Dwellers of the Night: The Complete Collection (12 page)

Dwellers of the Night

59

undergrowth. More coming after him through the trees leading up to Lehman Avenue. He runs straight down the street, past wrecked vehicles. The intersection with the trashed police car is straight ahead. And the bar. It has a lock, but it’s unlocked.

He turns upon the sidewalk. A figure emerges from the shadows, snapping and biting. He ducks and runs, the crazed figure stumbling over his own feet and collapsing in the street. The dead bar rises like a saloon out of the Old West. He launches inside and turns, slamming the door shut. He slides the lock and steps back. The figures hurl themselves against the door, but it won’t budge. They shatter the windows, the glass shards cutting the skin of their hands, but the windows are barred, and they can’t break the steel. The man’s heart thuds heavily in his chest. He stumbles back and falls into a wooden chair, taking deep and cutting breaths. He counts maybe twenty or thirty figures right outside, trying to get in, climbing over one another. Only one thought races through his mind:
What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck
. And then he hears it:

heavy breathing right behind him.

He turns his head and looks back just as one of the women whom he’d seen in the bar only a day or two before launches at him. He is thrown from the chair and sent rolling across the floor. He comes to a rest against the wall, lying in shattered glass. Hands reach through the bars above him. The figures are crazed at how close he is. His eyes are intent on the woman. She is probably about twenty or twenty-five, short and skinny, with dark brown hair. She trips over the chair and falls flat on her face. She looks up at him and snarls. He crawls along the dirty tile floor like a crab, bumps against a record player. He scrambles to his feet. Fingertips brush him: the figures outside are leaning as close to him as they can. He knows he should move, but he refuses. The woman is standing. He has forgotten about the other woman.

Yes, there were two of them.

The other woman comes at him from the side, knocking him into the bars of the window. The hands grab him. Fetid breath crawls over his neck. The woman is pressed against him, her breasts rubbing against his neck. She takes a long drawl of air and screams. The other woman rushes her, knocking her against the record player. The man is free! He rips himself away from the groping hands—his flight uniform tears—and runs to the bar. He looks back and in the darkness he can see the two women fighting, clawing at one another, biting, screaming. He runs around the bar and flings open the cabinets, searching. But there is no gun. He finds it hard to believe, especially in Price Hill.
Why did I have to leave my gun in the house? Fuck!
He grabs a bottle of brandy. One of the women stands. Blood trails from her lips.

She looks over at him, licks her chops, then hunches down, bends over the other woman, and starts to eat.

The man’s stomach curls. Vomit rises in his throat. He goes weak.
Stay focused. Stay focused
.

“Hey!” he shouts, voice crackling in gut-wrenching fear.

The woman doesn’t respond as she rips open her former friend’s chest and begins feasting.

“Hey!”

Still nothing.

The figures outside moan and groan, thirsting for blood.

“
BITCH!
”

The woman turns, growls, eyes wild.

His mind reels, cursing him:
You stupid, crazy, fucking bastard.
Anthony Barnhart

Dwellers of the Night

60

“Yeah!” he shouts. “You!”

She abandons her kill, running after the bar, kicking the chair out of the way. The man instantly regrets it, but he grimaces and strains his muscles. She lunges over the bar, reaching out for him. He swings the bottle of brandy down, slamming it into her skull. The glass shatters, shards embedding into her dark brown hair. Blood squirts up at him. He grabs her hair, yanks her head up. She snaps at his wrist, but he doesn’t care. He drives the shattered end of the bottle into her throat and gives it a good jerk to the right. She lets out a gurgling scream as blood falls like a waterfall onto his shoes.

The woman has gone limp.

The figures outside groan, reaching through the bars for the carcass by the window. The man drops the shattered brandy, takes several deep breaths.

Get a hold of yourself. Calm down
.

How the HELL am I supposed to calm down
?

He knows he has to get away from the windows, away from where the others can see him. He leaves the woman’s body lying over the bar, blood draining onto the floor. He opens a door in the back and ascends a flight of steps. There is a door at the top of the steps. He pushes it open and enters a storage room. Wooden crates line the walls. Moonlight comes in through a single window. This one isn’t barred. He quietly shuts the door, grabs a crate, and slides it against the door, grunting. It’s heavy. He then goes to the window and, standing on his tiptoes, peers out. Down in the street he can see even more figures rumbling around. Some are fighting. Shrieks can be heard all over the city. He slowly lowers himself and pushes a crate against the window. He tries to stack one on top of the crate to block the window, but they’re too heavy. Moonlight reflects off a metal dolly in the corner. He sets the dolly horizontal on the floor and huffs and heaves several crates onto it. He lifts the dolly, grunting, and presses it against the window. Only the top of the window is exposed, allowing meager amounts of moonlight to enter the room.

He sits down against the wall and curls his legs against his chest. He shivers. It’s cold.

It is the longest night he has ever experienced. All he can hear are their howls and wails. They keep trying to get inside down below, but the bars are too sturdy. Halfway through the night, he hears the sound of splintering wood, then the shattering of bottles. He knows they have gotten in downstairs. He holds his breath. Footsteps as they come near the door. He dares not breathe. He hears one of the…
What the hell ARE they, anyways?
... stop at the door. It shuffles around for a few moments, then returns downstairs.
They’re not the smartest blokes
.

His teeth chatter.

He wants a blanket.

And some rum.

He doesn’t sleep. He thinks. He thinks about Kira. He understands why he had to kill her, and the understanding brings no comfort.
She attacked me, and I defended myself. My brain refuses to remember,
and it’s repressing the memory. But Kira attacked me. She climbed from her grave and attacked me, and I had
no choice
. And another thought:
But that doesn’t make it right. We can’t solve all our problems by violence
. He pushes Kira out of his mind, and he falls into a fitful sleep. When he awakes, the sun is shining.

The streets are deserted.

Anthony Barnhart

Dwellers of the Night

61

V

Weathered leaves scatter between his feet. He stands in the abandoned parking lot at Mount Echo. The basketball courts once filled with teenagers in baggy jeans and loose jerseys are now quiet. A cool wind blows, and the basketball nets ripple back and forth. The wind picks up, and the iron fences creak and groan. The late August sun is hot, but his soul is so cold. He stands staring at the spot where their car had been parked so long ago, where they had forgotten all the rules by which to abide and found themselves naked and alone, shivering in ecstatic pleasure. He had smiled so greatly then—”I love you so fucking much,” she had said, and now her words resound like a gong in the back of his mind—but now not a single smile creases his lips. He closes his eyes and listens, hearing nothing but the rustle of dying leaves and the sighs of the wind. There are no rumbling jet engines far above, no dull throb from the highways, no sound whatsoever to speak of what had once been: civilization. His eyes are closed, his breathing deep and labored, and he remembers.

∑Ω∑

The breeze was cool and delicate, rising off the lapping waves of the Ohio River. A barge passed underneath the bridge as the two of them sat on the bench, staring at the sun setting to the west, bleeding ribbons of light over the dull brown river, reflecting off the steel of the skyscrapers. She held the cup of Starbucks coffee in her hands. “Every boy I’ve dated has turned out to be a real jerk. They use and abuse me. I just keep holding out hope that some boy will fall for me who won’t be a jerk like that. A boy who will treat me like a princess.”

“You deserve to be treated like a princess.” He considered wrapping his arm around her.
No.
He didn’t want to look like another boy trying to get into her pants.

“Sometimes I wonder if I really
do
deserve that. No one has treated me like a princess.”

“That’s because you haven’t met the right guy yet.”
Should I put my arm around her?
The war waged in his head.
No. She is just a good friend. She doesn’t want you to put your arm around her
.

“I don’t know.” She cradled the Styrofoam cup.

“When the right guy comes along…” His voice trailed off.

“I just want a kiss to
mean
something, you know?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“I want my next kiss to
mean
something. I don’t want to kiss just to kiss.”

“I know.”

She put her hand on his knee, tenderly, gently. Her touch felt so good.
Put your arm around her.

No. She’s just a good friend.

She put her hand on your knee.

She just feels close to me.

Yeah. But not close as a
friend
. She’s sending you a message
. She stroked his knee with her finger.

His heart pounded.
Do it.
Then,
No.
Again:
Do it
.
No!
He reached out, placed his arm around her. She scooted in closer. The two of them looked out over the river. The barge was bending around a curve, the Kentucky banks obscuring the front of the vessel. Black smoke rose in plumes from its smokestacks hidden behind the distant trees.

He bit his lip. “What are you thinking?”

She looked at him, a cute smile. “I don’t know. What are
you
thinking?”

Anthony Barnhart

Dwellers of the Night

62

“Maybe you found the right guy?”

She grinned widely. “Maybe. Maybe. Just… Maybe.”

∑Ω∑

No. Don’t remember.

I have to remember. She is all that I have.

You don’t have her anymore. Don’t remember.

Why can’t I remember?

Because it hurts too much.

He curses himself for resurrecting the memories, embracing the pain. But the human nature is something unmistakably alien to all other species on the planet. It causes him pain, it makes his heart throb in excruciating agony, but yet he allows the memory to continue, to take him later on in that fateful day, that day that will always remain cemented in his mind, the best day of his life.

∑Ω∑

The sun had set. They were lying on a blanket at Eden Park, the tree limbs ripe with leaves opening up to the spring sky. Stars sprinkled above them, a beautiful patchwork. She leaned close to him. He held her arm and stroked it. No words were exchanged.

He spoke: “Why do you think we’re so afraid to admit what we feel?”

She didn’t answer for a moment. “Maybe because we’re afraid of being hurt.”

More silence.

He turned onto his side, looked down at her. So beautiful.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

She answered with a tender kiss.

The best kiss he had ever tasted.

“Did that kiss mean something to you?” he asked.

A sweet smile. “Yeah. Yeah, it did.”

“Good. It meant something to me, too.”

A bird sang, and they kissed once more.

∑Ω∑

He must face what he knows. He must no longer dwell in memories, in the corridors and pathways of escapism. He must confront that which has confronted him:

Everyone is dead.

He

is

alone.

And the dead seem to walk the streets at night.

Kira again comes into his mind. Her beauty replaced with an ugliness of death. A rotting corpse, stumbling through the house, arms outstretched, drool dribbling down her lips, eyes glazed with the pall of decay, reaching for him. The images flash before his mind, sending shivers of pain shooting through his brain: the knife in his hands, thrusting the blade into her flesh, his heart hammering and terrified, her mouth reaching for his neck—not to kiss, but to kill. And he sees her body thrown upon the bed, the blood staining the sheets.

Anthony Barnhart

Dwellers of the Night

63

He gave his heart to Kira.

And then he killed her.

∑Ω∑

The vicious circle of a thousand poisonous spiders spinning silk threads tightens around his neck like a Siberian noose. He hangs his head in his hands and nightmares and dreamscapes flutter before his mind’s eye, mocking his insanity with their cackling laughter. The memories are a sweet poison, circumventing through his system, latching onto every organ and tissue, and his stomach turns sour, his throat muscles clench, and he vomits all over the floor. Bile dribbles from his mouth, stained crimson with blood, and then he dry heaves: horrendous spasms in his throat make his eyes bulge and his face muscles contort as bitter tears cascade like a Greek fountain down rose-blotched cheeks.

∑Ω∑

They sat on the polished bleachers in Ludlow, Kentucky, on the banks of the Ohio River. Little children played on the playground, mothers watching them. Several kids in a Little League baseball team practiced on the dirt ball field: throwing baseballs, swinging metal bats, eating sunflower seeds and spitting in the dugout to look cool. He sat there with his arm around her. The warm spring breeze ruffled their hair.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

“I’m thinking my dreams might be coming true.”

“Oh? And what dreams are those?”

“Fall in love. Have a family. Be a mom and a wife.”

“My dreams are coming true, too.”