One Blink From Oblivion (27 page)

              “Okay, keep the dog’s attention here while I check the back of the house.”

              Brooke taps on the glass and explains to the dog how good of a boy he is. The dog wags his tale in agreement. Max circles around to the rear of the small yard and surveys the windows and doors of the house. A patio and overhang extend twenty feet out from the house and along its entire length providing shadowy cover for what he needs to do. Max approaches the backdoor.

              He smiles and says to no one in particular, “French door… good.”

              The double door is hinged from the outside. Max removes the pistol from his waistband, releases the magazine and pulls the pistol’s slide to the rear. The bullet from the chamber ejects skyward and Max deftly catches it. He loads the loose bullet into the magazine and reaches for a nonexistent pocket to place the magazine in; of course, he is disappointed to find none. He makes a mental note ‘next pants must have pockets, lots of pockets’. Max places the item on a nearby shelf attached under a bay window to the kitchen and takes a wary look around. Neutering his only real weapon goes against his better judgment but it’s necessary to get them into the house quietly. They are still in invisibility mode. If he needs to skip directly to getting loud, he figures he can have the gun reloaded with a bullet chambered in less than five seconds.

              Max takes the empty handgun and presses the front sight notch against the top of the nail shaped peg in the French door’s hinge. He forces the notch between the flat round head and the hinge until he makes enough of a gap to use the empty handle as a prying tool. He works the hinge pen up and out of its housing. He then repeats those steps with the next hinges. Had the gun been loaded during this process it could have easily gone off. Best-case scenario is a bullet would be wasted and they would need to flee this place. Worst-case scenario is he could shoot himself and bleed-out on a stranger’s patio with Brooke looking on. Once finished, he reloads the gun, ducks back around to Brooke’s side of the house and in a loud whisper lets her know to wrap lightly on the window to cover his noise. She nods her understanding and immediately begins to beat a tune on the glass. The dog perks his ears and stares attentively.

              Max returns to the back door and pulls the door off of its hinges. He is pleased to hear only silence. Either the house has no alarm or their alarm has no battery backup for when the power goes down. Either way he is in. Max unties his boots, removes them and places them out of the way of the door. If the need for retreat should arise, he wants to be sure he is not foiled by tripping over his own shoes. Gingerly, he tiptoes toward the sound of Brooke’s taps on the window. He proceeds down a short dark hall until he reaches the first door on the left. He peeks around the corner and into the room. There, by the window of a furniture-less room sits the German Shepherd. Max reaches into the room and grabs hold of the door handle. He begins to slowly pull the door shut. “
Skreeee!
” the door squeals and the dog spins on him with teeth bared. Once again, invisibility had failed and it was time to be quick. Max swings the door shut just in time enough to hear the dog lunge against it and begin a tirade of angry barks and growls.

              Satisfied that the dog is secure –unless it grows an opposable thumb-, he ventures further down the hall. Before he can feel at ease in the house, he needs to be sure that it is clear of any life form that can bite, scratch, shoot, cut, punch or otherwise do them harm. He gives the next bedroom on the left not much more than a cursory glance since he previously inspected it from the window. Primarily he checks the closet and under the full size bed. The closet is neatly organized and houses the clothing of a teenage boy. The bed is clothed in a tasteful earth toned checkered patterned comforter with a bed skirt that Max needs to lift when he kneels to peer under. The walls are decorated with posters of various fighter jets from throughout the decades. A scale model of an F14 Tomcat seems to float in midair above the bed. The darkness lends to this effect but closer inspection reveal tethers of light test fishing line. It doesn’t appear as though any clothes were packed or anything at all taken from the room. The dresser across from the wall has no drawers pulled askew and a wallet still sits upon it.

              Max exits the room and closes the door behind him. At the end of the hall lies a full bathroom with a high shower window directly over the tub. The window allows enough light for Max to see that the small bathroom and curtain-less tub are empty. Since the garage is separate from the house to allow access to the alley Max must assume the final door directly across from the boy’s room is the master bedroom. He proceeds across the hall to the door and only remaining unsearched room of the house. The door is closed but unlocked which he finds odd. Why take time to close your bedroom door if you are fleeing? And, if they did flee then why is the house still so immaculate, not one drawer left open and nothing out of place as far as Max can tell? Even if they were forced out and over to the mall by the Guard, it seems that, something would have been disheveled either by them or by the soldiers.

              Max slowly pushes the door inward and releases the handle. The door Swings away from him at a snails pace and reveals a surprisingly large but very dark bedroom. Max squints his eyes in an attempt to focus better but is mostly unsuccessful. Moonlight outlines a curtained window to his right on a wall that faces the street. He sidesteps to the window but keeps his gun trained straight ahead, aimed at the unknown. He grabs the curtain and pulls back on it just enough to allow a sliver of light into the room. What he recalls from the time he spent ducked behind the holly bush is that this window has a clear view of the street, which means the street has a clear view of this window.

              The sliver of light is enough and Max has a full –albeit dim- view of the entire room and the closet. The master bathroom is the only space not fully visible from where he stands. The open door to the bedroom is right of the open louvered doors of the closet. A king size bed and nightstand are the only furniture in the room. The bed sits opposite the door in a way that the feet of whoever occupied the bed would greet anyone entering the room. The dark wood nightstand sits against the wall to the left of the bed. A photo and lamp rest there. The bed itself is wrapped in a large downy comforter with pillows strewn about it in no discernable pattern. The walls are bare save a medium size cross, draped with rosary beads.

              Max Approaches the nightstand in an effort to gain a better view of the bathrooms dark space. The bed can serve as a barrier to anything that might be hiding in its unlit recesses. He inches closer and closer to the nightstand and bed until his knees touch the comforter. Through the thin pants of his scrubs, he feels something cold and damp. The light in the room is not adequate enough to make out colors but he believes that this section of the comforter is a bit darker than the rest. Max begins to displace the multitude of pillows covering the bed one by one. Slowly two abstract patterns of darkness on the comforter are revealed. The large spots are close together and of similar shape. The thickness of the oversize comforter obscures whatever –if anything- lies beneath it.

              While keeping the gun trained down at the bed Max takes a deep breath and uses his free hand to whip the cover back and off the bed. He is met by a grisly scene and recoils from the bedside but manages to keep from losing his balance or the contents of his stomach. Neatly lined up under the comforter are what he must assume are the residents of this house. Father, mother and teenage son lie shoulder-to-shoulder and flat on their backs in the bed. Both mother and son’s heads are covered by clear plastic bags -seemingly the victims of asphyxiation. The father’s end had been a bit more brutal. In an apparent murder suicide, the father had smothered his family, tucked them neatly into bed and slit his own wrists lengthwise after climbing into bed next to them. All three were laid perfectly straight like toy soldiers with their foggy eyes staring out into oblivion. Max didn’t know whether to pity the hopelessness and despair that would cause someone to give up so completely or envy them for their escape from this waking nightmare.

              In keeping with his disdain for surprises, Max checks all three for a pulse. He finds none. Now, refocusing his attention on the bathroom he creeps around the bed and to the door. The bathroom is empty with the exception of a straight razor sitting in the sink. The razor is painted with dry blood, a grizzly reminder of the fragility of human life. An inert item small enough to be held between two fingers was all that was needed to end a life. It simultaneously looks insignificant and deadly as it rest against the porcelain of the sink with only a thin coagulated layer of blood between them. He is relieved not to find any other bodies in the bathtub or shower as he concludes his search. He returns to the bedside and replaces the comforter over the family, covering them from head to toe.

              Max closes the master bedroom door and returns to the backdoor where he finds Brooke checking out his handiwork.

              “Has anybody ever told you that you should have been a spy?”

              Max only smiles in response as he pulls up a kitchen chair from a round white table and climbs back into his boots. Brooke surveys the dark den and kitchen around her.

              “I’m hungry, how about you?” she says sheepishly.

              “I could go for some fuel. Look for anything high in carbs and protein that doesn’t need to be cooked; peanut butter is good, ramen, stuff like that, but remember, heavy is slow. I’m going to find some clothes.”

              After issuing these instructions, Max proceeds to replace the backdoor and repair the hinges. When finished he closes it and locks it behind him.

              “Hey, be on the lookout for flashlights. And one more thing, stay out of the master bedroom. There’s no danger but it’s not a pretty scene.”

              “Okay, and thank you for sparing me the details. I’m not sure of how much more of this stuff I can take.”

              “The second room on the left should have some things that will fit you. They’re boy’s clothes but I think he was probably about your size.”

Brooke’s countenance crumbles. The look on Brooke’s face tells Max that she is quietly building to an eruption of morality if he does not intervene. In the span of one night, she has gone from the heiress of a coffee fortune to a thief and accomplice to a kill. For Max (thanks to his father) this was all in his DNA –a fact that he struggles with now more than ever. For him it’s been all too easy to slip back into old habits. Brooke however, will forever be changed no matter what the outcome of this night. All of this is an affront to everything she believes in. The only thing that can preserve her innocence and restore her naiveté at this point is to wake up and discover that this had all been a bad dream. He wishes he could make that happen for her. Like a genie from a bottle, he would alter reality and return her to her bed just before the quake. She would wake at her leisure to the song of the morning dove and the smell of her beloved flowers. And him? He would erase himself from her mind if he could. His existence would be meaningless but that would be a small price to pay for her continued innocence.

“I know all of this is hard for you, but the sooner we can let go of old conventions the better our chances of surviving are. The family that lived here will not miss what we take. Where they are now, they have no need for material things. If it will help us to stay alive then collect it without guilt. Do you understand?”

Brooke nods reluctantly.

“And of course whatever you do, don’t let that dog out. I’ll have to come up with a way to free him safely later.”

              Brooke nods again, choosing once more not to speak and sets about her task of food gathering. Max heads down the hall to the master bedroom. Unfortunately, the teenage boy’s clothing will not fit him but from the looks of the father’s body, his would. As soon as he is out of sight and the door to the master bedroom closed behind him, Brooke heads for the laundry closet adjacent to the kitchen. She works quickly as she rifles through an overhead cabinet of various detergents and fabric softeners until she uncovers what she needs. The light is bleak but she recognizes the feel of the tall, round, plastic bottle of bleach. A few years ago –before she struck out on her own- she couldn’t have told a bottle of bleach from a bottle of cooking oil without reading the label. A lot had changed. And if you factor tonight into the equation, then the adjective ‘lot’ was an understatement. She takes the bottle to the kitchen sink and spins the cap off. Her hands shaking, she pours a generous amount over her damaged finger and then the entire hand. She uses a kitchen scrub brush to work the powerful oxidizer into her small wound. The pain is significant but she swallows a moan for fear of alerting Max to her dilemma. She turns on the tap and prays for pressure. Her prayer is answered by a strong rush of cold water. Moments later the sting has diminished. She shuts off the water, replaces the cap on the bleach and returns it the laundry closet. After taking a quick glance down the hall, she returns to the sink and un-spools a paper towel to dry her hand. Feeling a bit more in-control, she returns to the task of foraging.  

***

              Max stands just inside the closed bedroom-door, alone with his thoughts for what seems like the first time in a long time. He revisits his contemplations of the tragedy that had taken place in this room. It was impossible to see the family absent hope and without a future lying dead in the bed and not be reminded of his mother. Even with all that he has been through by this point in his life, he cannot fathom taking his own life to be free of it. He is -above all else- a fighter. The concept of giving up is as foreign to him as life on Mars. He views his current situation as a surreal and horrible obstacle to overcome –nothing more. If he sits still and dwells on the meaning of it all for too long a period he could become incapacitated. So, like a shark, he keeps moving to stay alive. He compartmentalizes his emotions and the tasks he must accomplish to survive and deals with them in a prioritized order. Without this ability, perhaps he too would have checked-out some time ago.