The Night Has Teeth: Chapter 8

John makes a new "friend" and some startling new discoveries on his journey towards the industrial park in town.

Chapter 8

“You come here to steal our shit?” the voice asked behind me.

I slowly raised my hands under the blue light of the anchor. I tried to hide any unease or terror in my voice, but I honestly can’t tell you how I did it.

“I’m just passing through here,” I said. “I’m heading towards the industrial parks.”

The gun pressed harder against the back of my head.

“What’s so goddamn important that you have to walk through our part of town?”

I hadn’t considered that this guy was alone. I started to scan the windows and the doorways of the other buildings. It took a minute for my eyes to adjust, but after a bit, I could see dark blobs hiding in the shadows. Shapes that must’ve been men, women, and children. All of them had converted the shops and bars into makeshift homes. I couldn’t blame them. The whole area was full of supplies. Whether it was the ramen shop in the strip mall a block down the road or the shitty little burger spot with the bad service. Every place had food, a place to hide, and maybe even something you could turn into a weapon if you were lucky.

“Answer me!” the voice shouted.

I moved my hands slightly to gesture to keep his voice down.

“I’m trying to find my wife,” I said. “I know she went that way, so I’m just trying to track her down. I don’t want anything. I’m just trying to move quickly and quietly.”

There was a long pause. I could hear my heart beating in my ear like you do on a pillow when you become hyper-aware of your own body at night.

The barrel stirred against the back of my skull. The man holding it was wavering. But I couldn’t see his thought process. I could just feel the steel.

“Turn around,” he said, a little softer this time.

I slowly turned around and faced the man with the gun. He’d been able to keep himself clean over the past few weeks. I could give him that at least. He has a trimmed beard, a leather jacket, and dark pants on. He was wearing some kind of armor under his coat, but the blue light couldn’t tell me if it was something he bought or made from pieces of metal and plastic he had found in the nearby bars and restaurants.

He looked me up and down. Then eyed my bag.

“What’s in the bag?” he asked.

“Some food, some knives…”

“You got a gun?”

“I do.”

I didn’t see the point in lying. I could tell he wanted to look through it.

“Then why aren’t you holding it?” he asked.

“I’m not looking for trouble,” I said, “I told you that and I meant it. The gun is for emergencies. I’m not looking to draw attention.”

The man let the gun drop slowly down to his side. His gaze was completely different now. It was like he hadn’t seen me as a person before, just a walking, talking threat. But now, he could see that the human-shaped thing in front of him was actually a man.

He let out a deep sigh. Then he gestured with his gun towards the front door of the bar.

“Let’s go inside,” he said.

“I just want to get going,” I said.

“I wasn’t asking,” he said.

He gestured again with the gun towards the door of the bar.

I turned around and saw all of the shapes in the windows and doorways. The show was over, and they had lost their interest. Their blob-like figures slinked back into the shadows. Some of the doorways and windows were replaced with boards and curtains. Others were just left open.

I walked into the bar and watched the man scan the room. My eyes followed his.

Most of the tables had been turned over to act as barricades on the windows. A few tables remained, and sitting at them were a few women and children. All of different ages, races, and backgrounds. They were eating bread silently and staring into the distance. One of the little kids, a boy, fidgeted while he was eating. He started kicking his legs.

A woman next to the child grabbed his foot under the table and stopped him. The stare she gave him was colder than anything I had ever seen. I had made my mom mad a few times. Enough where she had hit me upside the head or shouted at me in public, but she had never given me that kind of look. The pure, animalistic look of survival.

I looked back at the man with the gun. He hadn’t put it away, but he wasn’t pointing it at me. He walked around the length of the dark bar, all the stools still lined up like it was waiting for patrons.

“You need a drink?” the man asked.

I took a seat at the bar.

“I don’t think it’ll hurt,” I said softly.

I turned and looked at the women and children again. They all looked away.

“Are they doing okay?” I asked.

The man set two glasses on the bar. He slid one over to me, making a little more noise than he needed to. I flinched but tried to stay still. Something was bothering me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

“Yeah,” he said. “The bread’s from a bakery a few stores down. I trade liquor with them. They found a way to manually heat the ovens, so they’re using up all the ingredients while they’re still good.”

He pulled a bottle of Wild Turkey from the shelf behind him and poured us each a generous helping.

“You good with it neat?” he asked.

I picked up the glass.

“Doesn’t bother me,” I said.

“Good man,” he said back.

We toasted and each took a long, hearty drink.

I lowered my glass and looked around the bar.

“Have you been here the whole time?” I asked.

He pointed to himself. “Me? Yeah. I’ve been here a while.”

Then he gestured with his drink to the rest of the crowd. I found it strange that he was still holding onto his gun.

“But them?” he said. “They’re new. They all showed up over the past week or so. Strays that I brought in—”

Someone coughed.

The man stopped talking and waited for silence again.

The coughing stopped.

“Like I was saying,” he continued, “ they all showed up afterward.”

I turned and pretended I was looking at the bar, at the decor and the barricades, but my eyes scanned the room. I tried to make it look like I wasn’t taking inventory of the faces across the room, and with the man behind me, it was pretty easy.

“Good thing they found you,” I said.

My eyes stopped on the eyes of a little girl. The look she gave me told me everything I needed to know. She looked horrified.

“Damn straight it’s a good thing they found me,” he said. “They ought to be a little more grateful.”

I kept my back to him as I looked directly into the eyes of the little girl.

“So they’re safe then?” I asked.

“Of course they are,” he said. I could hear him pouring another drink.

I looked at the little girl and mouthed the words are you okay?

She shook her head, no.

“Do the creatures try to get in during the day?” I asked.

I could hear bottles being moved around behind the bar.

“Oh, for sure they do. But as long as you don’t make too much noise, they can’t hear you…or feel you, or whatever.”

The little girl pulled up her sleeve as she kept eye contact with me. All across her arm were cigarette burns. Fresh ones.

A woman next to her quickly rolled the girl’s sleeve down and gave her a death stare, then gave me one. A stare that I recognized and had seen all too many times in my life. It was a stare that said don’t do anything stupid.

I slowly turned in my chair.

“Do you smoke?” I asked.

He produced a carton of cigarettes from under the bar. A shiny new box of Marlboro that hadn’t even been opened yet.

“Like a chimney,” he said. “I had quit beforehand. But I ended up getting a little…unagreeable after a while. Once the city turned to shit, I decided fuck it, and I just started again.”

I kept one hand on the bar and one in my bag with the gun. I didn’t lose eye contact with him while I spoke.

“Do you want one?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said without thinking.

He cracked open a pack and handed it to me. I didn’t smoke, but I wanted to keep the charade going. I needed to keep him talking to figure out what the hell I was going to do about all of this.

I reached over for a book of matches in a bowl on the bar. “The Rust” was the name of the bar. All these years had passed and I hadn’t noticed the name of the place. Now I was wondering if I was going to leave there with my life.

I pulled out a cigarette and placed it between my lips. I nearly lit a match before a flame appeared in front of my face.

The man had lit up an old Zippo lighter with the picture of a topless woman painted on the side of it. Her lower half had faded away, but the top half of her was preserved. Like the man had strategically grabbed it each time to keep the “good bits” safe from wear and tear.

I leaned over and lit it. I took a deep drag and started to cough.

“Sorry,” I said between fits, “I haven’t done this since I was a kid.”

He smiled and clicked his Zippo shut. He took an extra second to turn it over in his fingers to show me the topless woman on the side.

“Don’t mention it,” he said. “Besides, end of the world, right?”

I coughed and nodded. I put the cigarette pack and the matches in my bag but kept the gun close. We sat in silence as we continued to smoke, and the others around us didn’t move. I let the possibilities run through my head like wildfire with every drag from my cigarette.

I could’ve shot him right there. I could’ve gotten the drop on him easily. But where would the women and children go? Could they stay in the bar and keep his trade going with the neighboring stores and buildings? Were they just as bad?

Even worse. If I had shot him, would that have brought the pale ones crashing through the door. Reverberations like that weren’t going to go unnoticed.

I needed a plan. I needed to get him outside and do it quietly.

“Are you planning on getting out of here at all?” I asked him.

He looked at me like I was an insane person.

“Why would I want to do that?” he said. “I’ve got all the comforts I need, right here.”

He shot a glance over my shoulder with a smile. I didn’t need to turn around to know who and what he was looking at.

“Right,” I said. “But clearly, you all can’t stay here. Not forever. The government will come and–”

“No one’s coming,” he said as he poured another drink.

“What makes you so sure?” I asked.

The man finished his drink, chugging it like a fraternity pledge at college. He didn’t stop as he turned to the bottle.

I looked back over my shoulder. The same woman with the little girl mouthed the words “please stop” at me. I shook my head.

“If they were coming, they’d have come by now,” he said. He noticed that I was looking back over my shoulder. “What the fuck are you looking at?”

“Nothing,” I said. My hand moved in my bag and wrapped around the handgun I had stashed away. “I thought I heard something outside.”

The man’s accusatory demeanor shifted. He suddenly became light on his feet as I watched him move around the bar with his gun in one hand and the bottle in the other.

“Where?” he whispered. As if his rantings weren’t enough to have called the creatures to us in the first place.

“Out on the street,” I said with conviction. I moved with purpose like I had military training. He followed closely behind.

He stuck his head out the front door, leading with his gun.

I looked back at the women and children in the bar. They were looking at me with horrified but hopeful looks on their faces.

“I don’t see shit,” the man slurred.

“I’d rather be safe than sorry,” I said next to him. “What if something falls over, and we didn’t know one was right outside? I should get moving…” I stopped. I wanted to choose my words carefully. I was afraid that I was going to betray myself at any second. “But I can’t leave you here like this.”

He nodded and slipped out the front door.

I started to follow him, but I turned around and looked at the women in the bar as they started to stand up.

I mouthed two words to them. “Lock it.”

TO BE CONTINUED!