Looking Back Through Ash

by Wade Ebeling

  Daniel brushed the dirt away from the sleeping bag and packed it away with the hoodie. A handful of dry berries washed down with a couple swigs of bleach-tinged water served as a passable breakfast. With everything back inside the pack, Daniel shoved it out to the north, away from the river. He had decided to take an easier route than that of following the twists and turns of the snaking water.

  There was no reason to think that anyone would be looking for him this far away from home, but, in truth, the idea to take the casual approach to walking this morning had come from the burning in his thighs. All of the crouched walking, ducking under tree limbs, and squatting in shadows that he had done the previous day made him think less of his own safety and more of his own comfort. Thin, low-hanging clouds had moved in during the night, making for a very comfortable temperature and lighting. Daniel got moving before the sun had a chance to burn off his cloud cover.

  The further he walked the streets of old subdivisions and across the wide remnants of parking lots, the calmer he became. Within an hour of bold, hazardous pace keeping, the use of both eyes making this far easier, he came to Klondike Avenue, a mile north of the Warehouse. All that could be seen across the six lanes and middle median was a vine-choked, thick wall of chain link fence. Looking at the small map for the fortieth time, Daniel reckoned that he was still a good quarter mile south of the entrance to the concrete crushing plant. He could cut through the fence here, but that would mean exposing himself, and leaving a noticeable spot where the fence and thicket had been cut through.

  The binoculars only allowed him to see more of the thick weeds and fencing along the far side of the road. The Warehouse was out of view from where he sat perched inside a collapsed strip mall. Happily, there came no signs of movement or creepy music from the south. Daniel moved back into the jumble of homes, apartment buildings, and overgrowth to make his way further north, thinking that there might be an easier way over or under the fence further along.

  There was just no easy way to make it through the tangled mess that started just off of Klondike. No Maintenance Department to clear felled trees or power poles. No occupants to keep up what could be multi-family dwellings now. Every step was more precarious than the last. Still, every foot gained into the wreckage was more comforting, more hidden. Every inch demanded more concentration that the one previous, further and further drowning out his misery. Every painful poke and prod reminding him that life still coursed in his veins.

  The effort that he was giving, coupled with the strength of the rising sun, moistened Daniel’s back and chest. A rare clearing in the debris allowed him to drink some water before continuing on. After travelling enough of a distance, he put his back the sun to make his way to the west, closer to the street. Scrambling over a poured concrete wall that separated the subdivision from the rear of what had once been another strip mall, Daniel walked north to get around the former liquor store. Once he got abreast to the corner, Daniel could see the entrance to the crushing plant across the street. Cutting the fence in this location would be even more obvious, as there was way less foliage to cover his tracks.

  The fence line cut back to the west a little further along. Daniel scanned up and down the road, seeing and hearing nothing from either direction, he casually walked across. Once he hit the corner of the fence, he dashed ahead, hiding behind an old restaurant. There was nothing to be seen but giant piles of old concrete chunks and dense brush to the south. He followed the fence around for half of a mile. It finally turned to the south, following two sets of railroad tracks.

  Daniel went along what was left of a two-track, which paralleled alongside the iron ribbons, leaping dry wash-outs and pot holes as he went. He kept scanning to his left, hoping to spot some sign of the mystery that he was in search of. The closer of the two railroad tracks split. The main line still continued on to the south, but the fork headed off in the direction that he wanted to go, under a rusted gate to the east.

  Before ducking under the gate, Daniel looked to the west, over the tracks, trying to see if what the initials RV stood for could be made out. What he saw startled him, to say the least. There was a group of people milling around a fire in the middle of a large field of destroyed campers. Rickety lean-tos used the outside walls of the original structures as support. These living quarters were nothing more than ramshackle covered porches really. He guessed at the group to be more than twenty strong, and those were just what he could see.

  Daniel dove under the gate and ran along the track, heading in the opposite direction of the people. He rushed forward, hoping that he had not been spotted. The tracks gave way to thick underbrush when he neared the opening to the plant’s yard, which was between two of the towering concrete rubble piles. The split track, now nothing more than a rough path through rusted machinery poking out of the weeds, made a serpentine to the right and back to the left beyond the first two piles, leading him into a ring of even more piles.

  Inside the circular opening, Daniel was stopped by the tangle of a crane arm. After finding a way to crawl through, he stood back up, the surrounding mounds making him feel as if he were suddenly standing in an amphitheater. There was a small, split-faced block building to his left, surrounded on all sides by the piles of concrete, making it a nearly perfect fastness.

  Standing perfectly still in front of that building was a weathered, skinny old man. The man had scraggly, long grey hair and matching beard, which hung down nearly to his waist. The shocked look in the old man’s eyes matched that of Daniel’s. Daniel just stared at the man, whose clothes hung loosely from his narrow frame, like they were three sizes too big. The man stared right back, looking Daniel up and down.

  The old hermit opened his mouth to speak. A strange grunting sound came out, and he rubbed his throat in an effort to help the words form. He puckered his lips and licked them. With a toothless, bewildered groan, the man managed one word; a one word question.

  “Allen?” he asked, his mouth sounding so dry and coarse that it was hard to believe he had managed to say it at all.

  “What did you say? Allen? You knew my Dad?” Daniel asked back, his throat sounding quite dry, too.

  The old man looked even more shocked now. He gently rolled his head ‘yes’ just to give a reply, still not trusting his own voice.

  “You did know my Dad? How?” Daniel spat, unslinging the rifle.

  The man did not answer in the way Daniel expected. Eyes still wide as ever, looking as if he had seen a ghost, he sputtered out some more guttural bemoanings. The old man fought hard to compose himself and said one more word; another one word question.

  “Danny?”

  Chapter 22

  “I fucking hate vodka,” Jason Clarke slurred. The alcohol had whet Jason’s throat, and loosened his jaw, but it barely helped Daniel to understand him.

  The odd pair sat inside the dark, windowless building. Two large, melted flat candles lit the small area around a centralized industrial wire spool, which had been turned on its side to form a table. The comfortable, leather recliners were once a matching set. The one that Daniel sat in looked almost new, despite the layer of dust, and Jason’s looked worn and cracked from years of lonely sitting and sleeping.

  The building’s interior was disorderly and smelled of stale cigarettes, rot, and body odor. Cluttered shelves lined the walls full of propane, large sacks of beans and rice, opened and sealed giant cans of spaghetti and ravioli, dozens of white plastic, 6-gallon buckets stuffed with freeze-dried meals, and hundreds of bottles of booze. Most of the bottles were empty, Daniel noted. A long rack filled with an eclectic array of rifles, pistols, and shotguns sat by the door, covered up by an oily-looking canvas tarp.

  Jason coughed up something from his lungs and spat it onto the massive pile of garbage sitting in the corner to the right of his chair. He then leaned to his left, carefully spritzed water on a small pile of tobacco, and deftly rolling a cigarette with one sheet of toilet paper. After lighting it from the candle next to him, Jaso
n sat back in the chair, bringing the cigarette and a glass of vodka with him.

  With heavily nicotine-stained fingers, Jason took a deep drag from the cigarette. After another sip of vodka, he coughed out a laugh. “I can’t believe it’s you. I thought you would be killed…You’re Dad said they would leave you be, but those people were so power hungry…I just…I just figured they would kill you, too,” Jason said in a mangled, low voice.

  “Who would want to kill me? Do you know who killed my Dad?” Daniel asked. His mind started assembling more questions while he waited for those two to be answered.

  “Of course I do. They were gonna kill me…before Allen…I mean, you know…he told me about their plan and sent me here. I’ve been…by myself…for so long. I just…” Jason slowly stopped talking altogether, and his eyes seemed to glass over, lost in memories long suppressed.

  Daniel wanted to scream, to yell, to storm around and stomp his feet. He did not care how bad Jason thought he had had it. He knew nothing about the pain Daniel had endured over the years, or over these past few days. He did not understand that the world had now collapsed, absolutely and irretrievably. But this sobbing, aged man in front of him was just a shell of his former self. Prying answers out of him required the one thing Daniel was running short of at the moment, patience.

  “Uncle Jason, I’m sorry, but I have to know. Who killed my Father?” Daniel asked, not nearly as softly as he should have.

  Jason looked up at him with an appreciation so out of place for the moment that it stopped Daniel from attempting to repair his prior rudeness. Silvery-grey smoke swirled around Jason’s head as he finished the cigarette and snuffed it out in an already overflowing ashtray. Secure in the fact that it was fully out, Jason sat back again and took another swig of vodka.

  “Ugh, I hate vodka.” Jason said again, with a high-proof induced shiver.

  ‘Holy fuck,’ Daniel thought, ‘Has he really gone crazy? So crazy, in fact, that he is already repeating himself?’

  “I’m sorry, too, Danny,” Jason said with clarity, and that same distressed sound in his vocal chords.

  “Have you been here by yourself? This whole time?” Daniel asked, gaining the will to wait out the crazy old man.

  Jason understood that Daniel was just trying to placate him. He still appreciated it, though. Nodding his bushy head ‘yes’, he said, “Those bastards from the church killed your dad, Danny…You know, the ones that formed that stupid Council. They wanted to kill me too, but they didn’t get a chance. Your Father was too smart for ‘em. He knew what they were trying…He knew, Daniel. You understand? When those self-appointed council members tried to take everything from us, Allen outsmarted ‘em all.”

  “The Council killed him? Why? How did he outsmart anybody by dying? What are you talking about?” Daniel asked, his voice rising with the anger that wanted to get back out.

  “You do, Danny. You prove that he did. He was right…they didn’t kill you,” Jason offered.

  Daniel still did not understand. He stared at the frail man, trying to glean the truth from his sunken eyes. “How in the world does me being alive, prove that?” Daniel asked slowly, implying that he wanted a straight forward answer this time.

  “Well, you won’t want to hear this, and I’m sure that Allen wouldn’t want me telling you…” Jason said, looking up at Daniel. When he saw the ember burning behind Daniel’s cold eyes, he continued straight away, “When he told me what they were planning, I said we should just get you and come here. I mean, we had already set this place up, why not use it? We got a ram pump working, coming down from that pond up top…lots of fish in there. We stocked this place full of the crap that was rightfully ours anyways. You can see that. We found this nice wood-burner and poked the flue out the wall. Sure, we always took most of the stuff back to the Warehouse, but when we found this place, it just worked out great for us. A place to come and get away from all that crap they were trying to pull on us over there. Hell, how were they going to know what we had to start with anyway? Like they would ever go out and fucking risk life and limb. Shit, yeah right…”

  “Why did they kill him?” Daniel interrupted with a menacing tone.

  “For you,” Jason spat. “He let them…kill him, because of you…” The old man’s voice had leveled out with the liberal applications of booze, sounding almost normal again. This voice, even with its strange wheeze, cut Daniel to the quick.

  “Me? I didn’t know. He didn’t tell me!” Daniel replied, standing up. “How in the fuck do you figure that this is somehow my fault? You tell me that, huh?”

  “You want to know? Fine! I’ll tell you. I told him to just bring you with us! But he knew you wouldn’t come. Too damn strong-headed…just like your freakin’ Mom! They would have killed you if he left with just me, so he figured the only way to keep you safe was to let them kill him. You get it now? That make you happy? Sure I know your Dad wasn’t the best, but he always talked about you. He was so glad that you had grown up! You should have heard him. He tried his best, you know. He always felt bad about leaving you there, but you were safe! Don’t you see that? He never could have done what he did…for you! For all of us! With you being around all the time! You don’t have a clue about what your father and I did to get all this stuff!” he said, waving his arms around at all of the supplies surrounding them.

  Daniel thought about all the things that he had used over the years from the room in the basement, all the things that had kept him alive over the years. Why did he lock the room? Leaving out just enough to sustain life? Was the lock his idea of a test? Did he always expect that I would break into the room? Was that when he said I grew up?

  “He let them…for me?” Daniel said, retaking his seat, sorrow filling his voice.

  “I know you probably don’t think so, but your Dad did more for you than you will ever know. Hell, me too, and all the guys that we used to help us kill…well, to get all of this stuff. They all thought he was doing it for the town, or some bullshit like that. I always knew…Always! Everything that he ever had us do, was for you. He loved you so much that he sacrificed himself…just so you could have a chance,” Jason said, instilling thoughts within Daniel that had never been present before.

  “Was Susan, and that old Mayor? Were they some of the ones that…killed him?” Daniel asked, hoping that the answer would be a resounding ‘no’.

  “That fucking cunt? I’ll bet my last bottle of whiskey that she planned the whole damn thing! How do you know her? Is she still running around like she owns the damn place? Or did the Department of Assholes finally take everything over from that old man? That’s what your Dad would say was gonna happen. Course no one would listen to him…’Cept me and a few others,” Jason scoffed, not realizing the implications that his answer would have on Daniel.

  “I knew her…I married…I married her daughter, Corinne,” Daniel found a way to say, despite the spinning room.

  “You did? Oh, Danny…I don’t know if she did it or not…I mean, for all I know, the Golden Boy did it. I never trusted him like…your Dad did,” Jason moaned, seeing the life wash from Daniel’s face.

  “Who is…?”

  “The Golden Boy? Ha! That’s what I called that big bastard, Troy. You know him, too? He jumped right on the band wagon with those fools when the Army trucks showed up, promising them the moon. Morons, all of ‘em, I tell ya. Sneaky bastards, though. Always all smiles to our faces, mind you. What ever happened? Is the Warehouse still going strong with all that ‘free’ help?” Jason smiled, his eyes burning bright with an enrooted rage.

  “I’ve met Troy. He’s the Chief of Police, or, at least, he was. I don’t know what they call themselves now…Bunch of fucking murderers is what they are! I really know his son! That piece of…That fucker is trying to kill me for some reason!” Daniel shouted, searching Jason’s face for help in understanding the why of it all.

  “Wait, his son? Are you talking about Bobby?” Jason said it so low that Daniel thought he fea
red being overheard.

  “Yeah,” was all Daniel could say in reply. He took note of how the air seemed to have left the room.

  “Oh, you don’t…you don’t wanna to hear about that,” Jason said flatly.

  “What don’t I want to know about? You know why he came to kill me, and burn down my house? He brought all sorts of people to come kill my family! And you think I don’t want to know why? If you…something that I should know…You better! Now!” Daniel yelled.

  “Your family? Did he…Was your wife with you?”

  Daniel shook his head woefully. He did not want to tell Jason about what had happened to them. He did not want to relive those events. “They were already…” Daniel sighed, his head and shoulders dropping.

  “They?” Jason wondered through tight lips. He quickly took a sip of his drink and continued, “What has happened out there? You were still at that same old house?” Jason wanted answers to the questions he had asked, but that is not why he had asked them. He could not stand to see the distilled misery that was plastered all over Daniel.

  Daniel got his emotions restrained and looked up, away from the crippling images. “I never left the house. I…all I know is what Corinne told me…before…never mind. She said that the D.o.C. stopped sending fuel and food…Pulling out or somethin’. I guess the Police went crazy. I saw them kill this couple…I went to go see if we could get into the Warehouse, you see? …I thought we would be safe there…You believe that crap? I never should have left them! I just should have stayed home!” Daniel cried out.

  “Is that when Bobby?”

  “No. This father tried to break in to the house with his two teenaged boys…They…” Daniel found that telling the unfinished lie was far easier than admitting to the truth.

  “Well, when did Bobby come…to…you know?” Jason asked, testing the waters for how much Daniel already knew.

  “Just a couple of days ago. He showed up with like twenty people and their armored vehicles. I barely got out alive. I had everything packed for a trip to the library, so I just grabbed my stuff and dove out a side window. Had a bunch of trip wires and stuff set up outside…they let me know they were coming. Just lucky really,” Daniel let his thoughts stream out.