After Darkness Fell (18 page)

“She was taking a walk in our back yard. A couple of them came onto the property, grabbed her and took her away.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“Can’t say as I blame you. If it was me, this Simon bastard would already be dead.” He replaced the Glock underneath the table.

“He will be, as soon as I get her back.”

“There are prob’ly a lot of them.”

“I don’t care.”

“I admire your determination, son, but if ya don’t mind my saying so, you look tired and hungry. You’re gonna need some food and rest.”

I couldn’t even think of asking him to share what little food he had left. I could try to find something in one of the other houses down the street. I had to get going. I forced myself out of the comfortable chair. “It’s all right. I saw what they took from you. You can’t spare much, so I think I’ll be going. It was very nice...”

“Sit back down, young fella.”

“But...”

“You didn’t see what they
didn’t
take.” He got down on his knees and pulled up the bottom of the couch cover. Then, grabbing a sash handle, he yanked a large drawer out from beneath the sofa. The kerosene lamp was kind of dim, but I could see stacks of canned foods, jerky, bottled water, and jars of olives, pickles, and a bunch of other things.

I sat back down. “Wow.”

He grunted. “I’ve got food and supplies hidden all over this place. I keep a small supply of snacks on the kitchen counter for emergencies, like what happened earlier. I’ve got a small home generator hooked up behind the house. The freezer and two small refrigerators are hidden behind a secret wall in the basement.”

“I’m impressed.”

He pulled out a couple of cans and put them on the table. He grabbed a can opener and placed it on the table beside the cans. “Tuna all right? If you want a regular meal, it’ll take me a little while to heat up the...”

“Tuna’s just fine.” My stomach growled as I picked up the can opener and opened a can. Walter produced a fork and napkins and placed them on the table. I had a tasty mouthful of the moist, water-packed meat, and watched in delight as he placed a paper plate on the table, found a pack of salted crackers and a small brick of cheese, and arranged them on the plate. He dropped a cracker on the floor, picked it up, blew on it and put it on the plate. He saw me watching him. “Sorry about the manners. I don’t get visitors much anymore.”

I laughed. And for the first time since before breakfast, I actually had the feeling things might turn out.

Later, after I’d devoured a can of tuna, a small plate of crackers and cheese, and a large chunk of beef jerky, Walter told me to relax on the sofa. I wanted to protest, but my tired body strongly suggested otherwise. I lay back and immediately felt the tension leave my limbs.

Walter picked up the garbage, grabbed one of the lamps and shuffled off.

I lay amongst the soft cushions and listened as he ran water from the tap in the kitchen. I closed my eyes and imagined Fields bustling about in my grandmother’s kitchen, washing the dishes and putting them in the drainer. I imagined her coming into the living room to join me on the couch. I could practically smell the vanilla scent in her hair as she sat down next to me, and could feel it brush my face as it slid across her shoulder.

I opened my eyes, and when I saw the strange shadows flickering in the light from the lamp, I realized this wasn’t our home. Fields wasn’t here. Someone had taken her from me. I didn’t know exactly where she was, but that didn’t matter. She was my friend, my partner and the love of my life, and I was going to find her and bring her back.

I tried to relax, to let the food I’d just consumed strengthen me, settle my nerves. It was just enough to keep me going for the next few hours, and I was confident it would give me the stamina I needed. But I couldn’t stop thinking about Fields. I couldn’t stop worrying about her—wondering where she was, what she was going through, what they’d done to her.

Once again the rage within me erupted, but this time my struggle to keep it contained was less successful. I obviously didn’t want to fight it anymore. I wanted it right there, ready to go when the time was right. I’d be taking no prisoners and would see only payback when I finally faced the demons that had ripped my world apart.

I’m coming to get you, Fields
.

I hoped she’d hear me. I knew that even if she didn’t, she’d know I was out there, and that it would not be long before I rescued her. She’d know because she knew me. And in the last few months, she’d grown to know me better than anyone else ever had.

Walter came back and lowered his butt onto the cushion of the armchair. The lamp provided a fluttering orange haze onto the table between us, but I could barely see his face, and I was sure he could barely see mine. “You’re thinking about her again.”

“How could you tell?”

He chuckled softly. “Even in the dark, I can see that you look like a coiled spring.”

I didn’t reply; he was pretty perceptive.

“Try to relax, my friend. You need to be rested and ready to kick ass when you leave here.”

“I’m ready to kick ass right now.”

“I can tell. I’d probably feel the same way if someone had taken Madge away from me.”

“Every time I think of that, I want to...”

“Relax.”

I took a deep breath and lay back. It helped, so I closed my eyes and thought of other things. Despite my anger, my eagerness to jump up from the couch and rush outside to find her, I felt my exhausted body surrendering to the couch.

“How many others do you think there are?” Walter asked after a short silence.

“Like us?”

“Yeah.”

“Hopefully, more than we think.”

“I can’t help wondering where they are. If some of them have found one another and decided to stick together. Maybe a batch of them has decided to try and start things up again.”

“That would be too much to hope for. People like us are probably doing exactly what we’re doing.”

“Hiding?”

“It’s safer this way. Otherwise...”

“Yeah. You never know anymore. I’ve learned only one thing about people in my life, and that hasn’t changed in all these years. I learned it a long time ago, when I was a kid. They’re totally unpredictable.”

“That’s right. You never know what they’re gonna do.” I remembered a cooler filled with human penises, and a box crammed with human scalps. “For all we know, this Simon guy might have been a respectable business owner before all this happened.”

Walter stared at me for a few moments before he spoke. “My friend, people don’t change—not really. I’ve been around a long time. I’ve seen a lot of things—some good, some bad. Mostly bad, because people always tend to do the wrong thing when the pressure gets too much. This thing with Simon and his brood isn’t new. You know that as well as I do. Folks walking around with a few loose screws always look for ways to set themselves up above everyone else. Just about every administration I ever saw since I was a kid was guilty of that. It happened everywhere else, too. I was in grade school when this pint-sized character from the wrong side of the tracks—can’t recall the sick bastard’s name—made the news by starting up his own clan and sending his women to rob and murder innocent people. That happened in California, where they didn’t believe in killing murderers or psychos, so this nut job spent the rest of his days in prison.”

I knew what Walter was getting at. Fields practically said the same thing this morning, when we were going through the contents of the station wagon.

Besides, if what that kid had told me was true, the bastard had robbed a helpless old man, then pushed him down an abandoned well. Whatever he’d been before this no longer mattered.

“You’re right. It doesn’t matter what anyone used to be. What matters is what’s happening now.”

“People are either born good or bad. If they’re good, they’re gonna stay that way, no matter what. Otherwise, they’re gonna show their true colors at the first opportunity. I know this thing that killed off mostly everyone was bad—hell, it was horrible. But one thing it did do: it brought out everyone’s true nature.”

“A catastrophe usually does.”

“I don’t care if this Simon bastard was the damn pope. He’s a bad seed, and that ain’t gonna change. Look what he did with your lady. He went onto your place and took her. Not only is he a kidnapper, but he’s also a damn killer. He’s no different from that nut job in California. You send people out to do your killing for you, it makes you even guiltier than they are.”

Killer. I’d been called that many times before. And I
was
a killer. I’d been trained to kill, and for three years, I killed for my country. But the killing hadn’t stopped.

I had no idea who Simon was, where he was from, or if he had been trained to kill. All I knew was that he killed people he didn’t want around, people he didn’t need any more. He killed people who could no longer satisfy or gratify him.

I killed only for survival. Even if Walter was right, wasn’t the end result all that mattered? Was there any real difference between Simon and myself?

“So am I,” I finally said.

“You’re different, my friend.” He sat forward in the chair. “Whaddya think would’ve happened if those punks knew I wasn’t doped?”

Once again he was right. If they’d known Walter was rational, they would have considered him a threat and killed him.

“Don’t compare yourself to lowlifes like them,” Walter said. “You’re good. You’re decent. You put our mailbox back where it belonged. You knew it didn’t belong there, lying on the walk like that, so you picked it up and put it back. No one asked you to do that—you just did it. And you treated an old man you never even saw before with respect—don’t ever forget that. You didn’t know if I had a brain cell in my head that was still working, but that didn’t stop you from being a gentleman. You spoke kindly to me, the way gents talked to one another in the old days. Maybe you’ve killed people, but that don’t make you a killer—not deep-down. You’re a good man, and every once in a while you’ve got to do what’s necessary to survive. Sometimes that means killing someone. You’re not a killer, you’re a survivor.”

***

My eyes shot open.

That in itself was strange, because I couldn’t remember closing them. My thoughts reeled for a few moments as I struggled to piece together what might have happened. Then I remembered.

After talking with Walter, I’d lie back down, closed my eyes and tried to shut everything off, but all I could think about was getting back on the bike and looking for that abandoned farm. I knew I had to look for a place to hide while they brought Fields over to the well. And I had to find some way of killing them all without endangering Fields.

I wanted to leave, but my exhausted body kept telling me to lie there. I needed rest. Fields needed me to be rested when I went to find her. She knew I’d be of no use to her—or to myself—if I let the rage take hold of me. I needed to have a clear head and a clear state of mind.

My fatigue finally won out. It felt so wonderful to just lie there, so I didn’t move. The turmoil thrashing through me gradually vanished, and I surrendered to the exhaustion.

Sleep came quickly.

I sat bolt upright and gawked at the darkness engulfing me. The unfamiliar surroundings and smells drove me into an instant panic, but as my eyes adjusted, and I could distinguish the man sitting in the armchair facing me, my anxiety lessened. Consciousness drifted back, and with it, the last few hours. I sighed as the waves of panic within me ebbed back into nothingness.

“Walter?”

A snort. “Huh?” He shifted in the chair and pushed himself forward. He looked around the room, stared at me for a moment and yawned. “Guess I drifted off, too.” I heard the flick of a match. The haze from the kerosene lamp slowly added a soft orange haze flowing up from the table. The flickering shadows behind Walter could have been eerie figures lurking in the darkness.

I pushed my legs over the edge of the sofa and rubbed my eyes. “What time is it?”

Walter grunted into a standing position, hobbled over to the drapes and peered outside. “It’s still dark.” Yawning, he hobbled back to the chair and sank back into the cushions. “You were only asleep a couple hours. Go back and catch a few more winks. I’ll...”

“No.” I needed to be out there, hunting. I wasn’t sure if I’d heard a voice in my dream, if the voice belonged to Fields or if it was just my anxiety taking over. Whatever it was, I didn’t want to leave anything to chance. Bad things happened when you left things to chance. Bad things had already happened; I didn’t want them to worsen. “I’ve got to get out there. They could be bringing her out here to dump her somewhere right now.”

“Like I said, son, it’s still dark. They’ll probably wait till it’s light...”

“I can’t take that chance.” The more I thought about it, the more I could feel the panic struggling back. Even if I hadn’t actually heard a voice in my dream, I knew I hadn’t much time. Simon and his band of young thugs could already be on the road with Fields.

I picked up the Ruger and shoulder holster from the table and squeezed back into it. Then I slipped the .38 back in Fields’ pancake holster and slid the .22 Bobcat down my pants pocket. A bottle of water sat on the table, about a foot from the kerosene lamp. It was nearly half full. I took a healthy sip, then spilled some onto my opened palm and used it to splash my face. It did the trick, and I was instantly awake.