Troop of Shadows

by Nicki Huntsman Smith

  A cold breeze lifted strands of hair from her face, then rushed through the tops of the surrounding pine trees. From the needled branches it compelled a paean that was both beautiful and despondent. As music so often does, it transported her back to those childhood vacations and happy memories. The next moment, she identified something less pleasant carried by the wind.

  The smell of snow. What she had assumed was part of a mountain range on the horizon, she now realized was a cloud bank. While she finished unloading what they would need for their brief stay, she toyed with the idea of driving on to outrun the approaching storm; but Steven’s warnings about traveling at night won out.

  The interior of the house was as impressive as the view. Flickering candles and an electric lantern made it feel inviting. Logan ran in and out of rooms, up and down the stairs like a kid on Christmas morning. Brains avoided the manic activity while inspecting his lodgings for the night.

  “Can I sleep in the room with the bunk beds, Julia? I always wanted bunk beds but mom said since there was just me, it would be wasteful.”

  “Of course you can have that room. I’ll take the one with the king size bed and the down comforter.” Oh my, that bed was going to feel heavenly. But first, they would light a fire in the huge stone fireplace, eat their dinner, and play one of the board games he’d found in the upstairs game room. Water still ran to the cabin, but it was frigid, so she planned to heat a pot of it in the fire and have an actual sponge bath later; a vast improvement over the Wet Wipes.

  It was the strangest feeling, but with Logan darting happily about and Brains stretching his legs, sniffing everything and not hissing for once, there was a sense of family. Crazy, yes, but there nonetheless. She pondered the fireplace and the neat stack of dry wood on the hearth.

  Too bad they didn’t have hot chocolate and S’mores.

  “Julia, look what I found!” Logan hollered from the kitchen. He ran into the living room holding a box of Swiss Miss. “It says all we have to do is add boiling water. We can have hot chocolate like you did on your family trips.”

  The young man’s excitement was contagious. “How about a mug before dinner?” she said with a smile.

  “Yes! Before and after too. I can start the fire. I’m very good with fires. Remember?”

  ###

  Julia wasn’t sure what a banshee was supposed to sound like, but she suspected it would be similar to what she was hearing outside while she luxuriated in the decadent comfort of the Tempur-Pedic bed with the thousand thread-count sheets and the down comforter. She hadn’t been this comfortable in more than a year, and despite the wintry mayhem on the other side of the walls, she was enjoying the soft slice of heaven on this side.

  That line of thinking didn’t last more than a few seconds before her tired brain kicked into survival mode. The snowfall wasn’t thick and wasn’t accumulating at all...yet. But the fierce wind rattled the window panes in their casings and flung an occasional branch on the roof, making her jump every time.

  She’d kept one of the candles lit by her bed since the storm was blocking any starlight that might penetrate the skylights or windows, and she would need to visit the bathroom after all the hot chocolate. She’d told Logan to do the same thing, and of course to not leave the flame near anything that could catch fire. His look said ‘duh’ when he turned away. Managing him was a balancing act, for sure. Earlier, she’d expected him to select Battleship or checkers for their evening entertainment, but he’d chosen Clue. After learning the rules, he wasn’t interested in playing any other game. He was mesmerized by the characters and the different ways they might meet their demise...or cause the demise of their associates. Coincidentally, it had been her favorite board game as a child.

  What if we wake up to two feet of snow in the morning? What if the road is blocked through the pass? We’re down to a quarter tank of gas...need to find some first thing in the morning. Maybe we should backtrack to town? I think there were a few cars scattered about. Should have done that before we went on through. You’re getting sloppy, girl.

  A loud crash from overhead yanked her from an uneasy sleep. She had no idea if she’d been out for minutes or hours. It must have been a sizeable branch from one of the Ponderosa pines, but in her fuzzy mental state, she imagined a helicopter had landed on the house and paramilitary men in heavy combat boots were spilling out and tromping around up there. She slid her feet into the slippers she’d placed next to the bed and shuffled to the window.

  There were no soldiers rappelling from the roof and no snowflakes falling from the sky. The wind still howled, but a full moon had risen, adding its luminosity to the starlight. Moonlight and starlight meant no clouds, and no clouds meant no two feet of snow. She breathed a sigh of relief.

  Another, quieter sound, came from the interior of the house. Its source was downstairs, not Logan’s room in the other direction.

  She glanced around the room, well-lit now that the storm had passed, looking for Brains. He’d been nestled in a mountain of goose down at the foot of her bed when she’d last seen him. Now he was gone.

  It’s probably just him skulking around. Damn that little shit and his nocturnal nature.

  The sound came again, louder and more defined this time: human footsteps on a hardwood floor. It could be Logan wandering around, but when she heard his familiar snores down the hall, a surge of adrenaline propelled her from the bed.

  She grabbed her revolver from the bedside table, tiptoed to the door, and peered through. Her bedroom was situated at the top of the stairway; from her vantage she could see the living room and the still-glowing embers in the fireplace.

  Should she wake Logan? Why risk both of them? She should deal with this on her own. But he’s very good with his guns and I am not very good with mine, she thought. Still, she could shoot with accuracy up to twenty feet, providing her revolver-holding hand didn’t shake. She made the decision and tiptoed into the hallway toward the stairs.

  She was halfway down the carpeted steps when she heard another noise. She pressed her back against the wall that separated the living room from the kitchen, holding the gun in a two-fisted grip. She continued to the bottom, then moved toward the corner.

  “Don’t be a stranger. Come on in. I was about to make myself some hot chocolate, if you two haven’t guzzled it all.” The voice was male and carried the unmistakable timbre of agedness. She heard a match being struck and saw a flicker of candlelight.

  She rounded the corner. Standing in the kitchen was an old man with skin the color of antique mahogany and a grin punctuated with several gold teeth. His hair made Julia think of a giant Q-tip. He wore a Denver Nuggets sweatshirt and was pouring water into a coffee mug from the pot they’d used earlier for the same task. The box of Swiss Miss sat on the dining table.

  Her mouth was open but she couldn’t manage to formulate a sentence.

  “Shocking, I know, waking up in the middle of the night to discover a gentleman of color in your house. Under normal conditions, finding a strange man in your kitchen would be mighty scary, but look at me. I’m so old I buy the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated for the articles. Doubt I could do anyone much bodily harm.” He extended a hand as dark and gnarled as an ancient oak.

  “I’m Abe. Although recently some people have taken to calling me Thoozy, which is short for Methuselah...get it? On account of my advanced age. But you can call me whatever you’d like so long as you put that hunk of metal down. Don’t have need of that among friends.”

  Julia found her voice. “What are you doing here? How did you get in? I thought we’d secured the house.”

  “I may be old, but the day I can’t get into a house I’ve set my mind on getting into is the day I’ll just shuck it all.” The gold-toothed smile was engaging, but Julia noticed he hadn’t answered her question.

  “What do you want, Mister, uh...”

  “Why don’t you just call me Thoozy? Everybody else does, and I admit I’ve grown to like it. Mostly.”
>
  “What are you doing here? Surely there are any number of empty houses you could have chosen instead of this one.”

  Twinkling candlelight reflected in the warm, caramel brown eyes and when his laughter gurgled out from behind the golden smile, it was as rich and sweet as maple syrup.

  Holy shit. I’ve been burgled by a skinny, black Santa Claus.

  “But I wanted this house, young lady. I knew there was hot chocolate here, and well, it’s a weakness of mine. Anything chocolate and any kind of chocolate. Milk chocolate, dark chocolate, mint chocolate, but don’t give me any of that white chocolate because we all know there ain’t nothin’ chocolate ‘bout that nonsense.”

  She smiled before she could stop herself.

  “And besides, unless your name is on the deed to this piece of high-dollar real estate, you’re just as much of an intruder as me.”

  He had her there.

  “So your Swiss Miss obsession overrode all common sense, compelling you to venture out on a cold night during a storm and break into a house that was occupied by two armed individuals? Does this sound reasonable to you?”

  The chuckle was delightful, but she resisted the urge to be charmed.

  “Don’t forget about your attack cat,” he gestured to Brains who was curled up against the man’s well-worn Reeboks.

  Good grief. The cat hated Logan and barely tolerated her. His embracing of this stranger felt...significant.

  She placed the revolver on the tabletop and sat down across from him. “Okay, Thoozy. I’m Julia. What’s your story?”

  ###

  “Logan, wake up. It’s morning and we have a guest.” He must have slept like the dead not to have heard them talking for the past two hours.

  “What?” He sat up in the top bunk bed, dirty blond hair sticking out at odd angles like an ‘80s rocker.

  “There’s someone you need to meet. He’s in the kitchen and his name is Thoozy. He’ll be coming with us to Kansas.”

  He scrambled out from under a heap of blankets and clambered down the railing. “I don’t understand. Where did he come from?”

  “Long story. Come downstairs and you can meet him. Then we’ll have breakfast and get on the road. We’re going to backtrack into town to find some gasoline. Are you sure you don’t mind sucking the gas again?”

  “No, I don’t mind,” he replied, distracted and foggy. “He’s coming with us? Does he have magic?”

  “I think he might. But I’m pretty sure it’s good magic. None of that wicked dark stuff.”

  He followed her down the carpeted stairs to the kitchen.

  Early morning sunlight filled the room, backlighting the old man who sat at the table, obscuring his face. “I found some instant coffee, Julia. Something tells me a hot cup of joe would be something you’d appreciate.”

  “Oh, god, yes. Logan, this is Thoozy also known as Abe, but I think most people don’t call him that any more. Thoozy, may I introduce you to Logan?”

  She watched the young man’s reaction, seeing displeasure in his body language; his frown had turned downright hostile. Well, he would just have to accept this new addition to their diverse little family. She had no intention of leaving an old man on a mountain by himself with winter approaching.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Thoozy extended the gnarled oak again, but Logan ignored it.

  “You can see me?”

  She was glad she’d already explained Logan’s obsession with magic and her decision to perpetuate that belief system.

  “I can indeed.”

  Julia stepped farther into the kitchen where the dark face was better illuminated.

  “I appreciate that you’re allowing me to come on your journey with you. I promise not to get in the way or eat too much.”

  Was it Julia’s imagination or did the gold-toothed smile seem less genuine now?

  “I’m very good with my guns.”

  “Of that, I have no doubt.”

  “What can you do?”

  “I can play the saxophone, I can whittle sailboats from scraps of tree bark, I can recite the Pledge of Allegiance backwards, I can tie fifty-seven different knots, and I can make a mean martini.”

  Julia grinned.

  Logan studied the old man, then asked, “Would you show me how to do the knots?”

  The caramel eyes never wavered from the boyish face. “Young man, knot-tying is something I will never share with you. But if you’re interested in carving sailboats, I’m your guy.”

  Chapter 38

  Kansas

  “The woman was scared, that’s for sure,” Lisa said from the comfort of an overstuffed chair.

  Steven and his son sat on a sofa across from her, in a house that smelled strongly of cinnamon and vaguely of decomposition.

  “Can you remember exactly what the lady said?” Jeffrey pressed Liberty’s newest citizen. Steven noted the intense expression on his son’s face.

  “She said they were keeping women, the pretty ones, in the Best Western. She said the rest of the women did all the grunt work, hauling water and such, while the men ordered them around. She said the town had grown from just the few survivors who had lived there before the plague. She said a lot of rough types had moved in recently and she didn’t know where they were coming from. They were bad news though, and it seemed to this woman that they were creating some kind of ‘misogynist mecca’ — her words. That’s why she and her daughter left during the night. Their house was on the far outskirts of town and they had somehow kept off the radar, but she knew it couldn’t last. She knew she was taking a huge chance leaving because they had a good stockpile of food, but it wasn’t worth the risk of staying. So, they packed up as much as they could carry and left on foot.”

  “Why on foot?” Steven asked. “They could have brought more of their provisions if they’d used a car. There’s still good gas to be found.”

  “She said they have I70 blocked,” Lisa replied, anger in her voice now. “On both sides of the town. If you try to leave, they’ll stop you. If you try to go through town, they’ll detain you. If you have anything valuable, they’ll take it from you, and if you have any skills or are attractive enough, they’ll make you stay.”

  That’s when he thought of his sister.

  “Oh, shit.”

  “What, Dad?”

  “Your Aunt Julia will be driving right through there on her way to us.”

  ###

  As with any task Steven had ever tackled, he approached the dangerous rescue operation with obsessive attention to detail. He broke it down into three components. First: he would elicit help from those citizens of Liberty who had voted in favor of rescuing the captive women. He understood the precedent that going against the popular vote might set within their fledgling community, but he would deal with the backlash once Julia was safely through Hays. Second: he would conduct a scouting mission to determine what they were dealing with so as to formulate the safest and most effective plan possible. Third would be the rescue operation itself, which had evolved in his mind beyond saving some women to a thorough annihilation of the bastards who had decided to create their oppressive, testosterone-fueled despotic empire only thirty miles from his town.

  Steven felt a sense of relief. This was what he should have been loudly and vigorously advocating for all along. Jeffrey had known it. Lisa had known it. He had known it too, but fear and worry had kept him from acting. So now he could focus on what needed to be done rather than whether it should be done at all.

  He assigned his son the job of notifying the other twenty-one residents that had supported the plan, of an informal meeting at his house at sundown; less than an hour from now. Jeffrey had taken off on his bike down the gravel driveway like a post-apocalyptic Paul Revere.

  By the time people began to arrive, he had a smorgasbord ready for them. It was the least he could do for the people whose lives he’d be putting at risk. As he beckoned them into his home, he managed to remember most of their names. Of cou
rse Marilyn was among their number, as was Lisa, Ed, Chuck and the other members of Chuck’s Security Crew, which consisted of two young men and the sharp-shooting girl.

  They were already attacking the canned chicken and sweet corn when he began to pull his front door closed. He stopped when he noticed a final person walking toward his house. He didn’t recognize the face in the twilight and still couldn’t identify him even when the man stepped onto the porch with his hand extended.

  “Hello. You must be Steven,” he said with a smile that didn’t quite reach the almond-shaped eyes. “I’ve heard a lot about you in my short time here. My name is Tung. Tung Wong. Clearly my parents hated me, but since they spoke no English when they arrived in this country from China, I know I should forgive them. And I have...mostly. Anyway, I’m here to sign up for your cause.”

  Despite his exotic features, the accent was pure Midwest. Steven liked him at once.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you. What’s your story? Condensed version, please. We’ll be starting the meeting soon.”

  “Brevity is my middle name. Okay, former Supervisor of Mining Operations at Hutchinson Salt. Advanced degrees in chemistry, geology, and mathematics...yes, the math is a Chinese cliché. Moved here from San Francisco after grad school. Never married because it seems I’m kind of a dick to live with. What else do you need?”

  He barely heard anything after ‘mining operations.’ “Are you saying you’re an expert with explosives?”

  “Yep. I’m great at blowing things up.”

  “Come on in, Tung. We have a lot to talk about.”

  More than twenty people crammed their pungent bodies into Steven’s living room and all were in various stages of inhaling his food. He didn’t begrudge it in the least.

  “Tung, grab a plate and find a spot. Everyone, this is Tung. He’s from Hutchinson and is great at blowing things up. I figure he’ll come in handy. First, I need to be up front about what prompted all this. My sister will be arriving from California soon, and she’ll be driving right through Hays to get here. I’m aware this endeavor was voted down the other day, and I realize by acting in direct violation of that decision, I’m instigating trouble and setting a bad example. But I also think it’s the right thing to do.