Dwellers of the Night: The Complete Collection (103 page)

Anthony Barnhart

Dwellers of the Night

481

Several dark-walkers pour from the cornfields, chasing after the bus. The men on the roof scale down the ladder, setting their sniper rifles into the racks. The bus stops at the front gate. The gate creaks open, the hinges rusted. Dark-walkers surround the bus, clawing at the windows, wrapping their hands around the wrought-iron bars.

“Why don’t you kill them?” the man asks.

“It would destroy the fun,” Hand-Bow Man says with a strange smile. The gate is open, and the bus pulls forward. There is a fifty-foot expanse before them, surrounded on all sides by 20-foot-tall stone walls. The bus comes to a stop before the next gate that opens up into the lawn of the mansion. The man moves forward in the bus, stands behind the barred gate separating the cab from the back of the bus. He peers through the windshield and can see several more figures moving in the lawn, massive stand-alone spotlights casting their long shadows across the well-manicured grass. The gate behind them closes, and the bus is enclosed. The driver looks back at the man, grins: “Ever seen a magic show before?”

“I’ve seen them on television,” the man says. “Back in the day.”

“Not one like this, you haven’t.” The driver reaches down, flicks a switch. Suddenly the sides of the bus ignite with brilliant heat, and a pair of flame-throwers along the bottom of the bus begin to operate, slowly rotating back and forth, coating the area around the bus with fire. The dark-walkers scream, their bodies igniting, and the flame-throwers extinguish. The man watches with morbid pleasure as the dark-walkers writhe about on the ground, their limbs rotting in the fire; their skin sputters and pops, and their hair goes up like torches. They settle down, now nothing but roasting flesh, smoldering cinders.

The next gate opens and the bus pulls through, into the mansion’s lawn.

“The tanks are along the undercarriage,” the driver says.

“That can’t be safe.”

“We take precautions.”

“You’re still driving a napalm bomb on wheels.”

The bus comes to a stop in the lawn, facing the mansion. The gate behind them closes. The driver stops the engine, stands, stretches, unlocks the gate to the back of the bus. The man streams past as men exit the bus, going around to the back. There is a
click
as the makeshift door to the back of the bus is opened. A forklift appears from the side, and it begins ferrying out the boxes. The man steps down into the grass. It is spongy beneath his feet. The others ignore him. He moves away from the bus, looks at the elaborate mansion, something that could have been pulled straight out of Victorian England. Along the sides of the mansion, next to what had at one time been a pool but is now nothing but a cement hollow in the ground, are three parked Agusta helicopters. Men are laughing amongst themselves as they siphon fuel into the engines. The man feels strange standing in total ease amongst the darkness. He can hear dark-walkers clamoring in the distance, but the walls keep them safe. Hand-Bow Man appears beside him, says, “Come on. We’ll get you guys set up. And we’ll take care of your friend. He’s doing better, but he needs to sleep. His body is pretty battered up.”

The mansion was built in the late 1900s, fashioned after Victorian architecture present in along the East Coast in the pre-Civil War era in America. The mansion is three stories tall, with a brownstone exterior. The bushes that had once been well-kept along the fringes of the house are now decayed, choked by the fumes from the helicopters. Dead ivy crawls along the side of the house. Hand-Bow Man leads them around the cobblestone patio encircling a dead fountain with leaves rotting within Anthony Barnhart

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the shallow bowl. The large front doors are held open, and they stand amazed at the front hall. Elaborate wall paintings and stained-glass windows are illuminated by the candlelight of several mounted oil torches. A large chandelier hangs above them. The man leads them up the large staircase, and the next hallway is lined with coats-of-arms, figures in chain mail and holding axes and swords, ghostly helmets with shadowed eye slits. The furniture in the rooms they pass is taken straight from the Italian Renaissance and French Neoclassicism styles. The carpet under their feet has been imported from Glasgow, Scotland. The man stands outside a door, ushers them inside. Mark begins to enter, but two men appear, and they take him away. Sarah, Katie, and the man enter the room. At one time it was a Turkish smoking room, and the furniture is still intact. Behind a desk sits a heavyset man with spectacles, smoking an expensive cigar. Two oil lamps burn on the corners of the desk. He looks up at them and leans back in the chair, asks them to sit. The three newcomers take their seats along a single Turkish sofa.

“This is how it goes from here,” the heavyset man says. “Give me your names and your former occupations.”

Katie gives her name, says she was a bartender.

Sarah gives her name, says she was a receptionist for an Oncologist lab. The man gives his name, says he was a commercial airline pilot.

“What about your other friend?” the cigar-smoking man asks.

“His name is Mark,” the man says.

“And what did he do?”

“I don’t remember,” the man says. “He doesn’t really ever talk about it.”

The man with the cigar takes all of this down. He looks up. “Where are you from?”

“Cincinnati,” the man says.

“Ohio?”

“Yes.” Then, “I didn’t know there was another Cincinnati.”

“I’m just making sure. How long have you been on the road?”

The man searches for an answer. “I don’t know.”

He looks at the others. They just shake their heads.

The man says, “It feels like months. But it may only be one… At the most.”

The man with the cigar says, “It’s June 4th today.”

The man does the math in his head. “About a month, then. We left in May.”

“Only four of you have been traveling?”

“Only four now,” the man says.

“How many were there when you began the trip?”

Sarah stands from the sofa. “Is this really necessary?”

“It’s book-keeping.” he replies. “Sit down. And tell me how many.”

She steps forward to protest; the man stands, grabs her by the shoulder. The man says, “Cameron… Anthony… Kyle… Seven of us.”

The man with the cigar nods to himself. “I’ve seen worse.”

Sarah wrenches away from the man, approaches the desk. She leans over the desk, hands sprawled on the cold wood paneling. “They were fucking
people
, not fucking
numbers
.”

The man with the cigar leans back in his chair, sets the pen down on the pad of paper, crosses his arms. “Everyone’s lost someone, Love. When you count ‘em up, what ya get is numbers. When all is said and done, numbers are all that remain. Names fade. How many people died in the Holocaust?

Six million, right? Or something like that.”

Sarah curses. “That has nothing to do with—’’

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She is cut off: “How many of their names do you know? How many individual faces do you see?

It was a tragedy, but all we have now are numbers. I’m not downplaying what you’ve been through. I lost my wife and both my children to this disease. But in the end, all we have are numbers. Numbers speak the truth. Names… They don’t matter anymore.” Sarah just glares at him. The man continues, “My wife’s name was Emily. My son’s name was Jonathan. My daughter’s name was Alicia. But when it comes to the books, all I write down is a number:
three
. Because no one, except for me, cares about their names. You don’t care about the family I lost, and frankly, I don’t give a flying
fuck
about who you have lost.”

VI

A man outside the Turkish smoking room leads them down a hall and up another flight of steps. The stairwell leads to another corridor, much darker, with only a few candles. They are taken to what had, at one time, been a guest bedroom. There is a single bed with a silk canopy, several ornate pillows and satin sheets. Mounted candlesticks have been lit preceding their arrival. There are several shelves with Chinese pottery, and opposite the wall with the vanity and its clean mirror are several makeshift cots with blankets and pillows. The man tells them that Mark is being given preferential treatment, and, noticing the bloodstain on the man’s shirt from where his wound has opened, the man says that the doctor will be with him shortly. He points to a doorway at the end of the room:

“That’s the bathroom. The plumbing has been fixed, and you have running hot water. There are towels and several toothbrushes and some toothpaste. Even some razors and shaving gel. We’ll get you some new clothes. Feel free to freshen up.” He smiles and leaves. Katie rushes over to the bathroom, nearly knocking Sarah out of the way. She opens the door and goes inside. A moment later they hear running water and a shout of glee. She closes the door, says, “I’m first,” and she leaves Sarah and the man alone in the room. Sarah sits upon the bed. Her veins are still bulging, face flushed red. The man sits down next to her. “You’re still angry with him.”

“He’s an insensitive bastard. It seems there’s no one decent left.”

The man bites his lip. “There’s me.”

Sarcasm drapes her words: “Oh, you’re
quite
the shining example of decency.”

The man tries to comfort her, but she explodes: “Just shut the fuck up, okay? Don’t pretend to be empathetic towards me. Cameron. Anthony. Kyle. The others at the church. They’ve never been names to you. Only numbers.”

The man’s throat tightens. “They’re not numbers to me.”

“You’re full of shit.”

“To
him
, they’re numbers.
Not
to
me
.”

She turns her head, glares at him with wrathful eyes. “How many people were onboard your plane when it happened? How many?”

The number stains his memory.

He remembers walking up and down the aisles,

the absolute terror amidst the pall of death.

“One

hundred

fifty

two.”

“And what were their names?” she asks.

He is silent.

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“That’s what I thought. Just numbers.”

“Some things change.”

She shakes her head. “Nothing changes. Only our perceptions of them. I can see through the bullshit, see you for who you really are: a sick, selfish, son of a bitch who can’t man up to the fact that you stabbed your own fucking fiancé.”

Rage surges through his veins as if a burst of electricity has cut through him. He stands, yearns to hit her across the face, but he refrains. His hand shakes with absolute madness. He curses under his breath and moves away, around the foot of the bed, walks to the door. He grips the handle, opens it. He looks back, sees her still sitting on the bed, her back to him. “Please,” he snarls, “Don’t put me on a pedestal.” He disappears into the murky corridor and slams the door behind him.

The man found a doorway to a balcony, and now he stands there, feeling the cool breeze in his face, the distant howls of the dark-walkers and they press against the stone wall encircling the mansion, trying to break through the barrier and feast upon the smorgasbord of uninfected flesh. He hears the door to the balcony open. He turns, expecting to see Sarah, some slur of apologies, but he is disappointed to see Nathan. Nathan nods to the man. The man moves over to the side, lets Nathan join him. Nathan leans against the railing, watching the commotion in the yard: the supplies being loaded into the helicopters, the helicopters being refueled, the bus being maintained by a few mechanics. The man withdraws his pack of cigarettes and lights one up. He offers one to Nathan, but Nathan says, “No, thanks. I don’t smoke.” They stand quietly. It’s nearly midnight. The man looks over at Nathan. “So what’s up with the fucking crossbow?”

“It’s not a crossbow,” Nathan says. “It’s a hand-bow. I have a crossbow, it’s larger. I prefer them: they’re silent, and they’re just as deadly and accurate as a rifle. The hand-bow is smaller, has less range and accuracy, but it’s easier to reload and can be fired quickly.”

“Why not just use a gun?”

“I don’t like guns.”

“You’re a Democrat.”

Nathan laughs. “No. Pure-blooded Republican. Before the plague, I owned a hunting ranch in Colorado. I mostly stuck to the hunting rifles. REMINGTON, WINCHESTER, BROWNING. Hunters would come in with their crossbows, and I couldn’t help but notice that women crawled all over them.” He laughs. “So it got me thinking: crossbows attract women. In different regions, women are attracted to different things. On the East Coast, women like preppy jocks with sports-cars. On the West Coast, women like the grunge appearance, guitar players, shit like that. Eskimo women, I hear, are more attractive if they’re heavy-set. I’ll never understand that. I think it has something to do with keeping warm? It’s pretty cold in Alaska. Anyways.
Colorado
women, they love men with crossbows. I’m not sure what it is. Maybe the crossbow is more primitive and barbaric, and women like that. I started practicing more and more with the crossbow, and I fell in love with it. I felt more… manly… using one. And women were attracted to that. In fact, a certain woman, named Desirae, fell for me the night before the plague. I was with her when she died, sprawled under the sheets in the lodge. She resurrected, of course, and I blew her away with my cross-bow. Define irony: what drew her to me is what killed her… Well, killed her
again
, anyways. The bolt shattered her sternum and pierced her heart. Came out the opposite end. I still have it. Framed it. It’s back at New Harmony.”

“This isn’t New Harmony?” the man asks.

“This? Oh, no. This is just checkpoint. New Harmony is in Kansas City, a few miles from here. Downtown. Within the first few months of New Harmony being founded, refugees flooded in from every direction. We told them about it over the radio, before the radio stopped working. Something Anthony Barnhart

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