The Garden of Darkness

“You should see her at PTA meetings.” Will’s mother was picking the lettuce out of her sandwich.

Will hesitated; he didn’t want to interrupt his parents, but they didn’t seem to notice that Jean was falling asleep in her chair.

“I need some help,” he said finally. “Because Jean needs to go to bed, and I can’t lift her over the crib.”

“I’ll get her,” said his father.

His mother gave Will a peculiar look.

“If something happens—” she started.

“I’ll take care of Jean,” said Will, not wanting to hear the rest of what she was going to say.





AS WILL WENT to sleep that night—late, later than his parents, late enough that the moon had set—he thought about the Pest Wall. It was supposed to keep them safe. Walls kept things out. But his nine-year-old brain moved on a different plane than that of his parents: he knew about monsters under the bed; he knew about creatures with long fingers that lurked in the closet. He knew that there was no point in building a wall if the Thing were already inside. He knew, as he drifted into sleep, that it was already too late.





JEAN DIED LAST. Will had heard that most young children died directly of Pest, that very few were delayed onset. He held her and tried to feed her smashed peaches, but she wouldn’t eat. Her face was no longer soft and round, but had been twisted by the torc of Pest into the face of a stranger. She died in his arms. He buried her in the back yard, next to the grave of Rosie, their dog. He scraped his hand on the handle of the shovel as he broke into the hard dirt, and for the first time in his life, he used a swear word.

His parents were too big and heavy to bury.

Now an orphan, Will wandered from house to house, eating what he could find, avoiding the places where the smell was too bad. Lovell was a ghost town. He was afraid almost all of the time—of the dead, of the black crows that seemed to be everywhere. He feared the silence of the night, and he feared the strange noises he occasionally heard. The scrape on his hand began to throb, and he felt it keeping time with his heart.

Eight days later, as he lay dying, feverish, his hand three times its normal size, he thought that Jean was snuggled in his arms, and that she wanted her smashed peaches. Her face was normal again, and he reached out to stroke it.





Hannah





THEY TOOK HER to the hospital when she first showed signs of Pest. There were about twenty other people in the waiting room. She couldn’t tell what was wrong with most of them, but one man in a white T-shirt had blackened blood down his front, and a woman wearing pink glitter eye shadow held her arm at a strange angle. The nurse hurried Hannah deeper into the hospital right away when she saw the lesions on her face.

“You’re lucky,” said the doctor. “We just got the Cure in today. I’ve already treated over thirty people. I don’t think we’re going to have enough patches, but folks can always go to the city.”

Once home, her parents tucked Hannah into bed. She rubbed the patch behind her ear thoughtfully.

“I think I feel better,” she said.

“Don’t touch the patch,” said her mother. “Leave it alone.”

Time passed, and the great dying began. Apparently, the Cure didn’t work for most people. Hannah’s parents went to the hospital for their own patches, but even with the patches, her father died two days after he first spiked a fever. Her mother had seemed all right, and then, a week after the death of Hannah’s father, she came down to breakfast flushed and feverish. She insisted on cooking something for Hannah.

Hannah watched television and saw the stations turn to snow, one by one.

As she did, Hannah heard something fall in the kitchen. It might have been a pot or a pan, but the sound was really too soft and low for that.

Her attention was arrested by the television. One station was left, and it showed a man who claimed to have a different kind of cure. He was inviting children to go and see him.

Her mother hadn’t made a noise since Hannah had heard the sound in the kitchen.

Maybe Hannah would go and get the new cure. This one was making her feel strange.

Later, she went into the kitchen.

Her mother was on the floor and didn’t get up, and Hannah’s world became even more crooked. Time passed. She couldn’t remember things. Once Hannah woke up enough to look down at the food she was holding in her hands. Meat. Meat was good, but this was raw. Provenance unknown. She liked that word—provenance. It had been the hardest word on the last spelling test. But she didn’t think there would ever be any more spelling tests.

One day she realized what it was she was feeling. It was a sensation of sinking back into herself, although what she found there was odd. She had not known herself, it seemed, at all. Now, pain was like an armchair. Hate, like a comfortable pillow.

Hannah was Cured.





Dante