I was looking forward to her waking up, now I just wish she would drop into a coma. She woke up yesterday morning, her fever broke and she was sweating a river.
My grandfather would have said she was "sweatin' like a nigger on Doomsday". I never understood what race had to do with that. I think Doomsday would be enough to make anyone perspire, regardless of skin pigmentation. My grandfather wasn't a racist, but his father was a self described Confederate Patriot raised deep in the heart of Klan country. Grandpa's best friend was actually a black man he had served with in Vietnam. They would both swap racists jokes and slurs, trying to outdo the other in offensive content, but neither were offended. Both had been raised by racist and bigoted families. Grandpa's father had once gone after him with a baseball bat for holding hands with a colored girl when he was thirteen. He eventually married that girl. That was during a time when white men just did not marry colored girls and those that did sometimes woke up to find a cross burning in their front yard or worse, swinging from a tree next to their wife. His father disowned him of course, but he never seemed to feel that was any great loss.
Within half an hour of her waking Katherine had accused me of feeling her up and ogling her while she was unconscious, stealing her clothes and intentionally spraying her with gravel when she wandered out into the road and reckless driving. I was driving too fast, so maybe she has a point on the reckless driving, I had driven up and down that road 4 times lost looking for what turned out to be an unmarked road hidden by some overgrown bushes. She even managed to imply that I was keeping Dee around to train as a wife so we could, in her words, "repopulate the species." I am willing to chalk up some of her offenses as remnants of a fevered delirium, but if her attitude does not improve I am going to leave her at the side of the road somewhere.
She is a doctor so naturally she disapproves of the treatment I have given her and says that with my level of incompetence it is lucky she is still alive. Dee meant well, but she only made matters worse when she told her about me fixing her broken arm, and how she got it. So on top of everything else she also thinks I'm an unfit parent.
As to how she came to be wandering out here in her condition, she tells me that she had not had any problems or seen anything unusual since the disappearance till about three nights ago. The lights went out in the farmhouse she was staying in. She did not really think anything of it. The generator in the barn was probably purchased new when Reagan was in the White House. She went out to check on it and found that the fuel line had come loose and spilled gasoline all over the floor of the barn. She reconnected the fuel line but it still would not start. She gave up after a few tries. Said that she had decided to move on to the next farmhouse down the road in the morning. I don't think she is mechanically inclined. She was on her way back to the house when she saw what she thought was a bear. It charged at her and she ran into the barn, it being the closest shelter. It got in before she could close the door. I did not tell her that I don't think it would have mattered had she managed to get the barn door closed, it still would have gotten in. It was between her and the door so she scurried up the ladder into the loft. She says it had some difficulty with the the ladder but not enough to significantly slow it down. She ran to outer loft door and leaped out, hoping to catch the rope dangling from the hoist.
If I remember correctly it was about a three quarter moon that night so there would have been enough light to see if the angle were right, but I still don't know if I would have had the nerve to do that. Despite everything I still have a problem with heights. I guess if one of those wraiths was after me I probably would.
She did manage to grab the rope but it was secured below so she was just swinging there like a treat dangling in front of a cat. The wraith took a couple of swipes at her, getting her once before she just let go and fell. The landing was painful but she was not seriously hurt. She looked up to see the thing howling at her. Remembering the spilled gasoline she raced back into the barn and fished out lighter. It was a disposable safety lighter she didn't have the option to just light, toss and run like you see in the movies. Again I have to admire her courage. She had to stand there in the dark interior of the barn find a rag light it and toss it into the spilled gasoline.
The barn was quickly in flames and the wraith was trapped. When she described its howling and shrieking I could not suppress a shudder. But she says that she did not run till she heard answers to it's howls. She says that she has been running ever since stopping only when thirst or exhaustion forced her to.
She is sleeping now. Thank GOD! I honestly don't think I could have kept a civil tongue if I'd had to listen to her for another minute. She is apparently still in hurting so I gave her a dose of pain meds. She carefully examined the pills like she thought I was trying to poison her. I told her that I had been trying to kill her she would never have waken up in the first place.
Another strike against her is that she does not like Emily and the feeling appears to be mutual.
© 2009 R. Keith McBride
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