Dwellers of the Night: The Complete Collection (43 page)

are without visitors, and cars sit covered in snow in the parking lot. Off to the west, the Ohio River with its ice-drenched shores snakes between rolling hills, and through the open air between two skyscrapers, Mark can see the 8th Street Bridge, the factory tiny in the distance, and he can almost see the house, and he imagines what he and the man would be doing if they’d never left: eating canned foods, talking amongst themselves, smoking cigarettes. He aches just to see the man once more: the only human he’d known for nearly half a year.

“You know what they used to say about this place?” the man asks. “If you look up from the valley of sin that is downtown, you’ll see the church magnificently illuminated atop Mount Adams, judging you.” A wry smile crosses his lips. “This is a beautiful church, Mark. It really is. It was built over 100 years ago, built for the service of the Catholic Germans here in eastern Cincinnati. I was one of the first to come here. I had known Friar Williams ever since I was a boy. I grew up in this church. Williams was a great man. You used to hear all those stories about pedophilia among the Catholic priests. Williams was nothing like that. He cared for me genuinely, and he taught me well in the Catholic faith. After the death of my father, I left the faith. I would come here sometimes, though, to meditate and pray. Williams always accepted me.” He laughs: “Sometimes we would share cigarettes in the confessional. He married my wife and me. And he dedicated my daughter Sandra to the Lord. We started going back to church. I never really became a good Catholic. I believe in God. I guess I’m Anthony Barnhart

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more of a deist than anything: God exists, but He’s not really concerned about us.” He extinguishes the cigarette in the snow, stomps out the remaining tobacco threads with the boot of his shoe. “My experiences haven’t taught me differently.”

They return down to the foyer, and the man opens a pair of great wooden oak doors, revealing the sanctuary bathed in darkness. The high stained glass windows are boarded up from the inside, and only meager light intrudes through the cracks. The man lights an oil lamp sitting on a table beside the entryway, and the lamplight flows through the room, dancing over the high-backed wooden pews and crawling its way to the front of the sanctuary. The man says, “We had to board up the windows, but, God, they were beautiful. Did you know that stained glass windows began being used in the church due to Plato’s philosophy? Plato taught that the mixture of certain colors brought about feelings that drew a man towards the ‘Eternal Good.’ The Catholic Church adopted his teachings and applied them to their architecture. The stained glass was made in a panorama of beautiful hues, and these helped people to feel the awe and fear before their God.” He begins walking between the pews, and the boy follows him. The lamplight dances over the pulpit and the balcony with its many velvetcolored chairs. A cross with an iron figure of Jesus hangs above the altar. The man says, “Did you know one of the major differences between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches has to do with statues and icons? The Roman Catholic Church condemned icons but approved of statues, and the Eastern Orthodox Church condemned statues but approved of icons.” The boy follows the man up a flight of steps behind the sanctuary, and they come to a wooden door: FRIAR WILLIAMS is stenciled on a plaque upon the door.

The man takes a deep breath and pushes open the door.

The room is lit by two windows, high enough off the ground so as not be boarded up. The man lowers the lamp and Mark enters the room. Bookcases cover the walls, filled with dusty Bibles and commentaries and lectionaries. At the desk is a single electric lamp, strewn with cobwebs. Several pads of paper sit upon the rough wood. And in the high-backed chair is a skeleton, hunched over the desk. Its clothes hang tattered, and between two bony fingers in the right hand rests a pen. The smile grins at them with a toothy reverence, and the eye sockets flicker in the light from the oil lamp.

“Behold,” the man says: “Friar Williams.”

A chill runs down Mark’s spine. “Why didn’t you move him?”

“It would have been sacrilegious,” the man replies. “By the time we actually came up here and were able to open the door, he had already rotted away. There was no more risk of disease. I figured we should leave him here. He dedicated his life to the church. It’s what he would have wanted.”

“I thought the Catholics taught that you had to be buried to go to Heaven.”

“I think God would look more at your character than where your rotted body lies.”

Mark approaches the desk. He looks down and sees scribbling on a pad of paper: I SEE JESUS BEFORE ME.

HE SMILES AND WELCOMES ME.

THE END IS HERE.

“At least he was half-right,” the man murmurs.

“He went mad,” Mark says.

“Yes. Just like the others. The plague… It messes with your brain before it kills you.”

The man speaks: “I’m sorry for my hostility towards you earlier this week.”

Mark turns around. A great wash of sadness has fallen over the man’s face. The boy says, “It’s okay.”

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The man looks out one of the windows, sees clouds climbing over one another far above. “We didn’t know if you were bit… And we know what happens after you’re bitten. I’ve seen it. My wife died with the plague. I would have killed myself, too, had my daughter not survived. She was fourteen. A beautiful young lady. She dreamed of going to the Prom. She was in those years when you believe fairy-tales. The Knight in Shining Armor, riding on his White Steed, carrying you away. Living a beautiful life in a castle somewhere with the husband of your dreams. When the plague struck… It became unbearable for her. She didn’t know how to reconcile what she was going through with what had become of her world. We came to the church, because I knew she liked it here and would find comfort. She spent many hours a day in prayer before God. That was when Rachel and some others came. She thought it was an answer to her prayers. We boarded up the place, installed the fence... They helped me take care of her. She was doing better. But one night, some of them got over the fence. We’ve made it higher since then… But they got over, and they broke through. We killed most of them. They carried off one of Rachel’s friends, a boy named Alan. We could hear his screams in the darkness, and Rachel was hysterical. Sandra… She was bit. We didn’t know what would happen. We thought she just got an infection from the cold, didn’t think it had anything to do with them. She started getting better.” He struggles for words. “But her health would fluctuate. About a month later, she died. I couldn’t handle it. I just broke down. They wanted to bury her, but I refused. I should have buried her.” His eyes grow dark and sinister as he relives those moments. “She came back to life. But it wasn’t her, you know… It was the plague. The plague turned her into someone else…
something
else. She killed another little girl. Ripped off her arm. The girl bled to death. I heard the screams, and I ran into the room… I found my daughter—my baby daughter, my
angel
—

chewing on the other girl’s arm, and the girl is in the corner, grabbing at the stump by her shoulder, squeezing it, the blood just gushing out. I can still hear her screams… She didn’t stop screaming until her veins ran dry… My daughter looked up at me. I knew what she was. I drew a knife from my belt. She came after me.” He stumbles over his words. “It was so fast… I couldn’t… I couldn’t think clearly… I tried to talk her down… But then my muscles reacted… Instinctually… I know it was what I had to do… I know that she wasn’t my daughter anymore.” He looks over at Mark. “The disease changed her. And I know that if I hadn’t have done it… If I would have let
feelings
overpower
logic
…

then she would have killed me. But… that doesn’t change how I feel. I know, in my mind, that it was the right thing to do. The
only
thing to do. But in my heart, I keep seeing her. I keep seeing her lying there at my feet, that knife wedged into her eye, her mouth twitching with her last heartbeats…”

Tears sprinkle his eyes. “I just keep remembering how she would want me to read her bedtime stories at night. How she was afraid of the bogeyman in her closet. I remember how I yelled at her for going on a date without telling me. I remember how sometimes I was distant and cold towards her when her mom and I were fighting. But most of all, I remember how much I loved her. She was everything to me. Fucking
everything
.”

The boy is quiet. He doesn’t know what to say.

“I killed my daughter,” the man says. “I fucking
killed my daughter
.”

And he leaves the room, leaving Mark alone with the skeleton and its cryptic prophecies.

The man is deep in thought when the door opens. Two men enter the room. The girl is in the bed, and she grabs the sheets and pulls them tight, eyes swarming with fear. The men ignore her. They head straight to the man. One of them grabs the man’s arm; the man wrenches it away and launches to his Anthony Barnhart

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feet. They prepare to strike. The man says, “You don’t need to fight me.” A smile creeps over one of the men’s lips. They exchange glances, and then he delivers a stunning blow into the man’s face; the man hobbles back into the wall, jaw throbbing. They grab him by the arms and yank him from the room. The door is slammed shut, leaving the boy and the girl alone.

They head down a stone corridor. The man can hear laughter and conversation. A thick and heavy atmosphere, wreathed in darkness, descends upon him, and his heart cries out. The corridor bends and opens into a large room. It had once been a sanctuary, but the pews are gone, shoved against the walls; and where the pews stood are men and women. They don’t acknowledge the man as he is dragged to the back of the room. A makeshift cage of iron bars sits there, and it reminds the man of the shark cages that would be lowered into the water in all those DISCOVERY CHANNEL

documentaries. The men push him inside and lock him in. One of the men twirls the key on his finger and drops it into his coat pocket. The man stands near the back of the cage, wrapped in the shadows, saying nothing. The two men exchange a word the man cannot hear, and then they blend with the crowd.

The man counts fifteen or sixteen individuals. Men and women. Almost all are around thirty or forty years old, and there is a certain evil in their eyes that makes the man cringe. One of the doors beside the altar at the front of the room opens, and a man dressed in what looks like a priest’s outfit with the white collar appears. He silences the room, and they all stare up at him in eager anticipation. He speaks: “This is the first Full Moon of February. Tonight we shall seal our contract once more. This is a new world, and protection comes only to those who embrace the shifting powers. This is a time of celebration and joy, not a time of mourning! Let’s laugh and share drink and share one another!” The people cheer. Men come from the sides of the room and begin handing out drinks and pills. The people eagerly consume the alcoholic beverages and pop the acid. The man watches as the people begin to stumble around, and he curls up into the corner of the cage as they begin stripping off their clothes, engaging in sexual acts: man-on-woman, woman-on-woman, man-on-man. There is no order to the chaos, and the sanctuary becomes filled with all kinds of degradation. Women shriek in pleasure, men expose themselves, and the natural order of the universe is subjected to futility.

A woman approaches the cage. She is thirty or forty. Her eyes swim with ecstasy, and her words stagger in her euphoric state. She falls against the cage and begs the man to come kiss her. The man looks away. She raises her skirt and flashes him, and she rubs her vagina up against one of the bars. He refuses to look at her. His eyes blend with the darkness in the corner of the room, and he hears the awful shouts of pleasure as he thinks of Kira. Candlelit dinners with glasses of wine. Cuddling beside the fireplace in the cold. The woman at the bars screams for his attention, but he only raises his hand and flicks her off. She curses and spits, and she leaves him.

How long has he been sitting alone in the cage? He doesn’t know. The ceremony continues long into the night. Finally the High Priest, the man in the priest’s outfit with the white collar stained with decadence, stands before the altar and admonishes those gathered: “The clock has struck midnight. It is now the appropriate time.” His words finish, and then drums begin to sound throughout the sanctuary. Heavy, rhythmic, pounding, ominous. The man sees figures in the dark with portable drums, and they bang them in a slow repetition. The people stand, and they begin to sway back and forth in their worship. A side door is opened, and the pounding of the drums mixes with volatile screams: a young boy, maybe fifteen or sixteen, is dragged out onto the altar, kicking and screaming. Anthony Barnhart

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He is carried by four large men, and he struggles to get free. Tears stream down his face. The man watches with a sickened heart as the boy is held by one of the men and stripped down, his nakedness revealed. He is turned around, and his chest is slammed upon the altar, his rear held high into the air. One of the men guarding him unzips his pants, is hard and erect, and he shoves himself into the boy. The boy wails in pain.

Anger and fury burn through the man, and he throws himself against the cage; he shakes the bars, and he opens his mouth to scream; a figure appears with an iron baseball bat, and the figure slams the man’s fingers that wrap around the bar. The man staggers backwards with a shout, gripping his bruised fingers, and he falls to the ground. The figure with the baseball bat dares the man to come forward. The man doesn’t move.

The boy is sodomized, and the man retracts himself and ejaculates all over the boy’s bare back. The people cheer and holler. The boy is then beaten with whips and rods and burned with red-hot pokers. Blood crawls down his body. He is taken by the High Priest. The boy doesn’t fight anymore: he is humiliated, emasculated, weak and drained of blood. The High Priest nails him upon a makeshift wooden cross, and the High Priest urinates upon him, and he becomes covered with feces thrown by the mad crowd. The High Priest draws out a large iron spike. The people begin to chant. Tears slide down the boy’s face; the High Priest announces the sacrifice to Dagon, and with one quick motion, he drives the spike through the boy’s eye, killing him instantly and pinning his head to the cross. The boy’s mouth twitches and his body goes limp as the party resumes. The body is desecrated, and drugs and alcohol are distributed once more. The man curls into a corner in the cage and hangs his head between his knees. Tears slide down his cheeks: he is a calloused man, but his heart is ruptured.