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

stood a plain dresser cluttered with papers and magazines, and above it a bookcase. To my left, five or so feet from the edge of the bed, was a stand with his TV. Next to it was the doorway leading, I guessed, to the front of the tiny house. I’d been there in the front once, when Mom and Daddy brought me with them to the rectory. They’d sat in front of his desk on sturdy wooden chairs that day, while I sat bored on the couch against one wall.

“That won’t keep them out,” I said to Munster as he cussed and worked away. He turned.

“No, but it’ll keep the light in.”

“Oh. Stupid me.

“How long are we going to stay here, Munster?” I followed.

“Dunno’, but we’ll have light inside at least.”

“Do you think the electricity works here?”

“Nope, but there’s gotta’ be a boatload of more candles layin’ around somewheres.”

He finished the side he’d been working on when I came in, and then jumped off the chair he was standing on and moved it to the other side.

“So we’re going to sleep in here? Both of us?” I asked.

“Yep. Unless you wanna’ sleep out in the garage.”

“I get the bed,” I said.

“Uh-uh, I’m sleepin’ in the bed. You can sleep anywhere else ya’ like.”

“Munster, what are we going to do?”

“Whatd’ya mean?”

“I mean…how are we going to live? There’s no one like us left in the entire world, and those…whatever they are…what are they, Munster? They want to kill us!”

“You don’t know that. 'Sides, we made it. There have to be others.”

He finished taping the window quietly, then jumped off the chair again. He fiddled with the tape for a minute, rolling it round and round in his hands. Looking down at it, thinking, I could see in the dim light of the bedroom.

“Well, for today and tonight, we’re gonna’ find some food out there,” he said pointing the roll of tape toward the kitchen, “an’ then I’m gonna’ tape the back door window up all tight. Then I’m gonna’ find somethin’ to cover up the busted window in the…” he hesitated and shrugged his shoulders.

“I dunno’, Amelia. Maybe if we stay low an’ don’t make no noise, them things will think we kept on drivin’ clean outta’ town.”

I knew that eventually we’d consume all the food in Father’s house, use up every candle, drink all the bottled water, start looking at each other like two maniacs in a dreary padded cell. And finally those creatures wouldn’t have to kill us. We’d kill one another.

We snooped around through the back part of the rectory the rest of the day, peeked outside every now and then, and finally night fell.

We ate a dinner of cold Spam, saltine crackers, and bottled water in Father’s small kitchen, sitting at a smaller table, beneath a well-covered window, with a single votive candle our illumination. My ears took in every word Munster spoke, while at the same time listening for any sound outside in the dead world. It occurred to me that maybe we really were safe, at least for the short term. We were on sacred ground, and whatever those creatures were, wherever they’d come from, perhaps they were obliged by higher law not to enter.

And then I thought of Father Kenney. Maybe he lay dead in the office at the front, or worse, on the altar in the cathedral. I questioned Munster about this, and of course his answer was that we’d have to investigate. We left our plates shortly afterward, and he led the way.

Connecting Father’s bedroom to the office was a long hall. At the end of it was the door, which I really didn’t want him to open. I followed Munster with both hands grasping the back of his jacket. He snuffed the candle just before he opened the door into the darkness of the room. To my relief, the moonlight offered enough light for us to glance quickly around the room, but what I saw made me gasp.

Others

 

The unfortunate priest’s desk stood three feet away from the wall that extended from one end of the room to the other off to our right. Books and papers were strewn about, haphazard piles on top of the desk, more stuff scattered across the floor as though a cyclone had whirled through. The bookcase I’d remembered seeing so long ago was empty, ripped from its place on the wall to our left, caught in its fall by the desk corner nearest it.

The windows in the opposite wall were opened, a tiny, unsure breeze lifting the sheers over and over until their weight pushed them back down each time with a small flapping sound. Two of them, that is. The third remained closed, but the glass in it had been shattered. The sheers covering them lay in a twisted pile on the floor.

I expected to see Father’s legs on the floor beyond the desk, and I cringed at moving any farther into the room to confirm my fear.

“Is…he…?”

“Nope. Just more crap down there.”

“What do you supposed happened?”

He lowered himself onto the floor. “I’d say someone busted in here an’ trashed the place.”

Duh. That was pretty obvious.

“Yes, but who? Why?”

“There ya’ go again. How should I know? It wasn’t me, though. I don’t bust into holy places.

“C’mon, let’s find the church,” he said.

“Right through that door,” I said pointing. “The rectory isn’t technically a ‘holy place’, by the way.”

"I don't really give a..."

He kicked some debris out of his way, not bothering to finish his latest round of cussing, and then opened the door leading to a small atrium-like yard, the rear entrance to the church sacristy twenty feet away. We both scanned the sky, the short colonnade ahead of us, the shadowy corners below the tall walls on both sides. Quiet. Deserted as far as I could tell. Munster galloped over the cobbled walk to the rear door. He looked back at me, then turned and pushed the door inward. Total darkness.

“Be careful,” I tried not to yell too loudly. I waited for the all-clear signal. He was gone for a long minute, but eventually a flickering light showed itself in the doorway.

“Don’t see nobody…alive or dead. Come on. I think it’s safe.” He turned again, and holding the small candle in one hand, he reached into the waistband of his trousers with the other and withdrew the pistol I’d nearly killed him with. According to him. He left me there. The candlelight began to fade away into the darkness inside. I ran to catch up to him.

By the time I caught him, down a short corridor that opened off to the right, he’d already started to make his way into a room there.

“What are you looking for?” Another one of my lame questions.

“People, idiot! Be quiet!”

“Start being a little nicer to me, Munster, or I’ll leave you stranded and go back home.”

“Yeah, right. Shut up.”

He lifted the candle high and we looked around. Floor-to-ceiling cabinets with polished wood doors that reflected the dim light. A narrow dressing area between them, and a padded bench center of it. Munster stepped forward and began opening each door.

“Nuthin’. Dresses.”

“They’re called vestments.”

“Whatever you say.”

Walking along, he opened each door he came to on the right side. I carefully opened those on the left.

“This guy had the taste of a real flamer.”

“Jesus, Munster, haven’t you ever been to a Catholic Mass? These garments have nothing to do with his sexual preference, They’re are all ceremonial. Give him a break.”

He laughed and continued on. He came to the last door and pulled it open.

“AARGH! Make a move and I’ll blow your friggin’ BRAINS OUT!” He slammed against the cabinets across from him, the candle falling to the floor. Its collapse snuffed the already inadequate light, leaving us in total darkness. I didn’t see it…at least him raising the pistol he’d managed to keep in his hand…he fired two, then another shot, the muzzle blast lighting the end of the room up for an instant each time the bullet left the barrel.

A frantic voice screamed out from the cabinet interior, “Don’t shoot! Please, don’t hurt us!”

Us?

“Who are ya’? Get out here!” His voice was angry, but at the same time mirrored the petrifying tone of the person he was trying to murder. Her voice. Definitely a her, and very young.

Rather than try to bolt forward in the blackness and stop him from firing again, I eased along the bank of cabinets until I came to the open door.

“Don’t shoot,” I said, “I’m right in front of you.

“You in there. Are you wounded?”

“No,” a terrified tiny voice returned.

“Thank goodness. Please come out. Munster was just scared. He won’t hurt you, I promise.

“Munster, for God’s sake put that gun away! Find the candle and light it. Jesus, it’s a little girl!”

“Well, how was I to know?”

“Open your eyes! Find the candle!”

I heard him shuffle. The vestments inside rustled. The sound of hangers moving; a foot stepping out.

“Have you found it?”

“Yeah, yeah. Hang on.” A second later he struck the match and touched it to the blackened wick. Light.

She was very short, with curly black hair all mussed, cut to just below her amber ears. In the candlelight her eyes, jet-colored, flashed above rounded cheeks. The young girl was Afro-American. She stood there shaking like a leaf, throwing her gaze from me to Munster to me, back to Munster, over and over. No one spoke for a moment. Finally somewhat assured my nit-wit skittish friend had no further intention of killing her, she turned back to face the clothing behind her.

“You can get up, Jerrick. I don’t think…” she shot her head back around. “You won’t hurt me or my brother?”

“Nah. Sorry. I don’t shoot just everybody, less they scare the shit outta’ me…like you did.”

“Munster! Will you please watch your mouth! Of course she scared you, but…”

Whoever brother Jerrick was, he rose and stepped out of the cabinet quietly, letting his hands come to rest on the girl’s shoulders. Strange, I thought looking up at him. His eyes were fixed well above Munster’s head. Kind of blank. I wondered if maybe he was, well, you know, mentally not all there? He wasn’t drooling, though.

Ohmagod, it finally hit me, he was blind!

Jerrick—that struck me as such an odd name—was so unlike his sister. He was very tall, anyway. She was very short. Immediately I noticed that his fingers were long and slender, like long enough to reach an entire octave on a piano. Both he and his sister were dressed in winter clothing. She was still terrified. He seemed absolutely calm, especially in light of what Munster had just done.

“You’re blind?” I asked him.

“I am.”

“You’re…Jerrick? What is your name,” I said shifting my gaze down to the girl.

“Lashawna. Lashawna Freeman.”

Lashawna suddenly let loose.

“We ran after everyone in our house died. Oh, it was so horrible! We came here. We didn’t know where else to go, or why they all died like that! We’ve been hiding here…since…this morning we were in the office back there. In the kitchen part of it. We were hungry. Someone came! We heard the window crash, and then the bookcase fall with another crash after that. I made Jerrick hide with me under the bed