The Darkest Time of Night

by Jeremy Finley

  The glass didn’t part. I looked around, seeing another keypad flashing beside the door. Of course there would be a code here, they wouldn’t just let anyone in. Or out.

  I heard the sound of William’s feet scuffling.

  I whirled around, seeing him beginning to walk back to where we came from. At the far end of the hall, I could see several shapes emerging.

  I ran and seized William, rushing back to the door. I smashed my fist on the glass, screaming for Joe. I scanned the lobby for anything I could use to try and break the glass, but the only thing I could see was a computer monitor on the front desk, and it wouldn’t have made a dent.

  I could feel the numbness growing on the back of my head. I kept pounding. The memory of Daddy’s warning about the woods broke me free of the creature’s control before, but I didn’t know if I could snap out of it again.

  I looked out to see the interior light come on in the cab of Joe’s truck. The door opened slightly, and someone peered out.

  Despite my staggering panic, I gasped. Roxy’s face was so bruised, so swollen from the ugly gash down her forehead, that I almost didn’t recognize her at first. I cried out her name, waving my arms wildly. I saw her limp out of the truck towards Joe. She looked up in the sky, her hand covering her mouth in astonishment. She looked back at the truck, and then briefly towards the medical center.

  I screamed her name, striking the glass. She did a double take, and I could see her yell out my name. She moved towards Joe, pointing in my direction. Roxy shook him, but he continued to stare upwards.

  I watched her give a frightened look in the direction in which Joe stared, and then she painfully moved towards us.

  “Come on!” she motioned to me.

  “The door won’t open! We can’t get out!”

  Roxy went back to Joe, this time hitting him in the arm. When he didn’t respond, she gave me a frantic look, made an obscene gesture at Joe and limped back towards the truck. She was practically dragging her right foot. I watched her open the driver’s side door and haul herself in.

  The lights went out again, and as soon as I turned back to the lobby, the numbness was back. All I wanted to do was relax. The feeling was so refreshing, such a relief, the euphoria almost too much to fight.

  There were five, six, no … ten. They were like tall children, some walking, others … arranging themselves, twitching in rickety sections, angling and reaching out like a scurrying insect.

  None of this was alarming. It was such a delightful feeling. I wasn’t even worried that William was a few feet ahead of me, walking—

  I heard the roar of engine. I groggily turned back to look outside, seeing Joe’s truck move in reverse and make a sharp turn towards the lobby. The light in the cab came on briefly, and Roxy was motioning wildly at me from behind the wheel.

  “Get back!” I could see her yell.

  The headlights of the truck shone out over the plow as it barreled towards the doors.

  I rushed forward and grabbed William, stumbling away, closing my eyes as the glass exploded behind us.

  As the plow smashed through the doors, I heard them scream. The sound, metallic and feline, made me want to cry out myself. The numbing feeling was immediately gone.

  The truck tore back in reverse. I seized William and carried him over the shattered glass, wincing as an icy blast hit us both.

  “What the hell?” I heard Joe call out, now turned in our direction. “What are you doing?”

  “What are you doing, you moron!” Roxy hollered while she rolled down the window. “Took me driving through a building to get you to pay attention! Lynn, get in the backseat! Joe, get the hell in here! I had to use my bad foot to hit the gas, and it’s hurting like a son of a bitch!”

  I opened the door and lifted William inside, looking back towards the lobby. “Go! Get away from here as fast as you can!”

  “What the hell is going on out there?” Joe said, climbing in to take the wheel, rubbing the back of his head.

  “Holy Mary Mother of God! William, is that really you?” Roxy reached out to brush his knee, and then winced in pain at the effort. “Lynn, you found him, you found him.…”

  “Roxy,” I said, my heart in my throat. “What happened to you?”

  She leaned back. “Joe, get us the hell out of here.”

  Joe sat, still dazed. “I … froze. I just can’t believe it. My whole head felt like I was doped up. What are those things? I mean, it can’t be—”

  “Shut up and drive.”

  The comment came from what I first thought was a pile of snowsuits on the other side of the bench. Instead, the groggy and wizened face of Verna Cliff revealed itself from within the hood of a long maroon coat. After scowling at Joe, she reached over and touched William’s shoulder. “Sweet boy. Your grandma found you.”

  “How are you here…?” I stammered.

  “Cover his eyes, Grandma.” Verna leaned forward. “Or he’ll be as useless as Joe was out there. Hard not to be; even I couldn’t look away.”

  I realized that William hadn’t stirred. He was sitting on the edge of the seat, staring out the windshield.

  I followed his gaze and immediately felt the numbing again. Beams of light spilled down from the snowing sky. Dozens of columns, white and gold, amid a flurry of colorful pulsating lights high in the gray night sky. As I looked beyond, I could see even more of the light beams behind the hospital.

  Walking into the lights were people.

  Even in the heavy snow, I could tell there were hundreds. They stood within each pillar of light, each wearing a hospital gown, looking up.

  I knew with certainty that the basement to the hospital was now empty, and all those comatose people had risen for the first time. The power was out, so the door to the stairs was open. They had streamed out, a mindless mass, responding to the call.

  I understood why. The closer we could all get to those lights, the better we would feel.

  I reached over for the door handle when a large group of men in camouflage flooded past us, running to the hospital. I saw one point and sharply direct a few of his subordinates towards us.

  Three soldiers broke off and ran to the driver’s side of the truck, pointing their rifles at us. As soon I focused on them, the calm feeling was gone.

  “Oh shit,” Joe said.

  “Put your hands where I can see them!” one of the men shouted.

  One of the soldiers leaned into the glass and quickly spoke into the radio on his shoulder. “The boy and the old lady are in there. Do you copy? We’ve have them. They’re here.”

  Drive, Joe! I wanted to scream.

  “All of you, get out of the truck. Keep your hands up,” the first soldier ordered.

  “Tell him his buddy made me too sore to move,” Roxy grumbled, her hands barely raised.

  The soldier tapped the edge of his rifle on the glass. “Ma’am, we don’t have time for this! Do you hear me? Get out—”

  Four beams of light shot down before the now-shattered entrance to White Crest. One beam was so close to the truck that Joe cried out. The soldiers turned, blinded by the searing light.

  Seconds later, more shapes began to emerge from the hospital. All in the same stark hospital garb, all their faces calm and serene, walking towards the lights.

  The feeling was so strong to join them that I opened the truck door, and heard Joe’s door ding, signaling he was feeling the same. William was already sliding across my lap to jump out.

  “What the hell is wrong with you people?” Roxy cried out. “Drive, Joe! Dammit! And close the damn doors!”

  “Shit,” Joe said, wiping his eyes.

  “Don’t look at it!” I covered my own eyes. “Just drive Joe!”

  Joe slammed on the gas. The pickup truck bolted forward, heading directly for the emerging masses.

  “Turn!” Roxy yelled. The people in the light made no attempt to get out of the truck’s way. Joe spun the wheel and barely cleared a man and a small woman. Joe made a
nother wild turn and drove directly towards two armored cars.

  Again Joe turned, this time too late. Despite its snow tires, the truck slid into the front end of one of the military vehicles. We were all momentarily thrown forward, but Joe gave us no time to recover. He immediately took off again, driving down the row of vehicles and hanging right on the wrong way of a circle drive. He headed down a long road leading away from the medical center.

  “Everybody OK?” Joe asked, out of breath.

  “I’m gonna puke if you keep driving like this!” Verna said.

  “Serves you right,” Roxy muttered.

  “Whatever happens,” I said to Joe, “do not—I repeat—do not look into the lights.”

  “What’s happening to us?” he asked, looking at me with genuine terror in his eyes, reaching out to touch the back of his head.

  Knowing I couldn’t explain at this moment, I scooted to the edge of my seat. “Roxy, what happened to you? They showed me a picture of the van, they told me you’d been killed—”

  A rifle shot suddenly sounded, and the back window of the quad cab cracked. I covered William’s head.

  “Dammit,” Joe said, looking at his rearview mirror.

  I turned to see three Humvees now following in the distance, their headlights beaming through the snow.

  “Come on, Moses.” Joe pushed hard on the gas as houses started to appear. “Why are they shooting at us?”

  “You think the government wants to you cruise on out of town to tell the world about this shit show?” Verna said.

  “Aw, hell.” Joe took a sharp left down a side street. I was thankful for the chains I’d noticed on his tires. Otherwise, even on the recently cleared roads, we could have hit an icy spot and gone crashing into a building. Then another right, and another left, knocking down several snow-covered trash cans in an alley.

  We heard another gunshot. “Can we get out of town?” I asked, feeling waves of carsickness.

  Joe then swung another left and tore down the main drag, where he had earlier made the first pass in trying to clear the streets. Large mounds of snow lined the curb in front of the stores, making the street a single lane.

  “They’ll chase you to the ends of the earth. They won’t let any of you leave,” Verna said.

  I saw Joe’s jaw clench as he took a rough left turn. “Please don’t have locked the shop. Please don’t have locked it.”

  “We’re going to your store?” Verna asked.

  “Not my shop,” Joe grunted as he turned in an alley. “Ron’s place. When he’s slow on business, he lets me park the truck there if it’s gonna snow and I have to work late. I hope he’s not working on anything.”

  The truck came to a sudden stop and Joe jumped out, leaving the truck running. “Roxanne, you’ll have to take off if they come. Got it?”

  “Yep.” Roxy winced, touching her leg.

  I held my breath, waiting to hear the engines of the Humvees as they tore down the alley. Instead, there was the small squeak of worn hinges as Joe opened two huge, metal double doors. Once he opened them as far as he could, he slid back into the truck.

  He quietly pulled into the mechanic’s shop and turned the engine off, running back to close the doors behind us.

  We sat in silence, looking back to see Joe peering out a rectangular window to the alley. We waited for military vehicles, expecting angry pounding on the door.

  After several minutes of nothing, Joe crept over and leaned in the cab. “Stay in the truck,” he whispered. “Ron’s got the heat way down low. Don’t dare turn the lights on. You’ll stay warmer in there. I’ll keep watch out the window.” He shut the door.

  I turned back to Roxy. “Tell me what happened.”

  “It’s not as important as what happened to you. William, I can’t believe it. You’re here. You’re really here,” Roxy said, touching his head.

  “It matters to me,” I whispered. “I thought you’d been killed. Did you crash?”

  Roxy shook her head. “These bruises are courtesy of one of this town’s finest after I got the van stuck. He was on me as soon as I slid off the road, like he knew where I would be. He didn’t like my response when he asked for my ID and proof of insurance. I knew I was a goner at that point. Things got ugly fast, and it became clear very quickly I was not supposed to walk away from that encounter. But he didn’t know how mean I can be. I even got his gun, can you believe it? But I’ve got terrible aim, and I shot up more of the van than him.”

  I almost laughed in relief, then, thinking of the picture Deanna had shown me on her phone. It had been Roxy shooting, not the other way around.

  “He got the gun back fast, but it was out of bullets. He was a sick son of a bitch too—started taking pictures of me laying in the snow, and the van, I guess someone wanted proof. I was in a real bad way when Joe rolled up and saw the guy using me as a punching bag. He underestimated Joe too. For an old guy, Joe used that crowbar in the bed of his truck and showed him who was boss—”

  “Are you OK?” I reached over to Roxy’s swollen cheek.

  “I hurt everywhere. My foot and face are the worst. But I insisted Joe get me back to you, and when we got to Miss Congeniality’s house, she was so bombed she could barely make it to the door. Joe thought some sudden exposure to this wonderful Colorado weather might perk her up, so we went for a ride—”

  “Kidnapped, more like it,” Verna grumbled.

  “Didn’t have a choice,” Roxy said with a glare. “Joe said we needed that damn code of yours from the kitchen to get in. If Armageddon hadn’t started when we showed up, I would have personally forced your butt through that hospital till we found Lynn and William.”

  “Didn’t you want to come get me?” William asked quietly, looking at his teacher.

  I watched whatever was left of her binge seep from the old woman’s face. She reached out and gently squeezed his arm. “Miss Cliff was just tired, honey. And I’ll admit it,” she sighed, “I was a little afraid of the sky tonight.”

  “Afraid?” I whispered. “You knew … this … those ships, those … things, were coming?”

  “Things?” Verna asked.

  William curled up closer to me, burying his face in my side.

  “Oh God, you actually saw them? I don’t know if anyone here ever has. When I saw what kind of storm was brewing, I knew the ships would come. They always do when the weather gets this bad. And when all the phones and computers stopped working, I knew it for sure. But it didn’t happen … like it usually does. They aren’t dropping off people. They’re taking them back. Everyone who’s been marked. All those people, all my kids…”

  She looked out the window, her eyes glinting with tears.

  “You know … about the markings?” I asked in a hush, knowing I should cover William’s ears.

  Verna ran her fingers over the back of William’s hair. “Honey, do you still have that bump on the back of your head from when you fell off the bed that night? The one that hurts sometimes?”

  “Yep,” William yawned. “Are we gonna be here for a while?”

  “Close your eyes honey,” Verna said, looking at me. “That bump, it’s always hurting him. The other kids complain about it too, but it goes away in time. It’s under his hairline, you’d never see it. You have to know it’s there.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Roxy whispered from the front seat, “Why does the military stand there and let those … ships … take those people?”

  Verna smiled with traces of anger. “Because the government can’t stop them. Believe me, they’ve tried. It hasn’t been pretty. The military has tried to communicate with them, but they’re not interested. It’s like pigs trying to negotiate with a butcher. They’ve always just dropped off the ones they’ve abducted. I don’t know why they’re taking them back.”

  I do, I thought. You don’t want to know.

  I understood then that Verna’s drinking wasn’t to momentarily escape the sadness of what she’d seen. It
was how she survived all those long years, watching the doctors and staff leave after working at the hospital for just a year or so—

  I quickly looked to her, remembering her own words: They say they can’t handle it or they’re too sick to work anymore. Won’t even get close to the kids.

  Those doctors found out, too late, what happens if they’re around the returned who have been activated. How not long after the patients scream in pain, their ears ringing and bleeding, the doctors themselves start dying.

  Only Verna remains unaffected, and she doesn’t even realize why. Even though she said she was mesmerized by the lights from the ships, she doesn’t even realize she’s one of us too—

  “Lynn Roseworth,” came a loud voice from a megaphone.

  William sat up whining, and I looked around in panic. The voice came from outside the shop.

  Joe ran from the garage window to the front of the building as the voice continued. “Lynn Roseworth, please come out. We know you are inside. Do not make us open fire. We do not want to harm you or your grandson. Come out, now.”

  Joe hurried back from where he peered out the small window facing the street. He slid into the front seat. “They’re sitting there at the intersection, looking all around. They must not know where we are other than downtown somewhere.”

  “Don’t doubt them. They will start shooting,” Verna said.

  “This is a mechanic shop, can we hide somewhere? Down in a pit or something?” Roxy asked.

  “Where’s the bathroom in this place?” Verna asked.

  “Are you kidding me?” Joe hissed.

  “Listen, I’ve drank enough tonight to put all of you under the table. When you’re this old, and you gotta go, you gotta go, or you go on the spot,” Verna said, sliding out. “I’ll find it myself.”

  “Joe, what about Roxy’s idea of the pit?” I asked.

  “We’re on top of it, and it’s covered. I’d have to move the truck and pull off the metal cover—”

  “Give me your coats,” Verna commanded from outside the truck. We looked to see her standing by the light switch, her finger prepared to flick it up.

  “Jesus, what is wrong with you?” Joe whispered.