Looking Back Through Ash

by Wade Ebeling

  Allen watched his petite wife turn around to head back into the middle bedroom, which was now the pantry and storeroom. The kitchen had gone untouched during the recent construction. The main goal of the expansion had been to give them more space to move around, not to spend money they did not have on new countertops and appliances. So the lack of available cabinet space had born the need for turning the small, windowless bedroom into a place where they could store their stockpiled goods.

  Maggie’s close-cropped nape allowed the bob of brilliant red hair a uniform sway as she sashayed out of the room. Allen hated to see the fear leeching the usual luster from her hazel-green eyes. One of their main concerns was the food situation. The loud, rumbling explosions and the crisp gunshots, which seemed unending and all too close, had abated to what felt a comfortable distant murmur, but the food’s end could be charted with just a glance. Both of them knew that what they had put away was all too obviously finite.

  Allen almost shouted to her about seeing the couple from A5 leaving. He would frequently tell them to remain quiet as much as was possible, and Maggie would not let the slip pass. Using the table edge and chair back, he hoisted his thin, six-foot frame back to standing. At a hundred and seventy pounds, he stretched his wiry arms out to the side, bringing them up into a muscle-man posed yawn. Pulling his well-worn Detroit Tigers hat off, Allen scratched at his scalp through his squared buzz-cut, which, by his standards, was in need of a trimming. By the time Allen entered the pantry behind Maggie, who was staring bleakly at the plastic racks holding the remaining food and supplies, he had something else to add about A5.

  “It seems like a lot, until you have to try and cook something every day with it,” Maggie whispered.

  “Well I just had a thought about that. I think A5 just took off in their car. They were carrying a bunch of stuff with them, bags and things…” Allen said happily, squeezing in beside her to get a better view.

  “So? What does those scumbags finally leaving have to do with us cooking lunch?” she questioned, turning to look at him, gauging his response.

  “Well, they just had that little car. I doubt they could take everything with them. I am gonna to run over and check out their place for any food they might have left behind, and anything else we can use. Like more containers for water.” He was really hoping that Maggie would see the sense in this.

  Without pause Corinne said, “Oh, I hope they have some peanut butter. That stuff is going so fast. It’s all Danny asks for. Wish we would have bought more…well…before…you know. Sucks that we only have two big jars left, but we still have six of those giant things of grape jelly…” she stooped over to look for them. “Toilet paper…Look for toilet paper. We have a bunch, but I am not looking forward to the day when it runs out,” she added, still peeking over and around the cases of jars and cans for the grape jelly.

  “That’s a good idea. I gotta make sure that they are really gone first, though. Then I will check out the apartment for anything we can use. I should probably take a bag, or something, for anything I do find,” Allen said, hiding his smile.

  He was glad that he didn’t have to try and sell her on the idea of burglary. Apparently, it made just as much sense to her. It was best to get what they could, while they could still manage to get it. He didn’t even spend one second thinking about how drastically things had changed in his way of thinking. Just weeks before, the thought of going into someone else’s apartment, taking anything not nailed down, would have been repulsive, to say the least. He might have even shot anyone that he caught attempting to do just that. But the world had changed, and so had Allen Moore. He would do whatever it took to keep his family alive.

  “We have those two burlap grocery bags that I bought. They are on the side of the refrigerator,” Maggie said, indicating what side of the appliance she meant by making a curve around signal with her right hand.

  “Okay, thanks. Why is Danny being so quiet? Is he in trouble, or something?” Allen asked softly to not be overheard.

  “Believe it or not, he is taking a nap,” Maggie said incredulously.

  “Hmm, poor kid has been cooped up in here for a long time,” Allen sighed, shaking his head woefully. He briefly entertained the thought of taking his son along with him to A5, but quickly dismissed it. He was too young, too innocent for such things. Turning to leave the room, he stopped when an important bit of information floated back around into his consciousness. “We should keep that brace in the door all the time now. I haven’t seen people out there for a couple of days. Seeing those two slinking away like that freaked me out a little bit. Would you lock up behind me?”

  Maggie just nodded her answer, the grape jelly within her grasp.

  Allen followed the horseshoe beaten into the carpet back around to the kitchen. He fished out the two burlap bags from the crack between the wall and refrigerator. Both sacks were embossed with stamped, green lettering extolling their virtues, disproportionately large trees standing on a globe with incorrect longitude and latitude lines.

  Allen had to side-step through the partially-open, loved and hated curtain to get back into the mud room. Pausing inside the door, he adjusted the Kel Tec P-32 pistol in his waistband, of which Maggie had no knowledge of. He had traded rent money for the lightweight automatic from one of the grungier tenants. The seven-plus-one pistol looked so new that he was almost certain it had been stolen. But he could no longer afford to be particular about his morals. Besides, the meth-heads had left shortly there afterwards, which meant Allen never did have that conversation about the missing money with Jason. What Jason didn’t know, wouldn’t hurt him. And what Maggie didn’t know, might save her life one day. Even her threat of leaving him for introducing guns into the household did not hold much weight now; there was really nowhere left to go.

  Allen made sure that Maggie was, in fact, following behind to lock the door. Once he saw her step into view, he pulled the door open, looking out across an empty courtyard. “See you in a bit…” he said, waving with the bags. He stepped out and visually checked each stairwell of each building, making sure the deepened shadows did not move, before shutting the door behind him. Allen waited outside the apartment until he heard the locks turn and the 2X6 go into its carrier before setting off.

  He walked across the dead grass under a dead sky, ash starting to fall in clumps, like strangely warm snow.

  ……..

  Jason Clarke finished packing the last of his belongings into the passenger compartment area of the aged mini-van. The front seat of the three-tone van was now as precariously packed as the rest of the vehicle. He had to fight to get the door to click closed on the tan, over brown, over rust van. Jason had just gone through a brutal, surprise divorce shortly after inheriting Sunnybrook apartments. He got to keep the old van, the small house, and sole possession of the apartment complex. She had absconded with the new car, their son, most of the home’s actual substance, and a new boyfriend.

  Jason was planning on driving the four miles to Sunnybrook with the end goal of making a couple of the apartments his new pad. He loathed having to live alone in the house. In fact, after the divorce, in just one year, he had let the house fall into such a state of disrepair, leaving was as much out of necessity as it was out of spite. Chloe, his ex-wife, had gotten the courts to agree that the apartment complex, positioned in a less than savory part of town, was not conducive to shared custody. Jason remained in the house only to get every other weekend with his son, Mason.

  Chloe and Mason had moved in with her new man, Karl. Four days ago, Jason found out that the gaudy new home where Karl lived was completely empty. He went rushing to the Police station, looking for someone that could help him find his son. All that he found was chaos. The power had gone out state-wide, and the Police were more concerned with the rash of thefts, armed robberies, and murders popping up everywhere then they were about a woman and her eleven year-old boy. Jason wondered why in the world he had ever sent the last alimony check, or the las
t check to the I.R.S., for that matter; neither had done him any good.

  Jason Clarke was a slovenly dressed thirty six year-old with a round, puffy face. Well over two hundred pounds, a large beer-belly announced to the world what his crutch was, and the most secured items in the van were four brown-bottle cases. His close-cropped salt and pepper hair, bushy beard, and faded tattoos completed the pseudo-biker look. He settled into the duct tape patched driver’s seat and watched the show across the street from him.

  A few of his neighbors were huddled around two dead bodies, a safe distance away from the smoldering remnants of a house. Three black teenagers had planned an ill-advised, early morning raid on the elderly Watson’s home. Charles Watson, a WWII and Korean conflict veteran, was the only person Jason knew who owned more guns than he did. One of the thugs narrowly escaped; a leg full of buck shot payment for his ignorance. The other two died where they stood, on the front porch.

  A smashed oil lantern caught the curtains aflame inside the home during the brief, lopsided firefight, which took place through the front window and door. Neighbors joined the Watsons in a frantic attempt to salvage items, mainly guns and crates filled with ammunition and food, before the heat finally chased them back. Jason had watched the whole futile endeavor from behind the safety of his front window.

  Jason laughed at the thought suddenly striking him, one final “Fuck-you!” to his ex. He wore the smile of a crazed man as he exited the van and, for the last time, entered his sagging-roofed house. He gathered several of the phone books that seemed to collect within the small entryway, throwing them on the worn fabric of the tan couch. One practiced move had a cigarette and lighter in hand from his sleeveless red flannel’s chest pocket. He lit the smoke then one of the larger yellow books, watching for a moment to make sure it caught. He casually closed and locked the front door before making his way back to the van.

  Jason waved a cheery “good-bye” to the gaggle of neighbors as he drove past.

  ‘Good riddance,’ both parties thought at the same time.

  Jason had been using one of the apartments above the superintendent’s quarters as a storage unit for some time now. It held everything that he tried to hide from Chloe during the divorce, including all of his guns, save for the stubby, Taurus 405 revolver in his waistband, which held 5 rounds of .40 cal. S&W in stellar clips, making reloading a breeze.

  Jason felt that he would be fairly well-stocked once he unpacked all of the boxes in the apartment and unloaded the van. The first thing that he planned to do upon arriving at Sunnybrook, was to force the old lady living in the adjoining, upstairs apartment to vacate. He wanted to merge the two units in a similar fashion to what Allen had done below. The thought that he might let the old woman move into another apartment entered his head. Then again, he might just evict the rest of the tenants along with her.

  The world had gone crazy, and Jason Clarke meant to meet it head on. There were no rules binding him anymore. No stifling female influence, no child to give something to emulate. He felt happy for the first time in a long while.

  He smiled, puffed on the cigarette, and opened a beer. After he swerved around a bloodied corpse on the road, that looked like it had been run over several times already, Jason laughed, “I’m gonna need more beer.”

  Chapter 11

  From A5, Allen collected several dirty pots and pans, three rolls of premium toilet paper, a torn bag of flour in a plastic zip, and dozens of cans filled with baked beans, creamed soups, and various vegetables. He emptied a clear storage bin, found in the bedroom closet, to store the plunder. The scratchy, reusable burlap bags held sheets and blankets, along with some toothpaste and cough syrup hidden from view in a hall closet. A bag over each shoulder and the bin in both hands made closing A5’s door with his elbow quite the struggle.

  He was just turning to walk south across the gray-hued grass courtyard, crisscrossed by the shortcuts of people too lazy to stay on the paths, when Jason’s van came zooming in from between buildings C and D. Jason made a lazy left hand turn, his speed carrying him almost to the courtyard’s midpoint. Allen stepped out from the vestibule, into the diffused light of the darkened sky, and made for the sputtering vehicles side.

  The comedic scene of watching Jason craning his neck back and forth, while trying to back up his van, broke all of the tension that Allen was carrying along with his pilfered load. Jason managed a meandering line that ended in front of the stairwell by Allen’s door. After stumbling out of the van, Jason held the quivering door to steady his legs; a beer bottle clinking on the concrete path followed the theatrical exit. Allen had almost closed the distance with the van before Jason saw the smirking man approaching.

  “Hey there, bud. Are you finally moving in?” Allen asked with a chuckle. Jason was mumbling something about his bitch of an ex-wife as Allen stacked the bin and bags in front of his door. Turning to face Jason, who was now attempting to open the locked back door of the laden van, Allen chuckled again.

  “What? Yeah. Hated that shitty house anyways,” Jason said dreamily. “Will you go hit the unlock button for me?” he asked with a slight slur, slouching down to take an uncomfortable perch on the narrow bumper. After pulling a cigarette box and lighter from his shirt pocket, he continued, “Man, that bitch took off with Mason, ya know? Nobody gives a shit about it either…”

  Jason had managed to light a cigarette, so Allen went to go unlock the door for him. He was caught off guard by Jason’s words, forgetting that it was not just his family going through new trials and tribulations. After a brief search of the door panel for the correct button and direction in which to push it, Allen went back to enter the unavoidable conversation.

  “What do you mean, she ‘took’ Mason? What’s been going on?” Allen asked, trying to sound positive for some reason. He made the conscious decision to lean against the building and not the van. The thick layer of grime covering the back doors, and the sour dairy smell permeating Jason’s clothing, required a little distance.

  “I went over to Karl’s house, and it was empty…I mean, the entire thing looked empty. Like they had moved out or something,” Jason spewed, moaning as he stood back up. He took a long drag off of his cigarette before dropping it to be stomped out. “I even went to the damn police station. But, it was right after the attack…a couple days after the power went out, right? And they didn’t care…I just drove past it again…the place has burnt to the ground. You understand? There are no more dick-headed police…anywhere,” he finished with a grand gesture of his hand, implying that he meant all around them. “Hell, my neighbors even had some punks try a home invasion on them this morning. Have I ever told you about Ol’ Charles?”

  Jason had indeed mentioned him; several times, in fact. Allen gave an, “Uh-huh,” to keep him on track.

  “Well, he shot two punks that tried to break in his house deader than shit before it burned down to the ground. No police ever came, Allen. When the fire department didn’t show up, either, I knew it was time to get gone. You should have seen my dumb-ass neighbors, man. I’m telling you now, the one thing I do know, we are on our own, brother.”

  “Wait, how did the police station burn down? What in the hell are you talking about? When did you go over there?” Allen rattled off. Part of him, subconsciously, had still been holding on to the slim hope that the whole situation might be short lived. News of the burning police station stunned Allen slightly, more than he would care to admit. ‘If help is not coming soon, how long could this last?’ he thought. “Are you sure?” he asked skeptically, finishing his inquiry with the only question that he really hoped got answered.

  Maggie and Allen had heard stories from some of the tenants about the military patrols being the worst looters of them all. No one dared approach them for help; they always shot first, never even stopping to ask questions afterwards. Sure, they might get the looters out of your area, but that area might be uninhabitable when they were done. For Allen, the last glimmer of hope was about to be
snuffed out by a few, semi-lucid words.

  Jason laughed knowingly. “Man, I had to drive around side streets to even get close this time. There were big craters and bodies everywhere, or what’s left of them. Hell, I pulled right up and got out with a beer, pissed right there in the middle of the street,” he slurred, snickering at his childish form of protest. “Someone bombed the shit out of a whole mob. The whole damn area is a smoking hole now…You guys didn’t hear it? It’s like…less than three miles from here.”

  Jason had opened the rear door and was rearranging a few fallen items to gain access to a large, blue cooler. Once he could crack the cooler enough, Jason reached in to grab another beer. He held it out, offering it to Allen, who waved him off. It was 1:30 in the afternoon, and too early for libations.

  “Wow…” was all Allen could manage to say, dumbfounded.

  “Yeah…” Jason lit another cigarette, taking a long pull from it, and then the beer.

  “It must have been two days ago.”

  “Huh?”

  “Two days ago we were lying in bed, and we heard what we thought was a chemical building exploding. You know, ‘cause all the fires? It sounded way different than the other bombings we have heard. That’s why we thought it was somethin’ else. Lots of rumbling, a few seconds worth, like it was thunder. Shook the whole place,” Allen said. From his time overseas, he knew what they had been hearing were Hellfire missiles, but he could not work out what had decimated the area around the police station.

  Allen’s mind started to race, drowning out Jason’s reply, ‘Why had they bombed the Police? What in the world was the military thinking when they did something like that? There must have been a huge riot taking place…’

  Allen fought to keep back the creeping thoughts. Something felt strange about the terrorist attacks. It all felt deliberate to him, like the plans had been in the works for years. Change, true change, demanded violence. You have to destroy something to build it back up in the way that you wanted it in the first place. Allen had the sneaking suspicion that this is exactly what he was witnessing. Something deep down inside him was saying that the government could never be trusted again, nor should they ever have been.