Dark of Winter: Prepper Book Two

Ch. XVI - Ashes to Ashes

Heaving the pick-ax with a strained grunt I puncture the ground at my feet. A grunting rage-and-sorrow filled exercise beneath a blazing and indifferent Sun. Again and again I swing as if to slay the very earth I stand on.

Another swing.

The pick makes a wet sucking sound as I work it free from the soft clay. Sweat runs off me in streams, some of it into my eyes mixing with the tears that streak my ash-smeared face. I blink as much of it away as possible. Vision blurred, I carry on undeterred. I sob. I grunt. I dig.

Another swing.

The hole isn't yet deep enough for a single small body, I couldn't even bury Heath in the pitiful hollow I've scraped out of the reluctant soil let alone two grown adults. Even two adults burnt beyond recognition. Even two adults burned beyond recognition and recovered piecemeal, at times a single bone at a time.

Another swing.

That's what I spent the past-- my god what's it been? -- twelve or eighteen hours now. I spent the first couple hours, at least, taking turns crying, screaming and puking my lungs out. That was yesterday, or I think that was yesterday. I know for certain I spent the night sifting through the still smouldering ruins by the light of a single LED headlamp. A storm moved through at one point, I held a quiet visitation in a downpour, a eulogy of rolling thunder, a choir of wind and rain punctuated by flashes of lightning.

Another swing.

Dawn came with little fanfare. The transition of night to day largely unnoticed except I no longer needed a flashlight to perform my grim task. I found what I think were hand bones, fused together by a glob of golden metal. I choose to believe they died peacefully, safe, together and unafraid. The shattered skull-- I choose to ignore the story it tells.

Another swing.

Something catches my eye, movement in the periphery of my vision. I look up, across the field, scanning. My rifle is nearby, but I reach instead for my binoculars. There's a dirt road running north-south a couple or three klicks to the east, it's sparsely lined with ash, poplar and maple trees. Something is definitely moving there. I bring the binoculars up to my eyes, they feel wet and sticky. Looking down I find they're smeared with blood.

My hands are a bloody ruin of blisters, torn skin and burns. And it isn't until this very moment that the pain reveals itself in throbbing waves that seem to radiate up my arms.

See Earl, no gloves.

I peer back through the optics. Cattails and phragmites rise from the distant roadside ditch providing great cover for whatever, or whomever lurks there. For a moment I can clearly see a man-shaped object standing in plain view, it's hard to tell from this distance, but I feel like he's looking right at me.

"You should get out of here," a voice behind me says. I nearly jump into the hole I've been digging.

"Jesus Christ!" I whirl around, my hand reflexively moving to my holster. Somewhat to my relief, I instantly recognize the man as the gun dealer from the bar-- Mickey Trout. His status as friend or foe remains to be determined. My pistol remains halfway out of the holster.

"Easy there," he says in a calming tone, his hands raised and his rifle slung.

He has a hard look about him, but not overtly threatening. His full beard and deep set, hawkish amber eyes gives him a somewhat fearsome aspect. Yet his raspy voice betrays no hint of threat. I holster my pistol and instead reach for my water and take a long pull, gulping down nearly half the bottle before pouring the remainder over the back of my head.