Awaken Read Online Free PDF Page B

over in my head. I look to
the shanties. They’re still smoking some but the flames have all
died out. Were only the things inside that could burn anyways and
none of them had much. Then I realize that one of ‘em don’t seem to
be smoking at all. In all the haze and confusion earlier I ain’t
noticed before. It don’t seem to have been set aflame like the
others…why?
    The door of the shanty is all but torn
off and I can see the torch that had been tossed in lying on the
wooden table. It had scorched the table some but it never caught
before the torch snuffed out. Nuthin but luck that this one didn’t
burn like the rest.
    It’s Shelly and Thomas’ shanty. I step
slowly inside and right away my eyes are pulled to the cold hearth.
I swear I can all but see us young’uns sitting there, listening all
wide eyed while Thomas tells us spook stories, making us squeal in
fright. He sure could tell a good story, I think. Then, almost
angrily, I shake my head to clear the images away. I ain’t got time
for that, not now. I stride purposefully to the hearth where I know
a candle and flint are kept and I take them both. I need to go down
into the storm cellar and I’m going to need these to light my
way.
    My slingbag is lying on the cellar
floor like I was hoping, as was my crossbow and even my
hat….everything I had on me when gra’da put me down here. I check
to make sure my waterskin and knife are still in the bag, they are.
I start packing the bag with the little supplies left in the
cellar. Enough jerky and dried taters to last me a couple of weeks
maybe if I ration it, a few medicinal herbs, there wasn’t much. I
haul it all out of the cellar then go back for the last two jugs of
‘medicinal’ whiskey Lou kept here for emergencies, brewed from a
good corn harvest a few years back. I take them, one in each hand.
I was going to need ‘em for what I was planning.
    I take everything I had gathered back
to the shanty and apologize in my head to Thomas and Shelly for
what I am about to do. I strip the beds in the shanty, roll up the
two heaviest of the blankets and tie them to my slingbag. Next I go
rooting through the clothes chest. I find a couple of Shelly’s worn
dresses and some of Jane and young Thomas’ things, those I put
aside with the other blankets. I find a clean tunic of Thomas’ and
exchange it for the one I’m wearing….I cain’t stand having their
blood on me anymore. I take his wolfling skin cloak too but this I
pack in my slingbag.
    Done with the chest I move on to the
hearth. I find four root biscuits just sitting there as if Shelly
was planning on warming ‘em for their evening meal. The sight of
them makes me want to bawl again but instead I grab ‘em and throw
‘em in my slingbag before I change my mind. Another waterskin and
Thomas’ hunting knife are lying there too. It’s a big knife, bigger
than mine, nice and sharp. Thomas took real good care of it. I use
the big knife to cut all the clothes and blankets I had gathered
into strips. I hack at the cloth with a simmering anger, but it
don’t help to lessen my hurt none. All it does is make me feel more
guilty about what I was doing to Shelly and Thomas’ things…but then
I remember they ain’t gonna need ‘em. Not anymore. Not ever.
Annoyed at the tears that are threatening to fall again I push on
my eyelids with enough force to make me see black spots. It seems
to work. I don’t cry.
    I take some of the strips and tie the
knife sheath to my thigh, nice and tight. I feel I should keep this
knife handy. The rest I start soaking in the whiskey brew. Now for
the hard part.
    The moon is sitting high in the night
sky by the time I’m done my gruesome task. I had moved all my kin
…I didn’t want to think of ‘em as bodies. I had moved them all as
close together the best I could manage and stuffed the spaces
between ‘em with twigs and kindlin’ from the wood pile and the
strips of soaked cloth. Some of the bigger strips I had