Darkness upon the Land

After two nights of sharing his quarters with Darius, Carlo, and Percy, Reuben was ready to move in with Flash and Dash. The baby bucks, unlike Carlo and Percy, weren’t grouchy most of the time due to nicotine withdrawal. The kids didn’t feel the need to challenge him like Darius seemed compelled to do. And the Nubians were cuter than the lot of them ... and smelled better.

He had put together a schedule for “sentinel duty,” which was the main advantage he saw for having extra persons around. Nobody had to take a shift of keeping eyes and ears toward the road for longer than three hours, but Reuben made sure he, Carlo, and Percy had the night watches. That gave him a break from having to put up with all three of them in the room at once. Darius complained about having the next shift after theirs, although he would probably complain about any time slot he was scheduled for.

He gave all of them lessons on handling the rifle, which for some reason Larissa, Doreen, and Mitch all seemed ill at ease with, and his three roommates acted as though they were insulted by his instruction. Each sentry kept the firearm even though Reuben wasn’t entirely comfortable with that arrangement. The other women and Mitch would probably just drop the thing and the three stooges would likely blow a toe off.

Doreen and Mitch made themselves useful by helping in the garden and with food preparation, and their children were actually quite intrigued with giving a hand on taking care of the livestock. But the rest of the group had to be assigned duties, and they proved to be recalcitrant and sloppy in carrying those out. He sometimes felt like he was trying to help run a day-care center.

As Friday afternoon began to wane into evening, Reuben stepped into the living room from outside just in time to hear Carlo’s voice from the kitchen.

“Don’t be so uptight. Might as well live while we can.”

He abruptly halted and suspected it was probably a good thing Liana was out on the porch with Doreen and Larissa chopping up carrot and radish tops for the rabbits.

As he guessed, it was Alexia’s voice that replied, and she stammered slightly. “I have faith we’ll make it through this.”

“Faith isn’t a guarantee,” Carlo responded. “And I can guarantee you it’ll be a blast.”

Reuben’s feet seemed to move on a purely subconscious level to bring him to the kitchen doorway.

Alexia was standing across the table from Carlo, an empty basket grasped in her hands. He could tell from her expression that she was very uncomfortable with this conversation Her gaze shot to him the instant he drew into her line of sight.

But Carlo didn’t see him come from behind. “Come on, you should at least take a test ride before you make up your mind.”

He stepped into the kitchen. “Alex, Adrian was wanting another lesson on how to handle the rabbits. Why don’t you take care of that, please?”

The burly male started, and she immediately replied, “Good idea.” She strode out the back doorway of the kitchen.

“Now what are you wanting me to do?” Carlo looked annoyed as he gave full attention to Reuben.

He had to remain civil. “You need to stay far, far away from her.”

“What’s it to you? She said you’re not her boyfriend.” Then he leered. “Or are you afraid I’ll cut into your mother-daughter action?”

He had that sensation again that he must have been born a hundred or so years too late. How could it be he was so outnumbered in a society that seemed to revel in popular depravity? One form of “recreation” before the coronal burst was what Carlo had just accused him of seeking. And under the claim of equal opportunity, one could also find father-son action. But that wasn’t the entirety of it.

Once upon a time the presence of a parent convinced society no inappropriate behavior would take place. But in a culture so steeped in relativism, it was difficult to avoid the appearance of sin because everybody assumed everybody else behaved as badly as they did. Only they didn’t believe they were behaving badly. He was quite certain Carlo saw absolutely nothing wrong with his proposition to Alexia, and the jab at Reuben was probably inspired by the conclusion he was too incompetent to embrace such an opportunity.

He couldn’t belong in this century ... no, that wasn’t right. He reminded himself that he had been born exactly when he supposed to be.

“This is your one warning.” He stuck to the topic. “If I even think you’re so much as just looking at her for too long, you get thrown out.”

Carlo glared. “Awfully sure of yourself, aren’t you?”

“I’m not the one you need to be afraid of. Just be grateful it was me instead of Liana who walked in on your solicitation. She’d already have your skin flayed off by now and fed to the ducks.”

“Yeah, right.” He turned his back to Reuben and began striding away. “She sure ain’t what I imagined when Doreen claimed she was supposed to be nice.”

He had a good hunch what Carlo imagined. Well, that settled it. All three miscreants – yes, even Darius – needed to be informed about respecting Alexia. If Liana ever got even a whiff they were ogling her daughter, he’d have trouble telling which parts went to whom on their mangled corpses. Ever since her discussion with him in her bedroom, he better understood why her protectiveness was so fierce. And she wasn’t even Alexia’s birth mother.

He quickly headed outside to be sure nothing else had started to transpire.

Alexia knew Reuben’s request to work with Adrian again on handling the rabbits was a ruse, so after leaving the house she strolled toward the pasture. The two milk goats trotted over to the fence as she approached, and she obliged Bliss and Jinx by scratching around their ears and hips.

She wished these people hadn’t arrived. Doreen’s family wasn’t so bad, but Larissa complained a lot and preferred to stay up later at night and try to sleep in on mornings. The guys had just been a general nuisance until this evening. Carlo’s remarks to her were just one step up from the comments her stepfather had made, and she’d felt that familiar uneasiness even more.

She was such a skinny girl she’d long supposed no guy would pay much attention to her, which was fine by her except for the part which wasn’t entirely true: No decent guy ever showed interest, but the creepy ones sure did. She supposed the latter outnumbered the former by such a wide margin she should never expect anything different.

“We should have taken up alligator farming.” Reuben’s voice intruded on her thoughts.

At least she knew one decent guy. “Why? You’d recruit them?”

“Not only that, we could take the biggest one and load his mouth with cannon ball and powder his behind.” He stood beside her at the fence. “Or maybe I’ll just do that with Carlo.”

She smiled. “His mouth would be big enough.”

“I’m gonna tell all those guys to keep away from you. If any of them says or does anything to make you uncomfortable, just give me the nod and I’ll give them the boot.”

“You’re not going to mention this to Mѐre, are you?”

“I’ll keep my silence just so that your mom doesn’t hurt herself from using Carlo as a club to beat the other two guys.”

“You’re coming up with all sorts of ways to make him useful, aren’t you?”

“I’ve been struck with inspiration. Want me to track down Adrian so you can get her started on milking?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Alexia turned her head slightly to watch him stride away. Yeah, he could do it. There was nothing empty about his statement he could run any of these people off if they got too out of line. He was far more competent than any of those jokers, even though he was the youngest of the bunch.

Oh yeah, that was right – his eighteenth birthday was coming up soon. Before the solar outburst she had figured on bequeathing Reuben with a small, token gift, like a fancy banjo pick. That was out of the question now, but she still wanted to give something. He never made any big deal about his birthday, and she knew for a fact he wouldn’t mention its approach. If nobody else intervened, he’d treat it like any other day.

She should remind Mѐre of the upcoming event because she knew her mother would want to celebrate his existence. Maybe they could try to whip up a cake or pie and present him with a present that would probably qualify as “it’s the thought that counts.” But he was easy to please, and that made doing something for him all the more enjoyable.

After the chores were done and everybody but Larissa sat around the table for supper – her shift for guard duty wasn’t up, yet – Alexia and Mѐre had to give an understated explanation of why this evening they lit two white candles at the table and precluded the usual grace with brief recitations over bread and wine that Doreen commented reminded her of the Seder meal on Maundy Thursday. Rather than have Reuben explain yet again that no, he wasn’t Jewish, Mѐre simply commented that Jesus was a Jew and there was nothing wrong with welcoming the Sabbath has He had done. It was nice to see that the kids got a kick out of the simple ceremony, and it gave some normalcy to their routine.

Reuben arose Monday before dawn from the pallet of blankets that had become his bed ever since the Three Stooges moved in. By his design there were never more than three of the four men in the room during the night, so two of the newcomers would share the bed, but he took his fitful slumber in the corner near the window that overlooked the front yard. It had appeared magnanimous of him to surrender the bed, but honestly he just didn’t want to sleep with any of those goofballs.

As he looked at the somewhat cloudy sky to confirm the time, a feeling of uneasiness dogged him. They hadn’t seen any aurora for the past few nights, so it appeared the sun was over its tantrum. But the damage had been done.

He stepped into the bathroom to freshen up, and pondered why this nagging sensation of impending dread continued to linger. His dreams during the night had been at their usual level of disconcertment for nearly three weeks, so he couldn’t blame them. Doreen’s ragtag bunch had been here now for over four days, so he had grown accustomed if not content to their presence. As he left the bathroom and returned to the window, he suddenly recalled that by this time eighteen years ago he had drawn his first breath. Well, this was a fine way to begin a birthday.

After his morning prayer, which he recited while standing just outside the door to his room in order to have more privacy, he added giving thanks for this gift of life. He also took a minute more to reflect on what unique contribution he must have been given to make his birth necessary despite the fact there were already billions in this world. Was he living up to his mission?

He stepped back into the room. Since the sentries kept the rifle, he strapped the pouch for the slingshot to his belt, and then strolled toward the bed and pushed on Darius’s shoulder.

“Time for you to relieve Percy.”

The man twitched and rolled away from him.

So he shook his shoulder harder, not caring if he disturbed Carlo sleeping on the other side of the bed. “Up and at ’em, Sunshine.”

Darius flopped to his back and glared at Reuben. His response was basically the opposite of “Good morning.”

“Consider it another beautiful day in paradise.” He turned away, picked up the slingshot and a generous supply of pellets, and walked to the door to leave the room. “Don’t expect Percy to be pleased if he has to come get you.”

Speaking of the devil – when he reached the porch and the overhanging roof no longer blocked his view of the yard, he noticed Percy sitting on the tire-supported berm fortifying the shallow trench. The fellow was leaning against Reuben’s rifle, its butt wedged into the damp ground, and his head was down. Keeping his annoyance-bordering-anger in check, he silently slipped across the overgrown lawn and approached the deficient sentry.

Curbing his impulse to kick the rifle away and cause Percy to tumble over, he snapped, “Did you see that?”

The misfit jerked and sat upright, but after a couple of startled seconds of staring intently toward the road, he shifted and glared at Reuben. His response matched Darius’s version of “Good morning.”

“See if you can stay awake until your relief gets here.” He turned away to head back toward the house. “And if he’s not out in five minutes, you’re welcome to go up and kick his butt out of bed.”

Reuben entered the house and knocked on the door to Liana’s bedroom to awaken the women. He heard Alexia respond with “Thanks, Rooster,” and he headed back out the house to start feeding the poultry and rabbits.

As he headed back across the yard, he hesitated and gazed toward the road. That uneasy feeling still nagged him. Should he head up the driveway a little bit to scout things out? Maybe after he finished feeding the livestock, and somebody else was available to help cover him, he should follow through on that idea. He walked to the barn to get the feed.

That’s odd … where was Henry? The dog usually followed him during the chores. That uneasy feeling surged.

After taking care of the ducks and turkeys, he noticed that Alexia and Adrian went into the barn to milk about the same time Darius actually relieved Percy without any further intervention. Good, after she got the girl started on the goats, he wanted Alexia to help watch out while he surveyed down the road a piece. He figured there was still time to feed the rabbits first and walked to the shed.

Just as he closed the hopper flap to the last cage, the crack of gunfire immediately preceded Darius’s screams.