Black Sun by Clifford Beck - HTML preview

Chapter 10

Circling around the house, they found the back door. It was of modern design and constructed of aluminum, painted off-white. Surrounded it, was a white resin siding, matching the style of both the door and the house. Making a cautious approach, Ryan grasped the door latch and, pulling slightly, felt it open without the least degree of resistance. Now, the only barrier that stood between them and the resources they needed was a heavy oak door. Caution was replaced by fear as Ryan grasped the cold doorknob, and with a slight turn, found it to be unlocked. Not knowing what might be on the other side, his fear mounted as his alerted peaked, and giving the door a bit of firm pressure, he slowly pushed it open. Now, with his eyes peering through a small space between the door and its frame, Ryan stared through the darkness, searching the adjacent kitchen and the dining room beyond. But, the cold darkness of the house would not easily lend itself to Ryan’s inquiring eyes, and without a light to guide them, they would be forced to take their chances and step into the houses’ unwelcoming shadows.

Stepping inside, Ryan noticed the smell of new construction, and placing a foot on the linoleum floor, was slightly shaken by the roaring silence, produced by the absence of the slightest creek. Turning back, he motioned for Abigail to follow, taking her hand as she stepped through the open doorway. Ryan slowly pushed the door closed; leaving a few inches of space in the event a hasty escape was needed. Both could hear their hearts pounding in their ears as adrenaline coursed through their blood. The houses’ oppressive silence screamed into their heads as Ryan felt Abigail’s grip tighten around his hand. Drawing close to Ryan’s ear, Abigail whispered her anxiety.

“What are we doing here?” she said.

Ryan continued to scan the darkness. But the lighter, having given up its flame, left both of them blind as to what direction they might go first.

“You want to go back out in the cold?” he replied. “We need something warm.”

Abigail’s fear broke just long enough for her to be reminded of what still waited outside, and although the house was less than tepid, the surrounding night could prove fatal without warm attire. “Yeah,” she said. “I guess you’re right. So, what now?” Carefully walking toward the doorway to the dining room, they stopped just before entering where Ryan looked past the large table, with its finished pine chairs neatly placed around it. “C’mon,” he began. “We’re gonna have to feel our way around.” With Abigail still clutching his hand, Ryan led her towards the wall and together, they slowly made their way to the living room. In Ryan’s mind, it made sense that the stairs to the second floor would be accessible from the living room. With a hand out towards the wall, he felt the door frame that stood at the entrance to the stairs. Standing in front of the stairway’s dark abyss, he directed Abigail to follow close behind, but without a way to guide their steps, Ryan’s foot found its way beneath the edge of the second step. His face quickly found one a few steps above it. “Fuck!” he said.

In spite of his clumsiness, and the pain inflicted by the carpeted stairs, Ryan managed to keep his voice at a whisper.

In spite of his embarrassment, he got to his feet, and with a hand against the wall, braced himself as he shook his senses back to life. Normally, Abigail would have found some humor in Ryan’s lack of coordination, but her shattered nerves only increased her fear that he may have sustained a potentially serious injury. “Jesus, are you alright?” she asked.

Releasing his hand, she felt her way under his arm and put a hand on his chest.

“Yeah,” he replied. “I’m fine. I think we’re going to have to crawl up. I don’t feel like doing another face-plant.” Abigail agreed, and getting down on their hands and knees, they resumed their way to the second floor, where they hoped to find the items that would allow them to continue on to Albany, without becoming victims of the elements.

They rounded the corner, halfway up the stairs and soon, found themselves on the second floor. Finding their way down a long hallway, Ryan’s eyes became a bit more accustomed to the night, and began to see the outlines of doorways and the floor beneath his feet. Abigail, however, was still unable to see and clung to Ryan as though she might be stolen away by an unseen hand. The carpeted floor hid the sounds of their steps, magnifying the overwhelming silence that still gripped the house. But as Ryan and Abigail slowly made their way toward the end of the hallway, they encountered an open door on the right, and feeling a hand around the door-frame, they discovered a large bedroom. The smell of recent construction still permeated the air, but as felt their way through the room, a closet was soon discovered.

“Ryan,” Abigail whispered. “Over here.” Following her voice, Ryan arrived at her side as she found the edge of the closet door, and wrapping her fingertips around its edge, discovered that it slid open easily.

“I hope there’s something in here we can use,” she continued. Stepping into the closet, they felt around the walls and on the shelf, over their heads. But to their disappointment, the closet was empty. At that point, Ryan suddenly realized what he had been missing about the house. The smell and the sound of its emptiness had shaken loose the awareness that the house had been recently built, and was awaiting its first residents. Now, it stood amongst a small cluster of cookie-cutter homes, around a cul-de-sac, on a road without a name, a place that could easily be called nowhere.

No longer feeling the need to whisper, Ryan beat a fist against the back of the closet.

“Fuck!” he said. “What the fuck do we do now? There’s nothing here! Not a fucking thing!”

Turning away from the closet, Abigail found the edge of the bed and, sitting down, discovered a heavy quilt and, lifting it up over the corner; put her hand on the cool surface of a cotton sheet. “Ryan,” she said. “Come over here.” Again, he followed her voice, but stepping too quickly, his shin discovered the edge of the bed-frame and buckling at the waist, toppled forward, and onto Abigail. For a brief moment, they found themselves tangled in each other's arms, the heat of their bodies peaking as they lay on the bed, in the cold darkness. Ryan’s hands lay flat on the bed, near Abigail's shoulders, while her arms had wandered around his back.

“So,” Ryan began. “I guess you found the bed.” He was more than a bit embarrassed at finding himself on top of her and began a stammered apology.

“It’s okay,” Abigail interrupted. “It’s really dark in here.” Feeling his face flush, Ryan pushed himself away and rolled off to one side. But for a moment, he felt Abigail’s arms cling to his body, refusing to release him. As he moved, he was struck by the feeling of her body against him. The emotions of his recent divorce still gripped him, preventing him from any intimate involvements, and so far, as they had been traveling in the dark, he had not yet clearly seen her face. But, it was in her voice that Ryan had begun to see her beauty, and having mistakenly fallen on her also noticed the firmness of her body and the protruding of her breasts. “Uh...sorry,” he said.

He was as nervous as he was apologetic, but Abigail assured him that there was nothing to worry about. “Actually,” she said. “You’re really warm...so, it’s okay.”

The cold had crept in through the walls, embracing both Ryan and Abigail with a sudden chill. The night was wearing on, and without the warm garments they sought, the night promised to be that much colder. But Abigail, being absent of the tension felt by Ryan, made a suggestion that she hoped he would be open to. “What if we just stayed here? Just for the night.” Ryan thought long and hard about what she was proposing. Even though some part of him was in great need of human physical contact, the other was still fixated on the need to heal from the wounds left behind by a less than civilized divorce. “Well,” he began.

His response was filled with tension and did not go unnoticed by Abigail’s caring concern.

“I suppose we don’t have a choice,” he replied. “I mean, I really don’t feel like going back out there and freezing my ass off. And we can take separate rooms if you want.” But that was not what Abigail was thinking. They had both been consumed by the cold, and she knew that if they were to stay warm, they would have to do so together. “Um...actually,” she began. “I was thinking we could share a bed. It’s the only way we can stay warm. You know, sharing body heat.” In spite of his hesitation, Ryan knew she was right, and although there were other bedrooms in the house, the sheets, and blankets that covered their beds were sparse. The best they could do was to gather them up and curl up beneath them for the night. “Yeah,” Ryan replied. “I guess that’s a good idea.” Sensing his tension, Abigail put a hand on his shoulder and tried to convince him that it was not her intention that they become intimate, but only to survive the night.

With her hand still on Ryan’s shoulder, she felt his muscles suddenly relax as his nervousness lifted, but her concern was still present, as they had not yet turned in for the night. It was at that point that she would take advantage of a suggestion he had made. However, it would mean that they would, again, be forced to find their way through the darkness of the house's cold stillness. “So,” Ryan began. “I guess we should find the other bedrooms, huh?”

They both stood together and as Abigail took his hand, she noticed a nervous trembling in his grip. She had not yet clearly seen his face, but it was not necessary to see his expression when his sweaty hand spoke for his continued tension. “We’ll go across the hallway first,” he said. Ryan carefully led Abigail towards the darkened doorway, and feeling his way through the cold air, reached the open door of another bedroom.

“I think this is it,” he said.

Abigail was quick to point the obvious, that it made sense for all the bedrooms to be on the second floor. “Maybe we should look in the rest of the rooms,” she said. “Get as many blankets as we can.”

Still wandering through the dark, Ryan agreed, but the cold was quickly creeping into him, soaking its way into his bones. “We’ll check one more after this,” he said. “Because, I’m freezing my ass off.”

Now, with his hands out in front of him, Ryan searched for the bed. Previous experience had taught him to move slowly, and reach down for the edge. It wasn’t long before his hands found the edge of the bed, and like the last, it was covered with a bedspread. Without bothering to fold it, Ryan pulled it from the mattress beneath, and finding his way back into the hallway, returned to the previous room and tossed it on the bed. “Aren’t we going to put it out over the bed?” Abigail asked. In her normal life, she was a stickler for cleanliness and order, but now she was forced into seeing the need for efficiency first, and order second.

“We can do that when we come back from the next bedroom,” Ryan replied.

“Okay,” Abigail said.

The cold was also wearing on her, and like Ryan, she felt hurried to curl up beneath the sparse covers they were collecting, with her body lying close to Ryan.

By this time, Ryan knew exactly where the door was, and having moved through the hallway by feel, had mapped it out in his mind. With Abigail by the hand, it took only seconds for him to find the next bedroom, and like the other two, the bedroom was also covered with a quilted spread. Stopping just short of running his shins into the bed-frame, Ryan reached down, and again, pulled the spread from the bed. Now, they had what they needed for a night’s escape from the cold. However, the one thing they could not escape from was each other and throwing the spreads over the bed, they flattened them out and were surprised to find how thick the layers added up. Driven by the cold, neither hesitated to crawl beneath the covers, and fully clothed, lay face-to-face as Abigail tucked her arms into her chest, while Ryan put an arm under her neck. But, still desperate for warmth, Abigail quickly wrapped her arms around him and pulled his body in. Her shivering body soon felt the heat glowing from Ryan’s body, as his muscles calmed and relaxed, and feeling her chills subside, Ryan too, felt the warmth of her body seep into him. But for him, there was something more, something he had not experienced for far too long. The warmth of a woman’s body pressed against his own had become nearly foreign to him, and somehow, he had forgotten what it felt like.

As Abigail began to drift off, Ryan found himself at a loss of what to do with his hands. He had become aroused by the shape of Abigail’s well-sculpted body, pressing against his own, but in an attempt to be gentlemanly, debated on how he would avoid doing anything that might offend her. Yet, falling on top of her didn’t seem to shake her dignity, and by the sound of her voice, she did not seem to be put off. So, carefully, Ryan slid up in bed and putting his arms around her, pulled her in, prompting her to ease her face into his chest as her arms tightened their grip. He felt her body rise and sink with the slow rhythm of her breathing, but just before falling off into an exhausted sleep, Abigail looked up into his eyes and quietly offered her drowsy appreciation. “Hey,” she began. “Thanks.”

Ryan’s mind was quickly drifting off, and, looking down at her, inquired about her gratitude. Up until this point, he had been thinking more of her safety than his own, and regardless of what might happen in the future, his consideration for her would never change.

“You know,” she replied. “Just for being here.”