Dwellers of the Night: The Complete Collection (120 page)

“Don’t
ever
say that again,” Sarah growls. “Do you understand me?”

He swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

“Do you
fucking understand me?!
” she shouts, her voice echoing in the car. He bites his lip, nods.

“Tell me. Tell me you will
never
say
anything
like that again.”

He stares forward at the wheel wrapped under his white-knuckled fingers.

“
Say it,
” she snarls.

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He takes a deep breath. “I won’t say it. I won’t say it again.”

She leans back in her seat. “You’d better not. I’m fucking serious.”

“I know,” the man says.

They sit in the quiet. The man lights another cigarette. His fingers shake. Sarah says, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”

“I deserved it.”

“I know you loved Kira. I know it. I just… I want to make sure
you
know that.”

“I still love her.” He takes his first hit off the cigarette, trying to calm his nerves.

“I know,” Sarah says. “I still love Patrick.”

“The love is different,” the man says. “I love her. But sometimes I can hardly remember her. I have these memories, but the setting and scenery is more memorable than her. I can hardly remember her face anymore. I can hardly remember her laugh. I just remember the things we did, conversations we had. It’s like I’m flipping through someone else’s journals, reading about someone else’s life. I have the knowledge, but it’s empty. I mean, there’s still attachment. There’s still love. But it’s becoming more like worship and less like genuine care and compassion. Maybe because… Maybe because I
can’t
care for her anymore. I
can’t
have compassion on her anymore. Because she’s dead, and she’s never coming back.” He extinguishes the cigarette in the ashtray. “I already lost her once, and these memories, these fading memories…” He bites his lip, his voice warbling. “I don’t want to lose her again.”

“What you’re experiencing… It happens to everybody.”

He looks over at her. “Is it happening to you?”

No
. “It will happen eventually.”

The man looks away.

Sarah reaches over, grabs his hand, holds it. “It’s okay.”

He closes his eyes, bows his head. “I can’t bear the thought of losing her again.”

“You won’t,” Sarah says. “Trust me. You won’t. It’s going to hurt. It’s going to hurt like hell. But she’ll never leave you. Just like Patrick will never leave me.”

“I remember this one time,” the man says. “Kira and I were at the park. Mount Echo. Back in Cincinnati. And we were there, and we found a turtle. A box turtle I think. And we were feeding it dandelions. I remember the weather. The way it felt. The clothes I wore. The clothes
she
wore. I remember where we were at that park. I remember how green the grass was, how green the leaves were. I remember the patterns on the shell of the turtle. I remember it all so
vividly
. But I can’t remember Kira’s face.” He looks out his own window, hiding his tears. They emerge in his voice: “I can remember everything except her.”

Sarah shifts across the seat, moves over the gear-shift, wraps her arms around him. She buries her face into his shoulder, whispers into his ear: “You love her.”

“I know,” the man says, not refusing the embrace.

She squeezes him tighter. “You
love
her. You
love
her.
You love her
.”

The tears stream down harder, and he curls up in the seat, Sarah holding him. She repeats it again and again: “You love her. You love her.”

He continues to cry, a child in the arms of a mother. The rain patters on the roof. Anthony Barnhart

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IV

The rains let up in the early evening, and they are forced to find lodging in the next town. The man had hoped to be past Denver by nightfall, but they are not even into the Denver city limits. The man knew that the Denver skyline would have been visible from Genoa if not for the mist and fog that overlaid the ground due to the wretched rains. He is thankful, at least, to be out of Kansas and into Colorado. Genoa is a small town, with a handful of crisscrossing roads and decrepit buildings and antique shops. They drove down an intersecting road for several miles, reached a small cottage with a walk-around porch; it is stranded amidst a cornfield with stalks hanging low amidst the muddied earth. The sun’s rays split between the heavy mist, and the clouds above them were in tumult, locked in mortal combat as more rain threatened to fall. The man cleared the house—it was empty of inhabitants, though surprisingly neat and up-kept, and the man wondered if someone had lived there for a time following the striking of the plague—and they found that it was already fortified. The living room has three couches centered around a stone fireplace, and off from the kitchen is a family room with a dust-covered flat-screen television and an immense stereo system mounted to the wall. In the far bedroom are three beds, all kept clean and made. “Do you think anyone’s going to be coming back tonight?” Sarah had asked, and the man had replied, “Doubt it: it’s almost nightfall. If they’ve survived this long, then they’re smart enough to be bunkering down wherever they are.”

Sarah decided to fix supper on a BUNSEN burner sitting on the stove, and the man went to stoking a fire in the stone hearth.

The man enters the kitchen. Sarah has found several canned goods in one of the drawers, and she turns and looks at him. “I’ve got corn and green beans going. Even some asparagus.” All of the vegetables are mixed together amidst distilled water from a jug found in the cabinet. She raises her hands, a can in either hand. “Peaches or strawberries?”

“Strawberries,” the man says, holding out his hand.

She begins to turn around, says, “Okay, if you can set the table…”

“Sarah.”

She turns towards him. “What?”

“I’ll finish making dinner, all right? You go get some rest.”

“I’m okay.”

“We’ve both had a long day. We can split the work.”

She is quiet for a moment, then, “Okay.” She hands him the strawberries, sets the peaches on the kitchen counter.

He says, “The fire’s nice and warm. It’s peaceful. Go lie down and rest for a bit.” He extends his outstretched palm towards the small pot upon the BUNSEN burner. “I’ll finish up with this.”

“Okay,” she says. “And thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

She is on the couch beside the fire for only a little while. She moves into the master bedroom, sees the bed made up with several quilts. The windows are boarded up, and some of the wooden boards are covered with claw marks. A chill runs up her spine. She imagines them getting inside, how they’d be trapped: there is no upstairs, no downstairs, and only flat and muddy cornfields in all directions. She pushes that thought from her mind, and it gets easier as her eyes fall upon a vanity wedged in the corner, beside one of the boarded-up windows and the queen-sized bed. It was an antique wooden vanity: the engravings and etchings and the curves of the wood and even the scent of the rich cedar Anthony Barnhart

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reminded her of the one her mom used to have. She approaches the vanity and stands before it, extending her hands. Her fingertips run over the smooth wood. She looks into the mirror, and she cannot believe what she sees. She runs her hand through her hair, but it makes no difference. Her face looks like the face of a skeleton wrapped taught with leathery skin. Her cheeks are deflated, eyes sunken, deep lines carved across what had at one time been skin rosy and beautiful, skin that smelled of shampoo and conditioner, household commodities that are now mere memories. Antiques, just as antique as the vanity before her. She abandons the vanity and goes to the bathroom that is attached to the bedroom, and she searches for soap. She twists the handle on the faucet. No water comes out. She sighs and returns to the master bedroom. She moves around the side of the bed and sits down. The bed creaks underneath her weight. She stares into the mirror, the light in the room—coming between cracks in the boards over the windows—slowly dying with the sun’s steady descent. The shadows grow longer, and her image reflected begins to fade into a murky abyss. She just stares at herself in the mirror, thinking. Always thinking. Remembering everything. She thinks of Patrick. Thinks about his smile, his laugh, the way he touched the small of her back when they danced. A tear runs down her cheek. She tries not to think about him, but she remembers the way they danced at their wedding. The way even the music faded into nothingness, and it was just the two of them, swirling and circling, moving and grooving. She remembers how his one arm was wrapped around her back, and how his opposite hand clung to hers with a grip that refused to let go. His fingers had been a warm-blooded vice. He was so afraid of losing her, and yet she was the one who lost him.

She stands from the bed and moves towards the vanity, her image growing in the mirror, the shadows drawing even closer. She begins searching through the vanity. She finds some makeup, decides to put it on. She has a crazy look in her eye, but truth be told, she always does these days. She remembers an old song she and Patrick would sing, a song by Bob Marley. They would sing it when things got rough. He would sing it while she was overcoming the trauma of her miscarriages, and though it pissed her off, she never told him how it made her feel. He was just trying to be supportive and comforting. It had made her mad, even made her want to kill him at times, but now she misses it, misses his voice missing each note and warbling the words. ♫♪ Don’t worry about a thing… ‘cause every little thing is going to be all right. ♪♫ She doesn’t believe that anymore. She’d never believed it in the first place. Perhaps she had been wiser than that all along. Perhaps the curse of her hopelessness had been a blessing. She hadn’t been naïve and ignorant, and she was prepared for what happened on August 11, 2011. As prepared as she could have been. But never prepared enough to lose Patrick.

She uses eyeliner and puts brown eye-shadow under those sunken eyes. She adds some mascara across her leathery skin.

She puts pale lipstick over chapped and worn lips.

She watches herself. Tears run down her cheek, blotching the freshly-applied makeup. She feels something deep inside, something deep within the core of who she is, something pulling, always pulling, pulling her farther deep and down inside herself. She can’t stop it. She wipes away the last tear and leaves the room.

Patrick’s scent remains.

The man is putting the strawberries into ceramic bowls when Sarah enters the kitchen. He looks over, and he stops stirring. She looks beautiful. “Hey.”

She walks right past him, to one of the cupboards, swings open the door. The man watches as she pulls out a bottle of cheap whiskey, unscrews the cap. Anthony Barnhart

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He says, “Maybe you could wait until after dinner…”

She takes an ample gulp. It burns in her throat. It tastes horrible, but she doesn’t care. She just wants to forget.

She leaves him in the kitchen and goes into the room with the fire. She sits down on the couch and cradles the bottle of whiskey in her hands. The flames begin to blur as she takes several more drinks.

She just wants to forget.

The man brings the dinner out to her. The fire roars up the chimney. He sets the food down on the coffee table between the couches.

She sits down on the floor and begins eating the stewed vegetables. The man sits across from her, reaches for the bottle, tries to grab it. Her reaction is fast but jerky, and she nearly spills the bottle. “No.”

He watches her, uneasy. He’s never seen her like this. “Are you okay?”

She doesn’t answer, takes another drink. “Let’s just eat, okay?”

“And drink, apparently,” the man says.

She laughs at his comment, takes another swig.

“Sarah. Seriously. Slow it down. You’re going to be sick all night.”

Her world is blurred and sluggish, and she remembers.

∑Ω∑

“You know I need you. If you ever left me, I would die.” Patrick had said that to her as she looked down at him. They were laughing in bed one morning before he had to leave for work.

“Oh, yeah,” she mused. “I’m like air to you. Without me, you’d die for sure.” She eyed him suspiciously, then cooed, “Oh, I’ve got you figured out. You just keep me around for my worldfamous pancakes. I know all about your little game.” She bended down close to him, nuzzled her face into his hairy chest, then raised her neck, peered at him. “I’ve been onto you for a while now.” She grinned and moved forward, her bare breasts rubbing against his hairy chest. She kissed his lips, and then she reeled out of bed, stood half-naked before him, wearing nothing but tight panties that rode up into her.

Lying in bed, his eyes danced over her figure. “You’re such a tease.”

She flashed him a smile and grabbed a light-blue t-shirt off a hangar on the door, left the bedroom. She entered the kitchen. Patrick was right behind her. He watched her getting the things ready to make breakfast, pulling out the eggs and the batter and setting the pan on the stove and spraying it down with CANOLA oil. He stared at her in her cotton panties and loose t-shirt. She was so beautiful.

He ran up behind her and put his arms around her waist, pulled her up against him. He leaned in close, kissed the back of her neck. He whispered into her ear, “I guess you
do
have me figured out. What can I say? I’m a sucker for good pancakes, and you have the best!” She scowled, and he swung her around, planted a kiss right on her lips. He pulled away, and their eyes sparkled as they looked deep into one another’s eyes. “I love you,” he said. “You know that, right?” She just smiled back at him. He let her go, then started to walk back towards the bedroom, but not before smacking her butt and playfully asking, “So you’re going to make me those pancakes, right?”

She spun around and leapt up onto him. “Ha! I knew it! You’re horrible! But you know what? I love you, too, forever, and no one else. There’ll
never
be anyone else.”