Darkness On The Edge Of Town Part 13

The three of us walked outside. I had a weird moment where I held my hand over my brow, antic.i.p.ating that I'd have to s.h.i.+eld my eyes from the glare of the morning sun. It was always bright around that time of morning, glinting off rooftops and cars. But after a second, I realized what I was doing and lowered my hand. Cranston and Russ stared at me quizzically but didn't say anything. I grinned, embarra.s.sed. Then we stepped onto the sidewalk. Across from us, a trash can had fallen over, spilling its rancid contents onto the pavement. A dog was rooting through the debris. It had a collar and tags around its neck, and looked well-groomed and well-fed. Probably someone's pet. But when we approached it, the dog growled like a feral coyote, baring its teeth and lowering its ears and tail. We stopped in our tracks. With one last snarl, the dog turned and ran away.

"You think it's impacting the animals, too?" I asked Russ. "You know, like it did us the other day?"

He shrugged. "Could be. Or maybe they're just reverting to their normal uncivilized state, too."

We started down the street. I noticed that a few of the buildings had broken windows or doors hanging open-their hinges and locks popped. They hadn't been like that the day before. I was sure of it.

There were five teenage boys hanging around the burn barrel on our street corner. Even though it was daytime, smoke and shadows obscured their faces until I got closer. One of them was occupied with a handheld video game system that still had power, and his attention was totally focused on that. But the rest of them looked up as Russ, Cranston, and I approached. One of them, a white kid whose baggy jeans hung low enough to expose three-quarters of his boxer shorts, stepped forward.

"'Sup, dog? What you need?"

I tried to hide my smirk. I had nothing against the dude's fas.h.i.+on sense or slang or intentional grammar-mangling. I've had plenty of friends who did the same thing. But two things were immediately obvious to me. One, if I wanted these guys to help us, I'd have to convince this de facto leader, and two, their leader was an idiot.

"What's up," I returned the greeting. "You alright?"

"We solid, yo. Just chilling. Know what I'm saying? Got to wonder who these three dudes are, steppin' to us on our corner, though."

"Sorry for intruding."

"So what you want? You here to break bad? Know what I'm saying?"

"Not really," Russ said. "You sound like you're auditioning for The Wire The Wire or something." or something."

The leader scowled. "What you mean?"

"I mean that I don't understand a G.o.dd.a.m.ned thing you just said. What language are you speaking?"

"The f.u.c.k you been smoking, old man? You looking to get your a.s.s stomped?"

I interrupted, before Russ could reply. "We need some help. I asked around and heard that you and your crew are some good people to have guarding your back."

He grinned. "Word. People sayin' that for real? It's true. Our set rules this motherf.u.c.kin' street. Don't nothing go on without us knowing about it. Know what I'm saying?"

I thought about pointing out that before the darkness came, the only place he and his friends ruled was maybe the high school-and even that was doubtful. I swallowed my laughter and tried to appear impressed.

"I'm Robbie. This is Russ and Mr. Cranston."

"'Sup." He nodded at Russ and Cranston, then motioned to his buddies. "I'm T. This is Irish, Stan the Man, Mad Mike, and Mario."

All of them mumbled greetings, except Mario, who didn't look up from his game. T slapped the back of his head, and he almost dropped the unit.

"Where your manners, dog? Say h.e.l.lo, motherf.u.c.ker. Be polite and s.h.i.+t."

"Yo, Tucker! You gonna make me blow this level! Been trying to get this s.h.i.+t for two days."

"f.u.c.k that game. And how many times I got to tell you? Out here on the street, you call me T. You feel me? Do I call you Phil? No, I call you Mario, motherf.u.c.ker. So don't be calling me Tucker anymore. Tucker is dead. Know what I'm saying? Tucker was my slave name."

Russ cleared his throat. "Slave name?"

"d.a.m.n straight."

Cranston seemed bewildered. "But...you're white."

"s.h.i.+t." T snickered. "You think I don't know that, yo? h.e.l.l yeah, I'm white."

"Don't you think that calling yourself a slave might be disrespectful to those who are actually descended from slaves, man?"

"See, you thinking in terms of color, old hippie dude. We need to move beyond that."

"But you're talking about slavery," Cranston persisted. "You're making light of one of the most horrendous things ever perpetrated by mankind."

"Slavery don't know no color, yo. And I ain't making light of it either. I was a slave to my parents and s.h.i.+t. A slave to my motherf.u.c.king school. A slave to all their f.u.c.ked up rules. Know what I'm saying? But my parents ain't come home from work, and school's out forever, so now I'm free. I ain't a slave no more."

Cranston opened his mouth to respond, but then he shut it again and simply stared at the teen. He looked bewildered. Russ looked annoyed. I thought it was funny, myself.

T turned to Mario. "We got visitors. Say h.e.l.lo, stupid. Don't be a d.i.c.k."

"'Sup." Mario, aka Phil, turned back to his game.

"We need your help," I repeated. "You interested?"

"Yo, we for hire, if the price is right. Know what I'm saying? What you need done? And, more importantly, what you paying?"

"All in good time. First, I need to round up a few more people."

"For what?"

"You'll see."

We didn't have to wait long. The street began to fill, as people woke up and crept outside, staring up at the darkness with resignation-as if they'd hoped it would be gone. Many of them went back inside and shut their doors. Others snuck off into the shadows, probably foraging. A few of them gravitated toward us, looking for gossip or news. I noticed that n.o.body came out of the houses with broken windows or doors. I wondered if they'd been deserted before the looters had broken in, and if not, if there was anybody inside, injured or dead.

When we had about two dozen people within earshot, Russ hopped up on the hood of a parked car, raised his arms, and got their attention.

"Hey, everybody. Listen up! If you could gather around for a moment. This here is Robbie Higgins. He lives on this block, and he's got something you ought to all hear."

I felt my ears burn and my cheeks flush. I've never been one for public speaking. When I was in high school, my girlfriend made me try out for the school play our junior year. I got a part in this thing called Scapino Scapino. I don't remember much of the plot-something about a bunch of Italians and two young lovers whose families didn't want them to be together. I played the part of a waiter. I didn't have any lines or anything like that. All I had to do was walk around in the background and bring food to the other actors while they delivered their lines. But even though I didn't have to speak, I was still scared s.h.i.+tless each time I walked out on stage. I felt the same way now. The people in the crowd were all staring at me. My stomach fluttered and cramped. Suddenly, I had to take a ma.s.sive s.h.i.+t. I clenched by a.s.s cheeks together and took a deep breath.

Russ gave me his hand and helped me up onto the car. The hood buckled under my weight. For a second, I thought we were both going to fall off. But we didn't. A few people laughed. Then the crowd fell silent again. I felt their eyes on me, and was afraid to look up.

"Make it good," Russ whispered. "And for the record, I still think you're f.u.c.king crazy and this plan sucks. But I've got your back."

"Thanks," I muttered as he hopped down.

I stared at the crowd. They stared back at me, their faces illuminated by flashlights and lanterns and chemical glow-sticks. In addition to T and his boys and Cranston and Russ, we had about two dozen other people. Men and women. Young people and old folks. Black, white, and brown. White-collar and blue-collar. If someone had asked me to describe the people of Walden, I would have taken a picture of the crowd and just showed them that instead. But despite their differences, they all had one thing in common. I saw it on their faces as I studied them.

Fear. They were all f.u.c.king scared.

And I knew how they felt because I was scared, too.

"Thanks. I appreciate you all giving me a moment of your time. I'm not a speech maker or anything. I was a pizza delivery guy until a few days ago. In fact, I think I recognize a few of your faces. Probably delivered to your house once or twice. Hope you tipped me."

I'd expected laughter, but n.o.body responded. They just kept staring at me. I gave a nervous little chuckle. Russ made a winding motion with his finger, urging me to go on. I took another deep breath and continued.

"We, uh...we know that something's happened, but we don't know what, exactly."

"That's a f.u.c.king understatement," a man in the rear said. "Tell us something we don't know."

The crowd laughed. A guy in the front pulled out a pack of cigarettes. Before he could light one, someone else s.n.a.t.c.hed the pack from his hand and fled through the crowd, vanis.h.i.+ng into the darkness. The man shouted in anger, but he didn't give chase. Instead, he just stood there sulking, his shoulders hunched, his brow furrowed. The crowd murmured among themselves, and I tried to get their attention.

"Yeah," I agreed, "it is an understatement. And that's our f.u.c.king problem. It wouldn't be an understatement if we had more information. We're all scared. People are dying. There's n.o.body in charge."

An overweight woman with shockingly red hair raised her hand. "I thought Chief Peters was in charge?"

"He's dead," someone else yelled.

"Bad people are roaming about," I continued, trying to regain their attention. "We all saw what just happened to this man's cigarettes. Chief Peters tried to do something, but for those of you who didn't hear about it, he had a heart attack. Apparently, all the other volunteer firemen either gave up or left or...well, we don't know what happened, do we?"

A few of them nodded. I started to feel a little more comfortable. My guts were no longer churning, and I'd stopped sweating. Slowly I let myself relax.

"We don't know s.h.i.+t," a man yelled.

I pointed at him. "Exactly! That's what I'm trying to say. We don't know what happened to the rest of our firemen, and we should should. We should know a lot more than we do-about a lot of things. Everybody is running around taking care of their families or themselves, and that's cool-I've done the same thing. In the last couple of days, I've done some s.h.i.+t that I'm not proud of. I bet some of you have, too. It's okay. That's to be expected. Survival instinct, right? When the s.h.i.+t hits the fan, we do whatever we need to do to survive. But how long can we live like that? How long before there's nothing left to loot? How long before our cupboards are empty, and we start stealing from one another? Truth is, if you check out some of the buildings around us, it looks like somebody has been breaking into houses already. That's not good. I don't know how many of you have tried to leave town, but it looks like we can't. We're trapped here together, and we need to figure things out and start working together before things get worse. Someone needs to step up and be in charge."

A Puerto Rican woman in the front said, "And that person is you?"

"No, I don't mean me. s.h.i.+t, I wouldn't know the first thing about being in charge. But I do do know that we've got to start thinking. We've got to learn more about our situation. All we know for sure right now is that it's dark all the time and that anyone who went out into the darkness hasn't come back, and that n.o.body is coming to help us." know that we've got to start thinking. We've got to learn more about our situation. All we know for sure right now is that it's dark all the time and that anyone who went out into the darkness hasn't come back, and that n.o.body is coming to help us."

"Help will come," the woman said. "We just have to be patient. Help always comes."

"You tripping." T chuckled. "Ain't n.o.body coming to motherf.u.c.king save us. If there were, they'd have been here by now. Know what I'm saying? It's just like when that hurricane f.u.c.ked up New Orleans. They had to help themselves and s.h.i.+t."

The crowd started to mumble among themselves again. As I'd spoken, more pa.s.sersby had joined us. There were now maybe sixty people in the crowd, with more listening through their open windows in the houses and apartments nearby. I glanced up and saw that Christy was eavesdropping as well. She held the flashlight under her face so that I could see her expression. I gave her a short wave. She smiled at me, and I smiled back.

"Maybe," I said, trying to get the crowd's attention once more, "and maybe not. Personally, I'd love to see the National Guard come rolling into town. But that hasn't happened yet, and we have to prepare for the possibility that it might not happen ever. There's been no contact with the rest of the world that I know of. Does anyone know differently? Have any of you heard from anyone who was outside of Walden when the darkness came?"

They shook their heads or remained silent, their expressions sullen.

"So there you go," I said. "I know you folks don't want to hear this, but we might be the only ones left."

"We are," called a quavering but loud voice. "We are all that's left. Everyone else is gone. All the people. All G.o.d's creatures, big and small, in the Earth and above it. All gone."

Heads turned, craning to see the doomsayer. I did the same. The sea of people slowly parted. Dez, the homeless guy, stood at the rear of the crowd, slightly removed from everyone else, with one foot propped up on a fire hydrant. It was hard to make him out in the shadows, but right away I knew it was him. His voice and strange way of speaking were instantly recognizable.

"I stopped it," he said, "but everything else is gone. Now it's just waiting for us. He Who Shall Not Be Named. Once it eats us, it can move on to the next world."

"Yo," T shouted, "what kind of drugs you on, brother, and how can I score some?"

A few people laughed, but most seemed annoyed. I couldn't tell if they were bothered more by Dez's ramblings or T's taunts. I pressed on, trying to keep their attention.

"Thank you," I said, nodding at Dez. "That's one theory, and that's my point. We have theories, but not many facts. We know that it's dark."

"It's not just dark," Dez said. "It is is the dark." the dark."

I wondered how to respond to that, but people had started to ignore him again, and the crowd closed ranks. I quickly lost sight of him. I glanced at Russ, who just shrugged and shook his head.

A short, bookish-looking man raised his hand. "That...man might be right. I think I know what he's trying to say. There's something in the darkness. I tried to leave yesterday, after I heard about the people who'd been killed. There was something...waiting for me, so I turned around and came back."

"What was waiting for you?" Cranston asked.

He turned red. "I'd rather not say."

Cranston shrugged. "b.u.mmer, man."

"We experienced something, too," Russ said, raising his voice. "Out on Route 711, at the town limits. Me, Robbie, and his girlfriend, Christy. We went out there when it first happened. We didn't know what else to do so we took a drive to see for ourselves. I know it sounds crazy, but when we got to the edge of the darkness, we each saw something different. It was our loved ones-people we've known, long dead."

"I saw that, too," the redheaded woman volunteered. "My cat, Binkley. He was run over by a car three years ago. When I saw him yesterday, he looked just like he had before he died. He still had his collar with the little silver bell and everything."

"Well, I didn't see anything like that," the short man said. "What I saw was something that I'm scared of."

"What was it?" Cranston asked again.

"Yeah," T shouted. "What you see out there, dog?"

"I told you that I didn't want to talk about it!"

Cranston waved him off with one hand. "Then don't keep bringing it up, man. You're just freaking everyone else out, and there's too much of that already."

"Calm down," I said. "Everybody just calm down a minute. This is a part of it, too-what's happening right now; all this G.o.dd.a.m.ned arguing. I don't know about the rest of you, but we've noticed some...unusual changes in behavior. s.h.i.+t seems to p.i.s.s us off quicker than normal. Stupid, little things. Am I right?"

Many in the crowd nodded in agreement.

"I don't know if help is on the way or not," I admitted, "but if this keeps up, there might not be any of us left to rescue if help does arrive. Something is playing with our emotions-ramping them up. Making them stronger, until we can no longer control them. We need to take charge-take control of what's happening to us. We need to do it now. And the first step in doing that is to learn more about our situation."

"So what do you propose, Mr. Higgins?" a man asked.

"Well, I've been thinking about it. We know two things about the darkness. First, everyone who's gone into it hasn't come back. Second, it shows us things. But we don't know that those things can actually hurt us. So far, unless I'm mistaken, all they've done is appear and talk to us. And in some cases, it scared us. Anybody experience something different from that?"

They shook their heads. I pointed at the short man who'd refused to talk about his encounter.

"Did whatever it was you saw try to hurt you?"

He took a deep breath. "No. I think it was just trying to scare me."

"And you didn't actually go into the darkness, right?"

He shook his head. "I stayed on the edge. I went up the hill there behind the senior high school. See, somebody slashed all my car tires the first night. I don't know why. Why are people doing any of the things they've been doing? Maybe it's like you said. Maybe something is playing with our emotions and making us do bad things. Anyway, I figured I'd walk out of town. Get some air. Try to gain some perspective about what to do next. I made it to the top of the hill behind the school. I stopped to catch my breath. There was a...symbol of some kind, scratched into the gra.s.s and dirt. A picture, though I really didn't understand what it was supposed to be. It was outlined with salt. I know it was salt be cause I ended up tasting a little of it, just to see what it was. But that's all I know. I was so preoccupied with the symbol that I didn't go any further."

"See?" Dez called. "I told you all!"