Days of Love and Blood

off the group.
    Solomon, Cooper and Brigham were in the field with me and I heard repeated shot after shot. With my speed and their efforts, we were done clearing the area in a half hour. For the next hour, we searched the area for possible lurkers and Cooper dro ve down the road to look for stragglers who might have fallen behind.
    “Could you tell my son that I’m okay?” I asked Solomon before he went into the house to tell everyone that the coast was clear.
    “ I will. But why don’t you tell him yourself?” He almost had to bend over to talk to me because of his gangly height. He was a little older, perhaps in his forties, but his face was youthful without one line to crease his forehead or divide his chin. He looked me straight in the eyes without shifting. They were dark, almost black, but his honest demeanor and gentle voice softened their intensity.
    “I want him to stay away from me until I clean up. I don’t want this blood getting near him, that’s all.”
    “Sure, okay. We owe you a lot today. I don’t know what would’ve happened if you hadn’t shown up. You were - you were quite the inspiration, out in that field. Haven’t seen anything quite like it. I hope you stick around.”
    “We’ll be leaving. Tonight. I’m going to help you with these bodies first.”
    “ T’night?” Cooper asked as he came up from behind me.
    “Tonight,” I repeated. He regarded me briefly with a curious expression before turning to head toward the house.
    For the next three hours, we dragged the bodies and limbs to a few cleared areas where we could burn the bodies. Several of the people who had been hiding inside the house came out to help. A lot of them were watching me, whispering to one another. But no one introduced themselves. There was too much work to be done.
    After finishing, I climbed into my R.V. and painfully peeled the clothes from my skin, dropping them all in to the plastic bin I used for sanitation purposes. Solomon directed me to a water pump on the side of my house where I washed every part of my gear, using copious amounts of bleach.
    “ You’re gonna ruin your leather there. With bleach an’ all.” Cooper leaned up against the wall of the house next to me and lit a cigarette.
    “I’m not trying to be pretty. I’m just antsy about the germs, the virus. Trying to protect my son.” I kept my head down and scrubbed, trying not to look up at him. But his silence made me anxious and I couldn’t help it. I could feel him looking at me, studying me. He caught my eye when I looked up. I wasn’t sure if he had dirty blond hair or if he was just dirty. He looked like he hadn’t showered in weeks with stains of all kinds on his clothes and patches of dirt on his arms, face and neck. But his green eyes were alluring. He was older, with maybe ten or more years on me. The tan shoulders and sculpted arms set against his black tank top were hard to avoid noticing. Arched eyebrows and high cheekbones seemed oddly out of place on the face of this roughneck. It also made him more palatable. Once you really looked, he was easy on the eyes. Just like his flip-flopping demeanor, there were two sides to his appearance.
    “You did purty good out there. Better than I expected.”
    “Thanks. You, too.” I looked up at him and stopped scrubbing to show my sincerity. “And thanks for taking out the suit. I think it’s safe to say you saved my life.”
    “ If yer takin’ score.” He pushed away from the wall and walked away. I guessed he didn’t take to compliments very well.
    I finished up and while hanging my clothes to dry I smelled the wonderful flavors of food being cooked wafting around me. My stomach growled as if it had also smelled the scent of a home-cooked meal. I ran to the house to find my son and the source of the aroma.
    The scr een door creaked and banged against the door frame as I entered the home. A number of women were in the kitchen and a few more people were in the living room. I stood there, wondering who to ask when a woman with cropped blond hair passed by me holding a large bowl of baked beans.
    “Are you looking for your son? Ronan?”
    “Yes, I am. Hi, I’m Carson.”
    “I know. I’m Marianna. I would shake your hand but…” She held up the beans and smiled. “It’s so nice to meet you. I’ve been hearing stories from Solomon and Brigham for the past few hours. Ronan’s upstairs in one of the bedrooms, playing with my two sons. Go on up!”
    “Thank you.