Looking Back Through Ash - Wade Ebeling Page 0,134
another cigarette, but left it unlit. He struggled to stand upright, his face warning Daniel to not ask him if he needed help, and then slowly shambled over to a shelf, hidden within increasing depths of darkness in the one room building, bringing back another bottle of vodka with him. He fell back into his chair with a pained groan. A brutal, wheezing and coughing fit followed, leaving Jason winded and spitting into the corner. It took him five full minutes to compose himself. He finally managed to open the fresh bottle, pouring some into the same dirty glass, cursing when he spilled a few drops.
Jason did not even look up when he suddenly announced, “I’m dying. I keep thinking I just won’t wake up one day. But I always do!” he cackled. “Maybe I know why now…” He tipped his glass up to Daniel in mock salute right before draining it whole.
“What makes you say that, Uncle Jason?”
“Don’t mind me, boy…never mind that. I figure it’s time ya know the truth…”
Jason proceeded to tell Daniel the horrid tale of Bob Donner and his family; sparing no detail. They sat in silence for a long time afterward, both drinking now. When Jason started to feel sentimental again, he asked Daniel, “Are you gonna stay with me?”
Daniel replied, only after thinking for a few moments, “I have to do something first.”
“What’s that, Danny?” Jason inquired, taking up his slur again.
“I have to kill him,” Daniel answered, so coldly that Jason could only nod in response.
Nothing Jason could say would change Daniel’s mind, ever. Those were his father’s eyes that he could see. Determination did not come close to covering what was behind that look.
Daniel looked up, his eyes burning brighter than the candles, his anger clenching his jaw tight.
“Uncle Jason?”
“Wha’cha need Danny?”
“Can you tell me…how would my Dad have raided a place like the Warehouse?”
Chapter 23
Saturday
The soil around the concrete mounds and building was so hard-packed that it would not allow for a hole to be dug. Years of material-laden trucks rolling over the crushed stone made scratching at its surface a fool’s errand. Eventually, Daniel just dragged the wrapped-up body of his Uncle Jason over to the base of one of the mountainous piles of crushed concrete that surrounded him, dulling the sounds of the world at large.
An hour of pulling stones loose from the pile, and kicking them downhill, entombed the body inside a crushing shrine. His fingers were rubbed raw from the effort and the healing gash over his left eye stung with the constant supply of salt running over it. A sweating and disheartened Daniel walked back inside the cool darkness of his new home, which made him feel as if he were trespassing inside an animal’s burrow.
Daniel truly believed that Jason would die the first night that he slept here. Choking and gurgling, spitting and coughing, clutching his chest and struggling to draw thin breaths into his poisoned lungs, this was how Jason spent his nights. Somehow, Jason Clarke had lived for years like this, supplementing drinking and smoking for eating and cleaning. Daniel found it impossible to sleep, being just feet from the sounds of the diseased man’s nightly routine.
When he awoke this morning, feeling as though he had slept straight through the night, Daniel assumed that he had managed to get used to the disconcerting noises filling the air, along with the unrelenting rank smells. That, somehow, he had found a way to sleep despite these things having kept him awake for the past four days. The complete lack of labored breathing within the squat space of the grungy building, however, quickly told Daniel that Jason Clarke had died sometime during the night.
Daniel had still gained a great sense of appreciation for what Jason had done, despite the current state of the map’s prize. The man had fought off his demise, just long enough, to tell Daniel everything that he might need to know about keeping the building functional, and of how to get his revenge.
Jason told him how to get the ram pump working to draw water from the unnaturally round pond, down the gentle grade that ended at a large cistern alongside the building. He showed him how to manually pump water into a large tub that sat on the roof for the shower (not the he ever used it). He explained how to pack the wood-stove efficiently, and where to find the stash of fire-starter logs, which were hidden away on