Into The Darkness (30 page)

Dylan
knew that they were getting close to Kansas City. He obsessively looked around
for any familiar landmark, and when the tall buildings in the city’s downtown
area broke the horizon, he finally smiled.

“That’s
it!” he exclaimed.

The
others stopped rowing and turned, looking over their left shoulders. They saw
the buildings, too, buildings now as empty as the hopes and dreams of the
people that once worked in them.

“How
much farther?” pleaded Mary.

Both
she and Kevin were exhausted. Kevin’s hand was not completely healed and Mary
was losing her battle against the summer heat and the long hours of constant rowing.
Because of this, the married couple was having difficulty keeping up with
Dylan’s adrenalin-fueled rush.

“Can
we please rest?” asked Mary, speaking for her husband, too. His pride kept him
from admitting the difficulty that he was having with Dylan’s frenzied pace.
“We have to be close. I just need to rest. Please, Dylan.”

Dylan
put his hand to his forehead to shade his eyes from the sunlight and looked to
the west. The sun was getting lower in the sky and he wanted to get off the
river while it was still daylight. “Okay, catch your breath and rest.” He
turned to Kevin. “How’s your hand?”

Kevin
made a fist with his right hand and held it up for Dylan to see. “My hand is
fine, couldn’t be better.”

“No,
it’s not,” said Mary. “I can see the expression on your face when you’re
rowing. It hurts you, I can tell. You aren’t rowing straight either. Your raft
is veering to the left. If your hand was fine that wouldn’t be happening.”

Kevin
was looking down at his hand. He did not say anything. Dylan understood the
silence and was not going to challenge Kevin’s pride.

“We’re
close. Let’s rest,” said Dylan, with a sigh.

The
river’s current took over and they meandered slowly with the river,
occasionally steering to stay in its middle. They were floating toward the
city’s downtown. They saw people now, dirty ragged-looking people, going to the
water’s edge with buckets to fill. Some were sitting on the banks, trying to
catch fish. They looked like starving refugees from a war, victims of a
concentration camp. Not long ago, this would have been the scene from a
charity’s television commercial for the starving people in a third-world
country. The commercial would have pleaded for money to feed the hungry. Money
was worthless now and everyone felt the pain of hunger. People were living in
tents or tarps draped over lumber or large branches of driftwood. Others were
huddled beneath the bridges that the threesome floated past. The city’s food
supply was disappearing and the water had long since stopped flowing from the
taps. There were campfires, and people were boiling river water to drink. They
saw an old man who was sitting alone catch a fish from the riverbank. A group
of hungry, desperate people beat him to death, and his fish was taken away. No
one cared. His body was pushed into the river and the dark water closed
silently around his corpse.

They
passed by the large city’s downtown area without stopping, and then floated
beyond and away from it. People gradually became fewer and fewer along the
riverbank, and the tall buildings receded into the western horizon as they
continued downstream.

The
sun was low and the humidity was high. Shadows grew longer as Dylan strained
his eyes toward the distant horizon, looking for more landmarks that were familiar.
He wiped the sweat from his forehead with a dirty shirt and placed the shirt on
his head for cover from the setting sun. His eyes narrowed to slits when he saw
the faint outline of twin bridges across the river in the distance. This is
where they would exit the river and begin the walk home.

“I
can see it. Stop rowing,” said Dylan.

Kevin
and Mary stopped rowing and turned around in their rafts.

“Straight
ahead.” Dylan quickly lifted his hand and pointed forward.

“What
are we looking for?” asked Kevin.

“Twin
bridges. Concrete pillars in the water, and steel frames.”

“That’s
it? We’re done with the river?” asked Mary.

“That’s
it,” replied Dylan, in a relaxed tone. “I’ll go ahead of you. Look for a
concrete boat ramp on the right, just after the second bridge. Get close and
throw me a rope. I’ll pull you onto the ramp.”

“Then
what?” asked Kevin.

“Get
out and kiss the ground.”

Dylan
turned his back toward the setting sun and pulled hard on the oars. The gap
between him and the others widened with each stroke into the water. When he was
closer to the boat ramp, he removed his oars from the oarlocks and began to
paddle for the riverbank on the right. There were large ragged chunks of
limestone around the foundation of the bridges. Regardless, he hugged the right
edge of the river, bouncing off the jagged boulders at the river’s edge. He
used his paddle to hook some of the rocks and pull himself nearer to the
concrete boat ramp by the last bridge. The current curved toward the ramp near
the last pillar in Dylan’s path. He pushed against the pillar with his oar,
toward the ramp, and jumped into the shallow dirty water. His feet touched a
submerged section of concrete. It was slippery from moss. The boat ramp went up
at a gentle angle, to merge into the asphalt parking lot of a large roadside
park. He took small steps in the water, tightly holding the raft by a short
length of rope. When his legs cleared the water and he stepped onto dry
concrete, he leapt forward, pulling his raft out of the water and securing it
on dry ground.

He
waved toward the others, and then cupped his hands to his mouth. “Bring it in
tight. Get close to me and throw your rope.”

In
quick succession, Kevin and Mary paddled closer and threw their ropes to Dylan.
He pulled them to the ramp and the couple stepped from their rafts onto the
concrete ramp, then onto dry land. Dylan pulled their rafts completely out of
the water and turned toward them. Kevin was on his knees in the green grass. He
was bending over, kissing the ground.

“I
wasn’t serious,” said Dylan.

Kevin
laughed and rolled to his back. Mary knelt on the ground near her husband,
smiling at his joy. He moved his arms and legs back and forth across the grass
in unison, as if he was making a snow angel. She leaned closer to him, placing
her head on his chest. She could hear his heartbeat. He lay motionless now,
staring through the tree canopy above him at the remains of clear blue sky. The
leaves moved gently in the breeze and the sound of the wind through the leaves
was calming. He was remembering a summer day years ago when he first met Mary.
They went to a park for a picnic and when they were finished eating, they sat
together on a blanket and watched the clear sapphire sky. That had been a
perfect day in his memory. He remembered it well: that was the day when he knew
he was in love.

Dylan
walked toward them, casting a long shadow across their bodies, and gave them a
gentle nudge with a dirty wet boot. “Don’t get too comfortable. There’s work to
be done.”

Kevin
sat partially up and rested on his elbows. Mary turned toward Dylan and shaded
her eyes from the setting sun.

“C’mon,
we made it. Just relax for a minute,” said Kevin.

Dylan
shook his head. “Not a good idea.” Dylan pointed to the highway less than fifty
yards behind him. “Drag the rafts back away from that road. We need to get them
behind all these trees. We can use those bushes back there for cover.” Dylan
turned back around and stroked his beard as he looked across the terrain. “Just
in case people are using this road, and I bet they are.”

They
were at a roadside park near the bridge, with covered areas for picnics and
playground equipment under large shade trees. The grass was tall now and the
area was obviously not maintained any longer, and most likely never would be
again. They pulled the rafts through the tall grass and the thicket of trees,
away from the bridge, to get cover behind some bushes. They were standing on
flat river-bottom land. The area around them was grassy with clumps of bushes.
Surrounding the area was farmland. They stopped behind some large bushes and
felt secure enough to start a campfire. Dylan went through the thicket of trees
and found one that had been cut into short logs with a chainsaw. He easily
kicked the bark off the logs because they had been lying there for months,
decaying. The job never had never been finished. He rolled three of the large
stumps back to camp to sit on. They sat by the fire and prodded the glowing
embers for entertainment. Dylan was deep in thought.

“Hey,
Dylan, you’re too quiet,” said Kevin.

Dylan
nodded as he stared into the fire.

“What’s
wrong? Aren’t you happy?” asked Mary. “We made it off the river. Aren’t we
close to your home now?”

“I’m
happy,” replied Dylan, not looking away from the fire.

“You
could have fooled me,” scoffed Kevin.

“I’m
just thinking. I have a lot on my mind,” said Dylan, still staring into the
fire.

The
evening wind began to shift and a small gust blew smoke toward Dylan’s face. He
turned away from the fire and stepped back, wafting the smoke away with his
hands. Standing there, he cast his eyes from the supplies in the rafts to his
two companions and back again. He did not know how they were going to be able
to carry everything with them to his house. They were walking now, not floating
all the supplies.

“Any
ideas on how we move all this stuff down the road?” asked Dylan.

Kevin
and Mary turned their gaze toward the rafts. Each was silent in their contemplation.

“You
don’t think we could carry it all?” Kevin finally asked.

Dylan
shook his head and looked at Kevin’s right hand. It was getting better, but it was
not totally healed. Kevin saw what he was looking at and subconsciously
clenched his fist to test his grip. He knew that Dylan was right.

“How
far is it from here?” asked Mary.

“My
house? That would be at least thirty miles.”

Kevin
groaned and slid into his raft pulling the tarp across himself. “I’ll sleep on
it. We’ll figure it out.”

Mary
leaned forward. The crucifix on her necklace hung straight down away from her
body. It turned in the breeze sending reflections from the fire in small
flashes of light. She knelt to the ground and closed her eyes, holding her
hands together with the shiny golden cross held tightly between her palms.
Dylan heard the faint whispers of her prayers. The words were indiscernible.
After making the sign on the cross, she kissed the crucifix and sat back on the
log.

“What
did you do?” asked Dylan.

“I
prayed for help.”

Dylan
looked around. “Nothing happened.”

Mary
snapped her head around and stared into his eyes. She did not blink. Sternly,
Mary said, “I am a Christian, and accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.”

There
was an awkward silence. Dylan said nothing in response. She never looked away
from him.

“I
don’t question my faith,” Mary continued, “and I have a personal relationship
with God. I pray when I need help and God speaks to me.”

“What
does God’s voice sound like?”

Dylan
saw that she had grasped the cross hanging from her necklace again. The
firelight revealed that her grip was so tight that her knuckles were blanched.
Now Mary’s eyes narrowed to slits. Her body language was screaming at him.

“I
will pray for you,” Mary said, scornfully, through clenched teeth.

Dylan
grabbed the rifle by his side and stood up. “Good night, Mary.” He turned away
and walked toward the raft that he would sleep in one last time.

When
he turned to walk away, Mary spoke loudly. She wanted Dylan to hear her. “Even
though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,
for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”

Dylan
stopped and turned around to face Mary again. He held up his rifle and said to
her, “You fear no evil because of this. Pray for more bullets, Mary.”

He
went to the raft, covered himself with a dirty blanket, and went to sleep.

At
the break of dawn, Dylan felt someone shaking him. “Hey, wake up.” He sat up
and rubbed his face, trying to wake himself further.

“What
is it?”

“I
went over there to take a crap by those bushes, and found two bodies,” said
Kevin, trying not to gag as he remembered the smell.

Dylan
stood up and looked around. “There is nothing around here. Where’d they come
from?”

“I
don’t know.” Kevin paused, his empty stomach beginning to churn as the
revolting image of the rotting corpses entered his mind. “It looked like a
woman and a baby.”

Dylan
closed his eyes and thought of his children again. He was repressing the frenzy
of anxiety trying to explode from his viscera. He took a deep breath and opened
his eyes.

“Did
they have anything with them? A backpack, supplies, anything?”