Beneath the Ashen Veil of Darkness

by Robert Bartlett

  Gracie’s screams fill the compound as Veronica, Sophia, Holly, and even Willy (who was calling on his limited experience in helping to deliver calves and colts growing up on a farm) as they all attempt to help deliver the baby that has been trying to come into the world now for almost seventeen hours. With nothing to give her for the pain, the quartet was doing their best to comfort Gracie but nothing they did seemed to help.

  “She’s having strong contractions now about fifteen seconds apart. I think we’re finally getting closer,” Holly calls out from the bedside up by Gracie’s head where she was busy swabbing her with a cool wash cloth and holding her hand. Calling up all she could still remember from her Lamaze classes Holly helps Gracie breath, push during contractions, and relax in between them. Willy had gently coaxed Jackson out of the room to wait under the pavilion while they tried to help his struggling wife give birth. The amount of blood Gracie was losing making him panicked and increasingly more worried about the well being of his wife and unborn child. Willy rushes back into the room, having just escorted Jackson outside, “Some things not right, I’ve never been a part of delivering a child, but even I know this much blood is NOT normal.” Willy exclaims as he gently pushes his way between Sophia and Veronica. “I can’t tell what’s causing all the blood” Sophia explains frustrated. “She hasn’t torn, and if you look the blood seems to be definitely coming out from inside of the womb. And we should be able to see the baby beginning to crown by now and we can’t.” Willy’s face goes somber as he stoops to get a closer look at what the problem could be. Then after several minutes as Willy stands up, looking at only Gracie’s contorted anguished face, the realization of what was happening is evident in his eyes. “The placenta has detached from the wall of the womb and is underneath the baby. That’s what’s causing Gracie to bleed so much, because the placenta is being pushed out first. Which also most likely means,” Willy pauses uttering an exasperated sigh, “That the baby is breech.”

  The room goes into slow motion as Willy’s words begin to sink in, seconds tick by followed by minutes, the only sounds in the room coming from Gracie as she lies there in the agonizing throws of childbirth. “Are you sure?” It is Holly that finally breaks the uncomfortable silence asking the obvious question that is on all of their minds, “And if it is, can’t we like, turn it or something?” “No, I’m not positive. I would need to feel for the baby’s head to be absolutely sure” Willy answers. “But I can’t in good conscience feel inside the private parts of my friend’s wife, I’m to old fashioned for that.” Willy looks at them all in turn as he continues, “So one of you will have to do it. And if the placenta has detached and if we can’t feel the baby’s head, we have no way to try to get it to turn. We’re not doctors Holly.” “I’ll do it” Sophia answers. “Or at least I’ll try to do it. I took beginners classes in high school to be a CNA when I thought I wanted to go into nursing so I have a vague idea of what I’m feeling. But I’ll still need you to walk me through exactly what it is I am feeling FOR. Ok Willy?” Veronica and Holly begin to try and comfort Gracie as they do the best they can to explain to her what is happening and that something might be wrong. Willy and Sophia stand back after several minutes, the answer to what they were searching for held in the tears that had begun to stream down Sophia’s cheeks. The baby was in fact breech and couldn’t be turned. “Tell her not to push until we figure out what the next step is”, Willy asks both Ronnie and Holly. “I’ll go get Jackson. I think they need to be together as we attempt to explain what options they have.” “And what exactly are their options Willy?” Veronica asks spitefully, already fearful of the answer. “We can abort the baby and try to save Gracie, we can do an emergency c-section and try to save the baby, or we can let nature take its course” Willy answers. “But then we either lose the baby or we lose Gracie.” Veronica states more than asks. “Yes Ronnie, we either try to save the baby or we try to save Gracie, I don’t think we can save both of them she’s too far into labor” Willy says somberly. “So you’re about to bring a man in here and ask him to choose between the love of his life and the life they both prayed for to love.” Veronica asks Willy, sobbing now in sympathy at the absolute horror of the situation that two of her closest friends were about to go through and that she was helpless to prevent. “Yes” is all Willy says as he exits the bunker and begins making his way to the pavilion. The fact that they could lose both Gracie and the baby wasn’t lost on Willy as he goes to tell his friend the hardest news he had ever had to tell anyone in all of his 62 years.

  And then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth, which had passed away.

  – Revelations 21:1

  Chapter Thirteen

  “But I don’t want to go with Lily and Rose to get the dumb water.” Belle protested to Cain after the fourth time he had turned and scolded her for trying to follow him and Dylan out into the woods to gather more firewood for the camp. “Well you can’t come with us out into the forest Belle, you’re too little. I can’t have you running off and getting lost.” Cain tries to explain, “Besides, you’re not strong enough to carry back any of the wood anyways.” “Uh-huh I can too! My daddy lets me carry the little pieces back for the fire all the time!” Belle retorts, saying this last part with a little humph and pride in her voice. “Lily, Rose, will you please come get her, she can’t go with us out into the woods.” Cain asks the twins, exasperated now, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and pointer finger. Dylan (ho is fifteen), along with the twins (who are twelve), are all laughing at the childhood crush that Belle (who has just turned five), has for some reason bestowed upon the fourteen year old Cain, much to his own frustrations. Belle’s had been the first birthday they had celebrated at the compound. With a scavenged pack of Twinkies and four small twigs from the fire they had celebrated the best they could in the circumstances they lived in at the time and continue to live in today. Finally it is Lily that comes to Cain’s rescue, “Come on Belle you don’t want to be around these smelly old boys anyways. All they’ll do is give you cooties.” Lily says this last part while making a silly face at Belle who is still distraught over Cain not letting her tag along. While in the background Rose echo’s Lily’s statement in an attempt to aid her sister in getting Belle to come along with them to collect the morning water rations from the filtration station. Belle finally turns away from Cain stomping her foot as she does and says flatly, “Ok, fine!” Belle takes Lily’s offered hand and begins to let her lead her away down the path that takes them to the barrels that they use for collecting water. After a few steps Belle quietly asks, “Lily, what are cooties?” A new round of laughter escapes from the twins and fills the countryside as they try to explain the age old disease of cooties that all boys have carried since the first little cave boy said “Uug” to the first little cave girl many millennia ago. Cain just shakes his head as he and Dylan, who is also laughing, turn and begin walking up the hillside so that they can collect the firewood from the patch of woods on the other side of the clearing that rests on the hilltop. As the silence and dark set in the farther away they get from the compound entrance (And each other) the two little bands of would be helpers both fall into an uneasy alertness. Both parties beginning to whisper their conversations without even realizing that the octaves of their voices had instinctually dropped.

  “I wonder how Gracie is doing.” Dylan asks Cain, concern evident in his voice as they reach the top of the hill and cautiously begin to cross the clearing. “Yeah me too, my mom seemed pretty nervous about it this morning. I could tell by the way she kept telling me that everything was going to be ‘OK’ like she was trying to convince herself more than me” Cain answers. “Yeah, she kept doing the same thing to me when she was asking me if we would organize gathering the firewood and water for today.” Dylan starts to walk a little slower as an obviously painful memory seems to begin to flood Dylan’s thoughts. “Yeah, it’ll be quicker though without Ol’ Willy constantly trying t
o describe what every dang tree and blade of grass out here used to look like and what it was called before the volcano eruption.” Cain says trying to raise the spirits of his friend, picking up on the fact that a memory of something or someone had begun to bother him. “You’re always making fun of him about it too” Dylan says, a small smile appearing on his lips, but disappearing just as fast as the memory takes hold again. “What’s up Dylan? You look like your puppy just died or something.” Cain asks his friend still trying to lighten the mood.

  “You know how I only had a dad? I mean when we started hanging out, only my dad and stepmom were around, not my real mom?” Dylan asks his friend. “Yeah I remember, you’re dad was pretty cool.” Cain offers, thinking that the memory of his father was what had gotten Dylan so upset. “I guess so. He was actually kind of a dick if you ask me. After my mom died he was anyways. Before that, yeah I guess he was pretty cool, “Dylan says, finally looking up to meet his friends gaze. “I’m sorry Dylan I never knew what happened to your mom. You never really talked about her and I never thought to ask. I didn’t know that she had died,” Cain says, looking down at the ground, no longer able to look his friend in the eye from feeling guilty about always having his mom and dad while Dylan it seems had lost both of his. “I know. Dad didn’t like to talk about it. He just drank himself into a stupor almost every night, he never knew it but at night when I would go to bed, I could hear him crying and talking to my mom in his sleep.” Dylan says this last part with a little animosity as he begins to cry himself, the pain and hurt of the memories that were flooding his thoughts conjuring up emotions that he had buried a long time ago. “But he always cared more about himself and drowning his own pain than he did about me,” Dylan spits the words out through angry sobs, “He never bothered to see that I was hurting too!” Cain stops and sits next to his friend who had stopped to sit on a fallen tree. Cain listens to the pain in Dylan’s voice as he recounts one the worst things that could happen to any child. The loss of your mother. Dylan wipes at his cheeks angrily as he continues, “He just couldn’t function without my mom. She had always taken care of everything. Then when she was gone, there wasn’t anyone there to take care of anything anymore. Dad lost his job first, and then he lost the cars and his motorcycle. Then he lost the house. I can remember coming home from school one day and these guys I had never seen before were carrying out all of our furniture and stuff. I thought we were being robbed so I called the cops. It turns out they were just there to take back all the stuff he hadn’t been making payments on. I was so embarrassed. We lost everything my mom had worked so hard to make sure we had in less than a year.” Dylan pauses to swipe at a fresh stream of tears that were running down his cheeks again. “So there I am sitting on the curb by myself waiting for my dad to show up. I’m not allowed in the house, they wouldn’t even let me go into the backyard to sit on the damn swing set!” Dylan slams his fist into his open palm in clear frustration. After several, very tense minutes Cain asks “So what happened after that?” Dylan answers with animosity and an angry smirk apparent on his face even under the dust mask and the dark. “My dad never showed up at all. I’m was just sitting there on the curb with my head between my knees watching these ants crawl around and kind of poking at them with this stick I had picked up, wondering what I’m supposed to do when I feel some one sit down on either side of me. I look up and see my aunt Ivey and my uncle Don sitting on either side of me. They said that I was going to go live with them for awhile, so that’s what I did.” “Dude, I had no idea. I knew your dad wasn’t always around but he always seemed pretty cool to me.” Cain says softly. “By the time you started coming around I guess he was. He had changed a lot by then.” Dylan says wiping at his cheeks again and taking a much needed breath. “How long did you stay there? I mean when we started hanging out you lived with your dad,” Cain asks. “About two years, all of fifth and sixth grades. They lived over on the other side of town where they owned this little convenience store and gas station,” Dylan answers. “Then one day my dad shows up married to my stepmom Rebecca and says that everything is cool again and that I’m going to come live with them. She’s how I ended up moving into your neighborhood, she owned a house over there before her and my dad got together. She was actually pretty cool.” Cain nods his head and after a brief pause he apprehensively asks Dylan, “So what happened to your mom?” Dylan looks up in surprise at realizing that he had totally forgotten to finish the story he had started out to tell in the first place. Before the animosity he had developed for his father had taken him in its own direction.

  “My mom died when I was like eight or nine. We had just moved into a house just on the edge of downtown, on Cherry Blossom Dr. Things were going really good. My mom was pregnant with my little sister. We knew it was a girl because they had found out the babies sex at one of her doctor’s visits. So they already knew what they were having. They already had her name picked out everything. They had her room decorated and painted with purple and pink flowers and my mom had hung these little fairies everywhere,” Dylan pauses and sighs at the memory of the house and his sister’s room. “Anyway, one day when I came home from school mom was already home from work. She said she didn’t feel well and that she needed me to be quiet until dad got home while she lied down and tried to rest.” Dylan sighs again, taking in a long breath and exhaling it slowly. Cain can sense that even though Dylan’s voice remained steady, his friend was crying again. “Dylan you don’t have to tell me about it if you don’t want to, it’s cool.” Cain says offering his friend a way out of finishing the story of the memory that had made him so upset. “No I’m Ok. It feels kind of good to talk about it really.” Dylan continues “So by the time my dad gets home, moms feeling even worse. My aunt Ivey came over to stay with me and dad rushed mom to the hospital.” “The one you went to live with for a little while?” Cain interrupts to ask. “Yeah, she was my mom’s sister. So evidently the baby had pooped inside my mom’s belly and no one knew so it turned into some kind of bad infection, I can’t remember what they called it. She died in the hospital three days after she gave birth. I never saw her again. They wouldn’t let me go to the hospital room so I never got to say good-bye.” Dylan wipes at the tears that were now rolling down his cheeks in a steady stream again. “I’m so sorry Dylan. That really, really sucks man,” Cain says, no longer attempting to cheer his friend up and now knowing the extent of his pain, his previous attempts to do so suddenly seeming silly and childish. “What about you’re little sister? Did she die too?” Cain asks. After a silence that seemed like hours in the melancholy thickness that could compete with the ash cloud itself, Dylan finally says “No. She was ok. Dad said that he couldn’t ever look at her without seeing what she did to mom. He had to blame somebody for my mom dying so he blamed her. He signed away his parental rights and she was given up for adoption. I never even got to meet her.” “Damn,” was all Cain could manage to say. They both sit there together in silence, letting the dark that surrounds them and the darkness of the story sink in. As Cain stands up from the fallen tree they had stopped to sit on he asks “What was her name?” surprised that he hadn’t thought to ask Dylan before now, “I mean, what would your sister’s name have been, if you know, your dad hadn’t put her up for adoption?” Dylan stands up so suddenly that it startles his friend making him jump and stumble backwards over the tree they had both just been sitting on. As Cain collects himself he hears Dylan call back over his shoulder from where he had already started walking down the path again, “Marie.”

  Lily does her best to keep Belle focused and moving forward. She is too little to technically help with the daily chores of the compound so she has never been to the filter station before today. So in the model of all young curious children, she wants to explore everything, and what she doesn’t want to explore frightens her. So it is a battle like the ebb and flow of the tide on the ocean. One minute she’s rushing about excited and wanting to touch and see everything, the next she’s coweri
ng and timid, afraid to take another step forward. So they are just like the ever changing tide of the ocean, continuously at work but never succeeding in making it anywhere. “Ooooh! What’s wrong with her now?” Rose asks Lily visibly frustrated with their little tag along.”She thinks she keeps hearing things just out of lamplight in the woods. Like something is following us.” Lily answers, quite a bit more understanding of the situation than her less patient twin sister. “This is ridiculous, how many times have we been out here to collect the water?” Rose snaps the question at her sister. “A lot but never without an adult with us” Lily answers. “That doesn’t matter and you know it. We know this path backwards and forwards. Besides, when was the last time you saw anything, or anyone, that wasn’t from the compound out here anyways? Weeks? Months? We don’t even see rats or squirrels anymore.” Rose, clearly upset at how long it was taking them to reach the water station simply states, “I’m not wasting any more time. I’ll just meet you two there. I’ll start filling the jugs up and you can just help me carry them back. As long as it’s taking to get little miss fraidy cat down there I’ll probably be done by the time you get there anyhow.” Rose stomps off down the path, frustration clearly clouding her judgment. “Rose wait I don’t think we should split up!” Lily shouts at her sisters back as she continues to hustle away from her and Belle, who has fallen silent as she huddles up at Lily’s side.”Rose! Come on Belle we shouldn’t let her get too far ahead of us.” Lily coaxes her young travel mate to hurry up down the path. “But Lily I heard something again.” Belle whispers so softly that Lily can barely hear her. But this time Lily didn’t get frustrated or question Belle about exactly what it was she thought she was hearing because this time, Lily had heard it too.

  Rose continues to stomp down the path putting distance between herself, Lily, and Belle. Lost in her own frustrations and lack of patience in the annoying chattering of Belle, who in her mind was only succeeding in slowing them down. She already hated being out here. Something about it always made her feel uneasy like there was some hidden insidious presence waiting to steal her soul away in every shadow that lived in the dark. All she wanted to just get the water and get back inside the compound as fast as possible. So if Lily wanted to play baby sitter with the little fraidy cat that heard noises and saw forms in every shadow and around every corner, then Lily could have it. She wanted no part of it. Completely lost inside her own frustrations and fears, Rose is too preoccupied in her own thoughts to notice the slender ravenous forms that have begun to close in around her in the dark.