Dwellers of the Night: The Complete Collection (46 page)

Several minutes have passed. The door to the friar’s office is closed, and they ignore the skeleton hunched over the dust-laden desk. She is pinned in the corner, and he is attacking her. She lets out a groan, a desperate plea—not for ceasing, but for more. Their lips graze one another’s, and her eyes are clenched shut, her world spinning, engulfed in the moment. His left hand crawls up her shirt. Her slender tummy is warm, and she doesn’t protest his ice-bitten fingers. He feels the front strap of her bra, and he slowly pushes one finger through, feels the crest of her breast. Her mouth hangs open as his finger caresses her nipple. He pushes her harder against the wall, and his other hand reaches up the back of her shirt, and he fondles with the latches on her bra. It unsnaps, and he lets it lower. She squirms her arms, and the front of the bra drops down to her belly button. With his right hand he grips her taught shoulder-blades, and with his right he massages her breast. Her eyes glaze over, and she lets out an involuntary cry of surprise. He kisses her delicate mouth, her breath issuing in choked spasms. He can feel her heartbeat through her breasts, a resounding drum; her breath intensifies with each pulse. He rubs her nipple, and she begins moving her hips up and down, her breasts moving in their own rhythm against his hand. He clutches her shoulder-blades tightly, and they kiss with unbridled excitement. She says something, and he can’t quite hear it; the pleasure is too much, and it only comes out as a grunt. He begins running his fingers up and down the space between her breasts, his fingertips carving a web like an artisan spider. He slowly bends down and begins kissing her breasts, and his lips find the nipple of her left breast; his tongue flickers in and out, and she presses herself against the corner of the wall. One hand is wrapped around his neck, the other pressed eaglesprawled against the end of the bookcase with its Catholic catechisms and new testament studies.

“Adrian…” she breathes.

He draws himself up, looks into her watery eyes. “I’m sorry…” he stammers.

“No… It’s just…”

He watches her, can feel her hips against his, her rapid breathing. “What?”

“Don’t stop… Please don’t stop.”

He smiles, maintains eye contact, and he slowly lifts off her shirt, revealing her stomach and breasts, the bra hanging limp along the crest of her tummy. He navigates both shoulder straps of her bra down her arms. In a meager moment the bra falls to the dusty floor. She stands straight, steadies herself, grabs his shirt, raises it up. He lifts his arms, and the shirt comes off. His bare chest is against her bare breasts, and they continue exploring one another’s mouths. As they kiss, she pants, “You should… Reach inside me.”

At first he doesn’t understand.

She notices his hesitation, and she takes his hand, guides it downwards, tracing a line across her breasts with the stiff nipples, along the ridge of her stomach, and finally to the hem of her pants. He understands, and he slowly fingers along the waistline. It is an awkward salsa, but he is able to find the upper strap of her panties. The warmth from her inner thighs bathes his fingers. She starts to breathe harder. He fondles the front of her panties, and he rubs softly. He can feel the hair underneath, and he reaches his fingers down along the crest of the panties, can feel the wetness already. She moans, head arching back, and she positions herself against the corner, one hand around his bare shoulder and the other pressed against the bookshelf.

“Do you really think I’m pretty?”

Her words startle him. He forgets his hand in her pants, and he just stares at her. Anthony Barnhart

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“What?” he asks, confusion paramount.

“Do you think I’m pretty?” she repeats, without hesitation.

He pauses for a moment. “I doubt there is a prettier or more desirable girl on this planet right now.” It is a sweet compliment, and for a moment his wayward mind gets the best of him. How many girls who have not become demons truly exist? He can see one of his first girlfriends, whom he dated in high school, wandering the school hallways, past the green lockers, drool crawling down her face and her breasts swollen purple in the arctic cold.

He has reached underneath her panties, and he can feel her hair tickling his fingers. Rachel’s soft cries of delight run through him like a wet sword, striking his heart in a plethora of passions. The heat from her vagina is nearly volcanic, and as he fingers her lips, the warm wetness speckling the tip of his finger, her legs shudder and spread farther apart. He finds her clit and rubs it in circles. Her body shudders and her legs quiver.

She bites her lip, mind roaring. “No one’s ever done this to me.”

He stops. “We don’t have to do this.”

“No,” she says. “I want you to. I want you to do this to me.”

“Okay,” he says, and he continues rubbing between her lips.

“Adrian…”

“Rachel?”

“Stick your fingers inside me. Deep inside me.”

Her words are quite out-of-character, blunt and to the point. The dirtiness of them is almost a turn-off. But he ignores the way she framed the question and obliges. He tiptoes his fingers down to the opening, and he slides them inside. He is surprised at how easy it is, as her legs are semi-open and the wetness engulfing. He delves two fingers inside, and he squirms deeper and deeper until his knuckles are rubbing against the mouth of her vagina. He explores the moisture within, watching her face: her eyes are clenched shut, her face a pallid white, lips trembling. The hand sprawled across his shoulder squeezes tight, and he can feel her fingers digging into his skin. He ignores the sudden burst of pain and wiggles his fingers as deep as he can, and he can feel her G-spot. He flicks it with the tip of his finger, and she nearly collapses.

He wrenches his hand free and catches her.

She falls forward against him, breathing harshly.

“Maybe we should stop,” he says.

She shakes her head, says nothing, grips him tighter, begins kissing him again.

They are lost, unable to be found, the hell of the world forgotten in their embrace, their mouths passing over one another’s, their lips playing and tongues entwining. His arms are wrapped tight around her, the hair on her back raised either by the cold draft of the room or the pleasures of the moment. One of her hands is rubbing against his neck, and with the other she follows his spine down to his pants, and her fingers reach underneath the waistline and begin tickling the warmth of his hip. She traces them around his side and reaches inside, and he can feel her fingers sliding underneath his boxers, scratching along the crest of his groin. He shudders for a moment, and she grabs his penis, squeezes gently, and he can feel it hardening, swelling against his pants, uncomfortable and yet mesmerizing.

She breaks the kiss and leans towards his ear, whispers, “I want you inside me.”

He doesn’t argue. His own hands go down to her pants, and he begins unzipping. She does the same for his, and their pants fall at about the same time, his boxers pressed against her panties. His Anthony Barnhart

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fingers wrap around the line of her panties and slowly wiggle them down, revealing her furry vagina. She pulls his boxers down, and his penis graces its presence against her hair. She widens her legs, and he presses himself against her, his penis going between her legs, rubbing against the outside of her vagina.

“Be gentle,” she whispers, her voice shuddering with anticipation.

“Guide me in,” he says.

She reaches down, begins widening her legs…

The scream rips through the church, crawling up the abandoned stairwells and seeping into the derelict rooms, pushing its way even through the shut door. Their moment is shattered, and they stand nearly naked together, their hearts suddenly caught in their chests. His eyes are wide, and he stares into her own orb-like pupils. The surreal is broken, and the existence of their traumatized lives is thrust once more upon them. The scream fades away, and now their hearts are beating faster. They can hear scurrying throughout the church, a gunshot, more screams. The moment is torn, and they forget everything. He turns to run towards the door, but he trips over the pants caught around his ankles, and he falls against the desk, his twisting body knocking the skeleton out of its chair. He hears the skeleton’s bones cracking against the floor as Rachel kicks off her pants and draws up her panties, running to the door. He screams for her to stop, terrified of what she might find. He pulls himself up to see her on the other side of the desk.

“Push it against the door!” she shouts, her breasts throbbing with her words. He stumbles to his feet, pulls up his pants, and grabs the other side of the desk. Together they wedge it against the door, and they step back, oblivious to the desecrated skeleton. They stand beside one another, staring at the oak paneling, hearing running coming from beyond the stairs outside the door. He slowly reaches out, takes her hand. She squeezes his hand in reply, and they stand starknaked, hearing only their ragged breathing and the fluttering of their hearts. Now they can hear muffled conversation, no yelling or shouting.

Rachel looks over at the boy. “Do you think we should go down there?”

“I think,” Adrian says, gathering his thoughts, “that we should get dressed first.”

IV

They find several people gathered, three men holding oil lanterns that dance across the pews and the wooden boards placed over the arching stained glass windows. Adrian and Rachel enter the fray. No one seems to be talking. One woman is crying, and someone is comforting her. Adrian recognizes him: the man’s friend. He tries to remember the name.
Matthew?
No…
Mark
. Rachel asks what happened. A woman answers: she is small for her age of 25, with a petite body and strong arms, piercing eyes and chocolate hair that bends in curls around her shoulders. She speaks quietly. Adrian doesn’t listen but pushes forward. The lamplight blinds his eyes, but then he can see the body strewn across one of the pews. There is a gun in the girl’s hand, and a hole has chiseled through her forehead, blood and brain matter, laced with skull fragments, dripping along the edge of the pew and staining the satin pew cushion. He recognizes her immediately:
Alyssa. The girl from the monastery
. She flashes through his mind, weeping naked, embroiled in the sheets, bleeding from her vagina. A knot forms in his throat and he pulls away, abandoning the throng. He takes a seat in a pew on the other side of the sanctuary. He looks up towards the front of the sanctuary, sees the altar for the communion and several high-backed chairs sitting along the distant Anthony Barnhart

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wall, underneath a large wooden cross. He stares at that wooden cross and feels tears brimming in his eyes. He looks away as she sits down beside him. She doesn’t say anything, just lets her presence be felt. He leans back in the pew and runs a finger along his eyes, wiping away the slithering tears. She wraps her arm around him, and he leans into her. She bites her lip and runs her fingers through his hair.

He tries to keep the flood away, but he lurches forward, and the tears stream down his cheeks with choking sobs. He had pushed away the horrors of the monastery, had tried to isolate and exterminate them in the darkest corners of his mind, but Alyssa’s corpse, her resolution, had drawn the memories from the deepest recesses in his brain, and he wept not for sorrow but for shame: he had tried to forget her, had tried to forget what they had done to her, had become so wrapped up in the cocoon of his own life that he didn’t even talk to her when they reached the church. Now he weeps, his penance before the cross, and Rachel pulls him close to her, and he cries into her shoulder as the throng departs, two men carrying the body into the foyer. Her body will be thrown into the street the next morning, and by nightfall there will be nothing left.

Several days have passed, and life is getting back to normal in the church. Mark is befriending the others his age. He continues to visit the man, to see how he is doing. He spends considerable hours at the man’s bedside, and the man continuously asks Mark to return to the house to get his journals. The overseer of the church, the man who had lost his daughter to the savagery of the new world, a man named James Harker, refuses to let the boy go alone, especially since it is uncharted territory: no one from the church has been on the west-side of Cincinnati since the plague struck. Mark tells the man that he will go once the snow melts, but the man asks for him to go every day. Oftentimes the man will act like Mark is a burden, but the boy knows that the man cherishes the visits. Mark had not gone to the man’s bedside one evening, and the man had thrown a fit. Mark found it funny, but he quickly apologized. A bond had formed between the two, something the man would never admit. Harker made it a required duty for every able person to attend the breakfast, lunch, and dinner meals, and he politely asked that everyone be in bed by a certain time at night. At first Mark didn’t understand the man’s seeming want of control over everything, but after more conversations with him, Mark began to understand. Those within the church were grieving, and the wounds were not yet beginning to heal. They could be ripped open at any moment and by any means, and Harker had experienced this for himself: a certain scent, a brief memory, anything and everything would send him over the edge, and his dreams were filled with haunting echoes of his daughter crawling around the church, lips dripping with blood. The meals helped the people bond together, and friendships formed, deep friendships with confidence and sharing. He insisted on set bedtimes so that people would be forced to sleep: no one escaped the nightmares, though some experienced them even more intensely—one woman screamed nearly every night, locked in an imaginary battle of dark-walkers in a horrifying night-terror. Exhausted individuals would hallucinate and often do crazy things—things that jeopardized not only themselves but also the community as a whole. Everyone helped with the cleaning of the church, the disposal of waste from the bathrooms, with the gathering of water from the snow outside and the cooking of the meals. The meal supplies were dwindling, and soon a few men would be sent out for supplies, and Mark had wanted to go. But the man had been adamant: Mark was too young.