Left to Darkness

by Craig Saunders

  The baby kicked, probably picking up on Dawn’s mood. The third trimester into her pregnancy and she was pretty big. Huge, even. It was either a big baby, or she was carrying a ton of water. She hoped for the latter as she quieted the babe with gentle cooing sounds and the motion of the car on the motorway. She fiddled around with the car radio and found some soft music. Something classical. She didn’t like it, but the baby quieted.

  It was quite distracting, having a baby kick your insides while you were driving. It was a long drive, too. M11 out of London, north and east to the A11. Toward that one place she could count on a cup of tea, a little sanctuary from the madness of the big city.

  Somewhere quiet and lovely to see out the end. Strangely, not with a friend, or her father, whom she hadn’t seen since her parents’ divorce, but with her father-in-law: Robert’s father. Of all the people she knew, he’d been solid all the way these last three months. Solid, caring, dependable. Like she felt family should be.

  If she was going to die, he was the only one she could bear to share it with.

  She hit Cambridgeshire in midafternoon. She didn’t travel with the radio on, or even the traffic reports. She didn’t need a report to know how bad the roads were. The roads were pretty much mental the entire way north from London. Some places she crawled, some places Dawn didn’t even get to drive. She just sat in the car, talking to the baby while she waited, that constant pressure on her bladder irritating her, but on the whole, she was calm enough. Weird, maybe, to feel so calm come the end of the world, but there it was.

  Dawn figured when you reach a certain point on the panic charts, you just kind of flatline.

  Of course the traffic was heavy. Everyone fled the cities, trying to find safety and sanctuary and maybe somewhere to live when the storm hit.

  Surprisingly, there was little panic out here, in the countryside. Not yet. The first few outriders of the storm, the storm that might very well mean the end for all mankind, had hit across the globe. Small meteor showers, fragments of the larger whole. People had died.

  Dawn shrugged, unseen in her car. People had died. More would follow. Maybe everyone?

  She struggled to find that panic within herself. She was driving. It was a winter’s day, but the sun was bright. Just her, her baby, the car, the radio…

  Nothing else, right at this moment, mattered a whole hell of lot to her.

  You’re depressed, Dawn, she told herself. Can’t feel when you’re this low. Nothing left to feel. I’m all felt out.

  But was she? Was she depressed?

  Your husband died fucking someone in a work’s toilet.

  The world’s ending, Dawn.

  The thing of it was, she cared…just not enough to hurt. Not enough to feel.

  But the big one was coming. Estimates figured around two days. But these were the same experts that managed to miss Mars and the same cadre of scientists that denied there was any chance of the meteor striking Earth, right up until it was too late to do anything practical to prevent it.

  “Tosspots,” she said, but just between herself and the baby.

  Shortly after, she pulled off the winding, busy A14 and began the part of her journey where the roads were a little quieter.

  Now, she smiled. The roads were narrow, dark with overhanging bare tree limbs. Traffic became sporadic. The sun, low in the sky now, cast long, soft shadows across the country road. There were patches of snow about, but not enough to worry about. It was too warm for frost or ice, even though it was the middle of winter.

  But she smiled, surprised to find that she could still smile.

  Dawn Graves smiled the whole final leg of her journey, mostly driving one-handed, her left hand on her swollen belly, rubbing absently.

  The baby didn’t kick for a while. Like he, or she, had been lulled to sleep by the hum of the engine and the tires on the road.

  11

  Richard Graves sat in a garden chair on the front lawn as Dawn pulled the car into his drive. He wore a big coat against the chill that was settling in since sunset. He was drinking a large, straight tumbler of something alcoholic, and smoking a cigarette.

  A big man’s paunch on him, and bad knees from carrying his excess weight, nonetheless he put down his tumbler and put out his cigarette. He pushed himself up from the low chair with a grunt and made his way to the car with a wide grin on his face.

  He’s happy to see me, even with the world ending, she thought, and smiled herself, certain she’d made the right choice. This was the one place, her one place, and he was her friend and her family all rolled into one.

  A small dog trotted out of the house. Maisy, Richard’s sole companion. The little dog was old, like Richard, and had seen better days. Like Richard.

  Hell, like most people Dawn knew, including herself.

  She returned his smile, genuinely surprised at how happy the sight of her dead husband’s father made her. How such a wonderful, kindhearted man had ever sired such a shit as Robert, she’d never fathom.

  Maisy’s tail wagged but she didn’t bark. She rarely did. Dawn wasn’t keen on most dogs, but she had a soft spot for Maisy. They say people and their dogs look similar. In this case, Maisy, tiny, and Richard, huge, seemed to share personality rather than appearance.

  “Hello, Dawn,” said Richard, wrapping his arms around her warmly as she got out of the car. His smile, like him, was big and broad. She kissed him softly on the cheek.

  “Thank you,” she said, taking the arm he offered and following him back to the chairs and table. Simple garden furniture. Nothing fancy. After being stuck in the car for the best part of three hours, it looked like heaven. Even though it was cold now, sitting outside seemed to be the right choice. It felt right. She saw he’d brought a blanket out for her.

  “Tea? Something stronger?”

  “End of the world, right?” said Dawn. “Might as well go for something stronger…”

  And the baby? she thought, but only for an instant. After all, no one was making it out alive. Richard seemed to understand. He didn’t judge. Never did. Maybe that was why his only son had turned out the way he had.

  But who knows why things turn out the way they do?

  “Here,” he said, handing her a tumbler of whiskey. Dawn took the tumbler, then took a chair—surprisingly comfortable—and settled down into it, happy enough to sit again. She’d peed at the side of the road about ten miles back, not wanting to have to head straight to the toilet as soon as she arrived.

  Now, settled and comfy, she snuggled, under her blanket in a lawn chair. The air was crisp, cold, and perfect. Her drink, placed atop her belly, wobbled slightly when she breathed.

  “Bottoms up!” said Richard with forced cheer. He swigged down his drink in one gulp, and Dawn realized the old man was well on his way to being pissed.

  Good for him, she thought.

  But for some reason, the sight of him up close, slightly glassy-eyed, drinking like there was no tomorrow when they’re might not be, set her going. All through the drive, when she’d been alone, she could have cried.

  Now, five minutes into an impromptu drinking session with her deceased husband’s father, the flood came.

  Dawn was tired of fighting off her tears. She let them run, freely. She felt like she’d held on to them for such a long time that she didn’t even know what she was crying for anymore…her dead bastard of a husband, herself, her unborn child? The world? Could you cry for a world? Such a thing seemed too large, too incomprehensible.

  But no matter what she was crying for, she cried hard and long anyway. Cried so tears and snot ran down her face. The back of her head and her gut ached from it.

  Richard sat quietly, not looking at her or much of anything at all. He smoked, drank, and waited. Smoke swirled like clouds in the still air.

  He was a good kind of man with whom to see out a storm.

  He didn’t reach out to her, nor did he speak at all. Dawn was aware of the drifting smoke (going to hurt the baby…doesn’t m
atter…), the wafting aroma of strong drink, the cut grass (he’d cut the grass for her, even though it was winter and the end of the world…), the musty smell hanging in the lawn furniture. And him, Richard. His smell…his feel.

  A rock. A rock by the sea. Lichen, or seaweed. Brine.

  Stern and rough, a big old stone standing against the sea, worn but not broken.

  Thinking of Richard like a lighthouse, battered by the seas, she was drawn back from grief. At first a little laugh escaped. It was kind of a burp, more than a laugh. Then another. Richard looked at Dawn like she’d gone crazy. She thought maybe she had, but the look on his face just made her laugh more and more, until she wasn’t crying from sadness but laughter.

  She realized she was in danger of shifting over from laughter into hysteria (if she wasn’t already there) but couldn’t stop.

  Yes, she thought, in that hard core at the heart of her. Yes. You can.

  She snuffled and held her breath and wriggled her toes to try and break it. It took a while, but eventually, the laughter, the tears, went away.

  “Hi,” said Richard when she’d calmed and dried her face on his handkerchief.

  And she burst out laughing again, but this time it felt clean.

  “Hi,” she said, later, and that was that.

  Mostly they drank and sat in the quiet, cool evening air. Unspoken agreement passed between them and they did not look to the skies once.

  The evening turned out to be the best she’d had in years.

  12

  At the end of the evening, Richard and Dawn supported each other to the top of the stairs, two moderately drunk people taking more than just a steadying hand on the way to bed. Comfort, companionship. Dawn kissed Richard on the cheek outside the spare room.

  “Thank you…” said Dawn. “I don’t really know how to say it better than that.”

  “I know.” He patted her hair down, like you would to a kid who had a cowlick sticking up before the first day of school. It was curiously endearing.

  “You know,” he said, “if I’d had a daughter…well…”

  His words slurred a little, but Dawn knew he was sincere.

  “Just have to settle for me,” she said. She would have winked, or something, to let him know she understood, but soften his loss a little.

  She couldn’t, though, because she could feel her fear bubbling back.

  He saw she was struggling not to crumble.

  “Good night,” he said.

  “Good night,” she replied, and opened the cherry-stained door to a comfortable, slightly dusty, spare room.

  “You know what?” he said. She turned back to him. He looked sad, a strong man on the edge. Wonder if I’m wearing a similar expression? she thought.

  “When I was a kid, we used to make wishes on falling stars. Did you ever do that?”

  “We did,” said Dawn, smiling at the thought.

  “Don’t know…maybe…make a wish, eh? Make one for me, too, while you’re at it.” He nodded, turned, and went into his own room.

  Dawn watched him go, then went into the spare room.

  Wishing on a falling star…

  A star as big as the one that was coming?

  She’d better make it a damn big wish.

  Dawn brushed her teeth and did her nighttime things in the en-suite in the spare room. Then, lying down with the spinning room and bed around her and the sky captured in the window frame, she stared through the frosted glass at the night. Looking for a star to fall. She watched the skies for a long time that night, thinking, spinning a little, but not unpleasantly. She lay on her side, with her belly between her legs and arms, cuddling herself, her baby.

  Dawn waited, watched, then slept.

  13

  Since falling pregnant, Dawn Graves’s dreams were different. She didn’t talk to people about her dreams (early on, she’d shared them with her husband, but his blank disinterest soon put her off) so she did not know if it was usual to dream so vividly when with child.

  She knew this night’s visions for a dream even in her sleep. She mumbled and smiled while she slept and dreamt.

  At first.

  14

  She was light on her feet, running fast and free like a younger woman. She’d run like that as a lanky teen, running after tennis balls and in the woods behind her mother’s house, chasing boys or running from them. She’d always played with the boys, never been interested in dresses and dolls and tiny tea parties.

  Her feet barely seemed to touch the road…running up on her toes, arms pumping through the crisp air. The air was warm, like summer. But the light felt dim. Night, in her dream? But it didn’t feel like night. Didn’t have the cadence of the night—the glowing street lamps were not lit, nor was there any sense of lighting, human, or otherwise.

  No people, no animals, no sounds or colors or smells…just dim light, clean air and the wind in her hair.

  I’m not naked, she thought. She wore running shorts and a vest top, like a runner, though she’d never been a runner. She’d played tennis for fun and that’d been about it…when she was younger. But she wasn’t younger, was she? She tried hard, within the dream, to figure out what her was in the dream. What version of Dawn was she dreaming? Older, she thought. Not younger. Even though she was fit, breathing easily, feet flying across the road.

  Running toward something?

  Strange. There’d been nothing on the dream-road while she concentrated merely on the run. Now, up ahead, was a large building. A great, sprawling affair, some parts low, some high. Three or four floors on the low parts. She guessed up to ten on the high parts.

  Still no people, though the structure was, without doubt, a building. It was unmistakably a creation of many human hands and minds, not of some fantasy realm.

  She was still running. She didn’t want to stop. It felt amazing.

  It’s a hospital, she thought, within the dream.

  And of course, as she thought it, signs appeared on her road (her road…her road to own, to run). The road narrowed. A nowhere road before, now an approach road, leading to wide hospital doors.

  Off to deliver the baby?

  But she wasn’t pregnant in her dream.

  She wondered, for a second, if the realization would bring back her bump, but it didn’t. If anything, she was lighter, faster, fleeter, as she streamed toward those glass double doors that opened into the hospital, like they would have at an emergency room. She hoped those doors were automatic, because she was running so fast and with no control and no hope of stopping. She imagined crashing through the glass into the hospital, limbs and body and face pouring bright red blood.

  At her first thought of colors specific, there was color in her dream. To the right of the door, a big red button. That big red button, that noisy red, screamed push me at her.

  So she did, just to still the sound, to satisfy the button’s need. A pleaser, she’d been. Not now, but once. She slapped the bright bloody red button with her right hand and the doors slid open to let her in. The button left her hand red.

  Dawn Graves stopped, panting hard now, and looked around.

  A hospital like any other. Gurneys, oxygen, artificial light, pristine walls and smooth floors. Signs, hanging from the ceiling, but the language made no sense, even though it was English. Apparently, she could not read in dreams.

  No matter. It was a hospital, but for the people…and suddenly, the people were there, right there, all around. People just like her. People who’d run a hard road. They stood, aching, their ragged breath rank in the sterile air. They were dirty and gaunt.

  They looked afraid.

  But she felt alive. So fucking alive…but looking at them, she wondered why they looked so afraid. Wondered who these people were, running through the night in her dream. This was her dream, not theirs. Who were these filthy people ruining her dream, her run, her freedom?

  Someone—a man with holes for eyes and good, full lips within a dark beard—grabbed her and pulled her forward,
deeper into the hospital. Her breath was harsh now, too. His urgency infected her, but she still tried to get free of his grip to look behind, sure now that they were all running from something. She had to know what it was. His urgency was a pull and a goad to her. Without warning, her breath felt harsh and hot in her lungs.

  I want to run again. I want to RUN!

  But he was strong, his grip hard and hurting and he pulled her along with him despite her struggles.

  Who are you?

  He didn’t reply, but dragged her into a ward within the bowels of the hospital. Her people ran through the doors (my people?) behind her. A seemingly endless succession of doors along one giant corridor.

  Someone screamed, someone shouted.

  Why are they screaming in my dream? It’s my dream!

  One of those large red buttons again, but this time the button was pulsing and ringing, like a heart-phone set to vibrate.

  Even though the strong man with the dark beard had no eyes, she understood that he was looking at her. Looking to her.

  What? What do you want?

  He didn’t reply, but flicked his head toward the button. Like he was saying, “This is your choice. Shut the door. Leave the door. Up to you.” Like he was saying all those things at once with just a flick of his head, but also as though he didn’t care either way. He’d jump where she jumped. This man who was strong enough to lead her to (safety?) yet bowed to her.

  Screams again. Terror screaming and pain screaming, different cadences; sometimes the same voices.

  The man with no eyes bowed and she noted he only had one arm.

  In the kingdom of the blind, she thought, the one-armed man is king?

  She looked through the open doorway at those who had run as fast as this small group gathered around her (and him?).

  A woman fell.

  No. No she didn’t. That wasn’t right at all. She didn’t fall. She was dragged to the ground. Dragged down by someone chasing her…someone who looked just like the people surrounding Dawn and the man with holes for eyes. Unkempt and filthy, ragged and lean. Fast enough to catch the stragglers in her group.