Fade to Grey (Book 2): Darkness Ascending

by Brian Stewart

  “Sit down for a minute, Eric.”

  “What’s up?” I asked as I sat on the curved seat of the metal chair.

  He nodded toward the curtain wall. “Emily . . . Doc’s granddaughter,” he clarified unnecessarily, “is in a room upstairs.” My face must have reacted to the potential of incoming bad news, but Walter immediately shook his head. “No, she’s fine. We just moved her to a more comfortable location.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief as he continued, “But that also means that right now we’re alone, and there’s something we’d like your opinion on.”

  “Sure.”

  “Do you remember way back when . . . that first night that we sat in the living room upstairs and kinda-sorta made some preliminary plans based on what we knew, or thought, at that time?”

  “That was the first night when there was the rush at the campground . . . and the stoner guy in the red van by the gas pumps?”

  My uncle nodded, “Yep, the same night that Bernice had to shoot that nekkid girl on the deck.”

  “I remember . . . why?”

  “One of the things that we talked about,” Walter began as he pulled his pipe out of the top pocket on his flannel vest, “was that we all needed to be included . . . in everything.” I said nothing, but bobbed my head in understanding.

  Uncle Andy cleared his throat, “We need to remake that decision. What we’re saying is that we’ve more than tripled our numbers, but only five of us—you, me, Michelle, Walter, and Bernice—really know everything.”

  I thought back to the room underneath his outbuilding and laughed, “Yeah, except that I apparently missed the meeting where your secret identity as a doomsday survivalist squirrel was revealed.”

  “Don’t confuse having a healthy respect for life, and the strong desire to keep that life no matter what goes on in the world around you, with being a nutjob. They aren’t mutually inclusive. Besides,” my uncle continued with a grin, “I was going to give you the tour during your vacation. Sorry you got it under these circumstances.”

  “On the contrary,” Walter chimed in, “can you think of a better time to find out that someone you know has a basement full of supplies?”

  Walter lit his pipe, sending several puffs scurrying towards the floor before heat changed their course upward “Anyhow,” he said, “we’re going to have a difficult time trying to keep secrets. And the harder we try, the more likely it is that someone is going to catch on. So really,” he glanced towards my uncle, “we’d like your opinion on giving everybody full disclosure.”

  “Everything?”

  “All of it. The gasoline, propane, the cabin and supplies . . . everything.”

  I sat in the chair and thought about the various implications of telling vs. not telling. To be honest, my brain was classifying the subject as something that needed a lot more thought before I answered, but I could tell that an unlimited time frame to think was not on the table, so I went with my gut. “In my opinion, the grief we may inherit down the road from not telling would probably end up hurting us as a group a lot more. So tell them.”

  They both nodded their heads, “We came to the same conclusion.”

  “Although,” I added, “maybe we should keep the exact location of the cabin a little vague until we’re one hundred percent sure about everybody.”

  “I agree,” Walter said. It was echoed by my uncle seconds later.

  I spent a little more time talking to them, and then Michelle came downstairs. She was holding Samantha’s laptop. She offered it to my uncle. “Do you feel up to decrypting a computer?”

  “Why, did you forget your password?”

  Michelle shook her head slowly, “It’s not mine . . . it was Samantha’s.”

  I watched my uncle’s face darken with grief as he accepted the offering. He didn’t open it.

  The room was still and quiet for almost a minute, and then Walter spoke. “Well, you get to that when you feel like it, Andy. In the meantime, you two,” he indicated Michelle and I, “need to finish getting ready.” He got up and walked out the door, shutting it softly behind him.

  I heard Uncle Andy sigh deeply, and then he began to open the laptop.

  “Wait a minute,” I said, “before you get into that . . .”

  His hands paused on the computer shell and he looked up at me.

  “You can tell her.”

  His eyes narrowed, “Tell who . . . what?”

  “Tell Michelle . . . the story about the fox.”

  His countenance immediately changed from a sulking grimness to renewed relief. “It’s about freakin’ time,” he said.

  To my surprise, Michelle cut in with, “But not now . . . wait until we get back.”

  Uncle Andy turned towards me, and then dipped his nose immediately at Michelle. “Done and done.”

  Michelle led the way upstairs, and I followed closely behind. The sight of her tight jeans at eye level on the stairwell brought an abundance of recent memories, and I let my mind spin momentarily with the vision of her body arched above mine in the tent. She opened the door at the top of the stairs and we walked into the kitchen. A solitary string of diffuse, frosted white LED Christmas lights were suspended from the ceiling. They had been plugged into an extension cord that was in turn plugged in to a homemade rheostat dimmer switch. All the windows had been covered with multiple layers of black plastic, even the large bay window that looked out over the lake. Walters’s house sat on the top of a low hill next to the lake, and any light issuing from the house would be like a beacon for miles. With the windows covered and lights dimmed, the house sat dark and invisible. Footsteps in the hall turned our attention to the figure of Mr. Lee approaching.

  “Walter wants to know if you have time to stop in the sewing room.”

  “Sure,” I replied, “what’s up?”

  “We’ve been a little busy here at the marina since you two disappeared, and I think he wants to show off our new toy.”

  “Lead the way.” He turned and strode down the hall, and I gestured for Michelle to follow him. I knew it would only be about a dozen steps until we got to the sewing room, but I was still having vivid flashes of last night and this morning when Michelle showed me just how incredibly limber she really was. I closed my eyes and thought about soccer as I trailed behind.

  The door to the sewing room was open, and several chairs were gathered around an eight foot long folding table. On top of the table were two flat screen monitors—each lit with black and white images. After a moment, the images changed. Bernice and Walter were sitting in front of the monitors, and Amy, CJ and Nancy Jasinski, and Bucky crowded behind their chairs for a view.

  “How’s this?” It was Crowbar Mike’s voice that echoed over the GMRS radio on the table.

  Walter keyed back, “A little bit higher, not much though."

  The image on the left hand monitor bobbled and then stabilized. “That’s good right there,” Walter said, “tighten her down and come on back in.”

  He swiveled in his chair and looked my way. “I took your advice. While you two were gone, we took down some of the cameras from the marina and mounted them on the house . . . well, mostly on the house.” He turned back to the computer screens and pointed to the one on the right. Bernice made several clicks with the mouse underneath her hand, and the screen divided into four separate squares, each a live feed looking down the walls on all sides of the house.

  “Those give us a 360 view of our immediate surroundings at ground level.” He turned toward the monitor on the left and pointed. “This one gives us a choice between looking across the deck and down the stairs, or . . .” he waited while Bernice clicked again, “down the first switchback on the driveway.”

  The image changed to the one that was displayed when I first walked in. It was relatively grainy, but I could make out enough details to place the position of the camera.

  Walter continued, “The driveway camera isn’t as clear as the other ones because we had to bootleg two runs of A
/V cable to reach that point, so we’re getting some signal loss. However, if Mr. Lee’s idea will work, we may at some point be able to have monitor sites from here out to the road.”

  “Which idea is that?” Michelle asked.

  “It’s really a no brainer,” Mr. Lee replied, “but we’re missing some critical hardware.”

  “Tell them what you need so they can pick it up that next time they go shopping,” CJ said with a chuckle.

  “It’s simple really,” he held up two fingers in a “V” display, “we only need two things to make it work. We need wireless cameras—the kind that a lot of places use for their security systems, and we need some more wireless routers. Walter already has an abundance of deep cycle batteries available, and he’s got enough power inverters to make the system operational. All we’d really have to do is come up with a method for continually replacing the power source—in this case, a block of deep cycle batteries wired together. Once we figured that out, we can set up a string of monitor points, each with a camera or two, and a wireless router. From there you’re really just creating your own LAN . . . a local area network.”

  I turned towards Walter. “Your cameras aren’t wireless?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “It would be nice to have something like that set up, but I’m not sure where we’d get the parts,” I said.

  Bernice’s scratchy voice answered. “Well, that’s a problem for another time.”

  I agreed, and glanced at my watch. That’s right, my watch! I had recovered it when we towed the Gator, and the broken band pin was now replaced with one that Walter had scavenged from somewhere. I nudged Michelle. “I’m going to finish up with a few things and then I’ll meet you in about an hour downstairs.”

  She nodded as Walter spoke, “I think we’re all going to come together in the downstairs living room about then.”

  “OK,” I said as I looked around the room, “see you then.”

  Before we had a chance to leave, Callie appeared in the doorway, shadowed by BB and his brother Noah. Both of them were practically glued to her hip as she peeked in. “Hey,” she said, “Andy wants to know if anybody here speaks French.”

  “French . . . why?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, he just asked me to find out if anybody spoke French.”

  “I do,” Amy said, “at least a little bit . . . although it’s been awhile since I’ve had any practice.”

  “Well, part two of the message is as follows.” She mimicked an upright military posture and attempted to imitate my uncle. “All civilians who have a working knowledge of the French language are required to report for duty immediately. See Admiral Andy in his quarters below.”

  Amy chuckled as she walked toward Callie, “Seaman Recruit Salvucci reporting for duty, sir.”

  BB and Noah detached themselves from Callie and took Amy’s hands, tugging her out the door with all the efficiency of a military police escort.

  “He ain’t been back from the dead longer than a few hours, and Andy’s already joined the navy, promoted himself to admiral, and started drafting an army of subordinates,” Walter voiced with amusement as we followed them out the door.

  Michelle went downstairs to keep working on our route, and I went out the narrow side door in the kitchen that led to the wraparound deck. It faced away from the lake, and any of the muted light that managed to escape shouldn’t be an issue. Unfortunately, the term “wraparound” wasn’t exactly accurate since the wide deck did not extend on the southern side of Walter’s house. It was more of a giant horseshoe shape, so I had to loop all the way around to get to the stairs that lead down to the parking area. I couldn’t see Max in the back of my truck, but I knew he’d be there, lying in the bed out of sight. I clicked my tongue three times, and a blurry shadow lifted into view. I could feel his stare wash over me as I approached, and I knew that he was automatically classifying me as “the pack,” as well as picking up a myriad of information about the surroundings that humans were too civilized to notice. I reached over the side of the truck and scratched his chest—freeing an enormous, jaw gaping yawn as he stretched.

  “Good boy, Max. It won’t be too much longer, and then I hear that there’s a very large, very fresh deer leg bone for you to chew on, compliments of Bernice.”

  He yawned again and watched as I opened my truck and grabbed several items. “Guard the truck, Max,” I said as I headed back up the stairs, noticing for the first time the faint reddish glow of the infrared video cameras. I smiled and waved.

  Back inside, I made a return trip down the hallway, stopping at the door to the bedroom where Michelle and I had slept just a few nights ago. There were voices from inside, so I knocked and waited. Doc Collins opened the door a moment later.

  “Eric,” he nodded, “how’s the ankle?”

  “Stiff, but serviceable. I’m sure it’s going to need wrapped again soon.”

  “Tell Callie before you leave.” His head swiveled around to look at his granddaughter. She was sitting propped up on the bed with a book in her hands. A miniature battery powered clip light had been fastened to the brim of the baseball hat she wore, and the glowing bright pinpoint was enough to make me raise my hand and shelter my eyes.

  “Oops . . . sorry,” she said. Through my shielding fingers, I saw her reach toward the brim of her hat, and the bright white light changed to a much more tolerable, low intensity green.

  “Better?”

  “Much.”

  Doc cleared his throat, “Don’t stay awake too long Guppy . . . you may think you feel almost normal, but your body is far from healed.” He slid around me and pulled the door shut.

  “Guppy?”

  The faint green light reflected off her partial smile. “An old nickname from my mom. It’s a throwback to my childhood that my grandfather can’t seem to lose. I think it’s his way . . . his connection . . . to a lot of other memories.”

  “I can understand that concept. How are you feeling?”

  “Restless. I need to get up and move around, but my grandfather, aside from being overprotective, is a pretty darn good doctor, and I’ve learned to trust his advice—medically speaking, anyhow. So I guess I’m still on enforced bed rest, at least for the next few days.”

  I walked over and stood next to the bed. “I’ve got something for you.” I raised her backpack and set it on the edge of the mattress, and then offered her the plastic grocery bag that I carried from the truck. “As requested . . .” My words trailed off and I unwrapped the plastic from around her camera.

  “You found it!” she exclaimed, taking it from my hands and bathing it in the green light.

  “Yep . . . right where you left it. It looks OK to me, but I didn’t turn it on.”

  Her fingers darted at the camera, and a few seconds later the camera’s view screen powered up. I watched as she pressed a series of buttons, accompanying them with several affirmative mumbles, before presenting me with a thumbs up gesture. “It looks like it’s none the worse for the wear.” Emily’s nose was directed at the miniature illuminated display as she spoke. “Hey, do you want to see pictures of the bear?”

  “I’m trying to forget that particular fiasco.” The throb in my ankle reminded me that it would be a while before the incident with the bear could be forgotten.

  Emily laughed, “Look at it like this—fifty years from now, you’ll be able to tell your great grandkids that the nasty scar on your ankle was from an encounter with a bear. They’ll just assume that you got bit, instead of scratched by a twig.”

  “SCRATCHED?”

  Emily giggled again and then turned the camera towards me. “Here’s the picture of you standing in the middle of that log pile right before you fell.”

  I leaned down and looked at the tiny image. “You take nice pictures . . . maybe you should consider doing it as a career.”

  “Funny,” she said, shifting the camera back toward her and scrolling through more pictures. “Look at this one. This is the o
ne I was telling you about where you and Max were wrestling, and you blend in to each other so it looks like a two headed swamp beast. She went to turn the camera my way, but then stopped and squinted. Her giggle escalated into laugher, and then shot upward into full hilarity.

  “What?” I asked.

  I could see the battle waging on her face as the desire to continue laughing clashed with the pain of her shoulder wound.

  “What’s so funny?” I blurted out with a barely restrained laugh of my own.