile. She chews and chews and then returns to her game of shopkeepers but this time she is smiling. I continue to search the store for anything else while I chew my gum, the saliva in my mouth soothing the scratch in my dry throat.

There are some old magazines, mostly ruined from damp, but one of them is a comic and so I take it, deciding that I can try and read it to Lilly later on. There are some moth-eaten T-shirts in the storeroom. The box has some mice living in it, and I manage to catch one and crush it by knocking another box over on top of it. I think I will cook it and then we can eat it, but when I look at the tiny lifeless body, I decide that I won’t. I hide its body so Lilly doesn’t see it, because I know that she would be sad if she saw its lifeless body, and I know that she would be sadder still knowing that I was the one who had killed it.

I take two of the T-shirts, and a cap for Lilly. I find an old carrier bag and pile our meager supplies inside it: the magazine, the T-shirts, and the cap. There’s still nothing to eat or drink though, no matter how hard I search. I go back to the front of the store and look out at the day, seeing that the sun is lower, nighttime is coming. Lilly comes to stand next to me and we go outside and look up and down the road, the way we had come and the way we were going, but there seems to be nothing in either direction for miles.

“I think we should stay here tonight,” I say, the gum still in my mouth. I chew it thoughtfully. The taste is almost gone but still I chew, as if the very idea that I can chew and my stomach feel full is a real possibility. Of course it’s not. But I still chew it relentlessly.

I don’t want to stay here. I don’t want to stay anywhere, really. Everywhere frightens me, and Lilly. But we have to stop for today. I’m tired and hungry and I know Lilly is feeling even worse than me, though she hasn’t complained—not once. But we have to stop. Better to stay here than end up trapped out in the open with nowhere to hide. That would be worse. Lilly nods an okay at my plan to stay, and we go back inside.

I force the doors closed and barricade them with some of the portable metal shelving. Then I go to the breakroom and check that the back door to the gas station is locked. It is. I look around, trying to find access to the roof, because that is actually the safest place to sleep. Up on the roof, away from the dark of the gas station, away from the reach of the monsters. This won’t be the first time that we’ve slept on the flat roof of a gas station. I finally find it and then I use the tall stool from the front counter to climb up and I push open the little hatch. It’s stiff, but it eventually opens. I look out to check that it is safe, and when I decide it is, I reach down and hoist Lilly up onto the roof.