Turning, she took the glass of water to her dad.
“No beer?” he asked with disappointment. He’d been a two-beer-a-day guy for almost forty years. One in the morning, one at night. Never more. Never less. It was one of the peculiar habits he’d picked up after the accident.
“Nope, Dad, no more beer. Isn’t that great? I’ve been trying to get you to quit that nasty stuff for how long now?” She patted him on the shoulder. “Looks like I get the last word.”
Her dad took the glass of water and drank half down. “I’m not sure it’s worth it anymore,” he said sincerely. “Life without beer. No TV to watch the Yankees. Might as well be dead.”
Caelyn smiled, hoping he was kidding, but not really sure. It was another peculiar habit of her father’s—he was brutally honest, the connection between his brain and his tongue as straight and sure as any truth machine.
Her mother watched them, then turned toward the screen door. “I’ll check the jerky,” she said.
Caelyn gently rubbed her father’s shoulders, feeling his thin muscles and tired bones.
*******
Everyone who met her parents thought they were an extremely unlikely couple. And it was true, though Caelyn knew that hadn’t always been the case.
Her father was from Buffalo, New York, and held a master’s degree in chemical engineering from New York University. Graduating magna cum laude, he was on his way to a very successful career when he met the young woman who would become his wife. Her mother was a southern belle, her family roots going back to Charlestown and the Civil War. Her mother’s parents, the grandparents she’d never known, were the last of the old southern heritage. Solid, frugal, and pampered by old money until the Great Depression came and took it, her grandparents had been left with nothing. Without financing for proper upkeep, the old family farm, plantation house, and outbuildings fell into decay, forcing her grandparents to sell. They moved to Memphis, where her grandfather bought a much smaller farm and eked out a humble living while raising nine kids, Caelyn’s mother being the youngest one.
Part of a song-and-dance troupe during her freshman year in college, her mother had met her father on a weekend trip to New York City, where the group had performed for a local talent show. Three months later, to the dismay of both families, they were married. Scandalous to marry a Yankee, a man who had never even visited the South; her mother’s family had nearly gone into shock. Wanting a fresh start, the young couple had moved to California, where Caelyn’s father took a job with an up-and-coming pharmaceutical firm. Big money was on the horizon. Soon there would be children and a big house with a pool. Life was good and getting better, and there was no reason to expect that anything would ever change.
Eight months after they had moved to L.A, her father’s car was struck head-on by a drunk driver coming at him on the exit ramp of Interstate 101. Two cars, each traveling forty miles an hour. Metal on metal. Engine on engine. Glass on glass. The drunk driver was killed, the steering wheel of his Plymouth compressing his chest against the back of his spine. Her father wasn’t wearing a seatbelt—no one wore seatbelts in those days—and the collision sent him crashing through the windshield.
At first the doctors told her mother that her husband had been killed. Then, even with the sheets pulled up over the patient’s head, a medical intern had found a weak and erratic pulse. Frantic work from a brilliant team of doctors brought her father back to life.
Three months of coma followed, each day full of fear and dread. Then one Sunday morning he opened his eyes, told his wife he loved her, stared at the ceiling for a moment, then rolled over and fell asleep again.
But it was a sleep, not a coma. He snored. He moved. He even mumbled once or twice. That night, Gretta stood beside his bed, desperately holding his hand. In the morning, he woke up and rolled over. This time he tried to smile.
Five months after the accident, he went home from the hospital and started another journey, learning to walk, talk and feed himself again.
Two years later, he proudly struggled through a first-grade book of Dick and Jane. Gretta smiled at him broadly as he read, but inside, she was weeping like a child, knowing he would never work as a chemical engineer again.
The years came and went with very little to note their passing. They sold the new house down in Huntington Beach and moved up to Ontario, not as nice, but much cheaper. Her mother worked as a receptionist while attending night school, then started teaching first grade. Her father took care of the neighbors’ yards. Five years of teaching came and went. Her father learned to ride a bike. Her mother turned thirty, then thirty-five, and still no children. Her father got a job as a custodian at the school. Forty came. Not much changed. Her father worked weekends in the yard.
Then something happened to stir things up a bit.
Back in Memphis, Caelyn’s grandparents fell sick and died within five days of each other. None of the other children wanted the family farm so, after almost twenty years in southern California, her parents decided it was time to make a change. Caelyn’s mother packed up their belongings, sold the house, gave up the California sunshine, and moved back to the family farm twenty-one miles outside of Memphis, where they settled in to grow old. She got another job teaching school. To her great delight, her husband seemed to thrive taking care of the old farm.
Caelyn’s mother accepted things for what they were, thinking this was as good as her life was going to get.
Then she received another piece of astounding news. For weeks she lay awake at night, smiling at the darkness, far too happy and excited to sleep.
Nine months later, on her mother’s birthday (surely a sign from God, her mother always said), and with a rare Memphis snow outside, Caelyn was born into this world.
After twenty years of feeling as if she was more or less alone, like a sudden gift from heaven, Gretta held a little baby in her arms.
*******
Caelyn McKenny Calton watched through the kitchen window as her mother poked at the fire underneath the homemade smoker. Watching her mother was like looking into a crystal ball; a time machine couldn’t have shown her any better what she would look like when she was sixty-nine. And they had much more in common than just their looks. Both had quick hands and quick emotions, quick to joy, quick to anger and quick to cry. Both were fiercely independent, opinionated, and strong.
Proud Southern women. It shined in both of their eyes.
Yet as much as they were the same, there was a vast difference in their outlooks now. And the differences between them had grown larger with the passing of each year.
Caelyn had a softer side. A gentler side. A certain trust in God. Her mother was not like that. She was less feeling underneath. She’d lost her religion out in California and wasn’t particularly interested in looking for it anymore. She wasn’t hard-hearted, really, just less willing to feel, the experience with her husband having left her cautious and on guard. Like a drying limb on a gnarled cedar tree, she was strong and unbending, but tight and knotted up inside. Making her caution worse, the only good thing that had ever happened to her had been her little girl, and the years they’d spent together had proven far too short. Before she knew it, Caelyn had gone off to college and fallen in love with some Army guy.
It had proven very hard for her mother to let go, which made their relationship difficult at times.
ELEVEN
Two Miles West of Chatfield, Nineteen Miles Southwest of Memphis, Tennessee
The man was exhausted. His muscles ached, his head hurt, his arms were sore from driving, and it was getting late. He was hungry and thirsty, and more than ready to head home. He and the boys had been up since way before dawn. The sun was close to setting, and he knew how utterly dark it would be once it went down. And there weren’t any headlights on the old tractor that he was driving, which meant that if he didn’t turn around, it would be a long, stressful drive back home. He glanced up at the setting sun, thinking of the moon. Yes, it would be up there, but he al
most feared it now. Bloody red. Evil looking. Like the devil glaring down.
He shifted in the old seat and almost swore. He didn’t understand it at all. They’d completed their assignment. It was time to go home. On the old tractor it was an hour’s drive, at least, back to his home.
Yet he kept driving in the other direction, steering the tractor down the road. “Keep on going. There are others,” the voice inside him seemed to say.
But there were no others. Whatever foolish prompting he was having, his mind told him it was wrong. He knew everyone who lived within the county—he knew them very well. And no one else was out there. He had seen them all.
He slowed the tractor. It was time to head on home. He didn’t want to be out here after dark. He could feel the evil growing close.
Still, the voice persisted in his heart. “Keep on going. There’s one more.”
The driver shook his head. He was a simple man. He wasn’t ever going to make a million dollars or watch himself on television; he’d never be famous or elected to some big-time public office. But this much he knew: The Spirit was talking to him now. He recognized the feeling. “Keep on going. Keep on going. There is one more.”
He mentally reviewed the list of district members for the third or fourth time. No. There were no more. He had visited them all.
If it was the Spirit that he was hearing, then the Spirit had it wrong. No matter what it told him, he knew there were no more people down this road.
Still, he kept on driving, fighting the terrifying urge to turn around.
The Spirit wasn’t the only voice inside his soul.
“I own the night!” the evil taunted him. “Stay out here and I’ll kill you. I’ll send a mortal out to find you—there are dozens of them around here who are under my control. Fear the darkness. It’s my kingdom. Don’t be a fool. You’ve got the two boys. I could kill them, too!”
The man hesitated, glancing fearfully over his shoulder.
“Stop,” the evil hissed again. “Stop and turn around!”
“No,” the Spirit whispered, “there is another out there, someone the Father cares about. She’s been praying for you, brother. You cannot let her down. Don’t fear the darkness, it is empty. They cannot hurt you if keep your faith strong. You are on the Master’s errand. He’ll protect you. Now please, don’t turn around.”
TWELVE
Four Miles West of Chatfield, Twenty-One Miles Southwest of Memphis, Tennessee
Caelyn gave her dad a final pat on the shoulder, then moved toward the kitchen door. It creaked on its hinges, but the spring that pulled it closed behind her was firm and strong. Like everything else on the farm, the house was well maintained. She stepped onto the back porch. The clapboard home, two stories, white with dark green shutters, faced west and the sun was setting now, providing cool shade on the back porch. Her mother had moved around to the south lawn where the smoker had been set up at the edge of the grass. Caelyn walked to the side of the house and rested against the corner, taking in the view. Green pasture in the back, a heavy tree line on the far side, a strangely shadowed sky overhead. It was so quiet she could hear her heart pulsing in her ears. The road out front was completely deserted. No birds. No wind. No movement of the trees. To her left, a golden field of wheat had been cut down to the nubs, leaving only straw, the grain having been harvested back in July. What would they give to have the wheat back now? A lot. But it didn’t matter, it was gone, sold to the granary on the edge of town, augured up into the silver tower, then dropped into waiting railroad cars and hauled off to General Mills or Betty Crocker or some other mill somewhere. Caelyn swallowed, wishing desperately that her father had held onto even a little of the grain, but he didn’t have anywhere to store it. Truth was, no farmers raised food for themselves anymore. They grew the crops and sold them, then, same as everyone, bought the finished products at the store. Turning her head, she looked north. Barns. An old milk parlor. A cement and metal manger where they used to feed the cows. Her father ran a simple operation. A little wheat. Corn. Soybeans. He had a herd of forty heifers but the yearlings had all been sold. Most of the mother cows were pregnant now and would calf again during the coming winter.
As a precaution, they had moved all the cattle into the back pasture, where they couldn’t be seen from the road. Was it necessary? She didn’t know. So far, they’d been left alone. A couple of the neighbors had come by a time or two, but those were the only people they’d seen since the EMP attack. Still, they’d heard rumors of things that were happening in the city and the suburbs: mean, scary things and desperate stories. People were getting hungry now. Could parents watch their children begin to starve without doing something to help them? Not for long. So, thinking it might help avoid a conflict, Caelyn and her parents had moved the cows into the south pasture. Having the cattle out of sight would probably help, at least for a while, but eventually they were going to run out of hay to feed the animals. As it was, they had enough to last through December, but that was about all. And it would be impossible to buy any more; her father had checked. No one was selling. Without extra hay, come December, their mother cows would start going hungry. Caelyn knew it wouldn’t matter anyway; the herd would be slaughtered and eaten long before then. She didn’t know how or by whom, but it would happen. The cows were food. Food was scarce and getting scarcer. Eventually someone was going to come and take their herd.
The wind suddenly picked up and shifted from the south and the smoky smell of mesquite blew toward the house. She sniffed, her stomach growling, an empty pit between her ribs. She hadn’t eaten much over the past four or five days—partly out of nerves, mostly out of a sudden, deep-seated drive to conserve whatever food they had—and her mouth started watering as she smelled the drying meat.
She walked toward her mom. “How’s it going?” she asked as she approached the silver smoker.
Her mother lifted the lid from the metal garbage can, and a puff of white smoke billowed out. Picking up some old hot pads, she carefully removed the meat-covered grates fitted inside the can, dropped a handful of water-soaked mesquite chips into the fire box, replaced the grates, and put the lid back in place. “You know, this smoker your dad made is working really well.”
Caelyn studied the homemade smoker: an old metal garbage can, a metal chip box, a couple of metal grills. Her father had cut a six-inch hole in the bottom of the garbage can, dug a pit to allow for venting, then built a small fire and put the lid in place. He’d even installed a small thermometer, an engine temperature gauge he had taken from an old tractor, which read 224 degrees Fahrenheit, right where they wanted it to be. “It’s amazing he could come up with this so quickly,” Caelyn said, glancing back toward the house. Her father had followed her out and was now sitting in the wicker rocking chair on the porch.
There was no greater evidence of the intellect that remained inside him than his uncanny ability to build or fix almost anything on the farm, working on machinery as if he’d designed it himself. He couldn’t tell you who the president of the United States was, balance a checkbook, or add up a simple column of three-digit numbers. He couldn’t follow a story from a newspaper or tell you anything about the war, yet he could quote the batting records of his beloved N.Y. Yankees for every year since 1970 as well as every Super Bowl final score. Most times it was like he was in a deep fog. But sometimes the stupor lifted. Muttering, he would scribble on hastily arranged pieces of paper as old designs and formulas popped into his head. It was as if he knew, somewhere deep inside him, that his brain used to work on a different level than it now did, as if a part of him remembered the statistical formulas and chemical theorems he’d spent so many years coming to understand. Sometimes she could see the frustration that was bottled up inside. “It’s still there,” his eyes would plead. “Can you see it? Do you believe me? The intellect is still inside me! But it’s just so jumbled up!”
It was as if, after the accident, part of his brain had been sent back to when he was a small child
, making him almost impossible to predict or understand. But, from time to time, there were powerful reminders that the man trapped inside the wounded mind was still there.
Her father saw that she was staring at him and he smiled happily, the youngster inside him always friendly. She smiled and waved back, then turned toward the smoker. The jerky was almost done, a full side of beef, enough to keep them in meat for at least a couple of months.
If they were careful and didn’t waste it, and if other people left them alone.
Her mother adjusted the garbage can lid, making certain it was tight, then brushed a smoky strand of hair away from her eye. “Where’s Ellie?” she asked.
Caelyn nodded over her back. “Last I saw she was chasing Miller around the other side of the house.”
Gretta turned and shaded her eyes to the dropping sun. “She’s doing OK, I think. Don’t you?”
Caelyn pressed her lips before she answered. “She doesn’t really understand what’s going on.”
Gretta frowned a little, her eyes moving constantly up and down the road. “I don’t know,” she answered carefully. “Sometimes I think little kids know more than we give them credit for. She hears us talking. She hears the tone of our voices. But it’s more than that. Children have a sense for these things. Ellie certainly does. She’s a smart girl. She knows something’s going on.”
Caelyn folded her arms across her chest. “I hope not. I really hope not. She’s far too young—”
“She’s a strong girl, honey.”
“Yeah, but she is a little girl. Hardly more than a baby. I don’t want to steal her childhood. She deserves more than that. I absolutely want to keep things on an even keel for her for as long as we can.”
Wolves in the Night: Wrath & Righteousness: Episode Seven Page 9