The Journal: Ash Fall

by Moore, Deborah D.

  “Yes, Ma’am,” he replied politely in a very humbled voice.

  CHAPTER 13

  June 8

  I got home from the office early in the afternoon, to find Jason and Eric unloading large panes of glass from the pickup truck.

  “Where did you find all those?” I asked, watching them stack at least a dozen sliding glass doors near the unfinished greenhouse.

  “I got the list of abandoned houses from Ken and Karen,” Eric said. “We were real careful, Mom, and took only what we could use, and then boarded up the openings. There was one house where we got most of these. It looked made of glass. The roof was caved in, so we just took what was there.”

  “It didn’t take us long, maybe two days, to get all I’ll need to finish this up,” Jason piped in. “I’ll have to redesign some of the braces, so we tried to stick with all glass doors, sizes I know will fit, at least width wise. And they’re tempered glass, which is what I would have ordered. I’ll just need to add more cross members to the joists.”

  “While he’s doing that, I’m going to start pumping water up from the creek to fill the fish pond,” Eric chimed in. “I’ve already got the gravel and sand ready to go in, and a couple of rocks. I’ll finish that up, set the pump, and then help him with the higher windows.”

  “We need to start at the top and work down. If there are any adjustments to make, it’ll be easier to do at ground level. We should have this all closed in by tomorrow, Mom,” Jason said proudly.

  I surveyed the new structure, speechless. In the southeast corner sat the fish pond, just waiting for water to bring it to life. Around it, Jason had built benches that were functional as stabilizers for the heavy plastic edge of the pond itself, it would also add a place to sit to enjoy the room. Along the south and southwest wall, the six grow boxes were filled with rich black soil, begging to be planted. As of yet, the storage space underneath was empty, and I hadn’t decided if I wanted doors or to just leave it open.

  In the northeast corner sat the extra wood cook-stove that had been sitting in storage ever since I got it from a Resort member. It was resting on a brick hearth, however, it hadn’t been installed yet. There was time for that, it was only June and we wouldn’t need heat in here until October at the earliest.

  So much had been done in so little time. I couldn’t wait for John to see this!

  June 9

  Right after lunch, Emilee and I took a walk down the road toward the small swampy area that formed the front yard of the abandoned house next door. Doreen never came back to reclaim it. In time, the house might be occupied again, so I had made it off limits to my sons’ scavenging. I’d really like to see Jason and Amanda move in there so they could be closer to us, but I doubted that was going to happen any time soon.

  “What are we looking for again, Nahna?” Emi asked, skipping down the road, slightly ahead of me.

  “We need some water flowers for the new fish pond,” I answered. “I want those yellow flowers over there,” I said, pointing to the Marsh Marigolds. “Those should be easy to dig up, and we need to take a lot of the dirt around them so they feel at home in the new pond.” I planned on wrapping the root ball in old pantyhose to contain the dirt while it set in the water.

  We climbed down the gentle slope to the damp ground and surveyed what was available. The marigolds grew prolifically at the edges of ditches and swamps, as long as they had some dirt to hold on to. The cattails would tolerate deeper water, but seemed to prefer “just wet”. We were in luck today. It hadn’t rained in a few days so we weren’t going to get too soggy digging up what I wanted.

  “These are really pretty, Nahna,” Emilee chattered. She dug the shovel around the clump of yellow-gold blossoms. She stomped her foot on the blade’s shoulder a little hard and was rewarded with a squirt of muddy water up her tanned bare legs.

  I laughed. “Maybe a bit slower won’t cause such a splash.” She shrugged and lifted the clump into a waiting bucket.

  “How many do we need?” she asked.

  “There are several flowers in each clump, so just one will do, dear. We’ll need at least six of the cattails.”

  We dug and lifted, moved and carried for more than a half hour. The little wagon we had brought with us was full.

  “This doesn’t look like very much Nahna,” Emi observed.

  “Uncle Jason knows where there are some water lilies, so he will be getting the rest of what we will plant. You did good, Emilee, and didn’t even complain about getting the muddy water on yourself. I’m proud of you.”

  “Well, it’s only water and dirt,” she said, dismissing any girly revulsion. She’s a tough one.

  CHAPTER 14

  June 10

  I was just starting to get something put together for dinner when I heard Emilee screaming my name and sobbing.

  “Nahna! Dad’s hurt real bad!” she cried out to me, running into the kitchen. “Some bad men came in the yard and hit him. He yelled at me to run. Then he fell on the ground.”

  I pushed her into the bedroom. “Stay here!”

  Before I could even get to the side door where my shotgun was, a strange young man burst through the door. The screen was no match for the violent rage that etched his pale young face, and he literally ripped it to shreds. He was well over six feet tall, lean and large with curly black hair and black eyes. His eyes swept the room, coming to rest on me.

  “What do you want?” I yelled at him as I backed away. He growled and lunged at me.

  He struck me hard with his fist on the left side of my face and I instantly tasted the coppery blood that started to fill my mouth when the soft inside tissue mashed against my teeth. I staggered against the counter next to the hall, grabbing the nearest thing and swinging it in his direction. The heavy flashlight made a satisfying crunch when it connected with his nose and slowed him enough for me to flee down the hall and out of his reach. My foremost thought was to distract him away from my granddaughter.

  A few feet from the next doorway, on the right side of the hall, hung my Dirk. A million thoughts ran through my head as my brain registered what my eyes were seeing. I remembered when I bought that sword five years ago from a local knife smith. With an overall length of twenty-three inches, the dagger shaped blade was a full sixteen inches and hefty in weight yet perfectly balanced. When I showed it to my brother, he insisted on putting a razor sharp edge on it for me. Hanging at an angle, it rested in its decorative wooden scabbard. I reached out and grabbed the hilt, sending the polished wooden sheath clattering to the tiled floor. The hair on my neck twitched and I could feel the guy getting closer. I took two more long steps then pivoted low, the blood pounding in my ears. With both hands now holding the heavy weapon, I braced myself, putting my weight and my fear into the force, aiming for the vulnerable spot just below the sternum. Whoever this monster was, he impaled himself on the blade as he came at me. I was a good twelve inches shorter than him and the blade entered low. His thin black t-shirt and soft pink skin offered no resistance to the sharp blade and it slid in easily. I used his surprise to my advantage and angled the sharp steel upward, slicing an opening six inches wide, ripping through any organs that were missed by the first impact.

  His hot and sticky blood gushed over my hands as I pushed the blade even deeper, and his frozen look of surprise changed to anguish, and then the light went out of his dark, menacing eyes. He fell, pulling me down with him.

  I struggled to get him off of me, and managed to liberate one of my legs. I kicked and shoved with my foot, rolling him enough to free myself from his dead weight. Emilee screamed again, this time in pain.

  Anger now raging through me, I put my foot on the unmoving chest, pulled the Dirk free and raced to the living room, the still warm blood dripping from the blade.

  When I made it into the kitchen, another man, slightly smaller than the first one, was dragging Emilee by her ponytail.

  “Let. Her. Go!!” I screamed at him, my chest heaving as I struggled for breath.
He sneered at me and turned toward the door, right into the brushed steel barrel of Eric’s .357 Smith and Wesson.

  “No one hurts my kid!” Eric growled through clenched teeth.

  My son didn’t even hesitate. He stuck the gun under the guy’s chin and pulled the trigger, scattering pinkish gray brains, hair, and bits of white bone on my ceiling.

  “Don’t worry, Mom, I’ll help you clean up,” Eric said calmly. I could see the seething hatred and fury in his dark blue eyes.

  He knelt and clutched his daughter. “You did real good, Emi. You did exactly what I told you to do and now you’re safe.” He kissed her temple as she sobbed. “Shhh, shhh, Emi, we’re okay now. They’re gone and we’re safe again.” He looked up at me, seeing my blood soaked shirt and the dripping blade in my hand for the first time.

  “Mom? Are you okay?” he whispered, worry filling his eyes.

  “Yeah. What about you?” I managed to get out before I started shaking uncontrollably, dropping the Dirk to the floor.

  “I’m thinking a couple of bruised ribs where they kicked me,” Eric said.

  “Dad, I think I’m going to be sick,” Emi whimpered.

  “Into the bathroom, quick,” Eric said, ushering his little girl past me.

  My own stomach lurched as I stared at the body on my kitchen floor. I hurried to the sink and spewed bile, blood and iced tea into the drain. I coughed and went into dry heaves. Pulling a steadying breath, I rinsed my mouth to rid myself of the foul taste.

  “I think Dr. Mark should look you over,” I said to Eric after he brought Emilee out of the bathroom. She was pale and shaky.

  Her lip quivered, and she averted her eyes from the corpse on the floor. “Can I sit in the other room, Dad?”

  He gently held her by the shoulders. “Yes, in a minute. First you need to look at this. I know it’ll be hard, but look at this bad man. He was truly evil, and this is what we do to evil people, Emilee. Can you do this for me?” She nodded, looked at the cooling form lying on the floor, and then started to cry.

  * * *

  Mark stood just inside the door, taking in the scene of the pooled congealing blood and the splattered goo that was once brains. “My, God! What happened here?” he exclaimed.

  “We don’t know who these guys are or where they came from,” Ken said, “and it seems that they were trying to steal Emilee.” He paused, wiping his hand over his damp face. “There were two other children in the back of their van, tied and gagged, but alive.”

  “Who has the worst injuries?” Mark asked, shaking off the shock of the violent aftermath.

  “I think Eric’s ribs are broken,” I said. Mark looked over at me and I could see the concern in his face. “The blood isn’t mine,” I said, answering his unasked question, and my stomach felt queasy again.

  “Take care of the kids first, Doc, I’ll wait,” Eric said flatly. Mark nodded at Eric and followed Ken into the living room, where Karen was trying to soothe the two other children.

  * * *

  “The kids are deeply shaken, and thankfully there are no injuries other than a few bruises,” Mark informed us after examining the children. “They’re very lucky.” He looked over at my son and then back at me. “Eric, take off your shirt please and let me see those ribs.”

  Eric couldn’t pick his arms up above his head. Fortunately, he was wearing a buttoned shirt, and once unfastened, we slid it down his arms. He was covered in bruises; the worst were on his back where the hardest kicks landed.

  “Emi was weeding along the grape vines toward the road and I was working on the new compost patch by the porch when the van pulled into the driveway all the way to the house,” he told us, wincing while Mark gently felt around the ribs. “They didn’t say a word. They just got out, walked up to me and sucker punched me. That’s when I yelled at Emi to run. She’s fast.” He grinned. “Those 5K races she’s done with me paid off.” Eric coughed and moaned.

  “She was long out of reach when the first guy took off after her, then the second one started to kick me when I tried getting up. I pretended like I had passed out, and he took off, following his partner over here. I figured if they were leaving me alone, it was Emilee they were after, and that was not going to happen.” He coughed again and almost passed out.

  “Stop talking, Eric,” Mark ordered. “That makes you breathe harder. I can feel two possibly broken ribs. I’d like to take an x-ray to be sure that’s all it is.”

  Mark turned to me. “And now for you.”

  “Like I said, this blood isn’t mine. It belongs to the guy in the hallway.” Everyone turned in that direction. “Don’t worry, he’s not going anywhere. And I would like him out of my house as soon as possible!”

  “Well, Allexa, some of the blood is yours,” Mark said, lowering his voice. “Apparently you haven’t looked in a mirror. You’ve got a nasty cut on your lip and a rather large contusion on your cheek. Open your mouth and let me look.”

  My jaw was feeling pretty stiff and it was difficult to open very wide. Mark put on fresh surgical gloves and swabbed the inside of my left cheek with a gauze pad. I was shocked to see how much blood covered it. After two more swabbings, the pads were barely pink.

  “Ouch!” I yelled when he wiped my face and lip with some chilled saline.

  “Ouch? That’s coming from the woman who wants to do her own stitches? Sissy.” He smiled and wiped again. I knew he was trying to keep things light in a very serious situation, so I swallowed my next moan, though I couldn’t mask the flinch.

  “Cold compresses on the face and lip for the next forty-eight hours. I don’t think the lip will need stitches.” Mark pulled off the gloves and tossed them in a plastic bag he had used for the bloody bandages.

  “As for these two,” he straightened, looking down at the floor. “I pronounce time of death,” he glanced at the clock, “at 5:30 P.M. for this one, and make it 5:28 P.M. for the one down the hall.” Ken jotted down the times in his notebook.

  “Cause of death?” Ken asked. We all looked at him as though he was kidding.

  “I don’t think the coroner will accept ‘stupidity’,” Mark grumbled, “so make it a gunshot wound for this one, and…” He looked at me and said, “You did say he impaled himself, right?”

  “More or less,” I responded.

  “Close enough. Blood loss from a self-inflicted wound for the one in the hallway,” Mark concluded.

  “Lenny and Jason are on the way to help move the bodies,” Ken said. “I say we just leave them in the back of the van for now. By the way, when we got the children out of the back, I noticed the license plate was missing. The idiots had just tossed it inside and it was under the blanket used for the kids. I’ve already called it in for an ID.”

  “Emilee, while Dr. Mark has your dad at the office, I need to start cleaning in here, and get cleaned up myself,” I said to the still shaken little girl. I just can’t wrap my brain around what might have happened.

  Her little lip quivered again. “Don’t leave me alone, Nahna.”

  “I won’t, sweetie, I promise. We are all safe and I don’t want you to be afraid,” I told her. “I’m going to show you how we can lock the doors and be safe, and still get fresh air in here, okay?” She nodded, tears glistening on her brown eyelashes. The day was still warm and the house now harbored strange and unpleasant odors. I wanted some windows open to air the place out.

  We locked and bolted the back door, then opened that window to let in some air. The deck door had the same type of door set up, and Emi did that one once I showed her how to lock the window preventing it from opening any further. There would be no ventilation through the glass door, and that was ok. And since the larger window hadn’t been replaced yet from the shoot-out with the Wheeler gang, we skipped that one and opened a window in the hall, fitting a rod in at the top.

  “Do you feel better now, enough for me to take a quick shower and change clothes?” I asked her. I couldn’t wait to get out of these bloody clothes, even
though I would have to change yet again once I cleaned up the mess. The bodies were now gone, however, there was so much blood everywhere!

  “Yes, Nahna. You look really bad so a shower should help,” Emilee replied in a grown up voice.

  I chuckled over that until I looked in the mirror. My face was swelling and already showing signs of bruising; there were dark streaks of dried blood flowing down my neck and arms; and how that much blood got in my hair I’ll never know. I removed my clothes with shaky hands, depositing the soiled garments in the washer. I would rather have burned them, but many things are irreplaceable now, so they’d get washed.

  The hot water stung my face as I stepped into the shower. I didn’t care. I rinsed and washed, then rinsed again, watching the red water swirl down the drain. I washed my hair again and again until the water ran clear.

  * * *

  “Eric has one fractured rib and lots of deep bruising, although nothing that would endanger his life,” Mark told me when he brought Eric back after taking the x-rays. “I also think he should spend the night here, or you there, in case any problems crop up. Both of you need watching for the night.”

  “Why do I need watching?” I asked.

  “There’s always a chance of a concussion, and that’s also why I can’t give you anything for the pain that might make you drowsy. I’m sorry. As much as you need to rest, you have to do it naturally, not with chemicals. I don’t want you sleeping so deeply that you can’t wake up, Allexa,” he explained further. “Eric would be better off sleeping reclined, not flat on his back. The ribs are going to be very painful for the next few weeks.”

  “I know. I cracked two ribs a few years ago and could barely breathe for three months. Emilee will keep an eye on him,” I smiled. “Thank you, Mark, for all you’ve done today. It’s good to have you around.”