Out of the Dark (Light & Dark #1) Read online

  Mary meets my question with silence, and I set my head straight and open my eyes, staring at the side of the barn right ahead of us. I can see from my peripheral vision that she is looking straight ahead now too, both of us staring at everything and at nothing. She doesn’t reply to me, instead keeping her secrets locked up tight inside her own head.

  I stand up, ready to leave—needing to leave—but then I realize that, once again, we have lost everything. I sit back down, my heart feeling both full and empty, my soul tired—weary, almost. How many more times can we do this? I let out a heavy breath and the cough that has been tickling my chest expel itself. I cough until my lungs hurt even more, and then I hack up black phlegm. Lilly stays on my lap the entire time, restricting my coughs and stifling the air, which I needed to breathe, yet neither of us let go of the other. Neither of us are willing to relinquish our hold on the other.

  “I have a truck,” Mary finally says, gesturing toward the small barn. She turn to look at me, her eyes empty, soulless. “You can have it.” She stands up and looks across at the house before sitting back down again with a heavy sigh like I had done only moments ago. “What’s the point?” she mumbles under her breath. And then she begins to cry.

  I sit there listening to her grief, letting my body soak up her pain like it’s soaking up the sun’s rays. I have to, because this is my fault. I am to blame for her pain, for bringing death to her door. The very least I can do was sit here with her while she cries for the loss of her partner, for the fear that she now feels for the future.

  Lilly pries her face away from my chest, small creases down her face from the material on my T-shirt. A small sweat patch has gathered thickly between my breasts where she has been breathing and crying against me. She reaches a small hand over to Mary, placing it gently on her forearm. Mary looks down at it, a small smile tainting her grief. Her eyes meet Lilly’s and fresh tears pour from them, a waterfall of tears cascading silently down her cheeks.

  “You have to live,” Lilly says, her voice so small and weak.

  Mary sniffles and shrugs her shoulders.

  “You have to,” Lilly insists. “We can’t let them win.” She pouts.

  Mary stares silently at Lilly, the tears still flowing. “They’ve already won, dear,” she whispers back, and stands up. “Take whatever you need,” she says, and walked away. “I won’t need any of it.”

  We watch her walk to the edge of the property, staring across the sunlit field that we had traveled across only yesterday. Just one day and their world has been destroyed. Just one day and the monsters had found us. Just one day until they would come back.

  Mary stares across the fields, her arms wrapped around her middle, her shoulders shaking. Peter had asked me to look after her, but I was still unsure on if he meant Lilly or Mary. When the infection first hit, the children were the ones that were sacrificed. They were the weakest, the slowest, the most likely to get you killed. Parents turned against their own, grandparents forgoing grandchildren to save themselves. Most people shared in that view, but Peter and Mary didn’t—they were willing to risk their lives for the sake of their child. It had been too late for him, but they had wanted to help Lilly. They had hope for Lilly.

  I stand up, Lilly’s arms tightening around me as I do. I hold her tight and move across to the barn, opening the door with a small creak. Inside is a truck. It was red and shiny. Lilly will like it—once she sees it in the light, anyway. I open the door, placing Lilly on the driver’s seat while I search for the keys. I check under the seat and inside the glove box, but find nothing. Lilly kneels up on the seat and flips down the sun visor and the keys fall out.

  “Well done,” I say, my throat still tight and sore. I force a smile and hope for one back.

  Her mouth doesn’t move, not even a quirk, but her eyes flash with happiness.

  I climb in the truck and scoot her over to the passenger side. “Time to buckle up, Honeybee,” I say, and reach over to fasten her in.

  I glance around the barn, wondering if there is anything else we can take—weapons or blankets. We have nothing now, though Lilly still clutches her teddy bear with its mismatched eyes. I can’t see anything other than farm tools and dry straw, so I stick the key in the ignition. The truck revs to life and Lilly reaches across, placing her hand on top of mine. I look at her, the light from the sun shining in through the open doors and the cracks in the roof, and I smile again. This time she smiles back.

  I pull the truck out of the barn and looked across for Mary. But she is gone. Back inside the house or to somewhere else, I’m sure. I feel guilt eating away like cancer in my gut, but if it’s a choice between them or Lilly, I will always choose Lilly. My choice to come to this farm had cost them their lives, but it had kept Lilly safe, at least for one more night. And that’s all any of us can hope for anymore—to survive one more night. To make it through another day. And we had.

  “Mama?”

  I turn to Lilly’s soft voice and wait for her to ask her question. She glances out the windshield toward the greenhouse. The windows are smashed, the small glass building toppled to one side, but the food is still there. She looks toward me in a silent question. I can’t see Mary anywhere. I want to ask her if it’s okay to take some food, but I know that I would take some even if she said no. I nod at Lilly and drive the truck over to the broken greenhouse. I help Lilly out of her seat, carrying her on my hip over to it because I don’t want her walking through the shards of glass.

  We don’t have a bag to put anything in—not even a carrier bag this time—so our arms will have to do the carrying. I open the door of the greenhouse, the heat washing over us once again in a bizarre sense of déjà vu despite all the broken windows. We carry several pots of tomato plants and pull up armfuls of carrots and beans, piling them all onto the backseat of the truck in a tidy disarray. Carrots stay with carrots, beans with beans and so on, but earth and dirt cover them all, leaving stains on the interior carpet. There are two tubs of water, which had been used for watering the plants, standing just inside the doorway, and we fill as many containers as we can with it and stack them in the back of the truck also. I’m not convinced it will be safe to drink, but I’d rather take some than not. Besides, we can use it to water the tomato plants, if nothing else.

  Finally ready, we both climb back into the truck. I strap Lilly back in her seat and turn the truck around, pulling out of the yard and away from the farmhouse. I look in the rearview mirror, still not seeing Mary anywhere, and I hope that she didn’t go back inside the house to be with Peter. I suppose it doesn’t really matter. Either way I have condemned her to death. I have taken away her home, her food, her husband, and her safety. I should be ashamed of myself.

  I look over at Lilly. A large tomato is in her palm and she bites into it with gusto, the small yellow seeds mixing with the juices and dribbling down her little chin. She smiles across at me as she eats, showing me her teeth, and my conscience is eased, my guilt swallowed up by this small moment of happiness that she is having.

  Look after her, Peter had asked. And I will. No matter what.

  *

  I drive until the sun is at its highest point, and then I know that I need to pull over—at least for an hour or so. I need to put distance between us and the farmhouse, but I haven’t slept all night and I’m exhausted. Beyond that need, I’m hungry—famished, almost—and my chest is still burning from all the smoke that I inhaled. I need a drink of water, I need to bathe, I need to eat, and I need to sleep.

  Life is made up of a series of needs. Of desires and wants. Of things we must have and things that we think we have the right to. Right now, I know that I need to sleep, but it’s bathing that takes the highest priority. I pull us off the main highway and down a small country lane. I saw a sign an hour or so previous for a small lake, and I’ve been following the signs ever since. As we round a sharp bend, the bristles of the bushes dragging along the sides of the truck, I am nervous. There are too many things we need to d
o in such a short space of time.

  The road opens up into what used to be a relatively small parking lot and I shut the engine off, take a steadying breath, and step out of the truck. Lilly is asleep, the remnants of a carrot still firmly in her grasp. I don’t wander far from the truck—not after the fright I gave Lilly the last time. I examine our immediate surroundings, always keeping the truck within view as I scout out the area, checking that there are no dark spaces for the monsters to hide.

  There is a short path that leads to the lake—or at least so the little brown sign says. I stop walking and close my eyes, listening intently. The world is so silent that I can hear the water lapping at the edges of the lake. I open my eyes and pull out my cigarettes, noting that there are only two left, since three of them are broken. I light one and walk slowly back over to the truck. Lilly is still sleeping, the juices on her T-shirt staining the front. It makes me smile. I climb up onto the hood of the truck and watch the world while I smoke, allowing Lilly five more minutes of peace.

  I like it when she sleeps like this—satisfied, content, unfazed by the horrors. This is how a child should be; this is how she should be consistently. Life should not be made up of finals and survival, it should be made up of forevers. My heart aches with grief, but like yesterday and the day before that, I bite the inside of my cheek until it brings tears to my eyes, I count to ten, and I let myself be grateful for the day in which I live.

  I roll my filthy sleeves up, examining the depths into which the blackness has now sunk. I hold my cigarette loosely between my lips and squeeze a vein near my wrist, wondering for a second if I were to open up the vein if I could squeeze the evil back out. My nails dig in, the liquid so close to the surface that I can smell its stench of wickedness, but I don’t have the courage to pry open my flesh and squeeze it out. It would be futile anyway, I know.

  I finish my cigarette, not feeling any better for it, and then I go to the passenger side of the truck and gently open the door. Lilly’s soft snores greet me, calming my wretched soul a little. I stroke her cheek, pushing tangled knots away from her face. She is so calm, so innocent, I think, my throat feeling tight with anxiety. I pull out the map from my pocket, the one Sarah left for me, and look at where we are on the map and where the safe place is. We could be there in under an hour, I realize. Not even a day before we are safe, I think. That’s all we need to get through together. Hours.

  I think back to Peter and Mary and wonder if it would be cruel to bring the monsters that are following us to the doorstep of a supposed safe place, but I quickly dismiss the thought. No matter what, I will take us there now. We are too close to possible safety, and though I still don’t believe it to be true, I have to try—for Lilly, if not for me.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine.

  #29. Piles of bones should frighten us.

  “Lilly,” I whisper against her cherub cheek, placing a soft kiss where my breath touches.

  Her mouth hangs open, her head flung back, but when I whisper her name she snorts a little and closes her mouth. Her eyes stay shut, though I think she is waking up, slowly.

  “Honeybee,” I whisper, and give her another kiss. I place this one on her forehead, and when I pull back she is smiling, eyes still closed.

  Her skin is translucent almost, and I can see the darkness running in her veins along her throat and cheeks. My sweet Lilly. The blackness is spreading quickly. She opens her eyes, and for a moment we are both startled. I see red eyes staring back at me, but they vanish when I blink. I think I must have imagined them but then Lilly looks equally as frightened as I am, and it’s then that I know that she saw the world through blood-tinted glasses like I have done many times.

  “It’s okay,” I say, unclipping her belt and pulling her from the seat.

  She snuggles against me. Her body is warm and sweaty. She doesn’t let go of the tomato in her hand, but she doesn’t eat it, either, and that’s okay.

  “There’s water. We can go wash if you like,” I say against her neck, and I feel her bob her head in a yes.

  I bang my hip against the door of the truck, closing it, and I start to walk us down to the water. I thread us through the broken path, with the strangled weeds on either side clawing and grasping for purchase at our ankles. We break free of them and I stumble, almost dropping Lilly when I see the piles of bones.

  Piles and piles and piles of bones.

  Both animal and human and monster. As if we are all one huge surrogate family. The air sticks in my throat and I try to swallow down the wedge that is blocking the air’s passage to my lungs. I feel dizzy for lack of it. Dizzy with fear and dizzy with hunger. Ravenously so. I can smell Lilly, her blood fertile and alight to my taste buds. I pant, my mouth filling with water, barely able to see…

  “Mama?”

  The balloon snaps and I am me and she is she, and the world is filled with bones again, but I no longer want to add to the piles. I pant and choke on sobs that escape me, gripping Lilly with force.

  “I’m okay, I’m okay,” I say to her and to me. “I’m okay.” But I don’t know if I believe myself anymore. I am not okay, I do not have long left. The thought is soul-destroying, heart-breaking, and I feel the depths of who I am shattering inside of me.

  I don’t want to die.

  We stumble onwards, toward the shore and to the water, ignoring the mounds of bones as if they were merely mounds of sand. Inconsequential, inconvenient, invisible…

  I put Lilly down on the muddy earth, her back facing away from the piles of nothing, and her feet sinking ever so slightly into the thick goop of the shore. Then we both sit, feeling the goop sink around our bottoms. It is cold, but I don’t mind. I begin to take off my shoes. Lilly’s laces are knotted too tightly, so I have to help her untie hers. I pull off her worn shoes and see that her socks have a large hole in near the big toe and I say sorry that I don’t have nice socks for her to wear but she only shrugs, unconcerned. I feel bad, though. It’s another stab to my heart. Like I have failed her again because she has holes in her socks.

  We slide off our pants and then shrug our T-shirts over our heads. We avoid looking at each other’s bodies, though. There’s no point in seeing that destruction. Not on each other, and not on ourselves.

  I stand and take Lilly’s hand, and then she stands, too, and I guide us into the water. It’s cold, chillingly so, and we shiver as the water laps lazily against our broken bodies. I help to wash Lilly, letting the water turn brown with the filth that comes away. I rinse her hair, trying to pull my fingers through her knots. She has nits, and I feel even worse. What kind of mother lets her child get nits? After I have washed her face, I see that her lips have turned a little blue because she is cold, and I tell her to splash around to warm up. I don’t want her to leave the water yet—I think it’s good for her body to be exposed to air and water. We might not ever have this chance again, I think. Because as I scrubbed at Lilly’s back with my hands, I did look at her veins, and in turn, my own.

  We don’t have much time left. It’s almost over.

  Lilly stands looking confused while I wash myself. Her body trembles from the cool water and the air that licks her. Her fingers flick over the top of the water, unsure as to what to do, and I realize that she doesn’t know how to splash and play in water, not deep water like this, because she never has before, and my stomach hurts with the realization that she has never swum in the ocean.

  I finish washing, rinsing my own hair in the water, and then I turn to Lilly. Her wide brown eyes stare back at me blankly, her lips a soft blue, her skin pale but for the black lines criss-crossing over her skin. I smile. It’s hard and hurts my cheeks to do it, but I do it regardless. Then I flick some water at her and she gasps, her mouth opening in a large O. I flick her again, making sure the water splashes her face this time. She gasps again and looks down at the water, at her hands grazing the tops of it, and then she flicks me back.

  The water hits me in a series of cold drops, and I raise my hands up to bloc
k them. I look between my fingers and see that she is smiling too. Her eyes have a little life back in them, and I can see her teeth because her smile is wide. She flicks me again and giggles, and then I flick her back, and before I know it we are both throwing water at one another and laughing and smiling until our bellies hurt.

  Lilly comes forward and throws her little body at mine, her chest still rising and falling with laughter.

  “I don’t want to die, mama.” She whispers against my cold skin.

  I hug her tighter. “I know, neither do I,” I kiss the top of her head, her hair damp against my lips, “we can sleep soon and forget this all happened.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise,” I reply.

  I don’t know how I should feel about that. Happy that this will all be over soon, or sad that this will all be over soon. I wonder, for a moment, if we will be together when this is over, or if we will each be with our respective families. Up until now, I did not believe in heaven, or anything else after this life, but right now, as my arms are tight around Lilly’s frail body, I hope and wish and pray that there is something afterwards.

  I want to see my family again.

  And Lilly, because she is a part of me now. Forever.

  Her hands are cold so I pluck her out of the water and kiss the top of her damp head again, and then I carry us from the water back to the shore.

  I help Lilly dress first, forgoing my own needs for hers, like I always do. Like a mother should. When she is dry, huddled with her knees to her chest and a smile still on her face, I finally get dressed, sliding my dirty clothes back on my semi-clean body. I kneel behind her and thread my fingers through her curls, separating each one until there are no more knots. We keep our backs to the piles of bones and move further down the shore, and we take long drinks of the water until we are both sated.

  “My belly feels swishy,” Lilly says, her voice a whisper.