Fade to Grey (Book 2): Darkness Ascending

by Brian Stewart

  He knelt down next to Bernice and placed his hand over top of hers. “Hey . . . look at me.”

  She turned slightly; watery blue eyes that had seen almost six decades of life met Eric’s.

  “I’m not going to make a promise that I can’t keep. So I can’t promise you that everyone, or anyone, is not going to get hurt. But I will promise you that as far as it’s within my power, I’ll keep Walter safe.”

  Bernice brought forth a fragile smile as she clasped her hand over top of his. “I know, and thank you.”

  The door cracked open about six inches and Walter’s gruff voice broke in, “Git yer hands off of ma’ woman.”

  A cavernous rumble resonated from Max’s chest, and three swift toenail clicking paces brought him almost to the door.

  “Oh shit. Never mind, I reckon you can keep her.” Walter screeched as he yanked the door shut.

  “Max . . . easy.” Eric stood up and got Max, reassuring him with a few heavy pats on his front quarter. “Easy buddy, it’s just Walter, you know him.”

  A voice through the door sounded. “Tell him I’m sorry for getting in your truck.”

  Another reinforcing command at Max followed, and then Eric opened the door. “It’s OK, you can come in now.”

  “Uh huh . . . I ‘could’ come in now, but I ain’t,” he said, still eyeing Max from the hallway.

  Bernice stood and announced, “The food is all ready to go. It’s in the four large kettles on the countertop. They all go. And I want them all back—tonight.” After a momentary pause she added, “Clean.”

  She passed by him, briefly stopping to mouth a silent ‘thank you’ before continuing out the door. Eric watched as she went by the smiling figure in the hallway, stopping momentarily to give him a quick hug and an even quicker swat on the seat of his pants.

  Turning back to look at Eric, Walter scanned him from head to toe. Apparently satisfied with what he saw, he glanced at his wristwatch and said, “Finish your supper. Eat fast.”

  Eric watched as Walter rolled his eyes slightly upwards and made minuscule nods of his head, as if he was counting imaginary fingers. “You’ve got about twenty-five minutes to make it to the tractor shed past the chicken coop. The back door is already unlocked. Did Bernie bring you a green bag?”

  He looked to the left and saw the loosely woven bag on the floor near the chair Bernice had sat in.

  “Yes.”

  “Open it.” Without another word, Walter turned and walked down the hallway. Eric clicked the door shut and moved over to the bag. Inside the hand knitted, bright yellowish-green shoulder bag were his boots and belt. Underneath those he found a Colt Delta Elite 10mm handgun, a molded leather holster for it, and several extra magazines—already loaded. The glossy, blue steel finish on the weapon’s slide and frame both complemented, and drew your attention to, the bright, blood red triangle set in the center of each grip.

  Hefting the masterfully built pistol in his hands, Eric couldn’t help but feel like he’d just been handed a six-gun and badge by the widow of a recently deceased sheriff in an old western town.

  Chapter 8

  Stomach now full, Eric switched out his sweat pants in favor of his recently washed, woodland camouflage pattern BDU’s. Several additional ovals and splatters now crisscrossed and marked the leafy design—Eric suspected they always would. The black and gold Steelers top stayed, however. Comfort over clash was his motto when it came to wardrobe. His medium weight, forest green Gore-Tex duty jacket completed the picture.

  Checking the pistol for safety and function was next. Each of the four magazines were loaded with eight cartridges—Winchester silver tip ammunition. Inserting them one at a time, he manually cycled the slide back for each of the magazine’s cartridges. Thirty-two loaded, thirty-two extracted and ejected with no issues. Not the ‘end all-be all’ firearm function test of the century, but it would have to do for now. Several draws from the holster followed next. It was a little stiff, but overall smooth.

  The Delta Elite was built on a standard 1911 frame, the classic ‘45 automatic’ government pistol design. Equipped with a single stack magazine, it could hold a maximum of nine cartridges—‘eight in the bowl, one in the hole’—at a time. Although he much favored his CZ, for the moment, that was out of the question. Besides, the 10mm was a hard hitting cartridge that approached 41 magnum ballistics. He reloaded one of the magazines, inserted it in the Delta, and thumbed the slide release. There was now one in the ‘hole’ ready to go. He dropped that magazine out and topped it off with another round before reinserting it. Eight in the bowl. The smooth metallic click of the safety sliding up and back finished the preparation. These guns were carried ‘cocked and locked’ with the hammer back and safety on. Max watched as he slid the loaded weapon into the leather holster.

  “Max, wait.” Eric gathered up the leftover dishes and carried them out to the kitchen. No one else was in sight, and no lights were on. He slid his hand over to the light switch on the wall and flipped it up. Nothing. Returning to the bedroom, he clipped Max onto the heavy nylon leash and walked outside. The clear night and his familiarity with the surroundings enabled him to navigate without incident down to the driveway. Stopping by his pickup, Eric fished the keys out of the jacket’s pocket and unlocked the door. Behind the seat was his backup equipment bag. It contained, among other things, a second Quark flashlight. He grabbed the flashlight, two spare sets of lithium batteries, and a long ago expired granola bar before locking up and walking towards the small barn that Walter called his tractor shed. Less than 200 feet from the house, the tractor shed was just past and slightly to the left of the combination chicken coop/firewood splitting area. True to Walter’s word, the back door was unlocked.

  “How are you feeling?” The question came from a very bundled up Doc Collins. Doc was sitting on a hay bale that had been pulled from a stack of perhaps thirty or forty more. Callie, still dressed in nothing heavier than the Hard Rock sweatshirt, stood nearby. The dull red glow from a headlight she wore provided faint illumination onto the clipboard in her hands. She looked up as Eric entered, smiled and nodded, and then went back to jotting notes on the clipboard.

  “Family meeting?” Eric asked.

  “It’s supposed to be. Although from what I can gather, this is just the preliminary one. The real one is going to come after we meet with the campers down in the store.”

  “So I just wake up after a long winter’s nap, and I’ve already got three meetings scheduled? Sounds like I’m back at work.”

  Doc said nothing in reply.

  Eric set the Quark’s light output to low and looked around the interior of the shed. The bright orange paint of Walter’s Kubota tractor glistened like it had been freshly waxed. Even the front end loader bucket appeared newly painted. Against the wall on the other side of the tractor was a rectangular, upright fuel tank—painted a vivid yellow and stenciled in black with the words ‘DIESEL FUEL ONLY.’ A manual pump handle protruded from the top of the tank, and Eric could see some type of hose system connected to a set of inline filters and a refueling nozzle.

  Other than the tractor, the tank, and the hay, the small barn was remarkably empty. And clean . . . almost spotless. Eric chuckled to himself with the thought. Walter and Andy. Andy and Walter. Two peas in a pod—so different but so similar. His uncle was a pack rat that never threw anything away, although to be fair, he also knew where everything was at in the bird’s nest backlash of his life. Walter, on the other hand, was neat and organized to the point of having OCD. It was probably from his career as a machinist in the navy, where everything was measured down to the micrometer. Eric walked Max back to the tractor and secured his leash on the bucket pivot, and then returned to his spot by the door.

  “Is there any other information you want on this medical form?” Callie asked.

  Doc shook his head no and hugged himself tighter. “We really only need the basic triage information, because anything else is going to be a waste of my time. I wa
nt to know if they have any current infectious diseases that could contaminate, or cross contaminate any procedure we may have to perform, but I don’t really care that they might have broken their arm twenty years ago, so keep it simple.”

  Callie pulled out a tablet device from a backpack that Eric hadn’t noticed by her feet. Seating herself on another hay bale, her face was soon bathed in the flickering illumination of the screen.

  “Remind me to ask Walter about getting this recharged, the battery is kind of low.”

  “What kind of tablet is that?” Eric asked.

  “It’s a Samsung Galaxy.”

  “Does it charge with a standard micro USB port?”

  “Um, I think so.”

  “Then I should be able to charge it using the power outlet in my truck with an adapter I have.”

  “That would be great. If Walter can’t figure out a way for me to charge this inside the house, then I’ll come and find you.”

  Eric thought back to his walk from the house up to the tractor shed. He was sure that he had heard the low, muffled rumble of Walter’s generator.

  Callie’s fingers began to tap-dance on the tablet’s screen. “OK Doc, this is what we have so far—quick and dirty as you requested.”

  Eric pulled up a hay bale and sat down as Callie read from the screen. “Section one—‘Name, age, sex,” she hesitated for a moment, “next of kin.’” Doc grunted, and then tried to hug the heavy parka even tighter against his skin.

  “Section two—and I tried to be very straightforward here—‘List any medical issues that you are currently being treated for,’ and then I have a subsection underneath that where they’re supposed to write down any and all medication that they take . . . dosages, frequency . . . and as you requested, another line for them to tell us how much of it they have left.”

  “Not that we can do anything about that,” Doc countered.

  She tapped the screen a few more times, “Section three—in big, bold letters I have ‘Are you allergic to anything?’ After that there’s a space for them to indicate what they’re allergic to, OK?”

  Doc shivered again and briskly rubbed his arms. “Sounds good so far.”

  “The last section is just basic stuff. ‘Do you wear contacts? Are you now, or could you possibly be pregnant? Height, weight, blood type . . . any implanted medical devices?’—and then I have a final question in bold print, it says, ‘Is there anything else we need to know about your medical condition, either past or present, that would assist us in your treatment?’”

  Doc nodded his head toward Callie, “How much room does all that take on the sheet?”

  “In the font size that it’s currently at, there’s about three inches at the bottom left over, probably more on the actual paper since this has built in margins.”

  “Make a separate box in that section and give us a couple fields to write down blood pressure, temperature, pulse rate, and respiration.”

  “BPR field . . . added,” Callie said after a few pecks at the virtual keyboard.

  “That ought to do it . . . and speaking of temperature, I hope Walter brings some hot tea with him,” Doc grumbled as he wrapped his arms forcefully around his torso.

  “Hey Doc,” Eric began, “you’re going to make yourself colder that way.”

  “How? I’m compressing my body into a tighter core, and thereby reducing my exposure to the elements. Plus I’m shivering, and that friction is going to create heat. I’ll get warmer.”

  Eric shook his head, “Nope, you’re going to get colder. Have you ever seen a bluebird sitting on a tree limb in the middle of winter?”

  “Probably.”

  “Do they look skinny to you?”

  After a brief hesitation, Doc answered, “No, they look fat . . . fluffy.”

  “Well they’ve been keeping themselves warm a lot longer than we have, and one of their secrets is to fluff out their feathers. That traps the air. For the most part, it’s not whatever material is inside that jacket you’re wearing, it’s the material’s ability to prevent air molecules from moving. Humor me, fluff your jacket back out and stop hugging yourself. If you’re not warmer in five minutes, I’ll buy you a beer.”

  Distant sounds of a motorized vehicle briefly penetrated the shed before cutting off.

  “I think that was the Mule.”

  “That figures . . . as soon as anybody mentions the word ‘beer,’ Walter is drawn to it like a moth to a flame,” Doc commented dryly.

  Eric slipped quietly through the door, shutting it behind him as he thumbed the break of the holster. Three quick steps put him at the corner of the shed. He waited.

  The small caravan of figures walked single file out of the star lit clearing in Walter’s driveway. Snaking their way around the parked vehicles, the line ebbed into a wider, shorter procession as they traveled up the gravel lane past the chicken coop. They walked silently and with no lights—the only signs of their passage were the low, soft crunch of their footsteps and the occasional cluck of a disturbed hen.

  He watched the approaching group carefully. His night vision had always been keen, and he could pick out the forms of Walter and Michelle leading the pack. As they closed the gap, Eric eased back around the corner and out of sight. The door opened a few seconds later, and he closed his eyes, concentrating his senses and focusing on sound. When his ears told him the last person in line had begun to enter the shed, Eric silently flowed around the corner and studied the path. Thirty seconds of waiting convinced him that no one else was following, at least not anyone obvious, and he stepped through the door.

  As soon as he crossed the threshold, the person in front of him—a tall figure wearing desert camouflage—turned to shut the door. With a wide-eyed yelp and an impulsive grab at the rifle slung across his chest, he jumped back and cut loose with a nonstop stream of cussing.

  “Thompson, calm your ass down,” Walter hissed. Turning to Eric he said, “And you stop ghosting people. And you and you,” he nosed towards several other figures, “grab some hay bales and make us a little circle.” Walter looked around the room for a count of three before adding, “Please.”

  Chapter 9

  The rectangle of silage that Eric sat on was one the baler must have chosen not to wrap tight enough. Every slight movement he made resulted in an abrupt shift to the left or right as the layers of straw slid past one another. In just a few minutes his rectangle had become a rhombus leaning to the right. No, wait, that wasn’t correct. It had started off as a rectangle, not a square, so it was a . . . parallelogram? He couldn’t remember. A quick scan clockwise around the circle showed nine other people—Michelle, Walter, Sam, Crowbar Mike, Doc, Callie, Preacher Dave, and two people that he didn’t know. There was a short, chubby man sporting bright dimples and wearing a furry hat with ear flaps, and the young black man in the desert camouflage.

  Eric glanced back towards Sam. They had briefly talked at some point last night, but he couldn’t remember exactly when. It had been out on the porch while he had sat and waited for news about Uncle Andy. At first he had hardly recognized Sam, and then he couldn’t quite comprehend how, or why Sam was there. Sam had sat down and expressed his condolences. He’d then given Eric a short rundown about what had happened to him. As tired and distracted as Eric had been, he couldn’t recall most of what Sam had passed on.

  Callie had donated her headlight for the impromptu ‘campfire,’ and the steady, muted ruby light gave enough illumination to see by as introductions were made all around. Desert camouflage, Eric learned, was Private Jason Thompson. Eric scrunched his eyes in recollection. Wasn’t there another Jason somewhere that he had recently met or heard about? Maybe at the campground? He wasn’t sure. Before he could dedicate any more brain cells to the task, the chubby man with ear flaps stood up.

  “Hello, my name is Leonard . . . Leonard Osloson. Or just Lenny . . . or Ozzy, whatever works for you.” He smiled, dimples flaring even more as he met each of their eyes around the circle. “My wife G
lenda and I were staying at the campground when everything happened. I just want to say that I’m grateful for your hospitality, and if there is anything that Glenda or I can do to help out even more, just let us know.”

  Walter cleared his throat, placed his hands on top of his knees and partially stood up before pausing in mid-rise. “Oh hell, I think I’m just gonna stay seated.” He sank back down with an audible slap of denim on hay. Another delay as he took a deep breath followed. Finally, he looked around the circle and said, “Anybody want to go first?”