Fade to Grey (Book 1): Fade to Grey

by Brian Stewart

  Chapter 33

  The rest of the drive back to her house was uneventful. Everybody rode in silence, lost in their own thoughts. Turning into her driveway just far enough that the truck was fully off the road, Michelle flashed the headlight high beams four times, the prearranged signal to Thompson that everything was OK. Seconds later the drapes in her upstairs bedroom opened and shut twice. The return “all clear” signal received, she maneuvered the big vehicle around her Explorer and Andy’s pickup, finally parking it inside the small barn out back. Michelle looked at her watch. It wasn’t even noon yet.

  Thompson had the back door open for them by the time they made it across the yard. Once inside, he shut and locked the door behind them. A few moments later and everybody had piled back in her small living room. Andy crashed into the recliner with a soft creak and sigh. Thompson had two of the kitchen chairs pulled out and facing each other. He was seated in one and using the other like a footstool. Sam took one end of the couch and left the other for Michelle. Nervous energy still brewing inside of her . . . she didn’t want to sit down yet. Walking out to the kitchen, she filled all of the large pots again with the low pressure water coming out of the faucet. Once full, she put the four largest on the stove to warm up before returning to the living room.

  “Sam,” she said, “you’ve probably got a lot of questions, and so do we. But I think the first priority is getting you cleaned up and taken care of. We’ve got water heating up for a bath, and after that I’ll see what I can do first-aid wise for you, OK?”

  Sam nodded in reply.

  By 2:00 PM, they had gotten Sam cleaned up and treated to the best of their ability. Nothing appeared broken, but the repeated blows had inflicted serious bruising that would take quite a while to heal. Andy’s medical kit and Michelle’s medicine cabinet only had OTC pharmaceuticals available. Two extra strength acetaminophen and one half of a tube of anti-bacterial ointment later, Sam was sitting comfortably on the couch, carefully wincing with each slurp of his second large bowl of soup. Coming down off of the intense, adrenaline-filled morning had Michelle alternating between fits of hyper agitation and exhaustion. Tiredness seemed to win out, and Thompson offered to stand guard as the other three slept. Andy kicked back in what was fast becoming his favorite chair and Michelle gave Sam the entire couch to stretch out on, preferring the comfort and familiarity of her own bed upstairs. Before turning in, they each made sure a loaded shotgun, rifle, and handgun were within easy reach. An alarm was set for 9:00 PM.

  Sleep descended upon Michelle with feline quickness once her head hit the familiar pillow, but sleep, as she had often found out, does not always coincide with rest. Vague memories of tossing and turning, burning red eyes and gunshots had filled her dreams. A slit-eyed glance at the luminous battery powered clock on her nightstand showed 7:30 PM. Her sheets were dampened with sweat and she kicked off the double layer of heavy flannel comforters she had retreated under a little over four hours ago. The inrush of cool room air sent a chill shiver racing through her moist clothes. Tiny goose bumps stood at attention and refused to go away even when she rubbed them briskly. Feeling around, she located one of the comforters and draped it over herself, trying to find the happy medium between too cold and too warm. After five minutes it became obvious that it was a lost cause. Quietly reaching into the top drawer of her nightstand, her fingers found the diamond shaped squeeze-light that she had tossed in there a few months ago. It was a freebie giveaway from the local gas station for filling up your tank, and the emerald green LED light it gave off matched the gas station’s sign color. Her drapes were closed, and the green light wasn’t very intense, but she still avoided shining it directly toward the window as she scanned her room. It wasn’t cool in her bedroom, it was cold. Probably almost as cold as it was outside. Psyching herself up, Michelle stood on the chilly wooden floor—comforter draped around her like a Siberian monk’s robe. Softly padding over to her dresser she removed new socks and underwear, tossing them on the bed. The closet was next. A base layer of thermal long Johns, both tops and bottoms, were soon draped over her arm. Shifting the squeeze-light to between her teeth, Michelle grabbed a pair of her favorite jeans and a heavy red and black, long sleeve flannel shirt. A dark grey wool sweater completed her outfit. Stopping by the window on her way back to the bed, Michelle opened the drapes just a sliver. It was still overcast, and the lack of power made the darkness outside almost complete. She could see the indistinct outline of her Explorer in the driveway below, and the roofline of her front porch. Everything else was lost in the murk. Four soft strides brought her back to the center of the room. Turning and sitting on the edge of her bed, she shucked off the comforter then quickly peeled her damp clothes off. Seated naked in the darkness, her body shivered involuntarily as the remaining moist heat quickly lost its battle with the chilly air. Stomach muscles clenched in a battle against the frosty temperature, Michelle forced herself to relax. Her mind was a jumble of thoughts and emotions. Fear, anxiety, apprehension—they were all present and accounted for. Confusion was also well represented. Like a great shaggy fog that settled over her mind and prevented her from thinking clearly, it kept precise thoughts and ideas as elusive as the proverbial black cat in a dark room at night. Shaking her head in an attempt for lucidity, Michelle's long, strawberry-blond hair whipped back and forth. She stood up and forced herself to take a deep breath . . . then another, and another. A dozen more followed and Michelle soon found herself practicing Andy's stress relaxation exercises.

  "Breathe. Exhale. Repeat. Now stand up, inhale and stretch, feel each molecule of air as it passes into your lungs. Clear your mind. Concentrate only on your breathing. Synchronize the stretching with your breathing. Make them dance, not fight. Breathe."

  Her focus returning, Michelle went through another five minutes of stretching and breathing. The only thought she briefly entertained was the comfort of knowing how squeaky the wooden staircase was coming up to the second floor. Having one, or all three of the guys catching a glimpse of her doing what, in all intensive purposes was naked yoga wouldn't be the highlight of her trip. She wasn't self conscious about her body, but only for the right person. That lingering idea brought her mind back to reality, and Eric.

  Shaking her head again, she partially cleared him from her thoughts as she dressed. She still felt the cold air pressing around her, but the stretching and breathing had seemed to somehow transmute it into a feeling of being alive. She slid a pair of all-terrain trail running sneakers on her feet before heading downstairs.

  “Get any rest?” Thompson asked from the kitchen where he sat watching the darkness through the front window.

  “Some. What about you, do you want to go and get some rest?”

  “Ma’am, I’m a soldier, and one of the first things I learned was how to sleep anytime, anywhere.”

  “The bed is empty upstairs.”

  In the brief pause that followed, Michelle could sense rather than see Thompson considering her words.

  “He can also have the recliner, I’m done with it . . . for now,” Andy said quietly from behind them.

  The sounds of Andy putting the cushioned chair in an upright position mixed with the deep nasally snores of Sam on the couch as Thompson replied, “I think I can handle the recliner for awhile.”

  “Don’t get too comfortable, Thompson. I plan on adopting that particular chair as my personal throne. Hell, I may even disown Eric and leave everything I got to it, seeing as how it treated my tired body in such a loving way.” Michelle was tempted to flash the green light at Andy’s face just to see the grin as he replied.

  Thompson choked out a quick laugh before saying, “Amen to that sir, I’ll treat her right.”

  Michelle used the small light to guide Thompson through the living room before returning to the kitchen and putting water on for tea. Andy had maneuvered into the kitchen chair Thompson had recently vacated, sitting there quietly as Michelle tested the theory that a watched pot never boils. Eight min
utes later the theory had been disproven, and Michelle filled three heavy stoneware mugs with the scalding water. A trio of lemon-spiced herbal tea bags followed. Grabbing one of the mugs along with two packs of sugar and a swizzle stick, she headed out to deliver Thompson the hot beverage, but stopped halfway when she heard his resonating baritone snores.

  Returning to the kitchen, Michelle picked up another mug as she passed the stove, wormed her way to the chair opposite of Andy’s at her small kitchen table, and sat down.

  “Honey,” Andy said softly.

  “Yes dear,” she replied in a teasingly smoky accent in response to his taunt.

  “Um . . . no. What I mean is ‘honey’, as in ‘do you have any honey instead of sugar for the tea’?”

  Michelle giggled as she got up and used the squeeze-light to locate the semi-crystallized jar of honey she kept in the small pantry near the stove. There wasn’t much left in the pantry. Three boxes of macaroni and cheese, not even the brand name stuff. Two more family sized cans of soup, tomato and cream of broccoli—neither of which she particularly cared for. A few pouches of tuna and a smattering of assorted vegetables in individual serving sized cans. The only other things in the pantry were three small Tupperware lidded bins that held a hodgepodge of spices and other cooking ingredients. Most of the food she had kept on hand was either fresh or frozen. Of course, the lack of power had transformed that into a noxious pile of waste that even a possum would have a hard time finding palatable. She returned to the table with the honey and an improvised butter knife mining tool to remove it from the plastic bear. Thirty seconds of scraping and twisting later, Andy had apparently dislodged a sufficient amount of the semi-solid amber treasure.

  Several quiet minutes passed as Michelle and Andy enjoyed their tea. Finally Andy spoke.

  “What’cha thinking about?”

  The exhalation of his question sent a fragrant mixture of citrus and honey scooting across the darkness. Though it was almost pitch black inside, Michelle closed her eyes in an attempt to sharpen her sense of smell. She remembered reading somewhere that nothing could stimulate distant memories quite as efficiently as a smell. Andy’s tea mixture, apparently one part tea and nine parts honey brought her back to the first crisp autumn morning that she was old enough to bow hunt on her own. She had been twelve years old, and in North Dakota that was old enough to hunt by yourself as long as you were on private property. Her dad was away, over in the Middle East with the Marines. Again. As usual . . .

  Michelle opened her eyes and frowned, not willing to go down that road again right now. Where was she headed with this? Oh yeah, lemon and honey.

  At eleven years of age Michelle had been a willowy, and truth be told, awkward, fifth grader. At least a head taller than her other classmates, even Eric. Her mother had encouraged her to find an outlet for her growing pains, both the physical and emotional ones. She had found it in archery, and turned a natural affinity into a practical skill. A year later and she was a better shot than most of the junior varsity team at the high school, even the boys. For her twelfth birthday she had received a large flat box from her grandparents. A brand spanking new compound bow, a dozen high quality arrows and a $250.00 dollar gift card for a national sports retailer where she could order any of the other bells and whistles she needed to complete the outfit. She had been squirrel and deer hunting with her dad and grandfather since she was old enough to walk beside them in the woods, but this year would be her first alone. Michelle thought back to the day before the archery opener. Her grandfather had picked her up and driven them an hour or so away to his little “almost a farm” as he called it. Seventy-some odd acres of mixed hardwoods that bordered a state forest, its sole human structure was a sixteen by sixteen plywood shack with a tar paper roof. Grandpa’s favorite joke judging by the frequency she heard it had been “Which too?” as he fired up the three legged cast iron stove. The fourth leg being comprised of a roughly equal stack of assorted brick chunks. Experience had taught her to play along with the joke, being as the only answers were either “too hot” or “too cold,” Michelle had been coming to the ‘almost a farm’ with her parents and grandparents for as long as she could remember. Part of those memories included the awareness that she definitely preferred the ‘too cold’ option.

  Her and her grandfather had spent the afternoon scouting the terrain and looking for a good place for Michelle to hide the next day. A supper of fried bologna sandwiches after dark was followed by several hours of listening to her grandfather tell many of the same stories she had heard throughout the years. Stories about deer, fish, bear, and elk, most of which grew in either weight, length, or antler points, sometimes all three with each telling. There were no beds in the shack, just a few folding chairs and assorted pieces of furniture that looked to Michelle like they had been rescued from the bottom of a rock slide. The farm was a “sleeping bags only” type of arrangement, and Michelle was out like a light once she crawled in the olive drab mummy style bag that her dad kept at the farm for the occasional overnight trip. Visions of huge bucks with wide antlers crashing through the brush dogged her fitful sleep. She had awakened to the gentle nudge of her grandfather’s leathery hand on her shoulder and the smell of lemon and honey in the shack. He had filled an old Stanley thermos with piping hot tea, and had it sitting ready to go by the door for her.

  It was well below freezing as Michelle’s boots crunched through the frosty grass in the partial moonlight on her way to the location they had chosen the day before. By first light she had already consumed three more cups of the steaming fragrant liquid. Several does had ghosted past in the predawn gloom, but then nothing besides the flitting of songbirds crossed her vision. By 10:00 AM she was fighting a losing battle to keep her chattering teeth stationary long enough to pilfer the remaining warmth from her last splash of the rapidly cooling, aromatic tea. That’s when she saw it. With no warning, not the sound of snapping branches or the thunder of hoof beats, he just appeared. Tawny brown fur edged with white blending in to the leafless brush less than twenty yards in front of her, his rack was larger than any in her grandfather’s stories. She watched frozen in stillness as he lifted his nose and scented for danger. Finding none, Michelle watched him turn away from her and worry a small sapling with his immense antlers. All semblance of freezing to death now long forgotten, she quietly sat the thermos down and drew her bow back, aligning the first knuckle of her index finger with the corner of her mouth. Just like she had done thousands of times before. Apparently done with the sapling, the huge buck canted down the trail quartering towards her. Seven yards away he stopped, a perfect broadside pose as she lined up the razor sharp arrowhead on his shoulder. An icy cloud of breath exploded from his nostrils as his massive head swiveled directly towards her. Dark brown eyes looked unswervingly into hers as he froze. There was no fear in those eyes, just wisdom and understanding. And perception that his life now danced on the thread of her decision. She held full draw as the minutes passed, each of them waiting on her judgment. Finally, with the stomp of his front foot and another snort he had trotted away and disappeared into the forest. Michelle sat down, still lost in the visions of the huge deer ten minutes later when her grandfather walked over and hunkered down next to her, another thermos full of honey lemon tea in his hands. The spicy sweet aroma drifted through the cold woodland as they both sat there in silence. Finally, her grandfather had nudged her with an elbow and said, “He was a big one.” That evening when she was back at her house and almost asleep, she overheard her mom asking her grandfather if she had got a deer. Her grandfather had paused for a second before replying, “Yeah, she did.”

  “’Chelle . . . you still with us?” Andy whispered in the darkness.

  Michelle slowly opened her eyes, reluctantly leaving the fond memory behind as she answered. “Yeah, just thinking.”

  “About Eric?

  “No, about something else . . .” Michelle stopped herself, unwilling to finish out loud the thought. “That I let g
et away from me.”

  Another gap of silence descended between them as they sat in the darkness sipping their tea. Two or three minutes of stillness while the faint click-click of her battery-powered kitchen clock ran out of beat with the mismatched snores coming from Thompson and Sam Ironfeather in the other room. Finally, she let out a small sigh and returned his original question. “What about you Andy, what’s on your mind?”

  The slight squeak of the chair as Andy shifted, accompanied by a soft, but rapid and repeated tap-tap-tap-tap as he raced his fingers “hoof beat” style on the table told Michelle that he was definitely thinking something. She waited.

  Finally, with a soft exhale he answered. “I don’t know where to begin.”

  She stayed silent. Michelle had been around Andy enough over the years to know a few of his quirks. The first was that when he had something to say, no power on earth would prevent him from saying it. The second thing was that if he didn’t feel like saying anything, then no power on earth could make him talk.

  Michelle used the ensuing quiet moments to get up and refill both of their stoneware tea cups. A practiced mash of one of the buttons of her own wristwatch—Thompson’s having been returned already—caused the luminescent watch face to glow. It was almost 8:30 PM. “Do you want to wait until nine when we’re supposed to wake Sam and Thompson?” she asked.

  “It would save me repeating stuff, and Sam might be able to fill in some of the gaps of the puzzle.” Andy’s voice dropped to a bare whisper and he said, “’Chelle, do you trust Sam? I mean, what does your gut tell you?”

  After a brief sorting through the jumbled thoughts that question brought, Michelle answered. “Yeah, I trust him. And besides, I think that if either of us had any questions about his character or integrity, we never would have gone into the lion’s den after him. Let’s be realistic, we’ve really only known him for a couple hours, and that impression, coupled with our maniacal need to risk life and limb somehow merged into what we have now. Whatever that is.”