Darkness on the Edge of Town (13 page)

Heads turned, craning to see the doomsayer. I did the same. The sea of people slowly parted. Dez, the homeless guy, stood at the rear of the crowd, slightly removed from everyone else, with one foot propped up on a fire hydrant. It was hard to make him out in the shadows, but right away I knew it was him. His voice and strange way of speaking were instantly recognizable.

“I stopped it,” he said, “but everything else is gone. Now it’s just waiting for us. He Who Shall Not Be Named. Once it eats us, it can move on to the next world.”

“Yo,” T shouted, “what kind of drugs you on, brother, and how can I score some?”

A few people laughed, but most seemed annoyed. I couldn’t tell if they were bothered more by Dez’s ramblings or T’s taunts. I pressed on, trying to keep their attention.

“Thank you,” I said, nodding at Dez. “That’s one theory, and that’s my point. We have theories, but not many facts. We know that it’s dark.”

“It’s not just dark,” Dez said. “It
is
the dark.”

I wondered how to respond to that, but people had started to ignore him again, and the crowd closed ranks. I quickly lost sight of him. I glanced at Russ, who just shrugged and shook his head.

A short, bookish-looking man raised his hand. “That…man might be right. I think I know what he’s trying to say. There’s something in the darkness. I tried to leave yesterday, after I heard about the people who’d been killed. There was something…waiting for me, so I turned around and came back.”

“What was waiting for you?” Cranston asked.

He turned red. “I’d rather not say.”

Cranston shrugged. “Bummer, man.”

“We experienced something, too,” Russ said, raising his voice. “Out on Route 711, at the town limits. Me, Robbie, and his girlfriend, Christy. We went out there when it first happened. We didn’t know what else to do so we took a drive to see for ourselves. I know it sounds crazy, but when we got to the edge of the darkness, we each saw something different. It was our loved ones—people we’ve known, long dead.”

“I saw that, too,” the redheaded woman volunteered. “My cat, Binkley. He was run over by a car three years ago. When I saw him yesterday, he looked just like he had before he died. He still had his collar with the little silver bell and everything.”

“Well, I didn’t see anything like that,” the short man said. “What I saw was something that I’m scared of.”

“What was it?” Cranston asked again.

“Yeah,” T shouted. “What you see out there, dog?”

“I told you that I didn’t want to talk about it!”

Cranston waved him off with one hand. “Then don’t keep bringing it up, man. You’re just freaking everyone else out, and there’s too much of that already.”

“Calm down,” I said. “Everybody just calm down a minute. This is a part of it, too—what’s happening right now; all this goddamned arguing. I don’t know about the rest of you, but we’ve noticed some…unusual changes in behavior. Shit seems to piss us off quicker than normal. Stupid, little things. Am I right?”

Many in the crowd nodded in agreement.

“I don’t know if help is on the way or not,” I admitted, “but if this keeps up, there might not be any of us left to rescue if help does arrive. Something is playing
with our emotions—ramping them up. Making them stronger, until we can no longer control them. We need to take charge—take control of what’s happening to us. We need to do it now. And the first step in doing that is to learn more about our situation.”

“So what do you propose, Mr. Higgins?” a man asked.

“Well, I’ve been thinking about it. We know two things about the darkness. First, everyone who’s gone into it hasn’t come back. Second, it shows us things. But we don’t know that those things can actually hurt us. So far, unless I’m mistaken, all they’ve done is appear and talk to us. And in some cases, it scared us. Anybody experience something different from that?”

They shook their heads. I pointed at the short man who’d refused to talk about his encounter.

“Did whatever it was you saw try to hurt you?”

He took a deep breath. “No. I think it was just trying to scare me.”

“And you didn’t actually go into the darkness, right?”

He shook his head. “I stayed on the edge. I went up the hill there behind the senior high school. See, somebody slashed all my car tires the first night. I don’t know why. Why are people doing any of the things they’ve been doing? Maybe it’s like you said. Maybe something is playing with our emotions and making us do bad things. Anyway, I figured I’d walk out of town. Get some air. Try to gain some perspective about what to do next. I made it to the top of the hill behind the school. I stopped to catch my breath. There was a…symbol of some kind, scratched into the grass and dirt. A picture, though I really didn’t understand what it was supposed to be. It was outlined with salt. I know it was salt be
cause I ended up tasting a little of it, just to see what it was. But that’s all I know. I was so preoccupied with the symbol that I didn’t go any further.”

“See?” Dez called. “I told you all!”

“Okay,” I said, ignoring him. “So there’s some kind of…barrier, for lack of a better term. We saw a picture like the one you described, but it was out on Route 711. The darkness stopped at the edge of it. I think we can assume that whatever it is in the darkness, it can’t hurt us if we don’t cross the barrier. It can fuck with us, but so far, it hasn’t touched us. But we don’t know what happened to everyone who left. So here’s my plan. We get a bunch of us—the more people, the better—and we go out to the edge of the darkness, that spot where it becomes something more than shadow. We tie ourselves together really well, and then we make a human chain and—”

“Screw that,” a man said. “I want no part of this nonsense.”

He began walking away. A few more people followed him.

“Wait,” I shouted. “Listen!”

“Hear him out,” Russ hollered. “This affects you, too. All of you.”

Grumbling and shaking their heads, more people turned away.

“Yo.” T hopped up on the hood of the car with me, speaking quietly so that no one else would hear. “We ain’t no punks, but we ain’t stupid either. Ain’t you ever seen
The Mist
?”

“Yeah,” I admitted. “That’s kind of where I got the idea from.”

“Well, if you saw that movie, then you know damn
well how it turned out for those people. Ain’t no way me and my boys are going out into that shit. Know what I’m saying?”

“I’ll pay you a bottle of vodka, a bottle of gin, and two buds.”

His eyes widened. “Four buds—fat ones—and you got yourself a deal.”

I paused, considering how little weed Christy had left in her bag.

“Deal. But you’ve got to help me. Everyone is leaving.”

“I’m on it.” He turned around and faced the crowd, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Yo! Listen up, motherfuckers. This Robbie dude sounds like he be tripping, but he’s right. And ya’ll know it, too. That’s why you’re walking away. ’Cause you’re scared. Well, we can’t be scared no more. We need to be on top of this shit. Know what I’m saying? We all balls deep in this together. If we’re all tied together with ropes and shit, ain’t nothing gonna happen to us. This ain’t the movies. If something does happen, we just pull each other out real quick like. My man here is right. For real. Know what I’m saying? We don’t know what’s in that darkness, but we know what the fuck is gonna happen if we just keep doing the same old same old. Motherfuckers be tripping, and it’s getting worse every damn night. How long before they knock on your door, looking to gank your shit and cut your throat in the process? You feel me?”

“Gank?” Cranston asked, confused.

“He means steal,” Russ explained. “At least, I think that’s what it means.”

“Straight up,” T said. “Me and my crew ain’t afraid of no darkness. We’ll go.”

“The hell we will,” Mario said. “Who sa—”

T shot him a look, and Mario quickly turned his attention back to his video game.

“We’re going,” T told the crowd, “and if the rest of you give a fuck about our hood, you’ll help too. Know what I’m saying?”

A murmur of assent rose, mingling with the grumblings from those opposed to the plan. But nobody was walking away anymore. I turned to T and stuck out my hand.

“Thanks.”

His grip was firm. “Word. Now you ain’t gonna stiff me, are you?”

“A deal’s a deal,” I promised. “I’ll hook you up. A bottle of vodka, a bottle of gin, and four fat buds. Count on it.”

“So you want us to risk our lives?” a man shouted. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“If we’re all tied together,” I said, “and something starts to happen, we can pull each other out before anyone is harmed. The strange stuff only happens in the darkness. As long as some of us stay on the other side of the barrier, we should be fine.”

The crowd argued among themselves for a while. Eventually we had about two dozen volunteers. The others voiced their support but had excuses for not accompanying us—children or pets depending on them and shit like that. I could understand those reasons, but I was still disappointed. Only a few people outright refused, which surprised me. I honestly hadn’t figured they would. All the negativity that had been in the air, infecting us all, seemed to have temporarily evaporated while I was talking. Now it was back—apparently with a quickness. One man told me that I was an idiot and
deserved whatever happened to me out there. I told him to fuck off, and then Russ and Cranston jumped between us before I beat the shit out of him.

I asked for rope, and a few people said they had some at home. I sent them to get it. Another guy told me he had a pair of battery-powered walkie-talkies, and I asked him to retrieve those, as well. It was something I hadn’t thought of, but now that he’d mentioned them, I agreed they would come in handy.

After everyone had their assignment, we agreed to meet back on the street corner in fifteen minutes. During that time, I went upstairs and got T’s payment. Christy kept our stash in a Ziploc baggie inside an empty Partagas cigar box. We were almost out of weed, and when I pulled the four buds out of the bag, all that remained were a few smaller buds and lots of stems and seeds. I dropped the four buds into another plastic baggie. Christy blew up and shouted at me when she saw what I was doing, but I promised her that I’d get some more.

“Where, Robbie? You said yourself last night that we don’t know when we’ll be able to get more.”

“I’ll find some. I promise. It’s Walden, honey. Lots of people smoke marijuana. Hell, I bet Cranston has some he can share with us. But we’ll worry about that later. Right now, I’ve got other things to think about.”

“Well, maybe you should think about me for once!”

I don’t know if it was the darkness or just my true feelings, but I’d had it with her.

“Why bother?” I asked. “All you ever do is think about yourself. You don’t need me to do it for you.”

Christy reeled back like she’d been slapped. I felt a momentary pang of guilt. I opened my mouth to apologize, but she lifted her foot, pulled off her shoe, and
flung it at me as hard as she could. I ducked, and the shoe soared over my head and slammed into the closet door. The other shoe followed it. This time, my reflexes were off and Christy’s aim was better. The hard wooden heel struck me in the arm. I almost dropped the buds.

“Goddamn it, Christy! That fucking hurt!”

“Good, you cocksucker! I’m glad it hurt!”

“Oh, fuck you.”

“No, fuck you, Robbie! You’re a fucking asshole. I’ve had it with this shit. Don’t you fucking come back here again. You can fucking sleep with your new friends outside.”

She was still cursing me out when I left the apartment. I delayed only long enough to grab the bottles of booze from the kitchen. On my way down the stairs, I rubbed my sore arm and hoped my anger would subside. I needed my head clear for what came next.

Russ was waiting for me outside. He nodded, arched his eyebrows, but didn’t say anything.

I sighed. “You heard that?”

“Yeah, I heard. Kind of hard not to.”

“Shit.”

“Don’t take it too hard, and don’t be mad at Christy. I imagine it wasn’t really her talking, you know? It was…” He waved at the darkness. “…this. However it’s fucking with our heads.”

“I hope so, Russ. I really fucking hope you’re right, because I can’t take much more of that bullshit.”

Fifteen minutes later, we regrouped in the middle of the street. A few of our volunteers must have had second thoughts because they didn’t return. We waited for them a few minutes longer, but they still didn’t show. In the end, we were down to thirteen people. There was me, Russ, and Cranston, of course, as well as T and
his four friends (who were all very gung ho after receiving their payment and had already started in on both the vodka and the gin). Joining us was a sixth-grade English teacher, Ms. Stevens, who was about my age and very pretty despite the fact that she hadn’t showered in several days and had no makeup on and her hair was stuffed up beneath a ball cap. Then there was an overweight network systems analyst named Clevon, who was also about my age and had apparently lived in Walden less than six months. Next came a guy wearing an
Earnhardt Lives
ball cap who introduced himself as Drew. With him was his buddy, Clay; and a woman named Anna. I recognized Anna from my delivery route. She was a short-haul truck driver who ordered pizzas from us on the weekends. I’d never known her name until now—just her address and her occupation (her rig was always parked outside). The three of them talked to one another with a familiarity that spoke of a longtime friendship. I guessed that both Drew and Clay were in their midforties. Anna was probably about the same, but the years—or the mileage behind the years—made her look older.

In addition to our human volunteers, Drew and Clay had brought along their hunting dogs—two beagles and a fat old black-and-tan spotted with streaks of gray fur. Drew suggested to me that we send the dogs in first, after tying them to the rest of us. I had to admit, it was a pretty good idea, so I agreed.

Cranston sighed. “I say we do this now, Robbie, before I chicken out.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “I guess we can’t stall any longer.”