The Journal: Ash Fall (13 page)

She bounded away quickly into the house. I
dreaded the thought of Emilee’s mother asking Eric to bring her
back to Florida.

Neither of the kids attends school every day
now, and Wednesday was Emilee’s day off. The only children who went
every day are the ones who lived right in town and could walk the
few blocks. Gas was just too limited to take one child to school
and the buses used too much diesel.

Just as Emilee brought us two glasses of tea,
I saw Eric heading our way. “Emi, you might want to get another
glass for your dad,” I suggested.

Eric sat down at the picnic table and propped
his chin in his hands, elbows on the surface, a position I’ve come
to recognize. “Hi, Mom.”

“What’s on your mind, son?” I smiled and he
grinned.

“I want to ask you about using your
four-wheeler and the wagon a couple of times each week. I’ve been
talking to a few of the other parents, and we’d like to get a kind
of carpool going for getting the kids to school as cheaply as
possible. I know I could fit three kids in that garden cart you
use, the heavy duty one that attaches to the ATV. I could pick up
the other two kids on my way in, and then one of the other parents
would bring everyone home.”

“Kids in the garden cart isn’t exactly the
safest means of transportation, Eric,” I cautioned. “You need to
come up with something better.” Although the ATV would be the most
cost efficient.

JOURNAL ENTRY: June 7

The last of the chicks hatched out this morning.
After candling the four remaining eggs with a strong flashlight, I
could see the shells were empty. We set forty eggs and thirty-six
hatchings is a very good turnout.

With Eric’s method of guessing the sex, it appears
we have twenty-four hens and twelve roosters. If Jason takes six
hens plus a rooster, and Joshua takes the same, I can give the
community twelve hens and a rooster. That leaves me with nine to
butcher.

I washed out the incubator and sterilized it with a
spritz of bleach, and set it in the sun to dry. Tomorrow I start
collecting eggs again.

* * *

“Good morning, Miss Allexa,” Joshua said,
smiling at me. “I’ve brought you two gallons of milk and a pound of
cheese, just like I promised.”

“Thank you, Joshua, but that should be only
one gallon of milk,” I reminded him.

“Well, the extra gallon is for the kids. I
know Jason’s little boy will want some too, once he tastes it.”
Joshua beamed. “It’s real good milk.”

“I’m sure it is. Have you tried making butter
yet?” I asked, knowing my supply was getting low.

“No.” He looked down at the ground. “I don’t
know how,” he confessed.

“Wait right here.”

When I returned, I handed him a book on
making dairy products. “I’ve collected these ‘how-to’ books for
years, thinking that someday someone might need the knowledge. I
think that time is now.”

“Gosh, thanks, Miss Allexa!” he said, already
getting lost in the pages. I left him thumbing through the book
while I put the milk and cheese away. I broke off a small bit of
cheese and tasted it. It was a little bland, but it was indeed
cheese and creamy rich.

“Do you have enough salt to make your
cheeses?” I asked.

“Oh, we haven’t had salt in months so I’ve
learned to make things without it,” he said, still scanning the
pages of the dairy book.

“Wait right there a moment.”

I retrieved two one-pound boxes of salt from
the storage shed and placed them on the wooden table in front of
him. His look shifted from surprise to delight and finally to
disappointed resignation, all in a matter of a few seconds.

“Joshua,” I said sternly, “you’re going to
accept this salt as a gift from me. And don’t argue with me! Our
bodies need salt, and don’t function properly without it. In fact,
this could be a contributing factor to Martha not feeling
well.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” he replied politely in a very
humbled voice.

CHAPTER 13

June 8

I got home from the office early in the
afternoon, to find Jason and Eric unloading large panes of glass
from the pickup truck.

“Where did you find all those?” I asked,
watching them stack at least a dozen sliding glass doors near the
unfinished greenhouse.

“I got the list of abandoned houses from Ken
and Karen,” Eric said. “We were real careful, Mom, and took only
what we could use, and then boarded up the openings. There was one
house where we got most of these. It looked made of glass. The roof
was caved in, so we just took what was there.”

“It didn’t take us long, maybe two days, to
get all I’ll need to finish this up,” Jason piped in. “I’ll have to
redesign some of the braces, so we tried to stick with all glass
doors, sizes I know will fit, at least width wise. And they’re
tempered glass, which is what I would have ordered. I’ll just need
to add more cross members to the joists.”

“While he’s doing that, I’m going to start
pumping water up from the creek to fill the fish pond,” Eric chimed
in. “I’ve already got the gravel and sand ready to go in, and a
couple of rocks. I’ll finish that up, set the pump, and then help
him with the higher windows.”

“We need to start at the top and work down.
If there are any adjustments to make, it’ll be easier to do at
ground level. We should have this all closed in by tomorrow, Mom,”
Jason said proudly.

I surveyed the new structure, speechless. In
the southeast corner sat the fish pond, just waiting for water to
bring it to life. Around it, Jason had built benches that were
functional as stabilizers for the heavy plastic edge of the pond
itself, it would also add a place to sit to enjoy the room. Along
the south and southwest wall, the six grow boxes were filled with
rich black soil, begging to be planted. As of yet, the storage
space underneath was empty, and I hadn’t decided if I wanted doors
or to just leave it open.

In the northeast corner sat the extra wood
cook-stove that had been sitting in storage ever since I got it
from a Resort member. It was resting on a brick hearth, however, it
hadn’t been installed yet. There was time for that, it was only
June and we wouldn’t need heat in here until October at the
earliest.

So much had been done in so little time. I
couldn’t wait for John to see this!

June 9

Right after lunch, Emilee and I took a walk
down the road toward the small swampy area that formed the front
yard of the abandoned house next door. Doreen never came back to
reclaim it. In time, the house might be occupied again, so I had
made it off limits to my sons’ scavenging. I’d really like to see
Jason and Amanda move in there so they could be closer to us, but I
doubted that was going to happen any time soon.

“What are we looking for again, Nahna?” Emi
asked, skipping down the road, slightly ahead of me.

“We need some water flowers for the new fish
pond,” I answered. “I want those yellow flowers over there,” I
said, pointing to the Marsh Marigolds. “Those should be easy to dig
up, and we need to take a lot of the dirt around them so they feel
at home in the new pond.” I planned on wrapping the root ball in
old pantyhose to contain the dirt while it set in the water.

We climbed down the gentle slope to the damp
ground and surveyed what was available. The marigolds grew
prolifically at the edges of ditches and swamps, as long as they
had some dirt to hold on to. The cattails would tolerate deeper
water, but seemed to prefer “just wet”. We were in luck today. It
hadn’t rained in a few days so we weren’t going to get too soggy
digging up what I wanted.

“These are really pretty, Nahna,” Emilee
chattered. She dug the shovel around the clump of yellow-gold
blossoms. She stomped her foot on the blade’s shoulder a little
hard and was rewarded with a squirt of muddy water up her tanned
bare legs.

I laughed. “Maybe a bit slower won’t cause
such a splash.” She shrugged and lifted the clump into a waiting
bucket.

“How many do we need?” she asked.

“There are several flowers in each clump, so
just one will do, dear. We’ll need at least six of the
cattails.”

We dug and lifted, moved and carried for more
than a half hour. The little wagon we had brought with us was
full.

“This doesn’t look like very much Nahna,” Emi
observed.

“Uncle Jason knows where there are some water
lilies, so he will be getting the rest of what we will plant. You
did good, Emilee, and didn’t even complain about getting the muddy
water on yourself. I’m proud of you.”

“Well, it’s only water and dirt,” she said,
dismissing any girly revulsion. She’s a tough one.

CHAPTER 14

June 10

I was just starting to get something put
together for dinner when I heard Emilee screaming my name and
sobbing.

“Nahna! Dad’s hurt real bad!” she cried out
to me, running into the kitchen. “Some bad men came in the yard and
hit him. He yelled at me to run. Then he fell on the ground.”

I pushed her into the bedroom. “Stay
here!”

Before I could even get to the side door
where my shotgun was, a strange young man burst through the door.
The screen was no match for the violent rage that etched his pale
young face, and he literally ripped it to shreds. He was well over
six feet tall, lean and large with curly black hair and black eyes.
His eyes swept the room, coming to rest on me.

“What do you want?” I yelled at him as I
backed away. He growled and lunged at me.

He struck me hard with his fist on the left
side of my face and I instantly tasted the coppery blood that
started to fill my mouth when the soft inside tissue mashed against
my teeth. I staggered against the counter next to the hall,
grabbing the nearest thing and swinging it in his direction. The
heavy flashlight made a satisfying crunch when it connected with
his nose and slowed him enough for me to flee down the hall and out
of his reach. My foremost thought was to distract him away from my
granddaughter.

A few feet from the next doorway, on the
right side of the hall, hung my Dirk. A million thoughts ran
through my head as my brain registered what my eyes were seeing. I
remembered when I bought that sword five years ago from a local
knife smith. With an overall length of twenty-three inches, the
dagger shaped blade was a full sixteen inches and hefty in weight
yet perfectly balanced. When I showed it to my brother, he insisted
on putting a razor sharp edge on it for me. Hanging at an angle, it
rested in its decorative wooden scabbard. I reached out and grabbed
the hilt, sending the polished wooden sheath clattering to the
tiled floor. The hair on my neck twitched and I could feel the guy
getting closer. I took two more long steps then pivoted low, the
blood pounding in my ears. With both hands now holding the heavy
weapon, I braced myself, putting my weight and my fear into the
force, aiming for the vulnerable spot just below the sternum.
Whoever this monster was, he impaled himself on the blade as he
came at me. I was a good twelve inches shorter than him and the
blade entered low. His thin black t-shirt and soft pink skin
offered no resistance to the sharp blade and it slid in easily. I
used his surprise to my advantage and angled the sharp steel
upward, slicing an opening six inches wide, ripping through any
organs that were missed by the first impact.

His hot and sticky blood gushed over my hands
as I pushed the blade even deeper, and his frozen look of surprise
changed to anguish, and then the light went out of his dark,
menacing eyes. He fell, pulling me down with him.

I struggled to get him off of me, and managed
to liberate one of my legs. I kicked and shoved with my foot,
rolling him enough to free myself from his dead weight. Emilee
screamed again, this time in pain.

Anger now raging through me, I put my foot on
the unmoving chest, pulled the Dirk free and raced to the living
room, the still warm blood dripping from the blade.

When I made it into the kitchen, another man,
slightly smaller than the first one, was dragging Emilee by her
ponytail.

“Let. Her. Go!!” I screamed at him, my chest
heaving as I struggled for breath. He sneered at me and turned
toward the door, right into the brushed steel barrel of Eric’s .357
Smith and Wesson.

“No one hurts my kid!” Eric growled through
clenched teeth.

My son didn’t even hesitate. He stuck the gun
under the guy’s chin and pulled the trigger, scattering pinkish
gray brains, hair, and bits of white bone on my ceiling.

“Don’t worry, Mom, I’ll help you clean up,”
Eric said calmly. I could see the seething hatred and fury in his
dark blue eyes.

He knelt and clutched his daughter. “You did
real good, Emi. You did exactly what I told you to do and now
you’re safe.” He kissed her temple as she sobbed. “Shhh, shhh, Emi,
we’re okay now. They’re gone and we’re safe again.” He looked up at
me, seeing my blood soaked shirt and the dripping blade in my hand
for the first time.

“Mom? Are you okay?” he whispered, worry
filling his eyes.

“Yeah. What about you?” I managed to get out
before I started shaking uncontrollably, dropping the Dirk to the
floor.

“I’m thinking a couple of bruised ribs where
they kicked me,” Eric said.

“Dad, I think I’m going to be sick,” Emi
whimpered.

“Into the bathroom, quick,” Eric said,
ushering his little girl past me.

My own stomach lurched as I stared at the
body on my kitchen floor. I hurried to the sink and spewed bile,
blood and iced tea into the drain. I coughed and went into dry
heaves. Pulling a steadying breath, I rinsed my mouth to rid myself
of the foul taste.

“I think Dr. Mark should look you over,” I
said to Eric after he brought Emilee out of the bathroom. She was
pale and shaky.