Dwellers of the Night: The Complete Collection (48 page)

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people in August—whether a germ, or a virus, or something never-before-seen—has simply rendered them sick. Sick with a myriad of violent symptoms. And sick people without food die. Sick people, without warmth, die. We’ve seen what you’ve seen: they’re starving and turning upon one another in mad feeding frenzies. We’ve found their bodies lying in the snow, purple and swollen, frostbitten and thawed.” Harker nods, his mind turning cartwheels. “Here’s the truth of the matter.” Now he looks at the man, his eyes cold as stones yet alight with a hopeful flame. “These creatures will die. And when that happens, we’ll be free to leave hiding. We’ll rebuild our lives.”

There is quiet for a long moment. Just the two men standing alone. And the skulls of the skeletons smiling at them candidly.

The man finally speaks. “You don’t seem to buy much into God.”

“Have I any reason to?” Harker asks. “I used to. But then I saw what happened. And I tried to believe, I really
tried
to believe that He was real, that He cared. But then my daughter was taken from me. It was then that I knew: God isn’t real. And if He is, then He doesn’t care. And an uncaring God is not a God who should be worshipped. I’m not a pretender. I’m not buying into those cheap fairytales they taught us in Sunday School. No. There is no God, no purpose, no divinity. Why are we here? Not because some all-powerful being created us. We’re here because evolution followed its random course, and we were spawned after billions of years of natural selection, adaptation, and speciazation.”

“Then you’ll know,” the man quips, “that with evolution, life finds a way.”

Harker eyes him. “What’s your point?”

“After every mass extinction this planet has experienced, there’s been a rebirth of life, and most of the time, the life is vastly different from that which preceded it. NASA had been telling us for years that an asteroid might be the harbinger of human extinction, giving rise to a new dominating species. But what if NASA was wrong? What if our extinction has come—not by an asteroid, or even by nuclear war, but by this plague? What if the very system of evolution you put your hope into is the very system that will destroy you? What if what we are witnessing here is the end of the Age of Man—and the beginning of the Age of the Dark-Walker?”

Dusk is beginning to settle. Adrian blindfolded her and led her down a corridor. She had giggled in playful anticipation, and her breath had been taken upon discovering a room with a table upon which sat several tall wicker candles burning softly. The table had been set with a variety of dried fruits and steamed vegetables, which Adrian had scavenged from a nearby grocery store that afternoon. They ate quietly in the candlelight. Now the dinner has passed, and they sit across from one another, arms outstretched over the table, hands wrapped warm together. She bites her lips, eyes batting. He is swallowed up in those eyes, and he can feel his own heart beginning to pound. She can tell by his pale face something is on his mind, and she asks him about it.

“There’s something… I want to talk to you about.”

She licks her lips, confused. “Is it something bad?”

“Bad?” he asks. He shakes his head. “No. It’s… good.”

“Okay,” she says.

“I want… I want to get married.”

She doesn’t say anything for a moment, then laughs. “Married?”

He nods, feeling embarrassed at her incredulity.

She realizes he is being serious and wipes the smirk off her face. “You want to get married?”

He nods. “Rachel… You know… I love you. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yeah, Adrian, I know.”

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“And… Well, I’ve always wanted to get married. To the girl I love. And that’s you.”

“Adrian… There’s no one who can marry us. We don’t have any priests.”

“Harker agreed to marry us.”

She sits back in her chair. “He’s not a priest.”

“I know. But… Look. Back at the monastery, I saw what people can become. When civilization is stripped away, we become monsters.
I
don’t want to become a monster, Rachel. I want to be civilized. I want to do things right. I don’t think we should pretend that civilization is still here, we shouldn’t pretend that the rules and regulations of society still apply when no one is around to enforce them. But I don’t want to just throw off that sensibility which makes us human. We didn’t have sex that night last week… And while the reason for not having sex isn’t anything desirable… I’m still glad we didn’t. I want to wait to have sex with you until we’re married.”

She eyes him, trying to piece together his words. “You want to marry me to have sex with me?”

She laughs playfully. “You don’t need to do that. I’ll have sex with you now.”

“It’s not about the sex, Rachel,” Adrian says. “I just want… I love you. And I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to grow old with you.” He squeezes her hand. “You don’t have to answer now, okay? You can think it over, and you can—”

“Yes,” she blurts, a smile spreading across her face.

His voice is hopeful, lit eyes a window into his exuberant soul: “You’ll marry me?”

“Yes,” she says. “I love you, Adrian. And I want to grow old with you, too.”

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Anthony Barnhart

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Chapter Fifteen

Valentine’s Day

(or “Adrian’s Story”)

“Love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.”

- King Solomon (Song of Solomon 8.6)

Adrian stands in the parlor, admiring himself in the mirror. He is alone, the rest of the community gathered in the sanctuary. He turns from side-to-side, head cocked over his shoulder, admiring the way the suit fits around him. He has never worn a suit before, and this is the nicest one they could find at a small wedding outlet in the outskirts of Cincinnati. It’s Italian. ARMANI, he thinks. He tests the cuffs and the buttons, and he wishes he had a rose to slide into the shirt pocket, or at least a handkerchief of some sort. He takes a deep breath, feels his heart sprinting behind his ribs, and he steps back, gazes into the mirror. He is not looking at the same boy he had been when all this began. His face is drawn taught, lines of stress etched along the corners of his lips, the constant work and healthy diet having eradicated much of the gut that had wrapped around him since high school. He looks into his own eyes, reflected back at him, and a crackle of distant thunder carries his mind into the memories of the past he wishes to forget.

∑Ω∑

He had his first sexual experiences with the coming of the first frost in the spring of 2005. He had been fifteen years old. He and some of his friends had discovered the great joy of beer, the excitement of intoxication. They would usually go out into the country fields of Iowa, drinking in abandoned and decrepit barns, away from the fuss of police activity. Word had gotten out about their availability for finding alcohol, and some of the more popular kids from the high school had invited them over to a party one night, as long as they provided the booze. It had been an experience Adrian would never forget: he had needed to go to the bathroom, pushed open the door, and found two seniors having sex. He tried the upstairs bathroom to find that it was occupied as well. He ended up taking a leak outside in the bitter Iowa cold, pissing on dried-out corn stalks. Everyone hit the vodka pretty hard, and his friend Matt had been lying in the front garden, vomiting all over the flower bed. Most of the other guys and girls were out watching him, laughing. Adrian had watched from the large bay window, rooted in a drunken stupor, as some of the older boys kicked Matt in the sides before hauling him to his feet—only in time for him to wrench away and continue drenching the flamingo lawn ornaments. Nearly everyone went outside to play the game with Matt, but Adrian had stayed inside because of the cold. He wasn’t alone: one of his other friends, Alec, had brought one of his many girlfriends, and she was sprawled out on the couch, head nodding back and forth, eyes glazed. She was an odd-looking girl named Catherine, and she had bulging eyes like that of a guppy and no social skills whatsoever. She’d already downed a couple shots of vodka and was passed out on the sofa. Adrian’s heart began to pound,

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and he was drunk,

and

they

were

alone.

He stumbled over to the sofa and sat down beside her. He reached out, took her by the arm, gently shook. “Catherine,” he said in a slurred whisper. “Catherine. Can you hear me? Are you awake?” She groaned. He reached out and touched her cheek. She had gone a bit gray, didn’t look too well, but her cheek was warm and the skin soft. He traced little circles around the side of her face, stroking the soft downy hair next to her ear. He ran his fingers through her hair, the warmth from her scalp tickling his fingers. He drew a deep breath and put his hand between her legs, sad that he could not feel anything through the fabric of her trousers and underwear.
You’re just an innocent, lonely fool
who’s going to kiss an unconscious girl. What harm is there in that?
His mind played devil’s advocate, but he didn’t protest.

He glanced towards the window, saw that people had abandoned Matt, leaving him alone to crawl around in his own filth. Most of the boys and girls stood out on the front lawn, smoking cigarettes. Adrian turned back to the girl on the sofa and reached for her chest. Her small breasts felt strangely flabby; he had expected them to feel firm. But he squeezed them from outside her shirt and pushed them from side-to-side through her clothes. It didn’t feel quite as satisfying as he had hoped, so he changed his position, reaching underneath her shirt.

He felt breasts for the first time.

It’s like touching a baby’s butt that has been wrapped in a satin curtain
. He drew a deep breath and inched his other hand towards the zipper of her jeans. The brilliant light blinded him, and for a moment he forgot the girl. He raised his hand to shield the light, and when his eyes adjusted, he could see flashing red-and-blue lights shining through the bay window. He leapt up from the couch and scurried up the stairs, pushing a couple in his way against the wall as he dove under the bed. He hid there for the rest of the night, only to find out later that the ambulance had come for Matt, taking him to the hospital to look after him. He had found Catherine the next morning.

She didn’t remember anything.

All he felt was shame for what he had done… and sadness at how unsatisfying it had been.

∑Ω∑

He had met her his freshman year at college. A stunningly beautiful girl, who dressed simply. Some joked, saying she was a Mennonite. He was drawn to her immediately, and a friendship had been forged. It was not long before they shared their first kiss under Iowa’s famous starry nights, and during the summer after his freshman year, they would take long drives through the cornfields that stretched for miles, sometimes stopping to dress scarecrows in girl clothing. She had been quite adamant that she did not want to have sex until marriage, and he wondered then if she truly
was
a Mennonite. But he obeyed her wishes, didn’t press the matter. She thanked him for it—if not verbally, at least secretly, in the way she cherished him and doted upon him, buying him a different stuffed animal nearly every week. She would even order stuffed animal sea turtles over the internet; he had never been to an aquarium, had never seen a sea turtle, but had fallen in love with them after watching Pixar’s FINDING NEMO. When sophomore year rolled around, they continued seeing each other every day, and they began making plans for the four-day Fall Break weekend. Both were feeling quite confined on the small campus and wanted to explore uncharted territory (though, for Adrian, uncharted territory included Kristen’s body).

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∑Ω∑

He stands at the front of the sanctuary, Harker behind him. The sanctuary is lit with dozens of candles and oil-lanterns, the sunlight from outside unable to shine through the boarded-up windows. The door from the parlor opens, and those gathered in the pews turn their heads to watch as she emerges. The white wedding dress swirls around her slender legs, and she clutches a bouquet of flowers as she slowly makes her way down the aisle. The only sound is that of gentle rolling thunder, the warm front carrying with it rain, but the thunder itself serves as the music for the ceremony. She makes her way towards him, and he is swallowed up in her eyes. His heart burns for her, and he feels a tear cresting at the corner of his eye. He draws a deep breath, closes his eyes.

∑Ω∑

The leaves were just beginning to turn on the trees when they sat out on the coffeehouse patio in late September. They were sipping hot chocolate and discussing what they could do. He mentioned going to the Appalachian mountains, but she said, “Oh, it’s going to be
so
crowded. I hate crowds.” He agreed; he hated amusement parks because of the ridiculously long lines. He remembered something he was supposed to do his Senior year in High School but had never come through: “How about Amish country? They’re never crowded.”

Kristen raised her eyes. “Amish country?”

“In Pennsylvania. We could go for a few days.”

“What does someone actually
do
in Amish country?”

“You’re the Mennonite, you should know.”

She playfully slapped him. “Seriously, Adrian. What’s there to do in Amish country?”

“That’s the beautiful part,” he said with a grin. “Absolutely nothing. It’d paradise central. All the cares and worries and anxieties of the world go down the tubes. All one knows is country fried steak, okra and mashed potatoes, and beautiful fall sunsets. I think it sounds fun.”

She shrugged. “Well, even if it gets boring, it’d be better than being bored here.”

So a week before Fall Break they began getting things together. They each had enough money to provide for gas and food, and they stocked up on some canned goods at the local Kroger. They decided to take her little Escort to save on gas. Adrian got online and booked three different motels for three different nights.