stood up.
Daniel crept out of his scratchy hiding spot and across the buckled street. He swung around to the side of the two-storied house that had a doorway into the garage, and slipped inside. The door leading into the house was standing open. This was something that Daniel would not have done. Every effort was made to seal houses after he broke into them. This was done for two reasons: to make it obvious if anyone came into the houses after him, and to keep items, of which he did not know what to do with at the time, from being exposed to the elements. This door being open was as obvious as it got. Someone had been, or might still be, inside the house.
Daniel slowly cleared the main floor of the house, careful to not get too close to the windows. The wide picture window in back let him see in the direction of his old house. Where should have been the roof, with a water barrel on top, was an unhindered view of the late afternoon sky. Each time the stairs creaked on the way up to the second floor, he would pause and listen; this happened on almost every step. He quickly checked two of the bedrooms and the bathroom once he gained the landing. In the rush to get close to the window in the last bedroom, Daniel walked right past the folding metal chairs, and right over an empty can of green beans.
It didn’t take long for Daniel to realize that there would be nothing salvageable from the house. Some of the brick walls and the chimney still partially stood, but everything else sat down in the still smoldering basement. The house was a total loss. They had even taken his truck; Corinne’s car, like the remnants of the house, sat smoldering in the driveway. It had taken a dangerous, wasted trip to get here, and the only thing that seeing the carnage did for Daniel was stoke up his anger.
Bob Donner had come looking for him. Now, in return, Daniel was going to go looking for Bob Donner. Questions about why Bob was after him fell away; they did not matter anymore. If Daniel got the chance, he was going to kill him. There were no questions as to why about that.
Daniel turned to depart the sad scene, kicking the empty can across the room with his first step. It was only then that he noticed the chairs, and how they were positioned. Someone had placed them where they could overlook his house, or what was left of it. He dropped down low, out of sight from anyone looking in though a different window, maybe from a house across the street. An empty can of stewed tomato sat by his hand. Daniel picked the large can up and dipped a finger inside. Tracing the inside of the can with his finger, he stopped when he felt the dampness that had settled along the bottom. The can had been recently opened. Daniel now knew for certain that Bob Donner had left someone here to see if he returned. No doubt it was one of his willful-assassins, one of his former-police goons.
Speed, rather than discretion, seemed the best course of action to follow now. He had to gain as much distance from this damned place as he could. Without looking back, and with no thoughts of ever coming back, Daniel fled the area. Taking the long way around the L-shaped block at a full sprint, Daniel dove over the wall at the abrupt termination of the dead end street, which jutted out from the block that he used to live on. Stumbling for a few paces, trying to get his feet back under his body, which seemed to not want to wait for anything, he dashed across the back lot of where the Korean church sat. As fast as Daniel went, the sun matched his speed by dropping quickly away. The fear that had charged his body for the extreme exertion ebbed away with the sunlight, replaced by an overwhelming urge to drop to his knees and cower.
Daniel made it to the riverbank without the amount of time it took to get there accompanying. He found that, in his haste to get away from the ruination of his life, he was on the opposite side of the river from his last trip. He had crossed right over the wide drainage without noticing, until he turned west,