Lamp Black: Second Edition, Disaster, Preparedness, Survival, Awakening (The Gatekeeper Book 2) (12 page)

“This is Cat. Did you say,
Car
, over?”

Oops, thought John. “Cat, this is Dog. I did say car. I was almost run over by one. It must have been on my mind when I called . . . but I’m fine. No worries. How is everything at your location, over?”

“Everything is fine here. Please be careful, Dog.” John could hear the concern in Jenna’s voice despite her valiant effort to suppress it.

“I will, Cat, I promise. I’m making slow progress, but the car may have helped me a bit. I’ll check back with you again in ten minutes. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“Oh, one more thing. What is . . . Bird’s address?” asked John.

There was silence for a moment and Jenna returned with, “It’s two-fifty.” John heard Adam give her the number in the background and she repeated the number in military format, “That’s two-five-zero.”

John smiled despite himself and replied, “Roger. Thanks Cat. Dog, out.” He stopped to clip the radio back to his vest and drew his pistol to clear it, and the holster, of the accumulated ash from his recent avoidance roll. He removed his breathing mask and blew the last of the ash from his weapon. There wasn’t much, but it was enough to make him nervous about shooting if it wasn’t cleared. John didn’t want to take any chances with the unfamiliar ash, that it might hinder the safe and reliable operation of his pistol in any way, so he cleaned it as best he could where he stood.

While in the desert, he cleaned his weapons twice a day. Since the ash was about as close to desert conditions as he knew, he decided to stay within his comfort zone. If experience taught him anything, it was that it’s better to err on the side of caution, especially when relying on weapons in extreme environments.

John reloaded the pistol and returned it to his holster. The ash wake of the passing vehicle added another foot of depth on either side of the lane, but the path in the middle of the road was now less than a foot deep, and that pleased John immensely. He was amazed that a car could actually operate in these conditions, let alone drive the ash covered roads, but he was glad to see it. The guy driving that car must have been doing thirty, which was fast for the conditions, but John was glad he wasn’t driving faster. He barely had enough time to dive out of the way as it was. To make matters worse, John doubted the driver even saw him through the ash, and would have run him over if he didn’t move. He would have to pay much better attention to his surroundings if he meant to keep his promise to Jenna.

The walk to Corbin’s house was almost a pleasure in the new path. He was able to move much faster, and even assumed a more normal pace and stride. When he reached the turn at the end of the street, his first landmark, John began to count the mailboxes on the right side of
the road. Up ahead, in the gloom, John thought he saw movement. He flipped on his helmet mounted flashlight and saw the reflective eyes of an animal, perhaps a medium sized dog. It jumped into the path and vigorously shook his coat before trotting up to John. The dog’s coat didn’t seem to change color with the shaking. It was still gray. John instinctively moved his hand to the pistol, but the dog didn’t seem to pose a threat to him.

When the dog stood next to John, he reached down and rubbed his dusty head. “What are you doing out here, big fella?” asked John. The dog whined once, and then turned and trotted off down the path behind John. He turned to watch the dog disappear into the gloom. The beam of the flashlight revealed the only evidence that the dog ever existed, the many canine footprints that remained stamped in the gray blanket of volcanic powder at his feet.

John reached up and turned off his flashlight. He no longer needed it. He knew where he was, but the thought of the roaming dog lingered. Soon, probably in about a week or two, stray dogs like that would begin to pose a real threat to people in the area. He made a mental note to share his concerns with his family when he got home.

He found the second mailbox and stopped. After pausing briefly to study the dark and silent surroundings, John moved to the edge of the road and rubbed ash from the side of the nearest mailbox. He turned on his flashlight. The muted beam reflected strings of light off the two-inch, polished brass, numbers that read, 250. He reached up to turn off the light and cut a fresh trail to Corbin’s front door. He knew it was risky to approach the house uninvited, especially in these ashy conditions, but he had no other choice. He wasn’t about to sneak around, peeking through windows like Corbin had done. Corbin assumed great risk by approaching John’s house like he did, and that was dangerous and stupid. John was neither of those. Besides, he didn’t feel any threat or danger coming from the house. There was a feeling, but it was more a feeling of old danger - danger past.

John shook off a brief chill and approached the front steps. He saw a trail in the ash that cut across the yard, toward the road, at a right angle. He reasoned it was probably Corbin who cut the trail when he left the house.
Only a teen would cut a lawn like that
. John walked up to the front door and saw that it was cracked open.
Yes, Corbin must have left in a hurry
, thought John. He pushed the front door open and took a knee at the right side of the entryway, being careful not to silhouette himself in the open doorway even though there remained a persistent lack of back lighting.

John lifted his goggles and surveyed the dark and silent home. It was as cold and silent as a grave. He reached up and turned on his flashlight. The beam was dim. Thinking his batteries were failing, John removed the flashlight from his helmet and tapped it against his hand. The beam grew brighter as caked ash fell away from the lens. John removed his mask and blew the remaining ash from the lens, then reattached the flashlight to his helmet. The clear beam of light revealed a thin layer of ash in the entryway that had formed a neat fan-shaped pattern on the floor. He ran his finger through the ash, and estimated the door had been left open for at least two hours.

From where he knelt, John let the flashlight beam penetrate the dark spaces of the house. Seeing nothing of interest, he hollered, “Is anybody home!” After allowing a sufficient amount of time to pass, John hollered again, “Hello?” He stood and removed his helmet, and slid the goggles off his head and onto his left arm. With the annoying coverall hood lowered, he paused to listen carefully for any sound – the sound of a creaking floor board even, or a moan. He put his helmet back on and scanned the unclouded darkness of the downstairs with his mounted flashlight.

The stillness of the house felt wrong to John. It was too still, too quiet; like it was suffocating under a heavy wool blanket. John moved through the dining room, passed through the kitchen and into the living room. Everything was frozen in place, like a snapshot.
This house has been asleep for a hundred years
, mused John. A thin layer of ash
coated all flat surfaces. As he walked through the kitchen, taking in the detail, searching for an explanation about his feeling of unease, he again asked, but in a normal tone of voice, “Is anybody home?”

He entered the living room and froze. A purse was laying on the coffee table. He scanned the rest of the room and allowed the light to linger over the large bay window. Ash streaked the glass, and layered the windowsill like so much gray snow. There was nothing more to see in the living room except quiet darkness. John returned to the entryway, and while standing at the bottom of the stairs, he yelled again, “Is anybody home? I’m John Anderson . . . from down the street. I’m here on behalf of Corbin, your son. Hello?”

John walked slowly up the carpeted stairs, ready for someone, anyone, to appear at the top and challenge his unwelcome entry. John knew Corbin was an only child, but he held on to a hope that at least one of his parents were home. The purse was a promising sign, but also foreboding. He sincerely wished for a confrontation, because anything would be better than more unanswered silence. When he reached the top of the stairs he felt the oppressive weight of the silence, and smelled the unmistakable odor of blood.

It was a familiar smell in war, not in his neighborhood. It filled his nose on countless occasions, more than he cared to admit. Bullet wounds didn’t always make a bloody mess, but Improvised Explosive Devices did. While in Iraq, IEDs drew more blood from his Soldiers than bullets and indirect fire combined. To John, IEDs were dishonorable, a cowards tool of death. He reminded himself that honorable combat was a thing of the past, but still, there was something dark and sinister about IEDs, something that reflected the very heart and intent of a despicable enemy. He considered the Iraqi insurgents terrorists, and a terrorist was just another name for a murderer.

The smell of blood prompted John to draw his pistol. The first room at the top of the stairs was Corbin’s. It looked like Adam’s, except it was more cluttered and messy, and decorated with different posters and such. John saw nothing of interest in Corbin’s room and
wasted no time there. He turned and looked down the upstairs hallway. Thee more rooms remained, but he didn’t need to check two of them, because lying on the threshold of the door at the end of the hallway was a woman’s body. She was face down. Her long brown hair was splayed out in front of her, hiding her face that lay resting against the base of the open bedroom door. She was clearly dead, for her posture looked very uncomfortable.

John approached to check the woman’s pulse, but the beam of his flashlight illuminated the body of a man lying face up on the king-sized bed. John couldn’t see the man’s face, so he stepped over the woman and entered the master bedroom. Now he understood why Corbin behaved so hysterically, and he felt instantly sorry for him. To confront such a horror would have tested the resolve of an adult, let alone a teenager.

John moved to the side of the bed and saw that the man had shot himself in the head. A pistol, a short barreled .38 revolver, was clenched in his right hand. He had inserted it into his mouth, pointed the barrel up, and then pulled the trigger. John reached over and pried the pistol from the man’s death grip. He slid the pistol under the mattress, for no other reason than because it felt too dirty to hold. He didn’t want to carry it, and the mattress removed it from sight. John moved back to the woman and knelt beside her. She had been shot in the back, probably as she tried to flee her husband’s suicidal lunacy.

John lifted her sweater to examine the wound. He found a single, pencil-sized entry hole in her back, just three inches to the left of her spine and below her bra strap. John knew it was a lung shot and wondered where the man was standing when he shot her. He realized he could have even been sitting on the bed when he fired the pistol. Regardless, it was a distance shot, because there were no powder burns on her sweater, or on her flesh. S
he was trying to get away when he shot her
, thought John
, What a shame
.

John’s radio blared, “Dog, this is Cat, come in, over.” Startled out of his analysis, John was momentarily impressed with Jenna’s radio
handling until he recognized Adam’s voice. “This is Dog. I thought you were, Snake, over.”

“Right, this is Snake, sorry, I forgot. Dog, you missed two check-in calls, and Cat is worried. Are you OK?”

“This is Dog. Yes, I’m OK. A little busy at the moment, but thanks for checking on me. Look, give me a minute. I’m at the house and checking something out. Go to the garage when I call back. How copy, over?”

“This is Snake, I copy all, over.”

“Good, I’ll call again soon. Dog, out.”

John resumed his examination of the woman. The single bullet hole was dark purple, and free of flowing blood. He knew snub-barreled .38’s weren’t very accurate beyond a couple of yards, but John wondered why the man didn’t walk over and shoot her a second time before taking his own life. It could take more than one, or sometimes even two shots to the chest, to kill someone with a pistol, unless you hit them in the heart. A single lung shot should not have killed this woman. John figured she must have hit her head on the door when she fell after being shot. She probably laid unconscious, and the man believed he killed her with one shot. John reached up and checked her neck for a pulse, and he was surprised to find one, though it was very weak. Corbin’s mom was alive, but just barely.

John stood and walked to the bedroom window. The view was limited, but he needed a change of scenery. Without removing the radio from his vest, he pushed the talk button and said, “Snake, this is Dog, over.”

“Go ahead, Dog.”

“Snake, go get Cat and call me back.”

“Cat is here with me, Dog. We’re both in the garage.”

“OK, good. Look, Cat, it’s bad here. Both parents are down, the dad is down for good, but the mom is still alive . . . but just barely.” John broke the connection and continued after a brief pause. “The way I
see it, we might be able to save her, but I have to get her to a hospital, ASAP.”

“Dog,” John heard Jenna’s voice now. “Can’t you just call an ambulance, the police, the . . . the fire department?”

“There’s no way to call, Cat. And even if I could, they won’t answer, and even if they did answer they wouldn’t come today. Trust me, I know what’s going on out there. We’re in one very small corner of a very upset world right now, and I know EMS has bigger problems than us. No, the only hope this woman has is with us.”

There was a long silence on the radio and Jenna replied, “OK. I understand. What do you want us to do?”

“Send Snake here in the Suburban. Have him wear an N95 mask and goggles, but that’s it. No weapons, no tools. No, wait, have him bring a flashlight. And tell him to pull straight into Corbin’s driveway, but do it slowly. I want him to drive here slowly, under fifteen miles-per-hour. How copy?”

“This is Snake. Copy all. I’ll be there ASAP,” replied Adam.

“Good. Now Snake . . . don’t get excited. Take it slow and easy, OK?”

“I will, dad. I mean, Dog. Sorry. I’m on my way.”

“And leave the radio with Cat. See you soon. Dog, out.”

John returned the radio to his vest and headed downstairs to wait for Adam. While he waited he dropped his vest and peeled off the coveralls. He returned the holster to his waist and put his vest back on, not so much for protection, but because it carried his useful equipment, like his radio, knife, ammo, zip-ties, and multi-tool.