Kenneth Calhoun: Black Moon

“How can we get up there?” Biggs asked, pointing up to the skylight, which indeed was open. Had they left it that way? The hook pole hung down. It wouldn’t support either of them, even if they were nimble enough to climb it.

They brought a stepladder out from the studio and put it on the dining table, which they pulled under the opening in the ceiling. Biggs went up, pushing the bubble window wide and pulling himself through. The sun was going down, but the heat still rose from the tar. He sat in the opening as she once had, his feet dangling. Below him, Morales waited for him to report what he was seeing, but he said nothing.

There were her footprints in the dust. There was no way to know if they had been pressed there a year ago, when she first went up, or recently—if that is, in fact, how she had found her way out. He put his hand in one of the prints, aligned his fingers with her toes. His palm came away blackened by dust. He slowly stood and took in the surroundings—the elevator housing, vents, and stovepipes. A low brick wall crowned the roof. He looked beyond it, holding his hand against the low sun, and scanned buildings, the city flaring with sunlight and, far away, the low ridge of the hills to the west.

The footprints marked a path along the circumference of the rooftop. She had walked along the edge numerous times, the footprints overlapping and obscuring the form of her feet. He walked alongside the prints and, feeling very certain that he was being watched, glanced back at the skylight opening, expecting to see Morales’s head jutting through. But no, he was still below.

At the far end of the roof, there was a shed. Yes, she had investigated it herself. Her footprints disappeared into the doorway. Biggs approached it and peered in, dreading what he might find there. Stacked against the walls were buckets of tar, rolls of tarpaper. The shed’s roof angled upward and beams formed a narrow shelf. He was startled to see a large owl there looking down at him. Its eyes gleamed as it calmly observed him, saw all of him, he felt, every vision that had passed through his head. For a moment he braced himself, expecting the bird to fly at his head. But instead it leapt over him and, with two silent wing beats, drifted over the side of the building. Biggs accepted an unspoken invitation. He stood on a bucket and saw the eggs there, sitting among the loose twigs and dried bits of fur and bone.

BY the time he returned to the loft, Morales was eating the food they had brought along from the center—pasta sandwiches and raw squash from the graduate housing gardens. He helped him down from the ladder and put a sandwich in his hand.

Biggs wondered if Morales had heard his ragged sobs, the primal groan. If he had, he would probably be under the assumption that Biggs had found Carolyn, or all that remained of her. But the outpouring Biggs had finally felt, as if the membrane holding back a flood of anguish had finally given way, didn’t require evidence that Carolyn was gone. He suddenly felt it.

Morales didn’t ask what Biggs had found, or not found. Instead, he said, “You’ve told us so much about her, you know, the dreams of her. But I got to admit that I wasn’t sure she was real.” He nodded at a framed picture—the wedding picture of Biggs holding Carolyn over the water as he stood in the lake. “Hey, now I kind of feel like I’m standing in one of your dreams.”

“This place is everywhere she should be but isn’t,” Biggs said, looking around.

“She moved,” Morales said, chewing thoughtfully. “She’s got a new place inside you now. Must be even more crowded than here. Dude, I had closets bigger than this place. I bet you paid a fortune for it too, right? City suckers.”

Biggs knew his face was blackened with dust from his hands. It didn’t matter, he thought, if he wore that blackness forever.

Morales agreed that it was a good idea to stay the night. Biggs said he would sleep in the studio so Morales could keep watch in the main room, after his three-hour shift on the sofa. “Maybe I’ll read some of these books,” Morales said.

Biggs dragged the mattress into the studio, just as he and Carolyn had done a few years ago. He pulled her black, light-proof curtains over the door and window and found himself in total darkness. The scent of her was still there, in the blankets, on the pillow. Faintly, faintly there. He waited to feel her sniffing at his cheek.

“Is it me?” he would ask.

He fell asleep and dreamed about something else entirely.

I offer my gratitude and appreciation to the many people who were helpful in producing this book. I thank my parents for making books part of my childhood, and my brother and sister for a lifetime of support. Thanks to the many friends and fellow writers who read and commented on these pages, notably Laurel Goldman and her Chapel Hill workshop, Steven Gamboa, Ryan Griffith, Mona Awad, David Baeumler, Matt Salesses, and the late John Harrelson.

Thanks also to the Millay Colony for the Arts and the Writers’ Room of Boston for providing much needed space and time.

I am forever indebted to journal editors who published my stories over the years. I’d especially like to recognize Whitney Pastorek, Andrew Tonkovich, Hal Jaffe, M. T. Anderson, David Milofsky, Adam and Jennifer Pieroni, Libby Hodges, Jeff Parker, Cheston Knapp, Nathaniel Rich, and Christopher Cox.

My talented editors, Zachary Wagman and Parisa Ebrahimi, have my deepest respect and appreciation for their smart and soulful suggestions. And I owe the world and more to my agent, Claudia Ballard, who is a remarkably gifted shaper of story and a fearless believer that hard work will be rewarded.

Above all, I dedicate this book in infinite gratitude to Anya Belkina and Sophie Calhoun, who endured my excessive sleep requirements and inspired the plots of my most hopeful dreams.

KENNETH CALHOUNhas had stories published in The Paris Review , Tin House , and the 2011 Pen/O. Henry Prize Collection , among others. He lives in Boston, where he is a graphic design professor at Lasell College.

“Calhoun’s depiction of the collapse of language, reason, and love in a world without sleep is unflinching, and—scariest of all—it feels brilliantly contemporary.”

“Calhoun’s literary dystopia, which features beautiful writing, arresting imagery, and powerful metaphors, will appeal to fans of Karen Thompson Walker’s The Age of Miracles …. A deeply lyrical exploration of humanity at the extremes.”

“Surprising and unpredictable…. In his first novel, Calhoun paints an all-too-believable landscape…. His dark tale is allegorical and relevant in today’s zombie-infatuated zeitgeist. This clever twist on the dystopian formula is a standout.”

“Surreal…. Calhoun’s premise is brilliant.”

“ Black Moon is the kind of book I envy as a writer, and seek out as a reader—a novel of ideas wrapped in a gripping, expertly constructed story, full of feeling and intelligence.”

“ Black Moon is tremendous: smart, beautifully written, and artfully plotted. Kenneth Calhoun’s story is so engagingly told that it would be easy to overlook how finely crafted it is. And he manages to pull off that essential feat: he makes us care—deeply—for ordinary people trapped in a very extraordinary world.”