Dwellers of the Night: The Complete Collection (65 page)

Anthony Barnhart

Dwellers of the Night

300

Katie shakes her head. “Who can tell? We’ll never know, really.”

“Unless we become one of them.”

“I don’t plan on getting bitten.” She raps her knuckles on the bleacher. “Knock on wood.”

“That’s aluminum.”

“It has the same effect.”

Sarah is quiet for a time. “I wonder if they’re just animals. You know? I mean, what if being one of… them… is like being a crocodile or an alligator, or some other kind of predator? What if they’ve just been totally handed-off to the realm of the primal that there’s no semblance within them of who they were before? What if when the disease struck, it completely contaminated their brains and eradicated everything that held any resemblance to being… human? What if they’re just a bunch of animals? Mark told me that they act like birds. He’s right. You’ve seen it: they flock together, they work together. Some people are worried that this means they’re smart. But I don’t think they’re smart. Are birds smart when they migrate south? Are birds smart when they build a nest? No. They’re animals, and it’s in their nature. Besides… If these dark-walkers were really
that
smart, they wouldn’t have stayed here during the winter. They would have moved south, where it’s warmer…

That way, they wouldn’t have so many of their dead lying around.” When the snow had melted, it revealed countless skeletons from where dark-walkers had succumbed to the cold. Many of the bones had been gnawed by the ones who had turned to cannibalism to survive the wintry onslaught.

“Maybe you’re right,” Katie says. “Maybe they are animals. And
just
animals.”

Someone blows a whistle below them, and the men huddle together, arguing.

“Or what if,” Sarah says, “they’re
not
animals? What if the disease has hijacked their brains, and it’s making them act out-of-character? I read this book once, back when I was a kid, and in the book, there was this alien species that invaded people’s minds. It took over their brains. The aliens made the people act normal—engage in daily activities, continue in friendship with others, stuff like that. But the people were caged in their own minds—screaming and hollering, weeping, trying to get out of the prison, but unable to do so. They became mere spectators, watching through their own eyes and feeling their muscles move as they walked, talked, slept, laughed and loved.” She looks over at Katie, seriousness etched over her face. “What if it’s the same with the sick? What if the disease has taken over, and they are forced to watch as they do horrible, ghastly things? What if they see what the disease sees, feel their muscles moving under the power of the disease, and can only watch as they attack the living, can only cry in the prison of their mind over what they’ve become?”

There is silence for a moment.

A few raindrops begin to fall, the clouds gaping above.

Katie takes a deep breath. “I hope they’re animals.” She looks over at Sarah. “That will make it easier to kill them if it ever comes to that.”

When Anthony discovered the man was going to BARNES & NOBLE the next day, he was adamant to go along: not simply to get out of the church, but to find some good books to pass the time. Now the man is sitting in the café, a UNITED STATES WORLD ATLAS spread out before him on the round table, a heavy, leather-bound volume he had grabbed from a shelf beside the front desk. He had also taken a rolled-up world map in a plastic case from a bucket with a SALE sign near the entrance, and it sits on the floor beside him. Anthony is walking down the aisles, filling a small handheld basket with books. Science Fiction. Fantasy. Horror. Romance. He seemed to love them all. As they had entered the store, Anthony had spotted a book sitting on the Bargain table.

“Check this out,” Anthony had said, picking it up. “I read this when I was in high school.” He read the cover: “I Am Legend. By Richard Matheson. It was about a malaria virus transmitted by Anthony Barnhart

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mosquitoes. It turned everyone into vampires. The main character, he had endured a bout with malaria back in the Vietnam War, and he was immune. It’s his story of survival.” He pondered for a moment, said, “I wonder if one day, when the dark-walkers are gone, and the world is recovering, if novels will be written on what happened? They’ll try to convey the sense of what had happened, but they’ll ultimately fail. Because what we’re experiencing… It can’t be put into words.”

“How does the book end?” the man had asked.

“The vampires are primitive at first, but they form their own societies. They cover themselves with special makeup to enable themselves to survive in the sunlight. They form governments, raise children. They capture the main character and execute him. The ironic thing is, the main character is terrified of the vampires… But the vampires are terrified even more of
him
. He was a testament to the old world, and it was something they feared.”

It takes him nearly thirty minutes, but he is able to trace a route from Cincinnati to the small town of Ketchikan, Alaska. The man has never been there, but Anthony had been there once on a cruise, and he spoke of Alaska often. He spoke of Alaska as a place that was remote and along the coast, and there were countless islands off the shoreline. He had told them about a town, called Ketchikan, and walking along a boatyard filled with fishing trawlers, floatplanes, motorboats. A small town. The man can’t imagine there would be many dark-walkers there. He traces the route in a yellow highlighter, and on the back cover estimates the distance. He sits back, takes a deep breath.
Nearly
3000 miles
. With a straight drive, it would take approximately three days. But he knows he’ll have to stop every afternoon and fortify a place to stay for the night. He closes the book and looks out at the city. It is almost surreal, knowing he is going to be leaving in less than a week, but excitement floods through his veins, and he finds his hands shaking in anticipation.
Less than a week isn’t soon enough
. He knows he still has to convince Mark. Everyone else is in the dark about his plans, but he wants Mark to go along. He doesn’t want to do this alone. He gathers the books and stands, preparing to find Anthony. It is time to leave.

That’s when he hears the scream.

She stands before him, and Anthony is pinned against one of the front windows on the upper level of the store. The basket of books is scattered over the floor, and he watches her approach. She stands in the shadows, unable to come any closer. He had been in a remote corner of the store, away from windows, and she had snapped at him from her position on the floor. He had run screaming. Now he looks at her, sees her emaciated form, the tattered and ragged STARBUCKS uniform draping her body like a veil. Her face is torn up, dried over with blood, and her teeth are falling out. She watches him, eyes aflame with thirst. He is pinned, cannot move in any direction.
Shit.

Shit.

Shit.

He looks around for a weapon, but he is surrounded only by books with dust-covered spines. Suddenly the creature with the reddish, knotted hair turns around, and she takes off into the shadows bare-foot.

The man hears her approach. He draws the KA-BAR from his belt. He hears Anthony shouting, screaming out his name. He closes his eyes, hears the footsteps growing louder. When he opens them, he can see her fifteen feet away, charging right at him. He braces himself for the impact, sweaty fingers gripping the handle of the knife. She leaps through the air, arms outstretched, like some foreign lizard lunging at its prey. He quickly side-steps, and as she passes, he grabs her hair and Anthony Barnhart

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swings her around. She snaps at his wrist, but he twists her head to the side, and he draws the knife across her throat. Blood sprays onto a bookshelf, and the creature struggles, thrashing; her eyes go chalky pale, and in a moment he releases her hair from his grip. She falls onto the floor, blood gurgling slowly from her slit throat, soaking her work shirt. He wipes the blood on the blade onto his pants, returns the knife to its leather sheath. Anthony appears behind him, sees the figure bleeding all over the carpet. He turns and buckles over, vomiting onto the floor. The man glares at him. “You’re going to get me fucking killed.”

“I didn’t know,” Anthony says, wiping bile from the corners of his mouth.

“It doesn’t matter. Had I not been here, you would have been dead.”

“Who do you… Who do you think she was?”

The man turns his eyes back to the girl. “I don’t know,” he lies. He remembers her name:
Michelle
.

And he remembers carrying his aviation books under his arm.

And he remembers chatting with her as she made his coffee.

And he remembers pretending he was single.

And he remembers never telling Kira anything.

The man says, “It doesn’t matter who she is. Come on. Let’s go.”

II

Adrian and Katie sit in the sanctuary. It is near the middle of the night. Katie had heard Adrian leave his bedroom, and she followed him into the sanctuary. She stood in the shadows for a time, then sat beside him. He tried to hide the tears, putting on a mask of stoicism. Before she can even speak, he says, “There was an article I read a few years ago. It was in a NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE. It was about love. I’ll always remember the first sentence. ‘Scientists say that the brain chemistry of infatuation is akin to mental illness—which gives new meaning to “madly in love.”’ It was about this scientist, Dr. Fisher, who had devoted her life to the study of lust, love, and infatuation. She had been looking at love through the telescopes on an MRI machine. When she began these studies, she had volunteers who were ‘madly in love’ with someone; she put them inside the MRI machine, showed them a picture of a neutral object followed by a picture of their loved one. Whenever the picture of the loved one was shown, the brain went wild. The parts of the brain linked with reward and pleasure—the ventral tegmental area and the caudate nucleus—lit up like fireworks. So she discovered that the chemicals involved in love ignited the caudate nucleus, in which resides a thick spread of receptors for dopamine. Dopamine is known for creating energy, exhilaration, focused attention, and motivation. The chemicals involved in love excite the dopamine, which brings an even greater intensity of energy, exhilaration, and the like. So love is just a natural high in your body. Borderline mental illness.”

Katie says nothing.

Adrian continues: “So I have to ask myself, ‘Did I really love Rachel?’ Or did her presence just ignite brain chemicals that made me feel happier and more energized? If Fisher is right, then love is selfish: it’s latching onto someone for the benefit of increased pleasure chemicals in the brain.”

“Adrian…”

“Romantic relationships begin with infatuation. Right? We are attracted to someone’s personality or the way they fit into their clothes. That’s how relationships are born. It’s just infatuation. We throw the word ‘love’ around like pixie-stick candy and treat it like it’s something Anthony Barnhart

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we’re ‘in’. But infatuation isn’t love. It’s just a way of seeking your own self-interest. ‘This person makes me happy. This person makes me feel good. This person really cares about me.’ Infatuation is directed inwards to the self, not outward to the other. We search for security, closure, and happiness in the other person. But, eventually, infatuation dies. When infatuation dies, relationships die. Breakups. Divorce. ‘I’m not in love with you anymore,’ my first girlfriend told me. She didn’t want to work things through. She wanted to end it. Love was a joke. She never loved me in the first place. She was infatuated with me. When her infatuation died, so did her desire to be with me. When infatuation dies, relationships can take one of either two routes: death or rebirth. The relationship can expire, fizzle, decay, dissolve. Or that relationship can evolve into something more beautiful, more extravagant, more wonderful. Infatuation is the caterpillar in the cocoon, and love is the exotic butterfly it becomes once it bursts out of its shell. The infatuation dies, and love begins to grow. But…

with me and Rachel… I was just infatuated. I didn’t love her. Not yet. We just enjoyed how we made each other feel. And when she leapt from that roof, she proved that she didn’t love me. She was just looking out for herself.”

She slapped him across the face. He was totally unprepared, and now he reaches up, feels his cheek stinging and burning. Her eyes glower like embers in a fire, and she growls, “Don’t you
ever
talk like that again. Do you hear me? When you talk like that, you cheapen what you and Rachel had. You turn something beautiful into garbage.” She is silent for a moment, and Adrian says nothing.

“Yes, Adrian: love includes contentment, happiness, lust, the need for companionship. These are offshoots of love. What love is… It’s something that cannot be put into words very easily. Love is a series of emotions, that when combined, result in the greatest feeling that you will ever know. Waking up next to that special someone, snuggling with her for hours. Looking into her eyes and seeing and feeling absolute joy. Knowing that if you had a split-second to choose one moment in your life to spend the rest of eternity, it would be that one. Love is knowing you will always have that person. The shit can hit the fan, but the most important part of your life—her—still remains. You do everything for her, as long as she’s happy. Love, Adrian… It’s not something you can give a definition to. It’s an elusive animal that resists all forms of accurate description. But it is unique in that it will reveal all when the time is right.”

She is quiet for a moment. “You may doubt your love for Rachel… But love itself is undeniable. All my life I’ve searched for love, and I’ve found it in the most unexpected places.” She takes a deep breath, and she begins to tell her story.

III

“I blame myself for everything,” she says. “It’s my way of responsibility, for various reasons the way I was raised screwed me up. My mom didn’t beat me. My dad didn’t beat my mom. I lived in a Christian home. So much good that did for me. I was molested as a child, probably by my uncle. My mom got herpes in the middle of her ‘faithful’ marriage to my father, and after he died she found out he molested his step daughter years ago before he was a Christian. My mother never had her parents talk to her about anything, and so she rarely explained anything to me. She went through multiple abortions and had her own guilt complex. She got pregnant at a young aged, abused by the father of her child and nearly everyone after—except for my father. After my father died in a random shooting at a MCDONALD’S, I felt that I had no parents. My mother tried to do everything she could do regain her own life, and I was basically left alone to figure shit out on my own. I lost my virginity as a high Anthony Barnhart