Beneath the Ashen Veil of Darkness

by Robert Bartlett

  “Dylan! Hey man wait up.” Cain calls after his friend as he continues to dust himself off after his fall over the tree “So what happened to your aunt and uncle after you moved back in with your dad?” Cain asks, looking down as he finishes brushing the dirt off of his pants. “After the volcano eruption and everyone was running around in a panic, some people came in and tried to rob their store. When my uncle Don fought back and refused to give them anything the robbers shot him. They shot my aunt Ivey because she was a witness. The security camera recorded all of it.” Dylan shakes his head still in disbelief of the memory. “ Rebecca was killed in a car wreck in a hurry to get home after the announcement that Marshall Law had been implemented. A delivery van t-boned her car right on the driver’s side door. When my dad got the phone call telling him about what had happened to Rebecca he just stood up and told me to stay at the house and that he’d be back later. But I knew he was never coming back the minute the door closed. I had seen that look in my dad’s eyes once before already. That’s when I came to your house.” Dylan finishes abruptly as Cain runs head first right into the back of him from where Dylan had stopped dead in the center of the trail. “Humph! Dude! Why’d you stop like that for?” Cain calls out from the ground where they had both fallen from the collision, clearly aggravated with the fresh layer of dirt that took the place of the last layer that he had just finished brushing off of his pants. Dylan jumps up (ignoring Cain’s complaints) and rushes back to where he had been standing before the preoccupied Cain had slammed into him and driven them both into the ground. “What the hell are you looking at dude?” Cain asks showing annoyance with whatever it was that was distracting Dylan. Dylan stands rooted in place. Not turning around to look at Cain, his only answer is to point at the ground that lay directly in front of his feet. Cain follows Dylan’s finger and gasping at what is there he quietly mutters “Holy shit.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “What exactly are we supposed to do with him then Ray?” Jim close to shouts as the group stands huddled around the still form of the dying Colt who is lying on the floor in a continuously deepening pool of his own blood. “I don’t know, but I know we’re not leaving him on the floor of this god forsaken waiting room to bleed to death!” Ray shoots back at Jim. “Everyone just needs to calm down” Clay interjects as the tension continues to grow in the room, “I think it’s too late to stop him from bleeding to death now Ray, look at all the blood he’s already lost and it’s not like we can hook him up to an IV or something.” “But Clay” Ray begins before Clay interrupts “Let me finish please.” Everyone falls silent and waits for Clay to continue. “Now that being said, Colt is a part of our community and deserves a hell of a lot better than to lie here and die on this floor in a pool of his own blood. So we’re going to pick him up and move him into one of the examining rooms where he can at least die as comfortably as we can humanly make possible.” Clay finishes, “Alright, everyone agree with that? That our friend, our brother deserves at least that much?” No one says anything as Clay slowly looks them all in the eye one by one, “Ray? Jim?” The room stays silent. “OK then. Let’s pick him up and get him moved. Levi, You and Paige have been in most of these rooms, which one do you think would be best to lay Colt in?” Clay looks at his son, mentally willing Levi to get it together and re-focus, hoping the shock of the day’s events won’t have a lasting effect on his oldest (but still young) son. “Huh? What? Uhhhh I’m not sure” Levi stammers. “Examining room three Clay. It’s got the biggest area around the bed for us to work” Paige jumps in answering for Levi and picking up on his dismay she adds, “Levi and I will go get the room prepped for you guys to bring Colt in.”

  As Levi and Paige leave the room Clay turns to the rest of the group giving everyone instructions on the other things they would need to gather for Colt, such as blankets, pillows, etc. As they all begin to separate on their own little individual missions Clay calls out, “Hey Ray, can you hold back for second and give me a hand? I’m going to try to dress these wounds up a little bit and get Colt prepped to move him.” Ray’s response of only a small short nod was the only evidence he gave that he had even heard Clay. Which showed Clay that his friend was still distraught with the rest of the group about how they had already come to terms with what the outcome of Colts wounds would be. Clay knew that in Ray’s mind it wasn’t so much that Colt would die it was that everyone had seemingly been fine with leaving Colt alone to his own fate. To basically stand back and do nothing other than to lay him on something other than the floor with some blankets and pillows to leave him to die and decay on the floor of this waiting room. Clay could see in Ray’s posture that it had disgusted and saddened Ray to see the lack of compassion that the group had initially displayed when the debate of what to do with Colt after the accident had begun. With drooping shoulders and his head down staring at his feet Ray makes his way back over to where Clay stands next to Colt. Clay would have to talk to him about all of this later. Maybe he would suggest that he and Ray took the first watch tonight so that they could talk over a warm cup of coffee after everyone else had turned in for the night. But first things first, and the first thing that needed to be done was to move Colt out of this blood soaked nightmare of a waiting room where a ménage of horrors had been created. First with the already departed Mrs. Scott leaving her blood stains and pieces of flesh on the carpet, now the unfortunate Colt lies dying in his own contributions to the blood stains on the floor. And soon the group will find out that Clay has been leaving his own contribution to the morbid masterpiece that was the blood painting the three of them had all been adding their own brush strokes to.

  “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”

  – Winston Churchill

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Belle please hurry” Lily pleads as she half carries, half drags Belle down the path in pursuit of her sister. “I can’t see the glow from Rose’s light anymore.” “But I don’t want to go that way Lily, that’s where I hear the noises now!” Belle cries at Lily’s back struggling to free herself from the grip that Lily has her wrist. Lily had also noticed the noises move off in the direction of her twin sister as Rose had stomped off down the path. Separating herself from Lily and Belle as well as the slight safety that their numbers seemed to have been offering them against whatever it was that had been trailing them in the dark. Forms that were now seemingly only trailing the preoccupied, defenseless, and solitary Rose, who was just ahead of them beyond their field of sight, walking alone in the dark.

  Dylan places his finger over his lips in the universal gesture that symbolizes to be quiet, as he and Cain both begin to understand the level of danger that they and the girls are all in. The footprints of the roaming pack of wild dogs clearly visible on the ground at their feet in the mixture of mud and fresh snow. Dylan and Cain silently begin trying to figure out how fresh the wild dog tracks are and in what direction they are headed when the first series of howls and yips begin to fill the air like a choir personally chosen by Lucifer himself straight out of the deepest pits of hell. “Oh my God Cain, COME ON!” Dylan shouts over his shoulder as he begins to dash in the direction of the water station. Cain was already in a sprint of his own now, feeling more and more guilty for how he had treated Belle this morning as visions of her being ripped apart by desperate, starving wild dogs haunting his mind with every step.

  Rose hears the small pack of wild dogs barreling towards her down the hill from her left entirely to late for any real attempt at being able to flee or defend herself. The lead dog hits her behind the knees biting at her calves as the second dog slams into her chest driving her to the ground, while the third, and final member of what was left of the pack, savagely tears at her throat and face as she lands in the mud, ash, and freshly fallen snow. Rose is only able to release a single gargled scream as her throat is slashed and she begins her futile attempts at saving her own life. She slams her fist down over and over again on the bottom dog which
was the one who had taken her legs out in the initial start of the attack but it was to no avail. The starving dog had already started to open up her midsection to get at the nutrient rich entrails that it instinctively knew laid hidden inside its fallen prey. The third dog of the pack begins licking at the blood spurting from her neck while the second dog begins grabbing and ripping at the flesh of her upper right thigh. Like a zebra on the plains of Africa being taken down by hungry lions, Rose slips into the dying stillness of shock that nature mercifully provided all prey animals with. Lying there in a pool of her own blood and gore, Rose Jones, the twelve year old, less patient and distempered twin sister of Lily Jones, dies listening to her own flesh being devoured, her own blood being drank, and her own bones snapping and breaking in the jaws of the very nightmares that haunted her in her fears. The fear of what was always waiting just beyond the light of the lantern. Waiting for her crouched in shadows. The horrors of the dark.

  Be alert and of sober mind for your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

  – 1 Peter 5:8

  Chapter Sixteen

  Jackson enters the room his eyes are red and swollen from the tears he has been shedding which were leaving clean streaks down either side of his ashen face. Willy’s eyes too are red, as he shares in his friend’s pain, as well as the eyes of Veronica, Holly, and Sophia who all have come to love Jackson and Gracie over the course of the last year. “Jackson we are so sorry, we’ve done everything we know how to do” Veronica says to her devastated friend through her own choking sobs. Sophia and Holly also start a new round of tears as they see the love and disbelief in Jackson’s eyes as he looks at Gracie lying on the bed in anguish and suffering. “I know” Jackson barely manages to say. When he is finally able to take his eyes off of his wife he turns to them and says “Thank you all so much for trying your best. We both thank you, and if the baby could I’m sure it would thank you too” Jackson says to them as he breaks down again collapsing to one knee. Willy and holly rush to his side and help him sit in the chair that Veronica had set next to Gracie’s bed so that Jackson could sit as close to her as they could manage to get him. Jackson murmurs between sobs “Is, is she awake? Is she aware of what’s going on?” “Yes she knows, we were able to explain it to her between contractions as we were trying to get her to stop pushing” Sophia answers, wiping her own tears away as she does. “What did she say when you told her?” Jackson asks looking at Sophia with hopeless despair. “She asked about the baby….” “And I asked for you” Gracie says softly from the bed next to Jackson. “Can everyone please leave us alone, I need to be with my husband” Gracie asks through clenched teeth from the amount of pain she was fighting against. Everyone nods in unison like a line of bobble head dolls, fresh tears streaming down all of their faces as they turn and exit the bunker leaving the two heartbroken lovers alone for the moment to share in their grief together.

  Dylan and Cain break over the hill in a full sprint stumbling and falling over the dead limbs and fallen trees that lay hidden under the ash and light snow fall in an attempt to get to the girls as quickly as they can, fearing the worst but hoping for the best as they run. They enter the clearing that had been cleared away to allow for the barrels thinking that’s where the dogs would have cornered the girls and begin working their way back up the trail towards the compound. Both Dylan and Cain had picked up sticks they hoped were big enough to fight back the dogs with as they turn and begin to run along the trail. With their eyes straining against the dark it is the screams and howls that truly guide them on their desperate quest to find Rose, Lily, and Belle.

  “Gracie I love you so very much!” Jackson confesses to the love of his life as he buries his head in her neck breaking down into sobs once more. “Please tell me what to do! I don’t know what to do! I can’t lose you, either of you!” Jackson heartbreakingly sobs into Gracie’s neck and pillow. “Shhhhh honey it’s ok, it’ll all be ok” Gracie says trying to comfort her grieving husband as she too begins to cry, “This is what’s best. This is what I want, my last wish, for you and the baby to hopefully live long wonderful lives.” “But I can’t do it without you Gracie, I just can’t” Jackson cries, his heart begging his wife to try to hang on. That there had to be another option. “I can’t live without you! We don’t know what will happen, we could do this and I could lose you and the baby.” “Yes you can Jacks, you can. I know you can. You’ll have to. We have to take this chance, and if something happens, you’ll have to love the baby enough for both of us” Gracie tells him, softly kissing his forehead as she strokes the back of his hair, “I love you Jackson, I will always be with you. In your thoughts, in your heart, in the eyes of our baby, I will always be with you” Gracie tells her heartbroken lover. “Please go get Ronnie and the others.” Jackson looks up and as he runs his left hand down the right side of Gracie’s face he kisses her on the lips. Long and passionate, the kiss holds all the years of his love and the love for all the years he now knows he’ll never get to show her held within it. He stands and kisses her hand as he turns away from the only woman he had ever truly wanted and walks out of the bunker.

  The flashlights slowly reveal the scene like a strobe light horror show as Cain and Dylan come upon the dogs and their victim. The small clearing in the trail is covered in blood and little bits of flesh and bone. The two dogs that are still working on the corpse, thin to the point of starvation and dehydrated, coughing around the bites of flesh as their lungs had already partially filled up with ash cement. Their fur which was falling out in clumps showed red splotchy patches of skin as if they were suffering from severe mange. Neither one of them barely even stop their feeding frenzy to notice the two newcomers. Cain had stopped dead in fear at the scene that was still being played out before them, Dylan standing next to him utters an unearthly scream as he lunges at the dogs stick held high above his head ready to crash down on the first unlucky victim that he was able to get close enough too to release his anger and fury upon. The two dogs (now realizing that someone else was there and thinking that they were there to compete with them or steal the first meal they had been able to find in well over a week) start tearing off and dragging away whatever bits of flesh they could manage in there panic to get away from the tornado of vengeance that was raining blows down on them from above over and over again. Dylan and now Cain were putting all their strength in every blow, powered by pain, fear, anger, and the guilt of not being able to get there in time, their stamina never waning while they were in the midst of their blood fury. Then something they can’t quite make out in their revenge fueled overkill of the dogs they had found over the dead body of one of the girls catches their attention. The blood curdling terror filled screams of a five year old little girl that was facing the true incarnation of her nightmares come to life.

  Willy steps out of the bunker that Jackson and Gracie had called home for the better part of the last year. Blood covering his hands and forearms as well as his shirt and pants, he immediately turns towards the community washroom. Unwilling to chance having to meet Jacksons gaze Willy keeps his head down and his pace fast as he rushes to wash the blood of his now dead friend off of himself as fast as he possibly can. Jackson never picks his head up as he continues to stare at his feet, his shed tears forming a small pool there. He thinks about the first time he had ever kissed his lovely Gracie as he waited for someone to tell him the outcome of the emergency amateur caesarean section that Sophia and Willy were performing on his wife and unborn child.

  The day is sunny and bright as every spring day is in the foothills of the Ozarks in late April. It had been warm, but not to warm since a thunder storm had just passed through the night before. The flowers were in full bloom filling everything with color as the birds sang giving song to the wind as it grazes over the countryside. Gracie used to love the rain. They would sit outside in their sunroom, open all the windows and listen to the rain for hours, which almost always ended in them making passionate l
ove. This day had been just like that. They had planned a picnic and at first thought the rain was going to wash out their plans for a romantic sunny afternoon when Mother Nature had given Jackson a break in the storm revealing a day that seemingly had been taken straight from a country mountain post card. They hiked to the spot by the river they had found on one of their first dates, the spot where Gracie used to like to feed the ducks as she dangled her feet in the water, and laid out their blanket and basket. Jackson had stopped and picked Gracie a flower on the hike and sitting there on the blanket with Gracie lying next to him watching the clouds and listening to the river, Jackson looked over at her and softly brushed his hand down the side of her face clumsily placing the flower he had picked and her hair behind her ear together and stared longingly into her eyes. “Well are you going to finally kiss me or not Jacks? You make a pretty girl like me wait forever you know.” Gracie asks him matter of factly, surprising Jackson as she does. “Do you want me to?” Jackson shyly asks simultaneously fearing and begging for the answer. “Everyday” was all Gracie had said as she tugs on Jacksons shirt and he slowly bends over and softly kisses Gracie on her lips. It had been everything a first kiss should have been, sweet and passionate as well as awkward and clumsy, which had made it the basis for all of the first kisses they shared on every day since. Their first meeting of the day when they were still just dating and on every morning since their wedding, Jackson had brushed his hand softly down his wife’s face, placed her hair behind her ear, and softly kissed her lips and whether she was awake or asleep as he pulled away from the kiss he always whispered to her “Everyday”.