Fade to Grey (Book 2): Darkness Ascending (46 page)

Memories of being covered in frozen green slush jumped
to the forefront of my mind and I began to chuckle. She joined in, and a moment
later we were bumping shoulders and holding our guts with laughter. When we
finally settled down, the stew was bubbling, so I split it between two large
plastic bowls that I had swiped from the kitchen. The second can of stew was
emptied into the pot and set near the fire. Michelle and I traded eager looks
for almost three seconds before digging in. Both of us ate like we were
famished, and before long the sound of our disposable sporks scraping the
bottom of the bowls ricocheted off the rock wall. The second can soon joined
the first one, and we mopped up every last morsel with slices of the squashed
rye bread. A quick trip to the spring fetched enough water to clean our dishes.
A second trip brought back another canteen full. It got warmed up and added to
Max’s dog food, turning it into his own version of stew. He didn’t waste any
time and chowed it down. After he finished, I reached into my backpack and got
out his Barney blanket. With a slight groan indicative of my now full belly, I
stood and helped Michelle to her feet. We walked over to the dragon rock, and I
nosed toward the large hollow spot next to one of the jagged “eyes.” It was
large enough that I could have scrunched underneath it for a partial shelter.
“This is his favorite spot to sleep when we come up here,” I said as I unrolled
the giant purple towel into the recess.

“More room in the tent for me.” Michelle’s voice came
out with a barely detectable tremor of insincerity.

“You mean ‘us,’ don’t you?”

“Well, I don’t know. I mean you did give me a ring,”
she moved her head in a semicircular motion, looking at the darker shadows that
indicated the wall around the clearing, “and I guess you kind of took me out
for dinner . . .”

The teasing was now evident in her voice tone as she
continued. “But we haven’t gone to see a movie yet, or even out for drinks.”

“We’re going to catch the early movie—the real early
movie—starting at sunrise on the flat rock. And I’m not one hundred percent
sure, but I believe I might have seen a bottle of peach schnapps that tagged
along in the food sack.”

Her eyes reflected the starlight as she looked up at
me and attempted another southern drawl. “Why sir, I dare say that you’ve
thought of everything.”

“I’ve been thinking about it for over twenty years.”

She leaned against me and pulled my lips down to hers.
In a moment she was kissing me fiercely as we stood in the night shadow of the
dragon rock. The intensity and passion of her lips’ caresses left trails of
tingling vibrations with each feathery touch. It took all of my concentration
just to stand upright. When she finally pulled away, I practically collapsed
against the boulder that sheltered Max’s towel.

“I don’t suppose my fairytale castle comes complete
with indoor plumbing, does it?”

“Sadly, no. But if you’ll follow me, I happen to know
of a special oak tree down the hill that is in desperate need of company.”

We walked through the passage and down the hill with
Max trailing behind us. When we were finished, we returned to the campfire. With
the exception of the schnapps, I condensed all of our remaining foodstuffs back
into the bag, and hung it from a length of firewood that I wedged into a crack
between the boulders of the wall. It was just high enough to keep any wandering
rodents out. Max would take care of anything larger. Michelle took out her
contacts, and slipped on a pair of gold framed glasses. It was only the second
time since eighth grade that I’d seen her wear glasses that weren’t designed to
block out sunlight. The combination of red hair, green eyes, and firelight
danced around the wire frames as she looked my way.

“Do I look like a geek?”

“You look like a teacher. A really, really hot
teacher.”

“A teacher, huh?” She stood up, took my hand, and
pulled me into the tent. “Well, in that case, anything that you do wrong, I’m
going to make you do over.”

Once inside, we unzipped and smoothed out the sleeping
bag and poncho liner. I stood on my knees and reached up to the top center of
the tent, clicking on the miniature keychain light that I kept hanging from the
nylon loop. It bathed the inside in a soft white glow that was bright enough to
see by, but too dim to read a book. I didn’t have a book with me, anyhow. Our
gun belts both came off and were pushed to the side. My boots and Michelle’s
hiking shoes followed next. We slid back to the center of the tent, both of us
on our knees this time, and just spent a moment looking at each other. I ran my
left hand through the thick, loose tangle of her hair as my right hand slid underneath
her sweatshirt and against the small of her back. There was no second layer of
flannel. Her hands reached up to the back of my neck, and I caught an impish
smile as it passed across her face.

“What was that smile for?”

She reached up and planted a pair of firm but gently
searching kisses on my lips, triggering another cascade of excited butterflies
in my stomach. And other places. When she pulled back, her eyes were closed,
but her face displayed a huge, satisfied smile. She accompanied the smile with
a long, deep breath.

“What?” I laughed.

“Just double checking.”

“
What
…”

“One of my own prayers has just been answered.”

“Mine too,” I cut in quickly with a wink.

“No, not that . . . I mean yes . . .” she stumbled
over her words before shaking her head. “What I mean is that for as long as
I’ve waited for this moment to happen, there was always this little fear in the
back of my head that if, or when, it finally did—because we’ve been friends for
so long—well, the fear was that I would just burst out laughing and ruin it all.”

“Laughing?”

“Because of the absurdity of it all . . .”

I knelt there, quiet and curious as she searched for
the words.

“I mean,” she started, “we’ve both been dancing around
this our entire lives, and short of that time at the conference when we were
both plastered, there’s been nothing but roadblocks and SNAFU’s that get in our
way each and every time we’ve taken a step—even a baby step—towards something
more. We flirt, and then we flee. That’s been our pattern . . . our safety
net.”

“And the laughter?”

“I guess it’s always been buried somewhere in my mind
as a last ditch defensive wall. Kind of like if things didn’t work out or felt
weird, I could just burst out laughing and we’d look at each other and say ‘ha
ha . . . that was a good one.’”

I waited for a second before asking, “Well, did those
kisses make you feel like laughing?”

“Definitely not . . . and for you?”

“I’m not entirely sure just yet. Maybe after a few
hundred more I’ll have a better idea.”

“We better get started then.”

She dropped her hands to the hem of her sweatshirt,
and with a single, fluid movement, peeled it up and over her head. Her long,
slender torso was bare, with the exception of a green lace bra.

My face lit up at the sight of the delicate
lime-colored fabric. “Oh my goodness, are you wearing . . .?”

She interrupted me with another kiss, and then slowly
dropped backwards until she was lying on the camouflage poncho liner. My heart
was pounding as the soft light revealed her fingers undoing the top button of
her jeans.

“Why don’t you find out.” It was a statement, not a
question.

I dropped to my hands and took over, slowly tugging the
denim pants down her lean, muscular legs. It didn’t take long to reveal the
cartoonish face of a goofy, brown dog. Shortly after that I got to her tattoo,
and then my own goofy, black dog began to echo the panting and howls that were
coming from the tent.

So that’s where we are. Sunrise is about fifteen
minutes away, and the hot chocolate is simmering. I’ve got the biscuit dough
mixed up and ready to bake, and the eggs are mostly thawed, with the exception
of a few chunks still partly frozen in the center of the carton. Max is
stretched out beside me here, and he’s in the process of enjoying some long
overdue bonding time, which, from his point of view, is wholly devoted to me
rubbing his tummy. I can hear some stirring inside the tent, so I’m going to
stop recording for now. Later.

“Hey there, sleepyhead.”

Michelle’s yawning, stretching form materialized next
to the tent. “Mmmm.”

I stood up—involuntarily yawning in response to
hers—and handed a cup of the liquid gold chocolate into her outstretched hands.
“Don’t sit down yet,” I said, “I’ll be right back.” I disappeared into the tent
and came out a moment later with the foam ground pad and the poncho liner.
“Time for our movie.”

We walked down to the rock shelf, and I laid out the
pad for us to sit on—long ways with Michelle sitting in front of me and
reclining against my chest. The camouflage blanket was then wrapped around us,
and we watched toward the southeast as the first blood-gold rays of sunlight
reflected off the layers of clouds above the horizon. I don’t think either of
us said a word for the next thirty minutes.

When the sun was fully up, I rubbed her shoulders
underneath the blanket, enjoying the purrs of contentment that vibrated through
her skin with each pressure point that I hit. “As much as I’d like to stay
here, oh . . . forever . . . we’ve got a pretty full day ahead of us.”

“I know,” she sighed, chasing it moments later with another
exhaled, “I know.”

We walked back to the campsite and cooked breakfast—biscuits
with honey, mostly done scrambled eggs, and halfhearted attempts at toast on a
stick. Max got the pieces that matched his fur. It was all washed down with
copious amounts of hot chocolate, and then we both pitched in to clean up. I
made another trip to the spring for enough water to put out the small fire,
stirring the wet ashes with a stick to make sure they were all cold, and then stacked
the wood we hadn’t burned against the wall for next time. When I turned around,
Michelle's long arm was thrusting out of the tent’s zipper. Her finger was
beckoning in a silent “come hither” motion. Who was I to argue?

It was almost 9:00 AM by the time we made it back to
the cabin. The wind was picking up a little bit, bringing the distant scent of
moisture as it came from the northwest. If I had to guess, I’d say that our
unseasonably warm temperatures were going to evaporate rather quickly. We
unloaded the camping gear from my truck, including the still unopened bottle of
peach schnapps, and then gloved up. It took us almost an hour to move the
bodies out to the far edge of the cleared area around my uncle’s garden, even
using the front end loader on his old tractor. Most of that time, though, was
filled with Michelle telling me about her encounter with Samantha, Garrett, and
Melissa. After the bodies were moved, we hooked up a trailer to my truck,
grabbed a come-along hand winch and retrieved the Gator. The rest of the time
before lunch was occupied with cleaning and scrubbing the cabin. Both of us
pitched in, and before long, the air inside positively reeked with the smell of
bleach.

“Open the windows and let this place air out,”
Michelle said as she emptied the last mop bucket full of gray water down the
drain.

I went around and opened the windows, all three of
them, and then followed it up by propping both the front and back door open.
The generator was silent, obviously having run out of gas sometime during the
night, so I filled it again and got it started. Inside the cabin, I kicked on
the switch that activated the water pump, listening as the slight hum indicated
that the tank in the ceiling was being topped off. A check on the status of the
solar system’s battery bank showed they were charged and holding at
ninety-eight percent. We stripped all the linens from the bed and added them to
the pile of bloody towels and other filth from the cabin that was not worth the
effort, or memory, to try and clean. I went out and torched it while Michelle
claimed the first rights to a hot shower. The sheets and blankets went up in
flames quickly, so I came back inside to wait my turn under the water. I stood
in the living room; unintentionally focusing on several scuffs and marks in the
wooden walls that I knew to be bullet holes. A glance upward brought the thick
section of rope into view. It was still looped over the heavy rafter—a glaring
reminder of Michelle’s captivity. My old Buck knife quickly severed that
unwelcome token. Moments later it had joined the smoldering pile of cloth. A
little diesel fuel and several large chunks of oak were added to the mound,
guaranteeing its fate.

I went over to my laptop and turned it on, watching as
it booted up to the desktop screen. My background image was a snapshot I’d
taken last summer. It was a close-up view of the snarling face of an angry
badger. One of my coworkers had used an editing program to make the badger’s
eyes bulge out. I kept the resulting image because it accurately displayed my
feelings after years of working with the “slap on the wrist, revolving door”
court system. As I waited for all of the startup programs to load, I caught the
pale scents of jasmine and vanilla. They were accompanied by a smoky-musky
undertone, and I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, imprinting the aroma of
Michelle’s perfume once again into my mind.

“Shower’s open,” she said as she pulled up a chair and
sat next to me at the kitchen table. Another laptop computer was in her hands,
and she plugged the power adapter into the same outlet that mine occupied. My
questioning look was answered with a slight downturn of her lips.

“It’s Samantha’s. Maybe she was able to find something
out before . . .” her words tapered off, fading into silence as she stared at
the charcoal colored machine that rested, still clamshelled shut, on the table
in front of her.

“Turn it on and let’s see.”

Michelle steadied herself with a few deep breaths, and
then opened the laptop and pressed the power button. A series of lights flashed
above the keyboard, and then the black screen blinked twice. Instead of the
normal startup screen or request for the owner’s logon, blocky green type
bannered across the dark display.

FULL SYSTEM ENCRYPTION ENABLED

TYPE PASSWORD TO CONTINUE OR
PRESS TAB + F3 FOR ASSISTANCE.

We both stared at the scrolling marquee; the dumb
looks that mirrored on our faces confirmed that neither of us knew a whole lot
about computers. I pointed at the chunky lettering as it slid across the
computer screen. “Do that.”

Her finger deftly hit the tab button, and then moved
up to press the F3 key. Nothing happened.

“I think you have to do them both at the same time.
Hold down the tab button while you’re pressing F3.”

She did it again, using two fingers this time, and the
flying print changed.

TELL ANDY HE’S THE HERO IN
DANGER.

She looked at me at the same time that I turned
towards her, both of us shrugging in ignorance. A few seconds later, the
scrolling banner reappeared.

“Let’s turn it off and take it back with us. I think
we’d just be wasting our time anyhow, given our immense technological
abilities.”

“OK. Go get a shower, you smell like diesel fuel.”

I took her advice, and spent the next twenty minutes
in the shower being pelted by water almost too hot to be comfortable. When I
came out, my skin was both scrubbed and scalded red, but I felt clean. The
clothes that I had packed for my vacation had been scattered out of the duffel
bags, but I had managed to repack most of them when we cleaned the cabin. I
went with a pair of black cargo pants and a light brown, long sleeved pullover
that was stenciled with
NORTH DAKOTA FORESTRY DEPARTMENT
on the back.
The matching logo was on the breast pocket. My gun belt completed the outfit.

When I came out, Michelle was glaring out the back
door.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

She turned at my question, and the simmering wrath
that boiled from her eyes did more to answer than any words she could have
said. I watched as she hissed through gritted teeth, trying to control whatever
it was that triggered this reaction in her, before spinning and marching out
the back door—drawing her Glock as she moved.

“Michelle?” I questioned as I followed on her heels.
She didn’t answer. Instead, her deliberately quick footsteps carried her to the
back of the garden where we’d moved the bodies. There were two piles—one with
Melissa, her child, and Garrett—the other with the invaders. I watched as she
dumped an entire magazine of 40 caliber ammunition into the heap of men,
reloaded, and cranked through another. When the smoke and thunder cleared, she
knelt down, scouring the area for her spent brass. I said nothing, but knelt
down to help her. When we stood a few minutes later, she walked over and took
the ones I had collected. I watched silently as she counted the total, and then
put half of them into her pocket. With her hand clenched around the remaining
ten-odd casings, she stepped over to Melissa. Almost reverently, Michelle
sprinkled the fired cartridges over the corpse’s body. “These are for you,” I
heard her whisper.

My gaze stayed focused on Michelle as my mind stumbled
in confusion over what might have set her off. Was it Samantha’s laptop?
Something else? I wasn’t sure until a moment later when Michelle turned to face
me. “What drives a person to be so cruel?” she asked with a glance toward her
mound of target practice. Before I could answer, she continued, “I know that in
nature it’s ‘eat or be eaten.’ I understand for something to live, something
else in the food chain has to die. But what makes humans—only humans—take
malicious pleasure in the suffering they inflict upon others?”

I wanted to interject that not every human was like
those three, but the more vocal of the numerous voices in my head was screaming
that right now, I should just listen and let her vent.

Apparently she could read my mind. “I know,” she
stated bluntly, “that not everybody is like those bastards.” She focused on me,
“You’re not like them at all. For that simple fact I am extremely grateful to
God.” She paused and pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and
forefinger, “I just don’t understand . . . is that the equation that governs
this world? For every white knight that tries to champion the cause of good, is
there a corresponding heartless fiend that rejoices in the spread of evil? Is
that what our society has sunken to? Is that what we’re left with?”

“I’d like to believe that there are still a lot of
good people in the world,” I replied.

“Are there? You and I have spent our careers dealing
with slimeballs. Don’t you feel a little jaded?”

“I’m not saying that our world was perfect before what
ever happened . . . happened . . ., but you and I both know that if the good
guys ever get tired of fighting, the bad guys will automatically win, just by
default.”

“Do you think I was wrong for shooting him?”

“Which time? The other night, or now?”

“Both.”

My head shook rapidly, “No, I don’t blame you at all
for turning that guy’s head into Swiss cheese the other night.”

“And what about now?”

“I think that if every bullet you fired just now helps
to settle the score in your mind, then it was money well spent.” Her shoulders
slumped for a moment at my words, and she turned her stare again towards
Melissa. I reached down and took her hand, prompting her to look my way again.
“What happened?”

Her face turned full on towards mine; an expression of
sadness and disgust framed her features.

I waited.

She squeezed my hand and pulled me a dozen steps away
from the bodies until we were standing next to the now blazing burn pile.
“Samantha and Garrett were really just a couple of kids. Yeah, I know—we’re
only about five years older than they were. Still, in my mind they were just
kids. Free-spirited, I guess. When we first got to the cabin, Garrett had this
little silver flip camera that he was using to video Samantha running by the
lake, flapping her arms like a giant goose trying to take off. They were
laughing and just being carefree.” Michelle's lips set firm for a moment,
“Tattoos and piercings aside, they were just a couple of regular people. I
think they were in love.”

Her hand gripped mine with a sudden burst of strength.
If she was aware of it, her face gave no indication. I waited quietly, and then
watched as her other hand slid into the pocket of her jacket. When it withdrew,
she was holding a slim rectangular object.