Birchwood Manor

BM24 Part 5

BM24 Part 5

“.....I’m going out there now.”

“We shouldn’t go anywhere alone,” said Angela. “I’ll go outside with you.”

Doug had gotten Jodi to take a sip of water.

“I’ve never seen anything like that. I’ve never been outside of Burkeville. I’m just a Cafe Owner.”

“It’s alright. I’ve seen corpses but they were cleaned up in a morgue. Never a fresh scene like that.”

“But you’re a best-selling author. A man of the world.”

“I write my locations from Google maps and a lot of imagination. The only other place I’ve been is one trip to New York to meet an agent.”

“You’re still amazing. You make readers think they are there.”

“Well, thank you fo r saying so, but I don’t think it is so spectacular.”

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“I think the generator is around this way.”

“They need to clean up this yard.”

“They’ll probably just bulldoze it over with the house.”

“You think so? Maybe I can do an editorial on it about how we are losing history.”

“That’s who you are! You do those editorial human interest type spots on the news.”

“Yeah, I came looking for a story on this place and found Danny.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound cold.”

“No, you didn’t”

They hugged.

“Doug thinks we’re flirting.”

“Doug? Why would you flirt with him?”

“No silly. He thinks we’re flirting. Youu and me.”

“Oh yeah. Jodi does too.”

“Why do people assume stsuff.””
“I don’t know. Hey, I hear the generator.”

“Oh my God! Tim!”
Angela and Carl went to Tim’s body and flipped him over.

“His head is bleeding but he seems to be breathing okay. We better get him inside,”

Carl slung Tim over his shoulder and they headed back in.’

“Hey what’s that?”

Carl looked down the drive. The van was wedged against a tree with smoke coming from the engine. He laid Tim in the grass.

“Stay here.”

Carl went to the driver’s side of the van and was able to pry the door open. He got Jeff’s seatbelt off and pulled him out. He was able to get a few feet away before the engine exploded knocking him off his feet.

Carl took Jeff back up to Angela and laid him in the grass next to Tim. There was a piece of metal protruding from Jeff’s stomach area. Carl went to pull it out but Angela stopped him.

“No. It may have damaged an organ.”

‘you’re right. We’ll have to keep it stable.”

“Take Tim back to the manor. Bring back a blanket so we can drag Jeff in.”

“Yeah, that’ll work.”

As Carl took Tim to the manor, Angela carefully searched Jeff’s clothes. All she found was a crumpled note of directions to the manor in one pocket. She brushed Jeff’s hair out of his face and kissed his forehead.

“You’re so young. You can’t die yet.”

Carl came back with the blanket and he and Angela were able to drag Jeff caraefully back to the manor.

The generator made a large sputtering sound before shutting itself down, Again the manorr was plunged into darkness.