Dwellers of the Night: The Complete Collection (83 page)

“She’s not here,” Mark says.

“Did you expect her to be?”

“No,” Mark replies. “But Katie did.”

“Where is she?”

“She’s in the bedroom. Crying.”

“But of course,” the man sarcastically muses.

“Maybe we should comfort her or something.”

“Good idea,” the man says. “You do that.” He picks up the magazine. “Meanwhile…”

Mark shakes his head and makes his way towards the bedroom, Katie’s cries growing louder.

The bedroom is immaculate. Undisturbed. There is a King-sized bed with white comforters and pillows splayed against the far wall, and upon the other wall is a mounted wide-screen plasma T.V. On the bedside table is a bottle of half-consumed CASTELLA MONACI PRIMITIVO PILUNA bottle of wine, long since oxidized. On the opposite side of the bed, upon another bedside table, are several stillstanding framed photographs of Elizabeth and Katie. Katie sits on the bed, holding one of the pictures, her thumb covered with dust from where she had swiped the plate. Mark stands awkwardly in the doorway.

Katie looks up at him, tears in her eyes. “We used to hold one another on this bed.”

Mark’s mouth is dry, and his tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth. “I’m sorry,” he croaks. She clutches the photograph tightly, looks up at the ceiling.

“I’m sorry,” Mark repeats.

She stares at the far wall. “She’s not here.”

“I know.”

“She always worked late. She was probably working late.”

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Mark doesn’t know what to say, stammers, “If you know where she worked…”

“No,” Katie says. “If she were alive, she would have come back. She felt safe here.”

He glances over at the window, sunlight pouring between the blinds. Katie sets the picture back upon the bedside table. “I was stupid for thinking she was alive.”

Mark takes a breath. “No,” he says. “You weren’t.”

Mark finds the man perusing the books on the shelf in the living room. The man looks over at the boy, says, “Are we ready to go now?”

“She’s fine, thanks for asking,” Mark snaps.

“I didn’t want to come here in the first place.”

“No. But you
did
. You’re a decent human being.” A pause, then, “Maybe.”

“The only reason I came,” the man retorts, “is because I can’t make the trip alone.”

Mark shrugs. “She wants some time alone.”

“How long?”

“I don’t know. She needs to mourn.”

“She can sob her heart out in the car.”

Mark glares at him. “Come on. Let’s give her an hour or two.”

The man curses. “This is fucking ridiculous.”

III

He just needs to get away. Anthony abandons the Explorer, knows that Katie will be alone in the apartment for a few hours. He is irritated, wants to go to Anderson University as soon as possible, wants to find his sister, hopes to find her alive. But he must wait. He must be patient. He must not be selfish—Katie is hurting, and she needs to grieve. But how long does she deserve to grieve? How long must it be until he is given the chance to find his sister—or, likewise, grieve? He abandons the Oregon District and makes his way towards one of the winding rivers. The river is nowhere near as large as the Ohio, and it seems small after seeing for months upon months the Ohio River snaking underneath the Cincinnati-Kentucky bridges. He is frightened of leaving Cincinnati, which is now over fifty miles behind them, and yet excited at the same time. A new fervor has gripped him, a new exhilaration. He wishes that his beautiful sister Amanda will be able to join them on their quest. He knows that Mark’s sister survived—for a while. Maybe Amanda will have survived, too?

Several ruddy ducks frolic in the water. He sits down upon the grassy bank and watches them swim in concentric circles. He thinks this might be the Great Miami. He has only been to Dayton a few times, and only as a child. He came down for a WALK FOR BREAST CANCER with his parents before the plague struck. The path had wound down next to a river, and he sees a path on the opposite bank. There had been a lot more people. Lots of water and pretzel stands. Everyone wearing pink ribbons. “Breast cancer will be the death of us!” they exclaimed. He now finds that statement ironic. Something flutters close to him, dancing in the breeze. It tugs past, and he grabs it from the air. A MILKY WAY candy bar wrapper. He wonders if its devourer had partaken in the delight prior to the plague.
Maybe this little bit of plastic has ridden the winds all the way down from New York Cit?
. He releases the plastic wrapper and watches the wind whisk it into oblivion. Moments pass. The ducks have moved farther downriver. He imagines standing on this bank, fishing with his son. He would teach him how to cast the line, how to watch the bobber, how to tell if Anthony Barnhart

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the bait was getting a bite, how to wrestle with the fish. He would take his son to the big lake by the old house, where Northerns would fight to the death to get free of the hook. The thought brings him momentary happiness, but reality shatters it like a sledgehammer against an antique Chinese vase.
There is nothing to hope for. Your son died with your love. And this world is not a world where hopes and
dreams can be ascertained. You don’t live anymore. You survive
. And then,
A child would just be a burden
. The thought brings tears to his eyes, and he doesn’t dare bat them away as the sun reaches its zenith in the cerulean sky.

The Oregon District is right next to downtown Dayton, and the man walks down the abandoned roads, his legs the only things moving in the cool spring afternoon. Dayton’s streets are broad and straight; they had been designed that way early in the city’s history because it served as a vast marketing and shipping center; the streets were built wide to enable wagons, drawn by teams of three or four pairs of oxen, to turn around in the middle of the road. Some of the largest streets were once barge canals flanked by draw-paths.

The towering buildings, mostly economical in design, tower above him, and he is lost in their shadows. He looks inside the front windshield of a police cruiser, can see a skeleton with its skull half-poking through the glass; the front end of the cruiser is smashed into a lamp-post, which is bent and twisted, the lamp hanging awkwardly to the side. He continues walking. He finds himself standing in front of the old courthouse, neoclassical in design. Farther down the road is the new courthouse, complete with a park and several memorials to war veterans. He enters the park and runs his hands over the large barrel of a World War II-era howitzer. He loses track of time as he walks. The BENJAMIN AND MARIAN SCHUSTER PERFORMING ARTS

CENTER at the corner of Second and Main has a large truck ramped up onto the front stone steps; the glass of the theater’s wide windows is shattered, trampled to the ground. The man figures that the plague struck during a play, and when the dead resurrected, they burst out of the theater and flooded the city streets, joining the thousands of others within the confines of Dayton. The theater had been home to the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra and the Dayton Opera. It had been a place for concerts, lectures, traveling Broadway shows, and a hotspot for weddings, receptions, and public events. At the corner of First and Main is the VICTORIA THEATER. He stands in front of the beautiful and weathered building for nearly an hour. It looks as if a day hasn’t passed since its last performance. Kira had dragged him out here once to watch ballet.
Kira
. He pushes her from his mind.
No need to
dwell on the past
.

He notices the sun’s rays refracting off the windows of the skyscrapers. The sun is beginning to set.

He isn’t worried. There are still a few more hours of daylight.

Taking a breath, he leaves the VICTORIA THEATER behind and walks alone in the broad streets.

SLOOPY’S is a karaoke bar along the main strip of the Oregon District. Over the entrance is a large yellow sign with a picture of a long-eared dog clutching a surfboard. On the UPCOMING EVENTS

placard behind one of the main windows, its reads: SATURDAY: GIRL’S NIGHT! 93-CENT COSMOS, APPLETINIS, LONG ISLANDS! SUNDAY: INDOOR CORNHOLE! WEDNESDAY: KARAOKE WITH JOSH! Kyle and Sarah sit out on the patio, underneath an umbrella sprouting from a table. Mark is inside, rummaging through the liquor selection.

“How do you think she’s doing?” Sarah asks.

“I don’t know,” Kyle says.

“Maybe someone should check on her.”

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“Maybe.”

Mark crawls through a window that he had shattered to get inside. “They have some
really
good liquor.”

Kyle asks, “I thought you’re sober now?”

“I just want a shot or two.”

Sarah eyes him. “You were an alcoholic?”

Mark answers swiftly: “A while ago.”

“A few
months
ago,” Kyle corrects.

“I just want a shot or two,” Mark whines. “Sarah? Want anything?”

“No,” Sarah says. “Alcohol isn’t a good idea.”

Mark shrugs and disappears inside.

Kyle leans back in the chair. “Relapse at work. A case study.”

IV

Katie sits alone in the bedroom. The silence is engulfing. Elizabeth had always been a clean-freak. The entire apartment looked as if it had come right out of an article from a home decorating magazine. Katie hasn’t moved from the side of the bed, has just stared at the whitewashed wall, knowing nothing except the blankness and void in her heart. Memories of Elizabeth dance before her mind’s eye: holding her tightly, walking the Oregon District at night, playing chess and taking shots with each knock of a pawn. She remembers how they would lie in bed and fall asleep in one another’s arms, their naked limbs entwined and stomachs touching with each peaceful breath. It was with Elizabeth that she had discovered love was real, and that love was beautiful—even when forbidden. Her mother had disowned her for her choice of sexual orientation, although Katie didn’t view it as a choice: something within her was wired for loving other women, and only in the arms of Elizabeth did she ever feel truly alive. “There is nothing wrong with forbidden love,” Katie had told her mother, in tears; her mother had insisted that her love was a farce, nothing but a delusion. “You’re hurting yourself,” her mother had said; “and you’re going to end up hurting Elizabeth.” Katie didn’t believe her.
I never hurt her
, Katie thinks to herself.
She died too early for me to hurt her
. The pain of her actions tears through her like a knife through rotted fruit. She clutches the photograph of her and Elizabeth, moans behind tear-soaked eyes, “I always loved you… I always loved you… I always loved you…” The tears swell behind her eyes, and she remembers one of the last conversations they ever had.

∑Ω∑

They had lied together, coiled as one underneath the sheets. Their hearts spun in their chests, their bodies wracked and weak. Moonlight poured through the window, the city lights of downtown twinkling. Cars honked somewhere in the distance. Sirens wailed. Elizabeth lied on her right side, facing the window; Katie spooned up behind her, her twin breasts touching Elizabeth’s shoulderblades. Her one arm was underneath Elizabeth’s head, and the other wrapped around Elizabeth’s left side, and they held one another’s hands. The warmth from Elizabeth’s body created an ethereal cocoon around Katie, provoking contemplations, both daring and violent.

“What do you think will happen to us?” she asked.

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Elizabeth didn’t answer for a moment, then, “What do you mean?”

“The two of us,” Katie said. “What do you think will happen?”

Elizabeth began stroking Katie’s fingers. “Do you love me?”

“Yes,” Katie said. “But you know that.”

“Do you think I love you?”

Katie’s heart fluttered for a moment. “Do you?”

“Yeah,” Elizabeth replied matter-of-factly. “I love you.”

“Okay,” she said, relieved.

“You know what, Katie? People who love one another stay together.”

“But it doesn’t always work out that way,” Katie said.

“Are you afraid I’m going to leave you?”

“No.”

“Are you afraid I’m going to cheat on you?”

A brief silence.

Elizabeth rolled over, faced her girlfriend. “Katie.” She reached out, stroked Katie’s cheeks with her delicate fingertips. “You know that I love you. We’ve been together for a while now. Do you remember when we first met? We decided we weren’t going to be sexual, because we wanted our relationship to be more than that. And do you remember how it felt to hold one another naked for the first time, to explore one another, to discover one another?” She wrapped one of her legs around Katie’s waist, pulled her close. Katie rested her head on Elizabeth’s bare breast, said that she remembered. “That first day at that resort on the beach, that first day with you, was perfect,”

Elizabeth said. “It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever experienced. And do you know why?” She knew Katie would not give a reply; she kissed Katie’s sweat-soaked hair, said, “It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever experienced because it was with the most beautiful girl, inside and out, whom I’ve ever met:
you
.” She took a breath, drawing in Katie’s sweet, dreamlike scent. “I’m never
ever
going to cheat on you. You’re the girl I love. And we’re going to be together until we get old and wrinkly—and then we will sleep eternally beside one another’s grave.”

∑Ω∑

Katie’s hands are shaking.

It was on this very bed that they had held one another.

Upon this very bed that they last spoke.

They had fallen asleep together.

When Katie awoke, Elizabeth was gone, off to work.

Katie gathered her things, got into her car, and drove back down to Cincinnati. Elizabeth’s words ring over and over in her mind:
I’m never
ever
going to cheat on you
. Katie falls back onto the bed, and her chest heaves with each violent and vicious sob.