Dreams of Shadows, Patrick Sean Lee [best historical fiction books of all time TXT] 📗

in flames back to the huge underground tanks. The resulting explosion and fireball were amazing.

I watched the black smoke rise for several miles, until the city faded into farmland, and Peter pulled onto the gravel road leading up to the house.

“Next trip in, I’m gonna’ get me a Mercedes. Maybe a Tesla,” Munster announced over his shoulder to Peter after he parked the truck on the circular drive in front of the house.

“Next time you won’t be with me,” Peter answered.

Charles had been sitting on the porch beside Cynthia when we entered, and both of them jumped to their feet and ran to see how successful our scavenging mission had been. Standing behind the truck, pointing in at all the fabulous items we’d gathered up, Peter buried his attitude, explaining to them every detail of the trip, including the downtown dead zone portion, and Munster’s solution of the gas-gathering problem later on. He said nothing about Munster's final goodbye to the gas station, though.

Of course all of us were delighted, but Peter and I quickly afterward asked how Mari was doing.

“I was just with her,” Cynthia said, smashing the momentary joy we’d all shared. “The same as when you left. Jack and Lashawna are with her right now. All we can do is wait it out and hope.”

An idea struck me. “Charles, do you think you can somehow contact those creatures and ask them how to revive her? She didn’t know not to disobey them and touch that terrible thing they left.”

“Oh yeah!” Munster said.

Charles' reply was laced with doubt. “I don’t know how I’d do that. I mean, I have no way of summoning them, and who knows if my thoughts would move them if they even understood.”

“Well, you can try,” Peter put to him.

“Look,” Charles said, “they came here unbidden. I had nothing to do with asking them to. They communicated to me, not vice-versa. I have no idea how to call for them, and for all we know they’re long gone, or destroying other places for whatever reason they destroyed Marysville.”

“Well, you must at least try,” Cynthia reiterated Peter’s words. “Think thoughts to them. Or something.”

Charles shrugged his shoulders, but said he would do that, for whatever good it might accomplish, and then the men began unloading the truck. Cynthia and I left them to their work to go inside and see to little Mari.

We entered the bedroom. Jack and Ash were sitting on opposite sides of the bed, close to peaceful-looking Mari.

“No change?” Cynthia asked Jack. Jack shook her head dolefully.

I could hear the men down in the drive, talking as they unloaded the goods, and finally the main reason for our mission into Marysville to begin with. The generator.

“Just pour the damn gas in. Who needs a funnel anyway?”

“Oh shut up you idiot. First we have to get it…” And I heard the gravel crunching beneath their footsteps and the generator's wheels. Wherever the electric panel was located on the house, the four men moved onward toward it. Munster and Peter continued to spit at one another until finally I couldn’t hear them any longer. I turned my thoughts and attention back to Mari, standing a few feet away from her resting place. I debated whether to leave the room, run to Charles, and demand he leave the generator to Jerrick and Peter and Munster, go back inside and climb out onto the roof. Sit there and concentrate until something happens!

Please, whoever you are, come back and rescue Mari, I thought with all my might. If Mr. Baxter won’t reach out to you, I will. Come help her.

A lifetime later I heard the unmistakable putter of a small gasoline engine coming to life. Kind of like a lawnmower down the block at a neighbor’s house. Soothing in a way because I knew that pretty soon we’d have lights. At least lights. Our announcement to the corpse of a world that the party was inside. Off the road, up the gravel drive a ways. Right there in that grand old house. We’d even have music if someone knew where the ancient CD player and discs were. We might even dance.

There wasn’t a flicker, or the sound of millions of excited little electrons racing at light speed into the room. Just the bedside lamp bursting to life, throwing an arc-shadow down onto Mari’s face. Ash reacted by bolting backward off the bed as if that spacecraft outside somewhere had just flown into the room. Jack and Lashawna clapped their hands.

Mari didn’t seem to care.

I turned to Cynthia and smiled. We were so clever. So resourceful.

“Let’s go see,” I said. She was all ablaze with happiness. It’s was like impossible for her to stretch her own smile any farther across her face. She grabbed hold of Lashawna’s hand, and together the three of us ran to the stairs. I controlled my urge to slide with a full-on burst of glee down the banister rail. At the bottom, even in the dull light of the afternoon, I could see the end table lamps beside the sofa glowing brightly, and I heard Charles’ and Peter’s voices entering into the kitchen.

“Yes, working.” Peter.

“Check the refrigerator.”

I swung off the ornate newel post and bounced down the short hall into the kitchen, with Cynthia and Lashawna close at my side. Peter stood in front of the refrigerator, holding the door open. Light. I heard the sound of its compressor cooing against the now-soft purr of the generator outside. The sounds of mechanical things in the home! The sounds of life!

“TA-DA. What do you think, girls?” Peter said.

I ran across the room, threw my arms around Charles and kissed his unshaven cheek.

“You did it! You’re all so amazing!”

Charles quickly eased me away, but like everyone else, he was smiling for all he was worth.

Munster loped in. He turned all bright-eyed at the door threshold and looked back. “Just keep your hand on the house, Jer. Coupla’ steps, but you oughta’ know where they are by now.”

I supposed that Jerrick did know with that sixth sense of his. The moment Munster popped in, Lashawna readied herself to burst out and help her brother. I stopped her with a firm hand on her shoulder, and a silent shake of my head. He’s got to make his own way sometime. Leave him alone, girl.

She nodded against her instincts and training, but she couldn’t help poking her head out the door to see if Jerrick would stumble.

“You’re good, Jerrick. Watch for the first step.”

I pulled her in and scrunched my lips. Leave him ALONE!

Everyone was jabbering at once, except Charles who was now leaning against the sink counter. Across the island cabinet, Cynthia was busy inspecting the interior of the refrigerator.

“God, it smells.”

“Care for a glass of milk?” Peter joked.

“Some of that crap must be good.” Munster had bounded over to join Cynthia, and he rifled through the shelves. “Somethin’ decent.”

Jerrick finally arrived without Lashawna’s help. We celebrated.

“Mark our calendar,” Peter said. “In the future this will officially be January 10th, a high holiday, the beginning. Light Day!”

Lashawna was moved. “I love that. Oh, it’s so unbelievable! We’re going to make it, aren’t we Mr. Baxter!” she said turning to him.

“We are.”

“I’ll fix dinner!” I said. The promise and hope were something like the sudden brightness filling the room.

“Not with any of this shit,” Munster said with a laugh.

“Munster, why don’t you go clean out your foul little mouth,” Cynthia said.

“Ain’t no runnin’ water yet,” he replied sarcastically. "That’s next. We’ll get that fixed, and then you can go take a shower. I’ll watch.”

“Over my dead body.”

Charles ended the discussion barely in time to save my friend from a beating by Cynthia’s brother. Cynthia herself.

“Our next mission will be to find additional edible food—which the four of you somehow forgot about when you were out.”

“Hey, we was pressed for time,” Munster shot.

“I understand. But tomorrow we’ll go out again. There are so many things yet to bring back.”

“Yeah, my Mercedes!”

“Any one you like, Munster,” Charles said, smiling. “But that’s later.”

Munster wasn’t quite finished. His mind and mouth worked like a needle skipping over a scratchy record. He looked the short distance dividing Cynthia from himself and said, ”The pump outside is workin’. I’ll pull up and down on the handle if you want to…”

She hit him solidly on his chin, sending him stumbling backward into the arms of the refrigerator. He laughed.

“Stay away from me you little craphead.”

 

 

Mari-Wake-UP!

Rice. Without sauce. But with Spam. And hot, because the microwave worked perfectly.

Running water was a problem, though. We had plenty of it in bottles, certainly—and could always go into town for more—and we had the well out back. But how many times did I go to the sink in the kitchen and lift the lever on the faucet? Habit. Unconsious assumptions.

We had music. Jack left Mari’s bedside later that evening and showed Cynthia and me where tons of old CDs and movies had been stored after the hundredth time of being listened to or watched. We danced after dinner, although every apology Munster could make to Cynthia did no good. She refused to join him on the floor in the family room.

The TV worked, but no one was interested in watching snow, or the words, “Check your cable connection.” Looking at the first box of videos, I wondered how long it would take to view all of them, and I wondered that after that was history, how many other thousands and thousands were stacked away in some library of forgotten videos. Some brilliant that I’d never seen. Others atrocious. Better off locked away forever anyway. All history. A record of who we were, but would never be again. We could look back up the face of the cliff we’d unwillingly fallen from, but there was no going back to be the next generation of artists who defined our culture.

We dug three graves out front the following day, just beyond the drive and its grass border. A few feet away from the beginning of the orchard. Cynthia thought the location would be best. A small graveyard between sweet-smelling Orange blossoms blooming each Spring, and the heart of Mrs. Conklin’s life beyond the drive. Munster and Peter fished the bodies out of the pool, laid them carefully on plastic tarps, and then dragged each one to their final resting place. Peter on one end of the tarp, Munster on the other, they lifted the corners and rolled each body into the holes. It hit me as kind of irreverent. Hearing them land with a clump, one after another until the grisly job was finished.

Would we have to dig one more grave? One final piercing of the earth for tiny Mari?

Don’t let her die. Come back and help her.

Charles stood with his burnt hands clasped behind his back at the end of it and spoke the words of invocation, his head bowed. “Almighty God. We commit these, thy servants…”

Where was our Almighty God these days? Where was he when this horror was unleashed? Off in some other galaxy picking up the pieces of another desecration unleashed on his “servants”? I suspected we’d get no help from him anytime soon. If ever.

I found myself praying to invaders. I might