Jeremy Finley - The Darkest Time of Night

“Kidnapped, more like it,” Verna grumbled.

“Didn’t have a choice,” Roxy said with a glare. “Joe said we needed that damn code of yours from the kitchen to get in. If Armageddon hadn’t started when we showed up, I would have personally forced your butt through that hospital till we found Lynn and William.”

“Didn’t you want to come get me?” William asked quietly, looking at his teacher.

I watched whatever was left of her binge seep from the old woman’s face. She reached out and gently squeezed his arm. “Miss Cliff was just tired, honey. And I’ll admit it,” she sighed, “I was a little afraid of the sky tonight.”

“Afraid?” I whispered. “You knew… this… those ships, those… things, were coming?”

“Things?” Verna asked.

William curled up closer to me, burying his face in my side.

“Oh God, you actually saw them? I don’t know if anyone here ever has. When I saw what kind of storm was brewing, I knew the ships would come. They always do when the weather gets this bad. And when all the phones and computers stopped working, I knew it for sure. But it didn’t happen… like it usually does. They aren’t dropping off people. They’re taking them back. Everyone who’s been marked. All those people, all my kids…”

She looked out the window, her eyes glinting with tears.

“You know… about the markings?” I asked in a hush, knowing I should cover William’s ears.

Verna ran her fingers over the back of William’s hair. “Honey, do you still have that bump on the back of your head from when you fell off the bed that night? The one that hurts sometimes?”

“Yep,” William yawned. “Are we gonna be here for a while?”

“Close your eyes honey,” Verna said, looking at me. “That bump, it’s always hurting him. The other kids complain about it too, but it goes away in time. It’s under his hairline, you’d never see it. You have to know it’s there.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Roxy whispered from the front seat, “Why does the military stand there and let those… ships… take those people?”

Verna smiled with traces of anger. “Because the government can’t stop them. Believe me, they’ve tried. It hasn’t been pretty. The military has tried to communicate with them, but they’re not interested. It’s like pigs trying to negotiate with a butcher. They’ve always just dropped off the ones they’ve abducted. I don’t know why they’re taking them back.”

I do, I thought. You don’t want to know.

I understood then that Verna’s drinking wasn’t to momentarily escape the sadness of what she’d seen. It was how she survived all those long years, watching the doctors and staff leave after working at the hospital for just a year or so—

I quickly looked to her, remembering her own words: They say they can’t handle it or they’re too sick to work anymore . Won’t even get close to the kids.

Those doctors found out, too late, what happens if they’re around the returned who have been activated. How not long after the patients scream in pain, their ears ringing and bleeding, the doctors themselves start dying.

Only Verna remains unaffected, and she doesn’t even realize why. Even though she said she was mesmerized by the lights from the ships, she doesn’t even realize she’s one of us too—

“Lynn Roseworth,” came a loud voice from a megaphone.

William sat up whining, and I looked around in panic. The voice came from outside the shop.

Joe ran from the garage window to the front of the building as the voice continued. “Lynn Roseworth, please come out. We know you are inside. Do not make us open fire. We do not want to harm you or your grandson. Come out, now.”

Joe hurried back from where he peered out the small window facing the street. He slid into the front seat. “They’re sitting there at the intersection, looking all around. They must not know where we are other than downtown somewhere.”

“Don’t doubt them. They will start shooting,” Verna said.

“This is a mechanic shop, can we hide somewhere? Down in a pit or something?” Roxy asked.

“Where’s the bathroom in this place?” Verna asked.

“Are you kidding me?” Joe hissed.

“Listen, I’ve drank enough tonight to put all of you under the table. When you’re this old, and you gotta go, you gotta go, or you go on the spot,” Verna said, sliding out. “I’ll find it myself.”

“Joe, what about Roxy’s idea of the pit?” I asked.

“We’re on top of it, and it’s covered. I’d have to move the truck and pull off the metal cover—”

“Give me your coats,” Verna commanded from outside the truck. We looked to see her standing by the light switch, her finger prepared to flick it up.

“Jesus, what is wrong with you?” Joe whispered.

“I will turn on these lights and they’ll know in a second where you are. Give me Lynn and William’s coats. Now.”

“God damn you, woman,” he said. “You’re gonna go hunch down in the bathroom under all those coats and wait this out—”

“I’m counting down. Starting now: five, four—”

“Shit!” Joe yanked off William’s coat and took mine as I shrugged it off.

“Miss Cliff,” William said groggily. “Are you leaving us?”

“Sorry kid. I’m done with all this. I know what they’re capable of doing. And your coat, too, gimpy. And that stupid sock hat of yours too, Joe. It will be cold in that bathroom.”

“I hope when they start shooting, they aim for the bathroom.” Roxy winced as she took off her coat.

Joe threw the coats out. As Verna slowly gathered them and walked towards the bathroom, the voice came again from the street. “Lynn Roseworth, you have one minute to come out. Please don’t make us harm your family.”

“Jesus, what are we going to do? We have to go,” Roxy said. “Just gun it out of here, Joe. We’ll have to take our chances.”

“They’ll be on our asses in two seconds, they’re right outside. They missed before, but now they’re at close range.”

“There has to be another place we can hide,” I said. Hearing the panic in my voice, William started to cry.

“Joe,” Verna’s voice came from the door. “Give me twenty seconds and then follow the alley down to where Janice Stoney had that crappy secondhand store. You can follow Sugarhill Street out.”

“What are you talking about…?” Joe said, watching Verna shuffle to the front of the building towards a door. Instead of her long coat, she now wore mine, and had the hood up. We could see she’d stuffed Roxy’s coat into William’s with the hood sticking out, and had placed Joe’s sock hat in the hood.

To complete the image, she’d tied her own coat around the waist of the makeshift boy, to cover his legs from the cold.

“What is she doing?” Joe demanded.

“Verna!” I whispered, covering my mouth.

She couldn’t have heard, but she did turn around and look at me. “Tell him,” she mouthed the words. “Tell him what I did. And get him out .”

Verna unlocked a door and stepped out of the building onto the main street, closing the door behind her, holding the crudely assembled dummy in her arms. “I’m here! Don’t shoot!” she cried out.

“Put the child down, Mrs. Roseworth!” the voice boomed.

“No!” Verna yelled out. “I won’t let you have him! I want a phone!”

“We have to go,” Joe said, jumping out of the truck and gingerly opening the doors to the alley.

“Mrs. Roseworth, put the child down. Walk over to us with both your hands in the air.”

“I’m not coming a step closer until you get my husband on the phone! He’s a US senator!”