Forever Twilight, Patrick Sean Lee [christmas read aloud txt] 📗

might have stumbled upon Bernie and his little harem; we might not have. We might even have gone on together and found Daddy. Or not. It’s just that I thought that armed, and with our walkie-talkies…what had I been thinking!

Had it been anyone other than Peter’s devoted sister who’d dressed me down, I would have scratched their eyes out. But thinking back, she hadn’t voiced an objection, and honestly, my plan had been anything but half-baked. I assured myself of that. Standing there I expected Cynthia to launch herself across the room and slap my face at any second. My idea, well, I must tell you, it had been conceived and driven by the highest motives—my deep concern was with Lashawna’s mental state. Maybe Charles had been right, though, when he counseled me after I’d confided my idea to him to simply let the girl grieve, if she must, but grow up at her own speed, and heal at a slower pace.

All the while Denise had been inspecting the deep gash in Peter’s head. She looked up and said, “Go find a needle—a thin one—and some strong thread. Boil them. Get them up here. Bring antiseptic, too. A razor. Clean water in a clean bowl. You, Amelia. You do it. I’ll go scrub my hands while Cynthia stays with her brother. Go now.”

I felt rescued from Cynthia’s growing wrath, and so I turned and ran to gather up everything. In the hall I heard her shout out at me. “Tell Charles to come up, and to bring Jerrick.”

I stopped only for a second at the last step to tell Charles and Jerrick to go up, but both had heard Cynthia, had risen from the sofa, and were on their way to the staircase. Jude was on the couch, staring at them as they walked away. Sammie sat on the floor with her feet atop the coffee table, jabbering away at Munster across from her, oblivious. I didn’t see Lashawna anywhere.

An hour passed. Peter’s scalp had been stitched closed amid tiny groans and grimaces. It seemed so strange that Cynthia had requested Charles’ and Jerrick’s presence. After all, Jerrick couldn’t see the hand in front of his face. But Charles had described in his penchant for order and detail, everything about the wound as Denise worked the needle and thread as adroitly as an emergency room physician. Jerrick’s opinion as head of surgery was positive. Who there could argue…or want to?

“Concussion, surely, but he should recover with no long-term ill effects. His eyes aren’t dilated? You’re positive, Charles?”

“They seem to be normal.”

I sighed thank you, and left the room with them a short time later, with deep reservations anyway. Cynthia stayed behind to sit at her brother’s side just in case something terrible and unexpected happened. I bit my lip as I left her there with him.

I was put off that Cynthia had, probably unthinking, taken Peter into that bedroom, but on later consideration, came to the conclusion that my dread bordered seriously on superstition, and so I dismissed it as such. Slowly.

 

Sammie fell right into the routine of life on our farm, taken by the ingenuity each of us in his or her small way had contributed. The barn’s outbuilding with the humming generator and backups Munster and Peter had brought home. The four huge gasoline tanks nearby. The always-leaking piping from the wellhead snaking its way into the house lines. The crops out front, and since early June, at the rear of the house beyond the drained and acid-washed pool.  She dove into work head first, and I found her particularly helpful with the shared duties inside our comfortable home. She talked constantly, and without much inquiry on our part, we learned of her dismal life before Peter and I had found her.

Not so Jude. Although she gaped in awe at every mechanical and domestic feature—and seemed absolutely enthralled by Jerrick’s cello repertoire—regarding her former life, she was nearly silent. At times she and Lashawna wandered off together hand in hand after all the chores had been attended to. Mostly late at night under the quiet and warmth of the pleasant evening sky, far out into the orchard. Sometimes they would stop momentarily beneath the tower, looking up at it, conversing, and then they would leave and continue on into the trees, returning hours later, sometimes near daybreak.

At the evening meal they sat next to one another, Their demeanor was light, cheerful, and both took part in the group conversations, adding quips; offering comments, without reservation.

Several days of this. I didn’t speak to Charles regarding my spying on them, but my natural suspicions began to rise after those few days. How they smiled in that particular way at each other. They had moved in together in Lashawna’s room, and so Jerrick was forced to sleep alone in another vacant bedroom at the far end of the hall.

It didn’t take a Sherlock Holmes to bring the emerging picture into focus. At least as I viewed it. I stayed silent concerning the entire subject, however. In a weird way Peter’s and my mission a week ago had succeeded. At long last Lashawna had abandoned her self-inflicted suffering and rejoined the living.

Peter began to recover under the watchful eye of Cynthia, Denise, and myself. I breathed more easily as the days passed, and I often wondered at the condition of Bernie and his two concubines as I sat beside Peter.

Munster joyfully shot up every empty can he and Sammie could find. She squealed in triumph at his marksmanship, and of course he schooled her in the handling of every weapon he’d brought home over the months. He strongly hinted during our dinnertime exchanges in the kitchen, his intent to visit Camp Pendleton with the young girl in the near future in order to find a bazooka. Maybe a few land mines, or “an 88”, he said. Charles chastised him for such foolery.

 

Late summer life was wonderful. The black tower stood silently watching us, but whatever the alien invaders were up to, they left us alone. What manner of, and however many Bernies (and even worse) survivors still roamed the streets like packs of wolves at night, none came calling.

I moved Peter—or more accurately, he moved himself—back to our bed.

Et Cum Spiritu, Jerrick

 

There were no priests or rabbis or ministers of any type anymore. No guardians or shepherds of our eternal souls, at least none that we had come across. No larger community outside the churches existed to insist upon, and enforce civilized behavior. No social media or news outlets. No reports of war breaking out across the world. No Police or military or presidents. Just us, and the few, like Bernie and the girls, who had somehow escaped the purging of humanity.

Had I obeyed my deepest instinct and killed Bernie, eyebrows would have raised, comments would have been made, but there would have been no retribution. Laws still existed, of course, but they were based on principles hammered into our subconscious from the moment of birth, and, more importantly, agreed upon—mostly without discussion—in our small community.

Munster had killed the attacker back at the cathedral rectory only days after we met. Self-defense he could have argued in any court. Mari had killed the attacker’s friend months later, along with four others the man had gathered around himself. I had killed a man in San Diego after rescuing Denise. In each instance, reason told us there had been no other choice.

We followed our consciences, guided at times by the counsel of Charles, but in time the horror of seeing another person drop to the ground lifeless loses its impact, you know?

I could do it again without blinking if the situation demanded it. The thought sent chills up my spine. Sitting beside Peter at dinner one evening I brought up the subject of security.

“Charles,” I said laying my fork down, “we know there are others out there. How many and where they are is anyone’s guess, right?”

“Yes. And…?”

“We aren’t protected.”

Munster immediately scoffed at my statement. “Like hell we ain’t!”

“Francis, how many times have I told you to clean up your mouth?” Cynthia playfully reached across the table and smacked his cheek.

“Well, we are. Me and Sammie, at least, can knock a flea off your butt at a hundred yards without nicking your skin.”

“You’re impossible!”

“That may be,” I said, “but the fact remains that both of you sleep. None of us has our eye on the drive all the time. Had Mari and Ash and I not been near the Flamemobile that day, those men would have marched right into the house. These days anyone could sneak in undetected. We’ve become too complacent lately.”

“We’ve spoken about this before,” Charles interjected.

“It’s only a matter of time before someone else…or someones else…comes knocking.”

“We don’t have the expertise to devise better security. Just pray that luck is on our side if and when that happens.”

“Praying doesn’t do a bit of good. How many hours did we spend praying to a god who doesn’t listen when Ash lay in a coma?” Cynthia said.

“I prayed all the time that someone would come and rescue me when I was back there with Bernie,” Sammie offered in her cheery voice.

I couldn’t argue that that prayer had been answered, and neither could Cynthia or anyone else. Even so, it was a dicey deal to depend on a deity who allowed the aliens to come in the first place, and creatures like Bernie and the other men we’d encountered over the months to escape the alien destruction afterward.

“Alright, what do you propose?” Charles asked almost rhetorically.

“Munster and Peter can go back into town and get enough wire to encircle the whole farm’s perimeter.”

“What ‘bout the gate?” Munster asked.

“We’ll figure out how to alarm it.”

“A simple connection at the latch. When someone opens it, the circuit opens as well,” Peter said, as if he’d long ago figured everything out in his brilliant mind.

“We don’t have the power. The generators are overworked as it is. Even if we did, do you want 120 volts running through whatever wire we could string? How many thousand feet of wire would it take, too! Every bird in the area would be electrocuted when it came to rest on the gate, for God’s sake.”

“Him again,” Cynthia said laughing.

“Nobody bothers to close the damned gate anyway,” Munster added.

“Well, we should at least do that!” I said.

“Power,” Charles stressed once again. “How do we step down the voltage and still have a heavy enough current to run the thousands of feet required? And what kind of wire? Any fool would spot a strand of wire draped from pole to pole all the way around this place; just duck under it.”

“Maybe simply at ankle height from the gate, through the orchard, and then…I don’t know…around the barn and back buildings?” I said.

“Power and the right wire,” Charles kept reiterating.

“Jerrick might know,” Lashawna said. “Where is he anyway?”

Jerrick had quietly risen and excused himself three-quarters of the way through dinner. He left the kitchen, but none of us paid much attention to him leaving. For the past few weeks it had become common practice for him to leave the table early, preferring solitude elsewhere. Sometimes he would go upstairs to