He closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep while she tossed and turned and continued to fidget under the blankets. He heard her quietly ease out of bed. A few seconds later he slowly opened his eyes as the door to the hallway bathroom shut.
It was winter, there was snow on the ground, and if anything was going to stir, he was going to hear it. He listened and imagined.
When she finally opened the bathroom door ten minutes later, he was about to explode. Somehow he managed to remain quiet and still as she climbed back in bed—definitely looking more relaxed than she had when she left. He swallowed and asked, “You okay?”
“Oh…yeah I’m fine…I’m sorry for waking you.”
“No problem…I’ve got to use the bathroom too.”
That night he had a strange but pleasant dream. Cindy was standing at the edge of a cliff of sheer white, rock that dropped a hundred feet straight down to the thundering crash of the swelling ocean. He didn’t sense any fear or danger from her. Instead he felt a sense of pride as she gazed out across the ocean at the setting sun. Behind her a mixture of grass and stones rolled into a panoramic landscape of valleys and knolls.
The next morning a light pressure and nudge brought him out of his sleep. He opened his eyes and saw Cindy sitting on the edge of the bed next to him. After a quick stretch, he slid his hand over hers and said, “Good morning…what time is it?”
Already dressed, she smiled and said, “A little past eight. I wanted to let you sleep.”
He expected her to get up, but she didn’t. She continued to sit there with her hand on his chest, looking at him and smiling. Confused he asked, “What’s going on?”
She rubbed his chest the way one might rub a dog’s back and said, “I made you breakfast.”
He popped up onto one elbow. “Really!”
She grinned and stood. “I do know how to cook you know.” She started to walk out of the room, but midway to the door she turned back toward him and said with a warm smile, “You’ve always made me breakfast…this morning I wanted to make it for you.”
As the bitter cold of winter continued its grip on Madison, they ventured out of the house less and less. One comfortable routine they had fallen into was reading together on the sofa in front of the wood stove. This was their personal time; time to be alone, lose their thoughts in a good story, and not worry about where they would find their next meal or gallon of good gasoline. Normally, they would each take a corner of the sofa and curl up under a quilt to enjoy their read. But one night when Chuck settled in before Cindy got there—things changed and an even more comfortable routine came into play. Cindy walked in with the romance novel that she started the day before, and instead of taking her corner, she slid under the quilt on his side and pressed her back up against him. Without realizing it or taking his attention from the horror novel he was reading, he simply repositioned himself to where his arm draped over her shoulder and his hand rested against her stomach. She slid her hand on top of his and they both continued reading.
Chapter 31
Jason stared into the darkness. Like a man on stage caught in the tight circle of a spotlight, he was blind to everything but himself. He spun around, only to find that darkness surrounded him. It progressed from the shadowed light of dusk just beyond his reach, to a solid curtain of pitch black less than fifteen feet away. Then he understood—there was nothing else, only him. He was alone. He was trapped with no way out. Panic started to mount as the sound of each heartbeat pounded in his head. There was something dreadful about this place!
His skin began to crawl as a chill slowly crept in from the darkness. From out of the black void, the outline of an object started to come into view. First there was a straight edge, then a sharp corner. He stretched out his neck and stared. It was a small box. As his focus adapted, he spotted another shadowed box underneath it, and then others around it. A few feet over something else started to come into view. At first it was simply cylindrical—then it was a small can. It set chest high in the dark, it was in a row of other cans.
More items came into view and he began to whimper. His breathing became more sporadic as he spun around and saw other items piled in similar columns around him. “No.” This was the place that tormented him in his nightmares. “No!” It was where Leslie died. He stood helplessly in their center, while grocery aisles branched out from him in all directions like spokes of a wheel.
His jaws quivered as he sensed the presence finally coming to end his misery. He stared down the void of each aisle. One after another, he continued until he lost himself. Void upon void, the next looked the same as the last. He would never find it. Just as time started to lose meaning, he came to an abrupt stop and his heart jumped. Staring down the endless abyss of darkness, he could feel it…it was with him.
His weight shifted to his toes as he slowly reached out to welcome it. As his hand pushed through the darkness, he had the fearful sense that a mirror stood before him, and that behind the darkness, it was his own reflection reaching back for him. He caught his breath as he lost sight of his hand. The desire to end his pain pushed him further as he stretched out his fingers and turned his fear to a plea, “Please…stop me!”
No answer came. He bit down to silence the chatter of his teeth as the whimpers began to echo through his head again. In a desperate moment of need, he screamed, “No!” and lunged forward, leaving the light behind. As he did, he felt the dark presence retreat and pull the cold winds of death back with it.
Jason flinched and kicked out of instinct as he pushed the hand off his shoulder.
“Jason…you okay?” asked the burly man crouching over the bed in a low, raspy voice.
It took a second for Jason to calm down enough to recognize Mark. Once he had his bearings, he demanded in a defensive tone, “Yeah—what do you want?”
“I just heard you…” the man stumbled for a second to find the right words, “…it sounded like I better wake you.”
“Well you have. Now get the fuck out of here!” Mark started to leave, but just as he got to the door, Jason barked out, “Did we find anyone today!”
“No sir—not today.”
Jason glared at Mark before closing his eyes and pulling in a deep, calming breath. When he opened his eyes he addressed his first in command with more restraint. “Get the men out looking…scour over everything.” After Mark left the room, Jason’s focus turned inward and he mumbled. “He’s out there…I can feel him.”
Chapter 32
Spring was the perfect time of year in Madison. Temperatures were extremely comfortable, the flowers were beginning to bloom and everything seemed cleaner than it did at any other time of year.
Their gasoline stores had degraded to the point that if they ran the generator continuously it would have required cleaning every other day. To minimize the gum and varnish buildup in the jets and filters, they limited generator use to the night when electrical demand was the greatest. During the day they depended solely on the electrical output from the windmills. But that wasn’t really an inconvenience. In fact it turned out to have a truly wonderful unexpected benefit. Without the sound of their generator running, the town was so quiet and peaceful that if they stood and listened, they could hear the ripple of the Ohio River flowing along its banks four blocks away. Without the mechanical sounds of civilization, they could close their eyes, hold out their hands and imagine that they were standing in the middle of a field of waist high grass swaying under a gentle breeze. It was truly a peaceful state that reminded them that they were a part of something much bigger.
That same peace was echoed in the relaxed silence of their work. They could walk for blocks without feeling the awkwardness of not speaking. That’s how it was late one afternoon after a nice rain. They were walking leisurely down Main, holding hands and smelling the clean, fresh air as they headed out in search of new clothes. Without breaking stride or the swing of their hands, Chuck led her over to the right side of the street. “We should check out Amacke
r’s…they have a good selection of jeans.”
Cindy voiced her agreement through a soft squeeze of his hand and a smile. Two buildings down they turned into the store with the fluid gracefulness of one person knowing exactly where he was going. Once inside they split as Cindy made her way to the ladies clothing scattered on the floor to the left, while Chuck went for the jeans interwoven with shattered glass, broken wood displays and tangled hangers to the right.
He was searching for his size in a pile of relaxed-fit Lees when Cindy called for him. She was back by the dressing rooms, standing in front of an unbroken, full length mirror mounted on the wall. She smiled and held out her hand. “Come on over here and stand with me.” He complied and stepped over to her side. “What do you see?”
Chuck shot her a questioning glance, but when she pinched her brows and gave a slight nod toward their reflection, he looked back at the mirror. “I see an old…I mean I see a middle age man…standing with a young woman in front of a ransacked clothing store.”
“Is that all you see?”
He looked at their reflection. He saw his hand in hers and looked up and saw her reflection smiling back at him. “I see two people who despite all odds have found the good that remains.”
“You don’t see a white man holding hands with a black woman?”
“I don’t see you that way. I see you as a beautiful woman.” He waited for her to return his smile before he said, “Tell me what you see.”
As they turned back to the mirror, his anticipation was suddenly overwhelmed by the tension of seeing something different in the reflection. Something had changed. Something was there that wasn’t there a moment ago. He continued to scan the mirror, but he wasn’t looking at their reflection. He was searching for signs of movement in the reflection of the background behind them.
Cindy was unaware of what was going on as she started to say, “I see a man and a woman who are too afraid to admit that they—”
But then he saw it—the blink of an eye. In one flowing motion, he swung around and un-shouldered his rifle as he pulled Cindy behind him and chambered a round. “You,” he yelled, “step out in the open!”
Cindy didn’t question his action. She stopped mid-sentence and stood perfectly still behind him.
Chuck kept the rifle aimed at a pile of wooden display racks, broken glass and clothes heaped against the front counter of the store. In a loud, but controlled voice, he yelled, “I’m not going to say it again—step out in the open.”
There was a crisp sound like glass snapping under the weight of someone’s foot. A couple of packaged dress shirts slid off the pile. Chuck readied himself. A moment later a young boy tentatively rose from behind the counter. With his hands held out to his sides, he slowly moved to a clearing in the aisle and pleaded, “Please don’t shoot me!”
Chuck let the tension ease out as he lowered the rifle. “I won’t shoot you if you don’t move—deal?”
“You got it mister.”
Cindy came around from behind Chuck. “Brandt…is that you?”
The boy searched his memory for a second. “Cindy?”
She pushed past Chuck, ran to the boy and threw her arms around him. Chuck eased his posture while he slung the rifle back over his shoulder. “I take it you two know each other.”
Cindy turned back toward him with a smile larger than life. “This is Brandt…he was with Jason too.” Chuck started to bring his rifle around again, but Cindy stopped him, “No…it’s okay…he was like me. He wanted to get away.”
Chuck slung the rifle back over his shoulder. “That right boy? Are you running from Jason?”
“Yes sir,” the boy answered without hesitation.
“Anyone else with you…do we need to worry about finding others waiting for us outside?”
“No sir, I came down by myself.”
Chuck walked over to the two. “We’re a long way from Indy…I didn’t hear any car. How’d you get down here?”
“Rode my bike, sir,” Brandt answered, as Cindy started rubbing his shoulder.
“Rode your bike?” Chuck questioned as he squinted at the boy. “That’s a long ride. Did you know Cindy was down here? And don’t call me sir anymore…call me Chuck.”
“No, we all thought that Cindy was dead. I’m glad to see we were wrong.”
“So what brought you down here?”
“You…the ferryman…I wanted—”
Cindy cut him off and said, “It doesn’t matter,” as she pulled Brandt over to her side. “Main thing is that you weren’t followed…right?”
“No one followed me. I left in the morning while everyone was still asleep. Besides, they wouldn’t have missed me until it came time for scouting.”
Chuck furrowed his brows. “How long did it take you to get down here?”
“It took me a couple of nights.”
Chuck looked down his nose and studied the boy. “That’s amazing.” He watched him a few more seconds before he asked, “How old are you?” But the blank look on the boy’s face told him that the boy didn’t know for sure.
Cindy broke in with, “I think Brandt’s in his early teens.”
The boy squared his shoulders and spoke up with pride, “I’ve got crackers and a canteen of water in my back pack along with a map.” He nodded to the front of the store. “They’re around the side of the building. You know I’m not a kid. I can take care of myself.”
Chuck reared back with both surprise and respect. “I’m sure you can.” The boy’s moxie took him back for a second. “How about a hot meal to temper down that spit and vinegar?” he asked with a grin, as he glanced at Cindy.
Chuck made spaghetti on the propane stove while Cindy and Brandt sat at the table talking. She spit out names and as the boy gazed around the kitchen, he would tell her if they were still alive. From what Chuck heard it sounded like two thirds of the people she knew were no longer among the living.
Chuck set three servings of hot spaghetti and three glasses of tea on the table, retrieved another folding chair, and joined them. As the boy shoveled the hot food in his mouth, Chuck asked, “So you wanted to get away from Jason?”
The boy barely glanced up from the plate as he answered between swallows. “Yeah…a few wanted to get away. But they were too scared to come with me. Told them I wasn’t scared and that I was going.”
“You weren’t afraid that Jason would hunt you down?”
“Have to find me first, and he wouldn’t look this way.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because you’re down this way.”
Cindy interrupted, “Let the boy eat his meal.” She avoided Chuck’s gaze.
After a moment of thought, Chuck said, “Okay…then why don’t you tell me. What’s the boy talking about?”
Cindy laid her fork down on the table and slowly shook her head. She had the look of someone about to say something that they wished they didn’t have to. “It’s just a bunch of bullshit—”
“Well if it’s bullshit—then there’s no reason not to tell me.”
Cindy stared at her plate and said, “Jason tells everyone that the south is off limits. He calls you the ferryman, you know from mythology. The ferryman is the tormented soul whose eternal task is to ferry the dead across the river Styx to Hades.”
Chuck pulled back as he tried to understand what mythology had to do with him.
“One of Jason’s scouts saw you down here.” She paused and when no reprise came, she reluctantly continued, “He saw you taking the dead to the river and setting them adrift.”
Chuck didn’t know what to say or how to respond. He suddenly felt violated. His one time of innocence and open vulnerability, the one time when he tried to do what he thought was right, now seemed ugly and perverse. With his mouth open and the look of remembering something painful, he asked, “How long—”
“He was up on the hill with binoculars. He said that he camped out and watched you for days on end. He said you never stopped—not
even to eat or sleep.” She gave him a moment to absorb what he just heard, and then she finished with, “Jason tells everyone that you’re the walking dead, and that your job is to take care of all the sinners who died.”
Chuck stared at her for several seconds. “You knew about this when I found you?”
“I didn’t know it was you, not until you told me that we were going to Madison. Then I figured it out.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why would I? It’s just a stupid story that Jason uses to help keep people under control.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re the boogeyman story that he tells the children. He tells them that if they don’t do what he says, that the ferryman will come for them and take them back to eternal hell.”
Brandt stopped eating long enough to pipe in with, “I didn’t believe it. I know there’s no such thing as the boogeyman. That’s why I wasn’t scared.”
Chuck forced a smile before looking back at Cindy. “Is there anything else?”
“Mike, that’s the scout who saw you, well he saw you a couple of other times too. I don’t know if Jason told him to go back and watch you or not but he did. I don’t know when, but he said that he searched your house.”
“That’s impossible.”
Cindy lowered her eyes again. “Mike told everyone that he set off a stick of dynamite outside of town and that you took off on your motorcycle. Do you remember that?” She looked up at him, but when he didn’t answer she continued. “He told Jason that you were still living the old way, you know, electricity and stuff like that.”
Chuck had a blank look on his face. “Were there any other times?”
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