Dark Road Page 2

  The girl’s room was just as picked over and with nothing to find in the closet. The third room was an empty guest room. The last room was the master bedroom and Dan almost didn’t go in.

  This room had no furniture, except for the bedframe, a stand mirror, and a couple of under bed Rubbermaid boxes which had already been gone through. He didn’t feel like going through the picked-over stuff. He was already feeling a little uneasy about going through the house on his own and he’d only been here for ten minutes. It wasn’t that there was any rule about picking over the empty homes by yourself; it was just that this was Carey’s neighbor and everyone knew that Carey and the Taylors didn’t get on well…and now he was starting to have second thoughts about being in here for too long on his own.

  Dan did a quick check under the sinks in the master bathroom to be sure nothing was missed and found a bar of Irish Spring, still in the box, and a disposable razor. Next was the closet. He turned on the flashlight that he’d only turned on three other times since June, to make sure it still worked. The Browning gun safe was still there; Carey still hadn’t tried to pry it away from the wall. Mr. Taylor had done too good a job of bolting it to the studs and the floor and it just wasn’t moving. Too bad, maybe Mr. Taylor had left some of his guns behind.

  Dan looked up at the ceiling and the dangling cord for the pull-down attic stairs. Dan had been with Carey on almost all of the initial walkthroughs of empty houses after people had either left or passed away. For the first six or eight homes, Carey had gone up into the attic himself, or had one of his lackeys do it, to see if there was anything worth “collecting”. The vast majority of them had held empty suitcases, if anything at all, and after another half dozen or so, Carey had called off searching them.

  It was Dan’s hope that Carey had neglected the attic of the Taylor’s house as well. Dan grabbed the cord, pulled down the folding stairs, and got a smattering of dust, pink fiberglass, and grey, papery insulation in the face. Most likely he was going to be the first to go up.

  The creaking of the springs and metal joints sounded incredibly loud in the otherwise silent house. Like his own attic there were a dozen or so sheets of plywood lain down between the rafters to walk on and support the odd bits of junk that you didn’t want to leave in the garage but just couldn’t bear to part with.

  There were the two heating units, and the light switch that didn’t do anything anymore, and, of course, a couple of suitcases that hadn’t been taken. There were, however, what looked like a couple of sleeping bags in stuff sacks that appeared to have been up here for a couple of years and forgotten about. Those could come in handy. They were on the far end of where the plywood was in the attic, where Dan had to stoop down to keep from hitting his head as the roof was sloping down, and he was about as far from the opening back down to the closet as he could get.

  From this vantage point he panned the flashlight back and forth across the attic again to see if there was anything else that he’d missed, or couldn’t see while standing on the steps. On the third pass he caught the brief reflection of something on the back of the rafter that held the light switch for the attic. He carried the sleeping bags back to the stairway, set them down, and examined a nail driven into the rafter. Hanging on the nail was a single key—a key with the word “Browning” on it.

  Chapter Three

  Dan’s heart was racing and his mouth went completely dry. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, willed himself to relax, and then opened his eyes again to make sure the key was still there. Yup, still there, swinging just a little because he’d exhaled on it. “Ok, now take it before someone else comes along, you idiot,” he said to himself.

  With key in hand, and sleeping bags now tossed carefully into the closet so as not to tear on the stairs or the wire closet shelves, Dan descended the folding stairs. Once the attic stairs were closed, it was time to try to open the safe.

  The first attempt was a bust. Teeth up and the key wouldn’t even go into the slot. Duh. Ok, how about teeth down? Quit shaking. Man, I’m going into shock; I need to get this over with and get home, I’m no good at this stuff, Dan thought to himself. The key at least fit the lock, and it turned. Spin the handle, which way? Does it matter? Try left, nothing. Try right, spinning; one, two, three full spins. Pull. Oh…my…Marissa is going to freak out! For the first time in almost five weeks, Joel Taylor’s gun safe opened.

  Dan was not a pacifist but he wasn’t a gun enthusiast either. He was an EMT for crying out loud; while he spent most of his time scraping people off the highway he’d seen the really nasty side of what firearms could do and had never really been that excited about owning one. He was enough of a realist to admit that if he and his family were going to leave they would need to be able to protect themselves, though.

  He hoped that what he was looking at would be enough to do that. Joel hadn’t left much but he’d apparently realized that he either wasn’t going to need, or wouldn’t have room for, everything he owned. He’d left what looked like a shotgun, a small rifle, most probably a hunting rifle, and a couple of pistols.

  Dan wasn’t sure of anything in the gun cabinet; he hadn’t grown up around guns like his wife had and, frankly, knew very little about them. He was reasonably sure that given enough time he could figure out how to use one but he was also secure enough in his manhood to be willing to ask his wife “how do I use this thing?” if he had to. This was clearly a case of having to ask if he’d ever seen one. Dan was, however, willing to bet that the bullets on the shelves of the safe matched what was left behind.

  He grabbed the larger of the two handguns, careful to keep his finger as far as possible from the trigger, and examined the gun, also keeping his face away from the end of the barrel. He’d seen enough guns, rifles, and pistols, to know that many of them had the caliber marked somewhere on them and this one was no different. On the left-hand side, next to the manufacturer—he assumed—and among other things, was stamped ‘9mm’. As there were several boxes also marked 9mm on the shelves, he felt pretty confident that those bullets would work in this gun.

  “Ok, don’t be greedy. The key works and I can come back. One box, the gun, go talk to Rissa and then we see about what to do next.” Dan muttered. Dan closed the safe after putting the pistol in one jacket pocket and the box of bullets in another and then tried the key one more time just to be sure. Good, the key still worked and he could get back in later if he decided to. He closed the safe for the final time, spun the dial, and checked the handle…locked. Dan sighed.

  With one sleeping bag in each hand, the soap and razor in the same pocket as the bullets, and the space bag under his arm, he headed towards the front door. “Keep cool,” he kept telling himself. “This is all you found, you aren’t hiding anything.”

  Dan made it almost all the way to the sidewalk in front of the Taylor’s house before Carey called his name. Dan about dropped the space bag when he started at his name and then turned around, keeping the side pocket with the gun in it away from Carey while, unfortunately, keeping the bulkier pocket with the bullets towards him.

  “So, looks like we missed some stuff in there after all?” Carey said. “Where’d you find the sleeping bags?”

  “I, um, actually went up into the attic.” Dan was trying almost too hard not to be nervous and failing miserably. He kept looking around and couldn’t look Carey in the eyes for more than half a second.

  “Anything else in there worth finding?” Carey asked.

  “Um, no, not really,” Dan replied.

  “Well, what’s in your pocket then?” Carey pointed to the squarish bulge in Dan’s right-front coat pocket.

  Dan panicked for half a second and then had what he hoped was a flash of genius. “Oh, there were actually a couple of bars of Irish Spring still in their boxes under the master bathroom sink.” Dan set down the sleeping bag he was holding in his right hand and reached into his pocket and pulled out the one bar of soap, leaving the box of bullets to continue to leave a square
impression at the bottom of his pocket. Now that he thought more about it, they were just about the same size at the end and Carey couldn’t see the top, just the bottom impression.

  “You want the other one?” Dan asked.

  Carey wasn’t even looking at Dan’s pocket anymore, he was just looking at the box of soap, and if he looked any harder Dan thought he’d begin to drool. “Well, that’d be awfully nice of you Dan, awfully nice. I appreciate that quite a lot. Cleanliness is next to Godliness; that’s what they say!” Carey said as he took the offered bar.

  “Yes sir, that’s what they say.” Dan replied.

  “You’ll be sure to let me know if you find anything else useful won’t you. You sure you’re going to need those sleeping bags?” Carey asked.

  “Yes sir, we are. You never know when it’s going to start cooling off and we don’t want the girls to get cold.” Dan said.

  “I understand, got to keep those kids safe and snug in their beds. We’ll see you a little later on for the fuel gathering then.” And Carey turned around headed back towards his house. The soap had already disappeared into his coat pocket.

  Dan grabbed the sleeping bag he had put down, held both of them in front of his pockets, and didn’t stop walking until he was home.

  …

  “Rissa, c’mere,” Dan called when he arrived home what felt like six hours later, but was really more like five minutes. There was no answer so he called again. Eventually, he got a muffled response from the back yard.

  Dan walked through the house, setting down the sleeping bags and the space bag, and walked into the back yard. Marissa was hanging up clothes to dry and had a bunch of clothespins in her mouth. Bekah and Jessie were playing in the back yard; Bekah on the swing set, Jessie in the sandbox.

  Bekah jumped off the swing and ran to give her dad a hug. “Daddy!” Jessie was thoroughly engrossed in a dry moat.

  “Hey, honey. I’ve only been gone for twenty minutes.”

  “I know, I missed you anyway.” She hugged him again and went back to the swing.

  Dan chuckled and turned to his wife.

  “I love you.” He said.

  “Mm muv moo moo.” She mumbled around a mouthful of clothespins.

  “Got a light?” He asked.

  She shot him a look that would have frozen water. That was his cue to get his butt in gear and help her hang the laundry.

  “You’ll never believe what I found in the Taylor’s house.”

  “Chocolate?” She asked.

  “Alas no, but I did find two sleeping bags. They were in the attic,” Dan said. “I also found one of those giant vacuum bags with I have no idea what inside it.”

  “I was hoping for chocolate.”

  “I’m beginning to see a pattern here with the chocolate. I’ll put that at the top of the foraging list tomorrow, promise.” Then Dan made one of those ‘notes to self’, it’d apparently been a month.

  “Ok, you evidently found something else; it’s written all over your face. What else did you find?” Marissa asked.

  They were hanging up the last couple of things so Dan kept his mouth shut until they were done. He grabbed the laundry basket in one hand and Marissa’s hand in the other. “Girls, stay in our back yard, OK? Bekah, watch your sister. Mommy and I will just be inside for a couple of minutes. We’ll leave the door open.”

  The “OK Daddy” from his daughters sounded like stereo speakers set a little too close together.

  He took Marissa into the bathroom, the one room downstairs with no window, and closed the door.

  “What are you doing?” She asked.

  “Shhh, just wait.” Then Dan turned on his flashlight and pulled out the pistol and the box of bullets.

  “Where did you get a, that’s a 9, Taurus, give me the flashlight.” Marissa said.

  Marissa examined and cleared the pistol, being careful to keep her finger away from the trigger and pointed towards the shower wall, which was the outside wall and away from Dan and the kids, at all times.

  “Ok, where’d you get it?” Marissa asked.

  “I found the key to the Taylor’s gun safe. It was in their attic, hanging on a nail in a rafter.” Dan said, still not sure if she was happy or not.

  Marissa put the gun down and flung herself at Dan, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him all over the face. “I take it you’re pleased?” Dan said.

  “Pleased? I’m ecstatic! I know you don’t like guns but, well, if we’re going to leave we’re going to need at least something. This is great.”

  “Then I think you’ll love this, there’s more.” Dan said. “You know I don’t know much about guns but I’m pretty sure there is a shotgun, another pistol and a hunting rifle in the safe. I don’t know how many bullets are in there but there were a bunch of boxes.”

  Marissa needed a couple of seconds to take it all in before she could respond but when she did it was with a “Squeeeee!”

  “Ok, put that back in your pocket, same with the ammunition—the rounds. I love you, but they are rounds or ammo, not bullets. The bullet is just the part that comes out the end.” She gave him another kiss. “We need to put these away somewhere and then we are going to need to get more out of that house.” After he had the gun and ammo stowed, they came out of the bathroom and sat down on the couch where they could see the girls. Marissa had made sure the handgun was clear and safe before she put it back down.

  “The sleeping bags will help too, now and on the trip. Both of the girls have slumber bags for sleepovers and trips to the grandparents, but once it gets cold it will be nice to have something extra to put over the beds, or just have the kids sleep in them in the first place.” Dan said.

  “I was just wondering about that. Let’s take a look at them and see if they need to be cleaned or not. At the very least, they probably need to be aired out.” Marissa was thinking out loud.

  The stuff sacks were dusty on the outside but the sleeping bags were perfectly serviceable. It looked like they had been upgraded out of and the Taylors had maybe gone with lighter or more all-season bags. The tags said 25-degrees but neither Dan nor Marissa believed they would be good down to that cold.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Dan said.

  “Me too, but you go first,” Marissa replied in a decade and a half old ritual that had started when they were dating in college.

  “We need to move downstairs.” Dan said. “It’s going to be a lot of work to get the mattresses and everything else down here but, well, heat rises and all that and…there are a lot of reasons.”

  Marissa stopped stuffing the sleeping bag into the stuff sack and looked at Dan, for a few seconds and then nodded her head. “Yeah, I can see that. We spend a lot of energy we don’t really have going up and down the stairs every day.”

  “That’s exactly what I was thinking as I was carrying the sleeping bags downstairs at the Taylor’s house this morning,” Dan said. “We can put the kids’ mattresses together for one big bed and they can share body heat, assuming we’re still here once it starts getting cold. We won’t have to worry about keeping the whole house warm, especially if we keep the upstairs bedroom doors closed.”

  “I just wish we had a real fireplace in this house instead of that fake thing,” Marissa tossed her head at the gas-log fireplace that the original owners had chosen when the home was built. “I can’t believe we’re talking about the fireplace in August.”

  “It isn’t going to be summer forever but it’s not going to matter much longer, sweetheart. Besides, this brief cool spell this summer has been murder and we have no idea what the weather is going to bring other that what we can see, and what your joints tell us a couple of days ahead of time.” Dan reached out to squeeze his wife’s hands and gave her a knowing smile. “They’ve been pretty accurate so far after all.”

  “Yay me! Chalk one up for inflammatory arthritis or RA or fibro or vindictive anemia or whatever the hell it is that I have because nobody can seem to figure it out.” Ma
rissa replied. She was actually doing pretty well today for both not having slept well for a couple months and now seriously running out of both the pain medication and muscle relaxants which kept her out of almost excruciating pain on a daily basis.

  Marissa held up her hand before Dan could say anything and continued, “I know, I know, I’m not being bitter. I’m actually feeling pretty good today but I’m still processing a trek of unknown duration to an as of yet undetermined location to people who may or may not be there and might not welcome us when we arrive, and who just maybe don’t want any visitors.”

  “I don’t want to starve to death here, Marissa.” Dan said flatly.

  Marissa sighed, “Neither do I and I certainly don’t want that for the girls.” Marissa stopped and hung her head.

  Dan got up and moved over to the couch to sit by his wife and put an arm around her. “I can’t pretend to know what you are thinking or have any idea in the world how hard it is going to be for you.” Marissa put her head on Dan’s shoulder and tried to relax a little. “It would probably add some time to the trip, depending on where we head, but I want to go by the fire station on the way out. It’s possible that there might be some things we could use, including some meds for you, to help make what we have last.”

  Marissa put her arm around Dan and squeezed, nodding her head against his shoulder. She didn’t trust her voice just then.

  Chapter Four

  “I’m going to the library today, Rissa,” Dan said. His admission that there had been a couple of sleeping bags in the Taylor’s attic had renewed Carey’s interest in the attics of the abandoned homes. Couple the steadily rising number of sick in their small community with the fact that Carey and the Board were again taking a closer look at people’s houses, to the point that nothing was sacred, and Dan was seriously worried.

  “Do you really think there’s anything there to find?” Marissa asked.