"Geronimo! Don't leave me!"
Geronimo turned around and saw the rabid woman at the opening of the garage with the blade in her hand. Her shoulders slumped. She was tired.
Geronimo stuck his hand through the wooden flap and felt around for what was on the other side. The floor of the house was just as cold as the cement of the garage. For a moment, Geronimo hesitated. He realized that there were unknown things inside, as they were out here.
A sound echoed through the night. Boom.
The rabid woman turned around and looked toward where the sun fell. She knew that the night was here and she became frightened.
The arrival of the night terrified them both. The fear was in their bones.
The sky became blacker and the sound became louder.
The woman ran toward Geronimo with her blade. He was half way through the small hatch, squeezing his shoulder together.
His legs were on their way inside when the blade of the sickle slashed the back of his leg. He screamed in pain. But he kept going. She swung at him again, but the tip of the blade hit the concrete and it made the blade ricochet out of her hand.
Finally, he pulled the rest of his body through the dog hatch of the door and he was inside the house. He made it.
Once inside, Geronimo found himself in something that felt like a hallway. He barricaded the hatch with his own body, pressing his backpack against the door. He could not let her enter.
She kicked the hatch and she could not open it. She banged her fist against the door, again and again.
"Geronimo. Don't leave me out here!"
In the distance, there was the subtle sound of thunder that came with the night. The night was here. Boom. And the howling started. Now, the dark things that lived inside the night, started to howl in unison. In a matter of minutes, the sound crescendo into a something that resembled a blade being sharpened on a perpetual grindstone. Boom. The wind grew. Boom. Then the night became a black storm. And the stars disappeared.
Now, the night had enveloped the house. The night was here.
Once again, she banged on the door.
"Don't to this to your mother! Let me in! LET ME IN! NOW!"
Geronimo tried not to listen to her. But, she sounded like his mother, like D.
He pressed his feet against the wall of the corridor to keep the hatch shut, to keep her out. She banged on the door trying to knock it down, trying to get inside.
"Think about your mother Geronimo. Think about all that I things I taught you."
"You're not my mother!"
"Of course. I am. I love you. Don't you love me?"
"No!"
He felt her kick the wooden hatch a final time and the door shook against his body. Then silence.
In the end, the mad woman turned around to face the night. The darkness crept into the garage. Every bit of air, around her was filled with a black abyss and she was gone, as if she had never existed.
Geronimo no longer heard her on the other side of the door. Instead, he heard a loud noise cover entire exterior of the house. It felt like there was a violent storm. It felt like rocks falling from the sky, except they were falling sideways. Then, the sound of thunder screeched across the sky.
Once again, the night laughed.
Geronimo was sure that the night had flooded the garage and took her away. With that in mind, he started to breathe with relief. Finally, he fell asleep, right then and there. But it wasn't over. The night had just begun.
31
The Night Enveloped Everything Upon The Land
IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, GERONIMO WOKE UP WHILE THE HOWLING NIGHT SWIRLED AROUND THE HOUSE. DURING THE NIGHT, IT TOOK BACK THE LAND. The sounds terrified him.
But, he was glad that he had made it inside shelter. He was safe. He woke up with his backpack against the dog hatch. For the first time, he unclenched his fist full of white pages and they slid out of his fingers and down, to the ground.
He opened his eyes and felt groggy. He tried to look into the house from where he sat. But, he could not see an inch in front of his face. Everything was pitch black.
His stomach rumbled and he was hungry.
Geronimo closed his eyes and listened to the night and it sounded like the night took a deep breath. He knew that the night took away every soul that it caught under the open air. It took away the unlucky ones. It left the land empty of human life.
The flap to the dog hatch shook against his body. The night wanted to get inside the house, even though it could not enter. As long as the doors and windows were shut, the night could not enter the house. For good measure, he braced himself against the door.
Geronimo heard a sound of metal scrapping against metal. His ears shot up. The sound came from inside the house. He wanted to be sure that no one else was inside the house because he did not check all the dark corners.
Geronimo knew it was midnight because the sound outside started to intensify. It sounded just like when the night first arrived. It was always that way. It's beginning, middles and ends were always the loudest.
Through the door he heard a sound, different from the ones in the night. He heard a low whisper permeate through the grain of wood door. Then, there was a loud knock, as if a misguided bird had flown straight into it.
A couple minutes later there was another.
He knew that the mad woman was no longer out there and he wondered what it was. But, he knew that it was the night. That was all.
Now it was only he and the night. The mad woman, Mark and Justine were gone.
He had made it. As long as he stayed inside, all would be well.
Geronimo felt shell-shocked, lost and depressed, every time he woke. There was a part of him that wished that he did not have to live in a world like this, not anymore. Sometimes, he wished the night took him, just like it had taken the woman.
He heard another sound coming from deep inside the house.
But, he stayed were he was and did not move a muscle. He couldn't. He couldn't leave the hatch uncovered. So, he slept right where he sat.
The night kept howling and he tried to block the sound out of his head.
32
Within His Heart The Congregation Grows
So, he remembered Justine and Mark. He recalled the good times that they had sitting around the fire. He thought about his time with Justine in the field. He remembered the words she said.
...we have to fill up this world up with hope…with children that know something more than the night. There is still more in this world than death, Geronimo."
And what's that? He asked her.
"Love. We shall love every child, like we love you. And all our children from here on will know that the sun also shines at night."
Geronimo grabbed a fist full of Justine's tattered white pages and brought her children's book to his chest. He vowed that he would finish her work. He promised himself that her idea would reach the church, one day.
The church that he thought of was an old one that he visited in Chicago. It was the place where he went when he felt sad. In his mind, he populated the church with people that he had loved and that were now gone.
His congregation grew.
Through the open doors of the church, Geronimo stepped out of the night sky. Inside, it felt like daylight. The rays of the sun took his breath, shinning through long colorful stained glass and making the altar glow. The further he stepped inside, the sleeper he became. Once again, his eyes closed.
The church trick worked. Someone along the way taught him that trick on the road. The trick helped block out the night. It was the only way for him to fall asleep. Sometimes, it worked and sometimes it didn't. And when it worked, he slept without ever thinking about anything else.
A couple minutes later, he was asleep.
Into a warm dream, he went and a smile had yet to appear across his face
33
The Birds No Longer Sang In The Forest
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, A GREAT SHADOW RETREA
TED ACROSS GERONIMO'S BODY AND THE NIGHT CREPT AWAY. He laid on the dusty marble floor of the hallway and a swath of pale morning light, descended from a high window of the vestibule. Outside, the black lake was calm. The sun rose over the trees, rattling the leaves of a once great forest. For the moment, everything seemed peaceful, as if the passing night was as harmless as the day.
Geronimo woke up and mumbling something. He tried to gather his thoughts. He managed to open his eyes and found himself in an awkward position with his butt, neck and shoulders aching like hell. He sat up and a shooting pain struck his right shoulder blade. The whole night, he was hunched up against the door, trying to keep out the night.
When he woke up in the morning, he was overcome by relief. He realized that he had made it another day. Even though he survived the night, a smile had yet to appear across his face.
Geronimo stood and walked up the stairs to the second floor. His legs were numb and he could not stand until the numbness in his muscles passed away. His blue corduroy pants were covered in dust and dirt. He wiped down his pants, as hobbled up the steps of the house.
The abandoned lake house was the largest ones that he had ever seen. He could not believe that people once lived like this, living along the lake without a care in the world.
Inside the house, the warm morning light broke into the main living rooms of the house. Now, he was able to see into it. The abandoned lake house was large, two stories in height. The rafters of the ceiling were made of strong oak beams.
Moving down the corridor, he passed a bathroom on the main floor. The door was open. It was what people used to call a half bath, meaning that it contained only a toilet and a sink. That was all. The walls in bathroom were filled with tiles of mirrored glass. He wiped the dusty mirror and looked at himself for the first time in weeks.
His face was dirty and thin. And his cheeks were hollow. He felt like one of the many homeless men that he had seen in his old neighborhood of Chicago. His curly hair was long and flopped to one side. He ran his fingers through his hair. It was a tangled mess. Then, he turned both knobs of the sink and some rust stained water flowed out of the spout. Regardless of how it looked, he cupped his hands with water and splashed it on his face. Then, he used his dirty shirt to wipe his face and hands.
After he used the washroom, he proceeded to the main floor. He found that the kitchen, the dining room and the living room were in one open space. The carpet was full of dust and moths. A cloud of dust rose with every step he took. He could tell that no one had lived in this place for a long time.
At least, he thought that no one did.
He walked into the kitchen to search for some canned food in the cupboards. He looked above and underneath the granite counter-tops. The shelves were bare. He only found a spoon. It was that same kind of plastic white spoon that accompanied Chinese takeout. He was disappointed, but was glad to have shelter from the night.
Geronimo was about to snap the plastic spoon in half, when he heard a sound come from the living room.
34
In The Dark Corners Of The House
His head swung toward the source of the sound and his eyes opened wide. He recognized it. It was the same sound from last night. It was the one sound that he tried to pretend that was not there.
Geronimo stepped out of the kitchen and went to investigate. He took his time walking toward the living room, peaking his head around the corner of the room and saw something at the far end. Whatever it was, it hidden in the shadows. When he squinted, the dark figure became clearer to him.
A man sat on a lazy boy in a dark corner of the house. The man wore a long blue trench coat and remained seated. The only thing that Geronimo could see was that the man's boots were covered in mud. The man sat in the chair without making a move.
The man shifted his feet and the springs of the lazy boy made the same sound that he heard last night. The man's movements frightened him.
Geronimo was about to turn around and fly out of the house.
"Wait." said the man siting in the shadow.
The stranger growled at Geronimo. "Don't go!"
The man lifted his arm and called Geronimo. But Geronimo paid no attention and he bolted out the living room, as fast as he could. He was halfway down the stair, when he heard the man's voice again.
"Geronimo! Please come back and I'll tell you what I know of the night and how it came to be. Just please come back. I mean no harm, Geronimo!"
Geronimo realized that the man had called his name. He held on to the wooden handrail running along the side of the wall. Geronimo wondered how the man knew his name. For a moment, he thought it was Mark.
But, the man's voice carried something more. He spoke about the night, in a way that he had not heard. There was a certainty in his voice that matched none one that he had met on the road.
What he noticed was no fear in the man's voice when he spoke about the night without any fear.
35
A Cold Draft Of Air Raised The Hair On His Arms
Geronimo foot hovered, just above the walked back upstairs, back into the old dusty living room. He looked into the dark corner of the room and the stranger's eyes gleamed with the rising sun. But, that was all he saw.
Geronimo glanced back at the front door and back at the man, unsure of what to do. But, he could not leave yet, because this man knew something about the night.
"How did you know my name?" Asked Geronimo.
"She told me?"
"Who."
"Justine."
"Is she here? Where is she?"
"She's right next to you."
Geronimo felt a cold draft of air raise the hair along the back of his arms.
"You're lying."
Geronimo turned around to leave.
"No! I'm not!"
Geronimo looked back at him.
"I'm going to need something more than that."
"She told me the name of her children's book."
"What did you say? She never gave her book a title!"
"The book she wrote for the kids. There is a name and I know it. Please, come back. I'll prove it to you."
"What is it called, then?" Geronimo asked, even though he did not know himself.
"She called it, 'The Sun Also Shines at Night.' Take it out of your bag and look at it. And you'll see that I'm right."
Geronimo took his backpack off his shoulders and it felt like a great weight had been lifted. He pulled out the dirty pages of her manuscript. They were torn and out of order. He looked through them and found the page where the title was supposed to go.
The light of the sun grew inside the house and Geronimo's eyes widened when he looked at the title page.
36
The Sun Also Shines At Night
GERONIMO STARED AT THE TITLE OF JUSTINE'S MANUSCRIPT. He followed the curves of her handwritten words that ran smoothly across the page. He thought about the softness of her shin, when he held her hand.
The stranger was right.
A part of him couldn't believe it. But, anything was possible. Geronimo thought about the whispers that came through the door in the middle of the night. He thought about the mad woman who knew his name.
He thought about the night.
Anything was possible now that the world was turned upside down.
The name of her children's book was written on the first page. It was no longer blank. It was written with a red ballpoint pen. She must have wrote it down yesterday afternoon, after he had fallen asleep in the forest. Her sweet green eyes and red hair flashed before him. When he read the title of her manuscript again, his eyes shrunk and watered.
And there it was. The Sun Also Shines at Night. If the stranger knew this, then he might know something about the night.
Geronimo looked at man and asked him the only question he had, since he lost track of Justine.
"What happened to Justine? Why did she leave me?"
"She didn't to leave you, Geronimo."
"Then
where did she go?"
Tell him. Please tell him.
"Geronimo, she loved you and still does."
"Then, what happened to her?"
Please don't tell him anything more. Just tell him that I'll always be with him.
"While you were sleeping, Justine and Mark went to the field of dead corn. They liked spending time together in the open air. Before they left you, they took your watch. They slipped it off your wrist. They wanted to make sure that they came back in time to wake you. They wanted to go with you to the next shelter, to the one down the road."
"And what happened?"
Please. Don't tell him anymore.
"And they never came back, Geronimo. That's all."
"No. That's not all. What happened?"
"You know what happened."
"No. I don't."
"Mark and Justine ran into bad people. And Justine died saving Mark's life. She would have done the same for you."
"And where is he?"
"Mark ran away. He watched them cut her up and he did nothing. The night was coming and he had to find shelter. In the end, he walked partly clothed and alone to the next shelter."
"And her?"
"And she is with you."
"Why me?"
"Because you reminded her of something very special to her."
"What'?"
"The child that she never had. Even though you met for only a brief time. She thought that your were a kind boy."
Tell him. Tell him agin. Don't let him forget.
"She stayed with you, instead of Mark, Geronimo, she loves you and she'll always be with you to make sure that you never lose hope."
"She's with me?"
Purge of the Vampires Page 12
