Dreams of Shadows, Patrick Sean Lee [best historical fiction books of all time TXT] 📗

It was the longest night of my life. I knocked on every door, banged on every window, screamed for someone to wake up and tell me what had happened. I was soaked, too, at the end of it a few hours later when I finally gave up and returned to our—my—house.

Mom was still in the kitchen, lying there with her arms spread out as though waiting for the cross to be dragged in. I cried some more, and then walked away.

I hated the dark, the absolute quiet, and so I found every candle I could, spread them out in the living room on the tables, and lit them one by one. Have you ever sat in a room illuminated only by candles? The flickering made it seem like ghosts were whisking through the flames. I could see their dim shadows dancing on the ceiling and walls. I could hear them whispering ugly comments.

You’re all alone, now, except for US!

Stand up! Come here!

We missed you, but now we’ve found you!

Want to see your mother and father again?

Laughter.

I screamed to make the voices stop, but I knew there really weren’t voices anywhere except in my head. I screamed more anyway, maybe just to make the silence stay away. And when I could scream no more, I cried again until I fell asleep in exhaustion and despair.

I woke up early the next morning. It must have been after 8:00 because the front window facing east was ablaze with light. The rain had thankfully stopped. What a horrible nightmare! Reality hit. I’d slept on the couch. I was cold. Mom…the image of her lying on the kitchen floor; the guy in the SUV. None of that, and a hundred other images bombarding my brain, were parts of a terrible dream. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, checked the phone one more time—still dead—and moped to the kitchen. Mom hadn’t moved, of course. I had to look away.

It was only a matter of time until someone came onto our street. Police cars. Ambulances with their sirens blaring. Someone from outside the neighborhood in search of victims and survivors.

I thought of this. It had to be true. Just a matter of time.

I closed my eyes, stepped over Mom, and walked to the refrigerator, praying that the sound of a siren or the grumble of an engine outside would break the silence. I hadn’t eaten in nearly twenty-four hours, and my stomach was in knots, but it screamed for food all the same. The light was off, but the inside was still cool. I grabbed a small container of yogurt on the top shelf, and then another. Taking them to the counter beneath the window on the opposite side of the room—away from Mom—I pushed the curtains aside and stared out. The patio table. The two maple trees near the rear fence. The shed between them where Daddy kept the lawnmower and garden tools, droplets of water dripping from the eaves of the roof. I ate and wondered what my next move should be.

I had to go back out. Maybe walk to Anna’s house four blocks away. Hope against hope that she was alive, as scared as I was.

Get away from this mausoleum.

Two more interminably long days and nights of indecision and growing despair dragged by. Every other hour I’d brave the eerie silence, go onto the front porch and call out. Not a sound of any kind, except for my screaming voice dying on the air when it left my lips. Finally on the third day I could bear it no longer; I was starting to go insane waiting for someone to appear on the street. A loudspeaker atop an emergency vehicle calling for survivors to come out. That hope melted, and so I set out to go to Anna’s house.

The dead man still lay on the wet pavement, but the engine had stopped long ago. I wanted so badly to see someone walk out of their house as I went along.

“Hey, you’re alive, too! Do you know what happened?” Deathly silence instead. I turned left onto Ashton Street. Just four blocks. Please, God.

Ashton, as far ahead and behind me as I could see, was a mess. More of the same; cars stalled in the middle of the street. Two of them locked in a head-on collision. A delivery van on someone’s lawn farther ahead. I passed the body of an elderly woman lying on the sidewalk, still holding fast to her dead dog’s leash, an umbrella resting a few feet away on the parking. A cat lying on its side behind the railing of an otherwise deserted porch on my left. I tried to inure myself to the ugliness, but a feeling of dread began to overwhelm me all over again. I pressed on toward Anna’s.

Pine Street. Anna’s two-story house sat mid-block. My spirits fell the second I turned onto her street, more so because of the numbing silence rather than the few cars sitting in their crooked stances with dead drivers inside.

The front gate of the white picket fence stood ajar. I pushed it farther open with a creak of the hinges, entered the yard and approached the porch. I just knew she was inside, and that she was alive. Probably cowering in her bedroom. I put my foot on the first step.

“Heya’! Ya’ made it!” The sound of the voice made me trip. I rolled over onto my side and scanned the houses across the street, relieved beyond words, shocked, but frightened as well. I spotted him one door up. He stood on that porch with a brick in his hand. The front window behind him was shattered. He appeared to be about my age, but it was hard to tell from the distance separating us. He was short, with unkempt, blonde hair, and wore a black leather jacket and jeans all full of holes. He had a grin on his face as he leapt off the porch and walked in my direction.

“Ain’t no use knockin’ on that door. I been in all these houses,” he said waving the brick around. “They’re all dead. Busted the windows to get in. Deader’n cats in a gunnysack.”

“You…”

“Name’s Munster. Goddam, I’m glad ta’ see someone else made it! What’s your name? You live around here? God, I’m glad ta’ see ya’!”

Munster? Like in…Herman?

He threw the brick down and reached out to help me back to my feet.

“What’s your name?”

“A…Amelia McDougal. Oh Jesus, I’m as glad to see you as you are to see me! Do you know what happened yesterday...or, how many days ago? How many streets have you searched? Are we the only two left? What happened!”

His smile seemed genuine enough. He wasn’t carrying a knife or a gun, and so I let him pull me back to my feet. Three or four inches shorter than me. If he was a student at Marysville High, I didn’t recognize him.

“No idea. Just a blast of light, then nuthin’. I live a coupla’ blocks over,” he said pointing north. “My old man an’ my ma didn’t make it. Yours?”

“No. I mean my…my mother died. I don’t know about my father. He was probably on his way home when it happened. He might still be alive somewhere; hurt or something. You said you’ve looked in this house?”

“Yeah. They’re all dead. I been everywhere this morning. Jesus, what a fuckin’ mess. Same wherever I went.”

“How far?”

“Clear over to Main. South to Fifth Street.”

Quite a large area. Five square miles at least. So, our entire neighborhood, and then some.

“No one?” A stupid question, still…

“Not a soul.”

Munster let go of my hand and plopped onto the bottom step. I followed.

“So…what do we do?”

“Beats the hell outta’ me. I guess keep on lookin’ for others. Bound ta' be others 'sides you an' me that survived.”

“Aren’t you scared? What if there’s like a mob roaming around and you run into it?”

Munster grinned. He leaned sideways and back, and reached into the waistband of his black jeans.

“Found this inside some guy’s house a few blocks away,” he said proudly, pulling a pistol out. “He ain’t gonna’ need it no more.”

Oh my God. Armed, and probably dangerous.

“If I see anyone and he don’t look friendly, I’ll blow his head off!”

I considered trying to get away, but if he was crazy, how far would I make it before he blew my head off? My options narrowed to one single, not-very-pleasant point. Keep him happy for the time being. But maybe he wasn’t psycho. Maybe he was simply scared and confused like I was. I started badly.

“Munster. That’s a funny name…”

“Munster,” he said tossing the gun up and down in his hands as if it were a harmless piece of fruit. What if it went off, and worse, what if it landed in his hands, pointing at me, and fired. “Like in monster.”

“Your parents named you THAT?” I didn’t mean for the question to sound the way it did.

“Nah. They stuck me with Francis. I always hated that name. Made me sound like a sissy, ya’ know? I changed it when I went to high school. You go to Marysville High?”

“Yes. I did, anyway.”

“Me too. I hate that place. That asshole Harry Dink-Fuck-Face and his buddies used to catch me, most times at lunch period on the quad…I’ll shoot that sonofabitch if I see him. If he made it. Anyway, that’s why I’m Munster now.”

“That would be murder, Munster. It would be horrible!”

“Why would it be murder?” he said. “If most everyone’s dead like I think they are, there ain’t no laws anymore, and if there ain’t no laws, and nobody to arrest me, I don’t have to put up with some jock an’ his friends beatin’ up on me. They’re dead meat, though, if they’re still alive and I see ‘em.”

“You can’t do that!” I looked at him—so short, but so determined. I felt sorry for him. “Maybe if they’re alive and they want to keep hurting you, you could just wave the gun and scare them away. But you’re probably right. They’re most likely dead.

“Why us? Why did we survive?”

“You keep askin’ that.”

“No I don’t. I asked you how before. Not why.”

“Well how the hell should I know?

“Let’s get outta’ here. You hungry? I know a good restaurant,” he said with a laugh.

“No, I ate breakfast, but okay, let’s go. We can’t sit here forever.” I thought of Anna inside as I stood up. Another sharp pain hit me. “Anna. Did you know her? Is she…”

“Yeah, I saw her once or twice at school. She’s in there.”

I cursed whatever had happened, whoever had caused it. A tear came to the corner of my eye. “Which way shall we go?”

“Thatta’ way,” he said pointing the gun toward Ashton. “There’s an Arco station six blocks down. I didn’t go that far. They got Cokes in the cooler inside there. Free Cokes. Ya’ know…” he started to say, and then cut himself off.

“JESUS CHRIST!” He pushed me hard, off the walkway, into a small bush on our side of the fence. I landed with a thud. He was right on top of me. “Oh God. Oh shit. Don’t make a sound!”