Black Frost Read online

  “Good enough, I’ll get a fresh pot brewing,” he said, reaching down to pat Charm on the head. As he backed out the door, the muscular little dog looked at me, seeking permission to go with him.

  “Go ahead, go get him!” I said. Her response… a tail wag, a doggy grin and a brown blur out the door.

  Threatening your father with an ax is not normal behavior in most parts of the world. The fact that he approved of my actions is even stranger, unless you know my father.

  My grandfather was a welder by trade, but his son, Bob, Jr. spent his entire career in the employment of the U.S. Government working for a little organization with the initials DEA. In fact, he started with the Bureau of Narcotics & Dangerous Drugs ,and then was carried along into the federal merger that created the Drug Enforcement Agency. So I grew up living in five different cities across this great nation. And growing up DEA is quite a bit different than the normal American experience, whatever that is.

  DEA households are well kept and tidy, but there is never a name on a mail box, the houses all have alarms that are used faithfully, and there is always, always, always a dog. Could be a little Shih Tzu, a Pekingese or a Great Dane; it doesn’t matter. As long as it has all of its senses.

  DEA children are constantly coached in things like situational awareness, household security and never telling anybody anything personal or private. Cars are backed into the garage, ready for an emergency exit. Drug dealers are notoriously unforgiving on both agents and their families.

  My father took it further, by having me take martial arts lessons in every city we lived in. When I was six, I knew enough about gun handling to safely unload a weapon, if ever I came across one unattended. At ten I could hit the center ring on a standard target at seven yards with almost any handgun you could name, and I had a lot of practice time as Dad was almost always the firearms instructor for whichever field office he was working out of.

  Each summer I would spend three weeks at my grandparents’, helping with the forging although I also roamed the hillside and woods on the little farm. So I grew up with a rather intense education in modern survival, one that would one day be put to full use.

  So, now in my middle years, these reactions are pretty much hardwired into me. My wife, Sarah, never really understood it. Conceptually, she got the point but couldn’t really grasp the mindset that I had grown up with. I tried to explain it to her, the fact that I never knew if my father would come home, or if some drug lord would come after me or my mother in revenge. She would nod, but I don’t think she fully got it. I guess you would just have to live it.

  I finished the rough work on the blade, then left it to cool slowly. The morning’s work set aside, I headed into the house, entering the kitchen door. The farmhouse is really a collection of add-ons, centered on the original two-story footprint. The additions are all one story. There are two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs in the original structure, a living room and kitchen below. The other, newer parts consist of a dining room, family room, sewing room (which became an office after my grandmother’s death) and a second full bathroom (that’s the one I use).

  I found dad in the office, working his way through three untidy file cabinets that we hadn’t tackled yet.

  The little room had a small work table with one drawer and a measuring straight edge painted on top, the filing cabinets, a small fireproof safe hidden under a fake cabinet and a tiny end table that we used as a printer stand. My laptop sat open on the table which was as close to a desk as the house had. The sight of it reminded me of the pictures on my cell phone and I immediately sent them to my email address.

  Dad had pulled the single chair over to the cabinets; the garbage can nearby already over flowing with throwaways. After waiting a minute or so for the photos to make their way through the digital network, I opened my email service and brought the pictures up on screen.

  “Dad, have you ever seen bite wounds like these?” I asked.

  He spun around fast, then relaxed when he saw I was referring to just photos on the computer. I’m pretty sure my tone would have been different if the bite marks had been on me.

  He frowned as he studied the photos. “Where did you get these?”

  “Dead possum I found up top the mountain this morning. Actually, Charm found it.” I answered, reaching down to pat the wide, wedge-shaped head next to me. She was tucked in the corner where she could stay close without getting stepped on. Charm loves my dad, he and I being the only two males she is comfortable around.

  “Hmm, I’ve never seen anything like them around here, but they remind me of a Discovery Channel show I saw about the Amazon. Piranha make bites like that.”

  Now that he said it, the similarities were obvious. Crescent shaped, cookie cutter bites. I Googled piranha and found pictures that seemed to match.

  “What the hell would do that around here?” I asked, baffled. “Unless somebody’s been stocking the brook with South American fish.”

  He was still frowning, but after a long pause he stood and went to his black soft-sided briefcase near the door.

  “Before your grandfather died, he started to act…..well, strange. You probably didn’t have a chance to notice, with all you went through,” he said gently. “But nonetheless, I thought he was becoming senile.”

  He stood up, a leather-bound book in his hand. I recognized it as my Grandpa’s journal.

  “I took this the day we found him…I didn’t want you to remember him as crazy or anything, but maybe you should read it. Maybe you should keep an open mind and see what you think. And Ian…” his light blue eyes drove home his serious intent, “I want you to keep your eyes and ears open!”

  I snorted, “Dad, I always do…as if I had a choice.”

  His mouth twitched in what might have been a smirk, but then straight-lined into serious mode again.

  “I mean, keep an eye and ear out for stuff like those bite marks, wiseass.”

  “Why Dad? What do you think made them?” I asked.

  “I have no idea, but keep a watch and read your Grandpa’s journal. We’ll talk about it some more then.”

  “Alright. Listen, why don’t I throw some lunch together. You look like you have this under control.”

  I retreated to the kitchen to ponder his words. Dad wasn’t prone to alarmism and completely lacked the imagination that I had shared with my grandfather. That he would react that way to a strange wound on a possum carcass was out of character.

  I put together a couple of thick ham and Swiss sandwiches, cracked open cold cans of diet Pepsi and set out some potato chips, all under the watchful eyes of Charm who was hoping for scraps. Dad wandered in at my call. We spent lunch talking about the last pieces of Bob, Sr.’s estate, then dad packed up his papers and headed to the door.

  “Ian, where’s your GrandFather’s shotgun?” my father asked suddenly, pausing in the doorway.

  I pointed to the coat rack in the little entry way by the back door where we were standing. It was solidly screwed to the wall, hand-crafted of pine, with a rather boxy top and six coat pegs below. I touched the hidden lever on the back and the front of the long rectangular top popped open on springs. Inside the narrow space lay my GrandFather’s ‘social’ shotgun, just as he had left it.

  My father reached in, grabbed the gun, and broke the action open, pulling out the round from the top barrel. He handed the shotgun to me, not looking up from his examination of the shell. After a moment he held it up from my inspection.

  “Steel shot – BB size,” he said, his white eyebrows arched.

  “Steel? Why would gramps use steel?” I asked. I hadn’t looked at the gun or its load of ammo since moving in.

  For those of you new to weapons, steel shot is usually used for waterfowl, to avoid leaving poisonous lead in the waterways. Leastways, that’s the old use for steel shot. We’ll have a new need of it now.

  Looking at the three inch shell, it was clearly labeled ‘steel shot, BB’.

  “That’s a p
retty good question, Ian” my father said, then waved as he headed out. I watched him walk to his Ford Expedition, his right hand unconsciously tugging his light jacket down to cover the butt of the .45 he habitually wore, even in retirement. I automatically reloaded the round into the shotgun and put it back in its hiding spot, latching the coat rack lid shut.

  I cleaned up from lunch and looked at the clock. There were a few minutes, I decided, to look at the journal before I needed to get back to my knives.

  I started with the last entry first. We had found grandpa dead, in his bed, on May 28th. The last journal entry was the night before.

  May 27- Was outside this morning , looking up at the house, noticed hole in the guest bedroom mesh. Climbed up on roof and found that they had cut a small opening. Chilled me to the bone. Didn’t think they could get through steel mesh! Don’t know if any got in the house. I repaired hole and reinforced. Checked house, no sign. Pray I didn’t miss one.

  It didn’t make much sense, especially the part where my eighty-nine year old grandfather climbed on the roof. It made me wonder if that exertion was the cause of the stroke that killed him.

  I have a very clear memory of the day we found him. I was coming over to work on our latest knife order and my father was just coming over to check on grandpa.

  When we entered the house, the sense that something was wrong was immediate and palpable. The coffee wasn’t made, and there was no sign he had been up for breakfast. Grandpa was up every day by six’o’clock, day in, day out, for as long as I could remember.

  We called to him but there was no answer and the house felt empty of life. Part of my brain was telling me that the worst had happened; while another part was worried he had fallen and broken a hip or something. My father didn’t say anything, but his face reflected similar fears.

  By unspoken agreement we entered the bedroom together, immediately seeing my grandfather, in bed, lying on his back, hands clasped over his stomach. His mouth was open, wider than natural, rigor mortis holding that way. Two paths of dried blood trailed down his cheek and chin, pooling in a congealed mass under his head. His eyes were blessedly shut. Death was obvious.

  The rest of the morning was a blur. I remember placing the 9-1-1 call, but it wasn’t an emergency, so dad and I waited downstairs for about twenty minutes for a sheriff’s deputy to arrive. Cause of death was determined to be a stroke.

  It took two months to clean up the house, and another month to get the deed signed over. I repainted and re-carpeted, seeking Ashley’s input on colors and textures, trying to make it ours. I, of course, took my GrandFather’s room and Ashley got the guest bedroom. It was late August when we moved in. The sale of our old house had closed two weeks before, so we only spent a short time at my parents’ house before taking up residence in the farm. The day we moved in was also the day we got Charm. My father can be a bull in a china shop when he gets an idea, but this turned out to be a stroke of genius. Taking Ashley to pick a dog from the pound had completely redirected her discomfort with moving into the house her great grandfather had died in.

  Charm had been a rescue dog, plucked from an illegal breeding mill by ASPCA officers. She was on death row when Ashley spotted her in the kennel. The attendant told my father that she had refused to interact with anyone since her rescue. She told him it was a waste of time for Ashley to try to go in her pen. Ashley proved her wrong in about four minutes flat.

  My GrandFather’s writing seemed strange….not outright crazy but odd. Who were ‘they’ and how could ‘they’ get into the house through a screen? Why had he put heavy mesh over every window (something I had been wondering about since I moved in)? Why would anyone bother the old man?

  I looked at next most recent entry.

  May 26 - Heard noises outside last night. Found tracks of one of the big ones near the kitchen window. Can’t tell if it was the green one or the white one. Sprinkled steel filings all around the house. The tracks never go near the barns where the forge is.

  Okay, that was sounding more than slightly crazy. I couldn’t figure out the part about the green or white ‘ones’ and why he would sprinkle filings around the property. I went back another day.

  May 25 – Witnessed another aerial fight today. Just at dusk. One of the big flyers was hunting something (mice? Chipmunks?) near the garden and a group of three green Tinks attacked it. Thought the bigger one was dead right there, but it managed to tear apart two before it got stung. Even then it killed the one that stung it before it died. Those teeth are nasty! Bodies gone as usual.

  The part about teeth caught my attention. If he had been discussing a bird of prey, he would have said beak. I had no idea what ‘Tinks’ was, but I was hooked. I flipped back through the entries, scanning for the first problems. The first strange entry was in early April.

  April 4 – I’m starting to think I’m seeing things. Last couple of days, I’ve been seeing hummingbirds or maybe large dragonflys (at least that’s what I told myself they were). Just quick flashes, never a solid look. Today one of the bug-like ones landed on the clothesline post, the one nearest the garden. I watched it from the kitchen window. About four inches long, green body, tannish brown legs, dragon fly wings. Not a bug! Looked like that little fairy girl in Peter Pan, but not! I probably shouldn’t be writing this down. My son will commit me if he reads it!

  The phone rang. Caller ID read ‘Academy MMA’. I picked up, “Hello?”

  “Ian, it’s Tom. I wanted to see if you have any time tomorrow? Between ten and twelve?”

  Tom Yelos ran a mixed martial arts school in town and from time to time provided me with my third source of income.

  “Sure, Tom. I’m clear then,” I answered, looking at the school calendar on the fridge.

  “Let’s say ten then. I’ve taken on a new guy and I need the master’s advice!” he said, lightly.

  I laughed. “Okay Grasshopper, I’ll be there!”

  Tom and I had met at a recreation league soccer game when our kids were six. His daughter Lindsey had been best friends with Ashley ever since. While watching our kids swarm around the ball, kicking like dervishes, we had gotten to know each other. When he told me he ran MMA classes, I had expressed an interest and explained my background.

  If you haven’t heard of mixed martial arts, you’ve been hiding, ‘cause it’s the biggest thing in combat sports since boxing. Combining aspects of both striking arts (think karate, boxing, muay thai) and grappling arts (wrestling, Brazilian ju-jitsu), the sport is vastly more exciting to watch than boxing. It’s rapidly sweeping the nation.

  Tom had invited me to visit his school and the day I took him up on the offer, he had been training a young lightweight fighter for an upcoming amateur bout. I’m not the best fighter on the planet, I mean I can hold my own, but I would never have made a good professional fighter. But what I can do is identify fighters’ weaknesses at a glance and help them improve. I demonstrated this fact that day as I watched Tom work with his fighter. I pointed out that young Ben’s aggressive forward leaning stance was leaving too much weight on his front foot. When Ben laughingly invited the ‘old man with the big mouth’ into the ring I showed him the proof by foot sweeping him. Then I corrected his stance and he promptly submitted me after four long minutes of sparring. Tom offered me pay for helping him tune up his fighters before bouts. My talents even extended to watching video of their opponents and offering hints on their weaknesses as well.

  The day was getting older when I got off the phone, so I left off Grandpa’s journal and went back to the smithy to draw file the mornings’ work. Two hours of filing had the blades in good shape and left me enough time to clean up, grab Charm and head to Ashley’s final soccer game of the season.

  Chapter 2

  They lost by one stinking point, but Ashley played a great game and was in high spirits as she came off the field with her BFF Lindsey in tow. Ashley plays mid-field, having the right combination of fast and slow twitch muscle fibers to be able to sprint to the
action, but endure the endless back and forth running. She and Lindsey make a dangerous pair, the black haired mid-fielder feeding passes to the aggressive blonde forward.

  The day had warmed considerably, and both girls were wiping their faces as they laughed about a squeeze play they had put on a particularly nasty player. That girl had been very free with illegal trips, elbows and shoves. The terrible twins had sandwiched her, hard, in one play, putting an end to her fouling.

  “Dad, can Lindsey stay over tomorrow night? It’s Friday,” she asked.

  I glanced at her blonde buddy, who gave me a huge smile that I didn’t buy for a second.

  I narrowed my eyes at both of them in mock consideration of saying no. They already knew it was a foregone conclusion that I would say yes. Hell, I’d give Lindsey my car if she wanted it. Nobody had been more in Ashley’s court when her mother had died than Lindsey Yelos. I literally thanked God daily for giving my daughter such a good friend. I nodded and they laughed and then hugged goodbye.

  “What did Coach think about your final game?” I asked.

  “She said we played well. Shen school is one of the toughest teams in our conference. Here,” she finished by handing me a slip of paper. There is a never ending stream of such messages from teachers, coaches or PTA members, constantly flowing home. This one detailed the soccer banquet the following week.