The Journal: Ash Fall (14 page)

Her lip quivered, and she averted her eyes
from the corpse on the floor. “Can I sit in the other room,
Dad?”

He gently held her by the shoulders. “Yes, in
a minute. First you need to look at this. I know it’ll be hard, but
look at this bad man. He was truly evil, and this is what we do to
evil people, Emilee. Can you do this for me?” She nodded, looked at
the cooling form lying on the floor, and then started to cry.

* * *

Mark stood just inside the door, taking in
the scene of the pooled congealing blood and the splattered goo
that was once brains. “My, God! What happened here?” he
exclaimed.

“We don’t know who these guys are or where
they came from,” Ken said, “and it seems that they were trying to
steal Emilee.” He paused, wiping his hand over his damp face.
“There were two other children in the back of their van, tied and
gagged, but alive.”

“Who has the worst injuries?” Mark asked,
shaking off the shock of the violent aftermath.

“I think Eric’s ribs are broken,” I said.
Mark looked over at me and I could see the concern in his face.
“The blood isn’t mine,” I said, answering his unasked question, and
my stomach felt queasy again.

“Take care of the kids first, Doc, I’ll
wait,” Eric said flatly. Mark nodded at Eric and followed Ken into
the living room, where Karen was trying to soothe the two other
children.

* * *

“The kids are deeply shaken, and thankfully
there are no injuries other than a few bruises,” Mark informed us
after examining the children. “They’re very lucky.” He looked over
at my son and then back at me. “Eric, take off your shirt please
and let me see those ribs.”

Eric couldn’t pick his arms up above his
head. Fortunately, he was wearing a buttoned shirt, and once
unfastened, we slid it down his arms. He was covered in bruises;
the worst were on his back where the hardest kicks landed.

“Emi was weeding along the grape vines toward
the road and I was working on the new compost patch by the porch
when the van pulled into the driveway all the way to the house,” he
told us, wincing while Mark gently felt around the ribs. “They
didn’t say a word. They just got out, walked up to me and sucker
punched me. That’s when I yelled at Emi to run. She’s fast.” He
grinned. “Those 5K races she’s done with me paid off.” Eric coughed
and moaned.

“She was long out of reach when the first guy
took off after her, then the second one started to kick me when I
tried getting up. I pretended like I had passed out, and he took
off, following his partner over here. I figured if they were
leaving me alone, it was Emilee they were after, and that was not
going to happen.” He coughed again and almost passed out.

“Stop talking, Eric,” Mark ordered. “That
makes you breathe harder. I can feel two possibly broken ribs. I’d
like to take an x-ray to be sure that’s all it is.”

Mark turned to me. “And now for you.”

“Like I said, this blood isn’t mine. It
belongs to the guy in the hallway.” Everyone turned in that
direction. “Don’t worry, he’s not going anywhere. And I would like
him out of my house as soon as possible!”

“Well, Allexa, some of the blood is yours,”
Mark said, lowering his voice. “Apparently you haven’t looked in a
mirror. You’ve got a nasty cut on your lip and a rather large
contusion on your cheek. Open your mouth and let me look.”

My jaw was feeling pretty stiff and it was
difficult to open very wide. Mark put on fresh surgical gloves and
swabbed the inside of my left cheek with a gauze pad. I was shocked
to see how much blood covered it. After two more swabbings, the
pads were barely pink.

“Ouch!” I yelled when he wiped my face and
lip with some chilled saline.

“Ouch? That’s coming from the woman who wants
to do her own stitches? Sissy.” He smiled and wiped again. I knew
he was trying to keep things light in a very serious situation, so
I swallowed my next moan, though I couldn’t mask the flinch.

“Cold compresses on the face and lip for the
next forty-eight hours. I don’t think the lip will need stitches.”
Mark pulled off the gloves and tossed them in a plastic bag he had
used for the bloody bandages.

“As for these two,” he straightened, looking
down at the floor. “I pronounce time of death,” he glanced at the
clock, “at 5:30 P.M. for this one, and make it 5:28 P.M. for the
one down the hall.” Ken jotted down the times in his notebook.

“Cause of death?” Ken asked. We all looked at
him as though he was kidding.

“I don’t think the coroner will accept
‘stupidity’,” Mark grumbled, “so make it a gunshot wound for this
one, and…” He looked at me and said, “You did say he impaled
himself, right?”

“More or less,” I responded.

“Close enough. Blood loss from a
self-inflicted wound for the one in the hallway,” Mark
concluded.

“Lenny and Jason are on the way to help move
the bodies,” Ken said. “I say we just leave them in the back of the
van for now. By the way, when we got the children out of the back,
I noticed the license plate was missing. The idiots had just tossed
it inside and it was under the blanket used for the kids. I’ve
already called it in for an ID.”

“Emilee, while Dr. Mark has your dad at the
office, I need to start cleaning in here, and get cleaned up
myself,” I said to the still shaken little girl. I just can’t wrap
my brain around what might have happened.

Her little lip quivered again. “Don’t leave
me alone, Nahna.”

“I won’t, sweetie, I promise. We are all safe
and I don’t want you to be afraid,” I told her. “I’m going to show
you how we can lock the doors and be safe, and still get fresh air
in here, okay?” She nodded, tears glistening on her brown
eyelashes. The day was still warm and the house now harbored
strange and unpleasant odors. I wanted some windows open to air the
place out.

We locked and bolted the back door, then
opened that window to let in some air. The deck door had the same
type of door set up, and Emi did that one once I showed her how to
lock the window preventing it from opening any further. There would
be no ventilation through the glass door, and that was ok. And
since the larger window hadn’t been replaced yet from the shoot-out
with the Wheeler gang, we skipped that one and opened a window in
the hall, fitting a rod in at the top.

“Do you feel better now, enough for me to
take a quick shower and change clothes?” I asked her. I couldn’t
wait to get out of these bloody clothes, even though I would have
to change yet again once I cleaned up the mess. The bodies were now
gone, however, there was so much blood everywhere!

“Yes, Nahna. You look really bad so a shower
should help,” Emilee replied in a grown up voice.

I chuckled over that until I looked in the
mirror. My face was swelling and already showing signs of bruising;
there were dark streaks of dried blood flowing down my neck and
arms; and how that much blood got in my hair I’ll never know. I
removed my clothes with shaky hands, depositing the soiled garments
in the washer. I would rather have burned them, but many things are
irreplaceable now, so they’d get washed.

The hot water stung my face as I stepped into
the shower. I didn’t care. I rinsed and washed, then rinsed again,
watching the red water swirl down the drain. I washed my hair again
and again until the water ran clear.

* * *

“Eric has one fractured rib and lots of deep
bruising, although nothing that would endanger his life,” Mark told
me when he brought Eric back after taking the x-rays. “I also think
he should spend the night here, or you there, in case any problems
crop up. Both of you need watching for the night.”

“Why do I need watching?” I asked.

“There’s always a chance of a concussion, and
that’s also why I can’t give you anything for the pain that might
make you drowsy. I’m sorry. As much as you need to rest, you have
to do it naturally, not with chemicals. I don’t want you sleeping
so deeply that you can’t wake up, Allexa,” he explained further.
“Eric would be better off sleeping reclined, not flat on his back.
The ribs are going to be very painful for the next few weeks.”

“I know. I cracked two ribs a few years ago
and could barely breathe for three months. Emilee will keep an eye
on him,” I smiled. “Thank you, Mark, for all you’ve done today.
It’s good to have you around.”

“I’ll be back in the morning to check on you.
Now try to get some rest.” His deep blue eyes roamed over me,
filled with sadness and compassion.

Just then Chivas came bounding into the room,
skidding to a halt at Eric’s feet. She looked up at her master,
cocked her head and sat down. She pushed his hand with her nose,
then licked him gently and settled down at his feet. She may be a
young pup, but I think she knew that something was very wrong.

June 11

“I can’t thank you enough for helping me
clean up last night, Amanda,” I said, giving her a gentle hug. The
gentleness was for me, I ached all over! I was relieved when she
showed up after the bodies were removed to help me clean and put
the house back to rights.

“Anything else we can do?” she asked, her big
brown eyes sweeping over me with such sadness. Jason was so quiet I
almost forgot he was there.

“Yes, there is. Knock it off!” Amanda and
Jason both looked startled.

“Yes my face is bruised and it hurts. I got
slugged! And the rest of me aches because that weirdo fell on me!
Otherwise I’m fine, okay?” I crossed my arms defiantly. “Go check
on your brother, he’s the one with the broken bones.” I gave them a
forced smile and shooed them out the door.

I was glad to finally be alone. The emptiness
left behind when the adrenaline finally dissipates in the system
can be overwhelming. I could feel myself starting to shake, and
those darn tears were prickling behind my eyelids, threatening to
escape in a body-wracking sob.

I heard a car pull up in the driveway. My
sob-fest would have to wait.

* * *

Mark shined a light in my eyes. “How are you
feeling this morning? Any headaches? Nausea?” He gently probed the
developing bruise. “How did you sleep?”

“If you stop asking questions, I’ll answer!”
I protested then laughed. Laughter was better than the tears that
were still threatening. “No headaches, no nausea, except when I
think about those scumbags touching my granddaughter! And I slept
restlessly, I ache everywhere. I think I’m going to soak in a hot
tub tonight.”

“How are you feeling emotionally, Allexa?”
Mark asked gently, obviously concerned. “It isn’t every day you
kill someone.”

“Is this a professional visit, doctor, with
all the confidentiality in place?”

He looked at me for a moment, the concern
back in his eyes, and then said, “Yes, of course.”

“Okay.” I took a deep breath. “I’m familiar
with how adrenaline reacts in the body during stress or extreme
fear. It gives us the strength to do things otherwise difficult, if
not impossible.”

“That pretty much sums it up.”

“That can be physical strength or emotional
strength, and I think I had a jolt of both yesterday. The rebound
effect, that adrenaline dump, has left me shaky and on the edge of
tears,” I said. “But… this isn’t the first time I’ve had to kill a
person, Mark, and I certainly don’t want to think that it’s going
to get easier.”

“What happened, Allex?” he asked in a
whisper.

I told him all about Bill Harris and the
events that led up to my shooting him last December. When I was
finished, I wiped my eyes, embarrassed.

“What did Jason say after that happened?”
Mark asked.

“I haven’t told anyone this, not even John,”
I replied. “Only my brother knew, and Ken and Karen.” All the dark
emotion I’d been harboring slowly drained out of me. It was good to
unburden the memory.

“You’ve kept all this bottled up inside for
months? You’re stronger than I gave you credit for.”

“Well, I don’t feel strong,” I snapped. “I
feel weak and vulnerable. I feel stupid and girly for wanting to
cry.”

He laughed. “You are a girl though, a very
nice one I might add. If you want to cry, then cry, Allexa. You’re
experiencing a form of PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, and
that doesn’t go away overnight. In the ER back in Saginaw, I’ve
seen seasoned cops fall apart after a shooting. Don’t be hard on
yourself, just feel those emotions, whether it’s anger, regret or
guilt, and you should go through all of those feelings, just feel
them, know it’s normal, and then let it go.”

Mark reached toward me, hesitated, then with
one finger, lifted my chin so my eyes met his. “Now that I know, if
you ever need to talk, don’t hesitate to call. Okay?”

“Okay.”

He looked at me for a minute and stood. “This
might be unprofessional of me, but I think you need this.” He
wrapped his arms around me for a very satisfying hug and I leaned
into his strength.

* * *

“We ran the plates, and the van was stolen in
Wisconsin. No surprise there. Identifying these two pieces of trash
was easy, they both had wallets,” Karen said when she stopped over
to give me an update. She shook her head in disbelief. “The big
guy, the one who, ahem, died of blood loss, was a registered
pedophile. The other one was clean, no record at all, though I’m
guessing he had just never been caught.”

“What about the children?”

“There are two very relieved and thankful
parents in Crystal Falls. The children are brother and sister by
the way, ten and eleven years old,” Karen answered. “From what we
can piece together, and it’s all speculation mind you, is that
these two stole the van, crossed over the state line in a small
town to avoid the checkpoints, and headed to another small town to…
hunt. They grabbed the two kids at a park yesterday morning.” She
sipped the coffee I set down in front of her. “We figure they were
looking for a quiet, remote spot to… finish whatever they had
planned when they spotted Emilee and couldn’t resist taking one
more.” I could hear the disgust in her voice.