The Long Dark by B.J. Farmer (reading women .TXT) 📕

“Dey would find someding do complain aboud. You can wery much bed on dad.”

“Family dinners must be a hoot.”

He sighed.  “Yes, a real hood, as you say.”

That punctuated another long round of silence. This time, a gunshot off in the distance beckoned another round of conversation.

“Even if id were an EMP dad knocked out de elecdronics, dad sdill does nod explain de Sniffers. Whad is de correladion?”

I grabbed my third bag of chips. I hated Fritos, but whoever we took them from must’ve fucking loved them because whoever it was had a box of them. “I guess that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? Maybe someone got sick of us being the biggest kid on the block. Maybe they wanted to knock us down a peg or two.”

“Or worse,” Aadesh said.

“Seems to me it’s like a one-two punch: cut our power and send out crazed things to kill us while we cower in the dark. It seems like a good way to kick our ass.”

“I was home in India during the derrible power oudage in 2012. I saw firsdhand whad happens when de power goes oud for exdended periods. Dalk aboud desdabilizadion.” He thought for a moment before finishing, “If an enemy wanded do do harm, he would durn off de power.”

“So, you think Avery is right, then?”

“Dad guy is smard. I bed he could pass circuid analysis.” I think he felt guilty for making a joke. He paused, shrugged, and then said, “I do. Id explains many dings. Id is wery scary as hell, bud I am nod sure how else you could explain de dings we are seeing.”

“Yeah, that cat is smart. William treats him like he’s about ten years old.”

“Do you dink all de people are gone?”

“Killed? Turned into sniffers? For all I know, maybe they’re hiding in their houses.” I thought back at the houses with the broken doors. “But not a lot.”

“Hopefully, id is only Barrow.”

I sighed. “Awful lot of trouble just to screw over two or three thousand people in a place no one cares about.”

“Jesus, Jack, you used to be so posidive.”

“Yeah,” I laughed, “not feeling very positive. I’m not going to lie about that.”

***

I was exhausted, but I could only manage to sleep for a couple hours. The fact that Aadesh gave Tom a run for his money in the snoring department didn’t help. Most of it was I just needed a drink, a snort, or just about anything that would’ve quenched my cravings. And I was in pain. My head and face ached and throbbed.

I gave a quick glance at my hands. They weren’t shaking yet, but they soon would be. There had to be something in that hotel that would help. I just needed to find it. I wasn’t going to be any help to Aadesh if I didn’t. That was my excuse, I suppose. It worked.

The worst part about being sober was being trapped with thoughts I couldn’t drown out. As much as I tried to make sense of things, I couldn’t. I barely wanted to, but the point is still I couldn’t. The EMP crap Avery talked about. The sniffers. What had happened back at the Patch. People were dying, and for what? Aadesh had killed people. I had seen people die. I had fought monsters and lived. I had killed at the very least a Sniffer or two. They were people before. So, were we murderers, or did it even matter? Did anything matter? Society can’t judge if it doesn’t exist. You had to be your own judge. I felt guilty.

I glanced over at Aadesh, still sleeping. I could not for the life of me understand how he could sleep. Things, I thought, were much easier for people who had never dealt with addiction. That, or maybe he was just more tired than I was. I doubted it.

I was never one who allowed for much introspection. I was a mover, and that’s what I did. I got up and moved around, albeit slowly and unsteadily. After all, the room was completely dark. Everything was dark, though. And that was the very reason I had to move. I had to stop thinking. I had to act. I had to get a fix.

Like a fulfilled prophecy, my hands began to shake. I really needed to find that drink. I wanted to feel bad about feeling that way, but it was what it was. It wasn’t like my vices were going to disappear because things went to shit. That things had gone to shit made my addiction worse. At that moment, at least, it sure seemed like it had.

I grabbed a working lantern we scavenged earlier and began my search. The third floor was devoid of anything to fuel my needs. I already knew that. While we were looking for food and other needed items, my eyes were peeled. Nothing. I should’ve waited for Aadesh to wake up before going, but addiction isn’t known for making people do the right things. With all the dudes who worked in the oil fields, booze or drugs should’ve been easy pickens.

I worked my way to the backside of the first floor of the hotel. Nothing. It was like the entire town had become puritan suddenly. It made me wonder if puritans drank. I bet they did. If I were one, I would’ve, I thought.

A blink of light shown through one of the windows. Hoping I was seeing things, I moved towards the window where I thought I saw the light. I didn’t see them at first because the snow had picked back up, but then one of them pointed the flashlight towards the hotel.

At least two people looked over the Sniffers Aadesh had killed. One of them, I guessed, was a woman, pulled something out of her pocket, and began speaking into it. After a few moments, she turned to the person next to her, appeared to say something, before both began sauntering towards the hotel, rifles at the