Darkened

by Bryan Smith

  She was talking now about another aspect of the creeping decay consuming the world, a part so disconcerting they rarely talked about it. The widespread death of plant and animal life could at least be attributed to something understandable, a poison or some other taint from that other world. But how to explain the way all things manmade appeared to be aging at an accelerated rate? Jasmine’s BMW, barely more than a year old, had run as smoothly as it must have the day it came off the assembly line the first time Warren drove it. Now, only days later, its formerly finely-tuned engine was making the kind of coughing and sputtering sounds he’d expect to hear from that of a poorly maintained old junker. The retractable roof was frayed at the edges and the car’s powder blue paint was flaking away. They’d seen much evidence of the same phenomenon in all the blighted cities and townships they’d passed through.

  It was all so odd. And inexplicable. Warren could think of no explanation for the phenomenon that made any rational sense. So he tried to think of potential explanations that didn’t make rational sense, especially ones that challenged or inverted all of his previously held concepts of reality. One theory disturbed him above all others—the possibility that nothing in this world was real. Not himself, not Jasmine, not the decaying world around them. Nothing. Instead everything, the world and all the people he’d ever known, were just fleeting fragments of illusion, phantoms haunting the fever dream of some dying god. That would explain how the substance and shape of the world could have become so malleable. It was the kind of wacko idea stoners entertain when high on really good ganja—and then laugh about.

  But Warren didn’t feel like laughing this time. Screaming, maybe, but not laughing.

  Jasmine’ continued: “What happens when one of us becomes seriously ill? What do we eat if all the canned and processed food of the world goes bad?” She waved at the countryside again. “Do you honestly believe anything will grow in that dead soil?” She looked out the window on her side. “I’ll tell you this, Warren Hatcher. If it gets really bad—if we’re starving to death, if I come down with some horrible illness—I’ll take my life. And if I’m in such bad shape that I can’t even lift a pistol and put it to my head, I’ll want you to do it for me.”

  Warren didn’t say anything at first, but as he thought about it he realized his feelings on the subject very closely mirrored Jasmine’s. “Okay. But only if you’ll promise to do the same for me.”

  Jasmine kept her gaze trained on the countryside, but she said, “Okay.”

  Warren sighed. “I hope it doesn’t come to that.”

  Jasmine didn’t say anything. Warren realized she’d been thinking about this very thing all along. She’d danced around the subject all day, trying to work up the nerve to say what she really needed to say. He knew then she believed there was a dark end ahead for both of them, and that there was nothing they could do about it. He tried to think of something he could say to ease her mind, at least for a little while, but he came up with nothing.

  What he finally did say was, “Do you think there’s a God?”

  “I don’t know.” She looked at him. “What do you think?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know, either. No one can really know a thing like that until they’re dead, I guess, if then. I was raised to believe in a higher power. My parents weren’t religious in the traditional sense. They didn’t require me to adhere to some strict set of beleifs set down by long-dead men. They believed in a Creator, but not one you could identify as Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or whatever. It was just a fuzzy, non-specific belief in a benevolent force somewhere…out there.” He indicated the sky above them by lifting his head. “There’s no hellfire and brimstone in my past. I was always kind of grateful for that. Now…well, now it looks like the prophets of doom were right all along.”

  Jasmine’s eyes narrowed to slits. “So you think this is God’s judgment?”

  Warren shook his head. “I didn’t mean that.” But the idea took root in his head, caused him to explore some theories he might not have considered otherwise. “But…what if it is? I’m just thinking out loud here, so bear with me. This world around us, the road, the passing fields, the stalled cars…this is our reality now. But what if it’s only an illusion? Or what if it’s something else? What if it’s hell?”

  A glint of something that might have been fear sparked in Jasmine’s eyes. “But…that can’t be. Can it? We’re alive.”

  Warren arched an eyebrow. “Are we? Maybe we’re dead and we just don’t know it yet. Maybe we’ve been dead since that first fucking day and everything since then has just been an illusion. Think about it. It would explain all the weird shit. The blighted land. A new car that becomes a mobile wreck almost overnight. Think of all the fucked-up things you’ve seen this last week, Jaz. Tell me how any of it makes sense. Unless, of course, we’re in hell, or some purgatory. Maybe that’s it. Maybe we’re doomed to wander this highway forever, endlessly—”

  “Stop!”

  Jasmine’s eyes were wide and gleaming now. She looked like a terrified animal, a small and helpless creature cornered by a larger predator.

  “You’re scaring me, Warren.”

  He sighed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to. I thought you wanted to talk about this.”

  Her expression softened as some of the tension eased out of her. “I did. Now I don’t. If this is hell or purgatory, there’s nothing we can do about it, no way we can escape it. I don’t want to think about it anymore.”

  “Fair enough.”

  But now Warren couldn’t stop thinking about it. He didn’t believe they were in hell, or even purgatory, but he couldn’t dismiss such notions as irrational or implausible. Not after all they’d seen and experienced. If there could be such things as alternate dimensions coexisting side by side—and the evidence of this was indisputable—then surely there could be such a thing as hell. Or dreaming gods. The only tangible evidence he had that he was still on a mortal plane was the beating of his own heart. And he wasn’t sure he could even trust the reality of that.

  A loud BANG! jolted both of them. Warren stared through the windshield at the hood of the car. “Was that—”

  The sound came again, louder now. Then again. Then the car jerked hard, making them both yelp. The car shuddered violently and began to slow down. Warren half-expected pieces of it to start falling off.

  “Shit!”

  He pounded the steering wheel with a fist and pressed the gas pedal all the way to the floor, but it was no good. The car lost power and began to coast. In a few moments it came to a dead stop in the middle of the road. Warren just sat there for a while with his hands clenched around the wheel, completely incapable at first to comprehend what had happened.

  Then Jasmine sighed. “Car’s dead.”

  Warren shook his head. “How can that be? How—”

  But Jasmine was already opening the door on her side. There was a groan of metal rusted to an impossible degree. She stepped outside and left the door standing open. Warren felt a touch of exasperation, but he immediately realized it was pointless. Why ask how something so inexplicable could happen? There were no answers to be had. So he sighed and pushed a button to trigger the trunk latch. Then he got out of the BMW and stared over the roof at Jasmine. She had put her sunglasses on and was staring at the stretch of road ahead of them.

  She said, “So I guess we’re on foot now.”

  Warren moved to the rear of the car, opened the trunk, and hauled out their bags. “I guess so. I don’t think we’ll find another working vehicle, either.” He laughed humorlessly. “The horseless carriage has been consigned to the ash heap of history.”

  Jasmine joined him at the car’s trunk. She picked up a bag and slung it over her shoulder. “You know how I said I didn’t want to talk about the weird stuff anymore?”

  Warren nodded. “Uh-huh,” he said in a careful tone.

  Her chin angled downward, then lifted again. She was eyeing him up and down. “It’s funny how selective the decay is.
My car aged thirty years in under a week. Our clothes look a little careworn. But you and I, physically, seem unaffected.”

  Warren pursed his lips. “Hmm…”

  He thought again of the slippery nature of dreams, and of a god in the throes of some awful dementia. And he suppressed a shudder.

  Jasmine folded her arms beneath her breasts. “I wonder why.”

  Warren smiled wryly. “Well, look who’s asking the hard questions again. Jeeze, Jasmine, I don’t have a fucking clue the rot isn’t affecting us. I’m just glad it’s not. Christ, I’d hate to have to deal with incontinence or senile dementia on top of all this insanity.”

  “Or any number of other common old age maladies. Erectile dysfunction, for instance.”

  Warren groaned.

  “I’m just teasing you.”

  “I know.” Warren glanced briefly at Jasmine’s feet. “How long can you go in those heels? I hope you’re not planning a hundred-some mile hike in them.”

  Jasmine shrugged. “I’m sure there’ll be an opportunity at some point along the way to avail myself of more appropriate footwear.” She smiled. “Okay, non-sequitur time, and I don’t mean this to be maudlin, but I couldn’t have picked a better companion to travel through this horrible time with. You’re a good man, Warren.”

  Warren suppressed another groan. “That’s sweet of you, Jasmine. But you’re just lucky you didn’t know me before the world went kablooey. I was the quintessential fuck-up. A decent guy, maybe, but a pitiful mess. That’s the unvarnished truth.”

  “Maybe. And maybe your problems in the past were far more superficial than you believed. You’ve been through a trial by fire and you’ve come through it admirably.”

  Warren didn’t know what to say to that. He blushed and averted his gaze. Then he felt her fingers lift his chin. She made him look at her again. She was close enough that he could feel her breath on his face.

  She kissed him.

  He shuddered. And he let the bag he’d been holding fall from his fingers and land on the road. Then he pulled Jasmine Holtz into his arms and kissed her as fervently as he’d ever kissed a woman. She equaled his passion.

  A little while later, they resumed their journey west on foot.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Nashville, TN

  October 1

  3:00 p.m.

  Zeke stepped out of the useless Ford Explorer with a grim expression.

  Mary Lou screamed.

  Again.

  Zeke winced and closed his eyes, the shrill sound rattling his skull like the concussion of a grenade. The sting of her palm whipping across his face made his eyes snap open. He saw the boiling rage in her wide blue eyes and took a step backward. She advanced on him and he held up his hands, but she batted them away and seized a handful of his tattered shirt.

  “Why won’t any of ‘em fuckin’ work!?” Mary Lou’s mouth sprayed spittle as she yelled at him, wetting his face with a fine mist of moisture. She shook him hard and screamed again. “Why, goddammit!?”

  Zeke took hold of her wrists and eased them away from his shirt. He wiped saliva from his face with a shirt sleeve. Then he sighed and scanned the Ford dealership’s parking lot. He saw rows and rows of trucks and cars, some of which were among the newest cars in the world. Next year’s models. Mary Lou had been certain they would find a suitable replacement for Zeke’s dead Lexus here. As certain as she’d been at the previous dealership. And the one before it. Lot after lot filled with new cars that looked ready for the junkyard.

  He threw the Explorer’s door shut and moved away from the car, turning his back on Mary Lou. He sensed her coming at him and tensed. The base of a fist pounded a spot between his shoulder blades and made him stumble forward a few steps.

  “Don’t you walk away from me, asshole!” Her voice grew even more shrill. Zeke wouldn’t have thought it possible. She smacked the back of his head now. “Look at me when I’m talking to you!”

  Zeke turned to face her. “Please stop doing that.”

  Her pretty features twisted, forming a deep scowl that almost made her look ugly. “Say what, motherfucker!? Since when do you get to tell me any fuckin’ thing!?”

  Zeke started to say something, a piece of truth that would only have inflamed her more. A thing he needed to say. Would have to say at some point. But he didn’t feel like dealing with it right now. He hadn’t technically been Mary Lou’s prisoner since that long evening of sex and tears. He was essentially free to go any time he felt like it. But he didn’t want to leave her. It was crazy. She remained as dangerous as she’d ever been, as completely nuts as she’d ever been, but he wanted to stay with her. So he was either desperately afraid of being alone or was just as crazy as she was—he just wasn’t sure which yet.

  He put a hand on her bare shoulder (she still had never put any clothes on). He gave the tensed muscle there a gentle squeeze and was pleased to feel it loosen up beneath his touch. “I’m not telling you what to do, Mary Lou.”

  “Damn straight.”

  He nodded and continued to knead her shoulder. “I know. All I’m saying is you need to chill out a little bit.”

  Mary Lou knocked his hand off her shoulder. “Stop trying to calm me down. Okay, I’m freaking out. Can you blame me? What’s wrong with all the cars, Zeke? Why do they all look so shitty? Hell, why doesn’t anything in the whole motherfuckin’ world work anymore?”

  Zeke wanted to know the answer to that himself. He didn’t know what to tell Mary Lou, at least in part because there was no rational way to explain what was happening to the world. And he didn’t feel comfortable speculating out loud about what might have been causing the rapid decay of most things man-made. He could only think of things based on theoretical possibilities so abstract he knew he could never make Mary Lou understand what he was trying to say. Vague concepts rooted in mysticism and the occult. Scientific principles so advanced they were as baffling to him as the otherworldly stuff. Things that would only be so much mumbo-jumbo to a girl like Mary Lou. Partly because it was so much mumbo-jumbo. Just a lot of clueless conjecture.

  He cleared his throat. “Mary Lou, I just don’t know. I know you think I’m pretty smart. But—”

  “You were on television.” She said this as if it was equivalent to a degree from MIT or a membership in Mensa. “On the fuckin’ news, man.”

  Zeke sighed. “Yeah. But I don’t know as much about things as you think I do. I’m a pretty average guys in the brains department. When you see me on television, I sound like I really know what’s what. But I’m just reading from a teleprompter most of the time.” He shrugged. “Fact is, I don’t know a whole lot more about the world in general than you do.”

  Mary Lou laughed and shook her head. “Well, ain’t that a fuckin’ gyp. I reckon I oughta trade you in for a rocket scientist fella.”

  Zeke smiled. He was happy to see that his self-deprecating speech had had the desired effect. In truth, he knew he was significantly smarter than Mary Lou. He was pretty sure her I.Q. didn’t quite reach triple digits. Not that it mattered. It wasn’t her brains he was attracted to. Hell, he knew he shouldn’t find her desirable at all. As always when his mind drifted in this direction, he thought of the massacred family at Mountain High Apartments.

  And—as always—he shoved the gruesome memories away.

  “I’m afraid rocket scientists are in short supply these days.”

  Her lips curved into a mischievous grin. “So’s every fuckin’ thing, baby. There ain’t no more doctors. No police. That I’m pretty happy about. No more plumbers. No more garbage men. No more pretty boy actors. No more hot rock stars.” Her mouth opened and he saw a pink wedge of tongue flick against her bottom row of teeth. “Mmm, I think I’m gonna miss the rock stars most. Do you like Guns N’ Roses?”

  “Good to hear you’ve got your priorities straight, Mary Lou. I think we’re eventually going to miss the doctors and garbage men more than the rock stars. And anyway, wasn’t Mr. Axl Rose a little befo
re your time?”

  Mary Lou shrugged. “He’s a timeless fuckin’ classic, man.”

  Zeke rolled his eyes. “If you say so.”

  He clasped hands with Mary Lou and said, “Let’s walk out to the street. I want to get the lay of the land again.”

  “Okay.”

  Zeke picked up the lone bag they’d been toting around for the last couple days. They’d decided to travel as light as possible and so the bag contained all their belongings. Some more clothes for Zeke, a flashlight that no longer worked, a Glock pistol, and a couple of books.

  The only thing Mary Lou carried was her beloved shotgun. She walked with it propped over her shoulder. Zeke was pretty sure it wasn’t even loaded anymore. Empty or not, the shotgun stayed with her at all times. It was a comfort thing, he realized. She was like some crazed redneck version of Linus from the Peanuts comic strip, with the big gun substituted for a blanket.

  They reached the street and came to a stop. This road was called Broadway and it ran through the heart of the city. To their left the road led to the downtown area, the direction from which they’d come earlier in the day. There’d not been much to see there. A lot of dead people, a lot of dead creatures. And there’d been the expected evidence of the doomsday chaos.

  In the other direction the road forked off. Broadway continued to the left and West End looked to be home to a thriving business district. Vanderbilt University was situated between these two main thoroughfares. Zeke had visited Vanderbilt once years ago as a guest lecturer and remembered the area reasonably well.

  He nodded in the direction of Vanderbilt and Broadway. “Let’s go that way.”

  “Why?”

  Zeke shrugged. “No good reason, I guess. I know that area a little. I visited the school there a few years ago.”

  Mary Lou frowned. “School? What fuckin’ school?”

  “Vanderbilt.”

  Mary Lou cackled. “You mean them pussies who can’t win a SEC football game to save their fuckin’ lives? Them Ivy League motherfuckers?”