Darkness Falling

by Peter Crowther

  Junior frowned. Something on the floor? Hell, half the fuckamamey house was on the floor and there'd be hell to pay when mom and dad got home. Junior kept that thought right at the front of his mind. It made him feel better. Made him feel like it was a little toehold on normality, a tiny grasp on the way things were. Particularly now that the man on the ladder had pretty much fallen into the bedroom, with a fine dust of plaster falling down on him like fog or fairy dust, and he had opened his eyes to reveal–

  Hey, ladeez and gents, waddya think to this now, I aks ya, just two empty sockets! Guy's eyes gone bye-bye…

  –there was nothing in them.

  "Shitfuckshitfuckshitfu–"

  Amazed at the sheer force of Wayne's outburst, Junior fell out of his little brother's way as the boy tumbled over, wrong-footing himself on pieces of concrete and plaster.

  "It's on the fucking floor, Ju," the boy cried out. Without turning back, he stumbled towards the bedroom door.

  Through the dust, Junior could see the door starting to open. Could it be mom and dad, come home to rescue them from people in flying cars who destroyed their home, and who – even worse, Judge – wore dark glasses in the nighttime when they weren't even movie stars but rather just local folks gone to hell in a handcart, and all wearing gloves? But even as the thought popped into his head, Junior popped it right back out again. He couldn't be sure who the heck it was out there on the landing, his or her outline blurred by dust, but it sure-as-shootin' wasn't Junior's parents.

  "Wayne! Don't go out of the–"

  And that's when he felt it, felt something brush against his folded knee on the floor. Junior turned around, ignoring the guy with the empty eye sockets who, even now, was getting to his feet, pulling himself upright with his gloved hands on the chest of drawers. It didn't seem important any more. What was important, Junior felt, was the large gelatinous orange eyeballthing that was moving around in the debris, seemingly unsure of where it was going and its frilly jellyfish skirts rippling.

  Someone screamed then.

  Junior was only partly surprised to discover that it was himself.

  (47)

  Virgil was the second one down from the bus. He stood in the street, revolver in his hand hanging loose at his side, and surveyed the damage.

  "Well," Rick said at last, "we're committed now. Stealth is no longer an option."

  They moved back to the door of the bus and looked up at the faces clustered before them – the guy from the plane on the bottom step, Melanie and Johnny behind him, with little Angel Wurst and her ever present doll between them, and the older woman at the back, the plane guy craning his head around to look up the street along the side of the bus to see if the shots had brought any unwanted attention. Rick had a feeling that such attention would not be long in coming.

  "What are we going to do?" the older woman asked of nobody in particular. In fact, Rick fancied it was not actually intended as a question, more an evaluation of their situation. Hell, it wasn't good.

  "It's dark," Johnny said.

  Sally Davis and Ronnie looked across at the young man.

  Johnny shrugged. "They like the dark," he said. "It's their time."

  Ronnie stepped forward and pulled his gun from the holster. "I feel ridiculous with this." He hefted it in his hand and shook his head.

  "Nothing else gonna stop them," Rick said. He checked the street along the way they had come and then looked up the way they had been travelling. Ronnie pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and checked the street sign, nodding. He took in a deep breath and when he looked up, Angel Wurst was watching him. He gave her a smile and waggled the gun, trying to make light of what they were about to do. But the girl didn't seem able to see the funny side of it.

  Rick said, "Someone's going to have to stay with the bus. Johnny, you take charge here. We'll be back as soon as we can." He checked his watch. "Give us fifteen minutes. If we're not back then–"

  "Come and get us," Virgil said.

  "I won't be going anyplace without you." Johnny shrugged. "One way or another, we'll be on the bus together or I'll know what's happened to you."

  "Shee-it," Virgil said. He lifted the pump-action and cradled it.

  "OK," Rick said. "Mel, you stay at the bus with–" He made a face and looked over at Sally.

  "Sally," she said in a soft voice.

  "You stay at the bus with Sally and Johnny."

  "And me."

  "Sure, and you, Angel." Rick grinned.

  "The two boys are in a lot of trouble," the girl said.

  Ronnie crouched down beside her. "Yeah?"

  She nodded, her mouth clenched tightly shut.

  Ronnie considered asking her how much trouble, exactly, but there was a part of him that just didn't want to know. The anxiety he felt was only partly for the two boys. The rest of it was for himself. Aside from fleeting dark thoughts every once in a while – very rarely, to be fair – Ronnie had not actually given much thought to the prospect of death and dying. And now, in the space of just two or three days, he had had to face it head-on on two occasions: once on the suddenly deserted plane plummeting out of the skies towards an unforgiving Denver ground, and now here, in some back of beyond suburban street proposing to face up to things that looked human but which stored eyeball creatures in their heads and could destroy your body simply by putting their hands on you.

  "We better move," Rick said.

  "Yeah." Ronnie wanted to say something else to the girl but he looked at her eyes and saw that she'd said all she wanted to say. He stood up and moved against the store window, lifting his gun to his face and staring at it in the gloom.

  "You're still wearing your glasses," Melanie said.

  Almost as soon as the words had left her mouth, Melanie clapped her hands. "Hey–"

  "I'm with you, Mel." Rick reached into his breast pocket and lifted out his own dark glasses.

  Sally Davis frowned. "You think they're going to buy that? The three of you walking down there carrying guns and–"

  "And no gloves," Johnny added.

  Rick said, "Maybe it's going to be better than nothing."

  A small squawky voice said, "Wonder why they wear gloves anyway."

  Ronnie looked over at Angel Wurst and saw the face of the doll they'd picked up at the mall. It seemed to be looking right at him.

  "Hey," Ronnie said, "Samantha's right."

  Johnny whispered, "Samantha? Who's Samantha?"

  "The doll," Melanie hissed back at him.

  Ronnie went on. "Why do they bother wearing gloves? They take them off when they want to hurt someone but otherwise they keep their hands covered." He nodded to Rick. "You said that they all wore gloves when they hit you at the radio station."

  Rick nodded, glancing sideways at Melanie, who had hung her head.

  "So that can only mean that not wearing gloves in some way diminishes them."

  "Diminishes them?"

  "Hurts them, even. Maybe even kills them."

  Virgil threw his hands in the air. "Fantastic. So what are we worrying about? All we gotta do is persuade them all to take off their gloves and then we watch them die." He sniggered. "Shouldn't be too difficult – so long as we stay out of their grasp." He shook his head and hefted his pump-action. "Me, I'm just gonna blow them away with this."

  Nobody said anything for a few seconds and then Rick said, "But it is worth bearing in mind. Same goes for the dark glasses. They're obviously not fashion accessories."

  "They don't like the light," Angel Wurst said.

  Everyone turned to face the girl, who was nodding. Samantha the doll, sitting on Angel's arm and held securely by Angel's right hand, was nodding too. "They're going to make it all dark."

  "All dark, honey?" Melanie said. She didn't like the sound of that. Not at all.

  Angel nodded. "All dark, all of the time," the squawky voice added. "And then they won't need their glasses."

  That didn't sound too good at all.

&
nbsp; Angel turned Samantha around and then lifted the doll to nuzzle into her neck.

  "Time to go," Rick said.

  Once everyone else was safely on board – Melanie, Angel and Sally Davis – Johnny climbed stiffly back onto the bus. At the top of the steps he nodded to Rick. "Take care."

  Rick nodded back but didn't say anything and the three of them walked away from the doorway, and paused at the intersection, Ronnie leaning on the wall. Rick asked him if he was OK as Virgil eased the top of his head over the edge of the wall to see what was happening.

  Ronnie patted his chest and let out a little laugh. "I think I'm just scared," he said. He held his right hand out in front of him. "See that? It's shaking."

  "Shit, it's like a circus down there," Virgil hissed over his shoulder.

  "We're all of us shaking," Rick said. "You gonna be OK?"

  Ronnie smiled, shrugged and patted his pump-action. "I've got this, at least."

  "Better than nothing," Rick said as he sidled over to Virgil.

  When he reached the wall, Ronnie could not bring himself to peer around and instead waited for Rick or Virgil to report. He could feel his heart beating, in his chest and in his mouth, and he had to crouch down so as not to keel right over where he stood. He cradled the pump-action on his upper thighs and placed both hands on it. It was just metal, nothing more sinister than that. But it was a killing machine, a device designed and sculpted and built purely to cause pain and harm. Ronnie fancied he could feel the killing energy from the ribbed sleeve that pumped the next load into play.

  They moved back from looking around the edge and crouched alongside Ronnie, Rick on Ronnie's right and Virgil on his left.

  "You sure you're gonna be OK? You look a little pasty."

  "Sure. I'm fine. Let's get on with it."

  Rick nodded and went on. "OK, there are around twenty people, maybe more, wandering around about halfway down the street."

  "What are they doing?"

  "Nothing much." Virgil shook a cigarette out of a pack and lit it.

  "Hey, you smoke," Rick said.

  Virgil nodded and returned the pack to his jacket pocket. "There are several vehicles down there, a couple of regular cars circling the roof, a fire engine that's kind of parked on the guttering with a ladder through an upstairs window, and a van plus another couple cars down on the street."

  Ronnie could feel his breath fading on him and he shuddered each time he breathed in, barely managing to maintain his smile.

  "OK," Rick said. "Ronnie, we're gonna have to leave you here."

  Ronnie started to protest but Rick was having none of it.

  "Ronnie," he said, whispering now, "you're gonna fuck it all up, you go walking down the street tottering side to side."

  Ronnie breathed in. And then he breathed in again. He held out his right hand and watched it for movement. There wasn't any. "I'm OK," he said. Martha, he thought, I never wanted you by my side more than I do right now. "Truly. I'm not going to be left here."

  Rick looked over at Virgil, Virgil looked at Ronnie. Virgil made a "doesn't matter to me" face, shrugged and took a pull on his cigarette. "OK, let's get going."

  The three men stood upright, their backs against the wall, and checked their weapons. Each of them carried a fourteen inch Ithaca pump-action. Rick also had a holster and 1911 handgun, plus a small .38 in his pants pocket. Ronnie wore a wide belt of bullets around his shoulder and a Dan Wesson .357 stuffed in his waistband. In addition to his pump-action, Virgil carried a Smith and Wesson 59.

  Virgil said, "So what's the plan?"

  "We walk," Rick said. "Until one of them figures out that we're playing for the other team. When that happens, you do whatever you have to do." He looked at the others and placed the pump's stock in his right hand, running the barrel up behind his arm. They followed suit. "OK," he said.

  They stepped away from the wall, took a deep breath and turned the corner into Market Street.

  A compact job appeared from behind a tall building to the left, veered over the rooftops, disappeared for a few seconds and then reappeared a couple of houses in front of them. They walked steadily and without any suggestion of urgency.

  The car – maybe another Volkswagen, Virgil Banders thought, suddenly thinking of the dead body in the last one he'd used – seemed to slow down as it saw them. That was ridiculous, of course – cars did not see people.

  "They're watching us," Virgil said between clenched teeth.

  "They're not watching us."

  "You think they're watching us?"

  "I don't know," Ronnie whispered. He was actually feeling a little better for being on the move. It was the moment of decision that was the worst, he had decided as he walked along the street. While there was a chance to take either course of action – to get the hell away, in this case, being the other – there was anguish as to which course should be taken. But once the decision had been made it was simply a matter of continuing.

  "Don't let anyone see you speaking," Rick snapped.

  Another car, a wreck as far as they could make out, turned from the house and started back towards them. The VW just hung there like a magic trick, a car suspended without wires against the dark sky.

  "Now I think we have a problem," Ronnie muttered without moving his lips or faltering his step. "There's nobody in the VW."

  Virgil turned to him, amazed. "You can tell the make? From here? In the dark?"

  Ronnie almost shrugged. "I like cars," he said. "Maybe I need to get out more." If all this mess sorted itself out then he would be getting out more, Ronnie thought. I wonder if I'll ever see Martha again…

  Virgil hesitated, just for a second, and the VW flinched to the side, turning in the boy's direction.

  "Keep walking," Rick said.

  The VW straightened and lowered itself to the street a few feet in front of them. Up ahead, from the house where all the action seemed to be concentrated – the home of the World's Greatest Mom, Ronnie reasoned – two men staggered onto the sidewalk and looked in their direction.

  "We gonna stop?"

  Rick didn't say anything, just kept walking. Without any communication between them, they slowly drifted apart, Virgil moving to the left and Ronnie to the sidewalk at the right of the street next to a Presbyterian church with a small fenced garden area at the front. Rick stayed in the center of the road.

  "Looks to me like we don't have much choice," Virgil said, shifting his gait from the stilted stagger to his usual walk as he stepped onto the sidewalk. He hefted the pump-action into plain view as the driver's door on the VW opened up.

  "OK," Rick said. He pulled his own pump clear and loaded the chamber. "Fuck it."

  "Is that the plan?" Ronnie hissed from his side of the road. He didn't feel in the least bit comical but he just couldn't resist it. He dropped the stock of his own pump into his hand and swung it up so that the barrel pointed at the driverless car. These people–

  People? whispered a voice in the back of his head. These are not people, compadre, these are things – "alien beings from a dying planet" – and all of 'em set on popping your eyeballs out of your head.

  –had somehow stolen his wife, the only recently re-loved Martha, and whatever it was they could do to him, he had this here pump-action gizmo (a device he had, alas, not yet fired, of course, but let's not worry our pointed little heads about that one, kiddies) and he would take more of them than they would take of him.

  But what's it like to have your eyeball popped, oh great gunslinger? How does it feel when it plops right out onto your cheek on a little coil of slippery head-wire, maybe even looking right back up at the leaking socket it just came from?

  But across the street, Virgil was just ahead of him. He let off three rounds, the first knocking him backwards so that the shot went wild and didn't connect. He steadied himself so that the second hit the VW's grill while the third took out the windscreen. It also made a splash of the head of the young boy – maybe six, seven years old – sitti
ng behind the wheel as he made to step out of the car.

  "That's why we couldn't see him," Ronnie said. "He's just a–"

  The boy continued to move forward, his hand still on the top of the door, but he keeled right over after two steps and lay still on the sidewalk just a few yards in front of Ronnie, his head on the ground and his ass stuck up in the air.

  "He's just dead," Virgil Banders said.

  This isn't good, Ronnie thought. The body, when he reached it near the overhead streetlight, looked perfectly human. He couldn't see the face – or what was left of it following Virgil Banders's shots – but he knew from the mess of the back of the boy's head that it probably didn't look too good. So the fuck what? said the little voice. We're playing for keeps, here. There's no standing up after the last reel and the cowboys having a coffee and a smoke with the Indians.