Out of the Dark: An apocalyptic thriller (20 page)

     What filled Darcy now was love for her infant son, Dylan, who was nursing when Stephanie looked over. Dylan was nine months old. Darcy had said he was a colicky handful, a demon in diapers and at times drove her to hair-tearing insanity. She’d also admitted to Stephanie that her love for the boy was so intense that she didn’t think her heart could beat if she didn’t have her son with her.

     Stephanie admired the young mother, for what she’d endured before the apparent end of the world and what she’d done since their civilization had begun to crumble around them. Though Darcy had only told Stephanie snippets of her history up until the night before, and hadn’t given her any detail about what had transpired for her during the Onset, Stephanie knew the other woman had likely been very brave and had utilized ingenuity and intelligence in order to not only save herself, but her infant son, as well.

     “I can’t sleep anymore,” Stephanie said as another shiver raced through her. “You already told me how you got here. Would you tell me what happened to you when all of this started? How did you save yourself and Dylan?”

     At hearing his own name, Dylan burrowed closer to the familiar warmth of his mother and suckled more strongly. Darcy had lovingly teased him once before, that Stephanie had heard, about such a reaction. She did again while Stephanie laughed.

     “She’s not trying to steal your milk, Dyl,” Darcy said in an indulging and simultaneously chastising tone as her baby boy relaxed and went back to a more peaceful method of suckling.

     Darcy had indeed told Stephanie about her life before her experience with the terror that had come in the dark. She’d told the beautiful blond about Dylan’s dad, a naive and immature man who was better acting like a child than raising one. She hadn’t known that about him until they’d moved in together, and shortly after that, she’d become pregnant. Rather than stay with someone she’d already lost all respect and affection for, a man who’d sworn up and down to her that he didn’t want children anyway, Darcy had run away without telling him they’d conceived a baby. She had a single friend in Michigan, and a family she’d never cared much for. An alcoholic mother, an absent father, and two siblings who’d grown up to emulate the horrible parents they’d been burdened with weren’t enough to keep Darcy from simply disappearing from the lives of everyone who’d ever known her.

     She’d gone to Michigan and been put up by her friend, an older woman who’d become Darcy’s lifeline and Dylan’s babysitter while she worked at a gas station full-time and at a maid service part-time. Margaret, who’d insisted Darcy call her Maggie, had taken to Dylan as though he were her own grandson, which was fortunate, as she’d never had children of her own. Maggie had saved both of their lives. Not knowing how to handle colic, the two of them faced that particular nightmare together, better than either of them could have on their own. Darcy knew that alone, or with the man who’d fathered Dylan, she’d never have survived the experience.

     When Stephanie cleared her throat and Dylan pulled sleepily away from her breast, content that he’d gotten his fill, Darcy came back to the present.

     She looked at Stephanie. The woman was a walking wet dream and Darcy didn’t know how she hadn’t been in modeling. She worked as a pharmacist instead and had professed to Darcy that she absolutely loved her work. Her glamorous hair was thick, long and golden. It rushed in waves over her shoulders. Her eyes were deep, vibrant green with unexpected flecks of color that matched the rich, almost metallic shade of her hair. Darcy almost cried in envy when Stephanie told her that her hair was natural. That glorious shade didn’t seem it could have come from anywhere but a bottle. Stephanie was shaped like a goddess, tall and voluptuous enough to make men beg with a wink and weep in appreciation. Her teeth were straight and flawless in a smile that was quick to come, even with all that had happened. Stephanie radiated, internally and externally, with beauty and light. Darcy trusted her immediately, and was glad they’d found each other.

     “Come on, Darcy,” Stephanie said in a friendly yet needling tone of voice. “I told you what happened to me. Talking about it helps.” Even though she was trapped in nightmares about it whenever she slept, she admitted to herself. Even a nap in the car had had the same result as the deep sleep she’d just awakened from.

     “I don’t even know how to say it,” Darcy confessed as she gently laid the effectively passed out Dylan on his back in the middle of the bed. She’d made sure there were pillows all around him so that if she fell asleep on accident and he rolled, which he seldom did, he’d hit resistance before he fell off the bed.

     “Tell me like you’re describing a dream,” Stephanie suggested as she tucked her legs underneath her, patting the bed to her right as Darcy debated where she should go to sit down.

     “I’m fine here, thanks,” Darcy said with the flash of a quick, guilty smile as she took the single chair the room had to offer and pulled it closer to Stephanie’s bed. She sat, looked quickly at Dylan to make sure he was still asleep (as it happened so infrequently) and blew out her breath in a long sigh.

     “Come on,” Stephanie insisted. She stood and rummaged in her gym bag, pulling out a pair of clean socks to put over the ones she already had on. She was in her sweatpants and a long-sleeved t-shirt with flannel underneath that she used for running and she was still cold, but Darcy had suggested they make the motel appear as abandoned as possible. That meant running the heat at the same temperature all the unused rooms were running it at: just warm enough to keep the pipes from freezing.

     Darcy finally caved. “All right.” Stephanie had a way about her that bent a person’s will to her own without it being obvious or annoying.

     Drawing another blanket over Dylan, who was fully clothed in his warmest pajamas and already had two blankets on him, Darcy thought of how she should start what had happened.

     “Dylan and I were in his bedroom,” Darcy started quietly. “Maggie was at work. I worked first and seconds, she worked thirds so it worked out pretty well. The sleeping arrangements got kind of difficult sometimes, but I swear that woman operated with the same crazy energy that Dylan always has even when he only sleeps three hours a night. Me, I need nine to function properly. Were I a harder heart, I could have resented the two of them for being able to sleep a couple of hours and still being able to act like human beings.”

     She laughed a little, and Stephanie smiled. She had an easy smile, she knew, and it was easier with Darcy around, even with everything that had happened. She felt like they were destined to be friends and even in such a shitty situation, being together made them better than they would have been apart.

     “We were in his room,” Darcy repeated as she started to fiddle with the hem of her shirt. “I had just changed him. He was lying in his crib, watching his mobile. Maggie made it for him. She used the same fabric as the baby blanket she made for him to make the mobile. She’s a crafty woman. Most of the things Dylan had were handmade by her. I brought some money but, Lord, not nearly enough to provide for an infant. I never even realized…” She trailed off and shook her head. “I’m avoiding it still.” She sighed almost violently and shoved her hair back from her face. She started speaking quickly, as if to get it out fast would be easier.

     “They were at the front door. I heard it break and I just reacted. I’ve always been a little paranoid. Every room I enter, I check the exits. Every time I’m somewhere longer than a little while, I try to figure out the ways that I’d be able to get out, to get Dylan out if need be. I don’t know why I always did that, but it probably saved us. I got Dylan out of the crib, shoved it between the wall and the door. I laid him in a pile of clothes I hadn’t gotten around to folding and putting away yet and stacked his changing table and his small dresser on top of the crib. I knew it’d take at least a couple of minutes to break through. I don’t even know what I was thinking was at the door at first. A burglar? A murderer? Someone who knew it was just me, Maggie, and the baby and figured we were easy prey? Obviously I didn’t think they were any of those things, because I wasn’t prepared to barricade and stay. In Dylan’s bag was everything I needed at any given time. Clothes for him, diapers, Vaseline, jackets, toys, wipes, his special cream for the bad diaper rash he had in the first few months. His whole world is in that bag.”

     She gestured to the brown bag she’d come with, and Stephanie knew it was true. She’d seen the inside of it. Neatly organized for maximum storage, the bag indeed contained a baby’s whole world.

     “I had another bag and I started shoving stuff in it. As many clothes and diapers as I could get my hands on. The extra packs of wipes. All his medications. They were at the door, pounding on it, trying to claw their way in. I saw hands with broken nails, jagged claws, bloody, dirty, torn. Some of them had bones exposed. They were nightmarish. I remember thinking wildly that they were zombies, like the movies, you know?” She laughed again, and it brought another smile to Stephanie’s full mouth. She’d thought the same thing, running the gauntlet as she had.

     “I grabbed the sling I carry him in sometimes,” Darcy continued. “It was a big investment, but so worth it, especially with his colic. He likes being up against my warmth, my scent and sometimes he’ll only sleep if I have him tucked in the sling against me. Because it was a small house, I always kept his car seat in the room, anyway. It was like it was meant to be that way. At my fingertips, I had everything he needed to help him survive the Onset. The only thing missing was my shoes, actually. I always carried my car keys and my phone in his bag, just so I always had everything important together. I opened his window and tossed the bags out as inconspicuously as I could. I fastened him into his car seat. God, I don’t even know how. My hands were shaking like mad, Stephanie! As soon as I could, I got him out the window and followed him out.”

     She paused and took stock of what had happened. Stephanie sat there quietly, knowing there was more Darcy wanted to say.

     “I think of everything that went on, you know?” Darcy said softly. Her hand moved over the hem, a soothing, methodical movement that calmed her. “It was like we were being protected. Dylan didn’t cry. Not once. Those things were at the door, trying to tear through. It was loud, it was terrifying and he just kept looking up at me like he was sure I was going to make it all right. The way I am, the way I’ve always been ensured that we got out of there. How low the window was to the ground, the fact that I could get myself and Dyl out without having the dresser or anything else to stand on. It all seems…meant to be, you know? And then we met you. And that seems meant to be, too.”

     Darcy thought she finished the statement lamely, and her hand stilled on her shirt. When she looked up, Stephanie was smiling at her more warmly than she had before. She leaned over and took Darcy’s hand, squeezing it firmly until Darcy squeezed back.

     “I know exactly what you mean,” Stephanie agreed. “It seems like we were meant to run into each other, to help each other. And we’ll get through this, I know we will.”

     Encouraged by Stephanie’s words, Darcy couldn’t help but smile back. Her lightened heart then leapt into her throat as both women turned at once to the noise they’d both heard.

     There was someone at the door.

Part II - Departure

“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, it lies behind stars and under hills, and empty holes it fills, it comes first and follows after, ends life, kills laughter.”

J.R.R Tolkien, The Hobbit

Chapter Sixteen

     Frank and Jenna Coleman had lived to the right of the Walkers since they’d come to Michigan over six years ago. They were friendly with Sam and his wife Laura, and watched their kids, Trevor and Melissa, whenever the couple wanted a night alone. They were about as friendly with the Walkers as any neighbors were with those who lived beside them, and it was that relationship that had the Colemans debating whether they should go over to Sam and Laura’s as the morning came.

     “We’ve been over there plenty of times,” Jenna said to Frank as he pondered, as he often did, by worrying the end of a cigar between his teeth and running his hand over the short beard he wore perpetually.

     “And you know Sam’s gladly shown you all of his survival gear,” Jenna continued. Her dark brown eyes were full of worry, her full lips pursed with habitual irritation as Frank remained quiet and brooding. She nervously twirled a lock of long blond hair as she fought the urge not to continue speaking. Frank was a silent man while he pondered; she had to talk everything through. In spite of their differences, they’d been together for twenty-three years, had two grown babies (God protect them, Jenna prayed silently) and had lived a life of love and devotion.

     “That he has,” Frank agreed, but said nothing more.

     “The power will go soon,” Jenna pointed out. Frank made a noise of agreement, so she pressed on. “The water, the heat. We’re in the middle of Michigan winter. No snow yet, but pretty soon it’ll get bad. With no plows, we might be trapped. We won’t be able to forage for supplies until the spring comes.”