The Last Handful of Clover - Book 3: The Stone in the Stream

3.61 Homecoming

June 24, 6:46 pm

Nothing in living memory compared to the devastation that was visited on Salt Lake City, during those thirty-six hours in June. No hurricane, flood, or earthquake in the country had killed so many, and certainly, no disaster had acted so quickly, and none had resulted in the kind of psychological and spiritual terror that gripped the country and the world during those brief days. In scale, the Salt Lake Apocalypse, as it was soon to be called, only compared with the worst acts of genocide and slaughter that had been seen around the globe. And none of those terrors had been so concentrated in time and place.

The effort to heal the city, and the country, would take months and years. And for the survivors, those wounds would never truly heal.

Nevertheless, by the time a week had passed, those efforts had at least begun. And slowly, like a forest fire that had seen the flames pass to leave only embers behind, the survivors crawled out of their dens and shelters, looking at the devastation with clouded, lost expressions that would take months and years to fade.

On the morning of June 23, one week after the destruction of the Wanderer, the borders to the city were officially reopened, and refugees that had escaped began to stream homeward. They were in search of not only their own homes and the belongings they had left behind, but their very lives, and the lives of the people that they loved. All too often those searches would end in tears and mourning. Often, they would end in uncertainty. But in rare cases, survivors found each other and fell together with clinging desperation and relief. Each of those moments became a tiny piece of the healing that would bring the city back to life.

Richard and Keith were not destined to be one of those surprise reunions.

After Keith failed to appear in Dugway on that third day, Richard returned to his home. In the days that followed, he sat there alone, empty of feeling, empty of hope. He rarely ventured beyond the door of the home he and his lover had shared, and when he did, the sunlight judged him and shamed him, and sent him scurrying back inside the house like a cockroach.

Only once in those days had anyone entered his home.

A team of FEMA workers came by two days after he returned from his fruitless trip to Dugway. Richard watched as they quickly inspected the house, and when they left, they used red spray paint to mark some rough letters and the number zero on the door. Based on what Richard could see of the activity in the neighborhood, he knew what those symbols meant.

This house is empty. No bodies inside.

In a sense, Richard found the designation on his home to be a comfort. And more than once he glanced at the golden circle that still glowed on the wall of the living room, and considered stepping through it, just so that the house could be as empty as the relief workers believed it to be.

But even with Keith gone, he could not bring himself to make that journey. And every day, he prayed that the beckoning portal would wink out and leave him in peace.

The quiet of his solitary pain was finally interrupted on the evening of June 24. The neighborhood was once again showing signs of life, so it did not surprise him when the SLPD squad car pulled up outside. He was surprised, however, when he saw who got out of it.

Carla Grayson walked into the house with her gun drawn and pointed toward the ceiling, like some gumshoe in a TV drama. Slowly and carefully, she explored the house, Richard tagging unseen behind her. The woman looked drawn and tired, but other than some mostly healed scratches on her face, she looked fine. It wasn't until she spoke that Richard realized that her broken jaw was still wired shut.

"It's all clear!" she yelled through her clenched teeth, holstering her weapon.

Pil Kilani and Howard Gunderson got out of the back of the car, and walked quickly toward the house.