After Darkness Fell (6 page)

“Then Don lives here with you.” Apparently Fields was just as confused as I was.

A nod. “My boy ... he goes out for beer and ciggies, but sometimes he’ll find someone along the way, bring ’em back, and we’ll have a nice little get-together, like in the day ...” He winked at Fields. “He’d like you. You’re pretty. My Betsy was pretty ... I’ve got a picture of ’er ... somewhere.”

The darkness around me grew heavier. At that point I decided that we should be leaving. “It’s been nice, but I think we need to be getting back to...”

“Don’s here, ain’t he?” He was staring at me as if I knew the answer.

“I don’t know. You just told us...”

“That’s right.” He nodded, remembering. “He came over the other night, said he was all done in, wanted me to meet a lady, only he forgot to bring ’er.”

I turned to Fields. She was eyeing the back door.

“The other night.” The old man scratched the back of his neck. “Naw, it was last week ... or mebbe two weeks—wanna meet Don?”

Fields and I gawked at one another. I didn’t like where this was going.

“Came back the other night, said he was tired, real tired.” A chuckle. “Done tuckered out, all that drivin’ and all, lookin’ for beer and ciggies for the old man.”

“That’s all right,” I said. “Like I said, we’ve got to be...”

“Only take a sec. Don’s here somewhere.” He put down his coffee cup and went through the doorway. “Don?” He turned, gesturing. “C’mon, you’ll like ’im, he’s always been a good kid. Don?” He shuffled down the hall. More cats emerged from doorways, scattering. I counted at least eight of them.

“Should we follow him?” Fields whispered.

“I think we should leave. I don’t think he’ll even miss us.”

“
There
he is! Just
knew
ya hadn’t left yet. Hey Don, we got company!” The old man reappeared in the hall. He was gesturing again. “Don’s in his room, restin’. C’mon, now. He’s tired, but wants to meet ya.”

Fields shrugged. “We don’t want to be a bother.”

“No bother. C’mon.” The old man disappeared into the room at the end of the hall.

Fields and I went cautiously down the hall, stepping over scattered underwear, newspapers, and beer cans. More cats darted out of doorways.

We reached the doorway at the end of the hall.

The room was even more cluttered and foul than the rest of the house.
The stench coming from it overwhelmed both of us. Fields covered her mouth and turned away.

“Don? We got company. A lady, and she’s real pretty!” The old man stood over a bed covered with clothes, coats, and blankets. A man about my own age lay in the bed, not moving. His colorless face was covered with maggots. A dead cat, also covered with maggots, lay beside the body. The dead man’s arm was curled around its matted corpse.

Gasping, Fields rushed past me.

As I followed her, I heard the old man talking to Don, telling him to get out of the bed to greet their guests.

***

Fields and I sat in stunned silence as I got back onto the main road. No words could justify—or lessen—the image of the old man’s son lying dead in the bed. The bone-white face. The dull eyes, frozen in death, staring at the ceiling. The maggots feasting on the man’s cold, bloated flesh. The dead cat lying next to the corpse’s arm.

I imagined that the old man was still trying to coax his son out of the bed. Then, after several horrifying moments, the dark cloud in the old man’s muddled head would clear and he’d realize the boy was dead. Remnants of memory would flicker among the darkness. The images would stay there just within his grasp, if only temporarily. The darkness would then dissipate, revealing glittering shards of reality.

He’d sit on the edge of the bed, holding the boy’s cold, lifeless hand and sobbing quietly. Fond memories would seep out of the fog, and confusion would thunder through him. The clouds would come back, smothering the memories, and he’d realize that his son needed his rest. He’d get up quietly and tiptoe from the room. He might want to talk to his dead wife Betsy, perhaps to clear up a few things. But he’d gradually remember that the house was empty, and then he’d have to take a few moments to recall where she was the last time he saw her.

She could be lying in their bed, taking a nap ... or sprawled in a chair in a spare room ... She might even be out in the garden, tending to her flowers.

As he went through the house, trying not to panic, a photo would catch his eye. He’d pick it up and stare at it for a few minutes, tears gathering in his eyes moments before his mind betrayed him again by clouding up. He’d put down the photo and stand there, wondering what he was trying to remember. As he did so, a cat would rush by, and his thoughts would clear. Yes. The cats needed to be fed. And he’d be off to the kitchen.

Fields sat forward in her seat, her face buried in her hands. She hadn’t said a word. As I pulled onto the main road and headed east, she remained bent forward. I didn’t know if she was trying to hide from what she’d just seen, from reality itself, or from me. It was the first time I’d seen her break down like that. Fields was strong and generally unshakable by nature. She’d survived an assault by three roving TABs when I first met her in Breezewood. She not only got away from them, she’d also found a place of refuge and a gun, and was able to gain the advantage when I stumbled into the gas station office and posed a viable threat.

This last event had been too horrible for either of us to easily dismiss. Although I’d seen death in many different forms, I fully expected nightmares from this, possibly for years to come. There was no reason why Fields, a former RN who’d no doubt seen just as much death as I had, should feel any differently.

I left her be, partly because I understood and also because I needed to tend to my own quiet reflection. This plague had reared its ugly head once again, revealing yet another page in its lengthy tome of unspeakable horrors. It had been months since Reed, Fields and I had escaped the underground government facility. We’d deleted their programs, which, as a result, destroyed their last-ditch attempt at mass genocide, but the results of their corrupt legacy lived on. I sincerely hoped the time would come when we could safely say we’d seen the last of it.

“That poor man.” Fields lowered her hands. “I know how cruel this sounds, but I honestly hope he doesn’t last much longer.”

“If the cigarettes don’t get him, the rotten food will. I’m surprised the stench of the cat urine hasn’t already damaged his lungs.”

“I counted eight cats. From what I’ve learned in the health profession, the more severe cases—those causing lung and respiratory disease and failure—usually result from constant exposure to a substantially higher number. I didn’t see mouse or rat droppings anywhere, so at least he’s safe in that area. But even so, daily exposure to cat feces is deadly.”

“There are probably more than eight. Cats breed a lot. I saw two kittens, so there might be a lot more hiding. There could also be a few dead ones lying around. Don’t forget the one on the bed with Don.”

Fields shivered. “That’s something I could have lived without.”

“Actually, I think the old man’s mind is already pretty well gone. He was really distracted—especially when he tried remembering things. I’ll give him another couple of weeks before he stops using the toilet and forgets to eat, or feed the cats. Then he’ll probably curl up in the bed with his son and stay there.”

As I drove, I kept my eye out for the light-blue compact, but there was no sign of anyone else on the road or in any of the yards. We passed a few dead bodies and the carcasses of three dogs lying in the high grass near the road, but no one else still moving. But I continued to be cautious, and decided to stick with my plan of driving to Saxonburg, taking the loop around, and coming back on Deer Creek Road.

“I’d like to stop at the store at the Saxonburg crossroads,” I said. “Since they had propane the last time we checked, I think we should take anything that’s left. This way, we’ll have enough to last us through the winter.”

“How’s the fuel tank for the truck? You haven’t filled up in a while.”

It read slightly below three-quarters, which was more than enough. We had twenty gallons stored in the garage, so we weren’t hurting. But it made sense to build up the stockpile. We had no idea what awaited us. The power grid servicing the County continued to produce intermittent trickles, but it wouldn’t last much longer. Once the station went dark, the pumps would no longer work, and the only gas left in the tanks would go bad and turn useless in just a few weeks.

It took us about ten minutes to reach the crossroads. I pulled off the main road, where the side entrance led to the rear lot, which held about two dozen vehicles. Abandoned trucks, cars, ATVs and SUVs sat along the curb and in the gravel lot behind the store. I eased past a dirt-covered van sitting off the curb, the driver slumped over the wheel. Two more bodies lay on the ground across the street, in the front yard of a small one-story brick house with its windows broken out. Weeds had taken over. A rusty push mower stood just a few feet from one of the bodies.

I eased into the rear lot of the store and parked a fair distance from the block building, between an old Ford pickup and a rusty El Camino. I parked there in case we had to hide out. I’d learned long ago about anonymity, and always thought of ways of keeping hidden, or at least inconspicuous. The best place I knew of to hide a truck was to park it among other trucks.

We got out and went up the gravel lot to the back of the store. The cool breeze drifted across the road, bringing with it some sourness. It wasn’t very strong, so I assumed the bodies hadn’t been dead very long. I carried my .357, Fields her .45. The propane tanks sat on a concrete slab on the far side of the building, inside a small chain-link pen that had been forced open some time ago.

“Do you want to check the tanks first?” Fields asked.

“Whatever we do, we need to do it quickly.”

“I don’t see anyone.”

“I’m still a little uneasy since this morning. Besides, I expect that damned light-blue compact to pop up again.”

“So I guess we’ll check the tanks.”

“If they’re full, I’ll find a cart or dolly, wheel out the tanks and set them out here. I’ll go back for the truck, bring it over, and we can load them onto the bed.”

“What do you want me to do while you’re checking for propane?”

“You can go around the front to see if the pumps are working.”

“Sounds like a plan. What’s the strategy if we spot that compact again?”

“We can hide out in the store. If someone pulls in and starts looking around, that’s when we’ll have to...”

I stopped talking when I heard the harsh sound. Fields spun on her heel in its direction.

Motorcycles. Several of them. Their roar grew louder by the second.

A display of lawn mowers and farming implements covered a concrete slab across the aisle from the propane tanks. Beyond it, the loading dock doorway opened into a large area around two thousand square feet. Ten feet from the doorway, 55-gallon metal barrels sat upright in four rows of twelve, covering the wall on the right. A few from the front row had been knocked over, and lay in the aisle amongst strewn candy and food wrappers, broken palettes, forty-pound sacks of concrete and a carton of rat poison that had been broken open, its tiny blue pellets scattered all over the floor.

The angry roar of the motorcycles increased as the riders drew closer.

“The barrels.” I pointed behind Fields. “We can hide behind them.”

We ran for the loading dock, jumping over rolls of fencing and dodging a manure spreader. I led the way, with Fields close behind me. We reached the barrels just as the first chopper pulled off the main road and coasted down the gravel slope, to the rear lot. The last row of barrels sat close to the wall, but we were able to squeeze behind two at the far end. We ducked down, lowering our butts to the concrete floor and wedging ourselves into the triangular spaces between them.

By this time, two more choppers had entered the rear lot, their rough, loud engines making the walls of the loading dock vibrate. From our cramped quarters, we couldn’t see anything but horse feed and dog food sitting on palettes piled ten feet high, against the back wall.

I carefully adjusted my position, until I was sitting with my knees against my chest, my right side mashed against the wall, my left shoulder pressing the barrel. I kept the .357 pressed tightly against my chest, its barrel pointing at the ceiling. Fields sat in a similar hunched-over position, her back just inches from my knees. I couldn’t see how she held the .45 but was confident she could get it blasting away immediately.

The deafening idling of the choppers prevented us from communicating with one another. I didn’t want to shout at her and risk being heard if the machines were suddenly switched off. To reassure her, I gently squeezed her shoulder. Although she was warm and trembled a little, she nodded slightly, reassuring me that she was okay. I honestly felt we would survive this, provided no one came in to search the barrels.

But we had no idea what these people would do, how many there were, what they wanted, or if they were armed. All we did know was that if they were able to operate their choppers, they weren’t doped. Hopefully they’d come here strictly for supplies. Or gas. They might not even be interested in hurting anyone, for that matter.