Patrick D'Orazio - Coming the Dark

Jeff opened his mouth to respond, but she cut him off. “I can’t stay here any longer. I don’t care where we go, but I want to find other survivors.”

She looked at him expectantly, and after a moment, Jeff slowly nodded.

“Just get in the Jeep so we can get out of here.” Megan opened the car door and stepped out, forcing Jeff to back up as she continued. “You can drive…I don’t care, but let’s go!”

“That sounds like a great idea, Megan, it really does, but I already told you, the roads are blocked, remember?”

A dark look crossed Megan’s face as she tried to retrieve the memory of what Jeff had told her about the cars jammed at the entrance of the subdivision.

“I want to leave too, but I think we would be better off waiting until tomorrow. Maybe we can stay in your house tonight?”

Megan’s face went pale. Shaking her head rapidly, she took a step back. “No. There’s no way we can stay in there. I won’t stay here another night.” Her eyes grew hazy, as if she were lost in some old memory. An instant later, her gaze snapped back into focus, and the look she gave Jeff told him it would be pointless to argue.

“Okay, no problem,” Jeff said in a placating tone. He paused, thinking. “I’m sure we can find a house around here that hasn’t been broken into.”

Megan crossed her arms, her expression turning sour.

“We can leave tomorrow. I promise, bright and early,” he continued with his appeasing tone. He stepped closer to the petite woman and let his hands gently touch her arms. She did not shy away as he spoke again. “Because if we leave now, it’ll be dark before we get very far.” He let the meaning behind his words sink in. “I don’t think it would be a good idea for us to be out on the road after dark.”

Megan absorbed what Jeff said and stood quietly, her expression fatalistic. After a few moments, her features softened.

“What about your house?”

Jeff stiffened, his hands dropping away as his face went blank and emotionless.

“My house…” He shook his head as he looked off into the distance. He was still trying to wrap his mind around everything he had done. “My house is gone.”

Megan waited to see if more of an explanation was forthcoming. When Jeff’s eyes refocused on her, she realized he was still waiting for her response to his suggestion about finding another house in which to camp for the night. Sighing deeply, she nodded.

Jeff smiled, and she returned it faintly. He slid past her, between the two vehicles, and leaned into the Cherokee to look inside.

“Is the tank full?”

Megan shook her head. “I think there’s half a tank…maybe less.”

Jeff gave the SUV a wistful look before he stepped back and carefully shut the door.

“You have anything useful in your house?”

He could see a twitch of anger cross Megan’s face and then disappear under a veil of sadness. The question had to be asked, even if it stung. All their possessions, all their cherished memories, were useless now, obsolete. The only things of value that remained were items that might help them survive another day.

Megan walked to the door at the back of the garage, bumping into Jeff as she passed. She looked like she was sleepwalking. Slumping over, she sat on the steps leading into the house and put her chin in her hands. When she spoke, her words were monotone, nearly robotic.

“My husband’s gun is on a table next to the front door. There’s a box of bullets on the top shelf of the closet in the master bedroom. It’s behind a stack of shirts. The keys to both cars are on a hook in the kitchen. There are a few cans of food on the counter, but the only water left is in the bathtub.”

Jeff’s eyes lit up when he heard the word gun. Seeing her downcast expression, he worked to keep his own solemn.

“You’re not coming in then, I take it?”

Megan did not look up as she shook her head. Nodding, Jeff touched her shoulder as he moved past her up the steps, opening the door into the house.

“Whatever you do, don’t go down to the basement.”

Jeff turned, looking at Megan from just inside the door. Her back was to him, and he could gather nothing from her slumped shoulders. When she said nothing further, he quietly shut the door and moved into the depths of the abandoned house.

* * *

Megan’s mind wandered back over her experiences of the past few weeks. Flashes of her husband barricading them inside the house flitted through her mind. She remembered him leaving in the jeep and promising to come back with enough supplies to last a month. When he had returned, his arm was bleeding from where one of those lunatics had bitten him. She recalled how he begged her not to let him turn into one of those things and slipped her the revolver before passing out from the pain.

Her reverie was interrupted by a sound from outside the garage. Megan leapt to her feet, her back pressed against the door. She glanced around, trying to find the baseball bat she had brought back with her. It was sitting in the passenger seat of the Jeep. Her heart raced as she took a single step toward the SUV and then hesitated, fearful that she might alert whatever was out on the street to her presence.

A minute later, after no more sounds came from outside, she crept toward the front of her garage. When she saw the culprit that had startled her, she let out a short embarrassed laugh and moved to the edge of the garage.

An orange housecat was on the porch across the street. It had knocked over a flowerpot and was digging into something next to the pile of dirt and broken shards of pottery. It raised its head when it heard her laugh and stared at Megan.

Her stomach churned as she realized what the cat was standing on. As it dipped its head back down and tore into the hunk of meat, ripping off a small piece and chewing it, its eyes never left the woman standing across the street.

Megan could see the blood dripping off its whiskers as it stared at her, indifferent, as only a cat can be. It lowered its head again and continued digging into its maggoty meal. Its bright coat was tarnished by clots of dirt and a few smears of dried blood, but it looked to be in good health. Plump, in fact. The end of the world had been good to this particular feline.

Retreating into the garage, Megan tried to blot out the image of the cat and its grisly feast.

She nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard the door at the back of the garage open. Jeff walked through the doorway and smiled at her, not noticing her startled expression or her hand gripping her chest as she leaned against the Corolla.

He carried a plastic grocery bag and had jammed her husband’s.357 Magnum into the waistband of his jeans. He raised the bag, showing her what he had collected. Megan could see the bullets and the Jeep keys through the transparent material, along with three cans of vegetables that represented the last of her food except for the stale crackers still up on the nightstand next to her bed. They had been her primary sustenance over the past couple of weeks. She couldn’t care less if she ever saw another cracker again.

“Can we leave now?”

Jeff was surprised by the irritated question. Megan looked even more agitated than before he had entered the house.

“Uh, yeah.” He composed himself and dug into the bag. “We need to get the van first.” Seeing Megan’s reaction change from irritation to anger, he explained. “The van’s tank is full. I don’t have any idea where we’re going after tonight, but I don’t want to do it on less than a full tank of gas.”

Megan didn’t say anything; she just folded her arms and rubbed them. Jeff was beginning to think this nervous habit was her favorite thing to do. He jingled the Jeep keys.