Dark Road (3 page)

Dan grabbed the sleeping bag he had put down, held both of them in front of his pockets, and didn’t stop walking until he was home.

…

“Rissa, c’mere,” Dan called when he arrived home what felt like six hours later, but was really more like five minutes. There was no answer so he called again. Eventually, he got a muffled response from the back yard.

Dan walked through the house, setting down the sleeping bags and the space bag, and walked into the back yard. Marissa was hanging up clothes to dry and had a bunch of clothespins in her mouth. Bekah and Jessie were playing in the back yard; Bekah on the swing set, Jessie in the sandbox.

Bekah jumped off the swing and ran to give her dad a hug. “Daddy!” Jessie was thoroughly engrossed in a dry moat.

“Hey, honey. I’ve only been gone for twenty minutes.”

“I know, I missed you anyway.” She hugged him again and went back to the swing.

Dan chuckled and turned to his wife.

“I love you.” He said.

“Mm muv moo moo.” She mumbled around a mouthful of clothespins.

“Got a light?” He asked.

She shot him a look that would have frozen water. That was his cue to get his butt in gear and help her hang the laundry.

“You’ll never believe what I found in the Taylor’s house.”

“Chocolate?” She asked.

“Alas no, but I did find two sleeping bags. They were in the attic,” Dan said. “I also found one of those giant vacuum bags with I have no idea what inside it.”

“I was hoping for chocolate.”

“I’m beginning to see a pattern here with the chocolate. I’ll put that at the top of the foraging list tomorrow, promise.” Then Dan made one of those ‘notes to self’, it’d apparently been a month.

“Ok, you evidently found something else; it’s written all over your face. What else did you find?” Marissa asked.

They were hanging up the last couple of things so Dan kept his mouth shut until they were done. He grabbed the laundry basket in one hand and Marissa’s hand in the other. “Girls, stay in our back yard, OK? Bekah, watch your sister. Mommy and I will just be inside for a couple of minutes. We’ll leave the door open.”

The “OK Daddy” from his daughters sounded like stereo speakers set a little too close together.

He took Marissa into the bathroom, the one room downstairs with no window, and closed the door.

“What are you doing?” She asked.

“Shhh, just wait.” Then Dan turned on his flashlight and pulled out the pistol and the box of bullets.

“Where did you get a, that’s a 9, Taurus, give me the flashlight.” Marissa said.

Marissa examined and cleared the pistol, being careful to keep her finger away from the trigger and pointed towards the shower wall, which was the outside wall and away from Dan and the kids, at all times.

“Ok, where’d you get it?” Marissa asked.

“I found the key to the Taylor’s gun safe. It was in their attic, hanging on a nail in a rafter.” Dan said, still not sure if she was happy or not.

Marissa put the gun down and flung herself at Dan, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him all over the face. “I take it you’re pleased?” Dan said.

“Pleased? I’m ecstatic! I know you don’t like guns but, well, if we’re going to leave we’re going to need at least something. This is great.”

“Then I think you’ll love this, there’s more.” Dan said. “You know I don’t know much about guns but I’m pretty sure there is a shotgun, another pistol and a hunting rifle in the safe. I don’t know how many bullets are in there but there were a bunch of boxes.”

Marissa needed a couple of seconds to take it all in before she could respond but when she did it was with a “Squeeeee!”

“Ok, put that back in your pocket, same with the ammunition—the rounds. I love you, but they are rounds or ammo, not bullets. The bullet is just the part that comes out the end.” She gave him another kiss. “We need to put these away somewhere and then we are going to need to get more out of that house.” After he had the gun and ammo stowed, they came out of the bathroom and sat down on the couch where they could see the girls. Marissa had made sure the handgun was clear and safe before she put it back down.

“The sleeping bags will help too, now and on the trip. Both of the girls have slumber bags for sleepovers and trips to the grandparents, but once it gets cold it will be nice to have something extra to put over the beds, or just have the kids sleep in them in the first place.” Dan said.

“I was just wondering about that. Let’s take a look at them and see if they need to be cleaned or not. At the very least, they probably need to be aired out.” Marissa was thinking out loud.

The stuff sacks were dusty on the outside but the sleeping bags were perfectly serviceable. It looked like they had been upgraded out of and the Taylors had maybe gone with lighter or more all-season bags. The tags said 25-degrees but neither Dan nor Marissa believed they would be good down to that cold.

“I’ve been thinking,” Dan said.

“Me too, but you go first,” Marissa replied in a decade and a half old ritual that had started when they were dating in college.

“We need to move downstairs.” Dan said. “It’s going to be a lot of work to get the mattresses and everything else down here but, well, heat rises and all that and…there are a lot of reasons.”

Marissa stopped stuffing the sleeping bag into the stuff sack and looked at Dan, for a few seconds and then nodded her head. “Yeah, I can see that. We spend a lot of energy we don’t really have going up and down the stairs every day.”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking as I was carrying the sleeping bags downstairs at the Taylor’s house this morning,” Dan said. “We can put the kids’ mattresses together for one big bed and they can share body heat, assuming we’re still here once it starts getting cold. We won’t have to worry about keeping the whole house warm, especially if we keep the upstairs bedroom doors closed.”

“I just wish we had a real fireplace in this house instead of that fake thing,” Marissa tossed her head at the gas-log fireplace that the original owners had chosen when the home was built. “I can’t believe we’re talking about the fireplace in August.”

“It isn’t going to be summer forever but it’s not going to matter much longer, sweetheart. Besides, this brief cool spell this summer has been murder and we have no idea what the weather is going to bring other that what we can see, and what your joints tell us a couple of days ahead of time.” Dan reached out to squeeze his wife’s hands and gave her a knowing smile. “They’ve been pretty accurate so far after all.”

“Yay me! Chalk one up for inflammatory arthritis or RA or fibro or vindictive anemia or whatever the hell it is that I have because nobody can seem to figure it out.” Marissa replied. She was actually doing pretty well today for both not having slept well for a couple months and now
seriously
running out of both the pain medication and muscle relaxants which kept her out of almost excruciating pain on a daily basis.

Marissa held up her hand before Dan could say anything and continued, “I know, I know, I’m not being bitter. I’m actually feeling pretty good today but I’m still processing a trek of unknown duration to an as of yet undetermined location to people who may or may not be there and might not welcome us when we arrive, and who just maybe don’t want any visitors.”

“I don’t want to starve to death here, Marissa.” Dan said flatly.

Marissa sighed, “Neither do I and I certainly don’t want that for the girls.” Marissa stopped and hung her head.

Dan got up and moved over to the couch to sit by his wife and put an arm around her. “I can’t pretend to know what you are thinking or have any idea in the world how hard it is going to be for you.” Marissa put her head on Dan’s shoulder and tried to relax a little. “It would probably add some time to the trip, depending on where we head, but I want to go by the fire station on the way out. It’s possible that there might be some things we could use, including some meds for you, to help make what we have last.”

Marissa put her arm around Dan and squeezed, nodding her head against his shoulder. She didn’t trust her voice just then.

Chapter Four

“I’m going to the library today, Rissa,” Dan said. His admission that there had been a couple of sleeping bags in the Taylor’s attic had renewed Carey’s interest in the attics of the abandoned homes. Couple the steadily rising number of sick in their small community with the fact that Carey and the Board were again taking a closer look at people’s houses, to the point that nothing was sacred, and Dan was seriously worried.

“Do you really think there’s anything there to find?” Marissa asked.

“I won’t know unless I go check but it’s at least worth a look. My biggest fear, well my two biggest fears…ok, amongst my biggest fears are such terror inducing thoughts as; the books are all gone as they’ve been taken and used for fuel, the books are ruined as the windows have been broken and they’ve been exposed to the weather for months, the books have already been picked over and all that’s left are books on the mating practices of the Portuguese Man-o-war or—and this one really frightens me—there’s no old-fashioned card catalog and I have to do it with absolutely
no
index.”

Dan shuddered. “I could be in there for
years
looking for a book on wilderness survival. How ironic, I could starve to death looking for a book on how to survive in just this situation.”

Marissa shook her head, “You are so melodramatic sometimes, now I know where Bekah gets it.”

“And you are so level-headed, I know where Jessie gets it,” Dan retorted.

“And if you aren’t careful you won’t be ‘getting it’ so keep a civil tongue in that mouth there, Mr.,” Marissa smiled.

“So,” Dan said, ignoring the mild rebuke, “I know the Inglewood branch isn’t huge but I’m hoping I can find something useful.”

“At this point I’d settle for an old Boy Scout manual,” Marissa said.

“Ditto, or even back issues of Boy’s Life. I remember getting those when I was a Cub Scout but didn’t do much with them except read the jokes. Speaking of which, what do you get when…”

“Really?” Marissa interrupted, staring at her husband.

“No.” Dan said. “But I really wish I’d stayed in Scouts after whatever animal it was I made it to. Bear or Beaver or Wildebeest, I think it was, or maybe Musk Ox? I was eight and I got to use a knife is all I remember.”

“Well, try not to be too conspicuous about it if you find anything, when you come back,” Marissa said. “Have you mentioned it to anyone else yet?”

It was Dan’s turn to stare at his spouse. “No, and I don’t plan on it either. If nobody else has thought of it until now and I have the bright idea to go to the library all of the sudden, I’m afraid Carey, or more likely Rick, will start putting things together.” Dan chewed the inside of his cheek, “What with the increased interest in attics that I’ve already caused, I’d really like to keep attention off of us until we leave if it’s at all possible.”

“Good hunting.” Marissa kissed Dan and he was out the door and on his bike.

…

He hoped he didn’t have to use the story he’d concocted about needing some exercise, since it sounded lame even to him.  Nobody expended more energy than they needed to nowadays, much less went on a bike ride outside of the neighborhood.

The ride to the library was only a little over a mile but took Dan about fifteen minutes, and he was constantly looking over his shoulder once he left the neighborhood. He hadn’t realized how quickly he’d grown used to being sheltered in their little community and he felt both vulnerable and like he was being watched the entire time he was outside of its confines.

He remembered smelling the smoke and seeing the glow to the south and west for weeks after the power went out but Dan was thoroughly unprepared for the level of devastation outside of the neighborhood.  The subdivision across Gallatin road had burned completely to the ground and a number of brick buildings had been gutted by the same fire.  Dan was sure that the only reason it hadn’t gotten to their subdivision was the width of the street and the fact that the wind had been blowing the wrong direction.

The memories of watching that fire were still raw.  Dan could still hear the sound of gunfire from the guards that had first yelled to warn off the refugees, and then, ultimately, picked them off one at a time as they tried to get in.  Eventually, Dan couldn’t watch anymore; it had been too cold, too harsh.  He understood the need, intellectually, but that didn’t mean he’d needed to stand there and be witness to it.

Dan still had hopes of finding an intact library but hadn’t even considered the building itself burning down, since it was all brick.  Seeing the burned out brick husks on the west side of the street brought home the fact that only the shell was impervious to fire.  Dan consoled himself with the knowledge that the library was on the east side of the road and was hopefully spared from this fire at least.

Dan’s heart sank when he reached the parking lot and rode in front of the library.  All of the front windows had been broken out to one side of the front door. At first glance it looked like the trip might be a waste of time but Dan was here and he wasn’t just going to turn around and go home without at least going inside for a look around. As Dan got closer he realized he was going to have to do something that he hadn’t considered when he left the house. He was going to have to leave the bike outside and unattended while he went inside.

The library had a bike rack but he hadn’t thought to bring a lock for the bike and the last thing he wanted was to have it stolen. Under normal circumstances he wouldn’t have worried too much about it since it had his name engraved on the underside where the pedals went through the frame. Now, that didn’t mean a thing. If he lost the bike, he’d never get it back, and this was his only means of transportation when the family hopefully took off, as well as every morning to get water; he couldn’t lose the bike now.

Dan rode around in the parking lot trying to decide what to do before determining that he wasn’t going to leave without checking out the inside of the library, but he wasn’t going to leave the bike completely unattended either. He pulled the bike as close to the front doors as he could without coming near any broken glass and then used the quick-release lever on the seat and the front wheel, to remove both. The seat went into his backpack and the front wheel he would just have to carry.