Dwellers of the Night: The Complete Collection (134 page)

He stood to leave right before the ending, wanting to get back to the house, but his blood ran cold when the director was announced: a certain girl named Amanda with a last name the man knew too well.

“Shit,” he muttered under his breath.

He waited by the back entrance, smoking a cigarette. Night had fallen, and he felt uneasy standing in the street. Most of the town had returned to their dwellings, and he could hear music coming from one of the houses down the street, mixed with the scent of a barbecue. The town had chickens—lots and lots of chickens—and he had already eaten enough to last him a lifetime: it had been his daily diet while at the hospital. He dropped his cigarette to the ground and crunched it under his boot as the door behind him opened.

He turned around, facing the young girl with strawberry blond hair. “Amanda?”

She looked at his face, down to his belt, saw the bayonet.

She looked back up at him, her eyes filled with terror.

He splayed his arms outwards. “No. It’s not like that.”

“You… liked the play?” she asked, her eyes darting to either side.

“I didn’t care for it,” the man said.

“Okay.” She began to step backwards.

“I knew your brother,” the man blurted.

She froze, just stared at him. “My brother?”

“Yes. He was a… friend of mine.”

“How can I believe you? How do I know you’re not just trying to get under my dress?”

“His name was Anthony. He loved zombies. He was fascinated by them.”

Her countenance broke, and she rushed forward, wrapped her arms around him, wept. He held her, felt her body shaking in his, the tears cascading down her cheeks and puddling in the creases of his shirt.

She finally pulled away, her cheeks bloated red, eyes swollen. “How did he… How did he die?”

He killed himself after being convinced you were dead
. “He died… heroically,” he lied.

“How?” she demanded. “
How
did he die?”

“We were… in a house. And they were coming inside. There were… five of us there. He left us, he went through a window, started screaming and shouting, drew their attention away from the house. They chased him into the woods, giving us time to escape. If it weren’t for him… We all would have died.”

“They got him? In the woods?”

“Yes.”

“You know this for sure?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“We found his… We found his remains.”

She started crying again, a fresh torrent, and embraced him once more.

“I’m sorry,” he said, holding her tightly. “I’m so sorry.”

And for once, it wasn’t a lie.

He went to the bar that Friday afternoon. The old man was there. He sat down next to him, ordered some shots from a bottle of whiskey.

“We’re all out,” the bartender said.

Anthony Barnhart

Dwellers of the Night

626

“Make it a bourbon, then,” the man said.

“Okay.”

The old man eyed him. “You drank all their whiskey?”

“I was bored yesterday.”

The old man scowled. “My friend, you must acknowledge what you hope for.”

“I don’t hope for anything.”

“You are full of lies. You must admit you hope for
something
.”

“I don’t hope for anything.”

“Then do what you must do. Shoot yourself in the head.”

The man said nothing.

“You’ve tried?”

“No.”

“Don’t feel bad. Who hasn’t?”

“I don’t know.”

“And you didn’t go through with it why?”

“I don’t know.”

“I do: because you had hope. Or else you would have gone through with it.”

“Maybe.”

“There’s no maybe about it. You had hope. And you’d better find out what you’re hoping for.”

“If I
do
have hope, then I don’t know what it is.”

“Yes you do. You just haven’t acknowledged it yet.”

The man took another shot, stood, wobbled. “I’m going home.”

He couldn’t sleep all night long. He tossed and turned and listened to the wind creaking against the walls and bundled deep under the blankets and tried to drown out the noise. But the noise didn’t come from without but from within, and tears slid down his cheeks and he thought about everything and he began to understand that which he hoped for. When morning came he went to the bar with his notebook and sat down, and the old man showed up two hours later and took a seat beside him.

“You look exhausted,” he said.

“I couldn’t sleep,” the man said.

“You know what you hope for. I can see it in your eyes.”

The man said nothing.

“Confide in an old man, an old man who knows the bitterness of hope all too well.”

The man took a shot of bourbon, emptied the bottle.

He looked at the old man. “I hope to be happy again.”

“We all do,” the man said. “How do you want to be happy?”

“I want to have what I lost.”

“And what did you lost?”

“I lost Kira.”

“Your wife?”

“My fiancé.”

“She died with the plague?”

“Yes.”

“And you came here hoping to find her?”

“Yes. And no. I know she’s not here. I know she’s back in Cincinnati. But I just… I guess I hoped that when I came here, things would be like they used to be. That I would be able to feel full and Anthony Barnhart

Dwellers of the Night

627

complete. That the loneliness would escape. There was this woman. This wonderful, fantastic woman. I met her several months ago. A survivor. And she was great. But she… she died. She took her own life, because she couldn’t handle… couldn’t handle the way things were. I had hoped we would get here together, and that with her I could find what I found with Kira.”

“You want to replace Kira?”

The man’s heart ached. “I don’t like to think of it that way.”

“You hope to have Kira again, no matter how you color it up.”

“No.”

“But this girl, she symbolized Kira. You wanted her to be Kira.”

“Yes.”

“But that’s ridiculous. Because Kira is gone.”

“I know.”

“You hope in something that will never come to pass.”

“I know.”

“Don’t feel bad: everyone hopes for something. You hope for happiness. Your hoping for Kira is symptomatic of a greater hope for happiness. But do you see the irony? We all hoped for happiness
before
the plague, and we all hope for happiness
after
the plague. That hope for happiness, it was futile before. Is it any less futile now?”

∑Ω∑

The man holds the bayonet in his hands.

Hope was futile before: is it any less futile now?

He realizes his hope will never be realized.

Aspen was real, but its promise was not.

Its promise of fulfillment.

Its promise of happiness.

Its promise of joy and peace.

Empty

promises.

He places the blade against his wrist, closes his eyes.

He has reached Aspen. His journey—his purpose—has ended.

And he is equally miserable as before.

He knows that he shall never taste that which he longs for.

And this life of misery? this life of torment?

It is better left undone.

He depresses the blade against his wrist, prepares to slash.

There comes a knock at the door.

He sets down the blade, looks towards the doorway.

The knocks come again.

“I’m coming,” he growls, standing.

He walks over to the door and opens it.

Standing in the rain is a man wearing a dark suit. A white collar.

“You’re a priest?” the man asks.

The visitor nods. “I was told to come speak to you.”

“Who told you?”

“Raymond Black.”

Anthony Barnhart

Dwellers of the Night

628

“I don’t know him.”

“He said he was a friend of yours.”

“I don’t know the man.”

“He killed himself last night. He left a note for me, telling me to talk to you.”

The man thinks for a moment. “He went to the bar a lot?”

“Yes,” he says. “And he wants me to talk to you.”

“Okay,” the man says, stepping aside. “Come in, I guess.”

“Thank you. The rain is seeping through my clothes. Forgive me for bringing in rainwater.”

“It’s okay,” the man says. “I’ll get you some towels. You can change into dry clothes.

II

“What do you want?” the man asks. “A confession?” They are sitting across from one another in the living area, the man on the sofa and the priest in the chair across from him. The priest smiles. “Do you have something you wish to confess?”

“No,” the man says.

“Then I don’t want a confession.”

There is quiet for some time. The man is uneasy.

“You are not a religious man, no?” the priest asks.

“You’re right,” the man replies.

“May I ask, ‘Why?’”

“Is it not obvious?” the man asks, spreading his arms to engulf the entire world.

“This disease has wracked many a man’s faith,” the priest says after drawing a deep breath.

“Men wonder, ‘How can a loving God allow such a thing to happen?’ Since it has happened, the logical corollary is that, either, God does not exist, or He is not loving as we surmised. In either case, there is no reason to worship and adore Him. But, my friend, tragedies happen all the time. Do you remember the bubonic plague? It killed a third of Europe. Many a person fainted at the thought of God allowing such a thing to happen. But don’t you see? God allows things to happen, allows things to run their course. What we have endured here is not some apocalypse, not a judgment of God, not proof of God’s non-existence. It is, rather, a biological season. This disease is biological. It isn’t supernatural. We understand it—and soon, you will, too. These… things, whatever you want to call them, zombies or vampires, even—are biological. They will die. And decompose. And break down. And then they will be gone. And we, the survivors—though scattered across our planet—will rebuild. This is nothing more than the bubonic plague on a planetary scale.”

“I was angry at God for allowing this to happen,” the priest says, his face drawn-out in a contemplative scowl. “I became bitter towards Him. I remember, vividly, standing in the snow outside my house in Montana, carving I WANT TO DIE into the snow with a stick. I sliced at my arms with a pair of scissors, and raising my bloodied arms up to Heaven, I blamed God for what had happened. I contemplated the goodness of God, and it made me sick to my stomach. I came to view God as a Cosmic Sadist, taking delight in torturing me. I believed that my purpose in life was to be subjected to God’s torture for His sadistic pleasure, and one of the things that kept me from taking my own life was the belief that if I committed suicide, God would be winning. I didn’t want Him to win. So I became cold and calloused, closed off to God. But there was one day, walking through the Anthony Barnhart

Dwellers of the Night

629

woods behind my house, that I was overcome with the presence of God. An overwhelming presence that brought to my knees, and I wept in joy at His presence and in shame over what I had become.”

He now looks up and glares into the man. “The suffering of this world hasn’t ended. But there are two things that keep me going. The first is my remembrance of that day on the trails, when God’s presence swarmed over me, overtook me, drowned me. And the second is hope. My friend, hope is hard. This is because hope is centered on a future object that is not yet present, and it is tempting to come to the conclusion that hope is nothing more than a futile, empty dream which we give ourselves over to in order to escape the pain and suffering of the present. And though some things we hope for in this life remain unfulfilled—and can even turn into nightmares—there is one hope that is sure for the Christian: Heaven.”

Tears sprinkle in the priest’s eyes as he speaks. “The hope of the Christian is centered on Heaven. Heaven is the remaking of the heavens and the earth, where God’s people will dwell with Him and with one another in a restored creation, a restored Eden. It is a physical realm which we will inhabit with physical bodies. It is a restoration of the Garden of Eden. Even amidst our suffering, we Christians can find hope in the knowledge that this awful world will come to a brutal and bloody end, and that we who are in Christ will inherit a new universe that is wonderful, beautiful, and joyful. This is the hope that sustains me day by day, the hope that one day I will suffer no longer, that one day I will not have to fear what lies beyond these gates, that one day I will live in peace and joy. It is a hope that is certain, promised to me by God. My friend: where is your hope?”

The man is caught off guard, just shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

“You, like most men, place your hope in this world, no?”

“I don’t know.”

“You hope for something to change in
this
lifetime.”

“We all do.”

“Yes. But our hope is better to be placed in the future reality of God’s full and realized kingdom. It is futile to put our hope in this life. When we search for wealth, fame, success, or importance; and even when we strive so diligently for that perfect and honorable dream, we are putting our hope in the here-and-now. I used to do this, putting my hope in this life, and sometimes I still do. But I have seen that it is absolutely ludicrous to do so. Why? Because this life doesn’t deliver. Let me tell you what this life is: ‘What you want, you can’t have; what you have, you can’t keep; and that which you love will be taken from you.’ How come life is this way? Simply because it is not Heaven. It is not the complete kingdom of God. Reality for us now is totally, wildly, and even depressingly different than Heaven. In Heaven, ‘What we want, we will have; what we have, we will keep; and that which we love will remain with us forever.’ You must not put your hope in this life with its pains, sufferings, disappointments, and its prosperity of evil.”

III

It is several weeks later. A knock comes at the door. The man is asleep on the couch, weary after the long day of work. He gets up and trudges to the door, grips the handle, pulls it open. He looks out and sees no one in the dying evening light. He steps out onto the front porch and looks in either direction. There is no one.
Wait
. He steps farther out, sees a long shadow disappearing around the Anthony Barnhart