Dwellers of the Night: The Complete Collection (76 page)

The road with the apartments had begun winding downhill in a steep incline, slightly banking. They walked quietly, keeping close. All that greeted their ears were the distant howls of the dwellers of the night, and the sound of old rainwater falling like a waterfall into the city drains, vanishing into the underground sewer catacombs. The road leveled out next to several gas stations and a supermarket. SHELL, MARATHON, BP. Anthony had never understood why gas stations from different corporations always monopolized on a single intersection. They stopped beside a broken-down car in the middle Anthony Barnhart

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of the intersection (at one time there had been an accident, but the other car had disappeared). They gazed down each road, seeing nothing but inky blackness. Anthony looked up, found the north star: right ahead of them. Katie broke away from him, walking towards one of the gas stations. He followed quickly. She passed underneath the awning of the BP. Anthony looked up at the digital sign, now blank, that had once upon a time held the figures for the escalating gas prices. Katie’s hand draped over the nozzles of the gas pumps. Anthony ran up beside her, shoes thudding loudly on the pavement. She pressed her face against the large glass window of the store. She looked over at the boy: “It might be unlocked.”

Anthony bit his lip. “We can try.”

She moved over to the door, pulled.

It swung open.

Anthony said, “It must have been open late at night. Maybe a 24-hour station.”

He entered the building, the air stinking of mold and musk. Katie came in after him, closing the door behind her. She grabbed a newspaper rack and slid it against the door. Anthony told her that it wouldn’t hold it shut; she told him that it would fall if anything entered, alerting them to its presence. He moved between the aisles. The vents crawled with mold, and though no air circulated, the smells still reached them. He reached the front counter, reached up, grabbed several packs of cigarettes. He stuffed them into his pockets.

Katie, behind him, said, “Smoking is a disgusting habit.”

“I know,” Anthony said. “Come on.”

He led the way around the counter. There were two chairs, and Anthony sat in one of them. Katie sat in the other. He opened one of the packs of cigarettes. A MARLBORO-100. Katie had sat down beside a rack of lighters. He asked for one; she tossed one to him, and he lit up. The cherry burned bright in the darkness. He swung his dangling legs back and forth as he smoked. Katie wrinkled her nose. “That smells awful.”

“You can go outside if you can’t stand it.”

“It’s not
that
…” She went quiet. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Anthony asked, heart leaping into his chest.

“I don’t know. I thought I heard something.”

“What did you think you heard?”

“It’s probably just the rats.”

They climbed up the slick roof, feet sliding over the shanty tiles. Behind them, zombies crowded on the overhang’s roof, began trying to pursue. They were unable to match the coordination and balance of the uninfected, and most of them slipped off the sides, falling down to the ground, limping away into the darkness. Mark and Cameron reached the top angle of the roof. The zombies moved slower, patient, realizing that impatience would result in their own injuries. Cameron’s lip wavered as she watched. Mark looked out to the left, could see only the city wrapped in darkness, highways intersecting, buildings peppered around abandoned car lots. Off the other side of the roof was a steep drop, several hundred feet, to a slope that splashed into the wreck-scattered I-71.

“They’re getting closer!” Cameron shouted.

Mark didn’t say anything, looked at the house opposite them.

“Mark!” she shouted. “Mark!”

“Cameron,” he said in a low voice. “Look.”

He pointed, and she followed the line of his finger.

Across the narrow gap between the two houses was a single window. Anthony Barnhart

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“No,” she said, shaking her head. “No.”

“It’s our only way out.”

“No,” she refused.

He grabbed her by the arm, shook her. “Cameron.
It’s the only way.
”

They stood in the garage, ears strained. Suddenly the sound of shattering glass came from the upper story of the house.

“What the hell?” Sarah asked. “How the hell did they get in up there?”

“Fuck,” the man muttered, grabbing a set of keys from off the wall.

“Whoa!” Kyle shouted, glaring at the man. “You’re kidding me, right?”

“They move in flocks, remember? Where there’s one, there will be more.”

“Shit,” Sarah groaned. “So we’re just going to… start driving?”

“Maybe we can get out into the country,” the man said. “Get away from them.”

“You dream,” Kyle said. “But I’ll dream with you.”

The man unlocked the driver’s door, leapt inside. It had that sweet “new car” smell, and the leather felt oddly comfortable. He hit the electric unlock button, unlocking the other doors. Kyle opened the front passenger’s door, climbed inside. With the door open, he turned and shouted to Sarah, who stood beside the door leading into the house. “Sarah! Come on!”

“Something’s not right,” she said.

“Yeah, you’re head! Come on!”

She glared at him. “Wait twenty seconds.”

“Sarah…”

But she had already opened the door and entered the house.

The man looked over at Kyle. “What the fuck is she doing?”

Kyle slammed his door shut. “I don’t have a damn idea.”

“She’s going to get herself killed.”

“Then we should go ahead and go.”

“Yeah,” the man said. “We should.”

But they didn’t go anywhere.

Mark picked himself up, brushed glass from his clothes, surprised that his hands and face hadn’t been sliced open. He stood in what seemed to be an attic, with a low-hanging roof of crisscrossed timbers. Cardboard boxes were scattered everywhere, large stuffed animals in one corner. He turned and beckoned Cameron forward. She bit her lip, closed her eyes, let out a scream—and leapt. Mark cursed and leapt out of the way, head slamming against a slanted timber. Cameron soared into the room, landed hard on her face, flipped over backwards. Mark raced over to her, knelt down in the darkness. He pressed his fingers against her throat, feeling for a pulse.
You killed her.
Her eyes suddenly opened; he fell backwards, shocked. She groaned, pulled herself up onto her rear, complained about her back hurting. He laughed, found it hysterical. He got to his feet and ran over to the window. The zombies had reached the top of the roof, watched them from their perch.
They perch
like birds
, Mark thought, observing them squatting in a row, staring. One of them moved forward, shrieked, leapt; Mark didn’t even budge, knew what would happen. It hit the siding of the house to the left of the window, fell backwards into several bushes. Dark-walkers from the street converged upon it, and Mark turned away as the dark-walker’s screams of pain and agony commenced.

“Don’t move.”

The words cut through the dark attic.

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Mark froze, staring into the blackness.

The voice, feminine, repeated: “Don’t move, or I’ll shoot.”

“We’re not them,” Mark said.

A figure emerged from the darkness.

“Sarah?” Mark asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “And I don’t have a gun.”

“Help me get Cameron to her feet,” Mark said.

Cameron spat, lying on the floor, “I’m not a fucking paraplegic.”

“Holy shit,” Kyle muttered.

The man turned and looked out the back window of the Explorer.

Sarah had appeared, and two people were behind her.

“Who is it?” the man asked, unable to identify them in the shrouding darkness.

“Mark,” Kyle answered. “And Cameron.”

“Mark,” the man said, grinning to himself. “That fucker will survive anything.”

Sarah swung open the side door of the van. “Got room for three more?”

“Get in,” the man said. “And shut the door. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.”

The ember of the cigarette burned near the filter. Anthony watched the smoke curling out of his nose and climbing towards the cobweb-speckled ceiling. Katie hopped off her chair, knelt down, began rummaging through stacks of old candy bars. SNICKERS. KIT-KAT. REESE’S CUPS. Anthony watched her, thought,
She must be bipolar or something. Just twenty minutes ago she was literally clawing at me,
sobbing
. His thoughts were interrupted as Katie suddenly leapt back with a shout; a zombie stood between two aisles, near the abandoned refrigerator coolers. Its arms dangled at its sides, and blood caked the corners of its mouth. Its eyes glowed like a cat’s eyes in the darkness. Anthony leapt off his chair, let the cigarette fall from his fingers, where it spun to a stop on the floor, ashes sputtering. The zombie stared at them, and they stared back: no one moving, no one daring to make the first move.
Probably just the rats, my ass
, Anthony thought. The zombie blocked their exit; they were pinned in. A slew of curse words danced through his mind. Suddenly the zombie shrieked and ran forward, rushing at them from down the aisle. Anthony froze, out of options, faced with the grueling certainty of his own demise. Suddenly Katie ducked down; Anthony stepped back into a rack filled with cheap cigarettes: SWISHER SWEETS, GISPERT CORONAS, BLACK & MILDS. The zombie was nearly upon them, arms outstretched, jaws gaping—it leapt into the air like something out of a NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

magazine, some bird-of-prey descending upon the frightened feast. Anthony’s eyes clenched shut, barring for impact.

The blast of the gun resounded in his ears, burning into his mind like red-hot pokers. He opened his eyes to see Katie standing in front of him, the shotgun gripped in her hands, smoke rising from the barrel. She slowly lowered the gun, began shaking all over. The gun began to slip from her hands, and Anthony moved forward, took it from her. She stared at him, her face drained of color, eyes a swirling mess. He moved past her, holding the shotgun, and he walked around the edge of the front desk, peered around the corner. The body of the zombie lied on the floor, and its arms and legs twitched as its muscles went into spasms. Where its head had been, there was nothing but a growing pool of blood, the fractured edge of its spinal column sticking out of the stub of its neck. Blood, bone fragments, and brain matter stained the shelves and dripped from the yellowed pages of the magazines. Anthony took a deep breath, set the gun upon the counter. Katie stared at him as he came back around, her body quivering with fear. Anthony Barnhart

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He stopped, just stared at her.

She tried to say something, but no words could be found.

He said, “Katie…”

“I killed him,” she said, voice almost a whisper. “I… I killed him.”

“You didn’t have a choice,” Anthony said.

Her strength gave out; she collapsed into the rack of cheap cigars; Anthony rushed forward, took her by the arms, helped her balance. She slowly wrapped her arms around him, pressed her cheek into his neck. Her eyes stared out at the carnage over the shelves, the walls, the ceiling. She moaned, “I killed him…” as tears began to trace patterns down her cheek once more.

“You did nothing wrong,” Anthony said, squeezing her tightly.

He repeated, “You did nothing wrong… You did nothing wrong…”

But her tears kept coming.

∑Ω∑

The man has gotten out of the Explorer. He waves at Kyle down the street, and Kyle begins walking over. Sarah emerges from the house and walks across the lawn. The man looks over at her, says,

“We’ll stay here tonight. I don’t think anyone has the energy to go farther west now.”

“Farther west?” Sarah asks. “I think we should talk about this…”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” the man snaps.

Kyle reaches them, speaks: “What’d you need?”

“What were you doing?” the man asks him.

“Just walking,” he says. “Where’s everyone else?”

Sarah answers, “Inside.”

“We’re staying here tonight,” the man says. “So everyone can get some rest.”

“Okay,” Kyle says. “We should probably start fortifying the house early.”

“Definitely,” the man says. Then, “We’d better bury Cameron.”

“We already did,” Sarah says. “Mark helped me.”

“Where’s he?”

“In the back with Anthony. And Katie’s inside. She’s pretty worn out.”

“We’re all worn out. We should try to get some sleep.”

“If sleep is even possible,” Kyle mutters. He sighs. “I’ll get the guys together. We’ll start working on the house.” The man nods to him, and Kyle turns, walks up to the house, disappears inside.

The man turns around, returns to the driver’s side of the Explorer.

“Where are you going?” Sarah asks.

“We need to put some gas in it,” the man says.

“Can I come?”

The man doesn’t answer. He climbs inside, shuts the door, turns on the engine, hits the gas, and leaves her alone, driving the Explorer away from the house. She stands on the curb, watching as the S.U.V. stops at the far stop-sign at the end of the road and turns left.
Back the way we came
, she thinks. She can’t remember passing any gas stations.

Kyle runs into Mark when he enters the house. Mark is standing in khakis and a golfing shirt, admiring several photographs above the fireplace mantle. He turns with Kyle’s arrival, and Kyle asks, “Where’s Anthony? I thought he was with you.”

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“He was,” Mark answers. “But he wanted to… check something out.”

Kyle doesn’t understand. “So it’s a secret or something?”

“His girlfriend lived near here. Or so he says.”

Kyle remembers searching for his girlfriend. Remembers what he found. “Shit.”

“He’ll be okay,” Mark says. “He can handle himself.”

“No, he can’t,” Kyle says. “Which way did he go?”

“I don’t know. East, I think. Maybe south. I don’t know.”