Dex texted back.
Yeah—but I’m not gonna get far.
No plow here yet.
I figured. Same here. But you live near
Sheridan and Easton, right?
Yeah, not too far. A mile or so?
What’s up?
Kelsey’s friend can’t reach her grandparents.
She talked to them last night, but no
answer today. They live on Joplin, near Sheridan.
Can you walk over and check on them?
They’re pushing 90 and she’s worried.
A mile walk in two feet of snow, after three hours of shoveling, and then a mile walk back, sounded like a very long afternoon. But if there were old folks who might need help, he didn’t see turning that down.
Yeah, sure. What’s their name/address?
Mav texted their name—Turner—and address, and Dex texted back that he’d head out as soon as he could and let him know when he got there.
When he looked up again, Mr. Clement was still waiting, holding the storm door mostly closed against the cold. “Looks like I do need a raincheck on the coffee, Mr. C. I got an errand to do for a friend.”
“I don’t know what kind of errand you think you’re gonna do today!”
“Gotta walk over to Joplin Avenue and check in on some people.”
Mr. Clement gave him a strange, long look. “The shit we did in uniform, Dex—you don’t gotta do penance for that. You know that, right? Whatever we did for our country, that’s nothing we gotta balance out.”
That depended on the shit you did, Dex thought, and the uniform you wore. But he said, “I know, Mr. C. I’m not trying to make up for anything. Just trying to be a help.”
“You are that, son. You are that.”
~oOo~
As expected, the walk to the Turners’ house on Joplin Avenue was a slow, cold slog. The few stretches of shoveled walk were almost worse; they broke his rhythm and made each time he was high-stepping through snow to his knees that much harder. By the time he turned onto Joplin, his thighs and back were over his bullshit.
In his Raider days, this would have been nothing, but he’d lost some fitness in the intervening years, apparently. There was nothing he could do in his home gym or running on city streets that could approximate the demands of Raider training.
Joplin Avenue was an even humbler street than his own. The houses here were bungalows, most with peeling paint or brick facades in serious need of tuckpointing. Only a couple homeowners had bothered to shovel any part of their property, and there was no one outside. With the cars still entirely buried and little activity, past or present, to be seen, it was almost as if the whole block had been zapped away by aliens or something.
But wafts of smoke or vapor swirled from a few chimneys and wall vents, and TVs flickered behind a few windows. Strands of Christmas lights glowed across many eaves. This block was just quiet. Nobody could get anywhere, so everybody was buttoned up tight, staying as warm as they could.
The house with the correct address was just as quiet as all the other houses. The curtains were drawn on all the windows he could see, and no smoke or vapor rose from the chimney. No one had even opened the front door; the snow was pristine on the little porch, and the steps were nearly indistinguishable under the mound of sparkling white.
Dex was halfway up the front lawn when he caught the first whiff of sulphur. He stopped, inhaled again, confirmed the odor. Two more steps toward the house, and the scent got a bit stronger. The cold tamped the smell down some, but it was definitely sulphur, and he was pretty sure it was coming from this house.
Fuck.
Moving slowly and carefully, he eased around the side of the house, looking for the gas line. About six feet from the front corner, he stopped. No need to go farther; the smell strengthened with every step.