Tim McGregor - Killing Down the Roman Line

Emma thanked Norm and hung up the phone. She didn’t have a clue what she was going to do.

The remains of six people were taken to the coroner’s office in London. Following the examinations by a four member team, the Regional Coroner’s Office sent the remains back to Pennyluck. The Ripley Funeral Home was the only undertaker in town, a family run business in operation since 1881. Gene Ripley rallied his son, daughter and daughter in-law and told them they’d have to work overnight to deal with the arrival of so many deceased. Don Moretti of Moretti Funeral Services in Garrisontown drove in and offered his services, for which Ripley was grateful. That’s what community was all about, he told his son as they wheeled the gurneys out of the coroner’s van. Helping one another in a crisis.

The crew from the coroner’s office were unloading the last set of remains when Ripley told them to turn around and load it back into the van. He wasn’t accepting that one.

The driver checked his clipboard and said his orders were to deliver all six remains but the funeral director shook his head and told him to take it back.

The driver scrunched his shoulders up and scanned the inventory list on his clipboard. “What am I supposed to do with Corrigan, W?”

“You can dump it in the river for all I care,” Ripley said. “I won’t take it.”

The remains of William Corrigan were taken back to the Coroner’s office in London and then rerouted to Fairway Funeral services on Westchester Boulevard. Under contract to the city, Fairway serviced the remains of deceased without next of kin. The homeless, the intransigent, the unloved. Corrigan’s remains were wheeled into cold storage and processed. No one came forward to claim them.

In the days following the incident, the town council commandeered the banquet hall at the arena for a temporary office. Patrick McGrath was quickly appointed provisional mayor and the council got to work dealing with the aftermath of the tragedy. Five funerals were combined into one, with a large public service to be held at Saint Mary’s Church. Ideas were discussed about how to honour the tragedy. A plaque in the square or a memorial stone in the fair grounds? No consensus was met and the idea was backburnered while the council dealt with the more pressing matters of rebuilding the town hall and public library.

The property on the Roman Line was folded back into the trust of the town. Renamed Lot 13, concession 5, it was never again referred to as the Corrigan homestead. Bank accounts belonging to William Corrigan, deceased, were also placed in trust to the town. There were two accounts in Pennyluck and one in Halifax, all of the monies held in trust under the oversight of the town council. Before the month was out, funds were already being siphoned off with illegible signatures on banal looking forms stuffed into the back of a filing cabinet. At the rate the monies were being chipped away at, all three accounts would be drained by Christmas.

SMOKEY WAS SPOOKED and agitated after the fire. She bristled at the saddle and shied when Emma fitted her toe into the stirrup. Emma spoke softly to the animal, trying everything she could to calm the horse but there was still wariness in Smokey’s eyes. The terror of the fire remained in her bones and wouldn’t shake loose easily.

“I know how you feel.” Emma had barely slept since the incident and startled at any sharp sound. Became anxious whenever Travis was out of her sight. The last two days, it was all she could do to simply get out of bed. Somehow she had managed to move them back onto the farm but the details were all a blur.

And all Emma wanted to do was ride. Riding took everything you had and focused it down to a laser beam. Brains, muscles, senses, all of it consumed with the horse. Finding your seat, letting the horse listen to you while you listened to it. Everything else was left behind at the paddock gates. She needed this.

She led the horse to the field and walked it for a good while, talking quietly to her the whole time. When they reached the creek, Emma tried once more and Smokey shivered but allowed her into the saddle. She walked the horse and got her into a trot but no more.

It was enough for now. Hell, it was a giant leap forward.

Travis poked through the ruins of the house. Stepping over charred timbers and sootblack brick. A tangle of sticks and ash, that’s all it was now. He’d taken the hoe from the barn, using it to pull apart broken studs and curled shingles. Looking for anything familiar, anything useful. Anything of himself that had survived the fire.

There was nothing.

His comic books were gone, along with his music and the hockey equipment and his crappy old computer. It had all incinerated so completely, he figured that none of it could have meant that much in the first place.

The realization of it spun a sickening dizziness in his head. Lost, rootless, orphaned. His stuff was all gone. Was it really so bad? Was his old life so great he should cry over it now? What exactly was he mourning?

Loser. Faggot. Ass bleeder.

Good riddance.

In all the horror movies he had seen, all the monster comics he’d read, the monster was usually destroyed by fire. Stakes through the heart, silver bullets, all that stuff paled in comparison to fire. A one-size-fits-all solution to kill the beast. Why? Because it purified and cleansed. Same way they burn crops to plant new ones.

So, loser boy was lost in the flames. Time for something new. Travis felt a prickly giddiness at the idea of reinventing himself.

His hands were black with soot. He should have grabbed some gloves from the barn. No matter. Maybe dirty hands were part of his new identity. Dirty hands, dirty past. No past at all.

He pulled on a beam with the hoe and it crashed down, spewing soot into his face. Waving it clear, he clocked something in the charred wood. Filthy and damaged from the flames. Anticlimactic now. He pried it loose, disappointed that some part of his old loser self remained.

Holding it up to the light, he saw that the artefact didn’t belong to him after all. It didn’t even belong on their property. The wood stock and grip had been charred away but the double barrels remained unscathed.

“Travis!”

He looked up, saw his mom waving at him. “Can you come here,” she said.

“Coming.” He climbed out of the ruins, hiding the remains of Corrigan’s gun behind his back.

The trailer home came courtesy of Harvey’s RV’s, the boat and recreational vehicle lot over on Beech Avenue. Harvey and his wife felt terrible at what had happened to the Hawkshaws and insisted they use the double-wide for the time being. At least they could stay on their own land.

Emma was overwhelmed by everyone’s generosity. They all wanted to help, wanted to give, reach out somehow. These were good people. You saw it everyday in small ways but when something bad happened, you really saw it. It made her humble, embarrassed and proud all at the same time.

Travis hated the trailer. It was cramped and smelled of mothballs and menthols. There was no where to go, no privacy.

“You’ll adjust,” Emma told him. “It’ll be like we’re camping.”

“We’ve never gone camping,” he said.

“Would you prefer a homeless shelter?” she scolded. “We could bunk with the hoboes and the bedbugs. Because that’s what we are now, Travis. Homeless.”

Harsh but true. She regretted it now, a day later as she knelt under the hang of the trailer, fitting a hose to the water supply. Travis knew how to push her buttons but she had to remind herself that she was the adult in this situation. She screwed the hose to the coupling and opened the valve. The hose swelled as water pumped into it. “Okay!” she hollered. “Try it now!”