Read Renewal 4 - Down on the River for Free Online

decided to climb up to the crow’s nest in the vain hope of getting a better look. I felt better being up there, even though I could barely catch a glimpse of the school through the full summer leaves.
    We all heard the huge thump and whoosh, but I was the first one to see the black smoke billow upwards from the school. It was a thin stream at first, but rapidly the smoke grew to a broad column, pushing high into the clear sky. I could see naked orange flame off the roof when the tar began to burn, and I could hear the crunching sound of overheated masonry cracking loose and falling in the pulses of massive heat. The wind was mostly calm, but occasionally, I could catch the smell of hot oil overlaid with something horrible, worse than that rancid country ham my parents were always trying to feed us. Eventually, the weight of metal roof framing sagged enough to pull huge slabs of wall down, and the fire settled into a smoldering pile. At least I could no longer see it, and the smoke had faded from black to a sooty gray.
    I was vaguely aware of the argument below. Kirk was demanding to go find Dad, and Mom was demanding that he stay right here. As was always the case when Mom got serious, she won, and Kirk stalked impatiently around the camp, looking like he could bolt for the schoolyard at any second. I climbed down, just because I knew he might do it, and I had the notion I might be able to stop him. The whole point became lost when we saw Dad emerge from the woods near the school. He was alone.
    Even from that distance, the story was told. Dad’s head was down, his shoulders slumped, and his rifle held low. He trudged back to camp, and ignored the rapid fire question we were asking. He went straight to his pack, dug the flask Mr. Carroll had given him, and took a long slug from the shiny flat bottle. Still holding the flask, he dropped onto one of his homemade benches by the nonexistent fire, and stared at the ashes for a long time.
    Mom had discreetly waved us all to silence while she cautiously sat down beside him. She left a few inches between them, having been married long enough to know that he needed some time and space, but she refused to leave him alone. Her compromise was effective, because eventually, Dad spoke.
    “She just walked in,” he said. “She just walked in.” Dad leaned towards my mother, and she put her head on his shoulder. We couldn’t hear it, but we could see Dad’s body shaking with grief, and we took the hint to walk away.
    The story eventually came out in bits and pieces. They arrived in the schoolyard. There were no signs of life anywhere inside the fence. Dad showed her to her husband’s grave, and waited while she spoke to him and prayed angrily to the god of cancer. They circled around to the front of the school, expecting to find the useless people, as Dad called them, milling around the entrance, waiting for the help that would never come.
    What they found was far worse than useless people. There were bones piled by the door. Human bones. Dad said some truly choice words before they attempted to look into the dark interior of the school lobby. The stench was too much for Dad and Francine, and they were forced to retreat out of the cloud of death. They stood leaning on the hood of a Dodge while they considered what to do. The picture was clear. The people inside, instead of hiking off to find some help had resorted to cannibalism. Whether they killed people for food, or simply waited until people starved to death was unknown, but there was no doubt that cannibals made for some dangerous neighbors, and they decided that something should be done about it.
    Dad remembered an old trick he picked up somewhere, probably on some TV show. He found an old black t-shirt in the backseat of the car and pushed it into the gas tank with a stick. He held onto one end of the shirt so he could pull it back out, and just hoped it would reach the gasoline. He got lucky and pulled the shirt out with gas