The Long Dark by B.J. Farmer (important books to read .TXT) 📗

stomach was bothering me. I had a seat at the table. I felt like I was going to throw up. Some of that was the amount of drugs I’d taken on a near-empty stomach, but some of it was the realization of what I was seeing. It all came together in vivid form what was happening: it was real.

My initial amusement was gone; it being replaced with contempt for the people who would hang stupid shit like that up in their houses. How many of these people were in our country, and how many of them were as deranged and brainwashed as Tish, I wondered. Up until that moment, I was either too busy trying to survive or too high to think about the bigger picture. Not that I was ever prone to that type of thinking, anyway. At that moment, though, everything seemed to come together. It was real as that big-ass tapestry hanging on the wall.

It also gave me more time to think about Aadesh and what a dick I had been to him. I thought about William and Sam, too. The thing was, though, I didn’t want to go Fairbanks or anywhere for that matter. If what Tish said was even close to being accurate, I knew it was a suicide mission. My mind wasn’t really being changed by the rush of anger and partial epiphany.

We were safe at the moment in Barrow, so it wasn’t altogether apparent why we should leave. What did we have to go for? Our friends? They were probably already dead. What if they were alive? What then? Try to make it to the lower forty-eight? There wasn’t an endgame I saw other than ending up at the barrel of a gun or some stinky-ass Sniffer beating the hell out of us.  I wasn’t having any delusions of grandeur sitting at that table, and I sure as hell didn’t have any grand designs on saving the world or some stupid shit like that.

Footsteps aroused me from my thoughts. “Fuck was that?”

Aadesh stood rigid, eyes large, and silent. He shook his head like he didn’t know. He did, though. We both did.

The creaks of feet on old boards could be heard from the living room. Slow footsteps. Calculating footsteps, even. And sniffing and grunting. Of course, we didn’t have anything between us to use to take it out. I looked for something to use as a weapon. On a small table opposite the wall of chubby leaders, there was a long, thin metal piece of what looked like smooth rebar. It would’ve given a hell of beating to someone. I hoped it would do more than that.

I picked it up. It had just enough rigidity that I hoped I could stab with it. I would soon find out, as the footsteps were now in the hallway.  “Stay in here,” I whispered. “Grab something heavy just in case.” I wasn’t feeling like a hero at all. The fear in Aadesh’s eyes let me know I had to man up on this one.

I stepped out into the hall just in time to see the woman. Her skin looked shiny as my light reflected off it. Her eyes met mine. They were large and black as coal. I hesitated just long enough that she rushed me. She closed the last several steps fast. I mean fast. I barely got the metal switch up in time, as I aimed for the only part of her anatomy that I thought I could damage with it. A sick sucking sound could be heard as I buried the metal bar into her throat. Blood flowed down the piece of steel and onto my hands. Something about how the blood felt and the implications of that blood and what I had done made me come to tears as the woman took two more steps towards me before falling to the floor.

I cried a long cry, tears streaming down my face as I looked at her dead body on the floor. Aadesh put a hand on my shoulder before walking towards the kitchen. I continued standing there locked into that pose, looking at her, until Aadesh told me that he had found the key.

He felt something shaking beside me. It was Aadesh. “Dis is all doo much, Jack. I am nod knowing if I can do dis.” He paused for several minutes before speaking again. “And I am sorry dad I condinued gedding you dose drugs. I enabled you wery much. I am sorry for dad.”

I wiped the tears still streaming from my eyes. “You didn’t make me a drug addict. I did that all on my own, many years ago.”

“I am hoping Fairbanks is bedder.”

In that moment, and I understood what an about-face it was to change my mind like I had in just those few seconds, I knew I had to go. Some of it was I felt like I needed to help Aadesh, but again some of it was me taking care of me. Barrow wasn’t safe. The woman I had just killed was proof of that. I could not expect, then, that Miley’s would be safe, either. Not all the Sniffers had ended up in that pit. All it would take is me passing out one time, and one of them finding me, for things to end very badly. Fairbanks was probably fucked, but then everything seemed fucked. Aadesh could at least be there to watch my back if I went with him.

“Hope so,” I finally said.

Chapter 8

Listening to Duane talk about God, as Quill and Avery sat raptured next to him, left me unimpressed. I was unaffiliated before the Order showed up, and they're sure as shit wasn’t anything afterward that would change my mind.

Duane, Avery, and Quill had been having daily discussions on the topic since the day after we had gotten there. I spent my time reading outdoor magazines or staring blankly into space, which was undoubtedly a better alternative to listening to