If Darkness Takes Us Read online

  What in the world could have happened to cause Cesar II to go to Mexico and leave Sonja alone with a child and a well of grief? I wanted to know, but no one would catch me asking about it again.

  Midway home, a half-naked old man leapt from the overgrown bushes along the roadside, slashing a stick through the air—a filthy white man with matted hair and beard. I’d never seen more insane-looking eyes. We halted as the man ran straight toward Sonja and the wagon, parrying his stick at invisible demons.

  Sonja dropped the wagon handle and dashed backward. I grabbed hold of the pistol in my pocket and hopped from the cart to the ground.

  “Give me some!” the man cried, slicing the air and spinning around the wagon.

  “Take a bag!” I shouted.

  “I want two!” He lowered his stick, darting his eyes. “What is it?”

  “Pecans,” I said with no breath.

  “I’m taking two!” But he picked up one bag, clutching it to his chest as pecans spilled out the top.

  Then the sky abruptly lit up with ribbons of blue, yellow, and green light. We all screamed, though my scream was a croak. There was no whump sound this time—nothing electric was running to make the sound. A spectacular technicolor lightshow swirled across the sky above us, and the hairs on my arms stood up.

  The crazy man dropped his pecans and cried, “I knew it would come back!” lifting his stick to the sky like Gandalf in Lord of the Rings, proclaiming, “It came for the Mayans. It came for the Egyptians. It came here in 1859, and now it has returned!”

  I stood in a three-point stance and aimed my pistol at the man’s head. “Run, kids!” I shrieked. “Run home, now!”

  The kids and Sonja gaped at me. Green and yellow light continued to stream across the heavens. Tasha scooped up Mazie, mounted a bike with her, and took off toward home.

  “Cesar’s bike!” Mazie hollered as they hurtled down the road.

  “I’ve got it!” Milo yelled. He hopped on the little bike and pedaled like a speed demon.

  Keno stood still, balancing the bike and whipping his eyes between me, Sonja, and the crazy man, whose jubilations had gone incoherent.

  “I’m not leaving you here, Nana.”

  Tears shot into my eyes. “Go, Keno. I’ve got this!”

  “Bea, you must come,” Sonja said.

  “I’m not letting this man follow us home. Go on. Both of you!”

  Sonja trotted toward us with the wagonload. Keno grabbed Cesar from the bike cart and stuck him on top of the pecans in the wagon as Sonja passed. She broke into a sprint.

  “I’ll wait down the block,” Keno said. “You can’t get home without this cart.”

  I inhaled sharply, and the pistol began to shake.

  “Okay, just go!”

  Keno ran, dragging the bike and cart down the block.

  The half-naked man shot his gaze into my eyes with a terrifying intensity.

  “Unbeliever! The Sun God is king! The dancing rainbows are his children. Disbelieve and you will die the death of civilizations who turned their backs on the King of the Heavens!”

  “Go back where you came from. Now!” I cocked the pistol.

  “Unbeliever!” he screeched, but he scrambled into the tunnel of bushes from whence he’d come. I stood frozen with the pistol aimed into the tunnel, then I pointed it into the air and fired. Branches fractured and leaves crackled as the man crashed deeper into the woods.

  I collapsed to sit on the curb, keeping the pistol up, until Keno whooshed up on the bike, helped me into the cart, and sped home so fast I had to cover my eyes.

  The colors in the sky receded, but a white glow filled the firmament.

  King of the Heavens, spare us please.

  At home, I checked everyone over to be sure they were okay. We ate cold leftovers on the patio and stared at the sky, which glowed whiter than ever as the sun began to set. I stepped into the house, grabbed a book, and brought it back outside. The skylight was like a soft reading lamp. The words were easy to see. I closed the book, cringing.

  “Sonja, why don’t you and Cesar spend the night with us,” I said.

  “Thank you, Bea. We will.”

  “Do you think ancient Mayans and Egyptians had solar storms?” Keno asked.

  “It’s possible,” I said, “but that guy was making shit up. We used to have healthcare for the mentally ill, though never enough. That poor man needs it.”

  “Yeah,” Keno said, “but half the neighbors have their own crazy theories. Not sure his was any crazier than others I’ve heard.”

  “That’s true,” I said, sighing. “It’s tragic. Seems like he was a literate man. He got the date right for the Carrington thing. Maybe he knows something we don’t know.”

  “Maybe he is in touch with the Sun God,” Keno said, snickering.

  “I’d like to give the Sun God a good talking-to.”

  As Sonja and most of the kids started heading to bed, I gave Tasha a hug. “Thank you, honey, for thinking so fast today and getting Mazie away from that guy. You’re always been so good with Mazie. I really appreciate it.”

  “Thanks.” Tasha blushed, seeming a little thrown by the compliment. I hadn’t been giving her enough of them.

  Keno stayed outside, sprawled on a lounge chair next to me.

  “Honey, thank you for saving me today.”

  He looked at his hands and mumbled, “You’re welcome.”

  I leaned close to him. He peered at me, and I held his face. “Keno, the day may come when you’ll have to make a choice between saving me or saving yourself. And you will have to save yourself and let me do my job of protecting you so that you can live on to take care of these kids.”

  He blinked at me, emitting a soft whimper.

  “It’s scary, I know, but it will be your job. Understand?”

  “Yes,” he said, and jerked his face away to cover it with his hands.

  The white glow in the sky lasted another day and night, then disappeared.

  THIRTY-THREE

  THREE DAYS after the second solar event, two days before New Year’s, we took our excursion to Tasha and Keno’s house—well, their mother Erin’s house. I had to force myself not to let my two daughters and three stepsons wash into history like so much water down the drain. I had to work at keeping them alive in my mind and heart. But if I thought about them too long, I would break down like Sonja, and I couldn’t afford that.

  All but a few people in the neighborhood went on the trip to add to our food and supplies. Sandra something-or-other stayed behind with her nursing baby. She, pregnant Melba Carlisle, and a preteen girl volunteered to keep the smaller kids. Mazie flipped when we wouldn’t let her and Cesar come with us, but after our encounter with the madman, I wanted our most vulnerable to have more protection.

  Three men stayed to patrol the neighborhood and keep guard. I didn’t know the names of these men, although I felt I’d once known them. Now I wasn’t only having trouble learning new names, I was forgetting old ones.

  Most of the men who came along were discreetly armed. They didn’t want to brandish weapons for fear of inviting trouble, but I saw pistols bulging under clothing and rifles in the bottoms of wheelbarrows.

  We were quite a sight making our way down the street: bicycles ridden by teenagers; men and women with wagons and wheelbarrows; a gaggle of tween kids running amongst us; and me, perched at the end of the procession in the bicycle cart propelled by Keno.

  Though we’d left our own dogs behind, a dozen other dogs followed us much of the way. I’m sure we were the most exciting thing they’d had to chase lately.

  People in the first neighborhood we passed through came outside to watch us, some saying hello, others hollering out silly comments like: “Y’all going to rob someone?” or, “Moving to a better neighborhood?” These people looked thin, same as we did, but mostly okay. They must’ve had food reserves, too.

  But the hard thing, the sad thing, was the next neighborhood we came to and the ones tha
t followed: rail thin people with hollow eyes, cracked lips, open sores. They looked like famine victims pleading for relief. This was only three miles from my home. I hadn’t imagined things getting this dreadful so quickly.

  And the kids—we ran into three or four groups of out-of-control kids, who must not have bathed for months. These kids begged us for food or threatened to steal our bikes and wagons. One group blocked the road, wielding lawn tools and homemade cudgels, insisting we’d have to give them something before we could pass.

  “Listen here, you brats,” Silas said, looming threateningly over the leader. Silas wasn’t taller than that kid, but he was certainly heftier and made himself seem huge. “I paid for this road with my taxes. You didn’t pay for shit. Now, get out of our way before I beat you bloody.” Silas stuck his hard-bitten face in the dirt-smeared face of the leader, and the menace drained from that kid before our eyes. He didn’t apologize, but he moved aside, and his friends went with him. Sometimes it’s good to have a hot-headed friend.

  When we’d left home, we’d been fairly jubilant about going on a quest. But our jubilance quickly left us. We passed a cell-tower that was fried black. We passed a lot of burned houses, and their numbers increased as we got closer to Erin’s neighborhood. A corner liquor store had been ransacked. We saw some hideously wrecked cars and many more dead ones, most with trunks and hoods pried open and vandalized. At the post office, a couple dozen people were camped out, hoping for government aid I supposed, but not looking as though they’d found it.

  Tasha slowed her bicycle and drifted back until she was riding beside Keno and me.

  “I don’t remember so many houses being burned when we came here before.”

  “Me neither,” said Keno.

  “What could have happened?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, but I don’t like it,” Keno said. We rode silently the rest of the way.

  By the time we reached Erin’s, I’d worked myself into such a tizzy that I could hardly believe her house was still there. Why hadn’t it been burned or looted, given the state of her neighborhood?

  When we gathered at the door, our antsy teenagers were jiggling around, the way teens so often do. Some had greedy little gleams in their eyes, especially Chas. That kid seemed to have a permanent sneer.

  “Listen, everyone,” Keno said. “This is our mom’s house. There’s stuff we need to keep for Mom when she gets back, some of her clothes and stuff. And me and Tasha—Tasha and I—we want the pictures and Mom’s jewelry. Everything else we can share.”

  “Please be respectful,” I said. “That’s all we ask.”

  “Okay, let’s go.” Keno unlocked the door.

  His talk must have done the trick, because people were pretty darned nice about tearing Erin’s house apart. They went through like an organized whirlwind, divvying up linens, kitchenware, clothes, books, toys, and more. Doris took charge of the food and made sure everyone got something good, including those who stayed behind.

  Tasha was teary-eyed the entire time we were in the house. I felt horribly sad myself but managed to stifle my tears while packing clothes and shoes for Erin and the kids. Tasha crammed framed photos and picture albums into her duffle bag. She tried to stuff in more but got upset when she couldn’t zip the bag.

  “Honey, let’s take some pictures out of their frames to make more room.”

  “Didn’t think of that,” she said. “What about Mom’s trombone?”

  “Her trombone? She hasn’t played that thing in years. I didn’t know she still had it.”

  “She played it for me and Keno. I can’t leave it here.”

  “It’s okay to leave things behind. You’ll always have your memories, my love.”

  “And my mom. I’ll always have my mom. I’m taking the trombone.”

  “You’ll have to carry it and let someone else ride your bike.”

  “Fine,” she said. I merely sighed. Together we took photos out of their frames, then Tasha asked, “Can I go see if my friends are around?”

  I had kept her from looking for her friends long enough. “Go ahead,” I said, “but take someone with you and make it quick. We’ll need to head home soon.”

  “Thanks.” Tasha ran through the house and out the front door, grabbing Milo on the way.

  Other people ate their lunches and sifted through remaining things in the house. I felt frantic, aching for my daughters, looking for something to do to keep from crying, when a red-faced man with a bald head and white beard showed up at the open front door.

  “What the hell’s going on?” he snarled. “This is my property. Get off it!”

  “Who says it’s your property?” Silas snapped.

  “The items in this house belong to my daughter, sir,” I said.

  “No, ma’am, they do not. She ain’t paid rent for months. These items are mine.”

  “Paid rent? How could anyone pay rent in this world? What good is money anymore, Mr.—what is your name?”

  Keno made his way to the door through a cluster of folks staring at the visitor. “Mr. Gillespie, we came to get Mom’s stuff.”

  “Where’s your mom, boy?”

  “She was out of town when the thing happened, and she hasn’t made it back yet.”

  “Great. So, she’s dead and won’t be paying her back rent, then.”

  “Mr. Gillespie, watch your mouth!” I wagged my finger at the man.

  “Well, dead or not dead, she ain’t payin’ rent, so this stuff is mine, and y’all are trespassin’! Put everything back and get out!”

  “How much money do you think my daughter owes you?” I asked.

  “Five thousand dollars.”

  “That’s ridiculous!”

  “Our rent was only eight fifty a month!” Keno said.

  “Yeah, well, there’s penalties and interest, and she ain’t paid in four months. Plus, I’ve been guarding this house night and day, else all this stuff would be gone. I saw you kids sneaking around, but I let you do it. All that’s worth somethin’ right there.”

  “Will you take a check, Mr. Gillespie?” For some inexplicable reason, I’d never bothered to take my checkbook out of the bag I’d brought with me.

  “No way!” Gillespie shouted. “What good would a check do me?”

  “Same good as cash money will do you. When the banks open back up, you can cash the check.”

  “Think so?”

  “I know so. I can’t get cash, so it’s a check or nothing. But we’ll be taking these things with us either way.”

  Gillespie appeared to be weighing his options. He wasn’t happy with any of them. “I’ll have to have six thousand, for the trouble of taking a check.”

  “Fine. Who do I make the check out to?”

  “Dan Gillespie will do.”

  I dug in my bag for the checkbook, and I’ll be damned if I didn’t find Hank’s screwdrivers that I’d been hunting for everywhere.

  “If we pay him all this money,” Keno murmured, “he needs to give back Mom’s bike.”

  “Right. I forgot about the bike. Mr. Gillespie, I will hand you this check when you return with my daughter’s bicycle and all her jewelry that you took.”

  Gillespie turned redder, sputtering sounds of protest, lusting after the check I waved before his eyes.

  “You’re not going to tell me you didn’t take any jewelry, are you?” I fanned my face with the check. “You will also bring back anything else you took.”

  Gillespie glared, clenching his jaw, then he pivoted and hurried away. I couldn’t believe he was letting things of real value get away from him in exchange for a useless check. But these items belonged to Erin, and I felt no compunction about taking advantage of the man’s stupidity.

  “How did you know he took Mom’s jewelry?” Keno asked me.

  “I just figured. He’s obviously been snooping around, he took the bike, and he’s nutty enough to think Erin owes him money. A guy like that would take anything he thought was valuable. I’m surprised
he didn’t take the food.”

  “I bet he took the meat from the freezer. Mom always had lots of meat in there, and the freezer was empty when we came before.”

  “Didn’t waste any time, did he?” I said.

  “He gives Mom the creeps.”

  “He’s creepy, alright. But we won’t have to deal with him anymore.”

  Mr. Gillespie again appeared at the front door, holding onto the bicycle with a pressure cooker balanced on its seat. Keno took possession of the bike and the cooker. I reached out my hand, and Gillespie unapologetically dropped two gold necklaces, four pairs of earrings, and a silver money clip into my palm.

  “What happened to the money in the clip, Mr. Gillespie?”

  “Wasn’t no money in that clip, I swear to God.”

  “Alright, thank you. We’ll leave the key on the kitchen counter, and you can consider my daughter’s lease terminated as soon as we’re finished here.”

  “Yeah, and you better not come back. When the Good Lord returns any day now, he’s gonna leave you people behind.”

  Keno and I and our neighbors laughed at the old fool landlord as he walked away, more red-faced than ever.

  Hadn’t God already left us behind?

  Tasha and Milo came running inside, and Tasha grabbed my hand. “I need to talk to you.” She dragged me to her bedroom and shut us in. “All my friends are gone. Their houses are empty, except one. My friend Alma’s there with her little brothers. She doesn’t know where her parents are. They were shopping in San Antonio when it happened, and they never came back.”

  “Good Lord. How are they eating?”

  Tasha looked away, her eyes tearing up. “A man gives them food and water when she . . . when she . . . you know.”

  “When she gives him sex?”

  “Yes.”

  “For God’s sake!” Some people lost their decency when they lost their electricity. “Go get Alma. Tell her to pack as many clothes, shoes, and jackets as she and her brothers can carry. We’ll take them home with us.”

  Tasha jumped at me and hugged me so hard that I fell against the bed and had to sit down on it.