Darkness upon the Land
Chapter 28

Alexia spied the smoky pillar as she came back from behind the house after starting the coals for the grill. Her heart fluttered, and she walked toward the driveway to stand beside Reuben who also gazed at the spectacle.

“That’s coming from Esperanza, isn’t it?” She couldn’t keep the tone of worry from her voice.

“That would be my guess.” His gaze remained on the smoke.

“A house fire, maybe? Could be just a cooking accident?”

“I hope so.”

“They’d have no way to put out a fire.” She felt sorry for everyone in town. “No way to pump water. The canal might be too far away to get a bucket brigade to work.”

“We need to brace ourselves.” He said exactly what she had been trying to deny.

“Isn’t that what we’re doing already?”

“We’ve been vigilant and we’ve been preparing, but this may be our warning that trouble is coming our way sooner rather than later, now.”

A chill seeped through her as various explanations for the fire tumbled through her mind, and none of them were good. “People are going to need help.” She clung to the hope it was still just an accident, but hated not knowing if that were so. “Maybe we should find out what’s going on and see if there’s something we can do. And that way we’ll also learn what – might happen later.”

“How do you propose we do that?”

“I could go. People there know me and I’m not wanted like you are.”

“No.” Reuben’s reply was unmistakably firm. “If anybody scouts out what’s going on in town, that should be me.”

“I’m less likely to get railroaded.”

He glanced toward her before returning his attention to the smoke. “There’s no guarantees, but I’m less likely to get raped.”

Alexia stared at him. The insecurity of not knowing for sure what was happening was worsened by the possibilities of what could happen if an invasion force charged up their driveway. What atrocities might lie ahead for them? He had told her about overhearing Hooter’s enthusiasm about not letting a woman like her mother “go to waste.” The very notion Mѐre had narrowly escaped such a violation was repugnant to her.

Matters got worse when he groaned, “Oh, no.”

Her attention shot back toward Esperanza. A second column of smoke had begun to rise nearby the first.

Her heart started pounding as she grasped his upper arm. He placed one hand gently over hers.

“You’re starting to have an outburst,” he stated quite calmly.

“Can you blame me?”

“Can you nurture it?”

“What?” Alexia’s momentary bewilderment distracted her from the fear.

“Can you hold it?” His attention shifted to her. “Can you store it? Add to it? Let it grow? Save it for later?”

“You mean let things bottle up until it blows?”

“Mounting frustration usually leads to your more spectacular episodes.”

“And the spectacular episodes lead to my passing out.”

“Unless you can control it, not let it overwhelm you. Remember the dog attack? You got a little wobbly but you had a productive outburst.”

“That was an accident, remember?”

“Didn’t you learn from it?”

She stared at him as she replayed that episode in her memory. “I tried to.”

Reuben smirked slightly. “Well, I’m not gonna go Yoda on you and say how there’s no try, only do. I can tell you’re getting a handle on this, though. So remember that. You are learning how to use this thing.”

Maybe he was just trying to comfort her, to keep her from wasting energy and pemmican before a possible worst scenario came storming into their yard. What did surprise her was that he didn’t encourage her to dig deep, to struggle with Someone much stronger than her Who would help her with something she could never do alone.

Or maybe he was too involved with that struggle himself.

It was getting close to time to do the afternoon chores when Henry barked a few times before heading behind the house to hide. As Reuben carried his rifle to the front porch he thought of how the dog’s habit of concealing himself hadn’t started until after the attack on Liana. It had obviously traumatized the canine. At least he was still good about giving warning whenever somebody approached.

The other observation that rattled around in the back of his mind as his feet hit the ground was how his adrenaline wasn’t as ramped up as he would have expected. Trusting his gut, he actually hesitated in the yard instead of racing to the dirt fort they’d built to the side of the house.

He could hear voices, and was pretty sure they weren’t just in his head. There was a conversational quality to them, but he couldn’t recognize who they were from or what was being said.

Reuben raised his left arm and signaled with a flat, open palm toward the house. He knew Alexia, who had been entrusted with the slingshot and some of the Molotov cocktails, would be watching him. Liana, still insistent of getting out of bed whenever she could, was probably also surveilling him.

He stepped gingerly closer to the driveway and began to make out what a woman was saying.

“...should go alone. They could’ve seen the smoke and are probably a little edgy right now.”

A man’s voice responded. “I’d go except they might be less likely to shoot you on sight.”

The voice of a young girl immediately whined. “Mom?”

“Hush!” The woman’s voice became stern. “Don’t frighten her like that.”

“Well, they must be expecting company.” A different male voice joined the conversation. “That truck looks like it was put there on purpose.”

“All of you wait here,” the same woman replied. “I’ll go explain ourselves to them.”

Reuben didn’t catch the couple of murmured, brief comments made by others in the group, but in just a few seconds a slightly plump woman with straight blonde hair that hung just above her shoulders started approaching the truck. She began calling as she reached the vehicle.

“Hello? Liana? Hello? It’s Doreen! Hello, Liana?”

Doreen suddenly spied Reuben as she neared the nose of the pickup and abruptly stopped.

“Oh, hello,” she stammered. He noticed her gaze lingered on the rifle in his hand before it returned to his face. “Are you – you must be – Alexia’s friend?”

“Hello.” His reply was purposefully cagey. He was getting a pretty good feeling for what was happening here, but vigilance on his part was still due because he wasn’t certain who all comprised this band of refugees.

A couple of seconds passed before she likely realized he wasn’t going to answer her question. “I’m Doreen Graham. I’m a friend of Liana’s. I’m sorry to intrude like this, but we had to leave Esperanza. A gang attacked the town this morning.”

Her name didn’t register in his memory. “How are you a friend of Liana’s?”

“We go to church together.”

So this was probably more of an acquaintanceship. “Who all is with you?”

“My husband and our two children. Then there’s my sister and her boyfriend, and a couple of his cousins. Liana doesn’t know my sister or the rest of them, but she knows my family.”

He thought her description of her group was overkill on the notion of extended family. “Are any of you armed?”

“What?” Doreen seemed startled by that question. “No, of course not. We had to flee for our lives. That gang that moved in, they immediately started killing anyone that resisted them. And anyone they couldn’t shoot down they burned out. It was either run for our lives or ... be abused. Please, sir, my kids are only six and nine years old. This was an awfully long walk for them.”

These people might prove to be a valuable source of information, but Reuben wanted to know more before he gave the green light. “Why did you come here, to Liana’s? Why not somewhere else?”

“This seems like the safest place. She lives so far off the road.”

Not far enough. “And you and Alexia know each other?”

“Yes, of course.”

He swung the rifle so that he grasped it with both hands, and she jumped a little. He began backing away from her.

“Alex!” He called over his shoulder. “I need you here!” He stopped and focused his attention beyond Doreen. The tops of a few heads some distance behind her were barely visible. “Let me make myself clear. Tell your group to stay put a few minutes longer, because if anybody makes any sudden moves I may shoot first and ask questions later. Go on.”

She immediately obeyed. “Stay there!” She called back. “I just need to answer some questions first.”

“Is everything all right?” The first man called back.

“It’s good for now! Just stay there until I tell you!”

Alexia was prompt about striding out the house and across the yard. As she neared Reuben, she suddenly asked, “Doreen?”

“Oh, Alexia!” The woman seemed relieved to see someone she knew. “I was starting to get worried about you.”

He wondered if that remark pertained to him.

“What on earth are you doing here?” Alexia asked as she started to step closer.

He grunted and shifted into her way. “Not yet. There’s more of them out there.”

“Is your family with you?” She asked as she shot that annoyed glance he knew so well at him, but at least stopped.

“Mitch and the kids are. So’s my sister and a few others.”

“All right,” he stated, “she’s confirmed your identity. Call the others up and we’ll have proper introductions.”

After Doreen shouted to the group she approached Alexia. “It’s absolutely horrifying what’s happened in town. We’re all definitely lucky we made it here.”

“So that smoke we saw.” She frowned. “There has been an attack on Esperanza?”

“Let her tell us all about it when we get inside,” Reuben stated. “Your mom’s gonna want to hear this.”

“How is Liana?” Doreen asked. “I heard she’s been injured and that’s why she hasn’t been coming to Mass.”

“She’s healing,” Alexia replied, “although not nearly as fast as she’d like to.”

The first person, or rather persons, to come around the pickup was a barrel-chested man in his mid-thirties grasping the hands of two children. He was Reuben’s height and had sandy brown hair cropped in a close cut. The younger of the children, a boy, had blonde hair like his mother but also trimmed closely. The girl had her father’s hair color but it was styled much like her mother’s.

“This is my husband Mitch,” Doreen volunteered as they approached. The man was a little fixated on the rifle. “And this is our daughter Adriane and our son is Clem.”

“Hi, Alexia.” Mitch quickly glanced at the young woman before returning his attention to Reuben. “This your friend?”

“For lack of a better description,” she replied.

“I’m Reuben. I’m paranoid. Welcome to Liana’s home.”

The next four people immediately followed each other, and they all looked to be in their mid to late twenties. The first was a man slightly taller than Reuben and a bit stout, but also slightly flabby, as though he’d lost some weight recently. His dull brown hair was almost as long as Doreen’s but was considerably frizzy. The woman directly behind him was fairly tall and slender with her dyed red hair cut in a short bob.

“This is my sister Larissa and her friend Darius,” Doreen continued to be helpful. “And this is Alexia and her friend Reuben.”

The first man to follow Larissa was shorter than the others but the stockiest of the bunch, and this time because he was muscle-bound. His hair seemed dark but it was hard to tell because he looked nearly bald from how close cut it was.

“This is Carlo.”

The other man was slightly taller than Carlo, and although he wasn’t as stocky the bulk he did have was more from fat. His hair was brown and bushy.

“And this is his brother Percy.” Doreen’s smile was almost apologetic. “I just met them today, myself.”

“Comment ca va?” Reuben asked, and from the blank expressions he received confirmed that English was here to stay. The group was basically dressed in shorts and short-sleeved shirts, and sandals or sneakers. They didn’t have anything else, not even as much as a water bottle. “Looks like you all left in a big hurry.”

“Doreen Graham.” Liana’s voice from the porch made him turn slightly to look back at her. The woman was leaning against one of the columns beside the porch steps. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I am so sorry to see you.”

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