Sundown

Bleached white by the sun, an old church's broken bones stand sentinel by the roadside. Throwing out long, grasping shadows. Thin dark fingers that reach across the cracked asphalt, stretching longer as day slowly dies.

Branwen had wandered over when we first stopped, calling back to us that fresh-turned earth marked un-weathered headstones in the small cemetery. Whatever had happened to the old place, clearly the ground was still hallowed enough to bury the town's dead. Meaning that there was still a town.

"You think they're going to have a phone," Dallan grunts as we heft the shredded tire into the trunk.

"Don't see why not," I answer, "no reception isn't that rare."

"Maybe not thirty years ago."

"Dude, we're in the ass end of nowhere. Probably isn't a tower out here. Boden will have something, even if it's rotary. Odds are they'll have a mechanic too, so quit bitching and get in the car. Branwen! Come on, we're rolling."

Grabbing Rianí on her way, Branwen piles into the backseat gushing about the photos she was able to get. Perfect lighting, ruined church and fresh graves, shadows. I barely listen, instead staring at the subject of her art as we roll past.

Behind the ruined tower and nave's exposed ribs spread a dense, towering forest creeping slowly up distant mountain skirts. Thick stains against the grey skin of the mountain. Old, gangrenous scars cast in shadow as the sun creeps lower, and the shadows of the ruin stretch long.

My eyes remain locked on the shadows as we pick up speed. Thick, black shadows.

"I hope it'll be a mechanic," I say, "this place is fucking creepy."

"Amen," Dallan says, spurring a few more horsepower out of the old car.

-0-

Posts bleached and writing faded by time, a sign stands vigil for more mounds of fresh-turned earth. "Boden. Population 3,000. A welcoming place."

"Let's stop," Branwen's voice is eager. Looking back at her, I can see the almost desperate gleam in her eyes. "It's perfect!"

"I'm not stopping until the mechanic," Dallan's voice is tight, gaze constantly flicking from the dashboard to the empty road and back. Branwen knows better than to argue. No doubt, soon as the Clunker is ready, she'll be pestering to come back. Unmarked or not, those things look like graves, and I can already imagine the picture she'll take.

We ride in near silence. Maybe the others are too tired for much talk, Rianí's been keeping herself to herself all day. Something like anxiety flows off her in waves, drowning early attempts at conversation. She just stares out the window, expression distant.

Content to let the silence fester as the shadows grow and the day dies.

Taking her lead, I turn my attention away from my friends and try to un-focus. Try not to see fingers in the splashes of darkness that creep across broken asphalt. Try not to listen to the engine as it struggles even at barely more than fifty km/hr. Try not to stare into the gathering darkness beneath the ancient trees.

Seconds crawl by, each one carefully measured by Dallan's wristwatch. A metronome keeping time with the staccato percussion of wheels rolling over cracks and wind whistling through half-open windows.

Before the first roofs appear, broken things made of half-burned popsicle sticks, Dallan tells us that we should have enough gas. He emphasizes the 'should' more than I like, but Branwen beats me to the obvious question.

"Should have enough? For what?"

"To get out of here," he says stiffly, eyes now fully locked on the road and mouth a grim slash. "Maybe they don't have a working pump. Fuck, maybe they use horses. Maybe... maybe there's..."

"We're going to be fine," I start, but Branwen gently kicks the back of my seat.

"Seems to me like we're lucky to even find this place," she says softly, leaning forward to speak directly into my ear. "That map looked like it was from back when highways were new ideas. Just up on the wall of a run-down shack."

"Did you guys see that," Rianí asks before I can respond.

"Going to need some specificity," I say, craning around to look. "Just shadows and trees really."

"Shadows and trees," her words are barely above a whisper. "Medows blanketed in fallen leaves. I saw something moving. Back from the road."

On the east side of the car, her view was brighter than mine. The darkness a softer, twilight grey as the sun continued to fall. Whatever she saw, we had long since rolled past, and she doesn't continue. Just sits and stares as though she never moved. As though she was one of the motionless trees.

"You guys see that, though," Dallan points ahead and Branwen and I lean forward to see the dead houses. "Still feel hopeful about finding help?"

More mounds of earth, these ones older, dot the wide lawns of Boden's outlying houses, throwing little shadows of their own towards us. Clearly something had happened. Unless the town was the front line in new age landscaping, a lot of people had died very recently.

Little sprigs of grass dust these older graves. A threadbare blanket to cover whatever tragedy the dirt is hiding. So many graves.

"Thinking we don't stay the night," I say, turning to stare at the graves as we drive past. "Whatever the price, we pay it and get the fuck out. Branwen, you still have that hand sanitizer?"

"Never leave home without it."

"Alright, in case it's," more graves in front of more houses. Packed more closely together. Old and new mounds mixing together. So many. "In case it's something airborne, we wear masks and touch as little as possible. Deal?"

General assent, except from Rianí who whispers as though speaking to herself, "Ground to meal, touched by steel. Little graves unmarked as time with grasses paves-"

I took that as agreement and let the matter drop. She and I were never very close. There was a flowerchild-like way that she drifted through the world. I just want to get out of here and back on the proper road. I just want her to stop saying odd shit. Boden, as we roll into the town proper, is creepy enough without it.

Rather than listen to my silent prayer, instead she continues still almost too soft to hear, "- the places where we rest. World unmarked though we try our best, with tiny voices we make our waves."

-0-

Clunker rumbles down Boden's main street and pulls to a stop beside an old fuel pump. Getting out of the car, I don't see anything moving. Flags and bunting hang limp in the still, heavy air. Leaves litter the ground, tiny undisturbed splashes of green against.

'Alone.' The word rattles around in my head like dice in a cup. A whole town populated by graves.

Shadows creep towards me. Deep, black shadows. Holes in the world left behind by the setting sun. My skin crawls and I turn my back on them, ignoring the sudden tenseness in my shoulders and shudder traveling up my spine. They're only shadows.

"Looks like the pumps still work," says Dallan, fitting the nozzle and setting the auto flow. "Rianí, you go inside and see if there's a way to pay for it. If you see anyone... well, try and find some tires. We're not getting far on the spare."

Drifting away, Rianí still speaks softly to herself, but I'm not listening. Branwen wandered off, already snapping more pictures. Leaving me standing alone beside Clunker, ardently not staring at the stretching shadows. Ardently not thinking about them.

Dallan is watching the pump, hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. I go to stand beside him and stare at the numbers as tick steadily up. Neither of us says anything for a long moment.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

"We need to get out of here," I say. And he doesn't respond. Just keeps staring at the numbers as they tick up.

"How far do you think we'll be able to get on the spare?"

"Not to the next town," Dallan sighs. "Should have asked Rianí to find a map. I don't know what's gotten into her today, but I don't think she'll think of it. Would you mind?"

I don't so much agree as grunt and shamble off towards the small building. Keeping to the edge of the shadows as they keep getting longer. My eyes linger on them, though. I can't stop looking, trying to see something that nags at me. Sharp teeth of thought that I can't put into words enough for me to understand let lone anyone else.

There is something wrong with those shadows.

Before I get to the door, Rianí steps out and hands me a cold drink. Despite the slowly emerging night, the heat of the day still lingers in an echo of itself, shimmering up from the abused concrete and faded asphalt.

"Find any maps?" I ask, cracking the lid on the sports drink. "Dallan wants them."

"None for around here."

"Others?"

"Others wait for other hands going other ways. They're not for us. Not yet."

"Whatever," I shoulder past her, but she doesn't seem to notice. Just continues walking.

It's much darker in the little building and I take off my sunglasses. Looking at them in my hand, I smile wanly. Tilting them. Stupid things, this whole time and I barely even noticed they were on. Must be the reason the shadows are so off. Darker than dark behind the polarized lenses.

Beside the door a little tourist standee holds dozens of maps and pamphlets in a dozen languages. Most have a thick layer of dust on them, but a few Rianí had clearly run her finger across so she could read them. All of the maps.

Picking one up, I unfold and unfold and unfold it, laying the massive paper across the checkout counter. Been a while since I had to use one of these, but my dad and trained me when I was a kid, so I quickly find key landmarks. Boden isn't on it.

Outside, the sun is still setting, making that the west. So, orienting the map north, I look again. Boden is not on the map.

I find a few other places we'd been and trace our routes based on where we'd ended up. And Boden is not on the map.

Three thousand. The town is tiny, but hardly not worth being on a map. There weren't enough towns in this are for any to be neglected. I try another map. And another. And another.

Boden is not on the map.

Frustrated, I take the first map - the most complete one - outside and stretch it across the hood of Clunker. Dallan finishes up and replaces our gas cap before coming to look over my shoulder.

"Got this out of my stuff when you went in," he says, placing an old compass on the hood. "Though it might be useful."

"There," I mutter, idly checking the compass and reorienting the map. "There to there. Then here to here. And then..."

"What?"

"Boden isn't on this map."

He doesn't say a word. Instead, he wrenches open the car door and shouts loud enough to wake the dead that we're leaving. Branwen comes scrambling back, Rianí, who I hadn't noticed being absent, dogging her heels.

"What about paying," I ask as Dallan mutters encouragingly to Clunker, coaxing the engine. "What about the tire? What the Hell is the problem?"

"I've seen too many movies, man," he says as the engine sputters to life. It sounds awful. "Point is we're not staying h-" the engine dies. Dallan starts swearing and climbs out of Clunker to check under its hood.

"What's wrong with it," Branwen sounds nervous. Entirely reasonable, the town is creepy and now Clunker isn't working.

"Gone to bed with the sun," says Rianí, "until the night is done. Then to awake and us away to take."

"What the fuck is your problem," I rage, emotion bursting out, and slam my hands on the dashboard. "Talk normal!"

"Shadows across Terra's face, hiding us from solar grace."

Shadows.

I lurch out of the car and stand beside Dallan, breathing heavily. My sunglasses sit atop my head, where I'd put them while going through the maos. And I was right about them changing my perspective of the shadows. Without them, there's almost a sheen to the things.

Nothing shows within the shadows. No hint of road or leaves or curb. Even the faces of the buildings just across the street are lost oily darkness. Darkness that I swear I can see moving. Darkness that stretches towards us, angle wrong for where the sun sits.

"Dallan, we have to go," I say, eyes locked on the shadows as they creep towards us.

"What you want to find some bikes? Clunker here isn't going fucking anywhere, man. Looks like... I don't fucking know. The sparkplugs maybe? Get Rianí. She knows more about this thing than I do."

From behind me, standing right next to him, Rianí's voice. "The man behind the counter told me-"

I whirl and point a shaking finger at her. "There was no one in there! There was nothing. Dust on the floor, two sets of prints, mine and yours. I saw it! There was no one there!"

"Not that you could see. He wasn't hidden away from me."

"And what did he say?"

"'Sorry.'"

Branwen's camera shutter clicked. I hadn't seen her get out of the car. But she must have moved around to get a shot of us clustered around Clunker's exposed guts. Then she took the photo. Then she screamed.

We all spin, seeing her staring just over our shoulder. One hand across her mouth, the other empty, and her digital camera in pieces at her feet.

"Jesus, Bran! What the hell?"

"Get away!" She says backing up, trembling. “There’s… I can’t… get away from him!”

I listen. Without thought, I obey. And now I’m standing next to her, shoulder to shoulder in the waning sunlight, looking back at the other two. The shadows still stretch towards them, not quite touching them. Not yet.

“Branwen,” I say, forcing my heart back down into my chest, thinking about Rianí's phantom in the gas station. “Who did you see? There’s no one there.”

“No. He was… he was,” she looks down at the broken camera. “In the picture.”

“Broken pieces,” says Rianí walking closer and crouching over the camera. “A machine which truth releases.” She looks up at us and smiles. “A lie once told never ceases. Don’t touch the shadows, deadly as a convict’s gallows.”

I edge back towards Clunker. “Dallan,” I say, “don’t touch the shadows. There’s… something isn’t right about this place.”

“Sacred soil, blood and oil. Restless rest and endless toil.”

“I don’t know what she’s saying but, really get over here. Into the light.”

Dallan meets my eyes, and I can see that he’s scared. Maybe more scared than I am. His whole body is tense, like the deer I used to watch in the woods outside my parents’ house. Ready to bolt.

“Rianí,” his voice is calm when he speaks. Too calm. Artificial. “You were saying something about the man behind the counter. You said he said he was sorry. What was he sorry about?”

“For not digging us our own graves. For going his own way before deciding who he saves. For leaving us alone to withstand the waves.”

“Jesus Fuck, Rianí! You’re not making any sense!”

“Behind you stands a man with heart of coal. With paths to tread for which blood is the only toll. Do not touch the shadows. Deadly as a hangman’s gallows.”

“What’s wrong with Clunker,” there’s a desperation to his voice now. A raw and ragged edge. He’s smiling, after a fashion. Teeth showing, clenched, tendons standing out in his neck.

"Gone to bed with the sun," says Rianí, "until the night is done. Then to awake and us away to take. Shadows wait in darkest corners, Earth’s answer to graves with no mourners.”

“Can you fix it?” He’s pleading with her now. I don’t know their history, I don’t know why he brought her on this trip or why he’s taking her seriously now. Up until today I had no issues with her, unique people are everywhere and she was harmless enough, but looking at him, I can see how much he cares about what she says now.

And she says nothing. Only shakes her head.

Dallan opens his mouth - a tendril of shadow reached for him and Rianí lurches forward. Grabbing his arm she pulls him forward and we all backpedal away from the shadows.

“What do we do,” I ask, heart sinking.

“Not all shadows are alike,” she answers, looking left and right before pointing. “From the deepest ones he will strike.”

In that shadow, the one at which she points, I almost see something. A tall figure, broad in the shoulder and thick at the waist. In one hand I see something long and thin. But only for a moment. In a literal eye-blink, the figure is gone. Leaving behind only the thick, oily blackness.

All the shadows look the same to me. I turn slowly on the spot, watching as they bleed across the cracked asphalt. Watching as they climb over Clunker and march steadily towards us.

Closing in.

Invisible knives glinting blackly as the sun finally sinks out of sight and the shadows grow ever longer.

”Follow me,” hisses Rianí, taking off in a dead sprint.

You of options, the rest of us follow.

Distantly, high in the tower of a broken church surrounded by fresh graves, a lonely bell begins its mournful song.