From Night On: Sacred Grounds

Chapters 19-20

Chapter 19:

Of Those so Close Beside Me

While panicking and splashing water on his father's wound, the three of them were surprised by the sudden rev of an engine as the jeep roared passed them. The women they had just saved were speeding away,fearing Terry and wanting to get as far from the horror they had just escaped as possible.

"There goes our comfortable ride," Mike sighed, glaring at the jeep.

"I can catch them," Terry announced as he took a step in their direction.

"No," Shei stopped him, "it's okay. Let them go. They're scared and we can still get to where we need to go."

Mike whined as he dropped his shirt, staring at the retreating dust created by the jeep's hasty exit. "We still don't know where we are," he complained. "They could have at least given us directions."

"I'm sure we can find something inside," Shei explained, "and there were more men than that one jeep could carry. There's gotta be another vehicle around here, somewhere."

"Terry," Mike said, noticing the look of despair in his son's eyes as he looked back at the entrance to the building, "why don't you wait here and get washed up a bit more. Enjoy the fresh air and relax fora moment." Terry didn't argue or fuss. Shei was right when she said that he was emotionally exhausted. He followed his father's directions and took the time to sit against the wall under the late day sun.

Seeing the dead bodies wasn't much for Mike. It did cause him to slightly shift back to the mindset he had while serving in the military, but that was the extent of his PTSD. He searched a couple of the bodies for smart-phones or keys while Shei looked at him in disbelief.

"How can you just DO that?" she asked, feeling a sudden repulsion to the scene. The fight was over and her emotional response was setting in.

"We had a philosophy," he responded, referring to his time in the army. "'Don't think when you're hungry.'"

"You-you're not planning on EATING them, are you?" Shei's watched him in total surprise.

First, Mike's shoulders slumped at the ridiculousness of the question, but then he started laughing. "Of course not!" he chuckled as he pocketed a phone. "It means: when in need, don't get caught up on the source. One of these pockets might have what we need, so I'm trying NOT to think about who's wearing the pockets."

She could understand how he could do that, but, at the same time, was having difficulty accepting it in the moment. "I'm going to go check the rooms," she said, turning her eyes away as he rolled one of the men over.

With every body she passed, she tried her best to not look directly at them until she found her way back to the leader's office. In order to get to the center drawer, she had to push the dead body out of the way. In this, she was forced to confront the aftermath of what she had done. His head was hanging limply over the back of the chair with his eyes staring vacantly upward. "Terry and I are going to have to form a support group after this," she tried to joke after wincing at the sight of the man's head, a large, gaping, and dripping hole where the bullet had exited.

Inside the top and side drawers, Shei found a map of the area and another gun. All of the notebooks and files she flipped through were in Spanish, so she left them behind. Atop the desk, she noticed, were Mike's credit cards and inside the dead man's breast pocket was Mike's wallet with his ID. "Where are your keys?" she asked aloud as she looked back through the drawers, but then spotted them hanging from a small hook on the wall. "And I'm out," she announced as she plucked the keys from the hook and turned to rush back out of the building, but something startled her.