Z Day -4

  JAMES

  Miria had been too upset to come over the day after the funeral. She said she would come over as soon as she could, but I didn’t expect her anytime soon.

  So, I started sorting. We were pretty sure mom had left the house to Miria but wouldn’t find out till tomorrow. Just to be on the safe side, I didn’t get rid of anything, just organized it.

  I could not believe how much stuff there was to go through. I started going through my mother’s possessions and soon realized I was completely out of my depth. She had been more of a pack rat than I was.

  Some things were easy, like clothes. My mother’s attire did not fit Miria, and their fashion styles clashed. They were set aside to go to Goodwill. I had also found a few things of my grandmother’s that would join the box.

  Cleaning out the fridge and deep freeze was also an easy chore. I threw away freezer-burned food and smiled at how my mother loved to take everything from its original container and place it into plastic containers she labeled. She still had some of her 70’s Tupperware that was perfectly usable.

  I did make a brief stop to check on my gun safe. It had been installed right after I’d joined the service. I wasn’t allowed to take weapons with me when I went overseas. On the rare occasion I came home on leave and bought a gun, it went into the safe. When my grandfather passed, his collection also went in. Mom could never figure out how to work the combination lock, so everything was untouched when I cracked it open.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  I quickly inspected and lubed the weapons, enjoying the feel of the powerful machines in my hands. I’d learned how to do maintenance and rebuild guns in the service…before I’d been recruited into my current line of work. Once everything was back in place, I shut the safe and returned to work.

  I pulled everything from the attic above the add-on garage and set it out to go through. I found my old Star Wars and G.I.Joes from my childhood and various old and/or broken odds and ends. A few blankets were packed with mothballs, and I even found an old Penthouse that I had hidden up there as a much younger man. The Texas heat had dried the magazine out and made the pages brittle. I thumbed through it, chuckling, remembering when I used to sneak up there for some “alone time.”

  Chunking the magazine in one of the steadily growing piles of things to throw away, I opened another box. It was full of odds and ends: a sweatshirt my mother had decorated for me based on one of my favorite anime, a few G.I.Joes that had escaped the collector’s case, and a handful of clothes pins. At the bottom of the box lie a small strip of red leather with two small strings from where it could be tied to your arm.

  The leather was warm, having been in the hot attic, and felt dry in my hand. I turned it over, trying to place where I’d seen it before. It didn’t take long for the memory to come back. It was like rereading your favorite mystery book. You knew who’d done it and how it would end, but you still read it anyway, looking for something you might have missed the first time.

  I don’t know how long I sat there looking at that old vampire LARP band Shae had given me. Eventually, I tossed it with the rest on the trash pile and returned to work. It was amazing how much someone could weave themselves into your life. I shook my head, wondering how many other reminders of her I’d find and dreaded the answer.