Fade to Grey (Book 2): Darkness Ascending

by Brian Stewart

  “Hey there sweetie . . . It’s OK, we won’t hurt you.” Michelle opened her arms, and like magic, the little girl trotted forward on her shoeless, leotard-covered feet. Without hesitation she crushed against Michelle and hugged her—my new perspective now revealing a pair of lace fairy wings that decorated the back of her costume.

  “My name is Michelle, and that big guy over there,” she turned her face toward me, “is Eric. Can you tell me your name?”

  “Faith.”

  “That’s a pretty name . . . and I love your hair.”

  My Grinch heart was beginning to grow as I witnessed a side of Michelle unfold that I had never seen before. The girl—Faith—appeared to be about six years old, and as far as I could tell, was unwounded. Physically, at least. I stepped forward and knelt down next to them, watching as her tiny fingers wrapped themselves around Michelle’s ponytail. Her eyes opened and met mine, and she smiled before scooting out of Michelle’s arms and wrapping me up in a hug. I looked over at Michelle and saw her face stuck midway between a beaming smirk and an amused laugh, and then she winked at me and lifted one hand, miming the motion of taking a picture. I rolled my eyes and then whispered to the little girl.

  “Hey there princess, I’m glad we got to meet you. We can’t stay here though, because some more of those bad people might come . . . do you have a coat you can wear? It’s pretty cold outside and you’ll need to stay warm.”

  She pulled away from me and walked back toward the bed. “My granny said you’d come. She said that God would send somebody to take me away and keep me safe.”

  Michelle and I traded glances as we stood, both of us apparently waiting for the other one to reply first. I was more patient, and Michelle walked over to Faith, dropping down beside her again and laying one hand on her shoulder. “That’s right . . . we’re going to keep you safe, but we need to get out of here. Do you have clothes to keep you warm, like for when you play outside in the snow?”

  She nodded and pointed towards a duffel bag in the corner, and then reached out to the discolored arm prodding from the bed.

  “Honey,” Michelle reacted with concern in her voice, “let’s leave grandma alone and go get our coat on.”

  “But she said to wake her before I left to say goodbye.”

  “I know dear, but I think your grandma is already in heaven.”

  “Not yet.” The voice from underneath the blanket was weak and raspy, and the sheer surprise of it startled both Michelle and I so badly that we both stumbled backwards and reached for our guns. Faith seemed genuinely confused at our reaction, but then began to pull the cover slowly off of her grandmother. Her vibrant blue eyes turned to face me as I scrambled to my feet, and with a childlike innocence, she said, “Don’t worry Mr. Eric, granny won’t hurt you.”

  I looked down at the gaunt, almost cadaver-like lady lying in the bed. She was nude except for a pair of urine and feces stained underwear, and her skin, where it wasn’t papery thin and almost transparent, was swollen and purple-black. Michelle appeared at my shoulder, and I vaguely recalled her whispering, “Oh my.” The elderly lady’s entire right leg was bloated to almost twice the normal size, and several fissures had split open and were weeping ochre yellow pus. Her left leg from the knee down was in similar shape, and her protruding right arm, while not immediately as bad, was certainly heading that way. The sour stench of putrid rot drifted up, and I knew that if I hadn’t already worked for so many years with roadkill carcasses, I would have been heaving my guts out on the floor. The lady’s rheumy eyes fluttered open, and she seemed to focus on something behind us . . . or maybe inside us.

  Michelle leaned down and took Faith into her arms, and I heard the little girl cheerfully blurt out, “See, I told you.”

  I took a step forward, positioning myself partway between Faith and her grandmother. “Ma’am, my name is Eric, and this is Michelle. I’m not . . . sure . . . that we have the ability to help you . . .”

  My words trailed off as her dusty gray eyebrows creased upwards, and then her eyes seemed to refocus on me. She managed a small, hacking cough, and then spoke in a desiccated whisper. “You can’t help me boy . . . nobody but the Good Lord can heal this old body.”

  I glanced again at her conflicting appearance—swollen, yet emaciated. With all the gentleness I could muster, I reached down and covered her up.

  In answer to my unspoken question, she said, “Blood cancer. Should’ve taken me years ago, but I fooled it, and them doctors too.” Her eyes rolled toward Michelle and Faith, and after a brief, but grateful smile, she continued in her rasp. “Her daddy—my son—got killed in an oil rig explosion a few years back. Her mama never could accept that, and dropped little Faith off here right before all the news about the flu started. She hadn’t come back since. Don’t s’pose she will.” Her neck tilted slowly to the left until she was facing the other bed. “Flu took my husband over a week ago, but I don’t have the strength to move him. Anyways, that don’t matter now that you’re here. I prayed and prayed for the Lord to send me an angel, and it just goes to show you how good He is since He sent me two of them.” She turned back to face us, and Michelle lowered Faith to the floor. The little red-haired girl slid in front of me, latching her tiny hand around her grandmother’s finger and standing on her tiptoes. I hadn’t cried since I’d lost my own mother almost ten years ago, but watching her lean forward and plant a butterfly kiss on her grandmother’s cheek almost broke the floodgates.

  “Go now child,” the old lady spoke, “and don’t worry about granny. Your grandpa is already walking in the garden, and I’ll get to see him soon.” She cleared her throat with a weak cough, and then rolled her eyes towards the nightstand. “Do you remember where I keep it?”

  For a moment I was confused about who she was addressing, but then Faith nodded her head and said, “Yes ma’am.”

  “Go get it, dear.”

  Little footsteps thumped past me and around the bed, stopping at the drawer of the nightstand and sliding it open. Her hands dove into the recess and withdrew a moment later with a gift wrapped package decorated with pink bows. Faith hugged it to her chest like a puppy as she trotted back.

  “You take that, child . . . and the next time you see a pretty flower or a sky full of stars, you open that up and think of your granny and grandpa, OK?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  She coughed again, only this time it was forceful and set her face in a grimace of agony. Michelle pulled Faith away, hugging her to her chest and whispering something that I couldn’t hear. When the spasm had receded, the old lady stared up at me and said, “You take her now and go. Don’t worry about me. I won’t be here very long.”

  I hate making promises that I can’t keep, but I knew right then and there that I would die a thousand times before I broke this one. “I’ll keep her safe. You don’t need to worry anymore.”

  I reached out and laid a hand on her forehead as her eyes closed. “I’ll keep her safe . . .,” I repeated in a whisper. The corners of her lips edged ever so slightly upwards, and then she was gone. I waited another minute just to be sure, and then pulled the cover over her face.

  Michelle and Faith were buried in each other’s arms, and I leaned down and embraced both of them. After a few more rounds of tears and hugs, I got them to their feet and we grabbed the duffel bag.

  “We should go,” I said as I walked over to the small window at the front and looked down on the road, “while we still can.”

  “I know,” Michelle answered softly as her and Faith stepped over to join me.

  “I’m sorry that we can’t find your dad’s cabin.” My words started out in my head to be empathetic, but by the time they left my mouth, they sounded tired and dry.

  “Did you lose your daddy too?” Faith asked.

  Michelle smiled and ruffled the little girl’s hair as she answered. “No, not like you lost your daddy . . . at least, not that I know of. My daddy has a cabin somewhere up here, but we don’t know where i
t is or how to find it.”

  “What’s your daddy’s name?”

  I watched as Michelle hesitated for a moment, and then she shrugged her shoulders and said, “My daddy’s name is Mr. Owens . . . Mr. Franklin Owens.”

  Faith’s eyes perked up and she said, “Mr. Owens, the army man who sits in the wheelchair?”

  Michelle’s entire face flared in surprise and she said, “Yes! Do you know where he lives?”

  Puffy cascades of red hair nodded excitedly, and the little girl with fairy wings wove herself between Michelle and me before stopping at the window and pointing. “He lives right over there.”

  I followed her finger. It was aimed directly at the cabin I had leaned against less than an hour ago.

  Chapter 61

  I took off my pack and crouched at the window, shaking my head as I began to refill the magazines I had emptied earlier.

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  “I think we need to get to the boat.” As she answered, Michelle pulled a child’s snow suit out of the duffel. If it ever snowed three feet of vibrant pink cotton candy unicorns, Faith would be perfectly camouflaged.

  “The boat? What about your dad?” I interjected quickly.

  “Let me finish,” Michelle said as she rummaged through the heavy duffel bag, coming up with several pairs of jumpsuits that she pulled out and laid aside. Her wink put me on hold for a moment, and she turned to face Faith. “We’re going to be outside in just a little bit, so we need to get you in some different clothes, but in order to do that, I’m going to need to borrow your wings and magic wand . . . is that OK?”

  Faith nodded, and as Michelle helped her step into the first layer—a light brown, one piece sweat suit that bore a single embroidered patch over the heart in the shape of a mouse—she continued with me. “I want to go to the cabin, but the safest place of all is on the boat.” Michelle’s incredibly vivid green eyes darted up to mine. “So I think we should get little Miss Faith safely to the boat, and then one of us,” her eyebrows arched and her lips pressed tight, “should try the back door to the cabin while the other one stays with the boat.”

  I looked out the window at the narrow gap between the cabins that Michelle and I had traversed through earlier, and then closed my eyes to try and remember the view of the cabin’s backyard from the dock. There was definitely a back door that faced the lake. It opened onto a small, flat area made from cement pavers, and if I recalled correctly, the left and right sides of the porch had a knee high retaining wall constructed of old railroad ties. I opened my eyes, focusing once again on the scene below. “You’re correct, the boat will be the safest place . . .” I turned and once again held Michelle’s eyes, “for both of you.” Faith let out a giggle as she tried to worm her stuck head through the narrow neck of the sweat suit, finally popping out in an explosion of red hair, blue eyes, and smiles. Michelle shifted her gaze momentarily toward the bouncing child, and then returned to me. “OK,” she sighed.

  Chapter 62

  “OK, they’re gone. I’ve got nothing visible now. . . all clear.”

  I was sprawled in the dirt next to a low mound of leaves that, judging from the intermixed remains of rotten vegetables and shredded newspaper, probably served last fall as a compost pile. My stalk from the boat to the back door had been interrupted thirty feet short of its destination by Michelle’s warning about a group of infected moving along the road, and I merged myself with the leafy hump and waited. Fight or flight. Neither ended up being necessary, and I mentally added a third option to the rhyme. Fight or flight . . . or hold tight.

  “OK, I’m going for it,” I said as I slow crawled forward, crossing the remains of browned grass and rocky stubble before ending up on the paving stones between the low retaining walls of the back porch. “Still clear?”

  “As far as I can tell.”

  I slid to my feet, subconsciously registering the three foot wide aluminum plate that led from the porch to the door. Essentially a miniature ramp, they were often found on entries belonging to someone in a wheelchair. The door in front of me was a metal skinned exterior model with two peepholes—one of which hovered about four feet from the bottom—and as I raised up my hand to knock, the knob slowly turned and the door swung out towards me.

  “I saw you across the street with my daughter, Eric. I’m surprised you’re both still alive after all that racket you made. What do you want?”

  I’m not sure what shocked me more . . . his blunt question, or his appearance. The last time I had seen Michelle’s father was a few weeks after he came home from the hospital following the car wreck. The same wreck that killed the lady he’d been cheating on Michelle’s mother with, as well as her unborn child. His unborn child. When I’d seen him last, he was still all Marine—missing legs notwithstanding. What remained of him now spoke legions of his path since the accident. If it hadn’t been for the same hard eyes staring out the door at me through a bushy, bearded face, I’m almost positive that I wouldn’t have recognized him.

  “I said, what do you want?”

  It was the attitude of someone who believed they were so far lost in life that their only defense is apathy and cynicism, and I didn’t have the time or patience to deal with it right now.

  “Mr. Owens, Michelle and I have been through a lot just to make it here, and I’d rather not stand outside with my ass hanging in the breeze while those things are around. We’re looking for Lynn. She got a message through to Michelle saying that she was heading this way. Do you know where she is?”

  The face that stared up at me from the wheelchair looked more akin to something that would be used in a “prevent drug abuse” campaign. Hollow, receded cheeks still visible despite the volume of matted facial hair merged with premature age spots and wrinkles, the combination of which took his appearance far beyond what I knew to be only forty-five years.

  He stared at me for a long ten count, and then briefly flicked his attention toward the patrol boat at the dock. I watched his eyes close, and he dropped his chin to his chest with a sigh.

  “Come in.”

  His now bony arms swiveled the chair to the right, and then rolled it forward and around a similar floor plan to the cabin we’d just been in; the only immediate difference aside from the furniture was a mobility lift that ascended the stairs. It seemed to be stuck at the halfway point. I shut the door behind me and followed him to the living room. It smelled strongly of cigarette smoke mixed with unwashed bodies and stale food, but that barely registered as he wheeled to a dusky red sleeper sofa and nodded at the figure bundled underneath a pile of blankets.

  “Lynn’s there,” he said in the same calloused tone, “but she’s probably gonna die.”

  Chapter 63

  I stood there speechless and numb, finally feeling the cumulative weight of such violent change from the world I used to know as it crashed down all around me.

  “Eric,” Michelle said, “are you OK?”

  I let her question pass unanswered as I stared at the pale skin on Lynn’s neck. It was one of the few places that wasn’t swaddled under obscuring sheets, and there was a faint pulse throbbing in time with the distant ticks of a windup clock somewhere in the room.

  “Eric . . . are you OK? . . . answer me!” Her voice had the beginnings of unease showing through.

  “I . . . yeah . . . I’m OK. Just hold on a minute.” I reached down and turned off the radio’s hands free option, and then swiveled to face Michelle’s dad. He didn’t return my gaze. Instead, he was staring straight at Lynn, the same neutral and emotionally void expression welded on his face.

  “Did she get bit?” I asked with all the strength I could muster. It wasn’t much.

  He shook his head.

  “Well, what happened then?”

  He finally turned to look at me, and then reached into his vest pocket and removed a cigarette, igniting it a moment later with a silver lighter that was engraved with his initials and years of service in the military. I had been wi
th Michelle and Lynn at the jewelry store one Christmas Eve when they had picked it up after the engraving had been completed.

  I repeated my question.

  He took a long drag on the cigarette, and then blew the cone of smoke toward the ceiling. After another glance at Lynn’s motionless form, he tapped the ashes into his palm and shrugged his shoulders. Then he told me about Lynn. When he was finished a few minutes later, I closed my eyes and waited for the call that I knew would come any second now. To my surprise, it actually took almost three more minutes before the radio at my belt crackled to life.