“Too bad,” Astrid said.
That brought silence. She could hear Cigar breathing, so she knew he was still there. She didn’t know whether he was still looking at Petey. Or something that was supposed to be Petey.
“He was in my head,” Cigar whispered. “I felt him. He went inside me. But he left.”
“Are you saying he took you over?”
“I let him,” Cigar said. “I wanted him to make me be like I used to be. But he couldn’t.”
“Where is he now?”
“He’s gone now,” Cigar said sadly.
Astrid sighed. “Yeah. Just like a god, never there when you need one.”
She listened hard. And smelled the air. She had an impression, barely an impression, that she could tell in which direction the ocean lay.
But she also knew that the land between where she was and the ocean was largely fertile fields seething with zekes. Zekes that had probably not been fed in some time.
There were fields between her and the highway, but once she got to the highway she would be able to follow it toward town. Even in the dark she could stay on a concrete highway.
Sam wanted to follow the road from the lake down to the highway, because that was where Astrid would be. Most likely. Despite none of the refugees having seen her on their way from Perdido Beach to the lake.
But finding Astrid was not the right move. Not yet. She would slow him down, even if he found her. And she wasn’t a soldier. She wasn’t Dekka or Brianna or even Orc. They could help him win a fight; Astrid could not.
But oh, Lord, how he wanted her now. Not to make love but just to have her there in the darkness beside him. To hear her voice. That above all. The sound of her voice was the sound of sanity, and he was entering the valley of shadow. Walking into pure, absolute darkness.
He walked until he was out of the faint circle of light cast by the numerous Sammy suns of the lake. Then he hung a new light, taking solace from the sphere as it grew in his hands.
But the light reached only a few feet. Turning back as he walked on, he could see it. But it cast only a faint light, a light whose photons seemed to tire easily.
Into the darkness. Step. Step.
Something was squeezing his heart.
His teeth would fragment if he bit down any harder.
“It’s just the same as it was,” he told himself. “Same but darker.”
Nothing changes when the light goes out, Sam. His mother had said that a thousand times. See? Click. Light on. Click. Light off. The same bed, the same dresser, the same laundry you’ve strewn all over the floor…
Not the point, that younger Sam had thought. The threat knows I’m helpless in the dark. So that’s not the same.
It’s not the same if the threat can see and I can’t.
It’s not the same if the threat knows it doesn’t have to hide, but can make its move.
Useless to pretend the darkness isn’t any different.
It’s different.
Did something bad happen to you in the dark, Sam? They always wanted to know. Because they assumed all fear must come from a thing or a place. An event. Cause and effect. Like fear was part of an algebra equation.
No, no, no, so not getting the point of fear. Because fear wasn’t about what made sense. Fear was about possibilities. Not things that happened. Things that might.
Things that might… Threats that might be there. Murderers. Madmen. Monsters. Standing just a few inches from him, able to see him, but his eyes useless. The threats, they could laugh silently at him. They could hold their knives, guns, claws right in his face and he wouldn’t be able to see.
The threat could be. Right. Here.
His legs already ached from tension. He glanced back at the lake. He had been climbing and it was below him now, a sad collection of stars like a dim, distant galaxy. So very far away.
He couldn’t look back for long because the possibilities were all around him now.
The light of day showed you the limits of possibility. But walk through the dark, the absolute, total darkness, and the possibilities were limitless.
He hung a Sammy sun. He didn’t want to leave it behind. It was light that revealed stones. A stick. A dried-out bush.
It was almost better not to bother. Seeing anything just made the darkness seem darker. But the lights were also a sort of bread-crumb trail, like Hansel and Gretel. He would be able to find his way home.
Hopefully as well, he’d be able to see whether he was veering left or right.
But the lights had one other effect: they would be seen by whatever else was out here.
In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king. But in the darkness the one man holding a candle is a target.
Sam walked on into the dark.
Quinn had brought everyone into the plaza with grilled fish. The fire still burned, but lower and lower.
Lana had healed all who needed it.
For now there was quiet.
Kids had broken into Albert’s place and come back with some of his hoard of flashlights and batteries. Quinn had quickly confiscated them. They were worth far more than gold, far more even than food.
Some of Quinn’s crew were using the light of a single flashlight and a number of crowbars to tear apart the pews in the church and bring them out to keep the fire going.
No one was leaving. Not yet.
The orange-red glow cast a faint, flickering wash of color on the limestone of town hall, on the long-abandoned McDonald’s, on the broken fountain. On grim young faces.
But the streets leading away simply disappeared. The rest of the town was invisible. The ocean, occasionally faintly audible over the sound of snapping wood and muted conversation, might as well be a myth.