Djinn Box Set

Chapter 1-2

Artillery fire and crashing debris and death…Dale woke covered in sweat, heart pounding. He had no freaking idea where he was. He sat up and slowly realized he was in a bed. The room was dark and very quiet. It still took another few seconds for him to remember he was in his aunt’s house, the house he’d inherited. It meant he was alone, and presumably safe.

His heart rate had other ideas, as did his nerves. Dale pushed back the blankets and got out of bed. Maybe if he went to the bathroom and got a drink, he’d stop feeling like he was going to crawl out of his skin.

He flipped on the bedside lamp. It was a vintage thing with dangling glass pendants that cast odd rainbow edged glints of light. Slipping out of bed, he padded down the hallway to the bathroom. Business taken care of, he decided he needed a drink.

Carol, his cousin, had told him the refrigerator had been emptied while Aunt Mildred had been in the hospital so presumably there wouldn’t be any nasty life forms lurking if he opened it up. Of course it might be completely empty, but surely he’d be able to snag a few ice cubes to dump in a glass of tap water.

The open door of the bedroom cast some light into the hallway and he went down the stairs, knowing the kitchen was off to the right. At the foot of the steps he nearly wiped out tripping over a stack of magazines. Crap, those were going to have to go if he was going to spend some time in this house.

Deciding a light was the better part of valor, he groped for the wall switch in the kitchen. The counters were cluttered with empty jars and a crazy assortment of small appliances and a few pans. The sink, however, was clean and empty. He reached into the right hand cabinet and took out a glass. That hadn’t changed. His aunt had always kept glasses and cups there. He filled the glass about halfway with water and then opened the fridge. It contained a couple of bottles of water and a six pack of coke, nothing else. When Carol said emptied, she meant emptied. The freezer did have two trays of ice and he popped out some cubes and dumped them in his glass.

He sat at the kitchen table and gulped down about half the glass. His heart rate had finally returned to something approaching normal. Now if only he could turn off his brain and get rid of the memories of Afghanistan. By habit he rubbed his shoulder, fingers touching the scars that were a mix of shrapnel wounds and surgical incisions. It hurt less tonight than sometimes. Small blessings. The sheer clutter of the kitchen eventually drew his thoughts away from darker memories. Dale got up, set the glass in the sink, and opened a few cabinets, just looking. A lot of it was a disorganized mess, plastic cups, interspersed with normal average looking dishware and all sorts of paper. Tackling this and the whole rest of the house was going to take quite a bit of time.

Calm enough now that sleep might be possible, Dale went back upstairs.

* * * *

Acquisition of coffee involved a 7-11 run. That had to be fixed pronto. Dale made a mental note to buy a coffee maker sometime that afternoon. Back at the house, he sat on the stairs trying to decide where in the hell to start the clean out process. He was immediately interrupted by a knock on the front door. He opened it.

“I should have called first,” said Carol.

Dale gave her a hug. “No, no, it’s fine. I’ve been up for a while. I’m just trying to figure out which disaster area I should tackle first.”

“Eeenie, meenie minie mo? I’m on my way to work so I can’t stay, but I did bring you a half dozen empty boxes. Right now they’re flat, but I also brought a roll of tape to put them back together. Trash gets picked up on Tuesday. The recycling gets picked up every other week. Since it’s Sunday, that will give you two days to fill both up the first time, unless you’re planning on getting a construction dumpster.”

“Not yet, it may come to that but I think I’ll go slowly for now.”

Carol gave him a rueful smile. “It’s an undertaking. Call me later, if I can bring you something else on my way home.”

“Thanks.”