The Trail of Ashes

3

 She trembled as she led the way, what few strips left of her clothing doing little against the cold, but Noah knew she must be as terrified as he was as they dared to enter the cabin. Neither of them had slept. As the hours of darkness crawled by, Aunty Melisa had mumbled to herself, her breaths tiny clouds of fog in the cold. Her words haunted him. Over and over, she asked herself what she was doing, what had come over her.

Aunty Melisa put her hand against the cabin door, nodded to Noah, and, with both their guns drawn, slowly pushed it open. The hinges squeaked as the heavy door swung inwards. As the door creaked open, a toxic wave of hot air heavy with the stench of rot assaulted their senses.

His aunt flinched, coughing as the rush of foulness washed over her, but brought her gun to her shoulder and pressed on. Noah tucked his face into his shirt, enduring the smell of his dried vomit over the alternative, and followed on her heels. Inside, the cabin was quiet and still. Noah and his aunt walked slowly so as not to make the floorboards creak.

Aunty Melisa winced with every step. Noah traced the claw marks running along her back, legs, and arms. Half-congealed blood ran down her legs and seeped between her toes, and she left bloody footprints with each step.

They rounded the dreaded corner to the basement door. Only the jagged outer edges of the door clung to the doorframe. Darkness shrouded the opening down the stairs, hiding whatever lurked below where the sun could not reach. Satisfied there were no sounds, they stepped into the hole in the door.

The light switched on as they crossed the threshold. There was no sign of Darrel. The bloodstains spread across the cement floor had to be his aunt's since Darrel's blood evaporated as soon as it broke the skin. In the center of the basement where they'd left Darrel's body, piles of what looked like dust lingered in a vaguely human shape. Noah gulped as they made their way down the stairs, eyeing the basement's dark corners.

He stood behind his aunt, watching her back as she knelt and prodded the dust with the barrel of her gun.

"What the hell?" Aunty Melisa said. Noah glanced over his shoulder as she shifted the dust around to reveal flakes. They were ashes, like the ones Noah saw when he swept out of the woodstove. As his aunt shifted them around, the foul stench grew so strong their eyes watered.

How was any of this possible? Noah couldn't fathom an answer, and neither could his aunt. Whatever Darrel was, it could not be called human. Darrel had died as something unnatural, something evil that was not of the world Noah knew. Despite that, his aunt trembled in silence. She had been the one to pull the trigger on Darrel, and the weight of his life still settled on her shoulders.

They left and threw their dirty clothes into the woodstove. After they changed, Noah fetched her a clean rag for his aunt to bite down on and helped tend to her wounds. The veins in her face bulged as Noah cleaned the spots on her back with peroxide. The liquid bubbled as it touched the bloody crevices. When they were done, Aunty Melisa nearly fell out of the chair as she stood up. She looked him over for any wounds, but thanks to some miracle and her shielding him from Darrel, Noah only had some minor cuts from the wood splinters.

"Are you hungry?" Aunty Melisa asked. Hands quivering, she placed a cigarette in her mouth but couldn't work the lighter. Noah flinched as she gave up and threw it and the lighter against the wall.

"No," he replied meekly. Neither of them were hungry. They were attached at the hip from then on. Noah panicked when he wasn't in sight of his aunt, and she took care to keep him within a few feet of her.

Noah's eyes were heavy, and his body felt like lead, but they spent the rest of the day enduring the basement as they moved the boxes of supplies upstairs. Aunty Melisa forced him to sit late in the evening, but she didn't go so far as to tell him to sleep. She sat with him and stroked his hair, whispering stories of her and his mother in their youth. Her attempt at comforting words, like fragile glass, shattered against her trembling.