Out of the Dark (Light & Dark #1) (22 page)

I eat the broth, and then Mary hands me a steaming cup of tea. There’s no milk, of course, but it tastes delicious all the same. It’s not normal tea, and Mary tells me that it is made from nettles. Lilly has a cup too and she slurps it noisily and then gives a little burp. A small smile quirks the side of my mouth. I feel the pull of it inside of me before it even happens externally. I look at Lilly, and then at Mary, and we are all sitting around drinking nettle tea, like it isn’t the end of the world and this is all perfectly normal. And it’s nice, I realize. It’s nice to share this burden with someone. I can tell that Mary is nice, not like Sarah, and I am about to tell Mary about the safe place I have heard about, and say thank you for stopping Lilly from killing herself, and for helping us, and feeding us, and all the wonderful things that she has done that she didn’t need to do. I feel so much better after eating, my head so much calmer, so much clearer.

I’m about to say so many things, but then I hear it: the screeching of the monsters somewhere in the distance.

Mary looks sharply toward the stairs, her entire being trembling with fright, and I follow her gaze to the empty stairway, knowing from her look that he should be back by now.

“Peter,” she whispers, fear vibrating through her words. “Oh God, Peter!”

“Are we secure?” I ask, not caring about Peter at all. And it’s heartless and selfish, I know it is. But I don’t care. “Can they get to us?” I say and stand, the half-full cup of nettle tea still in my hand. Only now the liquid is moving, quaking in its container as my hand struggles to stay steady.

Mary looks up at me, dread filling her pretty eyes, because she knows that it’s not secure—that we are not secure, not until Peter is back. And she knows that I will lock Peter outside to protect Lilly. I will sacrifice him for my Honeybee without a second thought.

“Please.” She stands and follows me as I make my way across the small room. “Please, just one more minute. He’ll be back. I swear he’ll be back.”

Lilly is whimpering, Mary is crying, but all I can worry about is that there are monsters on their way and we are not secure. I reach the foot of the stairs, the screams of monsters far in the distance—but getting closer with every second, no doubt. There’s several blades on a box at the bottom of the stairs, and I put down my half-empty cup of nettle tea and take the largest one, grabbing it fiercely in my grip, and I begin to climb the stairs. Mary is still begging me, and I wonder briefly why she doesn’t try to stop me in any way other than to beg me. Perhaps she is so afraid that a part of her wants me to lock the door. Perhaps she would rather sacrifice Peter so that she lived.

“Please!” She whispers after me.

But her words mean nothing to me. I look down at her and I know in that split second why, I know that I was right: she needs me to be the monster so that her heart remains innocent. She wants me to lock the door, to protect us all—protect herself, certainly sentencing Peter to death—but it won’t be her fault, because she asked me not to. It’s a cruel thing to do, to make me the scapegoat, but I’ll be the villain in this scenario if I must. If it means my Lilly living another day.

I reach the top of the stairs and look out. The daylight is waning, a musky sort of dull light still glowing in the sky, but the shadows are beginning to bloom from every corner. And with each new shadow, there is new fear to behold.

Chapter Twenty-Six.

#26. Who wants to be the bad guy?

“Please don’t,” Mary calls to me again, but there is no conviction in her words, no real plead for her husband’s life.

I ignore her, because that’s all I can really do. I come up into a kitchen—a real kitchen. Everything is oak and ceramic, a large white sink, wooden units and counter tops, pots and pans dangling from a hanger above the stove.
A country kitchen for a country man and wife
, I think. There are large tubs piled everywhere, and I can see the colors of food within them. Store for the winter—or just for life, no doubt.

I walk up the last step of the stairs, reluctant to go any further in case Mary does finally grow a backbone and lock me out. I glance back down to her, seeing her muttering, whispering, and pleading, but her eyes are wide with terror.

“Stay there,” I say, and she nods.

“Mama?” Lilly calls.

“I won’t be a moment,” I whisper down to her. “I promise.”

I don’t know why I do it, why I put myself in the situation. It’s part self-preservation and part humanity—especially when I’ve promised so many times not to leave her. But I need to know where we are, how unsecure a place it is, and if I find the man—Peter—along the way, great. If not, no trouble, no mind, no bother for me. But to keep Lilly safe, I need to go find out.

I walk around the piled-up tubs of food and out the arched doorway that leads to a dining room. In the center is a great big wooden table with a lacy sheet over the top. The table is set for supper, and I shake my head in wonder. A table set for supper like it isn’t the end of the world. Part of me believes that these people would be better off dead if this was how they were living.

I reach a large brown front door. The small hallway surrounding it is dark, and I worry about going into that darkness. But I do, and when I reach the door I press down on the handle and step outside into the waning daylight. Screeches sound in the distance, and I breathe out heavily, the air catching in my throat.

I don’t dare call his name, but when I take ten steps from the front door and my legs begin to shake I decide that it is his loss, his error to not return in time, and I head back inside. I lock the door, for what it is worth, and I make my way back through the house, shutting doors as I go, being as quiet as I can. I go back into the kitchen, past the stove, and to the space where the stairs descend.

I stare for a long second at the closed door, blinking back tears, already knowing my own judgment was wrong again. They have tricked me. They have locked me out, sentenced me to death. They have taken Lilly and sent me on a fool’s errand.

I swallow down the lump in my throat, because at least she is safe. That should be all that matters. They could have left us both for dead, but they didn’t. Just me.

I put my hand on the handle, dread curdling in my gut…but the handle turns under my palm and the door opens rapidly, almost throwing me off balance. Peter is in front of me, and Mary right behind, and I can hear Lilly crying somewhere down below.

“Get inside,” he grumbles, his expression a hard scowl somewhere beneath his beard, no doubt.

He grips my arm and pulls me inside, pushing me past him as he locks the door and then swings another door in front of the existing one. The second door is a thin sheet of metal with at least three locks. I stumble down the stairs and Lilly runs to me, crashing into my arms and sending us both to our knees. Her tears are hot and wet on my face and neck, and she burrows her small body against mine. She sobs relentlessly until Peter stomps down the stairs and stands over us, and I look up at him, barely holding onto my emotions.

“Shut her up.” His cold eyes blink emotionlessly, an unspoken truce going between us. “They’re coming,” he says gruffly.

I press my mouth against Lilly’s curls and hush her, whispering my most calming words, and she quiets immediately, almost as if I have changed the channel on the television. She blinks up at me, her eyes red and puffy from crying.

“I thought you had left me,” she whispers.

I frown. “I will never leave you.” I push the hair back from her cheeks, cupping her face in my hands. “Not ever,” I say with as much conviction as I can muster.

She rubs at her tears and continues to cling to me, and I stumble up to my feet and carry her across the room. I sit down on the small sofa, with Lilly still wrapped around my waist, and I think how childlike she is today. I both hate it and love it. I love that she is young and acting her age; it is, after all, what I strive for on a daily basis—to keep her young and innocent. But I hate it because I need her to be older right now, stronger both mentally and physically. She fumbles around for her teddy bear, finds it, and snuggles it into her side, all without moving from my lap. Mary is hugging Peter, but there’s no love lost between them. He seems cold, and much like an empty canvas.

He glances my way every time the scream of monsters sounds out, and I know what he is thinking. I can hear it without him putting voice to those thoughts. Mary is unaware, trapped in her bubble of fear and terror, but not Peter. He is astute and he knows what I have been thinking for days now. They have been happily growing vegetables and fruit, living a simple life without the monsters for a while now—that much is obvious and it doesn’t need to be said. It is clear by the panic on Mary’s face, in the way the doors were left unlocked, and that nothing had been destroyed. I don’t know how or why, but they haven’t seen monsters in a while. I hate them for this fact. Hate them with all of my being. Jealousy runs rampant through my heart and soul at their freedom, their obnoxious way of life.

While Lilly and I have been running and hiding, Mary and Peter have been casually living off the land and adjusting to this new way of life. I wonder if this was how Sarah had felt about me and Lilly. If she had been jealous and full of spite for us. Perhaps that was why she left me behind and abandoned Lilly at the roadside: she thought it was deserved, since we had been living in quiet peace.

Nevertheless, life is what it is, and the simple fact remains. The fact and truth that Peter knows and I now know for certain.

The monsters are following me.

I don’t know how or why, but they are. A familiarity has been growing within me at every nightfall. Perhaps it is my eventual turning that is bringing me closer to their nature, making me more perceptive to this knowledge. Because, no doubt, I can feel them when they arrive. It feels like they are chasing me—trying to catch both me and Lilly before we change. We are food to them, and if they can hunt us down before it is too late, we will be a tasty meal. I know this, almost like I can taste the succulent flesh caught between my teeth, the blood flowing down my throat, hot and thirst-quenching. And if they don’t reach us in time, that’s not a problem; we will become a part of their colony. Two more monsters to enter into the fold.

I look away from Peter’s angry glare, hating the accusations in it. Another loud chorus of screeching overhead and we all know that they are here. The sound is so loud I can hardly think, but I do, I must. I force myself to control my breathing, to think steady thoughts and to truly acknowledge the danger we are in.

“Do you have lights down here?” I ask. Because right now the small cellar we are in is lit by only a handful of candles. And by the looks of them, they will not last long.

“We have flashlights. But we don’t use them unless it’s an emergency,” Mary says, turning herself away from Peter to face us.

“This is an emergency,” I say calmly, thinking that she is stupid for not realizing this already.

Peter is still staring, but he nods sharply and stalks off somewhere into the shadows. I don’t like that I can’t see him, and I realize that I still don’t trust him in any way—certainly not now that he knows my truth. Would he sacrifice me and Lilly to save himself and Mary? Yes, I believe he would, and after the way Mary had been earlier, allowing me to climb the stairs and possibly lock Peter out, I know that she would too. Despite how much she clearly cares for Lilly.

Self-preservation is one of the strongest things there can be. It is why there are no more children, no more old people, no more sick. If it’s a choice between saving you or saving someone else, it will always be to save yourself. Especially if the other person is infected, like I am. No matter the cost to your soul. I should know, I think, as I think back to the night spent in the car with the dying person.

I clutch my knife tighter as Peter stalks back into view. In his hands is another plastic tub, much like the ones filled with food upstairs. He slides it onto the table where I had been lying earlier and pulls the lid off. The sound is sharp in our silence and we all look toward the stairs. When nothing happens, he puts his hands inside and begins pulling out candles and flashlights—both large and small. He flicks the switches, testing and checking their use. Several have batteries that are long since dead, but there are three that still work, and lots of candles.

Peter also pulls out several knives and one small pistol, which looks old enough that my grandfather could have used it in the war. But he has the one at his waist also.

“So these are—” Mary begins.

“A last defense,” I finish for her.

If the monsters find us, which they are sure to do, if they break through the door, which is more than likely, we use the light to protect us for as long as possible. And if we cannot keep them back long enough for the morning to come, then we take down as many as we can.

“The child,” Peter says, nodding his head toward Lilly, who flinches instinctively.

“What about her?” I say, my eyes narrowing.

“There’s a space for her to hide. She’ll be safer.” He frowns and I frown back.

My mistrust of him is strong, but Lilly’s life is the most important thing. If there’s somewhere safe for her, then I have to listen, I have to try.

“Where?” I ask.

Mary looks at her husband and then back to me, her eyes shining with wetness. It makes me trust her less, and I stand, holding my knife out in front of me, a snarl already on my lips.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” she says. “It’s where…it’s where…” She stumbles on her words, chokes on memories and tears and then almost jumps out of her skin when a loud crash sounds from up above us. Possibly the door caving in, but I can’t be certain.

What I can be certain of is the many clawed feet scrambling around the house, the screaming and screeching as they search us out. Running upstairs and downstairs, around and over furniture, crashing through windows and doors as they flood the house in an attempt to find us.

“It’s where we hid our grandson,” Peter finishes for us, seemingly unfazed by the noises in the house.

“And yet he’s not here,” I retort, knowing it’s both cruel and unlike me to be so. And also surprised that they say ‘grandson’ and not ‘son,’ because I didn’t think they were old enough for grandchildren.

“He…he died, of the sickness,” Mary says sadly, her eyes flitting to Lilly still wrapped in my arms. Her gaze traces across Lilly’s light curly hair and then down her neck. Her hair has pushed to one side, showing the crude black evil visibly running through her veins. Yes, Lilly is dying of the sickness too. Yes, it will kill me when it takes her—unless it takes me first, that is.

“I’m sorry,” I mumble, feeling shameful. Feeling cruel.

“No matter,” Peter says, his voice gruff and harsh. “Come with me.”

He stalks off and I stand and follow him, carrying Lilly with me. To the left of the main room is a smaller room. It is a storeroom of sorts and there are cardboard boxes and tubs piled high, shelves stacked with glass jars filled with food, and I stare wide-eyed at how much they have here. They have been preparing for a long time, I realize, but then, what do you do at the end of time when you have nothing left to do with your days but survive? You plan. You store. And you wait.

I was jealous previously; insanely so, I realize—my second realization in as many minutes—but it was unjust of me to be so. They have less than I do. Even with their shelves stacked high with food, they still have little. They have each other, but just barely.

Peter quickly pulls some metal shelving away from the far wall. It screeches on the hard ground and I wince at the noise, but we all know it doesn’t matter anymore. It’s only going to be minutes, if not less, before they find us anyway. He pulls the shelving away, and several tubs fall, toppling over, and Peter kicks them to one side and points to a small metal door that was previously hidden behind the shelving.

I look at it and then him, and he reaches down and pulls the heavy little door open. Inside are quilts and several small jars of food, what looks like a flare gun, and a knife. Lilly peeks around to look inside, her eyes going wide.

“What do you think, Lilly? Do you think you could hide in there?”

She has no choice, really—I will be insistent that she does—but children like to feel at least a little in charge of their lives, so I pretend that there is an option when really there is not.

“Will you come in with me?” she asks in a very small voice.

“No, there isn’t enough room for me,” I say. “But if you are hidden in here I will be able to concentrate better. I won’t worry so much.”

“You’ll be safer?” she asks.