The Light Inside the Darkness
                  

There was a darkness at noon and  wintery  winds 
were howling.  Summer leaves fell from the trees and no 
night bird sang.  From horizon to horizon hung a great black 
blanket obscuring sun and moon and stars.  There was only 
a single undifferentiated night.  But there was another light.
By fire light the face of the one I loved had jet black 
hair and cinnamon skin.  Here in the dark, by the other light, 
her cheeks and button nose were crimson, yielding to yellow 
around the face and cooling to cobalt blue about the hair. All 
the colors of light were present inside the night though they 
painted a different portrait.  But there was a greater light.  It 
was this daughter of the morning star who was the light 
inside the darkness. 
We stood together on a hill overlooking the great city.  
It was a place for the dead and dying. Fires in the streets 
shone like searchlight to our eyes. The cries of lost souls 
like waves upon the sand touched our ears.  There were still 
people here we could save.  In the midst of this despair I felt 
a great joy.  We had arrived in time.  My wife understood 
how I felt.  Wife? Perhaps I should say spouse.  It is a 
different world now.
I watched the winds whip the hair about my lovers 
face.  She had come to his place as an angel of mercy, or 
perhaps as a messiah, even though she could not save 
these people from their sins.  Salvage, not salvation, was 
our mission.  The body of humankind was like a fighter ho 
had just received a tremendous left hook.  It was down for 
the count, conscious, but incapable of action.  It was left to 
us to throw in the towel. 
I am by trade a professional grave robber.  By grave 
robber I mean that I am, or was, an archeologist.  Before the 
time of the blow up I was deep in the amazon basin of 
Brazil.  There in the tropical rain forest I had discovered a 
Mayan style pyramid.  What the hell it was doing there was 
anyone’s guess.  After months of digging I found that it was built 
to contain the body of a god or goddess of eternal night. 
Apparently this deity scared the hell out the tomb builders. 
Everything I read said, here is bad ju ju stay the hell away. I 
didn’t know what to think. This was no deity of the 
Mesoamerican pantheon that I was aware.  I found the 
ambiguous references to the deity’s gender curious as well 
as finding one entombed.  Aside from the great god Pan I had
never heard of a deity dying.  In the center of the pyramid I 
found a majestic sarcophagus. With the help of a dozen 
Indians we barely managed to lift the stone cover off the 
burial crypt.  After that the Indians ran away in terror. It 
seemed that the interred was not quite dead.  I would have 
run away myself but for the fact that it had grabbed me. You 
see I had misread the inscriptions.  The pyramid was not a 
tomb.  It was a prison. You might also say that something I 
disagreed with ate me.  I got over it.  And once I got to know 
it better I found that even deities can be the victims of bad 
press.
By the time my new companion and I made our 
way back to the States they were no longer there. Most of the 
major cites had simply vanished, taking millions with them.  
The resultant fallout took millions more.  With fall of 
civilization we were reintroduced to some old friends.  
Typhus, typhoid, and the plague came back to visit.  
Populations that had not been touched by the bombs or 
fallout were being obliterated by disease.  That still was not 
the end of the horror.
It was nuclear winter.
Famine, the fourth horseman had yet to appear but it 
was surely coming.  The extinction of the human race 
seemed inevitable. The only hope left was to convert them 
to our point of view.  So we began our long march across 
the shadowlands that was once America making converts as 
we went.  At first people were afraid us, which to be honest 
was a perfectly natural reaction.  However, when word 
begun to spread, they actively sought us out.  My spouse 
being of the old school was shocked by this turn of events.  
As I told her, we were the only game in town.  There was no 
other viable alternative if one wanted to live.  I could 
understand her feelings.  After being cast as the bad guy for 
so long it was rather disconcerting to find oneself being the 
good guy.  Humanity was dying but I had found a cure for 
the disease and it was smiling at me.



One had to be methodical in searching for survivors.  
They often turned up in the most unlikely places and you 
had to be very careful in making contact.  Most people were 
extremely traumatized and had to dealt with gently.  I could 
smell a young woman in a nearby drainage pipe.  I sat 
down where she could see me.  I knew she was there and 
she knew that I was aware of her.  I have found that 
curiosity, given time will displace fear.  Ah, my little rabbit is 
showing her face.
“Come out, I have some food for you.  I am not going 
to hurt you.  I am here to help.”
“Are you with the Red Cross,” she asked tentatively.
“No, but I’m doing the same job.”  I tossed the food 
towards her so she would not have to come out too far.  
She crept out slowly, cautiously, and then pounced on the 
food. 
“My teeth hurt,” she said while chewing.  “Is that 
bad?”
“It’s not good.  That is one of the symptoms of 
radiation sickness.  Have any of your teeth fallen out?”
“No, but I think they might.  Am I going to die?”
“You will if I don’t get you back to my camp.  We 
have a cure for radiation sickness.”
“Will it hurt?  Will any of my teeth fall out?”
“No, it won’t hurt.  In fact you will find that it feels 
quite pleasant.  I’ve had the cure myself.”  I didn’t lie to her 
because that was the truth-mostly.  Well, she would lose a 
couple of teeth but they always grew back.
“Why is it always dark and cold?”
“It’s called nuclear winter,” I told her calmly.  The 
bombs threw great quantities of dust  into the upper 
atmosphere.  It is going to be cold and dark for a long, long, 
time.”
“How long?”
“Hard to say.  Maybe a hundred years or so.  Would 
you like to go to our camp?  There are many people there 
who would be happy to meet you.”
“Anything is better than sleeping in a pipe and I don’t 
want to get sicker.  You really have a cure for my 
sickness?”
“I promise that you will completely recover.”
“I want to go.”
“Lovely, take my hand.  Our camp is not far from 
here.”
She stumbled now and then and I had to help her 
up.
”How can you see so well?”
“I have adapted to living I the dark.  Very soon this 
will seem like daylight to you.” 
”I wouldn’t believe you if you weren’t geeing around 
so well.”  She paused for a moment and looked at me. 
“How did all of this happen?”
“I have heard many stories. The one that sounds 
most plausible to me is that one of the states that the 
Russian Federation was trying to hold on to got spiteful.  
They launched strategic missiles at major Russian cites and 
since we were allies of the Russians at us as well.  That 
invited counter strikes from the U.S., and well, world war 
three was over before any of us knew it had started.  I am 
not sure if that is the truth.  I was an archeologist out on a 
dig in Brazil when it happened.  I didn’t have access to 
newspapers, television or radio.  All I know is that when we 
came out of the jungle the war was over.”
“We?”
“My mate and I.”
“What were you digging?”
“A pyramid.  That is where we met.”
“Is she an archeologist also?”
“No, more of an anthropologist and has been for quite 
a long time.”
“I notice that you say mate instead of wife.  Are we 
talking about a woman.  I mean its OK if it’s a guy.”
“She is female.”  And that was the truth. Just not all of 
it.
“Did you find anything interesting?  At the dig I 
mean?”
“Oh, yes.  Indeed yes.  I found a whole new way of 
life.  One way of like ends and another begins.  Survival of 
the fittest.”
“That sounds like Darwin.”
“You are a bright young woman.  I am referring to 
Darwin.  The human race is dying.  Between the bombs, 
fallout and epidemics the bulk of humankind is already 
gone.  No food crop can grow in this darkness so famine will 
dispose of the rest. The cold and the dark will make life as it 
is untenable.  That is, except for the people you and I will 
rescue.  I have rescued you and later you will rescue 
others.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will.  My mate will explain it all to you.  She has 
quite a way with words.”
“I can see firelight.”
“We’re home.”
“So many people! How many are here?”
“About 900 I think.  I was worried that we wouldn’t 
make 500.  You need at least 500 people to avoid excessive 
in-breeding.  I believe that in the end we will have a few 
thousand survivors.”
“You have babies here!”
“Yes we have had a few new arrivals.  In fact I am 
expecting my first child.  Here come my mate.  She likes to 
greet all the new arrivals.”
“She is beautiful.” 
“It makes me feel humble that she choose me to be 
her companion.  I am excited about our child. I think that I 
am going to have our next one.  You have a good mind, 
maybe I’ll let you be the father of my child.”
“What the hell are you talking about Mister?” she said 
with some alarm.
“We’re not human”, I said calmly.
“Oh dear god, her teeth!”
I stepped  behind her and wrapped my arms around 
her.  “Shhh, be calm and don’t struggle.  It goes so much 
easier when you don’t struggle.”  Of course she struggled 
they all do.  My mate put her mouth to her throat in the 
ancient ritual of our people.  “See it doesn’t hurt.  You will 
just go to sleep and when you wake up you will feel much 
better.”  After a few moments my mate looked up at me.
“You may have some of this.”
“Why don’t you finish.  The baby.”
“The baby is doing just fine. You don’t have to 
pamper me. And I heard what you said to this little flower.”
“I keep forgetting that your ears are as sharp as your 
eyes.”
“Always remember that and remember this.  If anyone 
is going to give you a baby it is going to be me.”
“Is that a promise?”
“Oh, yes.”

 

Being born is never easy whether it is for the first or 
the second time.  I like to be on hand to help when the newly 
changed awakened.  I guess you could think of me as a 
weird sort of midwife.
“God, my throat hurts.  You slimy bastard!”  I didn’t 
take that personally. The newly changed often woke up in a 
bad mood.  “Actually, I am closer to being a bitch at the 
moment.’
“What?”
“Here drink this.”
“What is this stuff, blood?” 
“No, it is red wine.  Drink it down you need the iron.”
“Am I some kind of vampire now.”
“You are no longer human but you are no kind of 
vampire.  There are no such things as vampires although 
that is one of the names that humans have given us.  We 
have also been called werewolves, ghouls, demons, incubus 
and succubus.”
“Incu, what?”
“The incubus and the succubus were demons that 
changed their sex.  You are a charming young female but 
from now on, every other month, you are going to be a 
charming young male.”
“I’m sorry but I don’t understand.” 
You and I belong to an ancient species. While we are 
not human we are still flesh and blood people.  We belong 
to a kindred that evolved eons before the human race when 
the world was a cold and a dark place.  We were and still 
are a very long lived people.  We were a good and happy 
race until nature dealt us a series of bad hands. The first 
disaster was the change in the atmosphere.  A poison gas 
appeared.”
“Poison gas?”
“Oxygen.”
“Oxygen a poison gas?”
“It was to us.  The word at that time had a complete 
ecology that did not depend on oxygen. That ecology was 
extinguished.  We are the only survivors of that time 
because we had the technology to adapt our physiology to 
the new environment.  But where we had once numbered in 
the billions our population only numbered in the millions. On 
the heels of that the second disaster struck.  The earth was 
enveloped by clouds in those days. The time came though 
when they parted and unfiltered sunlight shone upon the 
world.  Millions died immediately and our civilization 
collapsed. Again we picked up the pieces of our lives and 
went on.  We became nocturnal and  rebuilt our lives with 
some success.  Then the third disaster came.”  
“What was it, volcanoes, earthquakes?”
“A new vicious race evolved that could live in the 
sunlight.  They systematically hunted us down in a 
calculated process of extermination.”
“What were they called?”
“Homo Sapiens.”
“We tried to wipe out that race.”
“No dear they did.  We are not human beings.”
“I forgot.  What happened after that?”
“The last great change.  We had managed to recover 
some of our technology.  I don’t know what our original form 
was I can only assume that we did not look like human 
beings.  Hell, we may not have even been humanoid but we 
used our technology in one last ditch effort to survive. We 
assumed the form of the human being.  In that way we could 
hide in plain sight. So within limits we became human like.  
We scattered to the four winds and became nomads hiding 
and surviving as best we could.”
“Within limits?”
“We couldn’t change our sexual nature. You have 
noticed that none of us look particularly male or female?”
“Yes I have.  I wondered whether you were a man or 
woman when I first saw you.  You acted like a man so I 
assumed you were.”
 “Force of habit. We are cyclical hermaphrodites.  We 
change sex from one lunar month to the next.  That gives 
you a whole new slant on social relationships.”
“What about the blood drinking and the changing.”
“Those are really two separate issues.  The blood 
drinking has a simple explanation.  We have a very strong 
need for iron and blood supplies that need. We have the 
advantage that we can survive on small amounts of food. 
What a human would need for a day will keep us for a 
month. I am talking about normal regular food here.”
“I was wondering about that,” she said with relief.
“The bite that changes life, however, is an odd quirk 
of evolution.  As I have said we are a longed lived race so 
we don’t have many children at any given time. Somewhere 
in our evolutionary history we developed the ability to adopt 
humans into our race.  Something in our blood, a virus 
perhaps, changes a human into one of us.  If we had not 
developed that ability we would have gone extinct a long 
time ago.  So there you have it.  We have come full circle.  
We were born in the cold and dark and we are reborn in the 
cold and dark.  We have our old enemy to thank for that. 
The stupidity of the human animal has given us back our 
lives.”
“But who are we?” 
“I don’t know.  You and I shall both have to find that 
out. Now go on outside and get to know your new 
companions,” I said shooing her outside.  I had been up for 
twenty-four hours and was tired.  It was time for me to turn 
in.
“How did it go with the new one?” asked my mate as I 
entered the bedroom.  
“She woke up in a nasty temper but adjusted quickly 
enough.”
“Just like you.”
“I resemble that remark.”
“I could bite you when you make bad jokes like that.”
“Please do.”
“You are shameless.”
“You made me that way,” I said holding her close to 
me.
“I only made you one of us.  Everything else is your 
own. I heard most of your conversation with the new one 
and I have to ask the same question.  Who are we?  You 
know as well as I do that there is practically nothing left of 
the old civilization.”
“This is a new beginning for us.  We shall have to 
reinvent ourselves.”
“Did you tell her about the ice?”
“No, I am postponing telling anyone about that.  I 
want them to enjoy their new lives for a while. The ice will 
come soon enough.  Have you received any new reports?”
“Yes, the glaciers have moved a mile in the past six 
months.”
“Damn, I didn’t think it was possible for them to move 
that fast.”
“How long do you think we have?”
“At that speed we will see them here within the next 
fifty years.”
“That soon. Where shall we go?”
In the so called great ice age glaciers covered about 
thirty-five per cent of North America.  What is coming will 
dwarf that. It will be immense.  The glaciers may push us as 
far south as Mexico.  We are tough and adaptable but we 
are going to be pushed to the very limits of our endurance.  
Even we are going to have to build snug houses and build 
fires to keep warm.”
“Cold has never bothered me before.  I can’t imagine 
it.”
“We will survive the cold just as we will find a way to 
survive the sunlight when it comes back. Who know, maybe 
we will find a way to live in it.”
“Now you are talking perversion.”
“Perversion!  I’ll show you some perversion, my 
goddesses.” 
“Animal.  Wait until I have you on the receiving end,” 
she giggled.
“I can hardly wait,” I replied.




Humanity lies in the long dead past.  We seldom if 
ever speak of them anymore.  The ice is very close now and 
soon we will be forced to leave our homes.  I would like to 
stay here longer but the gigantic mountains of advancing ice 
give us no choice.  The climate is now like Siberia in the 
middle of a particularly nasty winter.  We have to dress like 
Eskimos to stay warm.  I don’t think it will get much colder 
but I cannot be sure.  Arctic birds and mammals are thriving 
in the new climate and sea life seems to be unaffected.  Life 
on planet earth is more hardy than I gave it credit for. 
The past few decades have been happy ones for us 
in spite of the struggle to survive.  More children than I could 
have hoped for have been born.  My own first born has 
become a great asset to our community.  That one is a good 
kid even though it is something of a heartbreaker.  I will be 
glad when s/he decides to settle down.  Its sibling will be 
born anytime now or at least I hope so.  I am tired of being 
pregnant. I thought I was a nervous father but my mate is 
twice as nervous as I was.  She always complained that I 
pampered her too much during her pregnancy.  Now that I 
am in mine I can’t get him to leave me alone.  
As I write this a line from David Copperfield comes to 
mind.  He asked himself if he would be the hero of his own 
life.  That is also a question that a people must ask 
themselves and whatever answer is returned reveals the 
measure of their heart.  I ask myself what is our answer to 
that question.  I think, in the end, we will be the heroes of 
our own lives.