Free An Unkind Winter (Alone Book 2) by Darrell Maloney

specifically.
         Dave looked to the sky and suddenly lashed out in rage.

     “Why? Why in hell did you do this? You’re supposed to be a God of compassion, of love! Do you have a sick sense of humor? Do you hate mankind so much that you thought you’d play a cruel joke on us? Why the hell would you do such a thing, and why the hell should I worship you if this is the way you treat your people?”
         He fell to his knees, tears streaming down his face, babbling to himself.
         “Why? Why?”
         Half of him hoped God would be angry with him, and strike him dead with a lightning bolt from the heavens.
         The other half just wanted answers.
         To questions that were unanswerable.
         He finally stumbled back into the house. He took a flashlight from the kitchen counter and went into the garage, where he poured two cups of gasoline into his generator.
         As the generator came to life, he thought how sweet it would be just to bring a pillow and a blanket into the garage, and to lay on the floor and doze off to sleep. To let the invisible and odorless fumes overtake him, and steal away his life.
         Then he could face God directly, perhaps, and demand answers to his questions.
         But no.
         Dave was a man who took the words of the Bible literally. He’d always been that way. That’s the way he was raised, the grandson of an old minister who preached fire and brimstone each Sunday morning, and made damn sure his grandchildren were there to hear every word.
         The Bible said thou shalt not kill. And while it specifically didn’t mention suicide, the killing of oneself still counted.
         Dave had always believed that suicide was a train ticket straight to hell.
         So if he had laid down, and let the carbon monoxide end his life, he might indeed meet his God and get his answers. And then God might tell him, “I have your loved ones here with me. But you’re heading in the other direction.”
         In the end, he shook off his funk and returned to his safe room, where he spent most of the night sipping black coffee and watching old family movies.
         And softly sobbing.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
      -15-
     
         His alarm clock went off at five a.m., not to wake him up, for he’d been up all night.
         No, the alarm was to remind him to douse the fire that had warmed his body all night long, lest an early morning looter or bandit notice wisps of smoke coming from the chimney of an empty house.
         And wonder why someone would go through so much trouble to make an occupied house look empty, and what treasures they might be hiding inside.
         He kept two buckets of dirt next to the fireplace, having learned during his Boy Scout days that was the quickest way to kill a campfire.
         Actually, that wasn’t true. It was the second quickest way. He could douse it faster by tossing water on it, but he hadn’t lost his mind to the point of wasting his most precious commodity.
         Maybe another day, at some point in the future. But not yet. Not today.
         He’d intentionally let it burn down, having placed no more wood on the fire after three a.m. That would become his habit in the months ahead. And he was surprised, in a way, that the room stayed as warm as it did even after the fire drew down.
         Apparently five sheets of half inch plywood not only did a good job of stopping bullets.
         It was also excellent insulation.
         Dave tossed both buckets of dirt onto the fire, killing it immediately. No smoke, no mess, nothing. One second the fire was there, the next second it was gone. He thought back to the misery he was in the night before and reflected. He could have snuffed out his own life that easily as well.
         He was glad he didn’t.
         In the evening, after he slept most of the day away, he’d pick the pieces of unburned wood from