Dwellers of the Night: The Complete Collection (31 page)

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covered with crusted blood. And he can feel her biting down on his arm, the blood rushing from his body, him screaming her name—”Cara!”—as she drains the life from his body.
A vampire
. He doesn’t want to think about that. Not right now. He is thankful that they cannot hear them this night, with the blizzard moving in from the north, obscuring the city in its blinding wrath. But he knows when morning comes, and when the snow settles, there will be footprints in the snow, hundreds of footprints, all surrounding the house.

It has been nearly a week since the little girl turned into an icicle under the frozen creek waters. The house has been draped in silence, and in memories. The day-to-day life continues, foraging for food at abandoned groceries, barricading the doors and windows when night falls, endless cigarette butts lying scattered on the kitchen linoleum, and empty bottles of vodka and whiskey sitting upon the counter. The man and the boy do not talk much. A great silence has engulfed them, a reef which keeps their two souls apart. The boy’s romantic ideal of the victory of life has suffered its final defeat; when Ashlie died, it fought for life; when Cara’s body weighed heavily upon him, it gave its last choking breath; and with the collapse of the little girl into a hideous state—the clawed fingers, the gaping mouth, the pain-and-terror-stricken eyes remain engraved into the boy’s mind—the boy finally succumbed to what he knew to be true: that life was fragile, no promises were guaranteed, and each day was a blessing—or a curse. Lindsey’s words of a survivor’s colony on the Eastern side of Cincinnati resonated within him, and he brought it to the man’s attention. The man, however, quickly brushed it aside: “Lies.”

“She spoke as if she knew it to be true,” Mark said.

“I’m sure she believed it. Her mother probably told her that to comfort her.”

“I think we should check it out, at least, or—”

“It’s December now. It’s been four months. How many uninfected people have you seen?
Two
. Me. And the little girl. And the little girl is dead now, and we’re not doing her any favors by paying attention to her fairy-tale stories.”

“Ashlie survived,” Mark had said. “That’s three.”

“If there are survivors, there’s no way they’ve survived.”

“We’ve survived. Why couldn’t they?”

“We’re cursed by God,” the man said, “and that’s the only reason we’re still alive.”

Mark had refused to press the matter anymore. A constant snow had been falling all week, and the roads were covered with snow-banks three to four feet deep. The heaviest snow Cincinnati had experienced in years. He knew that even if the man were to give in to his demands to check out the girl’s story, it would be fruitless: the truck could not withstand the snow, and any 4x4 vehicles would have been dismantled by the cold and misuse. It tore at the boy to acknowledge it, but they were truly alone and isolated. Even if a community were to exist on the other side of Cincinnati, it may have well existed on the other side of the world. For now the man is locked in his fortress, and Mark is with him, his own prison.

There is nothing to do. No churches to attend, no friends to hang out with, no phone calls to make, no projects to work on. Every day is the same, boring, monotonous existence, replayed with each rising of the sun. The man had gone out early in the morning, smoking a cigarette while admiring the freshly-fallen snow. The sky had been a canvas of purples and blues, the clouds climbing over one another. Only a handful of snowflakes fell as he lit the cigarette and stood on the front porch, smoking, watching the smoke curl, illuminated against the backdrop of white, climbing into the air, Anthony Barnhart

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disappearing. He saw Kira’s face in the smoke, and he saw her face in the footprints that lined the house. He didn’t finish the cigarette, but tossed it into the snow. It lay smoldering as he went back into the lukewarm cavern that had once been his home. Now he finds Mark standing in the kitchen, making a pot of coffee, the electricity fueled by the generator in the garage. The man pulls the patchwork of wooden boards down from the kitchen window and looks out into the backyard. He curses under his breath.

Mark begins pouring two cups of coffee. “What is it?”

“They trampled down the fence. I’ll have to rebuild it.”

“We can’t, not in the snow.” He walks around the kitchen island and hands him a mug. The man holds it in his hands, feels the ceramic warmth flooding into his fingers. “I know.”

They sit at the table. A daily ritual. Drinking their coffee. Saying nothing.

“I had a dream last night,” Mark says.

The man doesn’t say anything for a moment. “I don’t dream anymore.”

“Do you think dreams have meanings?”

“I don’t know.”

“Sometimes I think they do.”

“Maybe.” He sips his coffee.

Mark says, “I dreamt that I was in a jail cell. And Cara came to visit me.”

The man eyes him, perplexed.

“She was Cara, but then… She wasn’t. She was something else.”

The man caresses the lip of his mug with a finger. “She was one of them.”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. She was… This will sound ridiculous… She was a vampire.”

“Yes,” the man says with a wry smile. “That’s
quite
ridiculous.”

“What if—”

The man cuts him off: “They’re not vampires.”

“Lindsey said they were vampires.”

“Vampires are mythological creatures. Legends. These people are just sick.”

“But… what if the plague turned them into vampires?”

The man shakes his head, incredulous. “Are you listening to yourself?”

The boy hangs his head low, stares at his mug. “It’s just…”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“No,” the man says. “You brought it up.” Sarcastically, “Please. Continue.”

“I mean, if they
are
vampires… And I’m not saying they are… But
if
they are, then maybe they have the weaknesses of vampires. Maybe they’re allergic to onions, and they can be killed with stakes through the heart, or—”

“It’s not onions. It’s garlic. Vampires can’t stand garlic.”

“Whatever. But I think it would be wise to check it out.”

“Wise? No. It would be foolish. Stupid. Idiotic. They’re
not
vampires.”

“If vampires are just mythological, then where did the idea of vampires start?”

The man decided to try and prop the fence back up to prepare for the next night. Mark agreed to help him. Now the man is trying to position the fence back into the holes in the earth where the fence legs had sat, but the holes are dug up and shredded by the claws of dark-walkers. He grunts and lets Anthony Barnhart

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the fence sag against his shoulder, looks over at Mark, who is standing beside the lone fallen oak that lies sprawled in the yard.

“All legends have their origins rooted in history,” Mark says.

“So?”

“So what if vampires, at one time,
were
real? What if the whole concept of vampires, though now diluted by myth and folklore, originated from people observing ancient dark-walkers?”

The man takes a breath, trudges through the snow, sits down upon the oak stump. “Ancient dark-walkers?” he muses to himself.

“Sure. I mean, what if this isn’t the first time this disease has struck the earth. What if whatever caused this plague—be it a germ, or a virus, or whatever—isn’t anything new, but something simply reintroduced on a global scale? What if, back in the ancient days, when the concept of vampires first emerged, there was an outbreak of this plague, and dark-walkers emerged, and they started killing and eating people. Being cannibals. Animals. Of course, the government would intervene. Put them to the sword or something like that. But news would spread around. And the concept of the vampire would emerge.”

The man shakes his head. “You
want
this to be true, so you’re finding every possible reason.”

“Is that any different from what you’re doing?”

III

NEW YEAR’S EVE, 2011. The night is quiet. The snow continues to fall, climbing up the sides of the house in drifts. The man has constructed a makeshift fireplace in the floor, set upon a platform of bricks, and the small fire warms their hands. The boy glances at a watch he retrieved from Wal-Mart two days ago. The hands glow in the meager dark, ticking off the minutes. He glances over at the man and sees only a stalwart face, glazed eyes staring intently into the fire. The pupils are dilated, and the man is awash in memories: he and Kira, his beloved soon-to-be fiancé, sharing champagne on their first New Year’s Eve in the new house—the very house in which they sit—and this memory brings with it the deep-seated revelation and knowledge that never again will he see her, that never again will he hold her. It has been months, but the pain returns in waves. The subtlest movement brings the memories, and not a day passes when his heart doesn’t feel as if it drowning in a sea of poison. The boy watches as the man takes the bottle of champagne, twists off the cork, and fills two glasses to the brim.

“It’s still half an hour away,” the boy says.

“I need to drink now,” the man says. He hands him the glass.

The boy takes it, feeling its coldness stinging his fingers.

“Have you ever had champagne?”

“No. We always drank sparkling grape juice.”

The man smiles to himself. “It doesn’t have quite the same affect.”

The boy raises the glass before the fire, sees the flames illuminated in the pale drink.

The man imagines Time’s Square, laden with snow. Abandoned vehicles sitting on the narrow roads, windows long smashed open, inhabitants crawling into the night air. Buildings sit quiet and abandoned, and the ball that for so many years dropped down on New Year’s Eve is not there. There are no crowds, no fireworks, no live bands. It is 11:52 A.M. on December 31, and Time’s Square is Anthony Barnhart

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vacant, dead, immune to life. The only movement are those of the shadows—and the creatures crawling within them.

“It’s time,” Mark says.

The man raises his glass.

Mark raises his. “To a new year.”

“A new fucking year,” the man mumbles, and he drowns the drink.

Mark takes a sip, whispers under his breath, to himself, “May God smile upon us.”

The man hears him, breaks into laughter.

Mark hangs his head low, face burning, and he thumbs the crest of his glass.
To Ashlie. To Cara.
To the little girl. May you all rest in peace
. He takes another drink, a long gulp, and drowns the champagne.

The man hands him the bottle. “Drink up.”

“One glass is enough for me.”

“Nonsense.”

In an hour, both are passed out.

Mark lies on the floor; the man, upon the sofa.

Empty bottles of cognac, wine, and champagne litter the coffee table. Tonight there comes no howls from the dark-walkers.

The first day of January is cold. The man returns to working on the fence. The boy takes a walk down the street in the snow, stopping at the bar with the door propped open. Snow has drifted inside, and the boy grabs the last few bottles of alcohol off the shelves. He admires a shotgun hidden underneath the bar, wonders how they had missed it, but he doesn’t bother to take it. He spends the day sleeping off the hangover, and when night comes, neither of them are tired. The man breaks open a new bottle of hard vodka and pours himself a shot.

“Look at this,” he says, opening one of the cabinets. He pulls out a can.

“What is it?” the boy asks, rising from the sofa.

“They’re limes. I found them a few days ago. And we have shots.”

“Tequila.”

“Tequila shots, yes.”

“Do we have actual tequila?”

The man frowns. “No. We used that up a long time ago. But this will work.”

“Is that Kamatchka?”

“No. Pskovskaya. It’s Russian, though.” He pours two shots. “Open up the can?”

The boy fetches the can opener and turns upon the can. He twists off the lid and reaches into a murky liquid, withdrawing three lime halves. He sets one to the side, keeps one for himself, and gives another to the man. The man hands the boy a shot glass. They both lick the back of their hand, between the thumb and finger; and they sprinkle it with salt. They raise the glasses to one another.

“What are we drinking to?” the man asks.

The boy thinks for a moment. “Let’s drink to the new year.”

The man smiles. “To a new fucking year.”

Their shots rise; they lick the salt, quickly down the vodka, and suck on the limes. The boy’s stomach curls. “That tastes like shit.” His mouth puckers. The man laughs. “Can you feel the burn though?”

The boy nods. “Yeah.”

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“Let’s drink again.”

Another long, drunken night, and in the morning, massive hangovers. The boy spends the afternoon over the toilet, and eventually he goes outside into the snow, the coldness rejuvenating his senses. He tries to smoke a cigarette, but it comes as tasteless and nothing more; he tosses it into the snow, where the ember carves itself a cave before whispering down to nothing. The man has fallen asleep in the late evening, and when night falls, the windows are not boarded up. Mark wakes the man, and the two of them begin placing the patchwork of wooden planks back over the windows. The moon sparkles behind shearing clouds, the snow glinting as if layered with a thousand diamonds.

“Here they come,” the man says in a harsh whisper.

The fence has not been completely fixed, and several dark-walkers eagerly climb over, spilling into the yard. Most are naked, their flesh swollen purple and blue in the cold, dark lines etched into their skin. Some have sustained wounds, long healed. The dark-walkers snarl and fight among themselves, in the back-yard, and the boy and the man watch with morbid fascination through a crack in the boards. The dark-walkers seem to form a circle, and in the middle is a lone dark-walker, an elderly woman, skin pulled taught against her bones, appearing as a purplish skeleton in the raving cold. The dark-walkers snap at one another, and then one moves forward, grabbing the woman by the arms. The elderly woman struggles, and she throws her head back and screams, teeth glinting in the pale moonlight, as the dark-walker thrusts his teeth upon her neck and bites down hard. A spray of blood dances over the dark-walker’s face, sliding down his cheeks; the woman sags down onto her knees, and then she is hidden as the other dark-walkers move forward in a frenzy, like a roving band of sharks gone mad at the scent of blood. The boy looks away, disgusted, as one of the dark-walkers drags a dismembered leg to the side of the yard and proceeds to rip it apart with its fingers, lifting shreds of bloody flesh and ribbons of skin to its greedy mouth.