Fade To Black (Into The Darkness Book 2) Read online

  He recognized the address, knew where it was located, but not why the pamphlet was in his house. Intending to use the pamphlet for kindling, he placed the paper in the top drawer of a hutch in the dining room, and put it out of his mind.

  “What’s for breakfast?” asked Mary, as she walked barefoot across the hardwood floor, headed for the kitchen. The morning air wafting through the windows was cool, so she went to the kitchen with crossed arms, trying to conserve her body heat. She hugged her husband as she walked by, absorbing the warmth from his body and feeling the strength in his arms. Kevin’s body had adapted to the river just as Dylan’s had. Thick calluses were evident on his hands, and his arms and back were like steel springs, coiled and ready for action.

  “Daddy, can I have some milk?” asked Jennifer.

  “I don’t think I can get that for you right now.”

  Dylan was not sure how to answer the question. It would not be true to say there was no more milk. All you needed was a cow, and he knew there were cows with full udders grazing in pastures somewhere. With no electric milking machines, every dairy cow should be teeming with milk. All he needed to grant her wish was a cow, but he knew that was not possible. He simply promised to look for some and let the question go.

  There was a loud pounding on the front door. Dylan looked through the peephole and saw that it was Jim. He had come back early, as instructed. With a quick flick of the deadbolt, Dylan unlocked the door. The morning air and sunshine rushed in. The sunlight brought Jim’s body into silhouette, throwing his shadow down in front of him. Jim stood on the front porch with a five-gallon plastic bucket of water from the stream in each hand, swinging heavily at his sides, pulling down his shoulders, and hunching his back. Dylan had heard the creaky axle of the wheelbarrow, transporting the buckets of water that morning as Jim brought it back from the creek. Jim stood there breathing deeply from carrying the ten gallons of water to Dylan’s house. He sat the buckets down and placed his hands on his hips. He had thick hands with short stubby fingers, a shape that made his hands look strong.

  Jim owned a bakery and restaurant with his business partner, Harold, who also lived in the neighborhood. Dylan remembered the stories Jim told him of when he started working at his bakery many years ago. He would knead dough for hours. Dylan wondered if that was how he developed those thick hands. His fingers looked like sausages resting on his hips. Jim wore a cotton shirt that at one time had been a bright, clean white, but had turned a dingy yellow from sweat and body oil. It was tattered and ragged. His new, more active lifestyle had worn the material so thin that the small amount of sweat from Jim’s body caused it to cling to his torso in a way that made it translucent. Jim had lost so much weight so fast that layers of loose, wrinkled skin were visible underneath the threadbare shirt.

  Dylan looked at the buckets of water and asked, “Are those for me?”

  “Only if you carry them the rest of the way.”

  “Deal.”

  Dylan picked up both buckets, resting the metal handles on the thick portion of his callused hands. Carrying them to the kitchen island, he lifted them to its granite countertop.

  “I poured it through a towel to get some of the sediment out, but it’s not boiled yet,” said Jim. “I’ve been boiling it with my propane grill. My propane is getting low. I need to scavenge some more tanks for the grill.”

  “That’s okay, we can filter it and save the fuel,” said Kevin, as he watched the ripples of the jostled water slowly dissipate inside the buckets.

  Mary moved to be by her husband’s side. Jennifer clung to Mary’s leg, leaning into her thigh and holding her tightly. Mary placed her hand on the young girl’s hair and tried to weave her fingers through the tangled mess. She could not, and that frustrated her. She gestured to her husband that she was leaving the kitchen to take the children and try to clean them up.

  “Jim, if you know the empty houses,” said Dylan, “then let’s go on a scavenger hunt now and get everything we can.”

  “Hold on a minute, you aren’t going anywhere,” stated Jim, flatly. “You started something last night—”

  Dylan interrupted Jim, and said, “I promised you some of that food we got last night and I’m a man of my word. Do you want it now? Don’t you trust me?”

  “That’s not what I mean. People are talking about you…that you’re back…they don’t believe it.” Jim changed to a more serious tone and added, “Some are nervous…they think you’re going to start trouble.”

  “Trouble? I mind my own business. I’m not a trouble maker.” As Dylan’s body grew tense, his voice got lower and he began to shake his head as he spoke. “But if trouble comes my way…” Dylan pointed to his chest, shaking his head again as he looked away. He turned back around and looked at Jim. “Is this about last night…what I did? You saw what I saw. What was I supposed to do?”

  Jim held up his hands and said, “Hold on, you’re preaching to the choir. I’m glad you’re back, and I told people what happened, but Michael does have friends. I told them exactly what happened, but rumors get started, people talk, and the truth gets lost somewhere. I can’t stop anyone from talking. Some of them actually liked that guy.”

  “That’s their problem,” Dylan confidently asserted himself.

  “It’s your problem…I mean our problem, now.”

  “What?”

  Jim took a step closer to Dylan, extending his hand in a gesture of friendship. Dylan accepted the gesture and Jim slowly shook Dylan’s hand as he continued to speak. “You’ve been my neighbor for years, and I’ve considered you a friend since I first met you.”

  Dylan dropped Jim’s hand and demanded, “Get to the point.”

  “I told them how far you travelled to get back here, and if you could accomplish something like that, we could use your leadership. Some people didn’t like that idea and they’re going to have a meeting later this morning. We need to go.”

  Dylan also considered Jim a good neighbor and friend, but he knew that his body language was screaming out how irritated he was right now, and he wondered if Jim could tell, or if he was just ignoring it. Deep down, Dylan did not want to get involved in a meeting. He crossed his arms, tilted his head to the side, and stared at Jim briefly before speaking. “Why do I need to go?”

  “To let them see you’re not a demon. Then we’ll leave.”

  Dylan skeptically raised an eyebrow.

  “We should all go.” Jim pointed to Kevin. “Let them see the new faces, and show them that not everyone is abandoning the subdivision. Bring Mary, too. Ask her if she will go with you.”

  Mary heard her name and looked around the corner. She was in the hallway trying to work the tangles out of Jennifer’s hair. Mary shook her head. “Sorry, but I have a lot to do here. You’ll have to go without me.”

  “Dylan looked at Kevin and asked, “Are you going?”

  “Only if you are.”

  Dylan shrugged his shoulders. He really did not want to go. “Okay, I’ll go. But I don’t want to stay long. There are too many things I need to do.”

  “Good. That’s good.” Jim broke a smile and moved toward to the front door with Dylan and Kevin. Jim got to the door first and opened it, stepping out on the front porch with the other two men just behind him.

  “When and where do we go?” asked Kevin.

  “In an hour, go to the Community Center. But that probably doesn’t mean anything to you.”

  “That’s right. What’s the Community Center?”

  “It’s by the pool,” said Dylan. “You need a tour of the neighborhood. We’ll take a loop through the subdivision on the way there and back. The pool is at the opposite end of the community.”

  “See you in about an hour.” Jim turned and began to walk back to his house.

  “Wait a minute. How are you judging time?” asked Kevin.

  Jim stopped on his front lawn, turned to face them, and spoke loudly to answer the question. “Face the horizon and extend your arms in front
of you, then bend your wrists so your palms are facing you. Stack one hand on top of the other from the horizon to the sun. The height of each hand is about an hour. Judge the hour of time by the distance the sun moves.”

  “Got it. See you in about an hour.”

  Chapter Two

  Kevin waited in the driveway while Dylan went back inside the house to open the locked garage doors. The doors, one double and one single, were already disengaged from the automatic openers. The openers’ red plastic emergency release handles dangled freely, since Dylan had pulled them last night. Dylan slid the main door’s galvanized metal lock free of the railing and pulled up the metal handle attached at the center of the door. The doublewide steel door smoothly slid upward, embracing the horizontal rails attached to the garage’s ceiling as its final resting point. Metal cables held the door in place with the tension of two large springs.

  The morning sunlight rushed in, and Kevin turned around to see the inside of the garage in full light. He surveyed the garage enthusiastically. He saw many shelves, tools, toolboxes, and bicycles. Near the garage’s third bay, in an alcove, he saw where Dylan practiced his hobby of making primitive bows and arrows. Against that wall was a worktable with a vise bolted to its top. There were bows made from different types of wood and at different stages of creation, against the alcove’s wall. Kevin entered the garage to survey its contents. With the curiosity of a shy child in a toy store during Christmas, he looked at each shelf and inside each cardboard box on the floor, holding his hands behind his back. He nudged a toolbox on the floor with his foot and glanced up at Dylan, almost as if he was waiting for permission to explore. He stopped at the deep alcove to admire the bows and arrows that Dylan had made. His hands gained confidence and swung from behind his back to touch the various pieces of wood. He ran his fingers across the belly of a roughly carved oak sapling, feeling the ridges left behind by the sharp metal blade of a drawknife. His fingers followed the direction of the ridges, parallel with the length of the bow.

  “You can have it,” offered Dylan. “Any of them are yours; just take your pick. I have plenty of dry wood to work with, as you can see.” Dylan was leaning against his car, watching Kevin admire the contents of the garage. The car, purchased just this year, was a white sedan with alloy wheels, and he could remember the new car smell permeating its interior, just as it was before he left for Montana.

  Kevin leaned the bow against the wall where he had found it. “Mine still works.” Kevin pointed back at the bows. “These could be valuable. Maybe we could trade these for something we don’t have.”

  Dylan stroked his head with the hand that was holding his car key, and then began to tap the key against his skull. He was deep in thought. “That’s not a bad idea. Remind me to find out where people are selling and bartering goods. Jim will know. I can finish some bows and we can see what they’re worth.” Dylan dangled the car key with two fingers. “Help me push this thing out on the driveway. It’s wasting space in here.”

  Dylan inserted the key into the lock of the driver-side door and turned it. Through the dusty car window, he saw a little black plastic rod escape upward through a small hole from inside the driver’s door, and stand at attention. He opened the door and breathed in deeply. The car still smelled new. Memories of car shopping with his family came rushing back. He sat in the driver’s seat and shut the door, muffling the sounds from outside. Dylan glanced down and opened the glove compartment. He quickly inventoried the contents. Registration, insurance card, a pen, winter gloves, and a pocketknife. He heard Kevin tap on the hood. Dylan slammed the small door to the glove compartment and inserted the key into the steering column. He turned the key, felt the steering wheel unlock, and put the transmission into neutral. He nodded at Kevin to let him know it was time to push.

  Kevin leaned forward and began to push against the front of the car. With a grunt, he pressed against the metal, but the car did not budge. Kevin put his hands lower on the front of the car, his foot against the concrete at the base of the garage wall, and used the strength in his legs to help with the task. After a loud groan from Kevin, the car moved backward and rolled onto the driveway. Dylan slammed on the brakes after the car cleared the garage, placed it in park, and pulled the emergency brake handle. After exiting the vehicle, Dylan placed the key on a hook secured to a shelf in the garage and then turned back around to face the neighborhood through the open garage doors. Kevin was sitting on the car’s trunk and Dylan decided to join him. Standing near Kevin and facing away from the house, Dylan pointed to the right, up the gentle slope of the asphalt street that went in front of his house.

  “We’ll walk that direction,” said Dylan. “At the top of the hill we’ll turn left; it slopes downward until we get to the Community Center and swimming pool. They’re near the stream. The stream is the eastern boundary of the subdivision. Beyond that is old pastureland that hasn’t been developed yet.” Dylan picked up his bow from the garage floor and returned to stand near Kevin, who was still seated on the car trunk. He strung the bow and flicked the string with his thumb. “I’m taking this with me. Maybe I’ll see a rabbit hopping in and out of the tall grass. We’ll walk back home the other way, following the road that runs parallel with the stream. There are lots of trees that way, and maybe I can get a squirrel, too.”

  “Is it very far?” asked Kevin.

  “No, not really. Just think of the community as the shape of a square, with the Community Center at the diagonal corner.”

  Dylan pointed down the street perpendicular to his. “All those houses back up to extensive parkland. The stream at the end of that road goes through the park and feeds the lake. That’s the stream where Jim has been getting water.”

  Kevin faced the eastern horizon, extended his arm, and bent his wrist so that his palm was facing him. He put one hand in line with the horizon and tried to judge the distance the sun had moved in comparison to the height of his palm. “I think we should go.”

  “Do we have time to eat something?” asked Dylan.

  “I’ll run inside and grab some crackers and water. I want to say goodbye to Mary.”

  “I’ll get ready,” said Dylan.

  Kevin went back into the house. He saw Mary standing where the morning light emerging through an open bedroom door illuminated the hallway. She had found a hairbrush in the hall bathroom and was gently trying to eradicate the tangles from Jennifer’s hair. Mary stroked Jennifer’s hair with the brush, easing it through the knots. When she heard the door open, Mary turned her back. Kevin noticed her turning away and the quick movement of Mary’s forearm across her face. She did not speak. Kevin moved to Mary’s side and touched her back softly, in a way that would ask if she was okay without using words. The moment she felt his strong hand, Mary turned to him and wept quietly, her sobbing muffled by his chest.

  Kevin grabbed her shoulder, quickly stepped back to look at her, and asked, “What’s wrong? Why are you so upset?”

  Mary turned away from her husband and looked down at the little girl who was affectionately holding on to her leg. When their eyes met, she looked into the young girl’s inquisitive face and tried to smile. It was an attempt to hide the emotional pain from losing her unborn child just months ago.

  With the innocence of a young child’s voice, Jennifer said, “You’re okay,” as she stroked Mary’s hand gently.

  “Yes, dear, I’m okay. Go into the other room and see what your brother is doing.”

  The little girl went to find her brother, but not before she looked back at Mary one more time as she went around the corner.

  Mary leaned her face back onto her husband’s shoulder and used his shirt to wipe her tears. She took a deep breath and said, “I would’ve had our baby by now.”

  Kevin hugged his wife and whispered into her ear. “It’s not your fault. We still have each other.” He hugged her again. He felt his wife relax as he whispered into her ear.

  Mary stepped back and tried to smile once more. She wiped
the last remaining tears away and said, “I’m sorry. We haven’t talked about it and something must have been building up inside. When you two went into the garage and left me here alone with the children, it just hit me all at once. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize for anything. I love you.” Kevin reached out and touched her shoulder. He wanted to make sure she looked at him and saw the sincerity in his eyes. “And don’t ever forget, we have each other.”

  Mary gave her husband a gentle push toward the door. “Get moving so you can hurry back. We need some wood if you want to cook anything.”

  Kevin extended his arm and gently pinched the fabric of her shirt, pulling her toward him as he began to walk to the kitchen.

  “Not so fast,” said Kevin. “We haven’t eaten anything yet, and I’m starving. Follow me.”

  He remembered seeing a box of crackers on the kitchen counter. On the same countertop were the two bottles of water that he had filled this morning from Jim’s buckets. The kitchen was next to the sliding patio door. The patio was concrete and he showed it to Mary, explaining that it was a good location to build a fire and that would be where he will stack any wood that he found.

  Kevin took two sleeves of crackers and the bottles of water. He kissed his wife on the forehead and as he turned to go back to the garage, said, “I don’t know how long this will take. Lock the door behind me.”

  “Hurry back.”

  “I’ll try.”