Patrick D'Orazio - Coming the Dark

More teeth were displayed as the crooked grin got even wider. “Now, you do believe me, don’t you?”

Jeff stared at the father and then past him to the son, whose rifle was still pointed at his head. He nodded.

“Good. Then we understand one another.”

The man took a step back, and his chest swelled. He took another look at the van.

“Now I’m going to ask just one more time. Is there anyone else in there?”

Jeff took a deep breath and held it for a moment before letting it out slowly. He smiled, matching his opponent’s grin tooth for tooth. His confidence elevated slightly when he saw the brave facade on the other man’s face start to crack. Making his decision in that split second, he shook his head in denial.

“You better not be fucking with me. You do realize that, don’t you?”

Jeff continued to grin.

After another few seconds of staring at Jeff, Bobby’s father looked at the van again. He squinted at it, a curious look on his face.

“So what’ve you got in there? Food? Water?”

“Uh huh. Medicine too. All kinds of stuff.”

Jeff’s head swiveled over to Megan, and his grin faltered.

“We could share it with you.”

Now both men were looking at her, their eyes growing wide with surprise.

“Please, we could help each other out!” Megan sounded desperate and excited as Jeff silently fumed beside her. “If we give you some of our food and medicine, you could let us stay here tonight.” Suddenly, she was on a roll and seemed to forget all about the gun pointed at her. “I think we should stick together instead of fighting one another. We won’t cause you any trouble, I swear to God! We just want a place to rest and then we’ll move on. It’ll be like we were never here at all…except you’ll have a lot more food for you, your son, and whoever else is with you.”

Jeff watched their captor’s expression, and his hopes rose when he appeared to actually consider Megan’s offer. At least that seemed to be the case until she spoke her last few words. Then, it was as if a switch had been flipped, and his face contorted in rage.

“Lady, my son and I are alone, and we intend to keep it that way. We don’t need anyone else screwing things up for us. We survived this long without any outsiders, and we sure as hell don’t need you hanging around causing us even more grief than we’ve already had.” He shook his head in contempt. “Shit, you probably drew enough attention with your goddamn van to wake up every one of those fucking bastards in a three-mile radius.”

“No! No! Listen, we-”

The man raised his voice, ignoring Megan’s protests. “So my son and I are going to let you deal with whatever shit you stirred up. That minivan of yours is our ticket out of here.”

“No! You can’t take the van!”

“Shut up, Megan!” Jeff jumped in before she could provoke the man toting the rifle any further. Jeff shook his head and glared at her, a rabid expression on his face. Megan’s mouth slammed shut and she took a step back.

“Look…can you please tell us your name at least?” Jeff turned back to the man, the words flying out of his mouth as he tried desperately to regain control of the situation.

“You don’t need to know what my name is, pal. Once my son and I leave, it’ll be the last you’ll ever see of us.”

“So it shouldn’t matter, right? Look, I know your son’s name, and let’s face it; we’re not going to have an APB put out on you, are we? I just want to know who I’m dealing with.” Jeff had regained his composure enough to try another smile, this one a bit meeker than before.

The man holding them at gunpoint stared hard at Jeff and started to say something but stopped himself. He rolled his eyes and lowered the gun slightly as he made a noise that sounded like a frustrated laugh. Jeff tried to inject even more warmth into his smile.

“Dad? What’re you doing?”

Jeff could tell from Bobby’s voice that he was getting nervous, just like his father.

“It’s under control, son, just relax and keep your pants on!” Dad said, his frustration starting to wear on him.

He looked at Jeff again and sighed. “The name’s Fred, for all the good it’ll do ya.”

Jeff increased the wattage of his smile. “Well, Fred, my name’s Jeff. This is my wife, Megan.”

He held his breath and prayed Megan would play along. When she didn’t stare at him in surprise, Jeff relaxed slightly. All he knew was that he had to keep stalling and try to give Fred a reason to feel guilty about what he was doing.

“I can’t believe we’ve made it this far. We somehow managed to get out of town after everything fell apart. Those things were all over us. Honestly, I’m just glad to be here.” Jeff looked over at Megan affectionately. She seemed a bit disoriented from his lie but smiled disjointedly back at him. He inched closer to her until the rifle began to elevate once again. Jeff held up his hands in appeasement and stopped.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Fred remarked irritably. “I’m going to take a look at the van. We want to be out of the area by nightfall. You and your wife can jaw all you want about how you escaped the city after we’re gone.” He started toward the van.

“Where’s your wife, Fred?”

When Fred stiffened and the color disappeared from his face, Jeff knew he had struck a nerve. He hadn’t had an idea what he was going to say until the words tumbled out of his mouth. Something had been gnawing at him since he had stepped out of the van, and now he realized what it was.

“Is that her grave?” Jeff pointed to the marker they had noticed while driving up to the property: the makeshift cross and the freshly turned dirt. The disturbed earth was long and wide enough for an adult to be buried underneath it.

“Is that Bobby’s mother?”

“Shut up.” It was a growled threat.

Jeff kept pressing. “I’m just wondering, because we had to bury two children back in Milfield. They got bit, got the plague, and we had to watch them die, Fred. So I was just curious if you might understand what we’ve been dealing with.”

“SHUT UP, GODDAMMIT!” Fred screamed, his eyes closed as he pointed the rifle like a spear at Jeff’s chest.

“Dad, what’s wrong?”

Bobby was finally moving off the porch toward them. He was almost running and still trying to point the rifle at the two prisoners. He stopped a few feet away, but Jeff could see the agitation on his face. Like his father, he was taller than average, but he was still growing into his body. Back on the porch, he looked like he meant business. Up close, even with a rifle in his hands, he looked like nothing more than a confused kid.

Fred almost turned to face his son but held his position and glared at Jeff. “Get the hell back to the porch! NOW!” Bobby hovered for a couple of moments before reluctantly backing up.

Jeff kept the look of misery on his face. The bluff he was trying to pull off was far too close to the truth for him not to feel some of the pain he was projecting.

“Fred, please. We’re just trying to survive here. We’ve already seen way too much death. Haven’t you?” He leaned forward as hate burned in the other man’s eyes. “Why don’t we help each other out so we can all get out of here together?”

The butt of the rifle connected with his jaw so quickly that Jeff barely saw it coming. Fred had been moving closer ever since the other man started talking, but when Jeff leaned forward, he presented an irresistible target. There was no pain as he fell to the ground; the clipped scream of surprise from Megan was the first thing he noticed after nearly getting his jaw dislocated.

The blow rattled his teeth and knocked him flat, but as Jeff moved his hand up to his jaw, he wasn’t quite sure what had happened. When the pain finally came a few seconds later, it started as a dull throb.