Dreams of Shadows - Patrick Sean Lee (ebook reader browser .TXT) 📗

complaints.

“I don’t want Cream of Wheat!”

“How much longer?”

“CYN...YOU’RE NOT LISTENING!”

“Can we go outside, just until…”

Cynthia just kept on humming away.

I went down.

Cynthia stood in the kitchen, back to me, stirring something in a good-sized saucepan on the stove. No doubt Cream of Wheat, I mentally chuckled. The memory of it. With lots of sugar, I’d always sort of liked it. Well, it was infinitely better than Pop Tarts. Nutritionally at least. Sweet Pablum.

I was surprised. Gone were the clothes she’d worn last night—the baggy jeans, the heavy knit sweater and hiking boots. This morning she wore tan shorts, a light white blouse, and no shoes. Like early September, let’s-head-for-the-beach-later stuff. I shivered that January morning looking at her. Her long hair, that last night looked dirty blond in the glare of the cellar light, glistened this morning, almost as though she’d washed and dried it, and then brushed it out. She looked thinner than she did hours ago, dressed as she’d been in warm winter wear.

Mari and Ash stood on either side of her, noses nearly to the top of the stove. They were still going on and on about how bad it smelled to them, did they have to eat the Cream of Wheat again, and...ya. Cynthia seemed not to hear, or at least care. She sang on, and stirred.

“Good morning,” I said, standing at the archway enthralled by the warmth in the room, the lightness of the atmosphere.

The three of them turned almost in unity. The looks of mild astonishment on the kids’ faces were swept away in a flash, replaced with huge smiles, but it was Cynthia’s face that struck me, and made me hope that someday—if I lived to someday—I could see someone as glorious and beautiful looking back at me in a mirror. I recalled a picture I’d seen in one of my mother’s coffee table books; one of a young woman standing on a seashell floating on a lake or the sea near the shore. I blushed. Had Cynthia been naked, she could have been that woman. Fifteen…or was she sixteen? All grown up, anyway, and beautiful in the way artists of long ago painted women.

“Amelia!” Mari shouted joyfully. She darted across the stone floor to my side, throwing her arms around my waist. “We’re having Cream of Wheat again. Tell Cynthia that you don’t like it! I’m tired of eating CREAM OF WHEAT!”

I stroked her dark hair and said, ”It’s my favorite food for breakfast. It makes my tummy happy.

“This is your morning routine, Cynthia?” I asked.

“Pretty much,” she said, laying the spoon aside, smiling. “There’s tons of it on the shelves downstairs. Mrs. Conklin must have hoarded the stuff.” She turned her attention back to the gurgling, bubbling pan, pushing it off the burner.

“Can you help Mari and Ash set some bowls on the table? I’ll go wake everyone. We have lots to talk about this morning.”

“I’m going outside,” Ash grumbled. “I’m NOT hungry!”

He had no idea how lucky he was. A hot breakfast. A secure home. Someone like Cynthia to care for him; like Peter—if not Munster—older and wiser and big brother-like. I knew hoe lucky we were, though. As much as I so missed my parents, I realized that fate, or God, or some other power that I couldn’t conceive had landed me here, and that we all might live, and figure out in time what life should, could, and must be like, and what our place in this strange new world must become.

I took hold of Mari’s hand and asked her to show me where the cupboard holding the plates and bowls was.

 

 

 

 

.

 

 

We Are Here...And We Are Watching

Munster was missing.

Cynthia and I, and after I had woken her, Jack, searched the rooms, the cellar, and the grounds immediately outside the house. There was no sign of him anywhere.

Peter had violated his own rule and left his watcher post upstairs so that he could eat a quick bite with his new boarders, but when he asked Mari where Cyn and I were, she shook her head. He left the kitchen and two grumbling kids to find us. When we informed him outside near an outbuilding that Munster had gone missing, he scowled.

“He’s around somewhere. Relax, Amelia. He’ll show up. That guy is so headstrong, and with that gun, I think he thinks he’s invincible. Let’s go back. We’ll look some more after breakfast.”

By then the Cream of Wheat had cooled, and any amount of sugar we could pour on it didn’t help make it more palatable. To Mari and Ash anyway. Cold or otherwise, it beat the heck out of saltine crackers and Spam. I couldn’t eat, though. Not more than a spoonful or two. His disappearance set my stomach in a knot.

Munster was smart—smart enough to sense danger outside at any rate. The three of us had gone as far as the Flamecar looking for him, thinking that perhaps his run-in with Peter had prompted him to leave the house entirely and sleep in the car.

“Jack, when you’re finished eating, go back up and keep watch. Look for any signs of movement in the orchards. Maybe that idiot is out there somewhere sulking.”

“I wish you hadn’t beaten him up so much last night,” I said to Peter.

“Yeah? Well I had to let him know who’s running the show here,” he replied through tight lips. “And I didn’t lay a hand on him.”

What a difference a few minutes made.

Lashawna and Jerrick eventually entered the kitchen, she leading him by the hand. I supposed that would be the routine until he memorized the layout of our new home. I liked Jerrick—I mean he was nice enough, for a new friend anyway—but deep down I resented his presence. It wasn’t his fault that he was blind, and it wasn’t his fault that our world had gone to pieces in the blink of an eye, but having to have a keeper was a liability for all of us. If someone happened upon us, he’d be the last to know, and for certain we’d be spotted.

Game over.

“He’s on the main road,” Jerrick said as if he had just left Munster's side.

We all looked at him a little astonished.

“And how would you know that?” Peter finally said.

“I see him there. I mean it’s a different kind of seeing than what you have, but he’s out there. I hear the sounds of his feet on the pavement, and smell the rainwater on it. The road in is gravel. It smells and sounds different. The ground beneath the orange trees. All of it different. He’s out there on the main road.”

Cynthia shot a questioning glance at Lashawna, but she merely smiled.

“Okay, different sounds and smells,” Peter responded, “but how do you see it right now? Nobody’s nose and ears can be that sensitive. And maybe what you think you see is someone else walking on the highway.”

“No. It’s Munster, I’m certain of it.”

“What else do you…do you smell or hear or sense outside, Jerrick?” Cynthia asked. And that was a very good question. If blind Jerrick could somehow sense things the rest of us had no ability to sense, that meant our chances of remaining undetected increased a hundredfold at least. His liability factor instantly disappeared.

Jerrick’s countenance fell as he seemed to be concentrating, his sightless eyes staring hard, upward. A second or two passed, and then he spoke. “Some thing is following him, I think. I see…acrid. Whaatever is behind him makes no sound, though. Far away. Not close to Munster. Maybe not exactly following him. Maybe. I can’t be sure. But it’s out there.”

See smells? My young mind struggled with such a concept.

“Why is he out on the highway?” Peter shot.

“I’ve no idea,” Jerrick replied.

“Can we GO OUTSIDE now?” Ash interrupted the conversation. Mari was already standing at the rear door, ready to escape the discussion that, in her head, had nothing important to do with her or her antsy brother.

“No, Ash darling. It’s still dangerous,” Cynthia said. “You must try to remember that. And you know you're not allowed behind the house. Just be patient. Maybe a little later, okay?”

“I’ve gotta’ go find him. How far away is he, Jerrick?” Peter said, ignoring Cynthia and Ash.

“I don’t know distances precisely in the way I believe sighted people do, but not far. About the same number of steps beyond the entrance as I walked from the car to this house.”

“About one hundred-fifty yards,” Cynthia said.

Ash perked up at Cynthia’s comment. “Like the front yard here?”

“Almost,” she replied, patting his head.

“Can you keep up with me?” Peter asked Jerrick.

“I’m going too,” I said.

“No, you stay here with Lashawna and Cynthia and the kids. God, I wish you could see better than you…see, Jerrick.”

“I should go, too. Jerrick can move faster with me at his side,” Lashawna said.

Jerrick turned at the sound of his sister’s voice. “I’ll be fine. Stay here, Shawna. Yes, I can keep up with you if you don’t run, Peter,” he said with a certain look of doubt on his face.

“Okay, okay. Let’s get moving then. God help us if that nitwit wandering around out there leads someone to this house.”

Peter’s overt antagonism toward Munster was beginning to rub me the wrong way, but I said nothing. For the time being, anyway. Taking a final look at Jerrick, Peter left him and hurried to the front door. Jerrick followed Peter’s footsteps as quickly as he could.

“Be careful, darling,” Lashawna dotingly said.

“Don’t worry about me.”

They left, Peter bounding across the porch and down the steps. He stopped at the walkway at the bottom and looked back. Lashawna couldn’t help herself—she’d had years of practice taking care of her brother. She walked beside Jerrick until he arrived at the first step.

“Three steps, Jerrick. Here…here’s the handrail,” she said.

"I know, I know."

I could see the look of consternation on Peter’s face, and almost hear his grumbling words. He watched as Jerrick navigated the steps, his right hand sliding down the rail, his every step tentative.

“Leave him be, Lashawna. If he stumbles I hope he doesn’t break his neck. Go back inside. Get upstairs and keep watch with Jack.

“Meet me at the front gate, Jerrick. I’ll wait for you there,” he said. And then Peter turned and ran, leaving poor Jerrick to sink or swim on his own.

For a moment, Lashawna stood grasping the porch post, reaching toward her brother in useless, jerking movements each time he lowered a foot to the next step. Not surprisingly, he made it to the bottom, hesitated, and then set off at a snail’s pace to follow our un-elected leader, who by then was a hundred feet away.

“Come on, Lashawna. Let’s do what Peter said. You can watch your brother from the window upstairs. He'll be ok,” Cynthia said.

I went back inside, ushering the two children along in front of me. Cynthia waited until Lashawna gave up and left Jerrick to negotiate the path ahead of him, and then joined us in the living room after closing the door. Lashawna had this frightful look about her when she heard the door click shut, like the door closing was Jerrick’s casket lid being shut forever.

“Upstairs, all of us,” Cynthia said, urging Ash and Mari toward the staircase