Authors: Doug Kelly
“Hold
it. You got this all wrong. We’ve all had to make sacrifices, big sacrifices.”
“Sacrifices!”
exclaimed Dylan. “What sacrifices have you made? All things considered you look
like you’re doing well, maybe too well.”
The
door to the garage was past the staircase, but just before the kitchen. Dylan
walked that direction and Becky stiffened, thinking he was coming at her. Dylan
stopped at the garage entry and opened the door. He turned the flashlight on
and shined it into the garage. It looked like items from the various houses
Michael had been constantly visiting in the aftermath, including Dylan’s.
“Aren’t
you going to say anything?” asked Dylan.
“About
what?”
“After
the grid collapsed, you ran from house to house acting like a savior, but you
were really seeing what you could take from people. Like I said, you’re a liar.
A fake and a liar and a thief, and both of you disgust me!” He slammed the door
to the garage, and a picture from one of their tropical vacations fell off the
wall next to it. The glass shattered on the floor.
“You
need to go!” Michael said angrily.
Dylan
walked into the kitchen and Becky stayed on the opposite side of the kitchen
island. Her body tensed as Dylan got closer. She moved over to a small kitchen
drawer and reached inside, out of Dylan’s view. He opened the door to their
walk-in pantry, stepped into it, and shined the flashlight around inspecting
all that was inside. There was a cornucopia of food stacked tall and deep, and
Dylan recognized a box of cereal, not yet opened, that his son had colored on
with crayon before Dylan had left for Montana. At the thought of his children
starving next to all of this food, his temper began to flare again. He noticed
his hands shaking from the anger as he left the pantry and walked back into the
kitchen.
Becky
was staring at him now. He noticed that she had something gripped tightly in
her hands, and was trembling with fear or anger. Dylan could not discern at
first what the object was, but quickly realized that she was now pointing a
small pistol at him.
“You
can’t do it,” said Dylan, stoically.
“Squeeze
the trigger, Becky,” urged Michael, still in the living room.
Dylan
took a step toward Becky and she flinched. “Don’t come any closer, or I’ll kill
you,” she said, with a trembling voice.
“Oh,
no, you won’t. You can’t do it. You didn’t have the guts to kill my children.
Both of you just left them hidden in a room, starving, and out of your sight.”
Dylan
took another step toward Becky and she raised the pistol.
“Pull
the trigger, nice and easy. Listen to me,” said Michael.
Dylan
looked directly into her eyes and said, “You can’t do it because you’re weak
and a fake. Everything about you is fake.” Slowly moving forward, he pointed
the beam of light at her trembling hands as they gripped the pistol. “Fake
fingernails.” Still moving forward he moved the beam of light to her chest.
“Those are fake, too.” He quickly flicked his wrist so the beam of light went
into her eyes. Instinctively, she squinted from the brightness and turned her
head away. Dylan lunged forward and violently crossed her temple with the metal
flashlight. She dropped the pistol on the top of the kitchen island as she fell
to the floor. Becky curled into a ball and moaned in pain. Blood was dripping
from her temple. Dylan reached for the pistol and noticed that he had knocked
out a contact lens from one of her eyes. He picked it up and held it near the
candlelight. The contact was colored blue. Her eye color was as fake as
everything else about her.
Michael
gave Dylan a glare filled with hatred and said, “You think you’re so virtuous.
Where have you been? You abandoned your children.”
“Where
have I been? You have no idea what I have come through to get here and what
I’ve done to make that happen. You’re just a little bump in the road compared
to what I’ve been through.”
Dylan
put the pistol in his pocket and set the flashlight on the kitchen island,
turning it off to save the precious batteries. He pushed Becky flat to the
floor with his boot, and dragged her into the living room, dropping her next to
Michael. He spun the rifle from his back and placed the stock firmly into his
shoulder.
“Are
you going to kill us? You don’t have to. We can work something out.” Michael begged.
“Neither
of you is worth a bullet,” Dylan said, coldly.
“There’s
lots of food in this house. We can split it,” said Michael, in the tone of a
man pleading for his life.
“I’m
not splitting anything with you, because you don’t have anything now.
Understand?”
“I
don’t understand,” Michael whined, staring at the rifle.
Dylan
opened the front door wide and stepped back to make room for them to walk
through the open doorway. He pointed outside with the rifle.
“Through
this door is exactly what you gave my children: nothing. Go, and don’t come
back. If I see you around here again, I’ll kill you.”
Michael
dropped to his knees and waddled toward Dylan, begging for mercy. “We have no
place to go. We’ll starve to death. You can’t do this!”
“Yes,
I can!” Dylan drove his knee into Michael’s perfectly veneered teeth, knocking
him to the ground. When Michael sat up, he felt his mouth and the gap where a
tooth used to be. Dylan pushed him out the door with his boot, then Becky
crawled out and sat next to her husband on the front porch. They held each
other, whimpering loudly.
Dylan
put the end of the barrel at the back of Michael’s skull. “You better leave now
before I change my mind.”
The
couple ran away, not looking back. Dylan watched them disappear into the
darkness, toward the stream that fed the nearby lake. He went back into the
house to retrieve the flashlight and some candles from the kitchen. He opened
the pantry and the garage entry door one more time to look at the pile of food,
just before he ran back home to his children. He hurried home as fast as he
could and pushed his front door open. Kevin, Mary, and Jim were there. Mary had
made some cold oatmeal for the children, and he could see their weakness in the
way they chewed the food so slowly. He placed the candles on the kitchen table
and lit them.
“You’re
safe now,” Dylan said, as he touched their boney shoulders gently.
Brad
looked up at his father. He finally smiled. His mouth was full of food. From
the opposite side of the table, Dylan leaned forward to get a closer look at
his children in the candlelight. Jennifer touched his wrist. Dylan turned to
her and smiled. She smiled back. Then the children, so fatigued from their
hunger, drifted to sleep at the table. Dylan gently picked them up and carried
them to their beds, covering them with blankets to keep them warm through the
night.
Dylan
sat at the dining table facing the other three adults in the flickering
candlelight.
“I
didn’t want to say anything in front of your kids. What did you do after we
left?” asked Kevin.
“That
asshole won’t be coming back.”
Jim
laughed and said, “I wish I could’ve seen that.”
“He
took my food and starved my children.” Dylan shook his head angrily. “He got
better than what he deserved.”
“That’s
where all the food went?” asked Mary.
“Yes,
and he had a lot more than that. He took from everyone he could.” Dylan pointed
at Jim. “We can take some of that food and split it among the people who are
still in the neighborhood. I don’t know who needs it, or who deserves it the
most. Do you have any ideas?”
Jim
nodded his head, saying, “I could use some of that food, myself.”
“We
need to go move that food back here tonight,” said Dylan. “Michael is a snake
in the grass, and he might come back for it. Jim, I want to do this quick,
tonight. Can you come back tomorrow, too? I want to know about everything
that’s happened here since I’ve been gone.”
“Sure,
I’ll come back at daybreak.”
“Thanks,
Jim. Now, take the wheelbarrow, and you and Kevin get started. I’ll be right
behind you.”
They
left, and only Dylan and Mary remained at the table.
“Thanks
for making them something to eat.”
Mary
smiled and said gently, “They’re going to be okay.”
“I’m
going to make sure of that. They’re all I have now.”
Dylan
stood up, retrieved the flashlight from his pocket, and handed it to Mary.
“It’s
going to get dark in here when the candles go out, so you should take this.”
“You
won’t be afraid of the dark?” Mary asked, sarcastically.
“I’ve
got nothing to fear.” Dylan held the rifle up for Mary to see.
“I
prayed for bullets last night,” said Mary.
Dylan
walked to the front door, stopped, turned around, and said with a somber
expression, “I hope you did.”
Dylan
opened the door and stepped outside.
“Hold
on, Dylan. You should be happy now. It was a long journey home and we made it.”
“We
made it here, but our journey isn’t over yet. It has just gotten started. Keep
praying for bullets, Mary. We’re going to need them.”
He shut
the door and walked into the darkness.
END OF BOOK ONE
I would
like to thank everyone that has helped me bring my book to fruition and
especially thank you for reading my book. I hope that you have enjoyed reading
it as much as I have enjoyed writing it for you. If you enjoyed this novel, and
have the opportunity, please leave a review and share what you liked about it.
The sequel,
Fade To Black
, is being edited and will be released soon.
Doug Kelly