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

  “No. We’ve all been busy grinding the corn.”

  His eyes went back his children. “Did you make these?”

  “No,” replied Brad. “Jennifer found them by the house.”

  A noise came from deep inside Dylan’s throat. It sounded like a growl. He lifted the other necklace from around his daughter’s neck. He yelled, “No!” as he threw both necklaces as far away as he could, and they landed in a patch of weeds.

  “Dylan!” Mary was shocked and gestured for the children to come to her side. Jennifer began to cry.

  “That lunatic left them here!” Dylan pointed to his chest, and yelled, “I’m not the bad guy!” He stormed away into his front yard. Kevin followed him.

  “Shitty day?” asked Kevin.

  “And it’s not over. I’m getting ready to go ask Harold for the keys to his El Camino.”

  “Yeah, I heard he’s an ass.”

  Dylan looked toward Harold’s house and saw a truck coming their way, from down the street perpendicular to his home. Its headlights were on. It was Tom’s truck, and John was driving it. When John came to the end of the road, he turned the wheel hard, made a U-turn, and backed the truck into Dylan’s driveway. The truck’s bed was full of cut wood. John killed the engine and engaged the parking brake. He exited the truck and stayed on the opposite side of the vehicle.

  “Wood,” announced John.

  “I can see that,” responded Dylan.

  John took a step toward the truck’s tailgate and stopped. He looked up at Kevin. “Are we cool?” he asked sheepishly.

  “Yeah, we’re cool,” said Kevin, spitefully.

  John dropped the tailgate and began to toss the cut wood onto the driveway.

  “We need the truck,” said Dylan.

  “It’s not mine. Ask Tom.”

  “Tell Tom I think I’ve found sugar, buckets of it.”

  John dropped a log on his foot. “Shit!” He jumped back, his toe beginning to throb. “How did you do that?”

  “There’s a winery with a grape orchard not far from here. If nobody got to it yet, the grapes will be dry on the vine. Raisins, full of sugar.” He paused for a moment. “That ought to be all Tom needs to get his still back in operation.”

  John ran his fingers through his hair and whistled through his teeth. He thought about the task as he stroked his scruffy chin and faintly whispered to himself, “Why didn’t I think of that?”

  “Be back at daybreak,” said Dylan. “I’m going to get an El Camino right now.”

  Dylan walked away. He crossed the street and went to the sidewalk that took him to Harold’s front door.

  Kevin had thrown all the logs that were on the tailgate onto the driveway and was now leaning forward to get more of the cut wood from the rear of the truck bed. John jumped into the bed of the truck and moved the logs closer to Kevin.

  “Here you go, buddy,” said John.

  “I’m not your buddy.”

  Dylan knocked loudly on Harold’s door. He heard a barely perceptible voice answer.

  With a weak, raspy voice, Harold said, “Come in. It’s unlocked.” Harold knew now that he was too weak to waste energy getting out of the chair to unlock the door.

  Dylan opened the door to see Harold leaning back in a reclining chair. His gaunt features almost made Dylan gasp. Dark skin circled his sunken eyes. With the exception of a few thin patches of straggly hair, he was bald. There was one drop of fresh blood at the corner of his mouth. Dry blood covered the other cracks on his lips. His jaw was slack, but his lips were pulled tight across his pale gum line, exposing his teeth in a macabre smile. Harold looked like a skeleton covered with a translucent membrane of gray skin. Because of having had gastric bypass surgery, his body could not absorb much Vitamin A, and his retinas had started to degenerate as a result. Harold squinted his eyes. His vision was failing him. The moving form of a dark void was all Harold could perceive.

  “That you, Jim?” His dry lips cracked again when he spoke, and his dark eyes closed when he winced from the pain.

  “It’s Dylan. Do you need a glass of water?”

  Harold licked his lips, with a tongue like leather, before answering again. “Yes, a tall one.”

  Dylan walked into the kitchen to find a bucket of water and, as he did, noticed that Harold moved his head to track his movement across the room with his ears, not his eyes. He wondered how blind the man was as he found a tall glass and filled it. When Dylan handed the glass of water to him, its weight made Harold’s hand shake violently and he spilled most of it. After he drank the water, Harold went limp in the recliner and his hand holding the glass fell to his lap.

  “More,” asked the raspy voice.

  Dylan took the empty glass, filled it once more, and handed it back to the specter. His skull tilted back and the shaky hand rose again, pouring the cold clear liquid past his slack jaw. Harold’s hand collapsed back to his lap, and he was panting from the exertion of raising a glass of water.

  “I need a favor,” said Dylan.

  “Of course you do. Why else would you be here?” Harold’s sarcasm remained intact.

  “We need the keys to your car.”

  “We? Ah, that explains it. You’re going to go traipsing across the countryside and leave me here to rot.”

  “You’ve got it wrong. We need to find food. Everybody helping you needs to eat.”

  “Ha! You’re the first person here all day, and you’re a stranger to me.”

  “Harold, I’m not going to your pity party.”

  A bird fluttered in its cage and woke the other birds. They began to stretch their wings and ruffle their feathers, preening between the quills with their beaks. The clatter changed to song, and Harold turned an ear toward the cages.

  “Do you want me to feed your birds?” asked Dylan.

  “Yes.”

  Dylan began to scoop the birdseed and pour a small amount into each cage.

  “I’m blind now. You know that, don’t you?” asked Harold.

  “No.” Dylan lied.

  “It’s true. And it won’t be long before I’m dead and gone. You’ll all swarm through my house like a plague of locusts and steal everything. Won’t you?”

  Dylan closed the last cage. He turned and went to the door, shaking his head. Just as he grasped the doorknob to leave, he turned back to Harold and said, “You have no idea how much humanity is surrounding you in a world with very little of it left.”

  “I’ll give Jim my key. It’s hidden.”

  Dylan slammed the door shut.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The cool morning air created heavy dew on the grass. The horizon was foggy and glowed with an eerie red iridescence that expanded as the sun rose higher. Dylan and Kevin stood shoulder to shoulder on the driveway, hands in their jacket pockets to keep warm. They watched Harold’s garage door rise, and then the black El Camino slowly backed out. Jim drove it to Dylan’s house, parked it on the street, and waited for the others. Dylan and Kevin stacked the trunk of the El Camino with all the tarps and empty buckets they had. After John arrived, Joel and David got into the truck. Jim started the El Camino and pulled in front of John, gesturing at him to follow.

  The vehicles exited the subdivision, and the quest began. The side streets took them to a larger road that merged with a divided street that curved toward the lake, and they followed that road the length of the lake to its end, at the dam. They turned right onto the county road over the dam and continued, driving on another quiet and vacant road. Dylan and Kevin recognized the lakeside community they were passing and squinted through the haze to see if they could see Dean or any of the others who had helped them get out of the lake. They only saw a stray dog and a smoldering campfire.

  Past that community, down the road a few miles, there was an old furniture outlet store. Dylan remembered that the cult had moved into it. He told Jim to slow down. Dylan could see the building from the road, but did not see anyone around it. He wondered if they had abandoned it.
Just past the cult’s building, a serpentine cobblestone driveway led to the winery and its vast orchard of grapes that backed up to a golf course. Jim turned onto the driveway and parked next to the building. Kevin exited the vehicle and quickly ran around the building and came back.

  “It’s clear all the way back to the orchard,” said Kevin. “Drive around.”

  “Is there anything left? Did you see anything on the vines?” asked Dylan.

  “Couldn’t tell. I was too far away.”

  The El Camino went first and John followed close behind. Jim drove to the side of the orchard farthest from the cult’s property. The vehicles went slowly through the tall grass, bouncing gently on the uneven ground. Kevin walked in front to make sure they did not run over anything concealed in the weeds. They stopped at the corner of the orchard. Before them, they saw thick wooden posts that someone had sunk deep into the ground and held in place with concrete. Long strands of galvanized wire had been strung tightly from post to post to support the grapevines, which were thick down the length of the rows. They exited their vehicles and went to the abandoned vines. The clusters of grapes had dried on the vine. Raisins and brown leaves were all that remained. They were mostly undisturbed. A few grazing deer had harvested vegetation on the orchard’s periphery, leaving the dried grapes deep in the rows intact.

  David quickly picked the little pieces of desiccated fruit from their stems and swallowed handful after handful.

  “Take it easy,” advised John. “You’ll shit your pants.”

  David stopped pushing the raisins into his mouth. He clenched the remaining handful of raisins tightly in his hand and used the same arm to wipe the dark saliva from the corner of his mouth.

  After moving his head side to side, observing the expanse of the vineyard, Dylan said, “There’s more here than we can take.”

  “I’m not complaining,” said Joel.

  “I’m not either.” Dylan shaded his eyes with his hand and looked around once more. “I’m going to walk around.” He shouldered the rifle. “I’ll make one loop and return.”

  John removed his bandolier of shotgun shells from the truck and picked up his shotgun. “I’m going with you.”

  “I’ve got it. Stay here.”

  Dylan’s command infuriated John and he felt humiliated again.

  Dylan followed the edge of the grapevines and walked away from the men and toward the cult’s property. On his loop around the orchard, Dylan stopped to look at the cult’s temple, the old furniture store. From the back, he saw that the asphalt parking lot only extended a short width from the rear of the temple. On the back wall, there was one steel door and no windows. Originally, the back of the building was most likely where inventory had been stored, so there was no need for windows. A chimney projected from the flat roof. That appeared odd, but he could remember seeing a sales flyer from when it was still a furniture store. Designed with a rustic appearance, a portion of the sales floor had living-room furniture near a large fireplace to give it a warm, homey appearance.

  In the lawn that was past the rear parking lot, there was a large fire ring of oddly sized stones, brick, and cinder blocks. Mismatched patio chairs circled the crudely made fire ring. A little farther from the building, closer to the fairway of the golf course, was what appeared to be a storage shed, constructed of concrete blocks, with two garbage dumpsters next to it.

  Dylan stared at the cult’s temple. His eyes went from the rear parking lot to the yard behind it and past the golf course. He imagined how all that was connected to his neighborhood not far away. He wondered if this is where the lunatic came from that he had caught in his yard talking to his children. It remained quiet, with no sign of activity. He moved along and circled back around to the vehicles.

  “See anything?” asked John. He appeared eager, ready for any drama or conflict, so he could try to redeem his perception of lost manhood. He felt as though Kevin had emasculated him the day of the corn harvest, as Dylan just had, by making him stay with the other men. Bitterness permeated his body. Now, with no one as an ally, the group had relegated him to subservient duties.

  “Nothing,” replied Dylan.

  John appeared disappointed, but the others were relieved.

  Dylan put his rifle down to join the men harvesting raisins. He went to the El Camino to get a drink of water before starting. The morning fog had disappeared, and he could see farther down the road. He removed the binoculars from Kevin’s backpack and observed the landscape. He saw something that jarred his memory. It was a nursery. He had been there once, years ago, to get landscaping materials for his house. Dylan returned the binoculars and went back to the men.

  “There’s one more place we need to go,” Dylan announced.

  John’s head came up above the grapevines. “I’ll go.” John volunteered, with an eager intensity.

  Dylan did not immediately respond and tried to ignore John.

  “What is it?” asked Kevin.

  “I can remember a nursery farther down the road. We should check it out.”

  “I don’t need any adventures. I’ll stay,” answered Joel.

  David was still hungry and snacking on the raisins. He simply shook his head and kept picking and eating.

  “I’ll stay with the El Camino,” said Jim.

  Dylan looked at John. He had already put the bandolier on and was behind the steering wheel of the truck.

  “Looks like you’re driving,” said Dylan.

  Dylan, Kevin, and John drove away in the truck. John guided the wheels to follow the path they had made in the bent grass just a short time ago. The empty open road took them the few miles away to the nursery. In the nursery’s parking lot, there was one old van with Arizona license plates. The van was painted red and rusted around the wheel wells. The paint color partially camouflaged the rusty metal.

  The unlocked double doors of the nursery allowed them to walk easily into the building. A single skylight partially illuminated the inside. They separated and quietly walked up and down the aisles. Dylan turned down an aisle of pesticide, crinkled his nose at the smell, and turned away. He found an empty display stand for local honey and tilted the stand forward. There was one small bottle of the delicious treat behind it. He grabbed the plastic bottle and put it into his front pocket.

  “Hey, guys, come here,” Kevin announced from the farthest aisle. “I found something.”

  Dylan and John came down opposite sides of the aisle and then stood shoulder to shoulder, with Kevin in the center. The display in front of them had a multitude of small, wooden drawers. Above the display, a sign with large letters spelled the word, SEEDS.

  “You hit the jackpot,” said Dylan.

  John swallowed his simmering anger again. He wanted to find some glory in their quest, but Kevin had showed him up. He began to grind his teeth.

  “Get some sacks, John. We’re taking all of this,” ordered Dylan. He began to open each drawer and remove all the packages of seeds, stacking them high on the tiled floor.

  John found a box of plastic bags under the cash register and kicked them halfway down the aisle to where Dylan and Kevin were mounding the seed packets. John stormed out the exit. The bell above the exit door jingled loudly as it closed behind him.

  “What’s got into him?” asked Kevin.

  “Who cares? We just need the truck.”

  They put the sacks of seed packets on the floorboard of the truck. Dylan shut the truck’s passenger door and looked around. “Where the hell is he?”

  “Let’s look around,” replied Kevin.

  They walked under a large wooden gazebo. A variety of flowering bushes lined the arbor and its gravel pathway. The pathway stopped at the pavement road that circled back around the building to the large parking lot on the other side. Before them, down a gentle slope, were small buildings and several open enclosures for different kinds of trees.

  Kevin tapped Dylan on the shoulder. “We should go there. Maybe bring back some fruit trees.”
<
br />   Dylan looked left and right, but did not see John. They began to walk down the slope. Just as they passed a large, potted evergreen tree, they saw John on the other side, picking the red petals off a rosebush.

  “What the hell, John?” said Dylan.

  “What?” He did not look up. He was plucking every petal. A section of the bush was already denuded.

  “You disappeared,” said Dylan.

  All John could comprehend was the scolding tone of Dylan’s voice.

  “C’mon, we’re going to get some fruit trees,” Dylan commanded. “We need your help.”

  “Go ahead, you can handle it,” scoffed John.

  John turned and slowly sauntered away. In front of him, a rectangular, red building stood next to the arbor that covered all the flowering bushes. The little red building had a sliding door. It reminded him of a barn. An awning hung over the front of the building. Under the awning, there was a pile of rolled sod, brown and dead long ago. He slowly walked toward it, away from Dylan and Kevin.

  Dylan and Kevin circled around the enclosure of fruit trees and found the entire inventory. Behind the buildings with trees, next to the irrigation pond, there was an immense garden, planted with row after row of vegetables. Each row had a different plant, and each row was weed free from recent hoeing. Both men simultaneously froze in their tracks.

  “Somebody has already been here,” said Dylan.

  “We should go,” said Kevin.

  “You read my mind. Let’s grab some trees and get out of here, fast.”

  Dylan slung his rifle behind his back and grabbed two small fruit trees by the base of their trunks. Kevin also grabbed two, and both men went back up the slope. John had only made it to the awning of the little red building when Dylan and Kevin caught up with him. John was leaning against a wooden post that supported the arbor. Just as they dropped the trees on the gravel, next to John, the door slid open on the little red building.

  A man carrying a hoe came out. He was wearing faded denim jeans tucked into rubber boots, a gray sweatshirt, and a cap pulled down over his ears. The man was startled and stumbled backward onto the rolls of stacked sod. Frightened, he began to yell in Spanish, his native tongue.