If Darkness Takes Us Read online

  Outside, everything fell quiet. I was about to hurry back to the window when someone shouted, “We got him. It’s all clear.”

  Got who? I sprang to the window to see a thin figure sprawled in the street. Other people stood over him, but it was too dark to see more.

  “Stay here, Tasha, away from the windows. Keep an eye out for Mazie in case she wakes up.”

  “Don’t go out there, Nana!” Tasha grabbed my arm as I passed her.

  “Honey, we need to know what happened in case more trouble’s coming. And I’m not sending you out there.”

  She wiped her eyes with a quivering hand.

  “Someone tried to shoot us for our water,” Sonja Carrera said when I rushed outside full of questions.

  “Was he alone? Is he dead?”

  “Yes, and yes, but I lost my water.” I guessed our priorities had become rather stark.

  “Come with me,” I whispered to Sonja. “I’ll give you some water, but don’t tell anyone.”

  Quickly before the sun rose, while other neighbors gabbled about the dead man, Sonja, her son, and I slipped into my house. I gave her two gallons of water and some leftover biscuits.

  Sonja was shaky and extremely thin. She was a lovely, tall Latina, but she wasn’t exuding the confidence I’d seen in her before. I’d never known her well, but I’d had a couple of stimulating conversations with her. Today she seemed at a loss for words.

  Sonja’s young son wheezed as he ate a biscuit. Tasha came downstairs, still shaky herself, so I poured us some sun mint tea to settle our nerves. We sat quietly sipping it, each of us staring in different directions, me worried witless about encroaching doom, until Sonja muttered a thank you and went home.

  How many people without water were out there surrounding us, anyway? And how long until they banded together to plunder us into oblivion?

  One morning, Keno approached me.

  “Nana, we’re going tonight.” He cringed away as though he expected me to slap him.

  “Who’s going where?” I asked, as if I didn’t know. It was one of countless things I continually shoved out of my mind when I couldn’t cope with the emotions that came with them. Too much feeling could kill a person, and I often felt on the verge.

  “We’re going to that old well to get the water.”

  I sank into a chair, trying to maintain my equilibrium. “Do you have to? Why now? Who’s going?”

  Keno stooped before me, sensing my distress. “Because the pond water’s almost gone, the Beldings don’t have water, and we need to do something. Silas is going, Mr. Jeffers, some other guys I don’t know too well.”

  I sat back in the chair. Was this how women felt who had to send their sons to war? I darted my eyes around the room but found no answers.

  “I wish you didn’t have to go at night,” I said weakly. “It’s so scary out there.”

  He nodded and smiled a bit. Very adult of him to humor me so.

  I took Keno’s hand. He looked into the distance as though mulling things over.

  “We need the water. We have to try.”

  “But, Keno, I can take care of you for water. You don’t have to go.” I was prepared to tell him about the cistern. I was that desperate to keep him home.

  He furrowed his forehead for an uncomfortable moment. “Didn’t you teach us to take care of everyone? Aren’t we supposed to think of other people besides ourselves?”

  “But you’re just a boy,” I said.

  Keno gazed at me. “I’ll always be your boy, Nana, but I’m a man now.” By his comportment, I knew he was right. I had to let him go.

  “How long do you think you’ll be gone?”

  Keno stood up. “We’re gonna try to do it in one night, but if takes too long and morning’s too close, we’ll stay at the well until the next night. We figure the walk there should take two or three hours. The walk back will be more like four or five. We’ll be slower with loaded wheelbarrows, and we’ll have to rest more.”

  “Darkness lasts for how long this time of year? Twelve hours?”

  “Your almanac says thirteen and a half.”

  “That gives you five hours to fill the water jugs, to eat, to rest. . . .” I wanted to say to deal with anything that goes wrong, but I held back. I narrowed my eyes at Keno. “Do I need to speak to Mr. Jeffers about this?”

  “What? No!” He seemed stunned by the very idea.

  “I need to be sure you’re safe,” I said.

  “And I need you to trust me.”

  To Keno, it was a matter of trust, of proving his mettle as a man. A million things could go wrong that would be beyond his control. How could I trust anyone’s ability to deal with that? I’d have been just as worried if Keno were forty years old.

  When mid-afternoon rolled around, the water volunteers began amassing wheelbarrows, empty jugs, and packs of food and water in our backyard. I gave them some canned tuna and biscuits to take, to keep their energy up.

  The number of water jugs they could fit in their wheelbarrows looked paltry to me, given the risk they were taking. I took Keno aside.

  “How many men are going? And how much water can each of them get home with?”

  He counted on his fingers. “Eight men and a couple of teenagers. I’m thinking each guy can push about ten gallons home in a wheelbarrow. That’s all that will fit. It’s about a hundred pounds per guy.”

  “Would wagons be easier than wheelbarrows? I have six of them.” I called them wagons, but they were fold-up garden carts. Each had room for three five-gallon bottles with a little space for food or supplies. They had beefed-up wheels and were supposed to carry up to four-hundred pounds each. “I also have a bunch of empty five-gallon jugs,” I added.

  “Yeah, wagons probably would be easier. Maybe we could go faster.”

  “You can only go as fast as your slowest person,” I said. “Maybe you should see if any neighbors have carts or wagons.”

  “I’m on it.” He rushed out the gate into the neighborhood.

  Before long, Keno returned pulling two wagons. One was only a kid’s wagon, the other more of a utility cart, each big enough for two five-gallon jugs. That made eight carrying vehicles other than wheelbarrows. I had an idea.

  “I have a couple of personal shopping carts. They should hold one bottle apiece. It might be better to use those instead of wheelbarrows. You’d get less water, but you’ll move faster.”

  I retrieved the grocery carts from the garage and inserted empty bottles inside. They fit snugly, but they fit. “I wish you’d told me yesterday that you’d be going today. Most of the carts and water bottles are at the Mint. How will we get them without being seen?”

  “I’ll get Milo on it,” Keno said. “That kid can be pretty sneaky.”

  “Can he?” I was completely unaware of this talent of Milo’s. No telling what he’d sneaked past me as a result.

  Soon it was six p.m., and daylight was fading. Milo had pulled the carts into our yard—each with three empty water jugs inside—by hunkering low in the Mint yard and moving fast. Luckily, the wagons were new and didn’t squeak much.

  One hundred twenty gallons of water—so little for so many people. The folks with no water had no choice, but we did. It was crazy for Keno to take so much risk. But I had taught him to care about others, and now I had to live with the consequences.

  As the men and boys lined up to leave, Tasha strutted out of the house wearing her grandfather’s camouflage shirt and a hat with her hair tucked inside. She’d done something to flatten her ample bosom—an overly tight sports bra perhaps.

  I started to stop her, but she gave me such a self-satisfied look that I backed off. I was a little proud of her, frankly. I had to admire her guts.

  “Kids, come here,” I said to Keno and Tasha. I hugged them and looked them each in the eye. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a Glock. “Do you know how to use this?”

  “Yeah, our dad taught us,” Tasha said.

  Of course he did. I show
ed them the safety and reminded them not to touch the trigger unless they intended to fire the gun. They hugged me again, then they and the others pulled their carts out of the yard and rolled them down the street, heading south. My heart sank through my feet.

  I was pretty sure Milo was planning to sneak out and catch up to the rest of them, so I kept him busy in the house until well past bedtime.

  I didn’t even try to sleep. I looked at family photos until I was too sad to continue, then I darned socks by candlelight through the long autumn night. I hummed songs and recited poetry to distract myself. I tried to remember the entire Gettysburg Address, but I’m sure I got it wrong.

  Around five a.m. when worry had the best of me and my hands were so cramped that I could barely unclench them, I went outside to cook breakfast and started a fire on the grill. Just as the oatmeal was ready, I heard wagons rolling on the pavement, and a line of heads appeared outside my fence. The side gate banged open, and Jack Jeffers came through, jerking his hat off and holding the gate open.

  “Bring it in here, y’all,” he said. “We’ll divvy it up later.”

  A slew of wagons and carts bumped up the curb and through the gate, pulled by men and boys who looked exhausted. Last came Keno and Tasha, helping each other through the gate.

  “Man,” Tasha said as she made her way to me. “It was so freaking dark out there.”

  “I’m sorry, honey.” I hugged her. “I made breakfast. You must be starving.”

  “Too tired to eat. Goin’ to bed.”

  “Well, sleep tight,” I said. She went inside as Keno reached me. “How’d it go?”

  “Okay,” he said. “A lot of work for only a little water though.”

  “Did you have any trouble?”

  “We saw some guys hiding in bushes and watching us on the way back. I’m worried they’ll attack us if we pass them with water again.”

  “Is there another way back?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll figure it out later. I’m taking Darla her water.” He loped over to Tasha’s cart, adding, “When I get back, I’m goin’ to bed.”

  “Shoot. I made too much breakfast,” I said.

  “I’ll eat it later.”

  Cold oatmeal. Yum.

  SEVENTEEN

  NIGHTS LATER, frantic pounding on our front door woke us in the depth of night. Keno ran down to answer while I threw on my glasses and robe, grabbed my pistol, and made my heart-thrumming way down the stairs.

  As Keno opened the door, Darla screamed, “Help! Please help! It’s Bucky.”

  She stepped off the stoop to the sidewalk, where in the moonlight I saw a mop of snarled red hair and a pile of dirty clothes on a tarp. Then I saw small hands. Darla’s little brother?

  “It’s Bucky!” she cried, tears and spittle flying. “Help me!”

  I latched the safety on my gun and stuck it in my pocket. As I crossed the threshold, I said, “Darla, did you pull Bucky down here by yourself on that tarp?”

  “Yes. Somethin’s wrong with him!” She covered her mouth with her hands, suppressing another shriek.

  With a gasp, Keno pulled Darla to him, stroking her wild hair while he stared unblinkingly at Bucky. My other grandkids rushed out to the stoop and stopped still.

  I bent down to the little pile on the tarp. I touched the clothing and felt a bony shoulder blade, which I pulled gently toward me. As the small body rotated, the ashen face of Darla’s little brother revealed itself beneath his red hair. His eyes were glassy and empty. He was not breathing.

  I let out a breath and put my fingertips to his neck, feeling around the cooling flesh for a pulse, but there was no pulse to be found. His freckled face was clean, though. Darla had tried. I closed the little boy’s eyes.

  Darla let out a soul-curdling scream, and I stood to hold the convulsing girl with all my strength. Tasha pulled Mazie and Milo back inside.

  “I’m so sorry, honey,” I said, latching onto Darla tighter until she slid from my arms to the ground. Keno crouched beside her, and she collapsed against him.

  I almost slid to the ground myself. This could have been one of my kids. How did our world get so horrid so fast? I wasn’t sure I had the strength to face it.

  The neighbors seemed frozen in disbelief. Though no one actually said it, I felt sure that they, like me, were asking themselves which one of us would be next.

  “We should have done more to help those poor people,” Doris Barnes said. I didn’t point out that we’d been helping the Beldings and it hadn’t done a lick of good.

  Doris, who’d volunteered at a hospice in her past, assisted Darla in taking care of her family for the next few days, and Keno visited constantly. Since I was sure he was going inside now, I doused him with hand sanitizer every time he returned.

  But one night well past dark, when he should have been home long ago, Keno came huffing into the house, slamming the door and pounding his fist against the wall.

  “Don’t hurt your hand! What’s wrong?”

  “Nothin’,” he said, tramping into the living room.

  “Keno, what is it?”

  “Stupid Chas Matheson.”

  “Uh-oh. What did he do?”

  “I keep seeing him outside Darla’s. Walking back and forth on the sidewalk, all hyped up. Pacing in the street. So, I finally asked him, ‘What’s going on?’”

  “What did he say?”

  “’None of your business, Simms.’ So I say, ‘You should leave Darla alone. Her parents are real sick.’ ‘What?’ he said. ‘Are you sweet on that little hillbilly?’ I wanted to punch him, but his friends came running up, yelling.”

  “I wonder what he’s up to. So mean, calling that sad girl names.”

  “I told Darla he was out there pacing around. She said she knew. I asked her if she liked him. She said she hates him. ‘Well, why’s he out there?’ I said, but she just shrugged.”

  “Let’s make sure someone’s always with her, so he can’t bother her. Is Doris there now?”

  “Yeah, but I want to go back.” He looked at me despairingly.

  “Honey, it’s not a good idea. Chas and his friends are there.”

  “I can handle his ass.”

  “Keno, Darla’s family is suffering. The last thing they need is a fight.”

  Keno slumped, ran his hand through his dark hair, and headed upstairs.

  Overnight, the rest of Darla’s family died—one right after another, as though their psychic wiring had been sequentially linked.

  Doris tapped on our door around dawn to tell us the horrible news. She needed to sleep, and wondered if one of us could stay with Darla.

  “I’ll go,” Keno said. He threw on his clothes and shoes and ran down the street.

  “Such a sweet boy,” Doris said.

  “Get some sleep, honey. We’ll take over.”

  I cooked a quick oatmeal breakfast so I could go on down to the Beldings’ house. Such unfortunate people, and such an alarming portent for the rest of us.

  Darla came to live with us. We fixed her up with a bed and small dresser in a corner of the living room and put them behind a Japanese screen.

  For the most part, the soil in our subdivision wasn’t deep enough to bury anyone, and the few areas of deep soil needed to be planted with food. Jack Jeffers and several other men used my wheelbarrow, along with their own, to take the Beldings down by the train tracks to bury them in soil that was too poisoned for farming.

  Before they left, I explained the shallow soil dilemma to Darla, then asked her, “Is it okay with you if they bury your family by the tracks? You won’t be able to visit their graves down there.”

  “I ain’t gonna visit ‘em anyway.” she mumbled.

  I almost asked her why. I felt like trying to convince her to visit the gravesite for her peace of mind, but I caught myself. Not in this world, Bea. No such niceties around here.

  I loaned gas masks to the men in the burial detail, to help not only with the toxins but also with the serious germs
that surely infested those corpses. And I gave the men latex gloves to wear.

  Mr. Jeffers got sick anyway. He went around coughing for days. Jesus, he had me worried. It took some work, but I finally convinced him to let me listen to his chest. He had a few crackles, so I gave him some of my limited supply of antibiotics.

  Then I redoubled my germ-killing efforts, bleaching down the kitchen sink and counters every day, constantly harping on the kids to wash their hands. Listening to their chests each evening became part of our family routine. It also reassured me, because their lungs always sounded clear and strong.

  For the first days she was with us, Darla seldom came out from behind her screen. She even ate, or picked at, her meals back there. I knew she was grieving something awful, so I left her alone. Even Keno steered clear of her, seeming at a loss about how to help her. But after a few days, I decided to draw her out.

  “Darla, we’re going to play Monopoly. Would you like to play?”

  “Um . . . okay.” Darla’s bed squeaked and, via her silhouette, I saw her sit up.

  She came out fairly quickly, but she kept her face down and stood to the side of the table. I smiled at her and patted an empty chair beside me.

  “Why don’t you sit here?”

  She shrugged and sat down, fiddling with a strand of hair that hung across her face.

  “I want to play Scrabble,” Tasha said.

  “No, let’s play something everyone can play.”

  Tasha shot a suspicious look at Darla.

  Mazie said, “I can play Scrabble. I’m not too little!”

  “No, I mean play a game that six people can play at the same time.”

  Milo pulled out the Monopoly game and began to set it up. “I’m the banker,” he announced, and no one opposed him.

  “Does she know how to play?” Tasha said, nodding toward Darla but looking at me.

  “Tasha!” I couldn’t believe she was being so rude.

  “I know how,” Darla muttered, crinkling her eyes at Tasha.

  The game went along, with Darla playing tentatively, Tasha eyeing Darla’s every move, and me giving Tasha stern looks. At last all the properties had been purchased, and Milo and Keno were buying houses and building empires.