Dwellers of the Night: The Complete Collection (80 page)

He misses the church. He misses being able to sleep soundly. He misses the comfort and the warmth. He misses the familiar faces, most of whom are now nothing more than fly-coated and gnawed-upon bones. He had always found himself, in the dead of night, looking back. Looking back to Cara, to Ashlie, to the way the world
had
been. The night’s tragedies had thrust a new horizon into focus, and now his mind is upon the future. The man had spoken of Alaska, had spoken with such Anthony Barnhart

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hope and vigor. Mark hopes that the man’s ideals will not be lost in fate. It is a long trek to Alaska, and the journey is perilous. No longer do they have the comfort of a secluded fortress, of strength in numbers, in the mastering of preparedness. He knows that some of those with them this night do not know of the man’s plans for Alaska, and Mark knows that the man will not listen to any objections. He will simply invite them to come with him or send them on their own merry way. In the end, it does not matter. They are going to Alaska. And Mark hopes they get there. He remembers Alaska in pictures, remembers the small towns, the jagged mountains, the pine forests wreathed in mist. The low population will provide less encounters with dark-walkers, and the bitter climate may have starved and frozen most of them to obliteration. Yet the road there passes through major cities, journeys through mountains capped in snow, crosses land as flat as the eye can see in every direction: nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide, just endless fields and silos and tractors. He closes his eyes, doesn’t want to think about it.

He falls asleep, and is awakened.

Anthony stands before him. “It’s 3:00.”

“Okay,” Mark says, groaning. He stands, stretches.

“You fell asleep.”

“I know,” Mark says. He hands him the shotgun. “Hopefully you have better luck.”

Mark falls asleep quickly, and Anthony cradles the shotgun in his lap. His body aches to return to sleep, but he refuses. His hands wrap around the icy-cold shotgun barrel, and he stares into the numbing darkness. He sinks deeper into the couch, sets his hand against the sofa comforter, feels something under his fingers. He lifts it up, feels it in the darkness. A pack of cigarettes. Mark’s, undoubtedly. He pulls one out, thinking the nicotine will help him stay awake. He puts it in his mouth and feels around for a lighter. No luck. He stands and kneels, searching along the ground, hands fumbling in the darkness. He curses after a minute or two, tosses the cigarette to the floor, sits back upon the couch. He leans his head back, feels the linen wrap around his neck. He closes his eyes.
Just for a moment. I’m still listening…
He concentrates on the sounds of the others’ snoring and breathing, Katie’s moans. He decides to wake her up, but his body refuses to move.
Let her sleep.
Those are his last thoughts, and he slips into unconsciousness.

II

He doesn’t know where he is, and it takes a few moments for him to gain his bearings. He is standing in her backyard: the creek-bed runs behind the old wooden shed filled with boxes full of rocks: amethysts and crystals and geodes and fossils. The trees stand silently among him, and he stares at the single willow. The leaves have fallen, and the spidery branches hunker down under the weight of encapsulating ice, and the tips stab into the fresh layer of snow coating the ground in its sparkling serenity. He suddenly feels cold, as if the gods have breathed ice into his lungs. He turns towards the house, icicles hanging from the gutters. She stands there, wrapped warm in her polka-dot coat, the coat he always made fun of her for wearing. She just stares at him, her dark hair falling before her eyes. His heart ruptures, and a thousand emotions flood through him. He tries to move forward, but he is frozen; he looks down and sees that from his knees down, ice bolts him into the snow. He looks back up and sees her moving towards him. She is wearing a skirt, and it dances back and forth in the unfelt breeze. Her smile radiates from her eyes, and he can feel her warmth as she nears. She is Anthony Barnhart

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abruptly before him, and he tries to say something, but his tongue is full in his mouth, rolling about like a giant marble behind his teeth. She reaches out and caresses his cheek, and that is when he realizes how cold she is. She strokes his cheek, and he can feel the absence of a pulse in her fingers. His heart begins to pound, and the encasing ice cracks and shatters, dispelling into his bowels. Her lips don’t move, but he can hear her words: “Why did you leave me?”

She repeats it, over and over, her voice growing stronger with each syllable and vowel:

“Why did you leave me?

Why did you leave me?

Why did you leave me?”

He wants to answer but cannot. Her words resonate within him, and then something begins to happen. She continues to “speak”, but she begins to change. The skin on her fingers shrivels up, flaking off, revealing the pearl-white bone. He can feel her bones upon his cheek, hard and cold. He tries to move away, frightened, but he is rooted in place. He stares at her face, and it begins to melt away, dripping onto the ridge of her coat in great splotches of blood and tattered skin. Soon all that is left is her skull, with its smiling teeth, her sunken eyes. “Why did you leave me? Why did you leave me? Why did you leave me?” He cannot answer, doesn’t want to answer, only yearns to escape. But he cannot move. She continues to wither away. The hair on her scalp falls off, revealing the crescent of bone. Her coat sags, then falls to the ground, revealing an empty skeleton covered with a thin layer of mummified skin. Her beautiful eyes are now filled with rage, and she continues her question:

“Why did you leave me? Why did you leave me?” Her skeletal hands abandon his face, and she presses them against her abdomen. The mummified flesh begins to shake and quiver, something poking to escape. An incision occurs, and he watches with a frozen heart as tiny hands protrude, the skeleton-fingers twisting and turning in the chilly air, stretching for him. His lover asks, “Why did you leave me?”

And then, “Why did you leave
us
?”

III

He awakes from the dream, startled. His heart is sprinting in his chest. Sweat is coursing down his face. He can still feel her bony fingers against his cheek, can still see the tiny hands emerging from the swollen flesh. He leans back in the couch, draws several deep breaths, clutches the cold shotgun barrel between his shaking fingers. The sounds of the snores and Katie’s rough sleep greets him once more. His mouth is parched, aching. “I need some water,” he says to no one in particular. He sets the shotgun beside him on the couch, stands, and begins slowly crawling up the stairwell towards the kitchen.

He reaches the top of the steps and stands before the door. He grips the doorknob and slowly pushes the door open. The cryptic hinges squeak, the noise deafeningly loud. No one is supposed to go downstairs, and he glances down into the darkness, doesn’t hear any movement. He just wants a drink of water. His shoes tap against the linoleum as he enters the ground-floor kitchen. He glances over at the table to his left, blood dried upon the floor.
Cameron
. He pushes her out of his mind. He walks over to the sink faucet and turns the handle. Nothing.
Of course. You idiot. There’s no water
pressure
. He doesn’t bother returning the handle to its original placement, and he goes over to the refrigerator and pulls it open. Mold lines the insides of the refrigerator, and the milk has turned Anthony Barnhart

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green. Slippery gunk crowds the shelves. He finds a collection of water bottles near the back, twists one open. He lifts it up and swallows the lukewarm water. He twists the cap back on and slides the water bottle into the pocket of his pants. He leaves the kitchen and is nearing the door leading down into the basement when something catches in his peripheral vision. He slowly turns, and he finds himself staring through the sliding glass door leading into the backyard. The dust on the mirror obscures the stars, but he can see a figure standing in the middle of the yard, unmoving. His heart trumps logic, and he presses his hands and face against the mirror.
Karen
.

His mind shrieks for him to turn back, to descend the steps, to let out a shot, to grab the shotgun. But his heart burns, betrayed by his own phantasmal love for a ghost who resides only within his dreams. His heart obscures what can be seen through the dust-laden window, but his mind recognizes reality for its true colors:
Cameron
. She begins approaching the glass, and he
yearns
for it to be Karen, returned from the grave, full of her pristine beauty and overcome with affection; he yearns for the renewal of what they had, yearns for restoration, yearns to take her hand and run headlong side-byside and hand-in-hand towards all their hopes and dreams. Reality slaps him cold in the heart as Cameron breaks into a run at the window. He turns on his heels and takes a step towards the door leading down to the basement: then comes the cry of shattering glass, and Cameron’s hands shoot through the glass, her fingers torn and twisted by shards of glass; her hands wrap around his throat and yank him backwards into the glass. Her cold fingers twist like a vice around his throat, and alarm rips through him. He is pulled against the window, and on the other side of the glass, Cameron smears her face against the windowpane, swiping her saliva over the glass in great swathes as she tries to sink her teeth into his neck, unable to recognize the invisible barrier between them. Her hands, wrapped tight around his throat, squeeze the air from his lungs, and in his ears he can hear his own organs crackling. He tries to pry her fingers from around his throat, kicks at the linoleum floor. His leg twists to the side, smashes into a trash-can, knocks it onto the ground. The titanium lid crashes to the floor, resounds throughout the house.

Anthony’s mind is going dark. He sees spots, his lungs are on fire, brain screaming. The world becomes blurry, and suddenly he sees Katie standing in the open doorway. Everything moves in slow-motion: her hands reach up to her face, and she lets out a cacophonous howl of fright. A moment later, Mark and the man appear. Mark is carrying the shotgun; he raises it up to shoot past Anthony’s head and into the glass, but the man grabs the barrel and pushes it down. Anthony tries to cry out, but he is now overcome with weakness. The man darts past him, to the side of the door, and with a grunt pushes it open, sending both Anthony and Cameron stumbling, locked together between the door. The man withdraws his KA-BAR knife and steps out into the wet grass. Cameron looks over at him, screams, releases Anthony; Anthony tumbles forward onto the floor; she tries to yank her hands out to attack the man, but he viciously sets upon her: he grabs the back of her head and thrusts her eye into the blade of the knife; she grunts, and he steps closer to her, wraps his arm around her, and thrusts the knife deep until it pierces her brain. She goes limp and collapses into the grass. He bends down, grips the handle of the dagger, and yanks it from her eye. A geyser of blood shoots out. He wipes the blood onto his pants as he steps back into the kitchen and pulls the door shut. Loose glass from where her hands had emerged tingle onto the floor like Christmas chimes.

Mark stands beside the kitchen table. Katie stands in the doorway, tears crawling down her cheeks. Anthony is hunched over on the floor, gasping for breath. The man slides the knife back into the Anthony Barnhart

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sheath on his belt and, staring at the boy cowering on the floor, snaps, “Why the
fuck
did you come up here?”

Anthony speaks, coughing the syllables: “I just… wanted… wanted some water.”

The man curses and slashes his foot into Anthony’s side.

The boy lets out a shout and falls onto his side, choking, eyes saucers. The man moves towards him.

Mark leaps forward, reaches out, grabs the man by the arm. “
No
.”

The man is fuming, eyes alight with a savage fire. “You compromised
all
of us,” he snarls. “This is the third time I’ve had to save your fucking life. Next time I’ll just let them have you. Next time…

Next time…” He doesn’t finish his words, just curses once more. He steps over the boy, doesn’t acknowledge Katie, and returns downstairs.

Sarah is downstairs, and she intercepts the man as he reaches the bottom of the steps. “What happened?” she demands.

The man doesn’t answer.

She touches his arm, and he freezes.

He slowly turns, looks at her.

“What happened?” she pleads, voice low.

“Cameron… She came back,” the man says.

Sarah glances towards the stairwell. “They always move in packs…”

“Not this time,” the man says. “Cameron, she was… fresh. She wasn’t a part of a flock yet. She was traveling alone. A lone wolf. And I kept Mark from fucking shooting at her through the glass. He would have blown off half of Anthony’s face.”

“That would have been awful.”

“Not as awful as him attracting the dark-walkers with his stupidity.”

IV

No one wakes up till early afternoon. No more attacks came in the night, and the man stood watch till dawn, refusing to have anymore repeat incidents. Once dawn broke, he went back to sleep. The first one up was Katie. She sat quietly on the steps, not wanting to go upstairs alone. Sarah awoke, and the two of them went upstairs and stood outside, feeling the warmth of spring and watching the birds return north from their wintry vacation. Now the man is checking the engine of the Explorer. Katie and Sarah are in the backyard, burying Cameron’s body for the last time. Mark and Anthony stand in the kitchen. Kyle, who had slept through the entire ordeal, is out at the car with the man. Anthony is perusing the cupboards, stomach churning. Mark sits quietly at the table, rapping his fingers on the polished wood, deep in thought.

“He doesn’t like me very much.”

Anthony’s words catch Mark off-guard. He looks over at him. “What?”

“You’re friend,” he repeats nonchalantly. “He doesn’t like me very much.”