CATACLYSMOS Book 1 Part 5: The Long Dark Night: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller

by Michael Lister

  Not just gone. Taken.

  Would he write again? Would there ever again be a world in which novels had a place?

  He misses writing the way he would if his hand had been chopped off. It was such an essential, core, vital part of him for so long, he feels less himself without the practice of it.

  Though Double Exposure had been written long before Blood Moon, and long, long before all this began, he still remembers much of it. It had been a singular book among the many he had written, the one that had changed so very many things for him, its opening lines the ones he’d read more than any other in his life.

  Evening.

  Fall. North Florida.

  Bruised sky above rusted rim of earth.

  Black forest backlit by plum-colored clouds. Receding glow. Expanding dark.

  Deep in the cold woods of the Apalachicola River Basin, Remington James slowly makes his way beneath a canopy of pine and oak and cypress trees along a forest floor of fallen pine straw, wishing he’d worn a better jacket, his Chippewa snake boots slipping occasionally, unable to find footing on the slick surface.

  Above him, a brisk breeze whistles through the branches, swaying the treetops in an ancient dance, raining down dead leaves and pine needles.

  Screams.

  He hears what sounds like human screams from a great distance away . . .

  He can’t help but contrast the long night in Double Exposure with this one. Over the course of a single, long night, Remington James is constantly moving, scrambling through the North Florida forest trying to stay alive, whereas he is strapped to a hand truck in the back of a pickup, unable to move, unable to do anything but use his mind in an attempt to quiet and calm his mind.

  Remington thought that was a long night. Try one like this and get back to me.

  Suddenly he’s back in the hospital for the birth of his two children. Neither child, Micah nor Meleah, came easily, and both were very long nights, but unlike this one, long nights with activity—Lamaze, walking the maternity wing to try to induce, Pitocin drip, pain, agony, middle of the night decision followed by an epidural. And eventually, sometime later the next day, the arrivals.

  Action. Activity.

  All the thoughts and memories he’s having about previous longest nights ever, both fictional and not, involved him and his characters actually doing something, being able to take action.

  Is this what a quadriplegic feels like?

  Coming out of his thoughts, returning his attention to the present, he realizes that the shrieks and squeals and screams have receded a bit.

  As if by a fader on a soundboard, the overall volume is lower. Their proximity seems farther way too.

  Are they leaving? Returning to the woods? Why? Daylight soon or did they destroy everyone?

  8

  Blinking.

  His eyes open. Slowly. Then close against the faint light.

  Morning.

  Still here. Still naked. Still strapped to a hand truck in the back of a pickup. But still here.

  No noises. At least none of the nightmarish nocturnal ones.

  A little wind whistles through the pines.

  Birdsong.

  A solitary bird greets the cold, gray day.

  Evidently there are a few animals left. Very few, but some. Augustus’s dog Jackson, this bird, the livestock the Lefters had. What else?

  Footsteps.

  Running.

  Bump.

  Something gently banging into the side of the truck.

  Meleah looking over, smiling down at him.

  Then Nancy beside her.

  Both their faces blood-speckled and pale, their eyes red-rimmed, worn, weary.

  Meleah throws a jacket over him as Nancy climbs in the truck bed with him and begins to unlock his restraints.

  —I’m so glad y’all are alive, he says. I had no way of . . . All I could do was listen, but I couldn’t hear much of anything over the noise out here. What happened?

  Meleah tells him.

  He looks at Nancy.

  —You’re amazing, he says.

  She doesn’t respond.

  —So strong, so incredibly brave. Once again we owe our lives to you.

  She still doesn’t say anything.

  Michael looks back at Meleah.

  —It’s taken a toll, she says.

  He nods.

  —Everything has, Meleah says. On us all. But she’s been through so much.

  Nancy still doesn’t say anything.

  —I’m so sorry I couldn’t protect you, Michael says. That I didn’t prevent that from happening or stop it once it did. I feel like I’ve let y’all down more than anyone ever.

  Meleah shakes her head.

  —You let me down far more when you divorced Mom, she says.

  It’s a family joke. He had worked so hard their entire lives to protect them and keep them from all forms of harm and had succeeded—until when they were grown and nearly grown, he had divorced their mom. Far and away the most difficult and challenging event they had experienced. Which as difficult and challenging events go wasn’t that horrendous—especially considering the careful, amicable way it unfolded.

  She begins to laugh. And he joins her, grateful for the moment of levity.

  —Sorry about that too, he says for the thousandth time.

  —God, I wish my mom would have divorced my dad and then the damn Deacon, Nancy says.

  When he is unstrapped, he sits up and gets dizzy. Using the jacket for cover, he climbs to his feet, various parts of his extremities tingling as they try to wake up.

  He extends his hand to help Nancy out of the truck, but she doesn’t take it. Instead she pretends she doesn’t see it.

  Once he’s down from the truck, he looks around.

  Except for what’s left of the tall man, the yard is as empty as it was the day before when they first came upon it.

  The body of the tall man is pale and stiff, much of his midsection missing, blood and bile and viscera spilling out of the open cavity and onto the frozen ground around him.

  —The fat man still inside? he asks.

  —His body, Meleah says.

  —We don’t have the time or energy to bury them, he says, but we can—

  —We’re going to burn them, Nancy says. We’re gonna burn their goddamn house down around them.

  To do so will not only require much needed supplies—particularly gas—and will draw attention they don’t need. But obviously she needs to do it, and how can he refuse her this when she’s been through so much?

  —Okay, he says. Are my bags and the ATV still in the back?

  They both nod.

  —Let me get dressed and get everything ready so we can get out of here once the deed is done. I’ll syphon gas out of the truck and check the barn. There’s a pitcher pump in the back. Why don’t y’all see if it works and get cleaned up?

  —Not quite ready to wash the motherfucker’s blood off me just yet, Nancy says.

  He nods.

  —Would you check the kitchen then? he says. See if there are any canned goods or water?

  Without saying anything, she heads in that direction.

  —Are you okay? he asks Meleah.

  She nods.

  —Relatively, she says. Honestly can’t believe we’re still alive. Thought for sure we were . . .

  —Yeah, me too. I love you so much. So glad you’re still in the world—even this one. Let’s get out of here as fast as we can. And we’ve got to keep an eye on her. She’s in a very bad place.

  —If you could’ve seen what she did . . . There are a lot of things worse than dying—and she’s been through most of them.

  They walk around to the back of the house. Meleah washes in the water from the pitcher pump as he gets dressed.

  In the barn, he finds several cans of gas and ramps he uses to load the ATV into the back of the truck.

  He then gathers all the weapons he can find—including the rifle still lying near the remains
of the tall man.

  Using the dolly he had spent the night strapped to, he hauls what’s left of the tall man’s body into the house, then he and Nancy spread gas from two of the cans around the rooms and on the bodies.

  From the doorway, they take a last look inside.

  —Some real bad shit happened, she says. But it coulda been a lot worse.

  He nods, then hands her the box of matches and steps back.

  She strikes one and tosses it on the fat man first.

  Flame. Accelerant. Poof. Fire.

  She then does the same to what’s left of the tall man with similar results.

  Next she tosses a few into other parts of the room and through the windows they had opened in other parts of the house.

  When she’s done, she stumbles over to the pitcher pump and washes the gas and soot and blood off, and joins Michael and Meleah in the truck.

  As the three of them ease down the driveway in the cab of the old truck, gas and gear and the ATV in the bed behind them, the house has a good burn going, smoke billowing and flames leaping out of the open doors and windows.

  —I don’t know what the fuck that is in the woods, Nancy says. Don’t know what the fuck is wrong with them, but whatever it is, it’s nothing compared to those two sick pricks being roasted in that house back there.

  9

  They ride in silence.

  The old truck easing down the highway.

  Their breathing, the close proximity of their bodies in the small cab, and the pickup’s heater combine to create a good deal of heat, and they’re the warmest they’ve been since leaving the Lefters.

  The wordlessness isn’t awkward exactly, but it is rich and resonant, not without something palpable in it.

  They are beyond exhausted. Beyond spent. Beyond everything.

  Shells of themselves in shock, there’s a certain distance and disassociation within their psyches, a defensiveness and coping mechanism, as automatic as oxygen-rich red blood cells rushing to an open wound.

  Nancy, still holding the fat man’s pocket knife with the blade out, lets out a harsh, humorless laugh.

  —Still think there are more good people than bad in this world? she says.

  It takes him a while to respond.

  —I do, actually. It’s anecdotal I know, but I’ve encountered more decent than destructive people in my travels so far.

  She shakes her head.

  Meleah smiles.

  —He’s not as naive as he sounds. And he’s probably right, but right now . . . sure doesn’t seem like it.

  —No it doesn’t, he says. It certainly doesn’t.

  They fall back into silence and stay there.

  Eventually, Meleah begins to look around the tall man’s truck, beneath and behind the bench seat and in the glovebox.

  The search yields very little—some trash, old registration and insurance cards, a can of Vienna sausages, and some ammunition.

  She manages a smile when she sees that there’s a cassette tape in the player in the dashboard in front of her.

  —Wanna guess at the musical tastes of that skinny sick prick? she says.

  Nancy doesn’t respond.

  Michael smiles a little.

  —Couldn’t begin to imagine, he says.

  —Oh, come on. Let’s at least give it a try. I say it’s Country—something classic like Johnny Cash. How about it?

  He tries to decide between metal and religious.

  —I’m gonna go with Gospel, he says. Some Southern Gospel family. The Happy Rectums.

  —The what?

  —You heard me.

  Meleah turns to Nancy.

  —Not gonna turn it on until you give me a guess, she says.

  Nancy sighs but a slight smile trembles her lips.

  —It’s either gonna be KISS or Lynyrd Skynyrd.

  —Ooh, good guess, Meleah says. Okay, whoever gets it or is closest to it . . . gets an extra serving of whatever delicious meal we have tonight.

  She then reaches up slowly, her trembling extended finger betraying her attempt at lightening the mood.

  When she presses the button and the sound system comes to life, Air Supply’s “All Out of Love” in midsong bursts forth to fill the truck.

  —Make it stop, Michael says. Make it stop.

  She does.

  —That’s by far the worst thing I’ve encountered since the world ended, he says.

  —Fuckin’ Air Supply survives the apocalypse, Meleah says.

  —Just think, Nancy says to Michael, that was gonna be y’all’s song.

  Meleah begins laughing so hard that soon they all are.

  They laugh for a long, long while, and maybe even cry some, but eventually they return to the silence that seems to be the truest soundtrack for the state of the world and their plight in it.

  This section of Highway 73 is also littered with random debris and abandoned vehicles.

  A baby stroller. A tandem bicycle. A gun safe. An oven. Three huge wooden crosses.

  An older model station wagon is slanted across the road with all its doors open. A small four-wheel drive Toyota truck lies on its side, its windshield missing.

  He slowly drives around each object in the road, often pulling onto the frozen shoulder and occasionally into the ditch.

  It’s slow going, but they’re warm and have no interest in going anywhere fast.

  With each little driveway they pass, a palpable tension enters the warm cab and Nancy grips the knife in her hand even harder.

  To their left, TriState Off Road Park, a popular place for bog-ins and races, has been leveled and is littered with vehicles and the dead.

  Hundreds of corpses frozen in place, the cold slowing down decay.

  An overturned backhoe and a large electrical truck with a lift are covered in dead bodies.

  So are the stands.

  And the vehicles scattered about, overturned and not, are filled with the dead.

  The girls don’t see it. Meleah’s eyes are closed and Nancy’s looking out the passenger window at the woods on the opposite side, and he doesn’t call attention to it, just drives on.

  A few miles more and a small wooden house with a couple of semi-trucks parked in its yard has a piece of plywood with a message spray painted on it that he can’t quite make out and doesn’t stop to read.

  They need to find a place to stop, to rest, to sleep, to eat, to heal, but given how traumatized they are, he can’t imagine either girl will be hip to the idea—especially Nancy.

  As they approach the caution light at the intersection of County Road 392, he eases off the gas and slows.

  Nancy sits up, wary. In between them, Meleah opens her eyes.

  —You’re not stopping, Nancy says.

  —Looking for a place to.

  —But—

  —I know, but we need to. We need to eat and sleep and hydrate.

  —Sleep? I’ll never sleep again.

  —I’m so sorry for what happened last night, he says. I won’t let that happen again.

  —How’re you gonna—

  —I’ll go in alone, sweep the place. You two will stay outside, weapons out and ready. If a place is clear and we’re reasonably certain it’s safe, we’ll take turns keeping watch. We’ll be ready at all times. All of us.

  Meleah nods. Nancy seems to think about it.

  Beneath the caution light, which no longer blinks, sits the remnants of a head-on collision—a Chevy Silverado extended-cab truck and a huge old Buick, their grills and front quarter panels crumpled, drivers’ doors opened.

  Ahead on the left is the home of a man he knew a long time ago.

  At one point, a while back—maybe ten years or more—Michael started a community theater in Wewa called the Tupelo. In it, he taught classes, conducted workshops, and produced plays he had penned. It was located in the appliance and furniture side of his dad’s old hardware store building. Most everything in the small theater space was donated—including the seating, a set of
old wooden church pews that the man who lived in the house next to him now had helped obtain from a local small country church.—We’ll have a wall behind us so we’ll be facing anyone coming at us, he says, and we’ll have an escape route planned out.

  —I don’t know, Nancy says. I wasn’t really planning on going into any other houses.

  —Ever?

  She shrugs.

  —Maybe I could keep watch from outside, she says.

  —It’s up to you, he says. But I promise you, I won’t let anyone get the drop on us like that ever again.

  She doesn’t respond.

  —I understand if you don’t believe me.

  —We’ll see.

  —Okay. I’m gonna check the house there on the left.

  —What? Now?

  —Good people lived there before all this happened.

  10

  Hedges lining a chain link fence.

  Trees in the yard.

  Bushes. Shrubs. Saplings.

  Tin barn in the back.

  —The fence is undisturbed, Michael says. The house looks good.

  —Nothing looked particularly wrong with the one last night, Nancy says.

  —Should’ve never gone that far off the road. Won’t make that mistake again.

  Driving around the wreck, he turns left on 392 and pulls up to the front gate.

  Jumping out, he grabs his gear from the back and gets back in the warm cab.

  Reaching into one of the duffels, he withdraws two knives, gives one to Meleah and places the other in his pocket. He then gives each of the girls a revolver.

  —Please be careful. Keep it pointed down and away from us. Don’t put your finger on the trigger until you’re ready to use it. When you have to use it, point at the biggest part of the target—the chest or midsection—or whatever is closest. Hold it steady with both hands and gently squeeze the trigger. Don’t pull it. And try not to move the gun when you shoot. The first chamber in both of them is empty for safety. So when you really need to shoot something or someone, the first click will be a dry fire. Squeeze the trigger again right away. Okay?

  —Okay, Meleah says.

  Nancy nods.

  —I’m gonna leave y’all here with the truck running. Meleah, stay behind the wheel. Both of you, have your weapons ready. If something happens, just drive away.