Nightfall

by John Inman

  As they moved farther from downtown, the noise of the fire receded behind them. The knife-sharp wail of the distant sirens buzzed in Ned’s ears like the whine of a pestering insect, but he was too worried about Mr. Wong to pay it much mind.

  They picked up their speed. After a few minutes, Ned took stock of where they were and panted, “We’re almost there.”

  “YES,” JOE said. He blinked the haze from his eyes and pointed to a wisp of movement he had spotted between the trees up ahead. “And look who’s coming to meet us.”

  It was Bobby Wong. He was creeping through the fog like a tiny ninja. Maybe because he was an innocent twelve-year-old and didn’t know any better, or maybe it was sheer desperation, but he didn’t look frightened. He simply looked determined, sneaking along, hunkered low to make himself as small a target as possible. If the circumstances hadn’t been so bizarre, Joe might have thought he was playing cowboys and Indians. But the serious look on Bobby Wong’s face soon told him the kid wasn’t playing at all. He was deadly serious.

  Bobby was moving at an angle toward the path Joe and Ned were taking, so Joe spotted Bobby before Bobby spotted them. When Joe gave a soft whistle to get the kid’s attention, Bobby jumped about three feet straight up into the air. He whirled around, squinted into the haze to see who was making that sound, and a moment later, he ran up and threw himself into Ned’s arms. Only then did Joe see that Bobby was crying.

  Joe gently pulled the two apart. “What is it?” he asked. “What’s wrong? And what are you doing out here all by yourself?”

  Bobby wasn’t wearing his white work apron or one of the silly paper hats Mr. Wong made everybody wear. He looked like he was dressed for school, but the schools were surely closed.

  Bobby was shaking from either the cold or an overdose of adrenaline. When he finally calmed down enough to speak, he directed his words to Ned, not Joe, probably because Ned was still clutching his arms. Ned looked as scared as Bobby did, so Joe stepped closer to offer his support to both of them.

  “What are you doing out here all by yourself?” Ned demanded again. “This is no time to be playing in the park.”

  Bobby’s back stiffened. “I wasn’t playing! I’ve been looking for you!” He sounded offended, like they should have known better than to treat him like a kid after all he’d been through.

  Joe laid a gentle hand to the back of Bobby’s neck and gave it a gentle squeeze. “It’s okay, Bobby. We’re sorry. We’re just surprised to see you out here all by yourself. So now you’ve found us. What’s wrong?”

  “It’s Pop!” Bobby sniffled, appeased. Still, he had enough sense to keep his voice low. Apparently he knew full well what a precarious position they were in, out here in the park in the open, unprotected. He explained everything while his eyes continually ricocheted from Ned to Joe, then back again. “Looters are breaking into all the stores around the deli. Pop was hoping you could come and help us protect it.”

  “We were on our way there,” Ned said. “Are your mom and the rest of the kids okay?”

  “They’re home, but they’re okay,” Bobby said, wrapping his arms across his chest to fend off the cold. He was practically dancing around, hopping from one foot to the other, trying to keep warm. His hurried breath puffed out little clouds of steam that disappeared as quickly as they formed. His dark eyes were big and hyperalert, snapping like firecrackers in every direction at once. “Mom’s the one who sent me to the deli to make dad come home. But he can’t leave the shop. The crowd will tear it apart if he does. Maybe they will anyway, if Pop doesn’t get somebody to help him. You guys got a gun?”

  “No, sorry,” Joe said, regretting yet again that they had thrown the shotgun away.

  “Well, come anyway. Please. The street’s overrun. We’ll have to go around back through the alley. Pop has barricaded the shop windows with everything he could push against them.” Suddenly Bobby’s eyes got even bigger. “Did you know there’s a dead guy in the freezer? Pop killed him! He’s frozen solid, like a big Popsicle. If I’d known Pop had it in him to do something like that, I wouldn’t have bugged him so much over the years.”

  At long last, Bobby’s face melted into a grin. Ned laughed too while Joe gazed on, wondering if they were both crazy. If there was anything funny in the situation, he was having a hard time figuring out what it was.

  “Let’s go, then,” Joe hissed, staring out into the mist again, trying to gauge its dangers, trying to plan which path would be best to take. After a moment of consideration, he headed straight across the open lawns, counting on the haze to keep them hidden. It was the quickest way to get where they were going. The three of them crouched low and moved fast, as Bobby had done earlier.

  Before they had gone a hundred feet, Joe began to hear sounds of mayhem coming from up ahead. It sounded like a mob, all right. He didn’t doubt for a second they should try to help Mr. Wong, but he had to wonder what they were getting themselves into. Still, Mr. Wong had always been good to Ned. Anyone good to Ned deserved all the protection Joe could give.

  They peered through the last rim of trees out onto the street where Mr. Wong’s deli was located. They couldn’t see far. Not even to the other side of the avenue. But they could see part of the mob, milling around in the middle of the street, chucking rocks, a few of them fighting each other for stuff they had already stolen. Debris was scattered everywhere, and not a few inert bodies lay sprinkled around too. Again, no cars moved past. So many people acting like maniacs impeded the passage of traffic. Besides, headlights couldn’t pierce the haze any better than living eyes. Trying to drive through this red gunk would have been asking for trouble.

  Without thinking about it, Joe grabbed both Bobby and Ned and shoved them straight out into the crowd, bringing up the rear to keep an eye on them and protect them. Single file, they tore through the mob as quickly as they could, and the looters seemed not to notice them at all. With almost a sob of relief, Joe shepherded them behind a row of dumpsters at the end of the block and into the alley that opened on the back of the businesses along the street, including Mr. Wong’s deli. The last time Joe had been in this alley was when he and Ned had sat out here on trash cans, swinging their legs, scarfing down one of Mr. Wong’s sandwiches. The day the first cold snap had barreled through the city. And the first time Joe had almost declared his true feeling for Ned.

  Funny. It seemed like ages ago but couldn’t have been more than a couple of days.

  Bobby snagged Joe’s coattail. “Wait!” he hissed. “There’s somebody there! Just ahead. Look. In the shadows next to the building. See?” Bobby gasped. “It looks like Pop!”

  Joe and Ned both leaned forward, squinting into the haze to try to see what Bobby was pointing at. When Bobby started to run toward the figure, Ned grabbed him and pulled him back. Bobby fought for a moment, then gave up, surrendering himself to Ned’s grasp.

  Seeing that Ned had Bobby under control, Joe touched Ned’s shoulder to show his approval, then took a step forward. Then another. He could see the figure now. It was a man but not, thank God, Mr. Wong. The stranger was sitting upright behind the dumpster, his back to the brick wall, his legs sticking straight out in front of him. His mouth was open like he was sleeping. There was a slash of color across his throat, like a red scarf.

  As he took a step nearer, the haze thinned enough for Joe to see everything. The man wasn’t sleeping; he was dead. And that wasn’t a scarf across around his neck, it was blood. His throat had been cut. Maybe another looter had killed him for what he’d stolen. Or maybe he’d just run afoul of one of the crazies populating the city now. Like the homeless guy who’d attacked Mr. Wong. Or like the fucker with the shotgun who had tried to kill him and Ned only—when was it—yesterday?

  The days were beginning to blend together. Like they do in war, Joe thought. Like they do when soldiers stumble from one battle to the next with no real end in sight. Like they do when death is facing them at every turn and normality has receded to a distant memory.


  Joe shook these thoughts from his head. He returned to Bobby and Ned and pulled them both into his arms. He leaned his head in and whispered to Bobby, trying to comfort the boy. “It’s not your dad, son. It’s just a stranger. But he’s dead, and he’s not pretty. So don’t look at him, okay? Both of you, just keep your eyes on me. The back door of the deli isn’t far. When we get inside, we’ll be safe.”

  Joe forced a smile and tousled the boy’s hair. Bobby was standing with Ned’s arms around him, both to comfort and to control. Clearly Ned didn’t want the boy running off and getting into trouble. Joe switched his gaze to Ned and gave him a wink.

  “Let’s go now,” he said. “You guys ready?”

  Solemn-faced, both Bobby and Ned nodded.

  Joe turned to lead them the rest of the way down the alley to the deli’s back door. They moved carefully through the fog. In a normal world, it would have been the brink of sunset. Dusk.

  They crept forward as quietly as they could. The deli was in the middle of the block, a few doors down the alley. Towering above their heads were the rear balconies of twelve stories of luxury condos. Mr. Wong’s deli was tucked into the ground floor of the high-rise, sandwiched between a bookstore and a travel agency.

  “There,” Bobby cried. “There it is!”

  The three of them rushed forward, quickly covering the last few feet to the deli’s back door.

  Joe tried the knob, but of course it was locked. He tapped lightly at the metal security door, hopefully loud enough to be heard from inside but not loud enough to draw anyone else’s attention.

  He heard footsteps, and a familiar voice whispered around the edge of the door, “Bobby? That you?”

  Joe started to answer, but at that moment the alley was plunged into utter darkness. It was like in a theater, when the curtain goes up and the house lights dim. In an instant, the ambient light of the red haze was erased from the landscape, leaving nothing behind but endless black. In a normal world, darkness approaches quietly on catlike feet, Joe thought. In this world, it crashes down like an avalanche of blinding rock. And it had happened in the space of a heartbeat.

  It was as if God had at long last pulled the plug. The world was suddenly plunged into total, relentless night. Both Bobby and Ned plucked at the back of Joe’s shirt, drawing close, anchoring themselves to him, cowering away from the darkness.

  With the loss of light came the immediate absence of sound. The city lay hushed around them. Even the looters in the street were stunned to silence.

  Joe reached around and pulled Ned and Bobby closer, cradling them in his arms. The darkness was so intense, he was blinded. Lost. The silence that lay on the air was almost as unnerving. The world and everything in it seemed to have been hurled into a shadowy, soundless pit.

  “God help us now,” Ned whispered from the lightless depths.

  Just then, the door they stood in front of flew open, scaring them to death. Before they could even cry out, a tiny Asian man with a paper hat perched jauntily on his head yanked them inside.

  Chapter Four

  A NEW flurry of sunspots erupted. Immense in size and fury, they dwarfed the eruptions that came before. Boiling across the surface of the sun, they spewed more waste matter into the solar system.

  As Rio and all of South America floundered in shadow, these planet-sized blisters of exploding energy created more darkness, further draining already weakened electrical grids. Lights across the Midwest blinked out. Limitless night descended on Canada from Manitoba to British Columbia on the Pacific Rim. The power grids in Europe, Asia, and Africa sputtered to a stop. All US cities, both small and large, fell to darkness only hours later.

  San Diego was the last to go. Temperatures plummeted. Silence and shadow descended on the California city at what should have been the hour of nightfall on June 27.

  As in mankind’s ancient past, people were left with only fire for light and heat.

  Civilization—and civility—immediately crumbled. The world was brought to its knees. In the aftermath of total defeat, the brightest minds on the planet sought skyward for answers, and to their joy they found a red moon, flushed to life once again by the latest cataclysmic explosion of sunspots, glaring back. A pale, shimmering field of pink stars returned to fill the darkened firmament from one horizon to the other. Hearts soared, seeing them there again.

  But it was a short respite. In moments, utter darkness descended once more as both the moon and stars disappeared completely.

  On a blinded Earth, the silence they left behind was deafening.

  A PALE light flickered inside the deli. The burners on the gas stove, Ned noted, were lit for illumination and what little heat they might offer. It would have been pitch-black and freezing cold without them.

  Joe and Ned moved to the window to peer out at the city street and at the wide empty sky arching overhead, now devoid of light entirely. It was as if a gazillion miles away, the sun had finally died, its spark of light at long last flickering out. A chill tore through Ned. He wondered if this new development was permanent. And if it was, what it could mean. For the world. For all of them. Without the sun, would they simply freeze to death? Had the planet suddenly become a frigid, lightless tomb? Was this how it all would end? With a billion voices whimpering in frozen shadow?

  “It’s gone,” Joe muttered beside him. A hand snaked out and rested on Ned’s shoulder. Ned detected a tremor in the hand. Joe’s voice was taut with worry. “I wonder what will happen now.”

  “I can’t believe it,” Ned said. “I won’t believe it. The light will come back. I know it will.”

  Softly, sadly, Joe said, “I hope you’re right.”

  Ned turned as Mr. Wong grabbed his son and pulled him into a fierce embrace. Tears stood in Mr. Wong’s eyes, sparkling in the flickering orange light cast by the flames on the stove. Stepping back, he pushed Bobby to arm’s length and his eyes traveled over him from head to toe, as if reassuring himself that his son was truly safe and in one piece. Then he gave Bobby a teeth-rattling shake before pressing his hands to the boy’s cheeks and squeezing them so hard Bobby’s eyeballs pooched out.

  With those bulging eyes, Bobby cast furtive glances at Ned and Joe, clearly embarrassed by his father’s attentions.

  “You’re gonna pop my head like a pimple,” Bobby groused, barely able to move his lips and wiggling like a worm on a hook, trying to free himself from his father’s clutches. “Stop it!”

  “You’re back,” Mr. Wong cried, ignoring Bobby’s complaints. If anything, he squeezed Bobby’s cheeks even harder. “I not see you leave. I turn around, you gone!”

  Bobby’s lips were so puckered by his father’s viselike grip, he could barely talk. “Adverbs, Pop. Conjunctions. And I went to find Ned. We needed help.”

  Mr. Wong tore his gaze from Bobby’s face and let them fall on Ned and Joe. White teeth shone through a radiant smile even while tears dribbled off his chin. “And you bring them both. Number one son did good.”

  Bobby finally went limp in his father’s grip, hanging by his head in humiliation. “Oh God, Pop. Knock off the Charlie Chan shit.”

  Mr. Wong winked at Ned. “Bobby big man now. Cuss like sailor.”

  Turning back to Bobby, he grabbed the boy’s shoulders and gave him another shake, this one less gentle and considerably less fawning. In fact, it rattled the kid’s teeth like castanets. “Number one son end up with sore butt if he say ‘shit’ again.”

  Bobby blanched. “Sorry.”

  Apparently appeased, Mr. Wong gave Bobby a final pat on the head and let him go. Bobby rubbed his cheeks and quickly stepped out of reach, as if afraid his father might snatch him up again.

  Suddenly all business, Mr. Wong shivered against the cold and crooked his finger, beckoning all three of them to follow.

  “Come in. Come in. There’s heat.” Mr. Wong glanced back at Joe, his eyes sad. “Something burning downtown. Did you know?”

  Ned and Joe answered in unison. “We knew.”


  They moved as a group. Watching Ned stay close to Joe, Mr. Wong perked up a little. He even gave Ned a secretive smile.

  “You boys different now. Not just friends, I think. Lovers, maybe.”

  Bobby giggled, and Mr. Wong chucked a loaf of bread at him to shut him up. He offered Ned and Joe an apologetic glance. “My son not understand. I do. We leave it at that.”

  Ned flushed, but Joe said, “Thank you, sir. And you’re right. We’re not just friends anymore. I don’t think we ever really were.”

  Mr. Wong shot him a wink. “I not think so either. But sometimes person in love the last to know.” He turned a fond gaze to Ned. His eyes softened. “You look happy,” he said gently.

  Ned’s face burned all the more. “I am, sir.”

  To that, Mr. Wong said, “Good,” and turning away, he stared across the deli at the front window, his shoulders slumped, his posture suddenly weary. “Sound like looters left. Maybe the dark scare them off.”

  “I sure hope so,” Bobby said. He sounded like he meant it. But even while he obviously still worried about the dangers outside, his gaze kept slipping to the freezer door, causing his father to roll his eyes.

  “Yes!” Mr. Wong snapped. “Dead body still there. And no, you can’t look at it.”

  Bobby offered up a slightly guilty smirk. “Did I ask?”

  “Number one son not as smart as number one son think he is.”

  “Jeez, Pop. Give that Charlie Chan shi—I mean, stuff—a rest! It’s genetically and racially humiliating.”

  Mr. Wong giggled.

  Ned watched this latest exchange with bewildered amusement, wondering how these two could be bantering at a time like this. “So what are we going to do?” he asked impatiently. His own gaze kept slipping back to the storefront windows, afraid he’d see a face there, peering in, searching for them. The face of a man maybe, a crazy man with a club or a gun in hand. Or a fucking bazooka. He suddenly realized that even with Joe at his side, he didn’t feel safe barricaded inside the deli. What he really felt was trapped.