When The Light Goes Out (30 page)

And Pixie took offense. "What?"

"Nothing Pix, nothing." "No. You're laughing."

"It's just.." Dustin sighed. "I can't go home."

"I know it's kinda scary, with the zombies and everything" "No, that's not why. If I could get to him, I'd go in a second." "Then why?"

"I live across the water."

"The water?" She pondered. "The ocean? England?" "You know about England?"

"Only what they teached me ahem. Taught me. In history." "Oh, and what's that?"

"You guys have funny accents." "Oh do we?"

And the tickling began. An innocent thing in all honesty, to cheer up the sad girl. To cheer up the sad man as well, in a way. If he couldn't be taking care of his baby, he figured, he'd be taking care of someone else's. He could handle that. He really, truly could.

"Tell me about your son?"

"Duke?" Dustin took a moment to think. "He's the smartest boy ever, I'll swear. And he's the sweetest. He once carried a puppy, nearly as big as him all the way to the hospital because it was bleeding. He was too young to realize that the human hospital couldn't do much to help but they certainly got this dog the best vet ever. 'Specially when he threw a hissy-fit, and I got pulled from work to calm 'em down."

Pixie laughed.

"I did something like that with a bird once." "Did you?"

"Mmhmm. It fell out of it's nest." "So you took it to the hospital?" "The family vet."

"How'd that turn out?"

"It was dead before I got it there."

There was a moment of silence.

Then a bit of laughter. Not at the death of the bird, but at the nonchalance of the explanation. It wasn't something Dustin had expected from the child, and his laughter appeared contagious, so the two sat chuckling. Calm for at least a little while.

However, when the lights are out, the weirdest things are known to happen. They didn't even see the shadows beginning to move.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

"
Cathy?!
"

The tears were instantaneous. Cathy Oh dear
God
. When she told me to go ahead, I wasn't expecting anything like the truth. Like the situation at hand. It's not what I wanted. I'm sure it wasn't what
she
wanted either. Probably not what she expected would come to her in the end. It certainly couldn't have been an ideal.

Cathy was laying in a crumpled heap on the floor. Not moving. Flashes of lightening revealed the gun gripped tightly in her hand, and I couldn't figure out what was going on. I just couldn't. I stood there, staring in absolute horror as Malachi pushed past me to get to her. He dropped to his knees instantly, moving her this way and that, going pale.

"Cathy.."

The tears were flowing harder. I couldn't breathe.

I wanted to know
why
!

"What's going on?!" Came an accented voice from behind me. Blaz. "Why're ye cryin' kid?" But I just started sobbing harder. "Come 'ere." And of all the things the old man could have done, he hugged me. Perhaps it was half hearted. I didn't know. But he placed an arm around me and held me there. "Holy Jesus." Apparently he knew why I was crying. "Kai?!"

Kai?

The
hell
?!

The man gave Malachi a nickname? Since when?!

"She shot herself!"

I felt my knees go weak, and the nickname was forced to the back of my mind. Because, suddenly, it wasn't so important. Cathy shot herself? How could the boy possibly be so sure?! Cathy wouldn't have done such a thing. She just hurt her leg. That was it. Her ankle. She twisted it or something. She
wouldn't
have shot herself. Maybe someone else shot her!

"How do you" "Gunpowder burns." "What?"

"Burns from the gun. It
had
to have come from close range."

I stared at him.

The rain started up again. When had it stopped? "So?"

"The shooter couldn't have possibly gotten away so damned fast." "How would
you
know?!"

"Don't ask."

I wasn't going to push.

I
really
wasn't going to push. "Too bad. I'm asking."

I lied.

"I took a class." The boy sounded tired, so I didn't push further than that. Yet. I figured it would be a good topic of conversation some time in the future. The
future
. Like when it was safe to poke his brain a bit. Figure what he knew that I most certainly didn't. In the meantime, I could swear there was howling in the distance.

Howling?

"
Everybody get inside!
"

Not a single person hesitated. I heard windows slamming shut, and doors being locked. Rather, no one hesitated but me. I didn't know what the hell was going on, so I just stood there. Blaz, however, got a killer grip on my arm and started pulling me inside. I was okay with that, until Malachi got up without Cathy's body.

"Cathy!"

"They smell the blood." "So?!"

"That's what they want!"

"We
can't
just
leave
her there!" "We can, and we are."

"But"

"Blaz, get her the
hell
inside." "Righto."

And the fucking bastard was forcing me into the building then. First gently leading me by the arm, until he realized I wasn't willingly moving. Then he practically picked me up to get me in. Screw practically, he
did
pick me up, so I started shouting. Curse words, rude names, incoherent
things
. I wasn't even sure what, I was so damned angry.

I started kicking.

I struggled like I'd never struggled before in my life. The fucker was strong.

"Put me down." "No."

"Put me
down
." "
No.
"

"Put me
down
!"

"
NO
! Now shut yer trap b'fore I shut it for ye!" "
Put me the
"

I was rudely cut off by my ass hitting the floor. Boy did Blaz put me down, and I just wanted to turn around and hit him. I wanted to take out a couple teeth. Draw some blood. Of course, I didn't, but I wanted to. I wanted to so badly right as Malachi was pushing something rather heavy looking in front of the door.

I wanted to scream. "
You bastard
!"

So I did.

I swung my arms, a frantic gesture really. I was trying to hit someone, something, anything. Trying to expend energy. Trying to calm down. Doing so was a bit of a mistake considering I barely stopped fast enough to avoid hitting Ian. Realizing this I did freeze all movement. Hitting the de I still couldn't think it. Hitting the boy was about the last thing I wanted to do if anything.

I didn't know why Blaz chose to drop me there. It only made me feel worse. A
lot
worse. But I figured that may have been the desired effect. I was about to yell at the old man, but

I wasn't able to voice my complaint as something slammed up against the door, and there was movement beside me. Movement beside me.

Ian was moving.

I screamed, like a little schoolgirl, when he touched me. But I found that I couldn't get away. His fingers were wrapped in my shirt, and I didn't know what to do. I expected him to rip a chunk out of me, but he just gripped my shirt, tightly, and made this little whimpering groan. It sounded like, well, it sounded like he was trying to say something in all honesty.

"Ian?"

He made the noise again. "Ian?"

I leaned in a little closer at his next sound, trying to make out what he was attempting to say. But he stopped making his noise and brown eyes stared at me expectantly. Brown. White, and brown with little black pupils. Not zombie eyes. That alone was enough to make me want to jump for joy, but I restrained myself.

He was looking at me like he was trying to tell me something. Like I was supposed to do something. I was supposed to know what he wanted, and I felt horrible. Absolutely horrible because I
didn't
know what he wanted. So I did the next best thing; I leaned forward again.

"Ian?" "My" "Your?" "Chchch" "Your chest?"

He made a little noise that could have been agreement. It could have been pain. And I suddenly remembered he was bleeding. A lot, if I do say so myself. He must have been in a

whole
new world of pain, and holy mother of God, Ian wasn't dead yet. What the hell?!

"
Guys
!!" I screamed it as loudly as I could, and everyone looked. Staring at me with eyes that demanded to know what the hell was going on. Believe it or not, Blaz seemed to understand the situation first and started moving forward. "We we were wr-wrong. He wasn't dead. He wasn't dead.."

I felt myself growing hysterical.

Apparently Blaz saw me getting hysterical as well. "Shush up, ye young'un."

I nodded my head in silent agreement, not entirely sure why as I removed the boys grip from my shirt and held his hand. It was such a damned relief that he wasn't dead, however

I still didn't know how he'd been shot. Or by who. Or why. And decided it wasn't very important at the groan of pain. I could wonder about it later.

Much later.

"Shh.." I tried to calm the boy, noting the glint of panic in his eyes. "It'll be okay, man. I promise. I promise." I felt myself beginning to cry again (had I ever stopped?) and tried to prevent the tears from dripping on the boy. I wasn't sure he would have appreciated it, but tried anyway. He was worth the effort. Any effort.

"Help me roll 'em over, will ye?" "Wha Why?"

"So as I can get meself a look at 'em wounds."

I hadn't exactly noticed that Ian'd been pulling himself onto his side, so I quietly placed a hand on his shoulder, shushing him the entire way to the floor. I wasn't entirely sure what

I'd ended up whispering to him, but one could be sure they were words of encouragement. For what they were worth. Which apparently wasn't all that much.

He just kept groaning, apparently in more pain than I could possibly imagine, and it made me feel horrible. I didn't want him to feel that way. I wished I could have gotten to him before he got shot. Or I could have taken the bullets out. Or given him
something
to make the pain stop. Anything.

I didn't want to see him like that. I really didn't want to.

"Ian, you're going to be okay buddy." "Kai, can ye come 'ava look at this?" Malachi appeared immediately.

"'Kai'?" I didn't ask so much out of shock than I did just to have something to talk about. Something that could, maybe, distract Ian. Just a little bit. "'Kai' as in a nickname. A

nickname? A
nickname
. Since when?" "Since Blaz started calling me it." "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Well.." I winced when Ian did. "I didn't think you were a nickname kind of guy." "Well, you thought wrong."

I pouted, but Ian chuckled so I decided it wasn't all that bad. I was willing to put up with the abuse for him. And both men Blaz and Malachi cringed when they got Ian's shirt open. I, personally, was afraid to look. So I didn't. I refused to look. The blood, the torn flesh, the pain. God, I didn't want to see any of it.

"Excel, go get a first aid kit." "From where?"

"It's a
clinic
"

"Of course, sorry for asking."

And I was, because it wasted five seconds with which I
could
have been searching for the wretched item. Wretched only for the fact that, in a place of healing, it was nearly impossible to find. I tore around cabinets, threw things from shelves, knocked otherwise useful items around to find the damned thing and couldn't.

"Malachi!"

I could hear the other younger boy searching just as hard as I was. Maybe for the first aid kit as well. Maybe he'd been sent on a different task. I didn't entirely care, all I knew is that for the seconds that my movements stopped, there were still crashing items. Someones else was looking.