Raymond was gasping. He had a look of amazement on his face as a torrent of blood poured from his mouth. He quickly went into shock from the loss of blood, fell facedown, and proceeded to die.
Once again there was silence until Danielle said, “Remove his clothes.”
With the shotgun pointed at them, Abby and Ingram hurriedly removed the clothes from Raymond’s body.
“I want you to pick up that gun up by its barrel and toss it in this direction,” she said to Steven.
He complied and threw the Kahr and it softly landed in the snow at her feet.
“I want you to do the same with the other one.”
He threw Abby’s gun toward her.
“I’m going to say it one more time and, if you don’t do as I say, I’ll kill you both right here. I want you to keep your hands in sight and take your own clothes off—both of you.”
They began to undress until they were down to their underwear.
“Everything.”
Abby hesitated and Danielle looked down the barrel at her and was about to pull the trigger.
“Okay!” Abby yelled.
“Steven, I don’t want you looking at me!” Abby screamed.
Abby and Ingram quickly took off their underwear.
“What are you doing?” Abby demanded.
“Shoes too.”
“But the snow is cold.”
“If you don’t take them off, you won’t have to worry about how cold it is,” and she brought the shotgun up once more.
They took off their shoes.
“Steven, handcuff yourself to Abby.”
“What are you doing,” Abby asked.
“Do it, Steven.”
He did.
“Down to the road…now!” she yelled and, when they hesitated, she had the scatter gun up once more.
“My feet are freezing,” Abby complained as she and Ingram negotiated their way down the bank to the 101. “Don’t look at me!” Abby yelled at Ingram again.
“Please, let me at least have my shoes,” Abby cried.
“Start walking,” Danielle said.
“We can’t walk like this,” Abby complained.
Danielle picked up their clothes and shoes.
“Throw me my shoes,” Abby demanded.
But Danielle had already started back into the trees. But she stopped when she heard something. She came back out of the trees, again and looked north.
It came into view over a rise: A car—then another, and another. It was a caravan.
Abby and Ingram first looked north then at Danielle. Then they looked north again.
The vehicles came closer, one after another like pearls on a string.
Glancing back and forth from the cars to Danielle and back again to the cars they were unsure of what Danielle might do if they tried to wave them down. So, at first, they tentatively waved their arms. But their gestures became frantic when the cars were upon them.
“Help me!” Abby yelled.
“Stop! Stop!” Steven shouted.
“Please!” Abby implored as the cars zoomed by. “We’ll pay you,” she screamed.
The convoy didn’t even slow.
When it had passed, they looked back at Danielle.
“This is how you’ve left people,” Danielle said then started crying. “You made my Mommy and my Dad and my brother, Robert, freeze to death on the road and this is how I had to stand in the field waiting to die with my sister.” She couldn’t stop crying now.
“Anne, I’m sorry, I’ll make it up to you,” Abby beseeched her.
“Anne is dead. My name is Danielle! she screamed. “Remember my name, and take it to hell with you. My name is Danielle! Danielle!”
“I’m sorry, ‘Danielle’ is what I meant to say.”
Danielle didn’t answer.
“I’m sorry,” Abby said. “It’s not what I wanted. I didn’t know what they were going to do to you. Please, let us at least have our clothes. I promise, you can come back with us. We’ll take care of you. You and your daughter.”
“My sister!” Danielle screamed.
“Your sister,” Abby corrected herself. “We’ll take care of you both.”
They started walking toward her and Danielle calmly brought the shotgun up and they stopped. Ingram knew she’d kill them as quickly as she’d killed Raymond moments before.
“Start walking,” Danielle said.
“At least let us have our shoes,” Abby implored.
Danielle said nothing.
“Do the Christian thing?” Abby screamed.
“The Christian thing would be to shoot you, so you don’t suffer. But I’m not that gracious. You’re going to hell, and someday I’ll join you there for what I’m doing to you. But it’s worth it.”
With that she turned and walked about thirty yards into the forest. She couldn’t hear or see them anymore. She sat on a stump and began to cry. Vengeance didn’t feel as good as she had hoped it would. She began to puke. Zach’s words came back to her: “Careful you don’t become what you hate.”
“I’m becoming just like them,” she cried. “I’m becoming Abby Brady.” She puked again.
She wasn’t sure how long she sat there. Five? Ten? Twenty minutes? She had to return to the cabin, but she’d give them their clothes and they could figure out what to do from there. But, when she reached the road, they were gone. She looked north and south. They were nowhere in sight. She dropped their belongings—their shoes and clothes, less the two handguns—on the side of the road in case they returned.
Strangely, she started to hope they were all right and she turned and started making her way back to the cabin, back to Whoops, back to Zach, and back to Stupid, trudging through the snow but looking back frequently and hoping she wasn’t followed.
Chapter 33
September 4
She returned to the cabin as the snowfall was picking up. She was cold and tired. But she couldn’t stop to rest; there were still things to do. Four of the bodies lay in front of the cabin and were slowly disappearing under a blanket of white. They couldn’t stay there.
She stepped into the darkened cabin and flinched because Hank’s body was closer to the door. She pointed the shotgun at it and approached it cautiously. From beneath half-mast eyelids, his eyes stared, vacant and unblinking. He was dead.
Despite his wound, Zach must have tried to drag him out, but was too weak or too much in pain to get him any further. The couch was pulled out into a bed and he was on it. She stepped closer; Whoops was asleep beside him. On the floor next to them, Stupid lay motionless. She leaned over Zach and was relieved to hear him breathing. She put her hand on him. He was cold. She got more blankets and piled them on him and her sister.
Without knowing exactly what she should do, she knew Stupid’s leg was shattered beyond repair. She sensed there was only one way to possibly save him. Her hands shook and she cried her eyes out as she took one of Zach’s boning knives and knelt beside him. Stupid lifted his head and watched. He either couldn’t feel his leg or he knew what she about to do and did nothing to stop her. When she had cut the splintered part of his leg away, he put his head back down and lay motionless. She didn’t expect him to live, but he was still breathing.
She went to Zach and felt his face again. It was sweaty even though he was cold.
Whoops was awake now and watched her. When Whoops smiled, Danielle started to cry again. Her little sister didn’t know how bad things were, but her world was all right when Sissy was there.
The next thing she did was to get the tattered, blood-spattered dress off and change into jeans and a sweater, and she put the coat back on. She went to Hank’s body and emptied his pockets. Then she tried to move him closer to the door. He was huge. She pulled but found she couldn’t move him all at once. So she dragged one arm, then the other, then a leg, then the other leg, then the torso, just to move him a few inches. Then she started the whole procedure over again, with the arms, the legs, and the torso. Inch by inch
and foot by foot she got his body closer to the door.
It took ten minutes, but she finally got it to the threshold and she rolled it down the steps.
She hoped it would be easier to drag his corpse through the snow, but it wasn’t. It just seemed to want to sink in.
She looked at the toboggan still covered with the plunder from the cabin down river. She got an idea and unloaded it.
Dragging it to the edge of the forest, she brought back branches and brush and formed a thick bed on the snow about forty yards from the cabin.
Then she dragged the toboggan to the woodpile behind the cabin and loaded it up with firewood. She dragged it back to the bed of branches and created a layer of the split wood on top of the branches. Atop that she laid more dry branches and kindling. Over that she piled more firewood. She knew what she wanted: an inferno. Once she was satisfied with what she had done, she dragged the toboggan to Hank’s body and tried to move his corpse onto it, but the toboggan kept sliding. Finally, she found the solution and rolled him onto it. It wasn’t easy but she managed.
She pulled the toboggan to the pile of wood and started to move his body up onto the impromptu platform. First, one arm, then the other, then his upper body. She tried to heave the rest of him up onto it, and began swearing when she couldn’t. After ten minutes, she was sweating profusely, but she finally had his whole torso and arms onto it, got his legs up, and rolled him to the middle.
The sun was almost below the tops of the trees.
She returned to the others and, one after another, searched their bodies. She found more weapons concealed under their clothes and placed those, and whatever else she thought useful, aside. Then she loaded Fred Mayfield’s body onto the toboggan and took it to the pyre and got him up on top of it. Next, she rolled the body of the cuckolded Jim De Angelis onto the toboggan and brought him to the pyre. Then Brian Peterson. And finally Jerry Brady. The whole operation took over three hours to complete because she had to stop frequently to rest. But once she was done she covered them all with more branches and firewood.
The last of the day’s light was fading in the western sky. She stood and examined her accomplishment.
She was too tired to think about what she was about to do now and too numb to cry.
Her hands were rubbed raw, her arms and legs were aching, her feet were cold and numb. She did not realize she was beginning to manifest symptoms of exhaustion. She could hear her sister crying inside the cabin. She was barely able to strike a match to light a piece of tinder. It caught. But she had another ready, just in case. She watched the flame. She knew each match lit was another match gone forever in a world where she may never be able to get another one.
The fire spread slowly. She helped it by moving some of the burning kindling to other parts of the pile. The nascent flames ate their way through more and more of the tinder and branches, picking up speed as they raced through the seasoned wood. They were like hungry insects settling in to feast on a piece of carrion. More and more they grew into the conflagration she had hoped for. They greedily engulfed the bodies one after another. The only sounds were the growing whisper of the flames and crackling of the branches. The snowflakes fell silently all around her and the rest of southwestern Oregon. It would all be over, soon.
She watched with tired eyes until a horrific scream filled the night. A man rose up out of the pyre. She had no way to know his name but Jim De Angelis, his arms flailing, his clothes awash in smoke and flames, rose to his feet. Her screams joined his. What had she done? She backed toward the cabin in terror, her hands to her face, and watched through her fingers as he howled and tried to brush the flames away from his face. Large pieces of skin came off with every swipe. He kept screaming. He turned and saw her and tried to walk toward her but the logs were unsteady and he fell to his hands and knees. Smoke poured off of his body. “Oh, God!” he shrieked. “Oh, God!” He tried to rise again, but he fell into a position like a man in prayer and moaned. She began to cry uncontrollably. She watched as the flames swaddled him and he stopped moving. The fire was making him its own.
For his sake—for her sake, she hoped he was now dead.
Whoops became more desperate and demanding inside the cabin.
Sparks rose heavenward to mingle with the snowflakes that were falling…into Hell, she told herself.
She backed toward the cabin and sat on the front steps, her face buried in her hands. She prayed they were all dead, now. She hadn’t intended any of them to suffer. But, she asked herself, what if she had realized he was still alive? What would she have done with him? She didn’t have an answer.
Finally able to move again, she went back to the pyre and threw more wood atop the blaze to keep it going. But the flames were getting too hot and she had to back away once more.
Finally, she turned, and went back into the cabin to check on Zach and her sister.
She leaned over him. He was barely breathing, but he periodically moaned. She touched him. He was still cold.
She picked up Whoops to console her and realized she herself was still crying. She embraced Whoops until they both stopped. Regaining her composure, she realized her sister needed a diaper change. She needed to be fed. Mundane tasks still had to be performed in the midst of death and horror.
The image of the tortured man kept flashing through her brain, so she jumped when a voice came out of the darkness: “I want you to leave.”
It was Zach.
With Whoops in her arms, she went to him.
“I want you to leave,” he repeated.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
He brushed her question aside. “You’ve got to leave,” he hissed. “Will you?”
When she didn’t answer, he suddenly reached out and grabbed her arm with his strong hand and pulled her down so she had to sit on the bed. “Promise me you’re going to leave,” he insisted.
“You’re hurting me,” she cried, but he wouldn’t let go.
“Promise me you’ll take Whoops and get out of here,” he demanded.
“Why?”
“More of them are going to come.”
She didn’t know what to say.
“Promise me!” he yelled
He wasn’t going to let go until she answered his question. “I promise,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered and his grip slackened. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
He looked away and stared off into space.
“Who was screaming out there?” he finally asked.
“No one.”
“Was there someone out there with you?”
“No,” she said. She couldn’t talk about the man. In her mind he would forever be screaming and writhing in the flames. She looked at the door and half expected him to come through it smoke and flames pouring off of him.
She put Whoops back on the bed and stood.
“Where are you going?” he whispered.
“What’s in your medical kit downstairs?”
He looked at her funny.
“What do you have for infections?” she asked.
“Antibiotics aren’t going to help me,” he said.
“That’s not an answer to my question. What do you have for infections?”
He had to think. “There’s ceftriaxone…and cephradine…”
She’d never heard of them. “Are they good for infections?”
“Yes…Are you and Whoops okay? Are you hurt?”
“We’re okay,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”
She took the flashlight from where he kept it under the couch and turned it on. Going to the middle of the room, she kicked the rug back, opened the trapdoor, and went down the ladder to the cellar. She went right to the kit. After rummaging through it she found plastic pouches that said ceftriaxone sodium on them. There were directions on the packages: She had to mix the powder inside one of them with water, put the mixture in a syringe—she found several of those in the kit—and inject it deep into muscle tissue.
She took a deep breath; she could do that.
She searched deeper. There were several plastic bottles that read cephradine. That was the other drug he’d mentioned. She wasn’t sure which would do what. But the instructions on one of the bottles of cephradine read: “Take one (1) every twelve hours until gone.”
There was another bottle. This said “morphine.” She knew what that was for.
She took several pouches, a bottle each of cephradine and morphine, and a syringe and went back upstairs.
She hydrated the ceftriaxone sodium at the sink and filled the syringe.
She went to him.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Lie still,” she said.
She’d cleaned the boning knife and began to cut away his pants. When she brushed her hair back, she got blood on her face. She didn’t care.
She tried to be careful but he groaned in pain as she peeled the fabric away, but he didn’t resist.
With his leg exposed, she used one smooth motion to inject the needle into his thigh and slowly pushed the plunger and watched as the solution in the barrel disappeared into his leg.
When she looked at his eyes again, he was watching her.
“I’m going to get you some water and I have some pills I want you to take,” she said.
“I want you to leave,” he said.
She went and got a cup of water and returned and had him take a pill from each of the bottles. He groaned again as he made the effort to raise his head, but he took them.
“You’ve got to leave,” he said with his head back on the pillow.
She ignored him. She made sure Whoops was comfortable beside him and went to the door. Reluctantly, she made herself look out the door at the inferno. The man’s body had fallen over as if into a fetal position. Thankfully he was as dead as dead can be. The flames were consuming him along with the others. The snowfall was getting heavier.
She descended the steps and got another load of wood on the toboggan and brought it back to feed the flames, but every time the burning logs shifted she flinched afraid it was another body getting up.
When she returned to the cabin, she sat on the bed again. His first words were, “You’ve got to leave. More are going to come to find the ones we killed.”
Danielle Kidnapped: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Ice Age Page 35