The Sky Grew Dark (The End of the Golden Age) Read Online Free Page B

go out looking for food the next day. I needed a break and I could take the two boys. After all that had happened in the last few weeks I felt like they needed a distraction, too.
    The next few days passed in a fog. Ian and my dad hadn’t returned on time, Christmas passed and all our plans fell through. My mom and I had explained to Lisa and grandpa that Joey wasn’t returning, and Lisa seemed to sink deeper into her depression. Even though Joey teased her when they were children, they had grown close over the last few years. She probably felt like he abandoned her. She might even wish he had taken her with him.
    I caught a few fish, and the chickens laid a few eggs between them. Grandpa had continued his foraging and gardening, and we ate a few of the young garlics one night. In spite of all that happened I tried to be optimistic. Things were looking up a little bit.
                  After a full week Dad and Ian returned.  Dad was so ill he could hardly walk, and it had taken them twice as long on the return. Ian was practically carrying him into the camp. We laid him down and got him warm. I made a soup out of some fish bones and we added herbs and roots to it. Dad was pale and coughing a lot. It was a horrible cough. Like nothing I had heard before, each time it sounded like he was choking.
    Dad had always been thin, standing six feet tall he had a slender build, with salt and pepper, wavy hair. As long as I could remember he talked about the fact that he was going bald, even though I still couldn’t see a bald spot anywhere. He was cynical, and skeptic, and generally didn’t like people. He didn’t like Ian at first, but in the last few years it seemed they had grown very close.
    Now he seemed strangely thin. He looked like a skeleton. His eyes were sunken in and his skin looked waxy, drawn tight against his skull. Ian didn’t seem extremely well, either, he told us that Dad had started coughing the day they left and the nights sleeping on the cold ground just seemed to make it worse. Ian had started coming down with something about halfway back, and wasn’t coughing, but seemed to be extremely wan and pale.
    He almost didn’t notice two people were absent from our group. I quickly pulled him aside and explained about Joey and Liam. He didn’t respond, just continued staring with that hard look he had acquired over the last three months. He pulled me close and held me. I tried not to cry but I felt the tears coming. He stroked my hair and kissed my forehead. After a long time, he spoke. They hadn’t found anybody at the meeting place.
                  Dad coughed so much we could hardly rest that night. I found some Eucalyptus and tried to cook some of the leaves to help his breathing, but it didn’t make a bit of difference. His coughing and wheezing fits got so bad he couldn’t even eat. Every breath sounded like it required extreme effort.
    Every time he coughed the boys stared with wide eyes. They knew something was wrong. He never did notice Joey and Liam were gone. He didn’t respond when we asked him things, and finally, two nights later he choked and coughed for almost two hours before he finally breathed his last. He had never even spoken a word to us since his return. My mom had spent those two days in fear. She alternated between crying and staring, and after his death I grew concerned for her. The next morning I showed Ian where our little plot was, and we put my dad into the ground.
    My mom didn’t speak during his burial. She stood there, quietly, not even crying. Lisa, on the other hand, was hysterical. She sobbed and wailed, talking unintelligibly. If somebody touched her or spoke to her she cowed away, renewing her crying and muttering. Oddly, I was more concerned for my mom. She barely answered when we spoke to her, and she spent the next few days doing little else besides staring.
                  After things had settled down a bit, Ian told us that he