The Dark Knight (Apocalypse Weird 2) (2 page)

“My moms made Rice-a-Roni,” muttered Ritter.  Then added,
“When she felt like it.”

Holiday tried to remember something someone who’d loved him
had cooked for him.  But he couldn’t.  He couldn’t remember the dish or the someone.

Silence.

“Pasta Aglio e Olio is the best,” continued Frank.  “It’s
real simple.  It’s just cooked pasta, olive oil, good olive oil, red pepper
flakes, fresh garlic, and chopped parsley.”

“Sounds boring,” announced Ritter. 

“Yeah,” replied Frank.  “It does, but you see that’s the
thing, kid, it’s probably the most comforting dish you’ll ever have.  You come
home on a cold night in Chicago and make that, and whatever the world tried to
do to you doesn’t matter so much.  Hell even the...  But I left one thing out.”

No one said anything.

“You see, the dish comes together all at once.  The red
pepper flakes, the garlic, the parsley, good olive oil, all of it goes in the
pan at the last minute.  You even turn off the heat after you put the pasta
in.  Then, and this is my secret and there are certain people from certain
families of certain persuasions that if they knew this next step, they’d throw
you out forever... well that’s not important, but this is my little secret. 
Parmesan.  You grate up a nice amount of it and fold it into the hot pasta just
after you add the rest of the ingredients.  Then serve.  Then, life... and all
the madness, it ain’t so bad for just a little while.”

No one said anything.

The crow from down the street barked again and each of them
thought of the dead.  Each of them saw more of the dead at the gate to the
complex.  The flimsy mesh gate.

“They’re coming,” whispered Candace.

“No!” said Frank firmly.  “They’re not coming.  We’re safe. 
Pasta Aglio e Olio.”

Everyone waited.

“Pasta Aglio e Olio,” Frank whispered again to himself. 
Only those sitting near him could hear him barely whisper, “Make it all
better.”

The darkness began to lift.

“I can see something,” whispered Holiday.

Then...

“Hey... wait... me too,” said Ash.  “I can see...
something...”

The others waited.  Dante grumbled that he still couldn’t
see “nuthin’”.

“Open your eyes,” suggested Ritter sarcastically.

“My eyes are open!” shouted Dante.  “And I can’t... wait a
sec... I see shadows!  I see shapes... like everything’s under water in a dark
pool.”

“Pasta Aglio e Olio,” whispered Frank again.

An hour later, waiting, resting, listening to Frank again
and again repeat the name of his secret dish, imagining what it would be like
to taste good comfort food again, finally, the darkness was gone.

“That was something,” muttered Ritter as they all began to
get up from the street.  In the distance, the crow, watching from atop the
light post, called again as though it were accusing them of something horrible,
then it leapt into the air, beating its wings in a dry leathery flap as it
climbed off and into the hot sun and murky haze.

TheBlindness.com

“I couldn’t believe what they didn’t see.”

-Dr. Midnite

The work of castle-building began in
earnest the next day.  The day of blindness had come and gone.  The night had
passed and the fog that had come up in it, suddenly and from everywhere, was
gone now, too. 

The survivors knew that each day might be their last.  Frank
fed them.  They locked themselves away at night, inside vacant townhomes along
the street.  Waiting until dawn.  Most were asleep by the time the western sky
surrendered to the blue of early evening. 

Others watched the night throughout its length.  Watched its
clarity become obscured by the swirling mist rising.  And in time, everything
lay under a thick blanket of immense cottony quiet.  Holiday stepped out onto
his front steps, feeling the misty night and the garden cool on his sun-parched
skin.

The foggy street and the orange light thrown from the
streetlamps beckoned him into its undulating nothingness, promising him a
drink, as much as he could drink, somewhere within its emptiness.  He could
walk away again, he thought to himself.  He could walk away from Frank and Ash
and the newcomers and never return.

He’d barely escaped with his life the last time.  He’d
rescued four other survivors almost by accident, shooting one in the process. 
That had been a long day of surprises, capped by emergency field surgery and
jury-rigged blood donation.  But the biggest surprise had come from Ash.  Ash
was a doctor.  A surgeon actually, she’d told them all in that stunned moment
of silence as Skully, the kid Holiday had accidentally shot during the rescue
attempt, bled out in the back of the butterscotch and gore-spattered Cutlass
Sierra.

Dying.

She’d saved the kid’s life and when it was all done she’d
slapped Holiday straight across the face and walked away.

And Frank...

The bottle was still where Frank had set it that night.  At
the bottom of the steps that led up to Holiday’s townhome.

“I can take it,” Holiday said to no one in the garden
quiet.  “And just go off and...”

He felt his body tense.  Tense to bend down and touch the
bottle.  And to touch the bottle was to pick it up. 

“... to pick it up... and if you pick it up,” he told
himself.  Well, you know what happens next.  The cap with the paper seal...
comes off... and the fumes inside hit and...

... game on.

He tore his eyes away from the bottle and watched the
night.  He remembered the thing that had walked through the fog on that last
night when it had just been he and Ash and Frank enjoying port and cigars. 
Whatever it was, that thing that moved through the fog above them, it had been
gigantic.  The footprint alone, the one that made a deep impression in the
burnt-out remains of the avocado orchard, had been enough for Holiday to lie
down in, crossways.  Frank had said the footprint was like something from the
“outer dark” and that had struck Holiday as odd... and even somehow, true.

Holiday’s eyes had fallen again to the bottle Frank had left
for him.

He had a problem. 

Maybe, he told himself.

Or maybe other people had a problem with his drinking. 
Frank said they were counting him out.  Had counted him out and then he’d left
the bottle for Holiday to destroy himself with.

It was still there.  Waiting.

The fog swirled across the silence of the night.

And maybe it was something about that swirling fog and
Frank’s “outer dark” comment and the feeling of a deep without a bottom that
caused Holiday to turn back toward the front door and step within his
townhome.  He quickly shut the door behind himself, feeling that the fog had
suddenly come closer and nearer in that instant and that it wanted to... touch
him.

He told himself he’d gone inside because he didn’t want to
drink.  He even believed it once he’d said it.  But in truth, as he lay in bed
and listened to the night, watching the light make shadows along the wall, it
was more about the fog and the “outer dark” than the bottle waiting on the front
steps.

By early morning the fog began to disappear, withering in
the blinding sunlight.  One by one, all but Skully came out onto the street
again.

Frank had set up a folding table near the kiddie park. He
had several thermos’ full of coffee and a few rolls set out.  Mugs of different
stamp and color completed the snack selection on the table.  There were also
yellow legal pads and pens.

Holiday took a mug that had
San Giorgio
written
across its face and poured some coffee into it, getting a blond version of the
black he usually preferred.

“I made both,” said Frank watching him.  Frank was clean
shaven, dressed in light work clothes and smiling.  He turned to some notes he
was making, saying nothing else to Holiday, greeting each newcomer as they
arrived in the kiddie park.

Dante.

Candace.

Ritter.

  He handed out the yellow legal pads and told each it was
theirs to keep and to make any notes they might need.  He also gave them a pen.

Within an hour, they’d all assembled save Ash and Skully. 
Ash had made a brief appearance, pouring coffee and speaking in hushed tones
with Frank.  Then she turned and went back to Frank’s townhome.  If she’d
noticed Holiday, it didn’t show.

“Welcome everybody.  First, I’d like to start fresh.  I
imagine the medical emergency that was occurring when we all first met, and
then not being able to see there for a little while yesterday, might have made
introductions difficult so... I’m Frank,” He looked at Candace, Ritter, and
Dante. 

“Woah, this like AA or somethin’?,” asked Ritter.  “Cause I
ain’t got no problems.  It’s medicinal.  I gotta scrip.” 

Frank smiled patiently.

“Jes’ kiddin’, hoss.” Ritter laughed.  His laugh was dry and
tired, almost soundless.  No one else joined in.

“In a way, you’re right, son,” said Frank.  Ritter’s eyes
went momentarily wide at the word “son”.  But Frank continued.  “We’re all here
because we have a problem.”

Frank paused.  He looked at each of them, making eye
contact.  Checking for some quality.  Examining what he found within. 
Withholding judgment.

“Our problem is that it looks like, for all intents and
purposes, civilization may have just folded and gotten up from the table in
light of... well, in light of the zombies.  To tell you the truth, I don’t know
what those things are.  Maybe they’re just really sick people.  Some virus.  A
terrorist attack even, I don’t know, we’ll let Stephen King figure it out. 
Whatever it is, they are antithetical to life.”

He paused and took a drink from his mug.

“I for one would like to go on living and my guess is, if
you’re here, you made that same choice once everything went to hell in a
handbasket last week.  Yeah, that’s how long it’s been.  A little over a week
and no emergency services, national guard, army or marines.”

No one said anything.  Candace, wearing jeans and a flannel
shirt shifted uncomfortably.  Her power suit was gone.

“So that means we’ll need to take care of ourselves for the
foreseeable future,” continued Frank after setting his mug down.  “And that’s
why we’re here.  All of us, together, are going to decide how to take care of
each other.  So that’s the first of many votes we’re going to take.  If you
want to take care of each other and try to make it through whatever this is...
then raise your hand.  If you don’t, don’t.  You can take a day to get some
supplies and we’ll do our best to help you, then head on out of here and go
wherever it is you think is better.  Sound fair?  So let’s vote.  Right now. 
Everybody in favor of taking care of each other, raise your hand.”

At first no one did.  Everyone looked at nothing.  The
ground.  The sky.  A few sidelong glances, seeing if anyone else’s hand had
gone up.  Everyone avoided Frank’s smile.

Candace raised her hand.

Then Dante, watching her, raised his massive paw.

Holiday next.

And finally, with a mumbled, “whatever,” Ritter stuck his
spindly twig in the air.

“Good,” said Frank, acknowledging everyone except Holiday. 
Then, “Good.  Okay, the next vote we need to take is on how we’re going to
survive.  If you’ve got an idea, then now’s the time to raise it.  So let’s
hear it, people, whaddya got?”

No one said anything.

“What about the Marine Base at Pendleton?” asked Candace.

“I thought about that,” said Frank.  “I was a marine back in
‘Nam.  Seventy-three.  But that means we’d have to fight our way down to the 5
south and through the rest of Southern Orange County and then on down to the
base at the tip of San Diego.  That’s a lot of road, through hostile country, I
might add.  And we don’t have a lot of weapons.”

“How do you know it’s hostile?” shot Dante, his bark
breaking the morning calm.  “How do you know that, man?”

“I don’t, son,” said Frank. 

“The marines aren’t controlling anything,” interrupted
Ritter.  “They got lotsa helicopters.  But they ain’t flying patrols or looking
for survivors.  That means they aren’t even interested in getting all up into
Southern Orange County.  Now, the OC is nothing but neighborhood after
neighborhood of housing tracts.  It’s a bedroom community.  People down here
tend to have medium to large families or, down in the barrio, you might have
several families to a house.  Last time I checked, the local population was
pushing two million.  If that infection is running wild, and it looks like it
is, we have to assume a high percentage of that two million are now infected
zekes... I mean zombies.  Those bedroom communities are perfect breeding
grounds for the infection.  The initial infection probably progressed
relatively fast.  Still, there may have been some holdouts.  Other survivors
barricading themselves in secure locations like hospitals and malls.  Stuff
like that.  As those locations fall, which they will, that means the infection
will increase and we’ll see more zekes out and about.”

Everyone stared at Ritter.  His ghetto-speak had disappeared
for a moment.  Then it returned.

“Jes’ sayin’ and all,” Ritter said with a shrug, then looked
off and waved his long hand at nothing.

“So there’s nowhere we can run?” asked Dante to no one as he
threw up his massive hands.  “Nowhere?”  His eyes were wide and his face
twisted into a snarl.  “Man, I can’t believe this!”

“Until we hear something from someone, no,” said Frank after
a small pause.  “There’s nowhere to run to.”

“So then, what are we s’posed to do?” shouted Dante.

Silence.

“Vote on a plan,” replied Frank softly.

“There ain’t no plan!” yelled Dante even louder.

“Not yet, son.  But we’re making one, together.  Right now.”

Silence.

“So,” began Ritter.  “I got a feeling you gots to have a
plan and all, chief.  So rather than asking us a bunch of stupid questions...
why don’t you jes’ tell us what you got in mind.  Then we all vote on it.”

Frank cleared his throat.  “Alright,” he picked up his
yellow legal pad.  He cleared his throat again.  “I suggest we build a castle.”

He stopped.  No one said anything.  What do you say when
someone asks you to build a castle?  Unless you’re with a four year old and
it’s a day at the beach, it isn’t something often discussed in adult world.

“We build a castle to defend ourselves from whatever has
happened out there,” continued Frank.

Then again, the world had ended.  So maybe it was time for
adults to talk about building castles again.

“Like medieval knights and stuff,” said Ritter, his voice
blunt and less sarcastic than usual.

Frank smiled.

“A castle was used for defensive purposes.  To wait out a
siege by an opposing army.  To gather your resources.  To have some place safe
to rest and train.  It’s still something that’s employed by modern armies when
they build an observation post in enemy territory, or what we used to call back
in ‘Nam, a forward base.  Basically it’s a fortified position inside enemy
territory.  That’s how we need to think of everything.”  He waved a knife-edged
hand to encompass the world beyond their circle.  “Out there, until we find
someplace safe to run to, for now, kids, everything out there is enemy
territory.  You go outside that front gate, expect trouble.”

“You got my word on that,” said Ritter.  “It’s cray cray out
there.”  Ritter slouched down in his folding chair and extended his legs while
folding his arms.

“Right,” continued Frank, warming to his argument.  “And you
try to hold out in enemy territory with no safe place to rest, or resupply, and
you might make it a few days, three at the most.  But if you’ve got some walls
to get behind, and some people you can trust and depend on to watch your back,
then you can catch your breath, rest and keep the enemy at bay.”

Dante shot up out of his chair and began to storm off toward
the slide.  A few steps across the green grass and he turned like a bull.  Like
he was going to charge back at Frank.

“You wanna build a damn castle, like at Disneyland?” shouted
Dante.  Candace walked over to the big man and rested her hand on his bulging
shoulder.  Dante shook it off and walked farther away.  “You ain’t the boss
anymore!” he shouted at her.

He sat down at the edge of the park, on a tiny bench,
lowered his massive head into the catcher’s mitts that were his hands and
screamed behind them.  Candace turned away.

For a long moment they listened to Dante sob.

“Yes, Dante,” said Frank softly, kneeling in front of the
black giant.  “That’s exactly what I want to do.  Except... a real castle, not
a make-believe one.”

“And how do we do that?” sobbed Dante from behind his
fingers.

“Well, a lot of it’s already done for us.  This place has
four almost complete walls.”