Max was shooting out the stars again. Bang by bang they went dark. 

Clayton radioed that he’d handle it this time, flipped on his lights, and drove out toward Max’s place. 

“Turn those damned things off, sheriff,” yelled Max, lowering the gun beneath the little pool of deeper dark he’d created for himself.

“Hello to you, too, Max,” Clayton said amiably. He looked at the bottle on the porch. “Been relaxing?”

 “Can’t relax with those things shining in my face.”

“You know I’m going to have to take you in. C’mon, Max, you just got out from the last time. Why you have to do this? Can’t you just pull the shades in your bedroom?”

“Bedroom’s got emergency lighting, got the gas alarm lights, got the digital displays. Try to tape over ‘em and an alarm yells at me. Closest we’ve ever been to dark, real dark, and you gotta be shining flashlights in my face all night.”

“Jesus, Max, what were you, a caveman back topside? You not get the stars channel where you lived?”

“Those. Aren’t. Stars.” Max jabbed upward with the gun, then he swung it down to the carpet of green below his porch. “Like this ain’t grass, like this mushroom stuff ain’t beer, like what I’m breathing ain’t air.”

Clayton shook his head. “Relax. It’s air.”

“It’s ain’t. It’s a very careful blend of nitrogen, oxygen, and whateverthehellium. Ain’t air. You know what it smells like when it rains down here?”

“Smells fine. Doesn’t smell like nothin to me.”

“Exactly. What kind of brilliant idiots could dream up a rain smells like nothing?”

“Well. You can’t be messing with the lights, Max. First time everyone was lenient. It’s a tough transition, we’re all dealin’ with it. But you could break something.”

Max shook the gun. “With paintballs?”

“Yeah, with paintballs. You ever get one of those on the ear when you were little?”

Max snorted. “If paintballs can knock this place apart, we deserve whatever happens.”

“It may be that we do deserve it. All of it. But,” Clayton said, rising, “part of my job’s to keep all the bad we raise from biting us in the ass. Come on. We’re not gonna do cuffs, are we?”

Max trudged to the car, pulled the rear door open. 

“Nah, go ahead and sit up front,” said Clayton. “Gonna take the scenic route.”

They drove out of the carefully manicured settlement and into the rougher tunnels, pausing occasionally for Clayton to scan his badge. Eventually, they pulled up to the edge of their little world, and Clayton got out of the car. He explained his thinking to one of the officers–it took a while–and the man went into an office and returned with two respirators. “Here,” Clayton  said, opening the door and handing one of the respirators to Max. 

“Teachin me a lesson, sheriff?”

“Relax. Just trying to give you a little of that peace and quiet you’re asking for.”

“Nothing cruel and unusual, Clay. I still got rights.”

Clay snorted. “Nothing cruel. Maybe unusual. Just a little ride-along for you in lieu of arresting you. Like a public service. ‘Cause I got a big heart.”

The first set of big metal doors slid open; they passed through, and the outer doors cycled. They walked out into the great cavern beyond and stood looking at the bright lights of the tunnels running out and up. 

Clayton tapped his radio “OK,” he said. “give us five minutes.”

The lights went out. The tunnel dark was tremendous. Clayton found himself more disoriented than he would have thought. It took a moment for him to realize that even here it was not really dark. The faint red LED on his respirator blinked softly. Somewhere in the vault high above a few tiny amber dots blinked their endless vigil. Preempting Max’s certain complaint, he said, “Just put your thumb over the respirator light. And don’t look up.” His voice echoed weirdly in the tunnel. With Max’s respirator light hidden, he might be entirely alone in the universe. He might be dead. Dead and buried. He found himself closing his eyes tight and opening them, making no difference. He shuddered. 

But he managed to keep himself from saying anything so as not to break the spell. He breathed deeply in the silence, letting the hiss of the respirator fill his ears, reminding him of his existence. At the very least this ought to shut the fool up for a few days, make him grateful for the damned star show. 

The radio crackled, and a voice said, “OK. Gonna bring ‘em back on slow.” 

The lights in the tunnel far ahead went on, and slowly they marched toward him. Still it dazzled him a little.

“Alright,” he said, turning. “Got your fill of the dark, now, Max? There’s your dark, Max.” 

Then, as he realized he was alone: “Shit.”

He hit the radio. “Get a buggy out here. Guy took off on me.”

The door opened; the buggy rolled out. It was all too slow. Clayton hopped into the buggy driven by an expressionless young national guard soldier.

“Can’t you go faster? The guy could outwalk us at this rate.”

“Sorry, sir,” she said, apologetically, “safety regulations.”

“What about his safety? This guy’s going to get himself killed.”

“Hey, some asshole wants to go take a walk outside, I say let ‘im. We’re not prison guards.”

Clayton grunted. 

“Or cops,” she added. 

Clayton’s grunt was deeper. 

At last they broke through to the surface. There was no sign of Max.

The driver radioed, languidly, Clayton thought, for backup. The sheriff got down off the buggy and walked out into the abandoned world.

“Wait for me,” he said, through the respirator.

The driver said, “Till someone tells me not to.” 

-

The tunnel entry lights threw a soft glow up into the vault of the sky, where a few dust-obscured stars were outnumbered by the streaking flashes of worthless satellites. There was no moon, and the Earth was dark. Clayton remembered pre-dawn walks with his father, years ago, to the deer stand. The smell of frost and leaves. Something altogether different from this warm brown darkness, this rebreathed air. But something the same: the feel of utter quiet, of being one of only two wakeful human things in a world apart. 

So many different kinds of darkness. 

He realized he’d cut his headlamp off. He switched it back on and began to walk wide transects, looking for any sign of Max. He heard things moving in the dark, and wondered what the world was up to now. 

He found Max over the next ridge, a rumor of a shadow thrown against the hillside. He could have thought him an abandoned and desiccated corpse from the catastrophe, but for the little blink of his respirator and the way he was resting his heads on folded hands, like an idle cloudwatcher or stargazer.

“What the hell are you thinking, coming up here?” asked Clayton.

Max just stared up at the flecked and ruined sky. His dusty face was streaked with tears. 

Clayton said, “What’s the point, Max? You know we’re just gonna go back, and here you’ve put me in a hell of a lot of trouble.”  

Max slowly removed one head from behind his head, raised his forefinger, aimed at one of the dying satellites, and said, “Bang,” as it fell. 

Clayton just shook his head. “OK, well, we’re making it official. You are under arrest. You have the right to…”

Mak leapt up with the speed of a wild thing, pulled off his respirator, and threw it with all his strength into the darkness. Clayton made a belated grab for it, and as he did, Max made to run. Clayton spun, tackled him, and forced his secondary respirator over his face.

They sat there gasping for a minute, and then Clayton wheezed, “Max, there’s less stupid ways to die.” 

Max was making a noise into the ill-fitting respirator, and Clayton peered at it to see if something was broken. It took Clayton a while to realize that Max was laughing. 

“Jesus. What’s so funny?”

He laughed. “Thinking of stupid ways to die, that’s all.”

Clayton pulled him into an armlock and marched him back to the tunnel entry. Max laughed half the way, but as they came into the glow of the tunnel entry, he suddenly started to scream. The driver’s expression didn’t change at all, but Clayton found himself wincing as he pulled Max onto the buggy. 

Only once they were into the darkness of the tunnel did Max settle down, and by the time they got back to the settlement doors, there seemed nothing left in him. 

-

After the nightmare of explaining the evening to people and to the computer, giving himself what he figured was at least a fighting chance of still having a job in the morning after his creative outing, Clayton sat scrolling his phone into the late hours. 

All these little cave towns, full of little cavepeople, sharing the news like there was still a world they shared, instead of a memory of one. And Max. That… that idiot. You want dark, close your damn eyes. Only some of us have got to keep them open. 

Idiot, he mouthed. 

Suddenly, spasmodically, he tossed the phone hard against the wall, a little glowing shooting star. He raised his thumb and forefinger like he was shooting for the artificial sunrise, for Max and his dead stars, for the whole dead world, the whole damned thing. 

Bang, he said.