Deep Night

by Greg F. Gifune

  “They use the dark half of human nature—greed, arrogance, fear, violence, gluttony, sloth, hated, jealousy, depravity—it’s all as much a part of us as love and affection and compassion are. And they know it.”

  Doctor Farrow, in that building, had used lust as well. It was lust and greed and anger that had incited those homeless men not only to rape her but to steal from her as well. Like offering an alcoholic a drink, it was something they should have been able to resist, but simply couldn’t. Sin. Ruthie was right, everyone was susceptible to it.

  “Like some sort of perfect weapon,” he said.

  “They know all our secrets, Seth. All of them.”

  And what about Raymond, what had he used?

  “Violence,” he said aloud.

  “What about it?” Ruthie asked.

  As a boy Raymond had used his position as a victim to bring out the worst in people, to bring out the violence and cruelty in people. It was so typically Raymond, to martyr himself even in the destruction of others. And then later, through committing crimes and giving opportunity to others to join him, his comrades and victims both were caught in the web. Infected.

  “My brother Raymond didn’t have much of a choice, did he?”

  “I don’t think any of the carriers do. I’m not even sure the infected have any choice once it’s inside them, once they’ve begun to change or revert or whatever you want to call it. We might all be fucked, Seth.”

  Seth felt suddenly dizzy. Flashes of the forest came to him again, visions of Christy running through the snow. Screams, the horrible screams…

  “What happened out there,” he muttered, “wha—what did we do?”

  Ruthie moved to the refrigerator. “When’s the last time you had something to eat?”

  “I don’t—hell, I don’t even remember.”

  “You need to eat, keep up your strength. You’ll need it.” She bent over to rummage through the refrigerator. “I’ve got some sandwiches in here.”

  “I need to get to Peggy and…and…”

  Ruthie returned to the table with a plate holding two roast beef sandwiches. “Eat,” she said firmly, sliding the plate in front of him. “I’m going to finish getting changed then we’ll get Peggy and Petey and get the hell away from here. I have some friends who can help.”

  Nausea throttled him and the lightheadedness grew worse. “I can’t eat, Ruthie, I…”

  “Take it easy, breathe,” she said. “Try to eat, you’ll feel better.” She grabbed one of the sandwiches and took a big bite. “They’re good, see?”

  Seth managed to get to his feet, but his legs felt weak. “What are you doing? That’s roast beef.”

  “Don’t you eat roast beef?”

  “You don’t eat roast beef, Ruthie. You’re a vegetarian.”

  She grinned, mayonnaise and strings of chewed red beef on her teeth. “Not anymore.”

  The room spun, and Seth felt his legs give out. He hit the floor, and through the blur, Ruthie came into focus above him, looking down at him with that same grin. She winked, took another bite of sandwich. Something trickled slowly from her nose. Blood. She seemed not to notice. “Don’t be afraid, I put something in your tea to calm you.”

  “But you—before, you—you helped me,” he said groggily.

  “It’s always better for these things to happen privately, without a lot of attention.”

  “What did you do to me?” he asked, his voice sounding abnormal and disconnected.

  “You’ve told me what you know.” She straddled him, her eyes turning dark. “Now let me tell you what I know. You can make it all stop, Seth. All the fear, all the pain, you can make it go away. I saw how you looked at me. All that lust, give it to me.”

  He tried to struggle but his body was limp, paralyzed. He fought to keep his eyes open but they slowly slid shut.

  Darkness engulfed him, and as he slipped into unconsciousness, he felt Ruthie’s hot breath in his ear. “Make it all go away, Seth, it’s so beautiful once you do, you’ll see,” she whispered. “Make it all go away. They’re already asleep inside you. Wake them up and let them out.”

  CHAPTER 31

  He remembered moving briskly along the street. Hurrying, but not quite running. The streets of Boston were impossibly empty, abandoned and deathly quiet as heavy snow continued to fall over the city. Seth approached the corner, hands in his pockets, the cold tearing through him despite his heavy winter coat.

  Where was everyone? How could he be alone here, in the heart of the city?

  As he turned the corner his question was answered. He wasn’t alone at all.

  An enormous wave of people were walking in his direction, a sea of humanity going about its business, moving together and coming his way. None of the people seemed to notice him, even when he began walking directly into the heart of the mob in the opposite direction. A space opened that was just barely able to accommodate him, so he pushed his way through, fighting his way upstream while the others brushed past.

  “Let them out,” one man said as he passed.

  A woman talking on a cell phone stopped her conversation as she neared him. “Let them out,” she said dully, then was gone.

  Each face, young and old, male and female, all began to recite the same mantra in monotone, one voice blending into the next.

  The crowd slowed and began to close in around him, and the harder Seth fought and pushed against it, the harder it became to break through. The mob had grown stronger and larger and was swallowing him, burying him. It surged in one direction and then the next, knocking him off-balance, and Seth crashed to the cold ground, legs and feet stomping down around him, the hems of endless coats closing off the sparse bit of sky above him he could still make out through the snow.

  And then the darkness returned.

  His eyes opened but his vision remained blurry and dull. Something was passing overhead slowly, as if in timed intervals. Lights, flashes of light were passing overhead every few seconds. That was it but…no, he thought, no the lights aren’t moving…I am.

  He tried to speak but couldn’t seem to open his mouth. His hands and legs were paralyzed, and when he tried to raise his head someone behind him put a hand flat on his forehead, holding it down, the touch of their skin cold and slightly moist. Seth tried again to move but could not. In his mind he cried for help at the top of his lungs, but still couldn’t get his mouth open, much less scream. The best he could manage was an odd croaking sound strangled deep in his throat, and the harder he tried to scream and make noise or move, the less he seemed able to. He rolled his eyes to one side and then the other but could only make out bare white walls. They had no markings or identifiable features of any kind and seemed to go on for far as the eye could see.

  An odd sound distracted him, rhythmic and squeaky—a wheel in need of oil—and it was then that he realized he was on a gurney of some kind. That was it, he was being wheeled on a gurney down a long white hallway, and the lights passing overhead were fixtures on the ceiling glaring down on him as he swept by.

  Seth felt the gurney turn to the right. A doorway passed over him and he found himself in a small room. Again he tried to move but could not. Only his eyes still had life, but as he darted them back and forth all he could see was the endless white. Though he knew he was not outdoors, in the distance he could hear the wind, a blowing, howling, winter wind. He could also hear subtle shuffling movement behind him.

  The hand on his forehead tightened its grip, and Seth felt breath against his face.

  He lifted his eyes in an attempt to see as far back over his forehead as he could to whoever was standing at the head of the gurney, but he strained so hard he became dizzy and the blurriness of his vision grew even worse.

  Whispering. Whoever was back there was whispering something in a chant-like cadence, but in a tone so soft Seth couldn’t make any of it out. But he knew from the direction of the whispers that it was above him now.

  He forced his eyes open and up.


  Its horrible skinless face, unfinished and otherworldly, gazed down at him.

  Who is in the room, Seth?

  Its body was perched on the gurney and crouched over him in an awkward, inhuman stoop more reminiscent of a bird or a gargoyle balanced on the ledge of a bell tower. It held his head in both hands and whispered to him, its breath humid and foul.

  There’s something in the room, it—

  Thick drool dangled then dripped from its repulsive mouth onto Seth’s face. He felt it run down his neck in hideous wet strands.

  Seth tried to scream but was still unable to make a sound.

  Who is this person, Seth?

  His heart pounded like it might rupture at any moment, and his throat constricted to the point where he could barely draw a breath.

  It’s all right, you can tell me.

  And as his terror became unbearable, the white walls turned to black, and all that was light became dark.

  Who is this person?

  The quiet returned…but for the steady breathing and the soft whispering murmurs behind him.

  It’s not a person.

  A violent chill shook him awake.

  “Raymond!”

  A ring of trees in the forest. A slow, steady snow. Night.

  He and Raymond were alone in the clearing, standing in snow past their ankles. Seth had a flashlight and pointed it upward, moving the beam slowly toward the treetops and sky above. The light illuminated the barren trees, made them look like a vast network of old bones. Death.

  The light swept back to the ground, to the clearing, to Raymond, who stood staring at him. “Am I dreaming, Ray?” Seth asked, his breath a cloud in the night.

  “You’re remembering,” he answered sadly. Raymond motioned to the woods beyond the clearing. In the deep darkness the outline of a cabin was just barely visible in the distance. Swaddled in shadow and the intermittent touch of muted moonlight, a woman ran through the snow.

  Christy.

  “Why did she bring us out here, Ray?”

  “She brought you here to die.”

  Seth’s arm fell to his side, the flashlight beam aimed at the ground. Blood seeped up from under the snow, leaking at first in small specks but growing gradually into wide blossoms, staining the snow, littering it like blooming flowers sprinkled about his feet. “Am I dead?”

  Raymond crouched in the snow, grabbed a handful and crushed it, letting it fall in chunks back to the ground. Slowly, he looked up at the moon. A slow trickle of blood leaked from his nose. “Not yet.”

  The blood in the snow grew worse, spreading and encircling Seth. “How can this be happening? How can God let this happen, Ray? Why has He abandoned us?”

  “This is all His,” Raymond said softly, his voice blending with the wind. “He can come and take it back whenever He wants. He can save us whenever He feels like it.”

  “Then why doesn’t He?”

  “Maybe we’re not worth the time or effort anymore. Maybe we blew it.”

  “Are you a prophet, Raymond, like Nana says?”

  “You’re the prophet.” Raymond smiled one of his heartbreaking smiles as the falling snow collected in his long hair. “I’m just your little brother.”

  “I know the secret.” Seth felt himself sink a bit in the moist, blood-red snow. He felt wetness soak through his pants and onto his skin. “Ruthie made a mistake. She talks too much, and she told me the secret, Ray. Faith and love.”

  “Don’t forget free will.” Raymond’s dark eyes looked out at him from behind the hair hanging across his face. “Submit, suicide, insanity or eventual overload and death like that poor bastard back at the cabin—Clayton Willis—head popped like a fucking grapefruit on the business end of a Louisville Slugger. Use your free will and choose. Go ahead, pick one. Free will. Shit. Gets us every fucking time. The game’s rigged.”

  Deafening screams rained down as if from above, exploding through the forest.

  Darkness, the night unfolding before him, the snow draping everything and coming down with unusual ferocity now. Sounds of his boots crunching beneath him, and his own gasping, labored breathing. The flashlight in his hand bouncing and shaking, its beam cutting enough of a fissure in the night to reveal blurry views of Christy running several yards in front of him, maneuvering through the trees and along the uneven terrain, her nude body impossibly pale amidst the darkness. Another cabin coming into view, the door open…

  Seth suddenly found himself back on the street.

  Falling, his balance lost, he staggered to the side, the world tilting and spinning. He struggled to gain his bearings and right himself, but it was too late, he was already crashing to the ground. He hit the sidewalk, bounced his shoulder on the curb and rolled into the gutter. Snow and mud splashed up around him.

  Seth lay there a moment until the world slowly came back into focus.

  Standing over him were two of the same homeless men from the building he’d followed Doctor Farrow to. One knelt down next to him, smiled, and slammed a fist into his face.

  Pain and an explosion of purple-blue light erupted behind Seth’s eyes, and as his vision eventually cleared he flopped back into the mud and slush.

  Seth tried to move but his arms and legs had gone limp, lifeless.

  The man rummaged through Seth’s coat, yanking his wallet free, grubby hands searching his pockets and moving over his body while the other stood watch.

  The man finished his search and left him, but his partner stood over Seth a moment, looking down at him with a curious expression. Assuming a wide stance, the man reared back and kicked Seth in the side again and again until he had rolled completely over, and collapsed face-down in the gutter.

  After a moment, Seth managed to get up onto all-fours, his hair and face dripping dirty water and slush as he crawled back toward the safety of the sidewalk. He tasted blood, and pain rifled across his ribs. His jaw and face ached where he’d been punched.

  His arms gave out and he collapsed again to the pavement. He rolled over onto his back with a moan and lay still. A horrible smell wafted up from the gutter, a combination of dirt and motor oil and shit and cigarettes and God knows what else.

  Someone walked by, Seth could sense them. He tried to reach out for their ankle. “Help me,” he gasped. “Please—help me.”

  The person muttered something unintelligible and was gone. Others came and went, passing by or simply stepping over him, but no one stopped to help.

  “Get a job, you fucking lowlife,” a man snapped.

  Seth’s head lolled to the side. His cheek pressed into the icy snow as his eyes focused on the street, and eventually the sidewalk on the far side of it.

  Across the street Ruthie stood watching, smirking with satisfaction, arms folded and hips cocked. Christy stood behind her, arms slipped around Ruthie’s waist and her chin resting on Ruthie’s shoulder. She said something and Ruthie laughed, leaning her head back until their cheeks met.

  They watched him like sated vampires, faces smug, sexy and evil.

  Almost human. But not quite.

  Seth’s vision blurred again, turning the world into little more than indistinct shapes and vague colors amidst the drifting, ever-present shadows.

  And the winter wind began to sing to him like the seductress it was.

  She brought you here to die.

  CHAPTER 32

  Light, dull with a yellow hue…the steady hum of nearby city streets…the slow and steady rhythm of breath…and the soft scratch of an expensive, metal-tip pen on paper. A musty smell…followed by the faint aroma of perfume…familiar perfume.

  All of it was familiar, in fact.

  His brother’s face flashed in his mind, sitting in the window seat and watching the snow. Nana stood behind him with sorrowful eyes, blood dribbling from her nose.

  Raymond!

  Seth’s eyes opened, and he sat up quickly as the small, windowless room around him whirled into focus. He realized he was lying on a bed, and someone was there, jus
t beyond the foot of it.

  “Easy, Seth, it’s all right. You’re in no danger, easy now.”

  That forever-accommodating voice, he’d have recognized it anywhere.

  Doctor Farrow sat in a chair, smiling at him, piercing blue eyes watching him through turtle shell glasses. The bedroom door behind her was slightly ajar, allowing a sparse bit of light to seep in from the rest of the apartment. The only other light in the dim room came from a small lamp on a nightstand next to the bed.

  Seth reared back, pushing against the headboard as if hoping to dissolve through it while frantically searching the room to see if they were alone.

  They weren’t.

  Just beyond the door, shadows moved and muffled voices carried, though he could not discern anything they were saying.

  “Don’t be frightened,” Doctor Farrow said in her smooth voice. “You’re perfectly safe, I promise you, perfectly safe. Take a few deep breaths and do your best to remain calm, everything’s all right.”

  He saw her in the abandoned building, nude and dirty, taking homeless men one after another with that wild look in her eyes.

  “Do you recognize me?” she asked through a placid smile.

  Seth nodded grimly. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “I’m sure you’re a bit disoriented,” she said. “That’s to be expected, but you’re all right, you’re in Ruth Chandler’s apartment, in her bedroom, in fact, and you’re safe and sound now, Seth, all right? Safe and sound.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  Rather than answer she motioned calmly to a small cup of water on the nightstand. “Would you like some water?”

  “What are you doing here?” he asked again. His entire body ached.

  Doctor Farrow wrote something on her little pad. “Do you remember coming here earlier?” When he stared at her without response she said, “Can you tell me the last thing you do remember?”

  He planted his feet on the floor and stood up slowly. The dizziness did not return.

  “Sit down so we can talk, Seth.”

  “I’m not talking to you.” Despite the fear and confusion, and soreness in his jaw and ribs, he felt stronger and more rested than he had in recent memory. “Who’s out there?”