Before I could engross myself once again with the view outside the window, George’s ever-so-loud voice boomed through the kitchen.  “What’re y’all lookin’ at?”

I replied, “The porch.”  I didn’t turn around.  I could tell he was standing just inside the kitchen door.  “There’s something different about the porch.”

“Whatcha mean?” he asked as he came to join us.

“I mean there’s something different.  Look at it.  Whatever that is out there, it’s not coming through the screens onto the porch.  It’s weird.”

He stopped beside me and peered through the window.  He was such a large man that I felt intimidated by his presence.  I knew he was a gentle giant, but he dwarfed me and everyone else.  I was quite aware of his mass standing beside me when he spoke.

“Huh.  Would y’all look at that.  Now ain’t that the strangest thing you ever did see.  I ain’t never seen nothin’ like it.  That don’t seem possible.”

His countrified rhetoric aside, George voiced my own thoughts with unnerving precision, and I was quite certain it was also what my mother was thinking.  The lights on the porch shone as brightly as ever and bathed the west side of the house in vivid light.  Had there not been an obvious discrepancy floating around right outside the screens, the view looked at would have seemed completely normal for a dark moonless night.

Except it wasn’t night.  I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and checked the time.  It was a few minutes before two in the afternoon.  The view out the kitchen window didn’t support that truth.  I slipped the cell phone back into my pocket.

“Why don’t we mosey on out and take a gander?”

My head spun toward George as though his head had exploded.  “What?”

“There ain’t nothin’ out there except the porch and furniture.  The lights’re workin’ fine, seems to me.  Don’t seem like nothin’s wrong out there.”

I turned back to the window.  Mom hadn’t moved in response to George’s suggestion.  To her I asked, “Does that sound crazy?”

“I don’t know.  Maybe.  Maybe not.  I’m not overjoyed with the idea.”

I couldn’t blame her.  I didn’t like it either.  Nonetheless, Old George was on the right track.  We needed to know something.  We needed some idea of why we were hiding inside Carr Beholden.  The porch looked clear and there was plenty of light.  Besides, if we went out on the porch, it was obvious we wouldn’t be inside the darkness.  It appeared unable to get through the screens, although that premise seemed insane to me.

“Maybe we should try.”

“I’m thinkin’ we oughtta.”  There was no doubt which way George’s vote would go on the subject.

“Let’s go check on everyone else, and then maybe we’ll run it by them and see how they feel about it.”  Playing democracy under the circumstances felt right to me, yet even as we turned to leave the kitchen, I was rapidly coming to the conclusion that we had to know something more than what we already did.  If going out on the screened-in porch was a possibility, it was a place to start.  It also seemed to be the only option we had available although I knew I was not the best authority on strategic planning or thinking.

The three of us stepped into the living room simultaneously.  My father was still tending to the dogs.  Mosko had at least crawled far enough out from under the love seat to place his head on Dad’s lap.  In return, Dad continued petting and soothing him.  Brogan had not moved.  He was still in front of my father stretched out on the floor.  Anyone walking into the room who hadn’t been in it before would assume the dog was sleeping.  We knew better.

Margaret and Helene were sitting on the couch.  One of them had removed the red bandana that covered most of Helene’s head all day.  It rested on Margaret’s leg as she braided her daughter’s luxurious black hair.  Helene, for her part, talked quietly with her mother as she looked toward the wall.  She refused to look at any of the windows.  I felt guilty about that knowing the limited view available out there, so I stepped away from George and my mother and walked the perimeter of the room closing the curtains.

Moving from one window to another I said, “Listen, there’s something interesting on the porch.  It doesn’t look like everything else outside.  You can see it through the kitchen window or that one over there.”  I pointed to the large living room window facing the porch.  “The cloud or whatever it is doesn’t seem capable of getting through the screens.  The porch looks normal.  We turned the lights on and can see just fine.”  I peered through each window as I moved around the room and found that only the one facing the screened-in porch offered a different view from the blackness that pressed against the others.  “George mentioned we might want to go out there and take a look.  I think that might not be a bad idea.”

As Margaret used the bandana to tie the French braid in Helene’s hair, the young girl looked at me briefly before turning her gaze on her father.  “Daddy—”  I’d not heard her use that affectionate term in several years.  “—I don’t want you goin’ out there.  It’s not safe.”

“Honey,” he said as he stepped over to her and placed his hand on her head, “it’s alright.  If’n we goes, we’d just step out there long enough to take us a quick peek.  We wouldn’t get the door open if’n there was somethin’ to worry ’bout.”  She leaned her head against him as he spoke.  I doubted his words comforted her at all.  “I took me a look-see and it’s alright.  Here, you can look out that window over yonder and see fer yourself.”  He pointed to the one window I’d not covered yet, the one that faced the porch.

I stood in front of it and hesitated with the curtains.  Then I turned around and offered, “Here’s how I see it.  We need to know something.  What if we’re standing in here being paranoid for nothing?  What if it’s just a dark fog caused by some freakish storm?  The porch gives us a way to investigate without being out in it directly.  If there’s any danger, we won’t even go out.  If we can go out there, at least we can get a sense of what might be happening.  I think it’s worth consideration.”

“I agree,” Old George added with a nod.

“I looked out there.  I don’t think there’s any way to know if it’s safe or not.  The porch is clear though, just as Dave said.  It looks like the black fog is being held back by the screens.  It’s strange to see, I’ll admit.”  Mom’s voice cracked for a moment before she continued, “But I think we need to know more than we do now.”

My father rose from his position in the far corner and took a few steps toward the rest of the group.  In response, Mosko pushed himself back under the love seat and curled into as tight a ball as he could.

Dad said, “I agree we need to know something.  What if we’re all standing in here gettin’ ourselves worked up over nothing?  We’ve all seen dark storms blow through here before.  Can any of us claim we’ve seen everything Mother Nature has to throw at us?  What if this is just a new kind of storm?  It’s new to us, but maybe it’s nothing to worry about.”

He then closed the distance between him and my mother, took her hand in his, and kissed her.  I questioned the sincerity of believing all of this was nothing to worry about, but I appreciated the denial sentiment nonetheless.

Margaret looked around the room at us before her gaze returned to her husband.  “Baby, do you think it wise to try this?”

“Yep, I do.”

“What if it’s not?” she questioned.

“I don’t right know, Margaret, but ain’t we gotta know one way or another?  I think it’s best if’n we gives it a try.”

She reached out and took his hand that was draped over his daughter’s shoulders.  “I’m frightened…”

“I am too.”  His words were loving yet reassuring.  George was a big man.  When he spoke with authority, it was rather easy to believe in him even when it was clear he was unsure.

“It’s a bad idea, Dad,” Helene interjected.  “It scares the fuck out of me!”  Her voice had suddenly become petulant and demanding, that of a spoiled brat.  It was indicative of the fear of a child.  All she saw in this idea was more danger and more uncertainty.  “It’s a dumb idea!”

Margaret grabbed her daughter’s arm.  “Helene McCreary!  Where’d you learn that kinda language?”

“Never you mind, Mom!  We shouldn’t do this, that’s what I know and that’s what I’ll say.”  She suddenly burst into tears.  Margaret wrapped her arms around her and held her closely.

My mind was already made up.  “I know there’s more we don’t know than we do know, but one of the things I know is we need answers.”  I gestured to the last open window in the room.  “I know some of those answers are out there.  If that porch is safe, we need to know it.  If we can go out there and get a closer look at whatever this darkness is, I say we need to take the chance and go out there.  If all of you want to stay inside, I certainly understand, but I’ve made up my mind.  I’m going outside.”

“I’m goin’ too,” George announced.  He squeezed his wife’s hand as he hugged Helene tightly.  “We gotta know.”

“Then let’s figure out how we’re doing it,” Mom said.

Dad reached behind his back, pulled up his shirt, and pulled out a pistol.  He was licensed to carry a concealed weapon in Texas.  Rare was the time when he didn’t have something tucked away somewhere on his person.

I know little about guns, but I could plainly see it was big.  Very big.  While I generally disliked guns, I felt a rush of comfort in seeing he had it with him.  That feeling was immediately tempered by the sudden impression that it might be of no help.  Either way, I assumed it was better to have it than not to have it.

“I’ll go too,” he added.

Margaret turned to look at us.  I immediately recognized her stern dismay.  “You can’t all go rushin’ out there like a posse.  This isn’t the Wild West, you know.  Has anyone thought of a reasonable plan?”

“I can tell you the first part of it,” my father immediately responded, “and that’s that George is staying behind the door until we know it’s safe.  My friend—”  He looked at Old George.  “—you’re a big man.  If there’s anything on the other side of that door that we need to be worried about, the safest place for you is to be on the inside of the door to make sure it gets closed.”

“I agree,” I said.  I looked at George and continued, “Why don’t you let me crack the door open and take a quick look.  If I yell, you push the door with all your might.  If there’s nothing to worry about, we’ll open it a bit further.  If we’re still in the clear, we can open it and step outside.  Dad can stand behind us and be ready to shoot if it’s needed.  And I don’t mean to be chauvinistic, but perhaps you ladies should stand behind him and wait for the all clear.  If that’s alright with you, that is.”  I offered a devious grin for their enjoyment, but also to defuse the tension a bit.

“You’ll get no argument from me,” Margaret responded.

“Me neither,” my own mother said.

Helene’s fading sobs grabbed my attention and I turned to her.  “Helene, you can stay here with the dogs if you’d prefer.  Your parents certainly get their say, but you’d also be welcome to stand inside the door with our respective mothers.  That’s if you want to be that close to the open door.”

The young girl looked over her shoulder at me and offered that smile from her I’d come to expect.  It was the wicked side of her personality that often made me keep her at arm’s length.  In this case, I realized it was an acknowledgement that I’d dealt with her directly and in an adult manner.  For some reason I didn’t understand, that made her quite happy.

“If you don’t mind,” she began while turning her attention to her mother and then her father, “I’ll stay inside with the dogs.  I’m worried about ours, but at least I can help with these.”

Margaret leaned forward and kissed her daughter on the cheek.  “Of course it’s alright, honey.  And I know you’re worried about the dogs.  If going outside means we figure out it’s okay to go home, I think that’s worth it, don’t you?”

Helene nodded and leaned back against her mother for a brief moment.  She stood after that, gave her father a quick kiss on the cheek, then went across the room and sat on the floor next to Brogan and Mosko.  She carefully put her hand out and allowed Mosko to sniff it before she began petting him.  His whining continued.  Her other hand had already begun stroking Brogan’s fur.  She looked back at the rest of us and offered an uneasy smile.

George turned around and said, “Well, come on, folks.  We ain’t got all day.”  Margaret stood and stepped around the couch to join him.

“Helene, do you want me to close these curtains?”  I was still standing next to the large window in the living room that faced the screened-in porch.  The lights were on and, especially from her distance, the scene looked relatively normal—had it been midnight.

“Yes, Mr. Lloyd, if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind at all, hon.  You can’t see the main door from here, but at least you can see the porch.  The lights are on and everything looks fine.  If you’re not comfortable and want to close them, you go right ahead.”

I felt terribly patronizing but didn’t much care about it.  I turned and walked out of the room with the rest of the adults following.

[Introduction | Part 9 | Part 11]