And Darkness Fell by David Berardelli Read Free Book Online Page B

archway and ran upstairs.
A door slammed shut. Muffled coughing followed. A minute later, the toilet
flushed.
Ten minutes later, he came back into the living room, wiping his face with a
damp washrag. His cheeks were bone-white, his eyes red and wet. His gaping
expression told me he’d never witnessed anything like that.
“They were going to kill us,” I said.
A nod.
“Then … why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?”
“You’re not … afraid of me, are you?”
“It … isn’t that.”
“What is it?”
The corners of his mouth turned down. “You … handled this so … well.”
“Whaddya mean?”
He swallowed audibly. “As if … as if you’d had … practice.”
If only he knew.
My reflexes had kicked in, causing me to act instinctively. It was like
grabbing an egg before it rolls off the counter, or catching a bottle of beer I’d just
tapped with my elbow. I hadn’t thought much about it when it happened. My
survival instinct had come to my aid just as it had nearly twenty years ago, when
I was in the Army.
I hadn’t even realized my training had stayed with me. In this case, I was
greatly relieved. It had saved our lives.
While Reed continued to apply the washrag to his face, I searched the dead
looters. I wasn’t surprised to discover they’d all been armed. I found a shortbarreled Beretta .22 and a Llama 9-millimeter in Frankie’s pockets and an
American Arms .22 long-barrel, cowboy-type revolver and snub-nosed American
Arms .38 in the pockets of the second punk. The third carried a short-barreled
Smith & Wesson .45 in a pancake holster in the small of his back. All the guns
were loaded. I found only three empty casings among the revolvers.
I also collected more than five hundred dollars in cash from their pockets. I
dropped everything on the coffee table, went into the kitchen, and turned on the
rear outside light.
The back door opened up to a small wooden porch with five steps descending
to a large concrete slab. A large wooden picnic table, stainless-steel barbecue
grill, and several lounge chairs covered the slab. The well-used grill told me the
family enjoyed their get-togethers.
A five-foot, chain-link fence enclosed the back yard. The grass had been
mowed recently. Three galvanized garbage cans formed a neat row at the opposite
end of the property inside the gate.
Reed reluctantly helped me drag the three bodies down the hall, through the
kitchen, down the stairs, and across the back yard. I opened the gate and we
dragged them out onto the sidewalk and left them next to the curb. The faint
orange haze of the porch light ended a foot or so beyond the fence. They lay at
my feet, everything from the waist up shrouded in darkness. Only minutes ago I’d
murdered all three of them, yet I felt no remorse.
Reed stood beside me, panting from his excursions. Even in the semidarkness I could make out his pale features. After catching his breath, he said,
“Why’d we bring them out here?”
“I don’t want their corpses contaminating this family’s house or back yard.”
Reed nodded but said nothing.
“By the way, thanks for waking up when you did. I’m glad you didn’t do it
earlier. It would have been … well, really bad.”
“I was up long before they broke in.”
“How long?”
“My friend woke me as soon as he heard them coming down the walk.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“He told me to play possum until the right time.”
“Did he tell you when the right time was?”
“I sort of used my own judgment.”
“You cut it a little close, but it turned out well.”
He stared at the corpses for a moment then turned away. “I guess it did—for
us, anyway.”
“We’re still alive, aren’t we?”
“Yes. Alive.” Then he hurried back to the house.
Inside, I turned off all the lights. I also applied the dead-bolt to the front and
back doors. I found towels in the kitchen that I used to cover the blood spatter
and brain fragments on the living room