Looking Back Through Ash

by Wade Ebeling

  Scanning the surroundings with all his senses, trying to make certain that he was alone, Daniel spotted a good location to take a rest. Unaccustomed to the glare of direct sunlight, Daniel found a dark place to sit down. His chosen respite area was in the shade cast by an overgrown hedge row. The only things breaking the silence of the still day were some shrieking cicadas, and his sweat dampened shirt offered a cooling effect after he shucked off the backpack. Daniel unclipped the utility belt, leaned the rifle against the hedge, and, much to the relief of his feet, sat down.

  After peeling his boots and socks off, Daniel pulled the first-aid kit out for the second time today. He cut two small squares from a large patch of mole skin, sticking one on the big toe of his right foot and the other on his left heel. The damp socks got hung on the backpack to dry out. He gave his feet a couple of more minutes in the cooling breeze before putting the fresh pair on. These socks had been darned several times and they had to be adjusted around to keep the stitching from adding additional sores to the growing litany. His feet seemed to have swelled slightly, so he also loosened the laces of the hiking boots before he put them back on.

  His concern had shifted from the sunglasses over to the extra bottles of water that had gotten left behind with along with them. The lone bottle of water in his pack was dwindling quickly due to the heat, and all the usual pockets of water, which could generally be found quite easily, had all dried up. Even the deep puddles left behind in the craters of past drone strikes had evaporated away. There were probably several pools in the area, but just filtering the water inside those was never enough. The slimy water tended to clog filters, letting pathogens sneak through. He could easily start a fire to boil the mucky water, unfortunately, this would mean creating a lot of smoke. While this was not usually that great of a concern with the ash limiting how far somebody could see, but on a day this clear, that same smoke would be seen for miles around.

  Daniel decided to extend his break for a couple more hours. The more he could avoid the midday sun, the longer he could make the bottle of water last. He took one small sip from the water bottle, eyeing its level with a worrisome eye. Even at his most optimistic, Daniel could not call it half-full. Nothing stirred around him beyond that of the insects relishing in the heat, singing their throbbing insect song. Daniel hid his body and the pack deeper into the overgrowth. He adjusted to a more comfortable position by swiping away the twigs and rocks that he was sitting on. It was slightly warmer inside the brush without the breeze flowing across his skin. Still, he felt safer despite the warmth. He put his elbows on his knees, and his hands over his ears to block out the sawing hum of the cicadas. Daniel settled in to wait out the sun that was almost directly overhead.

  His mind kept going back to the only question that held any relevance, ‘Why is Bob Donner after me?’

  Trying to make sense of what had happened the night before only led to even more disturbing questions. Did they find out that Corinne and Rebecca were dead? Do they think I killed them? Did they come after me for killing that father and his sons? His brain spun around and around in an endless loop. There was just no way of knowing the truth behind why they had come for him.

  His taxed mind started down a different, even darker path. What if they had come while Corinne and Rebecca were still alive? Would I have died trying to protect them? Would they have killed us all? The depravity of the next thought shocked him. It was surprising to know that it had formed and coalesced within him.

  ‘I am only alive because they are already dead.’

  Daniel wanted to cry. He felt that he should be crying. He even tried to coax the tears into existence, but none would fall. He could not take back the horrible realization that the thought had birthed. He would rather be alone and alive, than go accompanied into death. With the thought reaching its fruition, Daniel became resolute. Even though sitting here had led to a sickening truth about his nature, he was no longer distressing. He, if anyone could, fully understood the world’s brutality. By his way of thinking, if he wanted to continue to remain alive, it would mean becoming as brutal as the lessons taught to him over the course of a difficult life.

  The sun had started its downward descent, and the shadows lengthened accordingly. Daniel outfitted and adjusted his gear into comfortable positions. Another pull from the water bottle lowered the level inside to desperation levels. The concerns over water, not being seen by anyone, and the sunglasses left little room for anything else. Daniel could no longer kid himself about only partially wanting to live. At any point in time, Daniel could have ended his own misery; the same way his wife had chosen to. He did not, had not, and would not. Pulling his father’s hat down snug, he started walking, he started living. Threading his way across the complex in the general direction of the library, Daniel thought of his daughter’s smile.

  It took much longer than was necessary to cover the distance. Daniel kept stopping in deep shadows to scan around new areas, and, twice, he had raced around houses to get into hidden positions that would allow him to see if anyone was trailing behind. The sun was shooting brilliant, amber colored rays of light across the western horizon by the time Daniel finally arrived at the library.

  As he drew closer to the building, Daniel noted that rocks, or bullets, had found their way through most of the windows. From the outside, other than the windows, the library looked to be in good shape. He could have easily clambered in, but instead decided to keep his distance, continuing around to the back door. The day that Allen showed him how to breach the metal door had been one of Daniel’s finest, without him even realizing it. Standing outside that same door, once again, had Daniel reliving that portion of that day.

  Using a five pound maul, Allen had pounded a long, heavy pry bar into the door jamb, between the handle and dead bolt. With giant wooden shims he wedged a hydraulic jack in perpendicular to the pry bar, where the extension rod of the jack was half way along the pry bar’s length. Allen levered the jack several times, then readjusted the jack by adding another shim. Several more pumps on the jack popped the door open, and all the hardware clattered and clanked as it fell on the concrete. Allen just smiled and said, “It’s not the quietest thing, but either is breaking a window. And you can’t walk through a window.”

  As the last vestiges of daylight faded away, Daniel tried to pull the door open. Someone had tied the inside handle off to something else, effectively locking the door again. When the door only yielded a fraction of an inch, Daniel stepped back a dozen paces and brought the rifle up. Whoever had secured the building could still be inside. Daniel rushed back to the tree line and waited. Just pulling on the door could have alerted anyone inside to his presence. He scanned the growing darkness for movement, pulling the binoculars out before hiding the pack behind a bush. It took fifteen minutes of careful walking within the trees to find a spot that he could observe the broken windows.

  Daniel crept as close as he dare to the edge of the open field that lay between the strip of trees he was hiding in and the library. He started scanning for what could be seen inside through the binoculars helpful magnification. The window openings only revealed one thing from this angle, there was a small fire burning inside. The flickering shadows that it created along the far wall could just be made out. Daniel then realized, just the fact that he could see the far wall told him something else. All the shelves of books, which should have obscured his view, were missing.

  There was no moon shining above, and only a few stars lit the sky. It was too dark to make out movement, let alone anyone lying in wait. Daniel contemplated walking back to his pack to hunker down for the night, somewhere nearby in the woods. Without really thinking about finalizing a decision, he started walking directly at one of the windows. More details of the interior started coming into view, like the fact that the shelves were not missing, but toppled over.

  It looked completely ransacked inside. Shelves, books, and broken tables and chairs were strewn about, littering the floor. He started strafi
ng to the right, trying to get to a vantage point from where he could see the fire burning. A cold sweat started rolling down his spine. This made him start to nervously look around, especially behind. Daniel stood like a statue with its head on an aching swivel. The afterglow of sunset made each of the shadows seem to move. It took three full minutes of jerking his head around to be absolutely certain that no one was trying to creep up on him.

  Unsure of whether the rustling noise that he just heard inside the library was imagined or real, Daniel fixated on the window again. He was ten yards away from the building, and the rhythmical thumping of his heart made it impossible to know whether he had heard something or not. When the darkened figure came into view, slowly crossing the interior, Daniel almost dropped to the ground, but froze instead, rooted in place. The form stumbled across the floor towards the glow of the fire. It also appeared to be adjusting its, no his, belt. It was a man for sure. He was of average height and weight, and he sat down in a chair in front of the small fire. The man’s dirty face became illuminated when he spread a book onto the dying fire. The man sat diagonally away from Daniel, making the shadows cast by the fire give him wicked looking features.

  Daniel took a few steps forward to see why the man was leaning forward, working on something with his hands. Being careful not to bring the night vision-ruining fire into view, Daniel saw what the dirty man was doing. He was slowly turning a small animal on a spit above the fire. When the man was satisfied with the animal’s new position, he leaned back on the chair again.

  Daniel did not know what to do next. This squatter was in his way, and the bastard was burning books to boot. Maybe the next book that would be casually tossed into the fiery abyss would be the one that Daniel had come all the way here for. The book that his father had left for him could even already be gone. The dirty man picked another book from the mess that surrounded him, tore a bunch of pages out, crumpled them tightly and threw them into the flames.

  That was all Daniel could take; this destructive trespasser had to go. The rifle rose naturally into place. The front sight, seen through the darkened aperture, steadied on the man’s right shoulder blade. His finger started to pull tension into the trigger, but he paused, thinking, ‘What if this guy isn’t alone? What if this guy has a family? What if he just trying to get back to his wife and daughter?’

  “So what?” Daniel verbalized, instead of containing in thought.

  The dirty man spun in his chair, standing and yelling, “Who’s there?” The man blinked at the darkness, stretching his arm down to feel around for something on the floor.

  Daniel shot three times, before the man dropped out of view. He crawled closer to the building, jumping back upright when he reached it. Daniel shot four more times into the garbage heaps where he thought the dirty man might have fallen. The man started to screech like a banshee, thrashing around on the cluttered floor. Daniel turned to run.

  He sprinted back into the woods, tree branches clawing at his face. Something snagged his pant leg, spinning him around and making him slam painfully into a tree. He ripped his pants twice in the haste to free himself. Changing directions, he made for the backpack. Daniel had gotten turned around due to the fall and the engrossing darkness. Two minutes of frantic searching finally led to the right bush. His panic subsided slightly when he felt the pack.

  Feeling his face warm with embarrassment, Daniel scolded himself for crashing around in the woods. Anyone within a quarter mile could have heard him; including the man in the library. His nerves and racing heart slowly calmed, so he sat down next to the bush and started watching the library again. His face itched from the fresh scratches, and his back join in with the painful choir of his eyebrow and neck.

  Finding his courage again, Daniel actively scanned around with his one good eye and ear for movement. The ringing in his right ear, which had been caused by the rifle reports echoing off the building, eventually faded. Sweat burned the gash over his eyebrow, so he took the gauze off, giving the wound a chance to breathe and dry. He cleaned his face and hands with a baby wipe, replacing the itching with burning.

  After nearly an hour of waiting, his watch told him it was approaching midnight. Worry over the man still being alive was replaced by a concern that the untended fire would catch the whole library ablaze. A tired, hungry, thirsty, in pain, and newly ordained murderer that was Daniel, walked back over to the open window, accompanied this time by the backpack. He clicked on the flashlight and panned it around the interior. The smell of stale urine and burnt meat greeted him.

  The beam of his flashlight landed on the sprawled dirty man; he was clearly dead. Daniel knew this because his hand had flopped into the fire, charring into a blackened curl. There were plenty of places for someone to hide within the scattered piles of dusty shelves and books, but Daniel felt that the man had been alone. There was only one bed, one chair, one rat cooking. He checked the floor inside the window for traps before gingerly climbing through the shark-toothed window frame.

  Slowly picking his way across the debris field, Daniel made it to the small clearing that the dirty man had made for his camp. The oily smoke of the burning flesh caught in his throat. Daniel moved the fallen chair to kick the man’s arm out of the fire. The clearing was only twenty feet from the back door and a narrow path led directly to it. He walked to the back door and untied to polyester rope from the surface-mounted light switch to open it.

  Back in the clearing, Daniel dropped his pack and laid the rifle over it. The man had nothing of value in his pockets, so he grabbed his ankles and hauled him out the door. Pulling the man across the tall grass for about fifty feet, Daniel left him there; face down. He then followed the fresh trail of blood back to the fire. Now only smelling the rat skewered on the spit, half of it as charred as the dirty man’s hand had been, Daniel righted the chair, sat down, and washed his hands with another baby wipe.

  Once he opened a rather large book to the clean pages near its middle and set it on his lap, Daniel then pulled the rat from the fire and placed it on the open book. As he sat munching on the half of the rat that was just overcooked, Daniel looked around at the dirty man’s former belongings. There was a heap of thin blankets that used to serve as his bed. A plastic milk jug, half-full of water, sat beside a half-full sea-bag, and, by his feet, in the congealing blood, a reproduction Colt revolver.

  Daniel pulled a small bone from his teeth and smiled. This was all his now. Even the tough rat meat tasted like victory, as it was the first free meal that he had eaten since his mother’s death. He didn’t know if the dirty man had carried a disease, he sure looked like he did, so Daniel drank the remaining water from his own bottle.

  The fire was dying away, as was the last of Daniel’s energy. Sleeping on the dirty man’s bed never entered his mind. Instead, he righted a table after several minutes of kicking books out of the way of the legs. Daniel laid out his sleeping bag and pad, fleece hoodie, and poncho over the tabletop for a minimum of comfort, and then, for a minimum of security, he leaned a legless table in front of the closest open window and retied the door closed. Once he toed the pistol out of the blood, Daniel crawled up onto the table. With his rifle across his chest, and his stomach churning its gratitude, Daniel fell asleep almost immediately.

  ……..

  Monday

  Daniel moaned in pain when he woke up. His left eye was fully swollen shut, and his neck and back were stiff and sore; even his feet screamed in protest of his standing up, and his face and arms were covered in scratches that could not be ignored. The morning sun was casting just enough light for him to walk outside to relieve his bladder of its burden, and to see that the dirty man still lay where he had been left. He walked back to the raised bed, setting the backpack down beside him. The first thing he did was get his pot out to boil the dirty man’s water. After a hot fire was established between two thick books, he set the pot on the books, filling it with water from the milk jug.

  Daniel put the sea bag and blood crusted p
istol on the table, pulling a chair over to sit down while going through the contents of the green, nylon bag. All the clothing was too small for him, so they were squeamishly tossed away. The remaining tangle of polyester rope that secured the back door was set aside to keep. A few notebooks, which were filled with bizarre writings and pictures, were of no use; they too were flipped away. A couple of clamps and bungee tie-downs went into the save pile along with a small container of bleach and a hard pouch of salt. The rest was deemed to be junk. As Daniel dumped the weight of it out, he wondered why anyone would carry such trivial things around. The bag and other items, except the bleach, got stuffed into his backpack.

  The water had been boiling for several minutes, so Daniel pulled the pot from the scorched books to cool. Kicking the soiled bedding aside revealed a filthy pair of pants. Stepping on the pants revealed a leather pouch holding black powder in a measuring tube, fifty or so percussion caps, and seventeen .36 caliber lead balls for the pistol. Daniel set the leather pouch by the sticky pistol on the table before grabbing his empty water bottle. He filled the bottle with water from the pot, adding a splash of bleach for good measure, drinking the rest down in three long pulls.

  Daniel was willfully procrastinating; actively trying to do anything but think about the book, and the memories that would lead to where it was. Along this vein, he spent time cleaning his new revolver and inspecting the percussion caps for corrosion. He slowly stitched up the tears in his pants and replaced the butterfly bandages on the tear over his eye, before eating a couple pieces of jerky with some dried berries while waiting for the sun to fully rise.