She awoke in his lap and with Rocket by her side.
“Hey… How are you, kiddo?” he asked soothingly.
“Better now,” she answered in a sad voice. “I dreamt that shadows of people chased me through meadows. I was terrified. They were darker than the night and I had no light and I was running as fast as I could and wished that it was just a bad dream.” Sam held her and caressed her hair.
“You’re okay, kiddo. Just a bad dream. You’re safe with me. But we should move.”
On their way back to the road she glanced at the man’s faded footprints in the grass, like that of a wraith. The sun shone somber—one of the rare days they could see the only star left shining, faint and lonely. The birds chirped softly and distant coyotes yelled their high-pitched howls. Flies and crickets, mosquitoes and wasps—they buzzed a choir of nature.
As they moved along the gravel farther east the distant mountains peeked over the horizon of trees as if playfully hiding. Forlorn lumber machines succumbed to rust and stumps of dozens of trees lay bare. A babbling brook streamed down the incline and danced over the smooth rocks and headed deeper into the greenwood to their right.
“How you feeling, kid?”
“Okay. You?”
“Worried.”
“I’ll be fine. I promise.”
“I know.”
The Geiger counter calmed; they approached a corroded sign.
“Sandhall, 27 miles.”
On the other side a graffiti in black.
“Don’t proceed
Heavy radiation ahead
Mutants”
Alow the graffiti in the tall grass lay a yellow Geiger counter in a plastic bag.
“Someone’s looking out for us.”
“Why are there people here?” she asked. “Just a road in the middle of nowhere.”
After more hours of walking they came upon an alley of oaks umbraging the banks of the road and to the right loomed a wooden cabin with an upside-down flag dancing in the wind.
A mossy sign read:
The Golden Oak Scout Reservation
They marked faint flickering lights through the closed windows of the cabin.
“Should we check it out?” she asked with her curiosity sparked.
“I’m not sure. What are the chances that some kids survived all these years?”
“I survived.”
He cocked his revolver and sighed.
“Let’s go then.”
As they slowly walked the gravel toward the lit windows the curtains shut and hushed voices spoke through the moss-grown log walls and cleaned windowpanes; they looked at each other with brows raised.
From the angled roof crashed open a window with a rifle following it from its left side, the face half-visible behind the wall.
“Not a step closer,” the boy yelled, trying to be intimidating as if deepening his voice to sound mature.
“Hey, calm down,” Sam answered casually, his gun pointed toward the window through his pocket.
“What do you want?!” the boy yelled demandingly.
“We just saw lights and got curious,” Sam replied.
After a brief silence the boy shouted: “I don’t believe you, Nightwalker. I know your kind. Give me a reason not to blow your brains o—”
A loud bang echoed through the wood and another hole adorned Sam’s pocket; Nura and Rocket both jolted as flocks of birds cawed and fled from the treetops; the smell like brimstone. The rifle fell through the berm and tumbled on the roof shingles afore thudding to the gravel as frantic shoutings of panic now filled the log cabin, the screams of the boy being louder than all before fading entirely.
“Don’t hurt us! Please!” shrieked a young girl from the inside as Sam opened the front door with his handgun drawn. His eyes shot across the room: a young girl sat hugging another on a couch with wide eyes while a boy gawked at Sam, stiff as ice; he lowered his handgun.
“Not here to hurt you. Just don’t like guns pointing at the girl is all,” he replied and took the stairs on the left and creaked his way up while Nura took the rifle and inspected it: the bullet had gone through the trigger and sat embedded in the wooden stock.
A taller kid with black hair and a girl in riven glasses surrounded the fallen boy and half of a finger lay in a pool of blood beside him. They took a step back as Sam approached the boy and he took him and laid him on a couch and soaked the boy’s stub of a finger in bourbon and wrapped it in gauze. The kids stared at Rocket as if looking at a ghost. One by one they all came upstairs to watch. When he was done with the splint, he spoke.
“He’ll be fine, but the gun I can’t fix.”
“Who are you?” one of the girls asked; her hair blond and clothes ragged.
“I’m Sam, and this is Nura and Rocket.”
Nura smiled awkwardly as if visiting a friend whose parents had just argued in the next room: “Hi.”
Sam placed a few painkillers on the bedside table next to the unconscious boy.
“Sorry about that,” said Sam.
“Eh… He’ll be fine,” the taller boy replied. “If anything, you taught him a lesson. We should have fucked off this cabin a long time ago. I’m Rob, by the way.”
“Why?”
“The Nightwalkers. They took our friends one by one. We never saw ‘em again.”
“Who are they?”
“We don’t really know. We call ‘em that ‘cause they come in the night and demand things. They wear black cloaks with hoods just like you. Except yours is dark gray,” the boy answered as the brood all stared at Sam.
“No, kid,” said Sam, “I’m not part of some circus act. The cloak is for warmth.”
“Well, you hurt Jake, so you might as well be,” the little boy spoke, his face that of a scared squirrel with rosy cheeks and hair as white as milk.
“He’ll be fine,” Sam muttered. “I was aiming for the gun.”
The little boy took a look at Nura holding the rifle, the missing trigger, and the hole in its stock.
“Whoa…”
“How did you survive the first night? How did you survive for so long?” Sam asked calmly whilst looking at the brood. After a brief silence, Rob spoke.
“On the first night...when the blackout happened…we were huddled around a campfire not far from here, telling ghost stories. When we noticed that our Scout Leader didn’t come back for some time, we became worried.” He paused, and then continued. “We...took our flashlights and found our way back to the cabin...but everyone was gone. We thought it was some dumb prank until we heard the guides and our parents calling us from the dark, asking to turn off our lights so we can see them,” he said as his voice shook. “It didn’t make sense… How can we see better in the dark?!”
“Our first night wasn’t far off from yours,” replied Sam.
The kids had started to tear up and Nura came and hugged one of the crying girls; the air stood stiff.
“Anyway,” the boy continued, “we hunt whatever game is near and get our water from the creek. Sometimes wanderers pass through but…mostly things have been quiet…until recently. That’s why Jake is so on edge. We all are.”
“I see,” replied Sam. “You’ve done well.”
“Yeah…well, there were more of us. Anyway…what about y—”
The unconscious boy woke up with a jolt and a groan.
“My finger…” he muttered in a pained voice, clenching his teeth and grunting—the face and teeth of him like a rat’s and his brows like horsehair worms. Sam handed the boy some painkillers and a bottle of water.
“Drink.”
“Fuck you.”
“Jake, stop being an idiot and drink the goddamn pills,” said the blond girl; he grunted and swallowed the pills with a loud gulp and a moan.
“He’s not one of them,” said the little boy. “He’s nice!”
“I don’t care. He shot me,” Jake answered angrily, groaning.
“Oh, stop being a baby, Jake,” Rob interjected. “I told you not to point that thing at strangers. You got off easy,” he continued while wiping the blood from the floorboards with a wet towel afore taking the finger.
“What do you want?!” demanded the agelast boy. “We don’t have anything.”
“Nothing. We just happened by and saw lights,” Sam replied. “Next thing I know you’re pointing a gun at us. I don’t take that lightly.”
“Tough shit,” the boy replied, lying on the couch with clenched teeth. “I don’t like strangers.”
“So I’ve heard,” Sam replied. “The Nightwalkers.”
“It’s not my fault you look like them and have a girl with you,” the boy muttered sorely.
“Except they come at night but now it’s daytime!” the rosy-cheeked boy exclaimed.
“Yeah…” Jake muttered. “Whatever.” He turned himself away from the group and toward the wall.
“I can help you,” said Sam.
“You’d do that?” the little boy asked.
“Of course.”
The kids looked stunned as if they had forgotten what kindness looked like. This time it looked like a bearded man with silky wild hair and a warm face of understanding, with eyes like deep wells of wisdom and sorrow.
“If something happens to those who come here, they’ll kill our friends!” exclaimed Jake as he turned to face the group once more.
“What if they’re already dead, Jake?” the blond girl asked loudly; Jake kept quiet.
Sam pondered about the Nightwalkers. A fancy name for fancy freaks. When the world turns dark, folk like that come to life, for their black souls blossom in the night like devils in damnation.
“Do you know where they hide?” Sam asked.
“We don’t,” the blond girl replied with despair in her eyes. “We don’t even know when they’ll come. Could be tomorrow, could be a month from now. But what we know for sure is that they’ll come. They’ll come and take and take and take until there is nothing left.”
“What do you know about them?”
“Kinda nothing…” said Rob.
“I see,” replied Sam.
“We’ll stay and help if that’s fine with you,” said Nura innocently.
“Please do. They’ll stand no chance against Sam,” said Rob with a chuckle.
As the night gathered they took to the downstairs burly stone fireplace: surrounded by large stacks of firewood it lay opposite the front door and lower than the ground floor, with horseshoe steps leading down to it. Fat logs make up the walls around it; many large silver chandeliers with melted glims creak around the room and deer heads and antlers sit mounted on the walls. Taking pride in killing defenseless animals for sport, Sam thought. The one thing I won’t miss about humanity.
The floor around the fireplace lay littered with sleeping mats and blankets, pillows and divans. They sat beside the fireplace while Sam played songs and they tried to sing along. The brood then sang their own songs and the pair listened. They petted Rocket one by one which he relished, lying on his back and panting happily. For dinner they slurped on a brown soup; Sam and Nura offered them sweets and their faces lit up with joy.
The awed brood asked them countless questions of how they survived in the wilderness for so long. After hours of sharing tales, the little boy spoke.
“Have you seen a girl out there? Anne. She’s my sister.”
“Sorry, no,” replied Sam.
“Sammy, you know about Anne. The Nightwalkers took her,” said the blond girl Kate.
“Yes…I just hope she escaped,” the tormented boy replied.
“Don’t worry. We’ll find her,” replied Sam.
The cabin carried an alien quality—the cozy warmth of it felt like a home—something they had forgotten: the floorboards tidy and smooth, the carpets clean and soft, with many pillows and couches and lamps sat all over the cavernous room and two stone pillars raised into the ceiling high. No dust in their throats, no grass sprouting from the floor, no pigeons nesting atop closets and no rats squeaking from the undersides of beds. It housed many laughs and tears, many bondings and terrors. It felt alive, breathing, its heart drumming. A last hearth in the night, its embers not yet doused.
As they fell asleep beside the fireplace screams in the nightshade echoed. Bodies thudded and dragged across wet gravel, pleads of mercy rumored from unknown children. Concerned parents called from dark nooks and imitations of Jake yelled in throe. Bangs and knocks on the doors and walls reverberated through the vast cabin like cursed mountebanks exiled to the shadows. The doorknob rattled and Sam shone his flashlight on it and the rattling stopped. Moments later it resumed and he shone his light on it once more only for it to stop again. This game continued for some time.
He kept watch on the flames and the flying red embers and tried to see in the sable void that was now the room. In perpetuum he sought to see what hid in the darkness, what played with the shadows. His mind conjured contours and silhouettes. The nights were dark, more so than the darkest night in the eld world. The nights were dark and full of terror.