Evacuation (15 page)

Chapter Twenty-Five

2120 hours

“Hey, honey.”

I opened my eyes. A dream. It had all been a dream. “Alley,” I said.

The dark room had a trace of light from the hall; it spilled in through a triangle slice between the open door and the wall.

I didn’t recognize the room.

Where was I?

Cash?

“Cash?”
I said.

When I heard my voice, I knew. It was no dream. Cash was dead.

Allison hugged me.

“Where’s Charlene?” I said.

“Downstairs. Everyone is. The Terrigino brothers made us stew. Squirrel stew.” She laughed.

“I don’t think I can go down there right now.”

“You have to eat, Chase.”

It seemed like it had been days since my last meal.
Might have been. The idea of eating didn’t appeal to me. Not right now. I knew what I needed to do. “I have to bury my son.”

“It’s dark out. It’s late. There could be zombies out there,” she said, and took my hand. “Chase, Charlene is hurting badly. You should go downstairs and eat. Sit with her.”

Allison was right. Of course she was. How did I ignore my daughter’s pain earlier? “Where is she?”

“She’s been sitting by a window. I sat next to her for a while, figured she’d fall asleep, but she didn’t. She just stared at nothing, really.
Just kept on staring. It frightened me. I’m worried about her. You know she thinks this is all her fault. She needs you to tell her that it’s not.”

“I did. I told her that.”

“Chase,” Alley said.

“Help me out of here,” I said. I didn’t have the strength to sit up on my own.

Allison led me to the stairs. “The Terrigino’s have been very nice. Generous. Elysia and Crystal have been helping with the stew.”

“You said it was…”

“Squirrel.”

I cringed.

“Smells good.”

“Is that what I smell now?” I said. “Then you have horrible schnozzle on your face. That smells exactly like squirrel.”

Allison laughed.

I tried to smile. I knew what needed to be done.
Faking it. I needed to fake things from now on. Half of my entire purpose was gone. Dead. It would be near impossible to ever again function as whole.

As we got to the bottom of the stairs, I saw two things right away. The bedroom door where my son died was closed. Across from it, sitting on the ledge of a bay window, Charlene hugged her knees to her chest.

“Hey, baby,” I said.

Her head spun around. For just a moment, she looked at me. I worried I’d lost her. My neglect had frozen her heart toward me. I took a step toward her, my arms out in an attempt to apologize, when she climbed off the sill and ran at me. She wrapped arms tight around my neck.

“Daddy, I’m so sorry. I--I’m so sorry,” she said.

Allison gave my back a rub and made her way around us.

I sat my daughter down on the stairs, and then I sat next to her. I took her hands in mine. “Baby, it wasn’t your fault. I told you that.”

“I started all the shooting. I shot that Captain.”

“I know. You told me. You had a reason,” I said.

“Not a good enough one. He could have left.
Taken his boat and left. All we had to do was get off. I didn’t have to shoot him. Because I couldn’t control my temper, Cash is gone. He’s dead because of me,” she said.

I had to let go of her hands to wipe tears from her face, and brush hair from her eyes. “Charlene, you did nothing wrong. We’re going to get through this. Together, okay. In time, everything will be fine.”

It will never, ever be the same, I thought. And I really didn’t think everything would be fine, either. It was part of who I was now. A faker. An actor. I even smiled at my daughter as I lifted her chin. “I love you,” I said, which was true. “And we are going to get through this. All of this.”

“How?” she said.

How.

No idea.
None at all.

“What do we do next?” she said.

“I think for starters, we stay here for a bit, get some rest and some food.  I think I saw an actual bathroom up there, so we can take a shower,” I said.

“One down here, too.
Not too shabby for a log cabin,” she said.

“It’s a downright castle as far as I’m concerned,” I said, gave her a half smile. If I turned it up anymore, she’d know it wasn’t genuine. She’d call me out, point and accuse me of over-acting. “You eat yet?”

She put a hand on her stomach. “I couldn’t.”

“Me either. But I think that’s what we should do now.” I was about to stand up, but she stopped me.

“Dad.”

“Yeah, honey?”

“About Allison -- I never really gave her much of a chance,” she said.

“I never really brought her around you guys much. When it was my weekends, my days with you guys, I didn’t want to have to divide my attention.”

“I know. I knew that’s what you were doing. The times she did do stuff with us, I was not nice. I mean, I was never mean to her. She’d catch me looking her up and down, or maybe finishing a little sneer,” she said. “I didn’t like her. Not for you.”

“I’m sorry you felt that way,” I said. “I was just always alo--”

“No, Dad. What I’m saying is, that wasn’t fair. Of me. I knew you were alone. Working, and doing nothing. And then happy when you had Cash and I. I knew that. I was just jealous. Once you met Allison, I knew that you weren’t thinking about us all the time anymore. I felt like,” the tears started again, “I felt like we weren’t as important to you anymore.”

Why it was different with their mother, I had no idea. She was the one who wanted out of the marriage.
The one who wanted to be with Douglas, or Donald, or whatever his name was. Why didn’t Charlene feel that way about him? Her?

Maybe she did, or had.

“Charlene,” I said.

“Just let me finish. Since we’ve all been together, Allison has been nothing but great. She’s done a ton of hand holding and comforting. She sat with me for hours by the window while you slept, which was nice and everything, but what I liked about it most? She didn’t say anything. She didn’t talk at all. She didn’t try to reach out, other than by just being there with me.” She kissed me on the cheek. “I like her, Dad. I’m glad she’s part of our family.”

Charlene stood up, wiped her hands down her jeans, and then held them out to me. I took them, and she pulled me up onto my feet. “You know they made us squirrel stew?”

“You don’t say,” I said.
“Smells…mmmm…unique.”

Charlene laughed.

A real laugh. She hugged me again and I held her tight. I never wanted to release her. I needed to find a way to protect her for the rest of her life. There had to be a way. I’d find it, if it was the last thing I did. I’d find a way to keep her safe forever.

Chapter Twenty-Six

The stew was not terrible. Gamey and you knew you were eating a large rodent. The freshly diced vegetables and thick broth helped considerably. The dining room table inside the log cabin was long, and like the house, handmade.

I sat on one side between my daughter and Allison. Next to Allison was Crystal. Across from us were Dave, Sues, Palmeri and Spade. At the heads were the Terrigino brothers, Jeremy and Jason. Erway, a vegetarian, ate some carrots and potatoes while helping prepare the meal, and was now sound asleep on a sofa in the other room.

Allison didn’t seem to mind it, either. Charlene ate everything in front of her.

Dave and Sues stayed quiet during dinner. They sat close, but neither said a single word. I couldn’t figure them out. They’d bonded in such a weird way. It worked for them, but it kind of creeped me out.

“That was delicious,” Dave said. He set his napkin on his bowl and pushed back a little in his chair. I couldn’t tell if he meant it or not. Perhaps acting ran in our “family.”

Jason stood, “Would you like more? We have plenty.”

“I honestly don’t think I could eat another bite,” he said.

I wanted to applaud. Another actor indeed. Bravo. He’d told the truth, but in such a witty way as to not offend our gracious hosts.

“How about you, dear?”
Jason looked at Sues.

She dabbed her napkin at the corners of her mouth. “Are you sure there is enough? I would not want to appear rude by taking the last of your stew.”

Jason smiled. “My pleasure.”

He took her bowl and disappeared into the kitchen with it.

Dave and I looked at each other. He arched an eyebrow. I almost laughed out loud.

Jason returned, steam rising from a rounded full bowl of squirrel stew.

“Oh, that’s too much,” she said.

“Eat what you can.”

“I’ll never finish all of this. It would be a sin to waste food, especially during times like they are now,” she said.

“Whatever you don’t eat, I’ll finish,” Dave said.

Again, I had to hold back a laugh. Because he still arched that eyebrow at me.

“Well, there you go. Enjoy,” Jason said.

We all watched Sues shake out her napkin and place it back on her lap.

“How about anyone else?”
Jason said.

We all, at once, politely declined.

“How long have you and your brother been living up here?” Allison said.

Jason took a sip of water. “Our grandfather owned a parcel of land out here.
Spent his life clearing it. When he died, our father began building the log house. His dream was to move his family from Nova Scotia down to the states and live off the land.”

“Problem was,” Jeremy said, “he wasn’t a rich man.
Had to work. Only had so much time to dedicate to building the place. Jason and I helped as much as we could. Loved coming down here with him. He taught us not just how to build, but how to live off the land. We’d spend long weekends and holidays working here.”

“Drove our mother crazy,” Jason said.

“His heart gave out. Jason and I were with him. We didn’t have any way to get help, or call for an ambulance. We didn’t have cell phones then. Papa wouldn’t have allowed them even if they were around.”

“Place didn’t even have electricity at that point,” Jeremy said.

They weren’t far from a state park. There had to be park rangers, a main office, or a phone somewhere close. I wondered how old they were when the heart attack struck? Had to have been horrible for them.

“He was out in the woods. Been gone, I don’t
know, an hour or so?” Jeremy said.

Jason nodded.
“Sounds about right. Nothing unusual about it. I mean, we were in the wild, really. Nature. Someone’s gone for a spell; you don’t get all panicked. This wasn’t the city. I don’t know though, I guess we started to figure something might not be right and went looking for him.”

Jeremy stood up, picked up his bowl, and silverware. “Just wasn’t right.”

“Was nothing we could do. His skin was blue and cold. He’d been dead a while,” Jason said.

The room fell silent. Jeremy brought his dirty dish into the kitchen, and to be alone, I presumed.

“The land became ours And our mother’s. She wanted nothing to do with it, because she felt like the land was cursed. Our grandfather died on his way here, I guess. We didn’t know him. Just what our father told us.” Jason looked around, as if admiring the rafters and quality of the completed work. “Two generations of Terrigino men died here. Tried to tell our mother, wasn’t going to happen to Jeremy and me. We were younger, and stronger. When we finished building the place, we begged her to come see it, but she wouldn’t. Wouldn’t even look at pictures of the place. When I say she washed her hands of this land, I mean she scrubbed away even the
idea
of soil from under her nails.”

“The place is absolutely breathtaking,” Allison said.

“Thank you, dear. I appreciate that. My family appreciates that,” Jason said.

Jeremy emerged from the kitchen. “We don’t really have anything for dessert. I’m sorry about that. I’d have made Jell-O, or something.”

“Please, that’s all right,” Palmeri said.

I watched Spade. He’d been as quiet as Dave and Sues during dinner. He’d eaten silently, and just seemed to be taking everything in. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him, or know him, for that matter, but I felt like he was up to something. I just wished I knew what.

“But, I can brew us up some coffee. Would anyone care for a cup?”

Coffee did sound amazing. As much as I would love a cup, I didn’t want anything to hinder my sleep. There was no denying that it felt safe in here. The log cabin was like a fortress with enough weapons, and apparently food, to make anyone lower their guard and relax a little.

Only thing that would be better than a cup of coffee is a pack of cigarettes. Still missed the one Marfione had given me, the one I’d tucked behind my ear to smoke later, but never got the chance. I’d give most anything to have that cigarette back.

“I would love some,” Charlene said. She quickly added, “If it’s no trouble.”

“If it were trouble, dear, I’d not have offered.”

Spade’s jaw tensed. A ripple made its way up his cheek as if he’d ground his teeth together. I missed it. Something caused the reaction. I looked around casually; certain something was taking place that I just wasn’t seeing.

Jeremy stood half inside the dining room, half in the kitchen, his back and shoulder kept the swinging door from swinging. “I will just--”

Erway ran into the room. “Zombies are scratching at the windows!”