Nightfall

by John Inman

  PJ was trying to see past the corner too, so Joe draped an arm around the boy and eased him forward to the edge of the building, just far enough for a glimpse. Two blocks down he could faintly see the sparkling gleam of the red and blue squad-car lights still blinking away. Directly across the street, the Shepperton Hotel stood, with its balustrades and tiers of balconies climbing high in the sky, every inch of it buried now in deep, impenetrable shadow. In intermittent flashes of gunfire, Joe caught glimpses of the hotel. He could see other stuff too. He could see that the crazies had erected a barricade across Broadway with assorted junk—burned-out cars, furniture from looted businesses, and probably stolen stuff from the department store where most of the looting was concentrated.

  In a way, Joe decided, the barricade was a good thing. If they were to race across the street toward the hotel on the other side, it would at least prevent the police bullets from targeting them as they ran. All they really had to worry about was the crazy people shooting at everything that moved, whether it wore a police uniform or not.

  Joe quietly flicked the safety off on the shotgun he was holding, although he didn’t have much faith in the protection it would offer them since he only had three shells. That wouldn’t get him very far in a gunfight.

  Still, it was all he had.

  He whispered to Ned, who was pawing at his shoulder trying to see. The boy was down below, looking out on the street from between his legs. “We’re going to make a run for the hotel. Is everybody ready?”

  PJ tugged at Joe’s pant leg to get his attention.

  Joe looked down and saw PJ pointing to the left of the porte cochere at the front of the hotel where the taxis pulled up—back when there were taxis—and where the steps led up to the lobby from the outside. The glass front of the hotel had its own barricade in the form of a folded metal grate that had been lowered to seal in the lobby. Maybe a hundred feet to the left, there was a trash can burning. The light it shed lit up a small doorless passageway, just big enough for delivery people to drop stuff off—back when there were delivery people.

  “See that?” PJ hissed. “If we can get in there, we can work our way around back to the door I have a key to. We can’t go in the front. They’ve locked themselves in with the security gate to keep the looters out.”

  From behind them, a man barked, “Hold it right there. Don’t move an inch.” Joe heard the unmistakable sound of a gun being cocked.

  He whirled around, startled, his pulse suddenly hammering behind his eyes. “Who are you? What do you want?” he hissed, squinting into the dark.

  “The boy,” the man said, his voice a leering snarl. “I want the boy.”

  “What do you want with him?” Joe asked, his mind racing, a layer of fear and disgust settling into him like silt. He knew exactly what the man wanted the boy for. He could hear the evil, lurid hunger in his voice.

  “You figure it out,” the man hissed, his hand groping forward in the dark, brushing Joe’s arm in his search for the child. “Give him to me. Hand his tender ass over.”

  The man’s response sent a surge of fury through Joe. Bile rose in his throat. His heart hardened inside his chest.

  Without thinking, Joe slapped the man’s hand away in disgust. Roughly, he pushed PJ and Ned to the ground behind him. Stepping forward, he raised the shotgun and fired point-blank into the darkness. In the muzzle flash, he caught the momentary glimpse of a wicked, eager face before it exploded into a crimson ball.

  Joe didn’t wait for the body to fall. Grabbing both PJ and Ned by their coats, he yanked them to their feet and dragged them onto the street. Draping an arm around each one so he wouldn’t lose them in the dark, he herded them quickly across Broadway toward the hotel. Bullets zinged past their heads and chipped divots of asphalt out of the street at their feet. Ned switched the flashlight on so they could see where they were going. Its beam bounced around in front of them like a manic strobe light, illuminating abandoned firehoses and dead birds scattered around and more than one human body lying bloodied and lifeless on the street.

  “Run,” Joe cried. “Don’t look down, just run!”

  As they stumbled over the opposite curb, Joe watched the flashlight shoot up into the sky when it flew from Ned’s hand and clattered to the sidewalk with a tinkle of broken glass. Its light blinked out the moment it struck. Joe’s vision was augmented by the feeble orange glow of the fire blazing in a trash can not fifteen feet away.

  Still shepherding everyone forward, Joe shoved PJ and Ned toward what, in the dim light, he gathered to be the service entrance PJ had pointed out earlier.

  A spray of bullets ricocheted off the hotel steps. Brittle shards of marble from the hotel’s facade exploded around them, making them duck. One small chip sliced a burning path across Joe’s cheek. He slapped his hand to the pain before pulling Ned and the boy to the ground, where he threw himself over them. Peering out among the hail of bullets, he tried yet again to orient himself to the doorway they were striving to reach.

  “Stop right there!” barked a voice to his right. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  Before Joe could respond, PJ spat a curse beside him.

  “To my dad, asshole! And you’re not gonna stop me!”

  A moment later a hailstorm of rocks filled the air, each and every one of them aimed at the head of the man who threatened them. Judging by the screams of pain, more than a few were finding their target. Amazed by the speed and precision with which PJ could chuck his ammo, Joe was tempted to stand back and let the kid take care of the problem all by himself.

  But after a few seconds of the man screaming “Ouch!” and “Crap!” and “Shoot that little fucker, Bob!” Joe decided he’d better step in and lend a hand. Especially since there appeared to be more than one bad guy present, although Joe didn’t know exactly where he was.

  Joe watched another flying rock, this one apparently guided by fate itself, make a beeline through the air and catch the man squarely in the forehead. Stiff as a board, the creep keeled over and crashed to the sidewalk. When he hit, the gun went off and one of his cohorts let out a scream.

  “Wow,” Joe yelled. “A twofer! Way to go, PJ!” Then he cried more furiously, “Now run! Come on.”

  Joe tried to pull them forward, but PJ and Ned didn’t move. It was like their feet were rooted to the street.

  Joe turned to see what the holdup was, and only then did he realize he really could see. There was light. That’s why he had seen PJ’s perfectly aimed rock nail the guy in the head. That’s why he could see PJ and Ned in front of him now, standing as stiff as statues and ignoring him completely.

  There was honest-to-God sunlight spilling down onto the street from somewhere up above!

  Joe blinked, trying to understand what was happening. He suddenly realized there was more than light; there was silence too. The gunshots up and down Broadway had abruptly ceased. It was almost as if a collective gasp had fallen over the city.

  Joe lowered his eyes to the boy beside him.

  PJ stood staring up at the sky, his wine-stain birthmark shimmering red on his cheek. He held an unhurled stone still clenched in his fist. Ned stood beside him, his hand on the boy’s shoulder, and he too was staring straight up into the sky.

  Not ten feet away, two buddies of the guy lying unconscious on the street were standing dumbstruck beside their friend. They had their heads tilted back, jaws agape, while they gawked at the sky above. One had a pistol hanging limp and forgotten in his hand, his finger through the trigger guard. Lazily, the pistol rocked back and forth. The other, just as dumbfounded by what he was seeing as the first, dropped his rifle at his feet, too astonished to hold on to it another second.

  A fourth member of their party—the second half of the twofer—writhed around on the street clutching the bullet hole in his foot after the first asshole’s gun misfired when PJ beaned him in the head with a rock.

  In Joe’s mind, all forward movement of time immediately stopped. The universe hung
in limbo. Waiting. In slow motion, Joe watched the still unthrown stone nestled in PJ’s fist simply tumble from his fingers. It struck the sidewalk and rolled over the curb into the street.

  As if that was his cue, Joe at long last lifted his own eyes to the sky. His jaw went slack, the sting of his torn cheek forgotten. He mindlessly edged closer to PJ and Ned and draped an arm around each of them, as much to protect them as to comfort himself. Together, they stood awestruck and breathless, astonished by what they were seeing.

  The sun, approaching noon somewhere on the other side of the endless layers of brimstone it had dumped across the planet, had finally burned its way through. In the uninterrupted blackness that had covered the planet for days on end from one horizon to the other, a hole had at long last opened. Inside the hole, a circle of ocean-blue sky appeared. It hovered there, that splash of perfect azure sky, as if its very beauty had been enough to sear a path through the sooted heavens. From inside the circle, gleaming as white as fire, an arrow-straight beam of sunlight stabbed downward, its edges as crisp as beveled glass.

  Joe’s throat tightened, and his eyes teared up. He knew beyond all doubt this remarkable beam of light was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life.

  “Is it over?” Ned whispered beside him, his voice weak with emotion, his words all but snipped into brittle existence by the chattering of his teeth. They were chattering, Joe realized, not because Ned was cold, but because he was crying. Ned stepped closer, snaking his arm around Joe’s waist. His eyes never left the sky. “Joe?” Ned asked again. “Is the darkness over?”

  They turned to each other. Joe’s heart almost stopped to see the wondrous smile beaming from Ned’s tear-soaked face. He opened his mouth to answer, but words wouldn’t come. He was too shocked to speak. Seeing Ned’s handsome face again in the purity of simple sunlight had stolen the words right out of his head.

  Tearing his gaze away, Joe glimpsed the two men left standing who had held them at gunpoint only moments earlier. They were slinking away like frightened dogs, as if the light had somehow exposed them, shaming them for what they had been about to do. One of them dropped a coal-black flag on the ground behind him as he fled.

  The man PJ had knocked unconscious with a perfectly aimed rock blinked himself awake. He raised a trembling hand to shield his eyes from the pillar of light and, with a curse, groaned his way to his feet. Cowering, clutching his head, he stumbled off, ignoring the man who was shot in the foot and still writhing around, begging for help. The ringleader disappeared into the crowds who had gathered in the middle of the street. Looters, some of them, their stolen goods lying at their feet where they had dropped them. Others, people who had been hiding in the surrounding buildings, were standing dazed now after wandering out onto the street to glimpse the shaft of sunlight stabbing down from the sky. They too were asking themselves the same question Ned had asked Joe.

  Is it over? Is the darkness over?

  With PJ still shielded protectively between them, Joe and Ned, their bodies yet rigid with amazement, continued to stare at that stairway of light beaming down from the sky. It was brighter now, the light. Joe had to squint to look at it. As if a curtain had been unfurled, the city too had grown brighter around him. The darkness that had held San Diego captive for so long, slowly relinquished its grip on the city as this remarkable beam of sunshine pushed away the shadows, letting the natural daylight seep back in, filling alleyways, lighting up storefronts, illuminating astonished faces.

  Once again, Joe became aware of the growing silence around him. He gazed along Broadway toward the police cars in the distance. He saw cops lowering their weapons and stepping around their vehicles. They pushed their caps to the back of their heads and surveyed the monolith of fiery light streaming down like a laser. Smiles lit faces that had not seen a smile for almost a week. The policemen reached out to each other, draping arms across each other’s shoulders, grinning, shaking their heads, holstering their weapons.

  Joe whirled at the sound of a male voice crying out, “PJ!”

  Before Joe could stop him, the boy wrenched himself free and ran toward the hotel behind them. He ran straight toward the delivery entrance toward which Joe and Ned had been trying to lead him earlier.

  There in the doorway stood a man in a rumpled suit, his tie hanging askew at his throat.

  “Daddy!” PJ cried, flinging himself into the rumpled man’s arms.

  Joe watched their reunion with a fresh spate of tears raining down his cheeks.

  Beside him, Ned still stared upward at the azure circle of sky peeking through the heavens and the radiant beam of light spilling down from the middle of it. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, Joe knew now that the sun was still up there. It hadn’t abandoned them. It still burned, still offered them light and heat, still fed the planet the energy it needed to sustain life. Joe’s life. Ned’s life. And all the other lives too. Both the good and the bad. Just as it always had.

  Just as it always would.

  His vision still blurred with tears, Joe stared at the proof of it spilling down.

  “It’s getting bigger,” Ned whispered. “The hole in the sky. The beam of light. They’re getting bigger.”

  Ned was right. Joe watched the city street grow brighter still around him. Shadows receded through doorways, slipped past corners. It was almost as if the city was coming to life again. As if the world was being reborn, the stage lights relit.

  Stunned, Joe collapsed backward onto the hotel steps. Sitting there, propping his elbows on his knees and burying his face in his hands, he tried to come to grips with it all. With everything that had happened, everything they had gone through. Ned dropped down beside him and snuggled close, digging his hand once again into Joe’s coat pocket.

  After a moment, they turned to gaze at each other. Ned was filthy, his clothes a mess. His flaxen hair was so oily and dirty it wasn’t flaxen at all anymore. It stuck straight up off his head like he’d been zapped with a Taser. His eyes were bugged out with exhaustion, and he had scratches on his cheek. God knows when he had acquired them. Poor Ned looked like a frazzled, starving coyote that had been gnawing on a porcupine all night.

  Joe suspected he didn’t look any better. As if to prove him right, Ned plucked a handkerchief from his back pocket and carefully wiped the blood from Joe’s cheek where the chip of stone had nicked him.

  Ned stuffed the hanky back in his pocket, and they shared a smile. Just as quickly their smiles broadened.

  Chuckling softly, Ned scooted closer and rested his head on Joe’s shoulder. In return, Joe pressed a kiss to Ned’s filthy hair. Like an old friend come to visit, he felt the roughness of Ned’s scar against his lips. A surge of desire rushed through him.

  Joe closed his eyes. Still smiling, he drew back and tilted his head up to let the heat of the reborn sun warm his face.

  Around him he could sense the city—maybe the world—beginning to pull itself together, the cogs of the past aching to mesh again, eager to grind their way back to their old existence.

  Suddenly weary of all the thinking, all the metaphysical bullshit, he turned to enjoy the simple sight of Ned watching him. Ned’s red-rimmed eyes were tired, but there was happiness shining in them that made Joe’s heart stutter back to life with its old purpose, its old excitement.

  Joe claimed Ned’s hand and held it to his chest.

  “Let’s go home,” he said, losing himself in those bloodshot, weary eyes that he loved so much. And that loved him back. “Just the two of us, Ned. Let’s go home.”

  Chapter Six

  THE UNPRECEDENTED solar storm boiled across the surface of the sun for five days, spilling light-killing waste into the solar system. On the sixth morning after the storm began, either by fluke or by the conscious hand of nature, the storm simply ended.

  Had it continued, scientists later agreed, or had the coronal mass ejections grown more violent, it might have been a planet-killing event. Even more horrible, perhaps, was what the storm ha
d brought out in the humans most susceptible to it. It was into those with darkness in their hearts already that the storm had cast its deepest shadow. In them, the storm unleashed a curious evil. The inescapable darkness freed and fed that cruelty, and the planet had reeled beneath it.

  The returning light reined in the evil. But the memory of it lingered. And that was a good thing.

  The real danger would lie in forgetting.

  JOE STOOD at the storefront window on the ground floor of the Shepperton Hotel. Behind him all manner of racket and confusion was going on. Nail guns banging. Buzz saws buzzing. Workmen screaming at each other over the noise. Sawdust floated in a beam of sunlight spilling in from outside, which Joe stared at it for the longest time, remembering.

  Through the window in front of him, he could see the rush-hour traffic just beginning. Sixth Avenue was clogged with cars and pedestrians. Car horns beeped. Diesel engines roared as a string of city buses trundled past. Christmas music rang out from loudspeakers on decorated streetlights. Santa Claus stood on the corner, ringing his bell for charity, tossing his ho-ho-ho’s about like confetti.

  Around the corner at the front of the hotel, with its broad sweeping steps climbing up from the street where top-hatted doormen bowed and scraped to the arriving guests, another rush hour was taking place. A horde of writers and publishers were descending on the Shepperton for their annual convention. It had been booked long before the world almost came to an end four months prior, and since the planet had eventually righted itself again, no one saw any reason to cancel the event. After all, why should people let a little thing like the total collapse of society and the near extinction of humanity spoil all their fun?

  Joe frowned, not entirely happy with his own cynicism.

  He turned away from the bright San Diego morning and cast his gaze inward, quickly regaining his good humor. Slitting his eyes against the dust, he watched the workmen mill about inside the newly leased 500 square feet of retail space on the hotel’s ground floor. Mr. Wong had been offered the space for a song. Mr. Shepperton, the owner of the hotel and the doting father of the rock-slinging PJ, thought it the least he could do when he learned that one of the men who saved his son’s life during the darkness was now out of a job because a mob of assholes had looted and pillaged the deli that once employed him.