by John Inman
The man was lifeless now, his head lolling, mouth agape, face bloodied perhaps by the fall, while the lionesses hauled him away by his outstretched arms, back toward the cave in the rear of their pen. Back where the shadows were deeper, where they could dine in peace.
Joe quickly flicked off the light.
“I didn’t mean to kill him,” he gasped, his voice stricken. “But when he called us queers, I saw red. He had no right to do that, Ned. He had no right to mock us or look down on us because we are who we are. Hell, we’re all in the same boat here. People, I mean. We’re all… fighting for our lives.”
Ned laid an arm across Joe’s shoulder. Turning away from the sounds below, he forced Joe to turn away too. “You did what you had to do. And you’re right. He shouldn’t have done what he did. He shouldn’t have threatened us. Did you know him? Did he work here?”
“No,” Joe said. “He was a stranger. And—and if he had left us alone, he would still be alive. What a stupid thing to die for. It’s not like we had anything to give him. Why the hell did he do it? Why did he attack us?”
He had switched the flashlight off. Ned was glad. For the first time in days, he longed for the darkness to come flooding back in. To block out what they’d seen, what they’d heard, what they’d done. To block out the guilt he heard in Joe’s shattered voice.
Ned found Joe’s hand and brought it to his lips. “Who knows why he did it, Joe? Maybe there is no explanation. The whole world is nuts. He just did what everybody else is doing. Something about this constant darkness drives them crazy, I think. Like those people who threw the burning body off the roof back by the deli. Then they laughed about it! Maybe it’s fear that’s driving them to it, I don’t know. But it doesn’t make any sense. None of it. All you have to know is that you did what you said you’d do. You kept us safe. You kept me safe. This guy’s death was his own fault, not yours. Don’t waste any time feeling guilty about it.”
“You’re right,” Joe murmured, as if more to himself than to Ned. His voice was still broken, weak. Ned had never heard him sound so defeated. “I did what I said I’d do. I kept us safe. But still. The poor guy. What a terrible way to die. And he was young too. Did you see him? He couldn’t have been more than twenty.”
The lions were still fighting over their prize below. Listening to them, and listening to Joe, Ned found an odd anger welling up inside. Not at the man this time, but at Joe for feeling guilty about what had happened. He gave him a shake. “I don’t care how young he was! I’d rather it be him down there than you. Or me. Let it go. Please. He got what he deserved. He would have hurt us, Joe. Maybe he would even have killed us. I’m not going to waste a tear on him. Neither should you. If we’re going to survive, we have to live like the animals do. Survival of the fittest, Joe. That’s how we have to think of it now.”
Joe took a long shuddering breath. He switched on the flashlight and aimed it at the ground between them to throw out a little ambient light for them to see by. His hand reached into the light and stroked Ned’s arm. “My lover, the hardass,” he muttered feebly. “You’re always on my side, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Ned said. “Always. And I’m not finished being a hardass yet. Give me the flashlight.”
Joe handed it over. “What are you going to do?”
“I think it’s time we armed ourselves.” He cast the flashlight beam back and forth along the path. After a quick search, it came to rest on the gun lying alongside the opposite curb where Joe had flung it earlier. Ned hurried over and snatched it up. He handed it to Joe.
“Maybe you’d better carry it,” he said. “I might be a hardass, but I’m not hardass enough to know how to handle a rifle. I’d probably shoot myself in the foot. If it’s even loaded, that is.”
Joe gave a sympathetic cluck, but he took the gun and examined it. “It’s not a rifle. It’s a shotgun. A 10-gauge pump. A hunting gun. Holds three rounds at the ready.” He ejected the fat shells into his hand, said, “Yep. Three,” then just as quickly he reloaded them into the chamber. He showed Ned where the safety was, how to click it on and off, how to fire the weapon.
Ned listened politely, looking more nervous by the minute. Guns scared him to death. “But you’ll carry it, right? It’ll be safer for both of us in your hands. Trust me.”
Joe laughed. “Sorry. You’ll have to carry it for a while because I’ll be needing the flashlight. Just try not to shoot me, okay?”
Reluctantly, Ned took back the gun and relinquished the flashlight. “I’ll try not to,” he said doubtfully.
Ned glanced across the road at where, by the sound of all the guttural grunts and growls, a hearty meal was being merrily consumed by three happy lions down below. He gave a shudder.
Motioning Joe away, he lured him down the path, away from the sounds of feasting coming from the lion enclosure. “At least we can say we fed the lions,” Ned muttered, a wry smile twisting his mouth.
Joe gave an incredulous snort in the dark. “Yes. I guess we can. And now we’re armed as well, God help us.”
Ned shuddered at the sound of tearing flesh. “Let’s get out of here,” he snapped, his voice taut.
Without another word, they hurried down the path in search of a decent meal.
Leaving the lions alone to enjoy theirs.
JOE AIMED the flashlight straight ahead. The beam ricocheted back in their faces when it hit the glass door in front of them. Joe quickly turned it off.
“Where are we?” Ned asked.
“The Sabertooth Grill,” Joe answered with a smile in his voice.
“You mean a restaurant?”
“Yes, a restaurant.”
“How do we get in?”
Joe allowed himself a sardonic laugh. He’d already killed a man and trashed a popcorn cart. How could a little breaking and entering hurt? “How do we get in? With a brick,” he said, and before he gave Ned time to argue, if that was his intention, Joe picked up a brick from the edge of the sidewalk and heaved it through the plate glass door.
The crash and tinkle of shattered glass sounded really loud in the dark. Joe switched the flashlight back on, surveyed the damage, and carefully kicked out the bottom part of the window that hadn’t yet fallen. That job finished, he simply stepped inside like he owned the place while Ned humbly followed.
“You’ll get fired for this for sure,” Ned whispered.
Joe gave a mocking grunt. “We fed the animals, didn’t we? Even the lions have dined, as you so blithely pointed out. So fuck ’em. I figure the zoological society owes us a meal. You can leave some money on the counter when we’re finished if it’ll make you feel less guilty.”
He didn’t have to wait long for Ned to think about it. “Nope. You’re right. Fuck ’em.”
They both laughed.
They weaved around tables, past an empty salad bar and drink machines, and entered a kitchen in the back through swinging doors. Joe played the flashlight around, checking into every dark corner to make sure they were alone. When he was convinced of that, he sent the light skittering over the equipment to see what they might be able to use.
“Ooh,” he said. “A gas grill.”
“Meaning?” Ned asked.
“Meaning we can cook something.”
“Like what?”
The light fell on a tall stainless-steel door that looked remarkably like the entrance to a massive walk-in cooler, not unlike the one in Mr. Wong’s deli where poor old Fred was laid out like a side of beef. “I guess it depends on what we find through that door.”
The two advanced on the door, and Joe yanked it open. Sure enough, icy air wafted out to greet them.
“Maybe no one has opened this door lately. The food should be okay. The power’s been off for a while, but it’s still cold inside.”
“Heck, why wouldn’t it be?” Ned asked. “The whole world is cold.”
“Oh hush.” Joe stepped into the cooler and played the flashlight beam around, pinpointing different items scattered about
. Before them on a stack of shelves reaching ten feet in either direction lay a selection of chicken cuts, fish, and vegetables. On a far wall, on another stack of shelves, rested pies and boxes filled with cheesecakes and cookies.
Ned gripped Joe’s waist and stared from behind while his chin dug a hole in Joe’s shoulder. “You hit the mother lode,” he said, breathless with awe.
Joe found himself grinning. “I know,” he said. “I’m clever that way.”
He slipped out of Ned’s grip and rushed back through the door. Holding his breath, praying it would work, he found what he thought was the knob that would switch on the gas grill. Sure enough, flames erupted through a bed of fake charcoal. Joe let out a whoop. The grill itself was about three feet square. Back in the days when the zoo was still welcoming guests, which seemed like ages ago, Joe had seen it covered with chicken breasts, burgers, and kabobs, all sizzling away to perfection at the hands of a troop of white-clad chefs with jaunty toques perched on their heads. The chefs were no longer here, but the flames and the meat hadn’t gone anywhere, and that’s all Joe cared about.
He rushed back to the cooler with Ned outlined in the flickering light behind him, watching his every move like a hawk. Shuffling around through the inventory for a minute, Joe suddenly announced, “Look what I found!” Proudly, he held up a rib eye steak as big as a hot water bottle.
“Holy mother of God,” Ned gasped. “I don’t suppose you see another one of those lying around.”
Seconds later, Joe held up another slab of meat, bigger than the first. “Will this do?”
A moment later, the steaks were on the grill, and while they started to sizzle, Joe and Ned rummaged through the cooler again, digging out salad fixings, a gallon jug of macaroni salad, and two separate cheesecakes—cherry and one strawberry because they couldn’t settle on a flavor that pleased them both.
They carted the food to a table as far in the back as they could find. Once the steaks were cooked, Joe intended to turn off the broiler to draw less attention to themselves if anyone should walk past outside.
Joe spotted utensils hanging on a pegboard. Grabbing long tongs, he flipped the steaks. The smell rising from the grill made the spit puddle in his mouth. Waiting no more than two minutes longer, because that was about all he could stand, he scooped the great slabs of meat onto big plates and turned off the flames.
Ned hadn’t been idle, he saw. He had set the shotgun aside, and now their table was set with eating utensils and neat glasses of wine with a carafe of merlot standing ready at the side for refills. Their desserts were neatly displayed on an adjoining table so that all they had to do was reach over and grab what they wanted.
For the next twenty minutes, while they consumed their meal, they didn’t utter a word to each other. To his horror, Joe realized halfway through his steak—which was delicious and just as rare as he had hoped it would be—that he hadn’t thought once about the man he had killed less than an hour before.
Joe stood the flashlight on its nose, which allowed them just enough light to eat by, but not enough to draw attention from outside. Their knees were pressed together under the table, and the clatter of knife and fork was the only sound that accompanied their meal. Periodically, Ned would reach over and touch his hand with a fingertip, as if to reassure himself Joe was still there. Every time he did, Joe felt a rush of pride soar through him.
When the steaks were down to smears of grease and a couple of nubbins of bone, they stuffed themselves with cheesecake, each man sampling both flavors before unfastening their belts and collapsing back in their chairs.
Joe smiled at how handsome Ned looked sitting across from him, his face barely lit by the flashlight pointed down on the table between them. Ned’s plate, he noticed, was just as empty as his own. They had been starving.
Ned politely burped. “Great meal.”
Joe nodded in agreement. “Cheap too,” he added with a smirk. “Free actually.”
“That’s because it’s stolen.”
Joe’s grin broadened. “Precisely.” And for no reason at all, his gaze burrowed through the dark to where Ned had propped the shotgun against the wall by the cooler door. It was still there. His face softened as he turned his attention back to Ned.
“I have a question,” he said softly.
Ned stopped fiddling with another wedge of cheesecake and looked up. “Shoot.”
Joe sucked in a deep breath, which gave him enough time to get the words in the proper order inside his head. “Why do you think we admitted our love for each other now, Ned? I mean, just as the world fell apart.”
Ned sat stone-still for a moment, then answered quietly. “Maybe because that was when we needed each other the most.”
Joe gave a little nod, as if Ned’s answer agreed with him. “You know, it wasn’t when I actually said the words that I first started loving you. I loved you for months before that.”
Ned’s eyes glittered in the darkness. “I felt the same way about you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Ned looked down at his hands, then back to Joe’s face. “I was afraid. I thought you liked me, but I was afraid you didn’t like me the same way I liked—loved—you. I mean like a gay man loves another gay man.” Color rose in his cheeks. His eyes skittered away again. “Sexually, I mean.”
Joe reached across the table and captured Ned’s hand. “Would you have ever told me if I hadn’t spoken the words first? Would you have trusted me enough to do that?”
A fog fell over Ned’s eyes. He chewed his lower lip with teeth that gleamed white in the subtle light. “I don’t know. I’d been hiding my gayness for years. Ever since I had it beat into me that it was the wrong way to be.”
Just as Joe knew he would, Ned lifted his free hand to find the scar at the side of his head. He wondered if Ned even knew he was doing it.
Joe smiled at Ned and gripped his hand a little tighter. He was glad when Ned’s gaze bravely centered on him, no shame, no doubt, no sorrow. Ned had found his strength again. Joe could see it in his eyes.
“You’re not damaged, you know. Sometimes you seem ashamed by what happened to you, as if that day, that scar, has left you physically handicapped in some way.”
A tiny furrow formed in Ned’s forehead as he considered what Joe had just said. “Didn’t it?”
“No. You’re no more damaged than anybody else. To tell you the truth, Ned, I always thought I was sort of damaged too. I mean, I hated being around people. I hated sharing my life with anybody. It never bothered me that I was alone, because I never felt loneliness like other people did. Well, not until I met you. Then suddenly I didn’t want to be cut off from the world anymore. I wanted to be a part of something. I wanted to be a part of you. Nobody else. Just you. It was like a switch had been flipped. One minute I was the same old me, and the next minute, I was somebody else.”
A smile teased at Ned’s mouth. “Still, we must both be a little brain damaged. It took us a year before we admitted the truth to each other about how we felt.”
Joe grinned back. “Maybe a slow flame burns longer.”
At that, Ned dropped his hand from his scar and barked out a laugh. “Sure, Confucius. That makes a lot of sense. We’re not goofy, we just burn slower.”
Joe snorted a laugh, then leaned over the table and dragged Ned’s hand to his lips. He pressed a kiss into Ned’s palm.
“I would have hated to face the end of the world alone, you know. As selfish as it sounds, I’m glad you’re here with me.”
“Me too.” Ned’s thumb stretched up to stroke the bristle on Joe’s cheek. “If it really is the end of the world, I can face it now. I’ve spent time with you. We’ve made love. I can let it go, I guess. Life, I mean. Although God knows I don’t want to. It’s like you and I had our dessert first. Now we’re ready for our main course and the kitchen is being closed in our faces. Growing old together, Joe. That’s what love is really about. I don’t want to see this world end before we can do that.
I want it to end on our own time. When we’re ready. And that time hasn’t come yet, because God knows I’m not ready to let you go yet.”
Touched by Ned’s words, by the look of love in Ned’s crystal-blue eyes, Joe took a long, shuddering breath. His mind was suddenly filled with the image of Ned lying beneath him, naked, warm, and oh so beautiful. “I’m not ready either,” he whispered. “As long as you’re around, I don’t think I ever will be. That’s why we have to get away. Out of the city. Somewhere off on our own where we won’t have to worry about someone sneaking up on us with a gun.”
“So you think the darkness is here to stay.”
“I don’t know. But if it is, I don’t want to be living in fear every minute. I want to keep you safe. I want to keep us both safe. Maybe we’ll have a shot at growing old together yet.”
Ned’s mouth twisted into a lazy smile. “You’re not still wondering if I’ll come with you, are you?”
“No,” Joe said. “I’m not wondering.”
“Should we go now, then?” Ned quietly asked. “Is that what you want to do?”
Joe glanced through the restaurant window at the darkness outside. It hadn’t let up one iota. Nor had he expected it to. “Yes,” he said. “I know it doesn’t look it, but it must be getting well toward morning now. If we’re going to leave, I think we should do it now.”
Without hesitating, Ned gently pulled his hand from Joe’s and pushed himself up from the table. “I’ll pack some food,” he said, suddenly all business. “You take your trusty brick and visit that souvenir shop I saw a couple of doors down with the backpacks in the window. Get us each one. God knows when we’ll have another chance to eat. We’ll take as much food with us as we can.”
“Good idea.”
Joe headed for the gun. Grabbing it up, he laid it across his shoulder, then turned back to Ned. “You’re not just sexy, you know. You’re also brave and smart and cuter than hell.” He waited to hear Ned mumble a mocking “Thank you” in the shadows, then added, “Now what did I do with that fucking brick?”