Into The Darkness (8 page)

“Hey!
Hey!”

They
quickened their pace toward the bridge. Then they heard a barking dog. Looking back,
they saw the man that was yelling and that he was restraining a large vicious-looking
dog with a chain leash. The man had a shotgun pointed toward Dylan and Kevin,
and then he dropped the chain to the ground. The dog sprinted forward.

“Run!”
Dylan screamed.

Kevin
was already in motion, sprinting for the embankment by the bridge as fast as he
could. Dylan felt the adrenalin instantly course through his body and his legs
turned into steel springs propelling him forward. He could hear the dog’s claws
on the asphalt, getting closer, and with a quick turn of his head, realized
that he could not outrun the dog. Dylan stopped running, grabbed the pistol
from his belt, and spun around. He gripped the pistol tightly and used his
other hand to chamber a cartridge. He dropped to a kneeling position and the
dog lunged directly into two bullets and landed at Dylan’s feet, dead. Two men
were now coming their way with shotguns.

“Get
on the river! I’ll hold them back,” said Dylan.

Kevin
disappeared down the embankment.

“Don’t
come any closer. I have the advantage,” yelled Dylan, as he held the pistol up
for them to see.

“You
killed my dog!”

Dylan
did not reply. He walked backward to the embankment and was ready to run for
his raft. Before he jumped down the embankment, he yelled back at the men to
stay away or he would shoot to kill. Dylan slid and jumped his way down the
dirt slope and motioned for the others to push off. He jumped into his raft and
pushed off the riverbank. Dylan pushed his paddle against a concrete pier
supporting the bridge and fiercely paddled away. As the river curved, he
paddled toward the cover of low hanging trees. He heard a shotgun blast from
the bridge, but the distance was too far. They had successfully escaped and
headed downstream again.

The
sun was at their backs and getting lower on the horizon when Beth said that
they were just upstream from Great Falls. They slowed down near an airport
observation tower on their left and hugged the riverbank with their rafts. Beth
explained that it was a civilian airport and the military base was further down
on the right side. Dylan did not want to get closer to the city and pointed to
a little island splitting the river. They put ashore on the island and carried
the rafts and equipment into the shrubbery for concealment. They all gathered
driftwood for a fire and Kevin found grubs under a fallen tree to use as bait.
Kevin set the lines for the night and joined the group back at the campfire. He
found an abandoned cooler by the riverbank and offered it to Beth to use as a
seat for her and the baby.

“What
do we do now?” asked Richard.

After
a brief silence Dylan said, “We need to eat. I think we’re all starving at this
point. It would be best to eat what we got from the hotel first. It’ll spoil
the soonest.” Dylan stood up and looked around before speaking again. “Go ahead
and split up the food. I’ll take a walk around to see if there is anything else
to eat.”

“Oh,
not more cattails,” Richard moaned.

Dylan
pointed to the bow staves and said, “If I can get those done, we’ll have more
options for food.”

“Need
any help looking?” asked Kevin.

“No,
this won’t take long,” replied Dylan. “Try to get some fish for us.” He gestured
toward the far end of the island. “I don’t hear any frogs nearby. The best I
can do will probably be some greens.” Dylan walked away to forage and Richard
grabbed the axe to get more wood for the fire.

“You’re
home,” Kevin said, smiling at Beth.

Beth
smiled back. “Almost. The best thing for me would be to go further downriver
and go ashore just before you have to go around the first bridge. It wouldn’t
be good to start walking the rest of the way now that it’s getting darker.”
Beth began to rock her child. “I keep wondering if, at a place like this,
martial law would be declared. Nervous people can get trigger-happy. I don’t
want to get shot in the dark.” The baby began to cry again. “I really need to
get a new towel on her and clean this one in the water,” she explained and
excused herself to go to the riverbank.

Kevin
toasted a bagel in the flames and thought it tasted delicious. As he ate, he
noticed Dylan moving about in the tall grass. He felt guilty sitting there, so
he got up and trotted over to Dylan. He noticed Dylan had an armful of some
green plants.

“What
is that?” inquired Kevin.

“I
call it lambsquarters. I remember my grandmother showing it to me when I was
young. She told me they gathered and ate it all the time on the farm. I have it
growing around my house, too. It grows like a weed.”

“That
reminds me. Did you tell Richard that I’m continuing to Kansas City with you?
Did you invite him, too?”

“No,
I am dreading that, but I should get the invitation over with,” Dylan said, as
he shook his head in doubt.

At
the campsite, Dylan pulled each green leaf from the plant, making a mound of
primitive salad. Dylan grabbed a handful and began to chew. It had a bitter
taste, but he thought it would suffice. They were at nature’s mercy now and had
to make do with what they had.

“Is
it any good?” asked Beth, not realizing the grimacing expression on her face.

“Not
as good as a fancy restaurant salad with lots of ranch dressing, but it’ll do,”
said Dylan.

Beth
took a bite. “Bitter, but okay. Kind of tastes like spinach.”

“Well,
I like spinach and I’m starving. Here goes nothing,” said Kevin.

Richard
was the most reluctant and the last to try the greens. He gagged slightly and
said, “I need a cigarette.”

The
next morning Dylan woke to the noise of green wood crackling on the fire. The
Montana air smelled fresh and complimented the hint of pine smoke from the
fire. Dylan saw that it was Richard stoking the fire and approached him to
speak.

“Kevin
is going to Kansas City with me. You’re invited too. You can stay at my place.
If we all work together, maybe we can have a better chance to get through
this,” said Dylan.

“My
condo is in the middle of a concrete jungle. I don’t have a chance there. I can
stay at your house…really?”

“Yeah,
really. Where’s our fisherman?”

Richard
pointed toward Kevin. He was already up and had checked the lines. Kevin had two
fish strung through the gills using a willow branch. In his other hand, he had
a large crayfish. He held the crayfish up for Dylan’s inspection.

“Well,
well, well…what do we have here…lobster for breakfast?” Dylan asked with a
laugh. “Not a bad idea. I’ll be right back,” Dylan said, as he picked up an
empty pan and darted toward the river.

Dylan
went to an area with shallow water. He carefully turned all the large flat
rocks over to reveal the creatures underneath. The crayfish were plentiful. He
caught seven more and returned to the campfire with his bounty. They ate some
bagels with the roasted catfish and boiled crayfish. The baby ate a little
crushed cereal, but no one was full. They had to stretch out the food supply.

Dylan
wanted to work on the bow for a while before heading downstream to the first
dam. He needed a way to hold the wood tight and still so he could use both
hands to hold the knife and carve the wood. He noticed a small tree that
bifurcated into an acute angle at its trunk, a few feet above the ground. With
Kevin’s assistance, he set the bow stave in the bifurcation of the tree trunk
and Kevin stood on the other side of the tree pulling the end of the stave at
an angle to lock it tightly in place. It worked; the stave held solid in that
position. Dylan angled the knife toward the wood and held the blade tightly
with both hands. Slowly, he pulled the knife toward himself removing more thin
shavings of wood. Occasionally he would remove the stave from the tree and
compare both sides for symmetry. When Dylan judged that he had completed enough
rough carving, he held one end of the stave in his left hand and put the other
tip of the stave to the ground. He pushed onto the center of the bow and it started
to bend. Then he went through the same process with the other bow.

“Perfect!”
Dylan exclaimed. “These need to dry completely, then I’ll take the length down
to size. We’ll keep them in the sun. With this dry air, it shouldn’t take too
long at all.”

“We
still need arrows and strings,” said Kevin.

“One
thing at a time, my friend. Trust me. Now let’s get out of here. We have five
dams waiting for us,” Dylan said, holding up all the fingers of his right hand.

It
was another bright, clear day. The morning sun was in their eyes as it rose
higher in the distant horizon. Dylan thought about the sun as he paddled toward
it. Should he blame the sun? Or maybe the blame should go to humans for being so
completely dependent on little computer chips. The answer did not matter; they
could not change their predicament. He looked upward and saw buzzards circling
in the sky on invisible columns of air. He reaffirmed his promise to himself
that he would survive and make it back home to his family.

Where
the interstate crossed the river, there was a small road running parallel and
close to the water. They got the raft to the riverbank and let Beth and her
child out.

“Thank
you so much,” she said profusely. “I don’t know what would have happened to us
if you hadn’t come along.”

Dylan
asked, “Where will you go? What will you do?”

“I
live off base in an apartment. I’ll go back there and see what happens. I
really don’t know.”

She
turned and walked away, stopping once to smile back at the men as they receded
from her view.

The
men floated under several bridges on the way to the first dam. They observed
men, wearing uniforms of military camouflage and holding automatic weapons,
patrolling the bridges. Whispering amongst themselves as they stealthily
floated downstream, they speculated on what the military’s orders were. Was
there already martial law? They agreed this was a bad situation and they should
surreptitiously continue toward the dams and away from this city and the
military base.

According
to the map, they would get closer to the base as they went toward the dams. At
the first dam, the Air Force base came into view just past the crest of the
riverbank on their right side. The men noticed a walking trail parallel with
the river and going toward the dam. Unfortunately, the trail was on the
military base’s side of the river. Kevin retrieved the binoculars from the
backpack and slowly scanned the dam and trail. He saw no one patrolling the
dam. He wondered if the military was just patrolling streets in town and roads
into the military base.

The
men stopped at the riverbank where a tree had bent over and leaned into the
river. The tree’s fallen canopy gave them cover from unwanted observation, as
well as a place to secure the rafts.

“This
is it,” said Dylan.

“Now
what?” Richard asked.

“We
get these rafts to the top of the dam one at a time, and move as fast as we
can.”

On
dry land, Dylan placed the front of the raft on his shoulders and looked
forward with an uncomfortably bent neck, but the pistol felt reassuring, tucked
in the waistband of his pants. Kevin and Richard held up the raft from the
back. They all moved to the top of the dam as fast as Richard could go. At the
trail’s crest at the end of the dam, the rear of the raft suddenly fell to the
ground. When Dylan turned around and straightened his neck, he saw the
horrified look on his friend’s faces. Their eyes were wide, jaws open, and
their hands were in the air. Dylan turned quickly forward and saw two soldiers
with automatic weapons running toward them. The soldiers had been just over the
crest of the dam and out of view.

The
first soldier commanded, “Freeze! Don’t move or I’ll shoot!”

“The
colonel said we can shoot intruders. Should we shoot them?” asked the second
soldier.

“Get
the colonel. He may want to see this,” said the first soldier.

Dylan
stared in silence at the remaining soldier. The name on his shirt was Ramirez.
He looked young. Probably still a teenager. Ramirez paced around the three men,
still pointing his automatic weapon at them. He had the men standing on the
trail with their hands on their heads. He stopped behind them and began to
taunt them.

“Bang…bang…bang,”
jeered Ramirez, as he stood behind them and laughed.

“We
didn’t do anything!” screamed Richard.

“Shut
up, fat ass!” commanded Ramirez. “Now get your fat ass on the ground. Face
down. Now!”

Ramirez
stood over Richard and straddled his body. He began to poke Richard’s head,
neck, and back with the barrel of his rifle. Ramirez was debating aloud to
Richard exactly where he should shoot him before he threw his body over the
dam. As the rifle barrel slowly worked its way down Richards’s spine, Ramirez
noticed the pack of cigarettes in Richard’s back pocket and took them. He lit a
cigarette, pulled the smoke deep into his lungs, and slowly exhaled.