Lamp Black: Second Edition, Disaster, Preparedness, Survival, Awakening (The Gatekeeper Book 2) (31 page)

“John, I don’t know how to thank you,” said Paul.

“No thanks are necessary, Paul. I was . . .” John was about to say “sent here,” but he didn’t. “I was planning to come visit you guys anyway. I’m just glad I did. You guys will be safe now.”

“I think they were going to kill us,” said Paul, in a subdued voice that bordered on absolute defeat.

John came to that same conclusion, but he wasn’t about to confirm it for Paul, at least not when he was in such a distraught mental state. Paul didn’t need John’s confirmation of anything so stark at the moment. “That may be,” said John, “but it’s not important now. They’re tied up in the back of the pickup.” He gestured with a thumb in the direction of the side yard and asked, “What do you think we should do with them?” John only asked the question because he was curious to hear what Paul would have to say about it.

When Paul didn’t answer, John turned to study him. Paul was staring off into the gloomy ash filled air. John allowed Paul his solitude and noticed that the illumination had improved, if only incrementally. John guessed it at somewhere around forty or fifty percent now. The air was still gloomy and oppressively heavy, but it was brighter, and that gave him hope that the ash wouldn’t linger for much longer. John’s watch said it was a little after one o’clock, which meant the sun was practically overhead. That would explain the brighter conditions. With the sun overhead, the atmospheric obscuration would be at its thinnest. John was about to recommend they prepare to leave when Paul said, “What are you going to do with them?”

John realized Paul was clearly out of sorts, but he acted as if the question was original and immediate. “I’m going to drive them into town and give them to the police,” said John. He didn’t think it was necessary to explain to Paul that the police station was probably closed, at least the nearest one, but it was the only way to respond given Paul’s emotional state.

“What do you think the police will do with them?” asked Paul.

“I don’t know. Probably lock them up. They’ll most likely need statements from us,” replied John.

“Do you think Marissa will have to see that man again,” said Paul, as he gestured to where Darrel sat, “. . . the pig that raped her?”

“I don’t know what will happen once the police are involved. It’s possible that Marissa may have to face him in some sort of ad hoc trial, but that’s way down the road. I don’t think anyone will react to this crime like they did before the disaster,” replied John.

Paul continued to stare into the gloom. After a lengthy pause he asked, “You don’t think the police will come out here, do you? You don’t think they’ll investigate the crime scene, you know, take evidence and stuff like that?”

“Honestly?” asked John.

“Yes. Honestly,” said Paul.

“No,” replied John.

“I see,” said Paul, and he turned to stare back out into the gloom.

They stood together a little while longer before John cautioned another request, “Are you ready to get moving?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“OK, here’s my plan. I’ll stay here and guard the prisoners. You drive the van to my house and I’ll have Adam help you unload it. Then you come back here, and we’ll load up the rest of your stuff. Once that’s done, you’ll drive the van back to my house and I’ll take the prisoners to the police station. How does that sound?” asked John. Paul continued to stare blankly ahead, and John nudged him with an elbow. “Are you with me, Paul?”

“Huh? Yes, I’m with you, John. That sounds like a good plan.”

“Good,” said John, as he walked to the van and opened the driver’s side door. “Paul, where are the keys for the van?”

Paul walked to the van and stared blankly at John as he climbed into the driver’s seat. “The keys aren’t here,” said Paul. “I need the keys.”

John was getting worried about Paul’s state of mind. He saw post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD victims before, but this was a serious case, and John was wondering if he could even manage Paul, let alone work with him. “Where do you keep the van keys, Paul?”

Paul was silent. John was about to repeat his question when Paul said, “They’re upstairs, in the bedroom . . . on my dresser.”

“Good. OK, I’ll go get them. You wait here and I’ll be right back,” said John, and he was off in a flash. He felt an overwhelming need for urgency, but didn’t quite understand it. He saw two dressers in the master bedroom, but it wasn’t hard to figure out which one belonged to Paul. At first John didn’t see the keys, but then he looked into a small, blue, hand-made ceramic dish. John figured it was something one of his boys made for Paul in elementary school. John grabbed the keys and ran down the stairs. As he passed through the kitchen, John heard a gunshot.

Reflexively, John drew his pistol and ran into the garage. Paul wasn’t sitting in the van, and he knew in an instant that Paul had armed himself with the shotgun, the one taken from Darrel earlier, the one he left sitting loaded on the hood of the van. John figured Paul had either just taken his own life, or shot one of the prisoners. As dreadful as it sounded, John sincerely hoped it was the latter of the two possibilities. He wasn’t prepared to tell Marissa that Paul killed himself.

When John rounded the corner of the garage, he saw Paul standing on the back bumper of the pickup. He was leaning over Darrel’s lifeless body and taking aim at Luanne as she lay tied up in the back of the pickup. “Paul! No!” screamed John.

Paul looked at John but kept the shotgun aimed at Luanne. “John, they raped my wife. They beat me, tied me up, and made me watch. They don’t deserve to live,” he cried.

John holstered his pistol and approached the pickup. “You’re right, Paul, they don’t deserve to live. But are you prepared to handle that judgment for both of them? Are you prepared to live with her death as well?”

“They were going to kill us!” screamed Paul.

“You don’t know that, but more importantly, they didn’t. You’re still alive, Paul. Your family is still alive. They hurt you. I know they hurt you, but you’re still alive,” said John, as he continued to inch his way toward the truck. “Do you think you could live with yourself if you took her life too?” asked John. He didn’t know if he was getting through to Paul, but he was almost close enough to knock him off the back of the truck and disarm him. It was a dangerous proposition, but one John was willing to attempt if it meant saving Paul and Luanne.

With a quivering voice, but much lower and less shrill than before, Paul said, “I’d live better knowing these two could never hurt anyone again!”

John noticed Paul lower the barrel of the shotgun, ever so slightly, and realized that he wouldn’t have to tackle him after all. “I understand what you’re saying, Paul, but you already eliminated the main threat. The man is dead, and rightly so, but trust me when I say that killing the woman will not make you feel better. It will bother you for the rest of your life.”

Paul dropped the barrel of the shotgun to his side and stepped completely into the truck’s bed. He kicked Luanne once, very savagely, and she cried out in pain. “You deserve to die you sick bitch, but your day will come. You’ll face judgment, and I hope I’m there to see it,” screamed Paul. He then turned to John and said, “Here. Take this before I change my mind.”

John reached out and grabbed the shotgun. He quickly cleared it and stuffed the remaining shells into a pocket. Now that the weapon
was little more than a club, John laid it against the van’s rear bumper. Mentally exhausted from the exchange, John collapsed against the van and slid down to sit on the rear bumper. The thought of having to deal with yet another dead body weighed heavily upon him.
No one should have to deal with so many dead bodies this early into the disaster
, he thought.
Especially in my own neighborhood
. He was just glad he was able to prevent another death.

The thought of death made him think of Corbin’s dad again, both the physical and spiritual ones. Their brief encounter in hell, in the death stream, was something he was still trying to come to terms with. Apparently the Catholics were right, thought John, suicide is a one-way ticket to hell. He considered his rescue from the jailers and wondered if other people, people like Corbin’s dad, who died in their ignorance of heaven and hell, could be saved. Surly they could if God willed it to be so. He decided that it would be a good question to ask Eli, or maybe Father himself if he got the chance. The reality of it slammed around inside his head like so many pachinko balls. John forced himself to stop and compose himself before taking another breath.

He felt the van settle as Paul took a silent seat beside him on the bumper. He knew they couldn’t leave Darrel in the back of a pickup, not like he was, and not if he planned to turn Luanne over to the police. He considered dumping Darrel’s body in a field somewhere, but that also seemed like the wrong thing to do. John knew they had to dispose of Darrel’s body the right and smart way, especially since he felt responsible for setting up the conditions for Darrel’s execution.

John had seen aggressive behavior directed toward enemy prisoners while serving in Iraq, but Paul surprised him. He honestly didn’t think Paul was capable of such retaliatory actions. When a Soldier lost a close friend in battle, and the unit managed to capture an enemy combatant, even one who may not have been directly responsible for the Soldier’s loss of life, the unit had to pay close attention to safeguarding the prisoner. John never attacked an enemy prisoner, but he certainly sympathized with the desire to do so. John realized they
really had only one option, and he turned to Paul to ask, “Do you have a shovel?”

“Yeah, I’ve got a couple in the garage,” said Paul.

John noticed Paul seemed to be in a much better state of mind now that Darrel was dead. He wondered, even for a brief moment, if Paul played him. Fetching the keys had been a perfect distraction for John, and it gave Paul just enough time to visit his vengeance on the rapist. John realized that if he had been played it had been masterfully done, so he decided to let it go.

“Here, put this in the van,” said John, as he handed Paul the shotgun. “I’ll drag the body into the back yard while you grab the shovels.”

John got up and made a quick radio call to Jenna as he walked to the pickup. He told her they had experienced a slight delay, but that everything was fine and they would be along shortly. Luanne whimpered in the back of the truck, but John ignored her. He lowered the tailgate, cut Darrel free of his bonds, and began to drag his body out of the truck. The body dropped in the ash with a dull thump and John stepped back to let the ash cloud settle.

John looked at Luanne with new pity. He didn’t know her exact role in the violence, but she was an active participant, even if Darrel was her puppet master. John felt no sympathy for her, only pity in that she allowed herself to be lead astray by such an evil man. Paul came around the corner with two shovels, and John asked, “Do you have something to put the dirt on, like a large plastic bag or cardboard?”

“I’ve got garbage bags. How many do you want?”

“Bring the box,” replied John.

Paul left and John began to pull Darrel’s body farther into the back yard. He noticed that Paul must have taken the shot from a relatively short distance, something like five or six feet away, and he was glad Paul didn’t shoot him in the head. The chest shot was ugly enough, but a head shot would have been really messy. From that distance the buckshot pattern had no time to spread, so it left a neat hole in
the rapist’s chest about the size of a half-dollar coin. It was a terribly deadly wound, but John saw much worse in Iraq.

John reached the end of the house and waited for Paul to catch up. Darrel was too heavy to pull through the ash by himself. “Where’s the easiest place to dig?” he asked Paul, between heavy breaths. Dragging Darrel’s dead body through the ash had exerted him more than he realized, or maybe it was the combined exertions of the entire emotional scenario. “I was thinking the lawn, or in a flowerbed . . . somewhere where the dirt is soft,” finished John.

“I’ll show you where we can dig,” said Paul, and he reached down and grabbed Darrel’s free arm. They dragged Darrel’s body a short distance into the back yard, and when Paul dropped Darrel’s arm, John dropped the other. They stood and looked around, both men winded from having dragged the big man through the ash another fifty feet. Paul, even more winded than John, looked at him and said, “This will do.”

After scooping away the ash the men took turns digging a shallow grave. Paul cut through the sod with his shovel and tossed the chunks of dirt onto the plastic bags. The green grass stood out, fresh and alive, despite having been buried and forgotten under a heavy blanket of gray ash. John wondered how the grass managed to stay green, but he reminded himself that it had only been on the ground for about thirty-six hours. He knew grass could stay green for a while, but not much longer than that.

The grave digging went faster than John thought possible. The two men fell into a digging rhythm and soon had a four foot deep hole that was large enough for Darrel’s body. After they slid it into the shallow grave and covered it with garbage bags, the two men began to scoop dirt back into the hole. After tamping down the dirt with their shovels, they covered the dirt with ash. Darrel was gone, and the entire process took less than forty minutes.