Dwellers of the Night: The Complete Collection (106 page)

“You’re beautiful,” Keith says again.

“Oh.” She searches for words. “Ummm… Thanks?”

“You can have anything you want here,” Keith tells her. “The nicest clothes. The most delicious food. Warmth. And
security
. That is the best we offer:
security
. I know what it’s like to run, to hide, to always wonder if you’ll see another sunrise.” He lifts the glass of champagne, takes a sip, looks away from the table. Sarah follows his eyes to the door leading to the balcony. Keith looks back over at her, sets down the champagne. “Can I show you something?” he asks.

Anthony Barnhart

Dwellers of the Night

494

∑Ω∑

It had been a fantastic day. They awoke in the small country cottage along the shores of Maine, and they had gone into town to do some shopping. Patrick had bought several Maine King Crabs from a small fish factory in town, and when they returned to the cottage, he followed directions in the SEAFOOD COOKBOOK and made an excellent dinner of crab legs. Once dinner was finished, he took her by the hand, asked, “Can I show you something?” She bit her lip, and her boyfriend led her outside onto the porch. They descended the wooden steps to the small dirt path that wound through the trees, emerging along the cliff that dropped forty feet into the raging Atlantic qualms below. They sat along the cliff, legs dangling over the precipice. She clutched his arm for dear life, and he wrapped his arm around her side. She leaned her head on his shoulder. The sun was beginning to set behind them, and the water below turned a murky black, cast in the shadow of the cliff; in the distance, the sun’s rays tickled the water in a dazzling display of translucent ripples. Sarah looked out at the sun upon the water, and she let out a cute giggle when Patrick tickled her arm. She looked down to see what he was doing, and he was holding a small box in front of her; the box was open, revealing a gorgeously-cut diamond ring. She looked up at him, and his eyes, fixated upon her, were filled with such unearthly adoration that Sarah nearly burst into tears. He asked, “Will you give me the honor of being my wife?” She lost it, couldn’t hold it back anymore, and she kept crying and crying, lost in the joy of the moment. She said, between her tear-soaked cries, “Yes… Yes… Yes…”

They spent the whole night out on the beach,

cuddling and holding one another,

watching the stars until the sun rose the next day.

∑Ω∑

He had taken her out to the balcony, and now they stand side-by-side, feeling the first warm breeze felt in such a long time. Winter has finally passed, and now summer is on the doorstep. Sarah holds the wineglass in her hands, taking precarious sips. Keith stands like a stoic statue, staring out to the west, where the last rays of sunlight pour over the horizon, reflecting in the windows of the large buildings along the Kansas River. He doesn’t say anything for a long time, and they just watch the sun setting together.

The howls of the dark-walkers come, but they are distant, nearly inaudible. It is almost as if they don’t exist.

Keith turns, faces Sarah. “Here, you can
always
see the sunrise.”

She doesn’t say anything.

She wants to leave.

She

sips

her

champagne.

The glass is nearly empty. She looks down, sees the champagne wrapped in shadows in the bottom of the glass. Her hands shake, the last traces of the drink sloshing in the bottom of the glass. Her eyes are open, but she sees nothing except that which replays over and over in her head.

∑Ω∑

She had awoken to the smell of the fire, the logs crackling in the fireplace. The dream had been splendid, but it didn’t compare to the harmonious joy of reality. She rolled over in the bed, the quilt wrapping tighter around her naked body. She rested her head upon the pillow and opened her eyes. Anthony Barnhart

Dwellers of the Night

495

Patrick was wearing a green-and-blue checkered robe, and he was kneeling down, stoking the fire in the stone hearth. She pulled herself out of bed, trying to be quiet, and grabbed the robe lying on the floor. She wrapped it around her body and tiptoed over to him.

“I can hear you,” he said, not looking back at her.

She grinned, pretended she didn’t hear him.

She threw her arms around him, squeezed him tightly from behind. “Hi.”

He bit his lip as she buried her face into his neck, kissing him. “I haven’t showered.”

“I don’t care,” she said. “I like your scent.”

“My scent?” he asked, pulling away.

“Yeah,” she said, gazing into his eyes. “You know. Your scent. Your musk.”

“I didn’t know I had a scent.”

“Everyone has a scent.”

“You mean like body odor.”

She laughed. “No. It’s just a… peculiar smell.”

“By ‘peculiar’ you mean the smell of testosterone and pure manly strength.”

“More like the smell of FEBREEZE and cigarettes.”

Patrick winced. “Ouch.”

“I’m just kidding with you,” Sarah said. “However… When we first met, do you remember that leather jacket you used to wear to school all the time? You smoked even in junior high, and you didn’t want anyone to know, so you would FEBREEZE the shit out of your jacket.” She laughed. “It didn’t really work. You just had this sickly-sweet smell all the time.”

He eyed her. “That’s how I smell now?”

She chuckled. “No, no. You smell different now.”

“How do I smell now?”

“Different. Patrick. Relax. It’s a good smell, all right? It’s good because it’s
yours
.”

“Oh,” he said. “Well. I’m glad you like it.”

She squatted down next to him.

He continued stoking the fire.

“You’re making a fire to keep me warm?”

“Yes. I wanted it to be warm when you woke up.”

“You could have just crawled into bed with me. That would have kept me warm.”

“I didn’t want to wake you.” He pecked her on the cheek. “I made coffee.”

“You’re magical,” she said with a grin. She kissed him again. “I do love you.”

He returned the kiss. “I do love you, too.”

“Stop playing with the fire. Come get some coffee with me.”

They had stood out on the cabin’s back porch. The sun was rising over the rolling green mountains, and birds performed acrobatics above the trees. His arm was around her waist, and she clutched both hands around her warm coffee mug. The autumn cold had just begun to slash its talons into the woodlands, and the leaves were just beginning to change colors, a melting-pot of reds and oranges and yellows and browns. A black bear crawled through the thickets at the bottom of the hill, and they watched him for some time. Eventually he wandered deep into the forest, disappearing from view. Her coffee was nearly gone. The sun continued to rise, its rays pushing back the darkness and the shadows and the dreariness and the hidden monsters of Appalachia.

“You know what I was just thinking?” Patrick asked.

She looked up at him. “What were you just thinking?”

Anthony Barnhart

Dwellers of the Night

496

He turned on his heels, wrapped both arms around her, kissed her on the forehead.

“Do

you

really
want to know what I was thinking?”

“Tell me, Patrick. I don’t like it when you play these games.”

He laughed, said, “I was thinking… See the sun rising?”

“Yeah…”

“That sun is rising on our new lives together.”

She buried her face into his chest. “Now
that’s
something that I like.”

∑Ω∑

The memories are shattered, and she suddenly becomes aware of everything around her. The sun dies, its rays extinguished, and heart sinks like a stone in the sea.
The sun had risen on their new lives
together, and just as quickly it had set, and the darkness and the shadows and the dreariness and the hidden
monsters had returned
. A tear speckles her eye, and she throws back the rest of the champagne. Keith doesn’t notice the tear, and he moves towards her.

She moves away, refusing his advance.

He backs down, continues sipping his champagne until it’s gone. He sets the wineglass on the railing, and he moves towards her again, this time with fierce intensity: he grabs her by the arm, his fingers clenching down like a vice over her skin.

She gasps in pain as he maneuvers her against the railing and comes in close. She reacts, doesn’t even know her own movement: suddenly she feels her free arm swinging outwards, and the wineglass in her hand shatters against Keith’s face. He releases her, reaches up with a slur of profanities, blood beginning to course in rivulets down his face. She ducks away and runs through the door, through the apartment, and she throws open the door to the hallway. The guards look at her with a look of surprise, and as she saunters away, gripping her arm, they laugh to themselves, calling her out as a bitch and a whore. Standing out on the patio, Keith pries glass shards from his cheeks. “Fucking cunt.”

V

The man opens the door to the apartment, and he sees Sarah sitting on a couch in the dark. He freezes, takes a breath, enters, shuts the door. He flips the switch on the wall, and the bulbs along the ceiling sparkle into life. He looks over at Sarah: her legs are curled up against her chest, her arms wrapped around her legs, her chin resting on her folded knees. Her cheeks are puffed and red, and her eyes, which don’t move from their placid stare at the carpet, are blotched and bloodshot. She is no longer wearing the dress, once more in her jeans and faded t-shirt. The man slowly walks towards her and sits down. There is silence. He doesn’t know what to say, despite his morbid curiosity. He opens his mouth to say something, but she unfolds out of her position and stands. “I’m going to bed,” she says. The man watches her enter the girls’ bedroom and shut the door. He sits on the couch, pulls out his cigarettes, lights one up. The smell fills the room. He hears a toilet flush. The sounds of Sarah getting into bed. He watches the smoke curl to the ceiling, then expand and crawl over the dripped plaster. He hears muffled crying, wants to open the door, wants to comfort her. “Fuck,” he growls. He extinguishes the cigarette on the oak coffee table and goes to bed.

Anthony Barnhart

Dwellers of the Night

497

“This is where her friend said she would be,” Mark says.

They are standing in front of a door at the Westin Hotel, down the street from the skyscraper where their apartment resides. When the man awoke, morning sunlight was filtering in through the blinds, gently warming his exposed cheek. He had passed out on the bed, and Mark had never returned. He smoked a few cigarettes, fixed some coffee. He knocked on Sarah’s door, asked if she wanted anything. He didn’t get a response, shrugged. He took the elevator down to the lobby and walked out onto the street. The benches along the road were taken, people passed out, often with half-empty bottles of whiskey in their feeble clutches. He had meandered around the sleeping bodies, and he found Mark lying in the arms of another girl. He began to wake him, decided to do something else: he woke the girl, and he quietly told her to get out of there. She cursed him, and he pushed her away: “Get,” he had said with a few choice words. He then woke Mark, and the boy rolled over to the side, vomited on the pavement. The man told him that he’d been passed out alone, and he asked if Mark remembered anything from the night before. Mark had said, “No… There was this girl, she was all up on me. Thank God I didn’t do anything. I’d be tore up about it. I know Cara’s gone, but…

Sometimes the mere thought of doing
anything
with
anybody
makes me feel like I’m cheating on her.”

The man had said nothing, and they returned to the room. Sarah was up and dressed, showered, and she was drinking a coffee, standing silently by the window overlooking Wheeler Airport. She told them, “Katie never showed up last night.” Mark said that he’d seen her go into the Westin Hotel with some girl. Sarah shook her head, said, “I figured.” Mark went to shower, and the man focused his attention on Sarah. He asked her what happened last night, she said, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

He pressed her, and she snapped: “I said I don’t want to fucking talk about it, all right?” He took the moment to express his desire to leave, to continue their journey to Aspen. Surprisingly, Sarah agreed. When Mark came out of the room, clean-shaven and dressed, rubbing his temples to alleviate a slight hangover, the man asked him what he thought about heading on to Aspen. Mark said he was fine with it if they were. Sarah said, “We still need to find Katie.” They left the skyscraper, returned to the street, made the walk to Westin Hotel; along the way, the girl the man had tossed off the street rushed up, shouting Mark’s name. Mark pushed her aside, and when they left her behind them, he told the man: “She was just as annoying last night.” The man said nothing. At the hotel, they began searching, asking if anyone had seen Katie. There was a girl they talked to, a certain Rebecca, and she told them that Katie had gone to Michelle’s room. She gave them the room number, and now they are standing outside the door, huddled together.

“What do we do?” the man asks. “Knock?”

“Either that or break down the door,” Mark replies.

Sarah raps her knuckles on the door. “Rebecca!” she shouts. “Katie!”

She hears footsteps, the unlocking of the bolt.

The door swings open.

A young girl is standing there, maybe about eighteen or nineteen. She is wearing nothing except panties and a bra, one of the straps hanging loose on her bare arm. Rashes crawl up the side of her abdomen. She looks at them, confused. “I don’t know you.”

“We’re here for Katie,” Sarah says.

“Who the hell is Katie?”

Mark says, “I think we have the wrong room…”

Sarah says, “The girl you slept with last night.”

“Oh. Yeah.” She rubs her eyes. “I don’t even remember if it was that good or not.”

“Is she here?” Sarah asks.

“She’s sleeping.”

Anthony Barnhart

Dwellers of the Night

498

“We need to talk to her.”