Into the River Lands (Darkness After Series Book 2) (10 page)

Mitch made up his mind then and there. He would follow this trail wherever it led. There was no way the men who made it could get away from him, but a canoe, on the other hand, left no tracks. He knew it was possible that April was in it, but if she was, there was no way for it to go but downstream or upstream, and the latter was unlikely, considering the current. If she were on foot as she had been when he’d last seen her, however, the trail could lead most anywhere. He had to follow up on that probability first, and he knew he had no time to waste. He made his way back to where Jason was still trying to revive David and saw that he had not been successful.

“Let’s get him across the creek, Jason. I’ve got to get moving, and now!”

Mitch slung his bow across his back and grabbed David from under his arms, instructing Jason to get his feet. His limp body was heavy, but they managed to get him to the shallow area they had crossed earlier, and with a combination of floating and carrying, pulled him across to the bank that was on the same side as the Henley farm.
 

“I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, Jason. I’m going to be depending on you to look after Lisa and the others, and I know you can do it. When you get them and come back here for David, make sure you get him back to the house as fast as possible. You can rig up a travois like we’ve used to haul deer. You know how to do it. The main thing is just don’t leave the house unattended for too long. And don’t leave him out here after dark if you can help it. It won’t take long for the dogs to find him out here.”

Mitch didn’t want to leave Jason unarmed when he took the AR-15, so he unbuckled his belt and removed the holstered .357 Magnum revolver he’d been wearing as a back up.

“Keep this handy. You probably won’t need it, but it’s better to have it than not. How many mags did you bring for the AR?”

Jason dug into the deep pockets of his cargo pants and pulled out two. They were each standard thirty-rounders. Another one was already locked into the magazine well of the rifle. Mitch checked to make sure Jason had already chambered the first round from that one. He figured ninety rounds was far more than he would need, but he would certainly take them all and if Jason had brought more, that would have been even better. He slung the carbine across his back and removed the bow to carry in hand. The AR could be brought into play quickly from almost any carry position, but if he needed to utilize the silence of the bow in a hurry, it was best to carry it at the ready, an arrow nocked on the string just as he always did while hunting. And this was indeed a hunt, but a hunt in which a lot more hung in the balance than if the prey was merely food. Today Mitch was hunting men; men that would kill him if they saw him and men that would do as they pleased with April and Kimberly if he did not kill them first. He intended to do nothing less and the sooner he could make it happen the better.

“Good luck,” Jason whispered. “I wish I was going with you. The odds would be better than four to one, at least.”

“Numbers aren’t everything, Jason. I don’t intend to give them a chance to use that to their advantage. With any luck at all, they’ll never know what hit them.”

“Still, I wish I could be there.”

“Just try to get back to the house as fast as you can. Lisa and Stacy will be wondering what’s going on. I don’t want them to get any ideas about trying to come out here and find out. And David needs to be moved there. April’s going to be relieved to find out he’s alive when I bring her and her child back. He is the little girl’s father, after all.”

Mitch remembered the day he’d met David and Kimberly for the first time. After all those days traveling alone with April, though so much danger and adventure, finally arriving at that church and realizing their journey was over had been painful. Seeing her child in real life and meeting the man who’d fathered her, the reality sunk in for Mitch that his journey with April was really over. He knew he would miss her when they parted, and he did. He’d thought about her constantly the first few days, and only a little less over the subsequent weeks. Finally, the day-to-day challenges of survival and looking out for his sister and the others had pushed her memory farther back in his mind, but there were still times he wondered how she and her family were doing. Seeing her again, especially out here was a total shock, and something he’d never expected. Obviously, David was still very much a part of her life or he wouldn’t be here, so for her sake, Mitch was glad he was alive. After all she’d been through and was going through now, she didn’t need any more tragedy in her life. He was determined to bring her and Kimberly back to the farm, and finding David there would only add to her relief.
 

Mitch bent over him once more to check his vital signs. His pulse was still strong and he was breathing as before. Chances were, he would come to sooner or later.
 

“I’m on my way, Jason. Now get moving and get to the house and tell Lisa and the others I will be back as soon as possible, but don’t worry if it’s longer than you think it should be. I won’t be returning without April and that little girl!”

With that, Mitch gave Jason a final handshake and then turned to wade back across Black Creek. He didn’t pause to wave or even look back when he reached the other side. He entered the woods and made his way directly to the last place he’d stopped when examining the tracks, and then set out in pursuit.
 

When the trail led to the higher and drier ground on the true top bank, well above the stream’s high water line, actual footprints became almost non-existent. It was to be expected, but again, looking for the path of least resistance kept him on track. By simply going the way he knew most people would pick, he could occasionally see where feet had shuffled through the leaf litter and small forest floor plants were crushed or bent. Just as they were before they came here and took April captive, the four men were traveling without concern of being followed. Mitch knew they probably thought they were so deep in the woods that they had nothing to worry about. Little did they know that they were being hunted by a predator they could not escape, and that their vicious actions had guaranteed they would receive no mercy when he found them.

Fifteen

G
ARY
H
AGGARD
LED
THE
way downstream, doing his best to stick reasonably close to the creek, but frequently having to take a wide detour around thickets and areas of dense briars and other undergrowth. These forestlands along this stretch of Black Creek were not like this before Hurricane Katrina devastated them when it swept through Mississippi in 2005. Gary knew this, because it had been one of his favorite places to deer hunt before he went to Afghanistan in 2003. Back then, most of the stream bank here was shaded in mature forests of tall pines and mixed hardwoods, the canopy shutting out most of the light and allowing little undergrowth. It had been a beautiful place; one of the few areas of such extensive old-growth forest left in the state, and walking and hunting in it had been a pleasure.

But one-hundred-mile-an-hour plus winds had wreaked havoc on a lot of it, blowing down many of the tallest trees and breaking the tops off many more. The holes and gaps created by this destruction opened up the ground to sunlight in the same way logging operations did in the cutover woods found practically everywhere else in the state. Rampant vegetation grew where once there had only been shade with moss and ferns. Blackberry briars, privet hedge and bushes and small seedlings of every species shot up in the openings and grew into tangles and thickets, each species trying to choke out the others. It made walking in a straight line just about impossible, and traveling through such damaged forestland on foot was a march through hell. The only thing that helped was a sharp machete to cut a path through the worst of it.
 

Gary was used to it, of course. Just like Wayne and the others, he literally lived in the woods these days and spent most of his time hunting or bushwhacking when they weren’t in the cabin at the camp. But this had been the longest expedition they’d undertaken since moving permanently to the hunting club land after the blackout, and he was ready to get back to familiar turf and take a break. This trip was essentially the same as the long-range recon missions he’d done so many of over there, just different terrain and a different purpose. And though in those missions he knew going in that he was going to get shot at if seen, it was about the same here. The only difference was they had
not
been seen so far.
 

There had been more than a few run-ins on the hunting camp property though. The problem there was that even though it was in the middle of a huge expanse of woods, it was still too damned close to the coast. That’s why they were here in the first place—scouting upriver—looking to the future to try and figure out what they were going to do in the longer term. When everything hit the fan in the beginning, it didn’t seem likely the situation would last as long as it did or get as bad as it had. Now, it didn’t seem likely things would ever go back to the way they were before. It wouldn’t be smart to just sit back and not consider all the options and conduct some advance planning.

It was too bad these woods were no longer the forest paradise Gary remembered. It would have been the perfect place to relocate. He knew they still might have to do it anyway. Travel by canoe or small boat was still easy enough, even if walking was not. And the game was still plentiful here; this trip had confirmed that. They had seen little sign of other human presence, other than the chance discovery of that unlucky family camped on the sandbar. Gary couldn’t believe someone as pathetic as that guy had survived long enough to get this far. Only in the world back then, before the big change could guys like him live long enough to mate, especially with a girl like that one.
 

Gary still smiled to himself when he replayed in his mind the image of her busting Wayne’s nose and putting him on his ass in the sand. She was one tough little chick! She had put his buddy in quite a spot, and Gary knew how he felt. He knew Wayne was trying to prove something now, but he figured it wouldn’t last. He just wanted to tame that little tigress on his own terms to save face, but it wasn’t really like him to be selfish. They had been through a lot together and Gary already owed him favors. As far as he was concerned, no woman was worth fighting a good friend over. But taking out her sorry excuse for a husband? Gary had no qualms about that. The way he saw it, he was doing her a favor. Gary had little sympathy for anyone outside their small band of survivors these days. He’d seen plenty of innocent people die horrible deaths long before this event put his own country into a state of anarchy. A soldier learned to harden himself to such things early on if he wanted to do his job. The lives that really mattered were those of the other men in his unit. Now, for all practical purposes,
everyone
else was the enemy.

He wasn’t crazy about the idea of splitting up the group and Wayne being out there alone with the woman and kid in the canoe. He thought Wayne was being a little stupid for taking such a risk to get her back to the camp, but it wasn’t worth a huge argument either. Maybe he was right. Maybe a woman like her would be an asset later on if they kept her alive. She would have to adapt if she wanted to live, especially if she wanted them to let her keep the kid. Gary figured it didn’t much matter to him one way or another, as long as he didn’t have to feed her. Wayne would either find the burden worth it or he wouldn’t, and he would do something about it then.
 

Jared and Paul were sure unhappy about Wayne keeping her to himself, but Gary had finally had enough and told them to shut up and forget it. They all had a long trek ahead of them, and he was tired of hearing it. Besides, just because they hadn’t seen anybody else in these woods, that didn’t mean there were no dangers. It was best to travel in silence, just as if they were expecting an ambush at any moment.

Gary kept his custom Bulgarian AK at the ready in it’s two-point tactical sling in front of his chest, and he kept his cutting with the machete to the bare minimum, picking a way around, instead of through, the worst of the thickets. When he did have to use the blade, to clear a briar vine or branch, he sliced through it at an angle with an upward stroke. Kept shaving sharp at all times, the 22-inch Collins would part most of them in a single pass this way. Gary had long ago learned that such an upward slash cut the cleanest and with the least blade ring or whack upon impact.

Machete or not, it was completely impractical to follow the creek bend-for-bend, so even though they were walking at roughly the same speed as Wayne would be paddling, they could not keep up with him or stay anywhere near visual or audible contact range. That just simply didn’t work in this kind of woodland. The best they could do was agree to rendezvous at recognizable landmarks, which were few and far between on a creek that looked mostly the same for mile after winding mile.
 

The first such spot where they planned to meet for the night was at a sandbar on the same side they were walking, just downstream from the next bridge crossing. This crossing was a county road that likely had little traffic even before the blackout, and there had been nothing in the area before other than a remote Forest Service campground on the creek bank nearby. Finding it would be easy whether they were near the creek or not, because they would have to cross the road at some point and paralleling it from the other side back to the creek would take them right there. Once they met up with Wayne again and made sure everything was going okay with him in the canoe, they could decide on the next rendezvous, probably at the state highway bridge that was another ten miles downstream beyond that one.