After Darkness Fell

by David Berardelli

  Still, I realized how stupid I’d been about handling this, and that a mere apology might not be enough. I’d done something we’d promised one another we’d never do: I’d taken an unnecessary, dangerous risk. And no matter how I explained my reasoning, I knew it wouldn’t suffice. I’d crossed the line and had to face the consequences.

  I reached the top step and stopped about five feet from her. Her glare still hadn’t softened, and I knew right then just how upset she actually was. This worried me much more than someone hiding in the grove behind me. “You sure no one else is...”

  She nodded.

  “I guess you would have seen someone if...”

  Another nod.

  “Listen, Fields. I know what I did was...”

  “Why’d you do it?”

  I shrugged. “I didn’t want to disturb you. You were taking your shower, and I wasn’t really sure anything was wrong.”

  “You came real close to never disturbing me again.”

  “I know, and I’m really...”

  “The eggs are probably burnt.”

  “Probably.”

  “So is the coffee.”

  “I’ll make fresh...”

  “You owe me breakfast.”

  “I owe you much more than that.”

  She turned toward the front door. “Right now I’ll settle for breakfast.” She opened the door and turned back around. For long moments she stared at me, that same coldness penetrating my flesh. Her anger seemed to resonate the same way it had in Breezewood, when she’d aimed a giant revolver at my face. But this was different. Her cold green eyes were moist. I almost expected her to start crying. Fields didn’t cry much, but it sure looked like she was about to do something along those lines.

  She glared at me a little while longer. Then, without warning, her right hand came up and swatted me.

  A knot of fire exploded in my jaw. My eyes snapped shut; when they opened, they were wet, and I noticed my vision had gone double. I closed them again and waited for the pain to subside. It took its time, and I finally opened my eyes. She was still standing there. The glare remained, and her eyes were still wet.

  “Understand now?” she asked, her sandy brows rising.

  “Sure do.” I knew better than say or do anything to heat her up again.

  “You’re sure?”

  “I think one of those is plenty, thanks.”

  “You needed it.”

  “I know.”

  “If it’ll keep you from doing it again, it was worth it, don’t you think?”

  “Definitely.”

  She moved closer and planted a warm kiss on my lips. “You can be a bastard, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “Let’s have breakfast. Then we have some unpleasant work to do.”

  TWO

  Fields was right; we had to get rid of the two bodies, for obvious reasons. We also had to find out where they’d come from. If a vehicle was sitting off the road nearby, we had to find it. Two of them had snuck onto the property to do us harm; there could be others. If they were members of a wandering gang, it wouldn’t be long before the others found out about us.

  After Fields and I finished with the breakfast dishes, we set out to do what was necessary. I brought along my .357 Smith & Wesson revolver, as well as the tiny .22 Beretta Bobcat automatic, which fit snugly in my side pocket. I also brought along a Mossberg 12-gauge single barrel shotgun, which held six -00- buckshot cartridges and one up the pipe. Fields brought along her .38 Ladysmith hammerless revolver, which she carried in a pancake holster hidden in the small of her back, and the 1911 model Colt .45 automatic in a black Uncle Mike’s holster strapped to her belt above her right hip. The .45 was heavy, bulky, and packed terrific stopping power. Over the last few months, she’d learned to handle the weapon quite well by taking it into the woods behind the garage and spending half a dozen afternoons splintering a square sheet of plywood I’d nailed to the stump of a dead tree.

  Before leaving the house, we made sure all the windows were nailed shut. I turned off the generator and unplugged the appliances before double-locking the doors. Then we went up the hill, where the four-car block garage sat at the end of the drive. Uncle Joe’s three-quarter-ton Silverado rested in its stall beside the van I’d stolen in St. Cloud to use for my trip up here. The pickup was sturdy, strong, and dependable. Uncle Joe had kept it in excellent condition, and it had never failed us. Aside from keeping a close eye on the fluids and making sure it had gas, oil and antifreeze, maintaining it was no problem.

  I’d installed a gun carrier beneath the dash, fashioning it from a piece of plywood about a foot square, connecting it to the dash with spring hinges and fitted with clamps to hold two loaded .9 millimeter automatics. A simple button rigged to a short metal rod beneath the console released a clip, dropping the carrier and making the guns instantly accessible.

  Fields and I had also sewn holsters beneath the front seats, fitting each with a .38 Smith & Wesson revolver loaded with full metal jacket bullets.

  A short double-barrel coach-style shotgun lay on the floor beneath the driver’s seat, its handle sawed off just behind the pistol grip, its barrel sawed off to a length of twelve inches. If more than one or two people approached the truck, the scatter would cause considerable damage.

  For food, we stocked the console with cans of tuna and chicken, as well as bottled water and a small bottle of Kentucky bourbon. We also placed a small first-aid kit in the glove box and other essentials, such as penlights, flashlights and security lights, in the bags behind the seats and the slide-out compartments beneath the back seats.

  In Uncle Joe’s galvanized metal toolbox, which stretched across the width of the bed, I’d placed a two-gallon container of gas, two empty containers, four pints of high-grade engine oil, windshield washer fluid, a small toolbox, jumper cables and a tire patch kit.

  Before climbing in, I lowered the tailgate. Our plan was to pick up the two bodies on the way down the drive and put them in the bed. Then we could find their ride and work from there.

  As I got in, I noticed the dark expression on Fields’ face. She was still obviously upset about the morning’s fiasco. She’d been quiet at breakfast, barely touching her eggs and toast. Despite my crude attempts at conversation, she’d limited her responses and remained distracted.

  A more perceptive guy would have chosen to let her anger run its natural course. I, on the other hand, didn’t like the silence—or the tension between us—and decided to bring the issue to the surface as soon as we climbed in the truck.

  “Still upset?”

  She sat back in her seat. “What do you think?”

  “I think you’re still upset.”

  “If you already know, why ask?”

  “I want you to start talking to me again.”

  She didn’t reply.

  I didn’t press the issue as I fired up the ignition. I knew she’d snap out of it when the time was right. Fields had a temper, but her storms never lasted long.

  After backing out of the garage, getting back out and closing and padlocking the garage door, I got back in the truck, put it in reverse and backed it down the long, thirty-degree drive. When we were just a few feet from the first body, I put it in park and climbed down. I heard the other door click open behind me.

  “You can’t blame me, can you?” Fields stood behind the bed, watching me. Her anger had softened a little; her expression now looked more like sadness. Although her slap had given me a strong dose of reality, her expression right now told me even more. My actions had not only been reckless and foolish, but also deadly. Because of my decision to sneak out of the house alone, we were almost killed.

  The horror of the situation swept through me. One simple decision had nearly resulted in our deaths. At the time, I thought I was acting sensibly. My paranoia had apparently reared its ugly head. It had been doing that a lot lately, but that didn’t mean it was always right. Sometimes there was no threat. Sure, life had gone down
the tubes, but that didn’t mean death awaited me each time I left the house. There weren’t many people walking around anymore. That fact alone should tell me something.

  But not in this case. My instincts weren’t wrong at all. Maybe there weren’t many people walking around anymore, but that didn’t mean there were fewer dangers. Powerful monsters had been set loose on society, killing an enormous amount of the population. Fields and I had somehow survived. It was up to both of us to take care of one another and treat each moment as if it could be our last. This meant I could not be reckless or take anything for granted.

  In the old days, being reckless meant getting drunk, being pulled over on the way home and facing jail, a ticket and a fine. Or falling off a ladder and being taken to the Emergency Room. Or picking up a strange woman at a bar and taking her home.

  Being reckless in this new world had become something totally different. There were no cops to pull you over. No Emergency Rooms to take you in. No one to stitch you up if you fell, or examine you if you felt something was wrong. And picking up a strange woman now meant finding yourself in the company of someone who carried around an arsenal and a container of severed penises behind her back seat.

  I went over to her and put my hands on her shoulders. “I can’t blame you at all. That was stupid of me. I thought I was being considerate. But things are different now, and every once in a while, the optimist in me seems to forget that, and for a moment I think things haven’t changed at all. But they have changed, and now I know that what I did was probably one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done in my life.”

  She shook her head. “No. It was the stupidest thing you ever did. If I hadn’t gotten to the bedroom window when I had, that moron in the bushes would have killed you.”

  “How’d you know anything was going on?”

  “I came out of the bathroom and went downstairs, and when I smelled the eggs and the coffee and didn’t see you, I went into the living room and checked the window. Then I ran back upstairs, got one of the rifles, and had a peek out the spare room window. I saw that other guy crawling in the grass, toward the house.”

  “How’d you get the screen open? I thought I nailed it shut.”

  “I didn’t. I shot right through it. That was okay, wasn’t it? I didn’t have enough time to look for a knife.”

  I hugged her. I was pleased that she hugged me back.

  After kissing her, I turned, picked up the first body and slid him into the bed of the truck. Luckily, he only weighed around one-fifty, so handling him wasn’t that difficult. I got back in the truck, backed it down to the front walk, grabbed the other body by the ankles and dragged him out of the bushes. He was slightly smaller than his partner; I had no problem dragging him across the lawn. When we reached the concrete stoop, I pulled him into a sitting position. I noticed then that Fields had got him directly in the center of the back. The exit wound was somewhere between his groin and left hip. She must have gotten him right in the heart.

  I also noticed that he looked no more than twenty.

  “Kind of young,” I said.

  “He was old enough to shoot a gun,” Fields said softly.

  I squatted, lifted him and carried him over my right shoulder to the truck. I set him down on the tailgate and let him fall backward, his head thumping the bed. I slid him the rest of the way beside his dead partner. When his tennis shoes cleared the bed, I slammed the tailgate shut.

  ***

  I made a right onto the main road and we went west, up the mile-long hill that brought us to the intersection of Bakerstown–Culmerville Road and Deer Creek Road. As I’d suspected, there were no vehicles in sight, and aside from the junk cars and pickups languishing in the abandoned front yards up the hill, we saw nothing. The two men who’d wandered onto our property and tried to kill us had obviously come from a different direction.

  I pulled into the deteriorating lot of the old abandoned garage, turned around and sat there a few moments, thinking. Those two had obviously come from somewhere. Had they driven here? Or walked? If they’d driven, they could have come from anywhere. If they’d walked, that meant they’d lived close by.

  Two psychos living so close frightened me. I knew it was possible, I just didn’t like it. It meant there could be others. It also meant that what happened this morning could happen again.

  For obvious reasons, I didn’t want to tell Fields my fears.

  “Where exactly did he say he broke down?” she asked.

  “From what he told me, we should have passed their ride on our way up this hill. He said he checked both garages, saw they were abandoned, and walked back down the hill.”

  “I think he lied to you.”

  “Looks that way, doesn’t it?”

  “If it were me, I would’ve checked those houses up the hill. They all look empty, but you never know. Someone could still be moving around in one of them.”

  “We both know what they were after.”

  “He and his friend obviously followed us from Bakerstown the other day.”

  That made me feel much better than the possibility of a gang of psychos living close. “And they’ve been biding their time, waiting for the right moment.”

  “So where do you think they came from?”

  I eased back out onto the road and we went back down the hill, past the farm. At the horseshoe curve rounding the barn and front pasture, the road went down a fairly steep decline for about a mile before bottoming out and starting another gradual ascent up the next hill. At the bottom, about sixty feet from the road and in the middle of a narrow dirt road, a battered station wagon sat hidden behind wild brush, its body riddled with dents, scrapes and holes, its windows covered with dust and dirt.

  I pulled onto the dirt road and brought the truck to a stop about twenty feet from the front of the vehicle. We sat in tense silence for several minutes, staring at it. I expected dark shapes to suddenly kick open the doors and leap from the cab, guns blazing.

  There was no movement and no sign of life, but I knew better than lower my guard. I grabbed the .357 from the console. “I’m gonna check it out.”

  “Not alone, you won’t.” She snatched the .45 out of her Uncle Mike’s and cocked the hammer. She meant business. I felt sorry for anyone naive enough to give her trouble.

  “Okay. But we do this my way, all right?”

  “Unless you plan to do something stupid again.”

  I sighed. She wasn’t going to let me live that down. “Let’s get this right, then. We’ll get out the same time and leave both doors open.”

  “Why?”

  “If someone jumps out of the car or the woods and starts shooting, we can get behind the doors. They’re not bullet-proof, but they’ll provide some protection.”

  “All right.”

  “We’ll approach the wagon at the same time—me on this side, you on your side. Keep your gun pointed at the wagon. Keep as close to the door as you can while I check out the passenger’s side. If it’s clear, I’ll signal and you can join me. Okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now ... before we move, any other questions?”

  “Just one. What’s the procedure if we hear another vehicle coming this way?”

  I didn’t want to think about that, but I was glad she’d asked. “Get behind the truck, hit the dirt, and be ready to open up if the vehicle slows down.”

  “Where will you be?”

  “Right beside you.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  “Any questions about what we do if someone’s hiding in this wagon?”

  She shrugged. “I was just gonna blow them away—unless you don’t want me to.”

  “Just make sure I’m not in the line of fire when you do.”

  “Then make sure you’re out of the way before I start shooting.”

  I wanted to smile. “I’ll try to remember that, thanks.”

  ***

  Together, we crept alongside the truck, one cautious step at a time, our gaze f
ixed on the dirt-smeared windshield. My heart did a drum roll. Twenty years had gone by since my old Army days, when I handled riot control in Little Odessa, hunted down terrorist cells in Pakistani Brighton, and watched for illegals behind a barricade of sand bags near the Arizona Border.

  Back then, I’d killed terrorists, suicide bombers, snipers, illegals working for the drug cartels, and innocents caught in the line of fire. I hadn’t thought much about it at the time, attributing my actions to duty, love of country and the rationalization that if I didn’t kill the enemy, the enemy would kill me. Even so, the act of killing had darkened my spirit, and I promised myself that once I was discharged, I would never kill anyone again.

  In spite of my promise, I’d killed more than a dozen people in the last few months. Each killing had been necessary for my survival, as well as the survival of Reed and Fields. But even though these killings were completely justified, my spirit continued to darken just as it had twenty years earlier.

  Fields kept the .45 trained on the windshield of the station wagon as I crept closer. Due to the dirt and dust covering a good portion of the glass, it was impossible to see inside. This made me wonder if the two had purposely darkened the windows. This could mean they’d been doing some nasty things.

  The .357 was a heavy, cumbersome revolver, and often required both hands even for a large man. It delivered a substantial kick, and unless the cylinder was loaded with .38 bullets, the best way of maintaining control was to support the wrist of your firing hand with the palm of your non-firing hand.

  Since I had to pull open the passenger door, I didn’t have the luxury of keeping both hands on the gun. As a precaution, I mashed my upper arm tightly against my side for more stability. Taking a deep breath, I reached out, grasped the door handle and yanked it open.

  The stench of marijuana, cigarette smoke and stale beer assaulted my nostrils.

  The empty interior sneered at me.

  The automatic held straight out, Fields moved closer. She pulled open the driver’s door as I stuck my head inside and had a quick look at the interior. Food and candy wrappers, as well as empty beer cans, covered the floor. The dash ashtray overflowed with butts. Plastic bags of what looked like marijuana sat in a heap on the console. The back seat was covered with bundles of clothing. Canned goods and boxes of cereal and other foodstuffs lay in a pile behind the back seat.