Fade to Grey (Book 2): Darkness Ascending (51 page)

I turned towards Walter. “Your cameras aren’t
wireless?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“It would be nice to have something like that set up,
but I’m not sure where we’d get the parts,” I said.

Bernice’s scratchy voice answered. “Well, that’s a
problem for another time.”

I agreed, and glanced at my watch. That’s right,
my
watch! I had recovered it when we towed the Gator, and the broken band pin was now
replaced with one that Walter had scavenged from somewhere. I nudged Michelle.
“I’m going to finish up with a few things and then I’ll meet you in about an
hour downstairs.”

She nodded as Walter spoke, “I think we’re all going
to come together in the downstairs living room about then.”

“OK,” I said as I looked around the room, “see you
then.”

Before we had a chance to leave, Callie appeared in
the doorway, shadowed by BB and his brother Noah. Both of them were practically
glued to her hip as she peeked in. “Hey,” she said, “Andy wants to know if
anybody here speaks French.”

“French . . . why?” I asked.

“I don’t know, he just asked me to find out if anybody
spoke French.”

“I do,” Amy said, “at least a little bit . . .
although it’s been awhile since I’ve had any practice.”

“Well, part two of the message is as follows.” She
mimicked an upright military posture and attempted to imitate my uncle. “All
civilians who have a working knowledge of the French language are required to
report for duty immediately. See Admiral Andy in his quarters below.”

Amy chuckled as she walked toward Callie, “Seaman Recruit
Salvucci reporting for duty, sir.”

BB and Noah
detached themselves from Callie and took Amy’s hands, tugging her out the door
with all the efficiency of a military police escort.

“He ain’t been
back from the dead longer than a few hours, and  Andy’s already joined the
navy, promoted himself to admiral, and started drafting an army of subordinates,”
Walter voiced with amusement as we followed them out the door.

Michelle went downstairs to keep working on our route,
and I went out the narrow side door in the kitchen that led to the wraparound
deck. It faced away from the lake, and any of the muted light that managed to
escape shouldn’t be an issue. Unfortunately, the term “wraparound” wasn’t
exactly accurate since the wide deck did not extend on the southern side of
Walter’s house. It was more of a giant horseshoe shape, so I had to loop all
the way around to get to the stairs that lead down to the parking area. I
couldn’t see Max in the back of my truck, but I knew he’d be there, lying in
the bed out of sight. I clicked my tongue three times, and a blurry shadow
lifted into view. I could feel his stare wash over me as I approached, and I
knew that he was automatically classifying me as “the pack,” as well as picking
up a myriad of information about the surroundings that humans were too
civilized to notice. I reached over the side of the truck and scratched his
chest—freeing an enormous, jaw gaping yawn as he stretched.

“Good boy, Max. It won’t be too much longer, and then
I hear that there’s a very large, very fresh deer leg bone for you to chew on,
compliments of Bernice.”

He yawned again and watched as I opened my truck and
grabbed several items. “Guard the truck, Max,” I said as I headed back up the
stairs, noticing for the first time the faint reddish glow of the infrared
video cameras. I smiled and waved.

Back inside, I made a return trip down the hallway,
stopping at the door to the bedroom where Michelle and I had slept just a few
nights ago. There were voices from inside, so I knocked and waited. Doc Collins
opened the door a moment later.

“Eric,” he nodded, “how’s the ankle?”

“Stiff, but serviceable. I’m sure it’s going to need
wrapped again soon.”

“Tell Callie before you leave.” His head swiveled
around to look at his granddaughter. She was sitting propped up on the bed with
a book in her hands. A miniature battery powered clip light had been fastened
to the brim of the baseball hat she wore, and the glowing bright pinpoint was
enough to make me raise my hand and shelter my eyes.

“Oops . . . sorry,” she said. Through my shielding
fingers, I saw her reach toward the brim of her hat, and the bright white light
changed to a much more tolerable, low intensity green.

“Better?”

“Much.”

Doc cleared his throat, “Don’t stay awake too long Guppy
. . . you may think you feel almost normal, but your body is far from healed.”
He slid around me and pulled the door shut.

“Guppy?”

The faint green light reflected off her partial smile.
“An old nickname from my mom. It’s a throwback to my childhood that my
grandfather can’t seem to lose. I think it’s his way . . . his connection . . .
to a lot of other memories.”

“I can understand that concept. How are you feeling?”

“Restless. I need to get up and move around, but my
grandfather, aside from being overprotective, is a pretty darn good doctor, and
I’ve learned to trust his advice—medically speaking, anyhow. So I guess I’m
still on enforced bed rest, at least for the next few days.”

I walked over and stood next to the bed. “I’ve got
something for you.” I raised her backpack and set it on the edge of the mattress,
and then offered her the plastic grocery bag that I carried from the truck. “As
requested . . .” My words trailed off and I unwrapped the plastic from around
her camera.

“You found it!” she exclaimed, taking it from my hands
and bathing it in the green light.

“Yep . . . right where you left it. It looks OK to me,
but I didn’t turn it on.”

Her fingers darted at the camera, and a few seconds
later the camera’s view screen powered up. I watched as she pressed a series of
buttons, accompanying them with several affirmative mumbles, before presenting
me with a thumbs up gesture. “It looks like it’s none the worse for the wear.”
Emily’s nose was directed at the miniature illuminated display as she spoke.
“Hey, do you want to see pictures of the bear?”

“I’m trying to forget that particular fiasco.” The
throb in my ankle reminded me that it would be a while before the incident with
the bear could be forgotten.

Emily laughed, “Look at it like this—fifty years from
now, you’ll be able to tell your great grandkids that the nasty scar on your
ankle was from an encounter with a bear. They’ll just assume that you got bit,
instead of scratched by a twig.”

“SCRATCHED?”

Emily giggled again and then turned the camera towards
me. “Here’s the picture of you standing in the middle of that log pile right
before you fell.”

I leaned down and looked at the tiny image. “You take
nice pictures . . . maybe you should consider doing it as a career.”

“Funny,” she said, shifting the camera back toward her
and scrolling through more pictures. “Look at this one. This is the one I was
telling you about where you and Max were wrestling, and you blend in to each
other so it looks like a two headed swamp beast. She went to turn the camera my
way, but then stopped and squinted. Her giggle escalated into laugher, and then
shot upward into full hilarity.

“What?” I asked.

I could see the battle waging on her face as the
desire to continue laughing clashed with the pain of her shoulder wound.

“What’s so funny?” I blurted out with a barely
restrained laugh of my own.

She squinted, gritting her teeth to smile through the
discomfort as she angled the camera. “I thought,” . . . her giggles started
again, but she bit them down with a giant smile, “that the picture of you and
Max would turn out pretty cool, but now that I zoom in on it, it looks like . .
.” Her chest started heaving and she couldn’t continue as she fought back
against the agony-ecstasy. She thrust the camera toward me and I grabbed her
hand to steady it. As soon as I saw the picture, I understood what had
triggered her reaction. I was behind the broadside angle shot of Max, and all
you could see was my head and neck twisting toward the camera with a strained
look on my face. Max’s expression was in mid-snarl with his eyes wide and
rolled back, looking at his flank. Instead of a mythological creature with two
heads, the image more closely resembled Max straining to take a giant dump. I
was the “dump.”

I joined with her laughter at the picture, adding,
“I’ll take it.”

When we settled down, she took the camera back and
turned it off. “I’ll make sure that you get a framed copy for your house. And
besides,” she added, “you still owe me, and as I recall, you were going to tell
me the story about your house.”

“I’ll always owe you for what you did.”

“Tell me about your house and we’ll call it even.”

“I’d be happy to.” My smile faded a little as I
sighed, “Can you wait for a day or so to hear the story?”

“You mean when you come back from Devils Lake?”

“So much for keeping it a secret.”

“Sorry,” she laughed quietly, “I overheard Walter
talking to my grandfather and Andy when I was still in the basement. I guess
they thought I was sleeping.” Her dark eyes glittered with tiny vertical lines
of reflected green light as she continued, “But to answer your question . . .
yes, just wait until you get back to tell me.”

I stood and stretched—arms, shoulders, and neck all
rolling in slow arcs. “I’m glad you’re feeling better, but like your
grandfather said, take it easy, OK?”

“I will . . . and thanks for getting my camera.”

I headed to the door and opened it; the hallway beyond
was faintly visible in the dim illumination from the strand of Christmas lights
in the kitchen. As I stepped out of the bedroom, Emily’s voice followed me.

“She loves you, Eric.”

I paused, my hand on the doorknob as I nodded, “I
know.”

“Keep her safe,” Emily whispered.

“I will.”

I went downstairs and spent a few minutes comparing
notes about gear with Michelle, and then back out to the truck to double, or in
some cases, triple check our packs. Everything checked out, so I took Max for a
walk partway down the driveway. We waved at the switchback camera as we passed.
I could tell that my ankle wrapping needed redone, but more importantly, I knew
that Max needed to spend some quality one on one time with me, so we kept going
until we reached the edge of the lake. I pulled up a rock and sat down a few
yards from the lapping waves as Max’s silhouette walked the shoreline. After a
few minutes of nosy exploration, he came and sat down next to me. We let the
lake enjoy our company for about a half an hour before walking back up the
driveway. I took Max to the tractor shed and put him inside before returning to
the house. It took a few soft knocks on the basement door to get a response,
but after peering through the viewfinder, Amy let me inside.

In the downstairs living room, a bustle of activity
was happening all at once. Walter and Mike were setting up some type of
projector and screen—the kind you’d use to watch a boring presentation at a
company meeting. Preacher Dave was lining up folding chairs in rows. Michelle
was nowhere to be seen, but Callie was there, and for the moment at least,
looked unoccupied.

“Hey Callie,” I said, “do you have time to wrap my
ankle?”

“Actually,” she replied, “I think it would be better
to take off your bandage and let your ankle breathe a bit tonight. We can
rewrap it in the morning. Unless . . .,” she smiled and dipped her nose
expectantly, “you plan on running a marathon tonight, in which case it would be
better to wrap it.”

“I have no marathon plans for tonight.”