The union contract had allowed Dave to list his parents as his beneficiaries, rather than his ex-wife, and George had become financially independent on the same night that he’d lost his will to live. Dave had been driving home after drinking with his buddies, and had died when his truck hit a tree.
George shook off his momentary grief. Mary had been gone for seven years, and Dave for three. The generator had been one of Dave’s better ideas. It was a good one, commercial quality, and it was tied directly into the house. So long as the main breaker was off, it would power the house and barn. The flick of a switch turned George’s power back on.
George went back in to watch TV again, dismissing the flash and thunder as figments of his imagination. He was drifting these days, and figured that he had drifted off in a doze until something happened to wake him up. Probably whatever it was that knocked out the phone and electricity.
He spent fifteen minutes fiddling with the satellite receiver, but couldn’t locate a signal. Now he was really getting mad. Sports had become the only thing that he looked forward to anymore. Stomping over to the phone, he grabbed it to check for a dial tone, but it was still dead. Then a flicker of movement drew his attention outside. Someone had just run into his barn.
His eyes narrowed even further. He didn’t like his neighbors. They knew it, and didn’t like him either. None of the kids in the area even cut across his land any more. He had seen to that by having a few of them arrested for trespassing. Now someone was in his barn.
His anger at the power company transferred to whoever was out there, but now it had become a quiet fury that bore little resemblance to his earlier boisterous rage. He walked silently out of his door and crossed the yard. The barn doors were open wide, and his Dodge Ram pickup was sitting right where he had left it. Looking around, he couldn’t spot anyone, so he yelled, “Who’s in here? This is private property! Get out!” Nothing moved. Then he heard a scraping sound from the loft, and something that sounded like a stifled sob.
“Come down from there!” he shouted, but there was no response. Climbing the ladder, he carefully looked around. He didn’t want to be surprised and lose his grip. When he didn’t see anyone, he climbed the rest of the way up into the loft. There was a trail of sorts in the dust that had blown in since the last time he had been up there, and he followed it to the back corner. As he drew near, he saw a flicker of movement. Moving closer, he grabbed the top locker in the stack that whoever was up there was hiding behind, and pulled it toward him.
A shriek pierced his ears as he spotted the disheveled young girl in the dirty dress. She was plainly terrified, and he quickly backed away. It didn’t do much good. She continued to shriek as he held his hands over his ears. “Stop that noise!” he roared, almost drowning out the girl’s shrieks.
Something about his shout silenced the girl. When his ears were no longer being assaulted, he took a step forward, but she shouted, “Nein! Nein! Geh weg! Geh weg!” George stopped. He didn’t understand everything that she said, but he understood “Nein! Nein!” Anyone who had ever seen a WWII movie knew what that meant. “No! No!” In German.
German? What the hell?
George looked at the girl for a moment, and then started to put two and two together. Power and phone dead. Loud noise. Messy, frightened girl who speaks German hiding in his barn. Nodding to himself, he figured out exactly what had happened. A car or busload of German tourists had crashed and taken out a telephone pole.
Now that he knew what was going on, he calmed down. Looking at her, he saw that her dress was torn and she was covered with dirt. Well, that explained some of her fear. She’d probably heard all sorts of horror stories about the sexual habits of hillbillies. Chuckling to himself, he looked around. There were a few things in the loft that weren’t part of Dave’s hoard, and a box of them was right where he needed it to be. Opening the box, he brought out the old bathrobe that Mary had given him one Christmas. He hated the thing, but it was from her, so…