Darkness Falling

by Peter Crowther

  "What kind of a light?" Ronnie asked as he moved back to the cockpit.

  "I dunno. Kind of like… like a searchlight?"

  "Maybe they're back already," Angel suggested.

  "Nothing there now," Ronnie said.

  They stood for another few minutes and then Ronnie said, "Like I say, let's get some shuteye and see what the morning brings."

  A few minutes later they were asleep.

  (17)

  Sally Davis had been asleep, too. And hadn't seen the light, so to speak.

  Sally had spent the day getting to the mall, arriving in the late morning in a garishly metallic orange Citroën something-orother that sat up like a dog, hunkering down on its rear wheels and lifting from the front, when she turned on the ignition. She could have had her pick of cars but it was that one that appealed to her the most. Of course, she could have used Gerry's beloved old Chevy, that, when the air was just right, still smelled of shit, cordite and decaying flesh, but she felt like a change. This brave new world that seemed to have been thrust upon her (without her having asked, she wanted it known to anyone interested) clearly called for changes. She told the children as much, abandoning the car near the visitor information center on California Street and walking over to the Denver Pavilions. It was closed.

  She had to eat, however, so she smashed a window of nearby Bagel Shmagel with a tire iron she purloined from a Subaru 4x4 that had ploughed into the window of a sportswear store – setting off the alarm – and helped herself to some bagels, cream cheese, smoked salmon and a pack of potato chips. Once she had made her sandwiches, she took one of the tubular steel chairs sitting around the Formica tables and smashed the flashing light box on the wall. The alarm didn't stop but it sounded a little woozy. As she was taking her seat outside on the street, it finally petered out and silence returned. Nobody appeared to have heard the alarm – as good a piece of evidence that she was definitely alone as she could possibly wish for.

  She sat out on one of the benches and watched the silent world as she ate, always half-expecting a car to come into view from Welton or Greenarm or Tremont, or maybe someone to appear suddenly out of one of the stores or maybe a hotel apartment and give her a wave. But there were no cars and no people. Not even a bird or an insect, as far as she could make out.

  After a few minutes, she went back into the Bagel Shmagel and helped herself to a piece of blueberry pie from the freezer display unit. The unit had gone off since she'd attacked the alarm system and the pie was just the right temperature. Back out on the street, she poured a half-dozen thimble-sized cartons of halfand-half onto the pie – she'd found the cartons next to the coffee machine but she couldn't figure out how to get it working. A shame, she thought then, that whatever had happened hadn't happened in the middle of the day, when everything everywhere would be open and accessible and functioning.

  She finished the pie, dumped the plate, fork and mess of little brown half-and-half cartons into a trash container on the corner of California and 16th and set off to find who knew what.

  The voices seemed to have been asleep since she left the house but now they skittered around in her head like moths. What's happening? seemed to be the favorite question, along with Where are we? And Where are we going? Plus, of course, Where is everyone? After a curt "Downtown," Sally couldn't bring herself to answer them anymore. Then the voices stilled and she felt them watching and waiting, could feel their attentions focused through her eyes as she wandered along Glenarm Place looking for someplace to go. Over in the east, the horizon was darkening. She stopped and frowned at it, shielding her eyes as she studied it some more.

  No, it was more than just darkening with the onset of dusk. It looked like black ink spilled into some kind of viscous liquid, the ink swirling around and spreading itself, the thin tendrils thickening into ribbons and the ribbons merging to form swathes of dark material like an old-fashioned cape blowing slow-mo in the wind.

  But Sally turned around and headed down 17th Street to the Brown Palace.

  Teddy Roosevelt was the first US President to avail himself of the Brown Palace's opulence, landing at the hotel back in 1905. Then came Taft, Wilson, Truman and Ike. When President Harding stayed there in 1923, a report announced that, for a few hours at least, the White House would be located on the eighth floor of the Brown Palace Hotel. "That's where we shall sleep tonight," Sally David told the building's ornate façade as she climbed the steps to the lobby.

  The noise of the vacuum cleaner was disconcerting to say the least. It was like an angry bee, trapped in gossamer webbing from which it had been trying to extricate itself for almost an entire day. Sally could not help but wonder at the plight of the unfortunate woman – she guessed it would be a woman – plucked from her duties just fourteen or fifteen hours earlier, the machine left in mid-sweep, poised between spotlessly clean carpet and a small stretch of pile blighted with the most miniscule of dust specks. She walked to the wall socket and removed the plug, plunging the lobby into what at first seemed to be a stultifying silence, until Sally heard the faint strains of piped music. "Delibes's Lakme," she said, hugging herself. The voices twittered the way they were so often wont to do. "I recognize it," she added.

  She strode up to the wide mahogany desk and tapped the bell with the palm of her left hand. "I shall stay on the eighth, I believe," she announced grandly, throwing her head back and wafting an invisible scarf from her chin and neck. "Certainly, madam," she responded in as close to a baritone as she could muster. The voices were amused. Tickled. What joy. What fun they were all having here, and no denying.

  The first room she went into – 811, luckily she had thought ahead and had taken six keys from the master board in the glass case behind the reception desk – had an unmistakable air of occupancy, coupled with unmade beds. Sally preferred to think of them as unmade, rather than as the ruffled scene of a double abduction, the sheets suddenly deflated onto mattress that was previously covered by leg and backside, arms and belly, the pillows indented, pressed in by invisible and now forgotten heads and faces. Fighting off an urge to tiptoe, Sally backed out of the room.

  The second was the same.

  The third was empty.

  The third is always the charm, one of the voices whispered to Sally.

  And she had to admit that it was.

  Room 815 was truly palatial, though not ostentatiously so.

  "I feel at home," she told the voices. And they agreed.

  She went to the window and looked down onto the empty city as the sky above it started to darken. She hugged herself again and leaned her forehead against the glass. "I feel safe here," she whispered. It was the first time she had felt that way since watching her husband eat his final meal of buckshot.

  (18)

  Maybe it wasn't entirely democratic but, to Geoff, the way they had decided on who was going to go out into the night made a lot of sense.

  Geoff was first up because, well, because he was effectively in charge. It wasn't put quite so bluntly during their brief discussion but it was understood that Geoff seemed to have the best handle on what was going on, so it seemed logical that he was out there making decisions as events presented themselves.

  Melanie stayed behind because she was the expert when it came to transmitting, and if Geoff and whoever didn't return from their expedition, then transmitting needed to be a real weapon in their limited arsenal. Geoff had no idea why he should not return but there were so many unanswered things that he was playing it safe.

  Playing it safe also meant that Melanie – who figured large in all of Geoff's considerations – was reasonably mobile. And the problem there was that Melanie didn't drive. She had taken a few lessons with her father, back when she was sixteen, but she had never pursued driving as such, being content, as were most New Yorkers, to take the subway, buses or, on special occasions, cabs when she needed to go somewhere. This meant that Geoff had to leave a driver behind, which excluded his brother from the list of possibles. Ever since
the accident, more than six months ago now, Rick had been unable even to consider driving. When he simply got behind a steering wheel, Rick would break out in cold sweats, shaking hands, dried-up mouth, the full business. So leaving his brother to look after his wife wasn't an option for Geoff.

  And so it was decided.

  Geoff and Rick stepped out from one darkness and into another at 3.11.

  With a soft smile and a final stroke on her husband's arm, Melanie stepped back into the station and allowed Johnny to secure the door. Rick watched, wondering whether to say anything but, glancing around at the road which disappeared into the night, he didn't feel very reassuring.

  Away from the pull-in apron in front of the station doors, the road drifted gently downhill. They kept to the grass sides to avoid even the slightest noise of their shoes on the blacktop, coat collars pulled up against the night. It felt strange to be out there at this time, but the sound of an occasional rustle and cricket chirrups from the undergrowth made for company of sorts. It also made for several jumps as each of them thought that the sounds meant that someone was sneaking up on them. But that didn't make sense, any more than their being out here in the first place made sense, and pretty soon they had moved into muted conversation.

  As they turned left to head on down to town, Geoff stopped and looked back at the station, nestled into the side of Honeydew Mountain. He would have given anything to be up there right now, just passing time, doing this and that, chatting to his brother and maybe Johnny, listening to Mel's show. He gave a single wave to the station and turned to face the road, suddenly aware that Rick was watching him.

  "You OK?"

  "I'm fine."

  Rick pushed his hands still further into his jacket pockets, at the same time hugging it tight around his legs. "How far to town?"

  "From here? Three miles maybe. Four at the outside." Geoff kicked a stone and sent it spinning into the long grass. "Should be there in an hour, hour and a quarter if we take it slow and easy."

  "Well…" Rick stepped out and began to walk, bending his head back, taking in the stars and the endless blackness of space. "Let's just hope we get a lift back."

  Geoff said, "And it's a big amen to that."

  "At least this way it's downhill."

  Geoff grunted acknowledgment. No matter how hard he tried and no matter how optimistic he allowed himself to become, he could not imagine that they would be getting a lift back to the station. In fact, he already felt that he would never see his wife again. Right now, walking down the road, that realization was easier than it had been back at the station. Back at the station, with Melanie framed in the doorway, there were options open to him: for one thing, he could change his mind and stay put. But now, with the wind on his face and in his hair, and his coat around him, he felt primed for primed for action; a grunt, deep in-country and miles from home, prepared for whatever the enemy threw at him.

  As they reached the spot where they had seen Jerry Borgesson's truck, Geoff realized that he had seen the same thoughts captured in Melanie's eyes. She too didn't expect him to be back. He took his hands out of his pockets and, with his right hand, felt for the wedding band that had been there since their wedding day. It felt good. Whatever happened, nobody could take that away from him, or take away the years they had enjoyed together.

  They stopped and looked around.

  "See anything?" Geoff called to his brother.

  Rick glanced back and when he saw that Geoff was watching him, he shook his head and continued to plod around the thick grass beside the road. After a couple of minutes they met again on the road and continued on towards Jesman's Bend.

  They walked in silence for more than a half hour, Rick occasionally clearing his throat and glancing across at his brother, while Geoff merely forged ahead. He had worked his way into a routine, placing one foot after the other and mentally striking off the yards to town. And all the time he concentrated on sending a message to Melanie that told her how much he loved her and how she should not be bitter whatever happened to him tonight. Just now and then, he got a wave of guilt about dragging his brother along to share in whatever was waiting for them. But he hadn't had a choice. Maybe Rick would get around to driving again – and Geoff certainly hoped that was the case – but he could not leave it to chance, not when Mel's life was dependent on it. Then even that thought brought its own wave of guilt, as he realized he was effectively saying he didn't mind Johnny getting killed but he did mind if it was his brother. But surely everyone thought that way. What was it they said about blood being thicker than water?

  Rick was aware of Geoff looking at him. He didn't respond. He was in what he called The Graveyard, a place in his mind when he imagined a pair of dead people were walking along behind him, shuffling their tire-marked torsos and stretching out their wattled, sore-covered and bloodstained arms to reach for him. He knew the two of them well, though he had forgotten their names since the hearing. Sometimes he imagined they were right alongside him, standing back amidst the cover of the trees, ready to waddle out in that off-balance way the dead have of walking, and sometimes he imagined they were waiting up ahead, ready to step out into his path–

  Hey, asshole, whyn't you come and finish the job… think there's a couple of bones here seem to be still in one piece…

  –like a couple of old Wild West gunslingers. But mostly he thought they were behind him, moving one mud-caked foot after the other, gaining on him. He turned around and walked backwards a couple of steps while he scanned the road behind them. It was deserted.

  "Hear something?" Geoff whispered.

  Rick turned around and shook his head. "Just checking."

  "Listen."

  They stopped and listened.

  Up ahead, occasionally hidden by the wind through the trees, was the unmistakable sound of industrious activity. A lot of activity.

  Hammers hammered and engines vroom-vroomed, their sound muted and hoarse, straining. The wind picked up the sound like a playful dog, ran with it first one way and then the other, taking it out of earshot and then dropping it again, louder now.

  "Sounds promising," Rick ventured. He glanced to his right at a big bush that seemed to be moving strangely, the way maybe a bush moves when a couple of dead people are holding it close to them. But it was just the wind, of course.

  Geoff didn't say anything.

  They walked a couple more steps and stopped again, both of them together. "Doesn't seem right to you either, does it?" Geoff said.

  Rick had to admit that it didn't. It didn't sound right at all. The main thing that was wrong with it was that, even though the sound of activity was reasonably loud now, with the first houses just around the next clump of trees, there wasn't a single voice to be heard. No muted shouts or far-off conversation. No laughter, no music.

  It's life, Geoff, but not as we know it.

  Geoff hissed and pointed to the trees. Rick understood straight away. If they ducked off the road and into the trees before the bend, they could come up on the ridge that overlooked the town without anyone below being able to see them. That way they could check things out before actually having to advertise their presence.

  Rick led the way through the bushes and checked behind every few steps to make sure that the lumbering sound of twigs and branches being either snapped or displaced was in fact his brother and not anyone else. The hoot of an owl from somewhere over to their right suddenly made Rick feel silly. What the hell were they doing clambering about in the woods when it was obvious that everything was entirely normal?

  He pushed past a large branch, holding it to one side but failing to notice that the ground fell away into a deep ditch whose earthen sides were a maze of exposed roots. The sense of falling away was horrible. Rick felt as though he had stepped off the edge of the earth, and was doomed to plunge forever through space. He held onto the large branch with one hand and, even as his feet went away from him and he plunged forward, he threw up his free hand and grabbed the end of the
branch, momentarily swinging forward and then being swept back into a huge bush. The branches cut and pierced his skin, one narrowly missing his eye and instead getting entangled in his hair. Rick let go of the branch and fell into the bush, settling after a few seconds and trying hard not to breathe loudly, though he suspected anyone within twenty yards would have heard all the commotion.

  The hand on his arm made his jump but it was only Geoff, smiling despite his obvious concern at all the noise. "You OK?"

  Rick allowed his brother to pull him to his feet and then rubbed himself down. He nodded. The branches had scratched his face and managed to tear open his jacket and shirt, and raise thick welts on his chest and stomach – he tucked his shirt back into his pants, wincing at the pain. "I'll live. Think anyone heard me?"

  Geoff shrugged. "We'll wait a few minutes just to be on the safe side."

  They waited and listened.

  The noises of industrious work continued seemingly unabated and there were no telltale branch snaps or rustles to suggest that anyone had heard Rick's plight. Geoff patted Rick on the shoulder.