Into The Darkness (16 page)

Dylan
did not have time to shoulder the rifle. He turned to see that Ranger Murphy
already had his pistol aimed directly at him.

“I
suggest that you cooperate,” the ranger said, coldly. “You don’t want to end up
like the man you found by the road, do you? He wouldn’t tell us where his
pretty wife was. See what happened to him? Now put the rifle down nice and
slow, then we need to walk over to the truck.”

Dylan
was furious. “You’re a real piece of shit, asshole. What do you want with me?”
asked Dylan, clenching his teeth as he set the rifle on the ground.

“We
don’t care about you, just your supplies,” the ranger smirked. “This has been a
good day for me. We just got this truck and were getting ready to leave, and
then you come along with all your goodies.” The ranger laughed and sneered when
he did. “The world has changed. There are new rules for us now. The first rule
is, everyone for themselves. I think you understand that, don’t you?”

The
ranger picked up Dylan’s rifle and took a few steps back. He had moved closer
to the trees and bushes surrounding the campsite. He put the rifle butt up to
his shoulder and aimed toward Dylan. Dylan did not flinch. The Ranger lowered
the rifle and pulled back the slide to verify it was loaded. A cartridge
ejected. The cartridge arced upward, then hit the dusty trail. After watching
the cartridge hit the bare ground, the ranger looked back at Dylan.

“You
need to walk toward my friend by the truck. We’re going to tie you up.” The ranger
sadistically grinned and motioned with the rifle for Dylan to move toward the
truck.

Dylan
stood his ground. Rage was coursing through his body. He clenched his fists tightly
by his side. As his fists brushed against his thighs, he suddenly realized he did
not have his knife. He had left it behind. He quickly glanced over at the man
by the truck. The man was laughing at him, while swinging the rope tauntingly.
Dylan felt defeated.

The
ranger raised the rifle. “Remember what I said about cooperation?” The ranger
waited for Dylan to move, but he remained stationary, with his hands clenched so
tight that his knuckles were white. “Have it your way,” snarled the ranger, as
he again shouldered the rifle and aimed at Dylan’s head. The ranger took a firm
stance and prepared to fire the weapon.

At
that moment, a firearm discharged with a loud crack. Although it had happened
quickly, it was like slow motion in Dylan’s mind. He saw Kevin step through the
bushes behind the ranger, already with the pistol aimed at his skull. As soon
as Kevin stepped through there was a quick muzzle flash and the ranger’s
forehead exploded at the same time his dead body began to collapse to the
ground. He was instantly dead with one shot.

Dylan
immediately turned to locate the other man, and saw the rope on the truck’s
hood; the man was already running away. Dylan sprinted in pursuit.

“Wait…Dylan…wait!”
yelled Kevin.

Dylan
was beside the truck. He stopped and turned toward Kevin just in time to catch
the rifle thrown his way. Using the truck for stability, Dylan took aim on his
moving target. He placed the sights just barely in front of the running man.
Dylan consciously relaxed his body, exhaled, and slowly squeezed the trigger.
The fleeing man dropped like a rock into the tall grass.

Dylan
stepped back from the truck and inspected the rifle. “I think we’re going to be
the best of friends,” said Dylan to his rifle. “Now let’s go find you another
companion. I think the Ranger doesn’t need his pistol anymore.”

Kevin
kicked the Ranger’s body over and removed the pistol. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Just
one question.” Dylan put his hand on Kevin’s shoulder and looked him in the
eye. “What brought you up here?”

Kevin
reached into a deep pocket and handed Dylan his knife. “You forgot this. I
thought you would need it to butcher the elk.”

“My
lucky charm.” Dylan gave his knife a kiss and attached it to his belt, then
picked up the cartridge the Ranger had ejected from the rifle.

Kevin
turned toward the path back to their camp. Dylan glanced over at the truck. He
noticed that it was parked under a large tree that would have given it plenty
of shade all day long.

“Wait
a minute. I want to check something out.”

Dylan
walked to the truck and put his hand on the hood. It was warm. He motioned for
Kevin to come over.

“It
feels warm. I think it might still run,” Dylan said.

Kevin’s
jaw dropped. He slapped the truck. “I’ll be damned. Let’s give it a try!”

Kevin
jumped into the driver seat. The key was still in the ignition. He turned the
key and the engine sprung to life. “Hot damn! Get in. Richard will shit his
pants when we drive up.”

Kevin
put it into first gear, released the clutch, and eased the truck around. He
drove it back to the road and around the hill. The road that split around the
grassy hill took them directly back to their campsite. When they saw Richard,
they slowed down to observe his reaction. Richard was by the fire, splitting
some small logs. When he saw the truck he stood, stared, and probably thought
that he was imagining things. They could tell by Richard’s body language that
he could not see who was driving the truck, most likely from the glare of the
setting sun on the windshield. Kevin sped up and honked the horn wildly.
Richard stepped farther away from the road and held the little axe tightly in
his hand. Kevin drove off the road and went directly toward the campfire,
leaving a cloud of gravel dust behind him. Richard’s eyes got wide and he was
looking all around for his two companions. Kevin spun the wheel, slammed on the
brakes, and rolled the window down, revealing himself. Richard’s expression
went from fear to disbelief when he saw that Kevin was the driver of the truck.

“Hey,
we got you a present,” yelled Kevin, out of the driver’s window.

“A
truck?” asked Richard.

“Nope,
that’s for me. This is for you.” Kevin held the pistol out the window with his
index finger and thumb on the handle. It dangled between his fingers with the
barrel pointing toward the ground.

Richard
eagerly accepted the pistol and walked away, admiring his gift. Kevin parked
the truck and offered Dylan the keys, but Dylan shook his head and sat down
beside the campfire to rest. He was hungry and all he wanted to do was eat
something and go to sleep, but his hunger drove him to obsessively inspect the
food supplies again. The amount of food was getting dangerously low. He knew that
all the rowing they had to do on the lake was burning calories. Consequently,
they needed a lot more food. What they had been able to scavenge was
inadequate.

Dylan
ate his share of the remaining food, and promptly dozed off. The nightmares
came back, as expected.

At
daybreak, Kevin pulled his trotlines in from the lake. The fillets of fish
smelled delicious as they roasted over the campfire.

Kevin
leaned against the truck and spoke to the others. “We’ve been burning a lot of
calories rowing on the lake. According to the map, it’s over one hundred miles
long. That’s a lot of energy to get to the end. We should put our gear in the
bed of this truck and get the hell out of here. Let’s take the truck as far as
that gravel road will take us along the shoreline.” He slapped the truck. “This
baby is going to save us a lot of time and don’t forget, we better make a good
effort to get more food. We’re real low. I don’t want to touch the MREs unless
it’s an emergency.”

The
men wasted little time loading the truck. They sat in the cab shoulder to
shoulder and took off down the road. It was a fantastic feeling to go faster
than the river’s current. The dam was several days of backbreaking effort away by
raft, but now, with a truck, they planned to make it in less than a day.

Richard
sat in the middle, his thigh leaning against the stick shift, and dozed off as
Kevin drove down the bumpy road. Dylan looked out the passenger window and
watched the shoreline whip by, and the birds circling in the air above the
water as he quietly daydreamed of a better time in his life, a time when a trip
to a lake would have meant fishing and camping for fun, not survival.

Kevin
was the first to notice the people ahead of them, sitting on the side of the
road. He immediately applied the brakes, jerking Richard forward and waking him
up.

“What
happened?” asked Richard, still groggy from sleep.

Kevin
had a tight grip on the steering wheel and extended a finger to point at the
group of people in the distance. Richard and Dylan saw what Kevin was pointing
at. They strained their eyes and noticed that the members of the group all appeared
to be wearing the same type of clothes, maybe uniforms. When the group ahead
noticed the truck, they stood up, and then began to jump up and down. They waved
their arms frantically, like castaways on a deserted island, finally seeing a
passing ship and desperately trying to get its attention. They were Boy Scouts.
Kevin leaned forward again, straining his eyes toward the distant pack, and all
the men remained alert for danger.

The
tallest of the scouts got to the truck first, and pleaded for help. His shirt
had a patch with the name Ryan embroidered on it.

“We
need help! Can you help us?” Ryan begged breathlessly.

Dylan
got out of the truck. “Calm down. We all need help. What do you need from us?”

“We’re
starving, all of us are starving, and two of us are really sick. They can’t
walk anymore. We need food and help getting back to town.”

“What
happened?”

“We
went away for a camping trip, but didn’t bring a lot of food with us,” said
Ryan, lethargically. “It was supposed to be just a week in the wilderness. Our
vehicles went dead, so we’re stuck out here. We hiked to the road to get a ride,
but no one has showed up except the three of you. Our troop leader left days
ago to get help. He told us to stay at our campsite, but he never came back.”

“Let’s
stop here, and get them some food and water,” said Dylan to his companions.

Ryan
pointed to the two boys lying on the ground. “They’re really sick and too weak
to eat. We need to get them to a hospital.”

Everyone’s
eyes turned toward Dylan for a decision. He covered his face with his calloused
and dirty hands, subdued a scream of frustration, and moved his hands back
through his now longer hair, then rubbed his beard. He shut his eyes tightly as
he tried to think of a solution, or more likely, a compromise. Getting involved
was not part of his plan. He knew that avoiding people was their safest option.
Nevertheless, when he saw those young boys in trouble and desperate for help,
his isolationist resolve quickly vanished.

“That
does it. Let’s get our gear out of the truck,” Dylan said, as he started to
remove his pack from the bed of the truck. “We all won’t fit, so it’s back to
the rafts for us, except you, Richard.”

“Me?”

“You
get those two kids to the dam and find help. Get them into the town and wait
for us there. It might be a couple of days. I don’t think you’ll mind not
rowing for a couple of days.” Dylan then turned toward the boys who were still
standing. “Let’s get you something to eat, and then you go to work.”

Dylan
pointed toward an inlet that was surrounded with trees. “Take your gear over
there. We’ll set up camp. Some of you pick cattails from the shoreline. I made
a couple of bows and some arrows. Some of you need to hunt for any kind of game
animal; we’ll cook it all up later. While you’re out there, look for nut trees.
Get as many nuts as you can. Ryan, can you shoot a bow?”

“Yes,
I have my archery badge. I can do it.”

Dylan
pointed to the bows and river-cane arrows on the rafts. “The arrows are blunt
tipped. Look for frogs, rabbits, and squirrels. Just the small stuff. It’ll
only stun them, so be quick to grab what you shoot.”

Richard
drove away with the two sick scouts, leaving the others to set up camp by a row
of trees near the inlet. Six scouts remained with Dylan and Kevin.

Ryan
told the two men that they had walked here from north of the road. The area
they walked through was full of large game. He pointed to Dylan’s rifle and
said, “With that rifle you could bring down something big, like a deer or elk.
We saw plenty on the way over here.”

Dylan
looked at Kevin and smiled. “Let’s go for a walk in the morning.”

Kevin
gave Dylan’s rifle a pat and eagerly agreed to the plan.

At
sunrise, the smell of cooking fish woke up all the hungry campers. Kevin had
been the first up and brought the fish back to camp. He reset the fishing lines
because they were going to be there until they could build up the food supply.
Breakfast was fish, more cattails, and the remainder of the nuts found the
previous evening. When everyone was done, Dylan shared his plan for the day.

“Kevin
and I are going for a walk toward where Ryan said he saw those big game
animals. We hope to get something big, and quickly. If we do, we’re going to
need help bringing it back to camp. While we hunt with the rifle, I want you
boys to scavenge for as much food as you can find, like you did yesterday.
We’ll need to dry the meat when we bring it back to camp. Some of you find tree
branches you can make drying racks out of for the meat. When we have a good
supply of food, we’ll take the rafts on the lake and row to the dam. I think
the town is just past the dam. You should be able to get help from there.”

Dylan
and Kevin walked in a northerly direction away from the lake. It was not long
before they came upon a herd of deer, grazing on the side of a hill. The two
men decided to go around the hill and shoot the deer as they crested its peak.
The deer were facing down the hillside as they grazed the slope. Dylan slowly
crawled to the top of the hill to peer down the other side. His stealthy
movements went unnoticed by their prey. From a prone position, Dylan aimed at
the closest deer. He wanted a side profile shot to get both lungs. The deer
turned slightly, and at just the right moment, Dylan squeezed the trigger. The
crack of the rifle sent all the deer running away, back toward the lake. With
the binoculars, he watched the wounded deer run, then stumble and collapse to
the ground about one hundred yards from where it was shot.

After
they all helped drag the deer back to the campsite, the boys helped to fillet strips
of meat from the deer to start the drying process. The scouts had made several
drying racks and poles to hold the meat over the fire. They spent the entire
day collecting nuts and drying meat, so they could be ready to leave for the
dam in the morning.

The
next morning the scouts were up first, right at sunrise. They cooked the fish that
had been caught overnight, and processed the pile of walnuts and acorns. After
everyone got their fill at breakfast, the scouts pushed off the shoreline with
Dylan and Kevin. Each person had a turn with the oars and they rowed
continuously until late afternoon. That was when the dam came into view.

“There
it is,” said Ryan, pointing at the dam. “It’s a hydroelectric power plant. See
all the buildings around it.”

Dylan
stopped rowing and turned to look at the dam. It was big; the complex of
buildings meant one thing to him, trouble. There were probably still people
there and he would like to avoid them. He just wanted to get Richard and be on
their way after they let the scouts out on the shore.

They
landed the rafts on a gravelly section of shoreline and got out. Dylan went up
the hill and looked around. A road went across the top of the dam, and from
this road, he could see down into the shallow valley behind the dam, with the
town below. Scanning the whole area, he did not see the truck or Richard
anywhere. He did see a road that would take them around the dam. That was where
they would need to get the rafts to in order to continue their journey
downstream. They carried the rafts up the hill to the asphalt road atop the
dam. Dylan pointed toward the road that would guide them to their entry point
on the river as it meandered through the valley below. Walking toward this road
would take them in the direction of the complex of buildings at the power
generating station. With the help of the scouts, they would be able to get the
rafts to the next section of the river that was their pathway to home. Now they
needed to find Richard. He might have gone into the town to get help for the
two sick children.

They
all walked past the rear of a car that was next to a building with a large open
metal garage door. As they came around the vehicle, they noticed a man bent
over the motor, working on it. He saw them at the same time, and jumped
backwards, startled.

“Oh,
shit, you scared me,” gasped the man. He quickly took another step back when he
saw Dylan’s rifle.

They
put the rafts down on the asphalt and sat on them to rest.

Carefully
watching Dylan and the rifle, the man said, “I’m an engineer here at the plant.
I’ve been stuck here for weeks. I thought I might be able to get this car running
again in spite of what’s happened.” He threw a greasy rag at the motor.

“We’re
using the river to get back home.” Dylan turned and looked in the direction of
the lake. “It’s a good way to avoid people.” Realizing what he had just said to
the man, he turned back toward him and said, “No offense to you.”

“None
taken.”

“We
found an old pickup that still worked and were headed towards the dam when we
came across these guys.” Dylan pointed toward the scouts. “Two of them were
really sick, so our friend Richard drove them here, we hope. The rest of us
used the rafts to make it here. Have you seen anybody with an old truck pass
through recently? A man with two sick boys?”

The
man’s expression changed. He took another step away, so that he was completely
on the other side of the stalled car. Dylan did not like the man’s body
language. The engineer looked downward, avoiding eye contact and began to
speak.

“I
was out here working on this useless piece of junk. A truck pulled in, and that
caught my attention. The driver saw me and immediately drove over here.” He
picked up a wrench and fumbled with it as he continued to speak. “I let him
know that all we have here is a first-aid kit and some old civil defense
rations we’ve been living on. Some of us are trying to get power back on for
the town while we’re stuck here.” He cleared his throat and became noticeably
nervous. “A sheriff’s deputy has been going back and forth on horseback to
check on our progress. He showed up when I was talking with your friend. The deputy
recognized the truck and accused him of stealing it. He handcuffed your friend
and took him to town. He found your friend’s pistol.” The man finally looked up,
not knowing what kind of reaction to expect from the men. “Here’s the worst
part. The deputy said he was going to hang your friend Richard. Sorry to have
to tell you this.”

Dylan
immediately stood up and turned to Kevin, “We have to get going. We’ll explain
what happened so they don’t hang Richard.”

The
man spoke again, looking back at the ground as he did. “The truck belonged to
the deputy’s brother. If something happened to his brother, I don’t think
you’re going to get him to understand.”

Dylan
sat back down on the raft. He buried his face in the palms of his calloused
hands.
Think…think…what can I do?
After several silent moments, Dylan
stood up. “Let’s get going. We have to hide these rafts down in the valley, and
then go to town and get Richard. We’ll ask nicely, and if that doesn’t work, we
do it the hard way.”

They
found a secluded location by the river near a narrow road that led to town.
They concealed the rafts and walked toward town with the scouts. Dylan
explained to Ryan they were going to find out where Richard was being held,
which was probably the police station. He wanted them to stay back because he did
not know what was going to happen. Ryan gave the message to his fellow scouts
as they walked toward town.