Spelville

On this day of stifling air, when just a few clouds were hung in the distant sky, in ghostly puffs and spires, the uncontrolled jungles of growth along Beacon Trail Avenue looked beaten and submissive. On the property that once had belonged to a wealthy family named Morris, but now was lived upon by a woman who was named Nicole Pearson, there waited an aging pony. Because of anticipated toil in the blistering sun, it hung its head, weak, and surly, trapped in heavy harness, before a lumbering wagon, with a galvanized water tank in the bed. Unsympathetic Nicole wielded a switch that the diminutive pony knew well. It hunkered down, dreading the whipping it fully expected to endure. For, Nicole sometimes applied the biting lash across its shoulders with unprovoked viciousness. Today, such a beating did not right away come. Those aching legs finally moved when the human took a firm hand to the harness and led it on the path to the river.

For almost the entire quarter-mile, Nicole did most of the pony’s work, hauling an arm-wrenching, backbreaking, load up a long grade. At the riverbank, she undid the harness and tethered the pony in some belly-high grass, where it could graze, while she performed the daily tasks of filling the water tank and taking a spell of digging in a pipeline ditch that one day would send the water straight to her property.

As Nicole poured the water into the tank, a gallon at a time, she daydreamed of unlimited quantities of the life-giving liquid, coursing freely through the pipes she planned to lay. When that day came, she would set loose the pony, forever, by way of celebration. From that time forward, it would not bear another burden for the rest of its natural life.

The digging was the tough part, but, once she cleared the high bank, the rest of the pipe would lay above ground. She chopped away at the hard earth with a shovel, because she could not manage the pick lying to the side in the grass. Nicole was aggressive, tromping on the shovel with one, or sometimes both feet, stomping it again and again, and getting rewarded each time with small chunks breaking loose. After thirty minutes of intensive labor, she retired. Exhausted, sweating, she leaned upon the handle and contemplated her overall progress. She estimated it would take another six months to complete the project, from river to home. Time now to bathe.

Nicole removed her clothing and gingerly stepped down the bank into the cold, refreshing, stream.

Splashing about in the calm backwater, she looked downriver, never tiring of watching the roiling water burst upon rocks and suddenly become still as a mirror, passing her little backwater. The smooth expanse carried on, perhaps thirty miles, to the sea. This river was her sole connection to the mystic side of living, the only inspiration that stirred her soul, for it was a poetry of God or nature; the one experience that truly put Nicole at peace.

She sometimes spent half the day like this, daydreaming, enjoying the break from a cruel, relentless, sun. Eventually, she slipped out of the water and dried herself with a thick towel. She pulled on her shorts and tee shirt. Ready to go home, she harnessed the petulant pony.

It put up a token resistance but quickly resigned itself to its moment of slavery with the wagon, for its daily labor soon would be over.

Nicole lightly brought her lash across the struggling beast’s shoulders for being too slow to suit her, when, by chance, she glanced up the river. To her surprise, there was suddenly a long narrow skiff moving toward her in the swift current. The skiff was a murky colored work, exhibiting years of no maintenance. Two unruly antennae-like arms waved from it and a man’s croaking attempt to shout could be heard.

The skiff nearly crashed upon the rocks, before achieving calmer water and gliding in toward the shore.

Panicked, Nicole urged the pony homeward, striking it repeatedly. Her frantic strokes stung the poor animal, which rebelled and stalled, traumatized, its legs violently shaking. By now, it was no longer a match for the ungodly load, even downhill.

Nicole seized the harness and dragged the wagon and pony along, by force of will. Those oversized wheels and the long downward slope were all that made moving such a weight possible. The wagon tottered along at a maddeningly slow clip. Despite all, Nicole safely gained her gate and locked herself inside, with a dozen attentive dogs, by the time the stranger came on a tear.

It was a gangly, tall male who came, having the appearance of a wild beast, with his entire upper half-covered with uncut, brown hair and a ragged beard. He stormed full ahead, hailing Nicole at the top of his lungs. The man’s charge continued until the iron bars abruptly cut short his progress. His bellowing voice dissolved into a whining gibberish as he sank against the fence and went on his knees.

The woman watched anxiously for evidence the man carried a weapon. When it appeared he did not, she silently stood her ground, among the dozen frenzied watchdogs, crowding the gate. At last, the man lapsed into silence. He had great crows feet about the eyes and a bulbous nose protruding through the hair. He appeared to collect himself as he looked through the fence and began making sense of what he saw in there. His black eyes solemnly regarded the blood-drained face of the woman, who might have been termed handsome, but for acne-scarred skin and long irregular teeth. After several failed attempts, he began forcing words over his thick tongue.

“I - am Bra - dy. I - came - from - Cali - fornia.”

He paused, appearing intimidated by the woman’s dour face, her impassiveness.

But his speech continued, becoming more and more persuasive as he spoke. “I was sick for several weeks, at the time they all died. I don’t recall anyone dying; just awoke from my illness one day and there was no one left alive, except me. I saw bodies everywhere, all covered with those red welts that made them look like they were wrapped up in garden hoses. I searched along the west coast without finding anyone; so, I headed this way. After ten years searching I found - just - you. You are going to welcome me, aren’t you? My name’s Brady. I’m forty-two years old and I’m clean, if ratty looking. I won’t bring disease to you. What is your name? Aren’t you going to welcome me? I dreamed of this day so long; now I don’t know what to do. Won’t you speak up? I would love hearing another voice besides mine. I used to sing and tell myself stories all day long, but I became so weary and got to where instead of speaking I would growl, like a bear. I want to hear your voice. I want to know your name.”

Brady looked into her impassive eyes and, when she would not answer, he dissolved into tears, sobbing broken-heartedly.

Nicole continued to regard him as she would a suddenly come upon arachnid, or worse. She felt grateful for the high-wrought iron fence and the protective nature of the dogs. After an eternity of staring, she felt it was time to send this beast on its way.

“You get out of here,” she said, her voice edged by hysteria. “Just go away and let me alone.”

Slowly, Brady raised himself up, his hands sliding on the bars until the dogs’ slavering, snapping, jaws forced him to withdraw. “Come on. Won’t you at least tell me your name? I see now how you have reason to be afraid of me. I just think we may be the only people left. If we aren’t, well, what’s the chance of us finding anyone else after ten whole years? We ought to become friends, to help and support one another. Come on, lady; at least tell me what you think.”

“I think your search is not over. Go back to your boat and head down-river. Never come here again, because I shall never let you come inside.”

Brady slowly wagged his head. “That old skiff has seen better days. I just may abandon it to be near you. Come on, I saw you getting your water and the trench work. I could finish the pipeline. Come on, what do ya say?”

“I don’t need any help. I don’t need a thing. Go away, Brady.”

From that point, Nicole ignored his plaintive entreaties. She began distributing her water.

The dogs crowded to the trough, tongues insatiably lapping as Nicole poured, and the pony waited its turn. Next, the chickens, who provided her with eggs and meat; then the garden, where cabbages and peas spread their leaves in thirsty supplication. Carrots stoically waited, and corn stood in bedraggled rows, not well suited to this soil. There was barely a gallon for her own use. She drained it into a glass bottle and took it inside, aware the whole time of Brady’s eyes following her from outside the gate. She brought the precious water to the sink, still feeling him through the brick and plaster. It suddenly dawned on Nicole to be self-conscious about clothing, which were all of a cotton tee shirt and scant, comfortable shorts, accenting her sun-browned legs; a selection dictated by the intense summer heat. Embarrassed, she sought out the loosest-fitting jeans in the closet and put them on. She slipped into a bra and then a long-sleeved shirt with buttons up the front. Henceforth, Nicole would bear the heat. As a last gesture, she slid a large folding knife with a serrated blade into her pocket.

In a normal routine, she would have gone out to hoe in the garden and make sure the chickens were getting plenty to eat. Instead, she opened her book and sat near the window to read. But, it was no good. After casting the tiresome novel aside, she sat back, to rest and think. Throughout the day, she waited for a revelation. Much of her time was usurped by recurring scenes of the past, of a bitter childhood and dreary seasons growing up. When Nicole was three, her mate-less parent met Joe Glass, self-centered drunk, wedding him, bringing Joe home in three short weeks.

Confronted with Joe’s bullying scrutiny and Anna’s passive acquiescence, Nicole learned to do and say nothing to attract attention. She would ever after be tongue-tied and furtive n the presence of others, fearing interaction on the most casual, shallow level. Hers was a fearsome, boring childhood. Friendless in school, she took an afternoon job with Longtines Nursery, where she worked alone, tending the plants. The stint became a career. Nicole, then living alone, had a bleak apartment near the Heights, where she spent her time staring at a television set. The present life was not a drastic change, except, until now, there had been no awkward encounters with other humans. Now came Brady, to destroy the serenity.

Nicole became restive. In the long shadows of the waning afternoon, she went out to examine the fence for flaws. She could not relax, ever, if she were to keep Brady from breaking in. The dogs prowling before her made the girl optimistic that neither man nor beast could get inside, unbidden.

As night came on, sullen and still, Nicole listened through the open window to the crickets serenading, viewed the yard, bathed in the silvery glow of the almost full moon. In the middle of the night she slept, to awaken with a dry mouth as the sun peeked over the sill and the rooster crowed, trumpeting the morning.

She wiped the crust of sleep from her eyes. After drinking several ounces of water, she splashed some on her face. “Definitely need a bath,” she muttered, and she was already lightly sweating in the heavy shirt and jeans. It was the first time she had spoken to herself in a long time. Each little thought prompted anger, at Brady, for she understood that he had already changed her life forever. She felt besieged, and no way out. There would be no bathing. Perhaps there would be no water at all. She busied herself pulling the meat from some grilled chickens, then fired the charcoal and set the meat over it. This was breakfast for the dogs. After misting her hands with a solution of water and grain alcohol, she tied her hair behind her head. She drank a tall glass of water before carrying the meat outside. Noting an overcast sky, Nicole moved plastic buckets beneath the house eaves, to fill with roof water. “Perhaps,” she thought, “a bath might be within the realm of possibility after all.“

She jumped at the sound of Brady’s voice, calling from beyond the gate. “Good morning, neighbor. I’ve just moved into the house next door. Today I’m going to dig your pipeline. That way I can feel I deserve to use it, too.”

An eruption of barking dogs obliterated the rest of the speech, with Nicole sprinting to the door and shutting herself in, where she harbored until mid-afternoon, huddled in her favorite chair. “Why won’t he leave?” she repeated for the hundredth time. The fearful woman just could not fathom a man who continued to hang on, even after being informed he was not wanted.

The animals needed water. The garden soon would be wilting. What on Earth was she going to do?

After hours spent brooding on it, she hatched a plan: She would go to fetch water in the normal way, but her knife would be open, affixed to the wagon in a makeshift sheath. As she butchered chickens and the occasional goat, when the need arose, so she would callously cut Brady’s throat, if necessary.

Once decided, Nicole readied herself and the pony and then moved resolutely out the gate. This time, the pony quickly stepped along. No need for switching. They struggled quietly up the path and shortly approached the river. Nicole saw Brady, digging away at her ditch, his bare upper torso glistening in the sun, his muscled arms flinging the shale with reckless abandon. As he tossed a shovel-full high into the wind, he spun, catching a glimpse of the woman with her wagon and pony. A grin broke across his entire face. He tossed the shovel and sprung out of the hole. “Neighbor!”

He loomed so quick and large, Nicole lost her nerve and retreated along the path, failing to grab the knife as she darted by the wagon. Although it quickly became apparent that Brady was not chasing her, Nicole maintained her top speed. She banged through the gate and locked herself in. She stood shaking and crying, mourning the loss of the cart and coming home with no water. Puzzled, the dogs milled about and licked the trough, wondering why the human had returned empty-handed.

It was intolerable. Nicole brooded all day long. At last, the one true

solution presented itself: abandon the property; begin life anew, elsewhere.

Resolved, Nicole planned her escape. She made up a backpack and set it by the door, figuring that she could take Brady’s skiff and live off the river. In the dark of the as yet moonless night, she yanked the pack over her shoulders and went out to reconnoiter.

Satisfied that Brady did not lurk in waiting, she stepped furtively out the gate, trapping the dogs inside, making their lives forfeit. Turning onto the river trail, she immediately bumped into something that ought not to have been there. Ignoring a newly bruised shin, her hand reached out, encountering a curve, then a metal edge. She recognized the water cart. She sloshed the water and then touched the pony, which snorted in surprise. “Lord. He filled and returned it.” Abashed, Nicole marveled. She wondered what other surprises Brady might have under all that hair. She carefully led the pony and wagon home.

#

Two weeks later, Nicole wore a broad grin, splashing her feet in the flooding water, as she moved to turn off the new faucet. She gave a playful kick that sent a spray of it over one of the dogs. “Two months ago,” she reflected, “I would have been devastated to lose one drop of this stuff. Now I have an entire river at my fingertips.”

Standing in a muddy pool, she looked beyond the fence to see if Brady happened to be about. She felt at peace with the man. Good things seemed to emanate from his presence. She had gotten used to his rambling monologs to the point where his voice had become a part of the environment, like the mockingbirds and crows, the smell of chickens and goats, the sighing of the wind. On this day, she felt anxious to see him, for she wanted to ask how the work on the generator was coming along.

To her dismay, he soon stumbled up, gesticulating and talking loudly to himself. She determined that Brady was drunk.

He spied Nicole and drew himself up to make a speech. Instead, he pitched forward face-first into the dirt.

Disgusted beyond words, Nicole left him to sleep it off.

After that Brady would become drunk numerous times. He would rant through the fence until he grew tired and went home to pass out.

Nicole became adept at ignoring his antics, that is, until one day when he came up to the gate on a bicycle-built-for-two, three sheets in the wind, with his hair cut off and entirely nude. Whereas he had been civil in the past, this time he rode in with a whole different vocabulary.

“Hey-o, it’s me, The Last Man on Earth come calling on The Last Woman.”

After coasting to a standstill, he posed, in his audacious splendor. “See this? It’s a bicycle-for-two. For me ’n’ you. Me and you; get it? Now take off your clothes and join me out here. You heard me, woman. I want to have children by you. You’re all there is and I’m all there is, not to mention I’m horny as a goat. You son-of-a-bitch, I need a good lay. You ought to need one, too.”

Nicole angrily snatched up a stone and flung it at him as hard as she could. It struck his rib cage. He doubled over in obvious pain, laughing as if he had just been treated to the best joke ever.

“Good one, lady, whoever you are, whatever your name is.”

Correctly anticipating the onslaught to come, he climbed shakily atop the bike and was getting off to a wobbly start, when a chunk of cinder block bounced off his butt. Man and bike spilled onto the driveway. Brady came up with a bellowed curse and commenced beating the iron bars with his fists, wailing on it until he broke some bones.

He was forced to retreat from a constant hail of rocks and cinder-block pieces, leaving the bicycle forgotten.

After that, Brady always ran naked and always appeared drunk. Nicole hardened herself to his antics and came to treat him again like an animal stray.

On a lazy afternoon, she came around the house to discover Brady at the fence, moaning, and retching.

“Don’t you come up to my fence like that, you jerk.”

He lay still in a pool of vomit, then, breathing heavily, still moaning. Nicole put the hose nozzle full force to wash him down. “Damn filthy pig animal!”

She went off to patch siding where the rain seeped in from the last downpour. As she finished with the sawing and pounding, she became aware Brady had grown quiet. Something about the silence impressed her more than any noises he could make. Curiously, she sidled up to the fence. A series of welts covering his body told the story. The scene called to mind all she had seen in the early days after all the people had died. Stripes stood out like bright red hoses, all over Brady's body. How could she have missed it before? Small matter now. Nothing would have saved him.

CHAPTER TWO

For a few weeks, she could not shake his image out of her head. Hairy, naked, vocal, plaintive, sometimes useful. Her mind continually replayed his words, “I want to have children by you,” and she had, a few times, imagined they parented a child, ruddy and gangly like him, but having ringlets of wispy white hair. She breathed the imaginary baby’s breath, conjured dresses it would wear. It continually comforted her. But, in time, the baby faded, as did Brady.

In a constant funk, Nicole tippled bottles of rum and wine.

On the morning of the fiftieth day since Brady died, she discovered the pony, dead, from the same ailment. Deprived of new human victims, the disease had adapted itself to animals. By afternoon, the rest of the animals were dead or dying. Panicked, Nicole ran from the home, seeking to outpace her own demise. She ran all the way to the riverbank, where Brady’s skiff was tied. She found the vessel partially submerged, and the fiberglass prow ate away by the ravages of a long rugged career.

Nicole had always considered the mystic, magic, river as the true giver and taker of life, and she now decided to follow it downstream. She trotted, rarely pausing, feeling there was a hungry, slobbering, monster at her heels. When the first day ended, she took refuge on the top of a small house. Its roof was low-pitched and comfortable and far out of reach of prowling, ravenous, dog packs, assuming any dogs had survived. Lying upon the shingles where they formed a valley at the ell of the structure, she looked to the stars and knew them to be their brightest since before the Industrial Revolution. The moon swung low, looking near enough to jump upon. With that bit of whimsy, sleep overtook her. Nicole wept in her dreams as gigantic spiders killed off scores of strangers and kept turning to her but continued killing more strangers.

She awoke with the sun in her face and quickly climbed down, her belly complaining about being empty. But one look at her arms renewed the terror and all thought of food vanished. She imagined that terrible disease in her flesh and indeed felt sensations of snakes crawling inside.

She raced like a deer, breathing hard, her chest aching. By early afternoon, she came upon a settlement she knew as Spellville. It had a collapsed inn, four weather-beaten houses, several outbuildings, twelve piers, and a gas station. The village seemed too close to home to be safe, yet she felt a need to linger and scrounge useful items, such as fishing gear, maybe even a boat. She ransacked the first house but found nothing of worth. Consumed with fatigue and ever-increasing pain, she dropped into a convenient porch swing and lay back, her eyes closed. She still could feel the snakes, writhing beneath her skin and thought she saw red welts wherever she looked.

Abruptly, she jumped, pulling up her feet, when a wet snout pushed against her ankle.

The wetness belonged to a roly-poly puppy that immediately went on its back, peeing, when Nicole reached down to rub its tummy. Wondering about its mother, her eyes searched a bit until she spotted a pair of heavy boots nearby. And a man, standing in them.

His stomach hung over a pair of shorts and his face reminded her of the hated stepfather who had withheld her childhood. She winced before the leering stare.

“Hey,” he said softly, “You’re the first woman I’ve seen in ten years.”

He appeared to be about forty, eight years older than her. Too sick to resist, Nicole held out her arms to show him the red welts. The man nodded his understanding.

“I lost my family to that. Lost everyone I knew, but old Frank. Old Frank stayed around ’til about last November, then died. Choked on a fishbone. That’s his dog’s pup there. The rest of them died, along with her.”

The man grabbed Nicole’s wrists, hauling the unresisting woman to her feet.

“I know how to cure that, or at least I think I do. It’s what saved me ’n’ Frank. Oh, yeah; I’m Joker. Joe Kerr. Get it? I’m gonna be your host. Let’s get you healed up.”

Nicole felt like retching.

“Let me help you along, darlin’,” Joker interceded. He hugged Nicole from behind, lifting her with his right arm, while his left hand became overly familiar.

“Don’t,” she responded feebly.

“Now, now. I won’t hurt you, darlin’. Old Joker gonna be good to you. Gonna save your life.”

#

There followed an ordeal of jumbled pain, light flashes and darkness - from which death would be a welcome respite. Yet, Nicole hung on until the crisis passed. With recovery assured, Joker came into her two and three times a day and she too weak to moan.

Healing was excruciating. At every trace of regained strength, she vowed to fight more. With Joker thrusting against her, vicious thoughts chopped him into pieces, feeding him to the fishes.

And then the illness promised to be over. One still morning, she awakened, renewed. She drew herself up, baby-stepping to the door, holding to furniture when equilibrium threatened to fail. Her one thought now became escape. Perhaps there was a boat. Her captor surely fished out on the water.

She tottered away from the porch, focused on piers, vessels.

But, then, Joker came around the building. His quick eye

discerned her lurching movement in the shadows alongside the ruined wall of the inn. Pulling a forty-four from a shoulder holster, Joker allowed Nicole to go onto the sagging gray wood, where boats groaned at the mooring. She shrunk from his touch, provoking a sadistic hair-wrenching jerk, that dumped her to the deck. Screaming as the gun came forward, she pulled her knees against her chest.

“Why did you sneak around like this?” Joker said earnestly. “I took you in, saved your life, made you at home. You should be grateful, not …”

He shoved the big barrel against her foot and pulled the trigger.

“There. See how far you get with no big toe.”

Next, Joker cut all the lines and set the old tubs free. Nicole watched listlessly as the few seaworthy ones drifted downriver, carrying her immediate hopes of escape with them.

Picking her up as easily as a child, Joker’s foul mouth breathed on her face. “Come, darlin’, I got to fix that foot. You goin’ to bleed to death otherwise.”

He let her down on the porch swing. “I goin’ to get some bandages, peroxide and a bucket o’ water. Goin’ to be good to you, darlin’, treat you real fine.” He grabbed a fistful of hair. “But, each time you don’t appreciate me, I gonna hurt you, eventually bust your spine! You be good to old Joker.”

#

“It’s a boy,” Joker roared triumphantly. “Gimp, we got us a boy to go along with our girl.” He whirled with the baby, dancing. “Got us a boy. Got us a boy. How about we call him Joseph, Gimp? Got us a boy named Joseph. Boy named Joseph.”

Nicole was left to clean herself and the child as best she could. Joker had gone out to smoke his cigar-sized joint. Then he would probably wander off to do whatever he had to do for the day. “Good.” She preferred it like that.

#

The children grew much faster than she could have imagined. Joseph, at age five, appeared quite the little man, and Annie, at six, was a charmer. She kept the precious imps as close to her in the vegetable garden as she could. She feared they might try to wander too far, and she with a disfigured foot might be too slow should they come in any danger.

She worked, until she felt tired and sweaty. After a while, she thought to take the children under the shady trees by the river, it being a scorching day and them without even drinking water. She saw Joseph on his knees rolling with the dog, but no Annie. Gardening hoe still in hand, she worked her way to the boy and spoke to him. “Where is your sister?”

Joseph hid his face, turning himself into a curled ball.

Nicole pulled him around, trying to make him face her. “Where, Joseph?”

Joseph shrugged one shoulder; then he talked. “Over there with my Daddy.”

He pulled away and curled in a ball once more.

With ice clutching her heart, not daring to allow herself to formulate a thought of what Joker could be up to, Nicole struggled through some rough patches of brush to the little clearing she knew to be just beyond. She forced the last branch aside and immediately stopped in her tracks. Shock turned her to stone, then to an avenging angel, as she swung the hoe with all her might at Joker’s head.

He blocked the hoe, grabbed it away and broke off the handle. Nicole flailed at him with her bare hands. Joker waved her off. He calmly and slowly strode by, as if to get past her. He instead grabbed her hair and forced her to her knees.

“You don’t ever want to cross me again. Especially now that you are replaceable.”

Again, he moved to walk away, but his face contorted with sudden rage. He flung her to the ground and kicked the center of her back. The kick turned into a stomping. He stood over Nicole, breathing heavily. “Didn’t I tell you?” he gasped. “Didn’t I tell you?”

Later, Nicole collected her children and hobbled home with them. In the night, a storm moved in, waking her from a miserable sleep. She observed in awe the slamming wind, the bolts of lightning spread across the sky. One of the outbuildings tumbled across the ground, rolling to a stop in the courtyard. She fully expected to die in this storm. But, of course, the wind soon abated and she found herself still alive, watching her sleeping children in the flickering light of incessant lightning flashes. She wanted for these innocents to survive, free of any man’s tyranny, free of Joker. But she had been crippled. Even if she had miraculously succeeded in escaping, the barrel of gunk would be left behind - the black oily substance he had acquired through shady business dealing. He had accepted a great deal of money to store it, paid by a man hiding strange substances from government agents. Some spilled on Joker, seventeen years ago, curing him of all traces of the mysterious death-dealing plague. He used it to cure her. If the children were susceptible, Nicole would want quick access to it. She contemplated Joker, lately holed up in his house, behind the gas station. But, she calculated, he made a mistake, moving there. It had occurred to her more than once that the structure was sided and shingled with cedar. She knew from her childhood experience about that. Once, a neighbor’s cedar wrapped house had caught on fire. The cedar wood burned as if kerosene had been dumped all over it. A classmate, Kerry, burned to death that day. Nicole kissed the children and tucked their sheets a bit tighter. “Sl Lying there, she made a conclusion. Fire was the escape she ought to have planned before now. She lay, suddenly peacefully, on her mattress. She would kill Joker. For the first time in many months she knew restful slumber.

The morning opened with a terrific burst of sunshine. She left the still sleeping children and hung around by the gas station, watching Joker’s home. After seven years she knew his sleeping habits. The weed made him groggy, keeping him crashed into the afternoon. Feeling resolute, she gathered cans of anything flammable, such as oil and kerosene, and emptied all on every side of the building. Boxes, newspapers, sticks, brush, she lay against it.

Making a torch of rolled-up newspaper, she visited the doors and windows first, firing all possible exits. Her work done, Nicole hobbled off, suddenly concerned the gas station would explode. Best to move the children.

As she led Annie and Joseph on the trail up the river, they kept looking back, at the growing conflagration, stretching swirls of flame hundreds of feet high, spewing off black, roiling smoke. Embers sailed across the sky, setting numerous fires. When the gas station detonated, the children screamed. A rush of heated air swept over them, for a few moments. Enough to scorch exposed flesh. They huddled on the riverbank for hours as the destruction continued. Eventually, just heat and smoke remained. Once it became clear their own house had been spared, they returned, drained and exhausted.

#

The children fell down asleep. Nicole made them comfortable before settling in for a nap, herself. As she stretched out, notions of education for the little ones filled her mind. They would have a future; why not plan for it? Books, field trips - the whole gig … Eventually, the woman slept.

When first she stirred, in the encroaching dusk, thinking to roll over and rest more, a dark thing in the window caught her attention and she sat up. The dimness could not hide the broadly grinning face of Joker, who sat on the sill, a shotgun cradled across his lap. Nicole groaned. She knew it was futile to run.

“Gimp, you hurt my feelings one time too many. Fortunately for me, I know you well. I was sure you would try something, after yesterday. Old Joker slept in the woods last night.” He looked at the sleeping children. “Say good-bye to all of that. This here shotgun gonna put you down.”

“Joker, I’m sorry …”

“No need to apologize, darlin.’ I got your answer right here.”

Joker leveled the weapon, his bloodshot eyes gleefully hateful. He squeezed both triggers.

There is a lot to be said in the care and use of guns. A primary lesson to be learned is of constant cleaning. One should not, as Joker did, take a shotgun out of a ten-year pile of trash and dust and expect it to work properly. Said piece likely will blow up in one’s face.

Joker died instantly.

Nicole consoled the children, who didn’t know to rejoice that day. In time, she would get them to understand. For now, they had but one task in life - to be kids. She would help them as they grew, to be always suspicious and self-sufficient - like her.