Dwellers of the Night: The Complete Collection (91 page)

II

No one is awake by the time he gets back. He wraps the M16 with its magazines in a plastic tarp found in the lobby, and he stuffs it underneath the floor mat under the RAV4’s driver’s seat. He wakes everyone. He stands outside smoking as they file out, eyes heavy, movements sluggish. They get into the vehicle, and the man starts the engine. They drive up the ramp onto I-70 and continue their journey west in silence. He and Sarah say nothing about last night, and no one brings it up. The man considers telling her about the wrecked truck and the assault rifle. He decides not to. He isn’t sure if they’re out of the woods yet. If that were a raider—and it very well may not have been—then there may have been more.
Must
be more: one man in a single truck could not do what had taken place behind the gas station many miles down the road.

Signs along the road tell them they are about fifty miles from Indianapolis. The land is nothing but abandoned cornfields, planted before the harvest but never harvested. Many of the stalks stand erect, but some are bent and cracked, kernels and cobs of corn scattered among the cold and still-frozen ground. Three ravens fly overhead, their black feathers before the sun casting brief shadows over the road. The man plays with the radio for a while, gets nothing but static. He leans back in the seat and stares forward. They pass a wrecked car. A skeleton in the front seat, the bony fingers still grasping the wheel. No one pays it any mind. Thirty miles until they reach Indianapolis. The man looks up at the sun. They should be well out of Indianapolis before the sun even begins to— “Shit!” He slams on the brakes, the S.U.V. skidding across the pavement, brakes locking and choking. No one says anything, despite eyes as wide as saucers and fingers gripping one another’s arms. The brakes whine Anthony Barnhart

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and the RAV4 lurches to a stop. The man takes several deep breaths. “What do you make of that?” he asks Mark, who is leaning forward in the seat beside him, staring through the windshield.

“Open the glove-box,” the man says.

Mark obeys, hands him the BERETTA.

“Stay here,” the man says, getting out of the car.

Everyone exchanges glances. Seatbelts undo. Doors open. They pile out.

“Shit,” Mark says, following after them.

The man raises the pistol. “Stop!” he hollers.

The traveler doesn’t stop moving, his back towards them.

“Stop!” the man shouts again.

No response.

He squeezes the trigger.

The blast rings out.

Birds flock from the field off the side of the road.

The traveler turns around and smiles.

He had been pushing a grocery cart along the road, laden with ramshackle supplies: a few batteryoperated lamps, several blankets and extra clothes, a can of mace, and several leather belts. He is dressed in heavy garments and wears frayed boots. His face is hidden by the mask of growth, his dark beard crawling down the sides of his face. His eyes are sunken behind wrinkled sockets, and yet they sparkle with a livelihood the man hasn’t seen since Adrian and Rachel’s wedding night. The traveler raises his hands in surrender. The man senses no threat and holsters the gun. He approaches the old man.

“Where are you headed?” he asks.

The traveler replies, “I’m headed west.”

“So are we,” the man says.

“How far west?”

“Pretty far. How about you?”

“A decent stretch.”

The others file behind them, saying nothing.

The traveler looks over them. “Gracious God, they’re young.”

“Yes,” the man says. “They are.”

“You’re all young,” the traveler says. To the man: “How old are you?”

He tells him his age.

“When I was your age, I was going through my second divorce.”

The man doesn’t say anything.

The traveler bites his lip. “You’re not going to rob me, are you?”

“No,” the man says. “No, we just… We didn’t expect you.”

“Everyone’s in a hurry these days. It’s good to slow down.”

“Where you from?” the man asks.

“Pennsylvania,” the traveler says. “I’ve been on the road since November.”

“How many miles you travel in a day?”

“However many I can,” he says. “It don’t bother me none. It’s healthy.”

The man glances back at the others, steps towards the traveler. He looks him in the eyes, whispers, “You seen anyone else come through here?”

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“I’ve seen lots of people,” the traveler replies. “There’s lots heading west.”

“Lots?”

“Just a few days ago I met a couple from Tennessee. Heading towards… Oh, shoot, where were they going…” He looks up into the sky, fingers twitching. His old mind seeks to recover what has been lost. “I’m not sure where they were going. I wish I was. Some big city someplace. Not Indianapolis. On past that. They’ve got some kind of… I don’t know. Complex out there. They said it was the new Las Vegas. I’ve been to Las Vegas a few times. I don’t know how Kansas City would compare to Las Vegas…”

“They were going to Kansas City?”

“Kansas City? Maybe. That or Saint Louis. Someplace west of here.”

“All right. You seen anyone else?”

“No one I minded seeing.”

“Raiders?”

“You mean the vagabonds?”

“I guess.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen them. They came through here last night.”

“You were out at night?”

“No. I’m never out at night. No one in their right mind is out at night.”

“How’d you see them, then?”

“I was in this old grocery store. They had an upper story. I barricaded myself in there. Through the window I saw them drive past, shooting and hollering, carrying on like they always do.”

The man muses, “I thought no one was out at night.”

“No one in their right mind,” the traveler says with a wry grin.

The man asks, “How many?”

“Hell if I know. I saw maybe three or four cars. Trucks.”

“Well. There
were
five of them. One of them was…”

The traveler doesn’t let him finish his sentence. “He got what he deserved.”

“You could say that.”

The traveler takes a deep breath, sighs. “I stay away from them if I can. I stay away from all people. An old man like me, I just slow people down. I like to take my time.” He holds up his hand, palm outstretched towards the man. “Before you even invite me to join you, let me tell you, ‘No’, up front. I’d just slow you down. Be a burden.”

“Don’t worry,” the man says. “I wasn’t going to ask. We’re full.”

“But of course.”

The man looks back towards the others, then to the traveler. “All right.”

“All right,” the traveler says. “You take care now.”

“Okay,” the man says. He turns to go, beckoning the others towards the car.

“Wait a minute,” the traveler says.

The man turns around. “What?”

“Do you have any food? I’m fresh out.”

“I thought you were at a grocery store last night.”

“I was. But all the good stuff had already been taken.”

“All we have are some canned fruits and vegetables.”

“That will do nicely,” the man says, sitting down on the road. “I’ll wait here.”

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Katie takes some canned fruit and a can opener, returns over to the group. She hands the traveler the goods, and he cracks open a can of sliced plums. He pops them into his mouth, the juices curling around his cracked lips. He doesn’t say much. The man keeps looking at the sun. It’s nearly 11:00. He’s never been to Indianapolis, doesn’t know how big the city is. There could be lots of wrecks. Lots of detours. He wants to be out of there as soon as possible. He knows what happens in the big cities.

“Where are you all headed?” the traveler asks.

The man looks over at him. “I already told you. We’re headed west.”

“I know,” he says. “But
where
west? You going to the Complex?”

“I hadn’t even heard of it.”

“Me neither. That couple. So lovely. Probably your age.”

The man winces, imagining traveling with Kira. “We’re going to Alaska.”

“Alaska?” The man laughs. “That’s a new one.” His laughter fades. He eyes the man. “Alaska, you say?”

“Alaska.”

“You know… That’s not too bad of an idea. You ever been to Alaska before?”

“No. Never been.”

“I have. I led a rally there one time. For the National Republic Convention.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, Sir. Beautiful place. Miserable place.”

“I’ve seen pictures.”

“It’s cold. It’s foggy. It’s rainy. No one likes to live up there.”

“I know.”

“Which is exactly why you’re going there.”

“It has one of the lowest state populations. Much of Alaska is wilderness.”

“You are smarter than you look,” the man says, popping a plum into his mouth.

The traveler has moved on to a can of peaches. “Want to know where I’m going?”

“Not particularly,” the man replies matter-of-factly, irritated.

“Aspen.”

“Aspen? You mean Colorado?”

“Yes, Sir. They have a little community up there. They’ve been doing pretty well, from what I hear. There were three survivors in the town. When they realized what had happened, they went house-to-house, killing everyone that hadn’t survived the plague… Well, hadn’t survived quite like they did, at least. Everyone, for the most part, survived. Except some of us have… remained as we were… before it happened. Aspen, I’ve never been, but I know it’s in a mountain valley. There are only one or two roads that reach it. Right in the middle of the Rockies. They’ve completely sealed it off. The town’s livable again. You show up, they give you a job inside the town, they provide you a place to stay, meals to eat, warmth. Friends. One time I considered retiring in Aspen. I guess maybe now my dream will be a reality.” He laughs, jokes: “Hopefully they won’t treat an old man like me too poorly!”

The man asks him, “How’d you find out about Aspen?”

“It was on the radio, last November.”

“The radio?”

“Yes, Sir. An AM station. They had a radio broadcasting station in the town, and they were able to relay their messages outbound by bouncing them off satellites.”

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“I haven’t picked up any radio stations on the car radio.”

“They stopped broadcasting in February.”

“Why?”

The traveler shrugs. “Who knows?” He finishes his can of peaches, thanks Katie. She offers him another, he waves it down: “Keep it for yourself, Sweetie.” He looks back at the man. “The satellites were kept in orbit from stations around the planet. The people manning the stations weren’t able to man them anymore. So the satellites spiraled out of control. Burned up in the atmosphere.”

“You saw it?”

“No. But I know how these things work.”

“Okay.”

“I’ve always been thinking… Maybe they were attracting the wrong crowd.”

“The wrong crowd?”

“Vagabonds. Your ‘raiders’. They have fresh
meat
there.”

“And you think raiders started fucking with them?”

The traveler smacks him. “Watch your language around the ladies, Young Man.”

The man is forced to hold back his laugh. “My apologies.”

“Maybe the vagabonds were… trying to mess things up.” The traveler shrugs. “So they stopped broadcasting, to keep them away. I’m just theorizing, mind you.”

“Let me theorize,” the man says. “Maybe they weren’t as safe as they thought they were.”

“No one’s as safe as they think they are. Not today. Not now. But these people in Aspen, they know what they’re doing. They had everything orchestrated to a decimal point. Their brilliance, coupled with the geographic nature of the town, makes it impossible for them to be overrun.”

“But like you said, no one’s as safe—’’

“I said no one’s as safe as they think they are. Not that no one is safe.”

The man doesn’t say anything for a moment. “It sounds like a long stretch to me.”

“I have faith in them. I hope that you’re wrong. We all hope, don’t we?”

“Yeah,” the man says. “For better or for worse, we all hope.”

The traveler thanks them for the food, wishes them farewell. Then he turns, grabs his grocery cart, and begins pushing west, walking slowly and with a limp, the wheels on the cart rattling. He doesn’t even look back, just whistles between broken teeth. Katie watches him go. A tear speckles in her eye. Sarah takes her by the shoulder, and they head towards the car. The man and Mark take the rear. The man shakes his head, says, “He’s a damned fool. There’s no way that Aspen’s still working… If it ever
was
working. He has the memory of a goldfish. He’s just rambling. And he’s pushing a fucking
grocery cart
. The fact that he’s alive means that evolution’s process of natural selection by weeding out the idiots is called into—’’ Mark grabs the man’s shoulder, spins him around. The grocery cart is abandoned in the roadway.

The traveler is nowhere to be seen.

The man furrows his brow. “Where the hell did he go?”

That’s when they hear the gunshot.

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III

The man yells at the women to stay back. He takes off down the road, feet pounding heavy upon the asphalt. Mark and Kyle are behind him, the women following in their path. The man reaches the grocery cart, one of the loose wheels still spinning. He turns and runs into the cornfield. Stalks whip out at him, their fibrous leaves and tendrils slapping at his face, burning and stinging. He guards his face with his hand. He ducks into the next corn-row. Mark and Kyle separate, one following up the middle and the other taking the next row. A moment later Mark shouts out. The man spins on his heels, tears through the row of corn, nearly knocks Kyle over. They find Mark, who is with the girls. He is standing above the old man’s body. A clean bullet-hole is chiseled through the man’s forehead, blood crawling down his face and soaking his beard. His eyes stare poignantly at the sky, and a crimson smile is etched over his face. The man sucks in several deep breaths. Kyle leans down next to the man. “Shot himself.” The man nods. “Yeah. He did.”