Succinct (Extinct Book 5)

by Ike Hamill

  “Unless there’s a closer place to fish,” Tim said to himself.

  To hunt the squirrels, he had ranged in the forest back the way he had come. Now, he looked the other direction. Tim saw a gap between two trees that looked almost like a path.

  Standing up, he started his feet moving before his weariness could drag him back inside.

  The flies were back again. Tim waved them away as he crossed the clearing. Each step closer convinced him that it was a path. Bare roots showed in places where even the dirt had been worn away. He wasn’t fifty yards from the camp before he smelled the water. Open sky up ahead showed him the right direction. Tim spilled through some bushes and found himself at the bank of a lake. Cutting a straight line through the weeds, out into the deep water, was a narrow dock. The gray planks were well weathered and sagged a little under his weight.

  Tim walked to the end and looked across the still water.

  “Is this real?” he whispered.

  In the middle of the perfect plane of water, a fish jumped. The ripples spread out in immaculate circles, rolling and fading toward the banks.

  “Can’t be,” he said. Turning, he went back to the cabin for one of the fishing poles.

  Replenished by water, squirrel, and fish, Tim found himself stretched out on the cot with his head on the pillow. It smelled of fir trees. He watched the fire as it slowly burned down. Yawning, he reminded himself that first thing in the morning he would find his way down the hill until he reached the river. I couldn’t be too difficult to find. The cabin was on top of a ridge and he could see the next ridge to the south. The river had to be somewhere between those sets of hills.

  Tim didn’t wake up until the rising sun was streaming through the window. He stood up, shook off the chill, and went out to the porch. His breath made a white fog that disappeared quickly.

  He set off with confidence. Based on the position of the sun, he figured he was moving south. At the edge of the clearing, the forest sloped downhill, reinforcing his notion that he was headed in the right direction.

  Tim didn’t make it far. His foot came down wrong, stepping over a rock. It was the same ankle that he had rolled the day before. This time, it popped and pain shot up his leg. He hopped once and then collapsed on the bed of pine needles. The skin of his ankle already felt hot and tender. It seemed like he could see it swelling immediately. Trying to put weight on it was foolish—still, Tim tried. After a few more paces downhill, he turned back toward the cabin. The peak of the roof was still visible between the trees. He limped back to the clearing and then took a break before hopping to the porch. Collapsing on the boards, he considered his options.

  There had to be something in the cabin to use as a cane or to make a splint from. He slid himself over to the door, banging his foot against one of the posts and taking a second to get on top of the pain again. Inside the cabin, he took a moment to remove his shoe and sock so he could investigate the damage. It didn’t look bad—the bruise was too new to show up—but his ankle was tender in several places. Comparing it to his other ankle, he could see where the swelling was already starting to show.

  “I shouldn’t have left the river,” he whispered to himself, looking up at the ceiling of the cabin. “This was stupid.”

  Tim leaned back until he was propped up on his elbows, lying on the cabin’s plank floor.

  “I figured that I had to get downriver of the cliffs so they would find me, but then I just kept walking. I should have gone back to the riverbank as soon as I was able,” he said to the empty cabin. “That would have been the smart thing to do. There’s no way that they’ll find me way up here.”

  His face brightened. “Penny might. She was able to track me down in the jungle. She has a good nose on her.”

  “No. In the jungle she followed my trail. If they can’t get upriver to the point where I crawled out, then they won’t be able to find my trail. And I probably didn’t have much of a scent anyway after I had been soaked in the water all that time.”

  The way he figured it, he had to get down to the river as soon as he could and then he had to stay put. It was the only chance he had of finding his group. Of course, that assumed that they hadn’t already given up on him being alive. It also assumed that he hadn’t given up on them.

  “Which, all things considered, I probably should,” he whispered.

  The idea was terrible. If they were already dead, drowned by the upended raft, then it would be better if he never knew. If he stayed put in the cabin, he wouldn’t have to face that possibility. He could assume that they went on without him and he could just ignore all the other likelihoods.

  “Tempting.”

  He laid back on the floor of the cabin and stared up as he thought.

  “Why do I assume that they are looking for me?” he asked himself. “Maybe they’re staying put, waiting for me to find them. If they have the gear, then it would make sense for them to remain in one place and wait for me to come floating downstream.”

  He tried to put himself in their shoes, to figure out what they would do. There were too many variables to consider. If both of them had survived, then maybe one was camped and the other was searching. Tim tried to picture it. In the most optimistic scenario that he could imagine, Lisa was camping right at the river’s edge while Ashley and Penny worked their way up the bank, looking for some sign of him. Maybe once they got to the cliff, they too would have to climb, and Penny would stumble on his trail. If all those things happened—if his most optimistic vision came true—then all he had to do was wait. He could hunt and fish, collecting supplies, and heal his ankle while he waited.

  Or, he could limp down to the river and pray that one of them found him before he starved. With no tent, it would be a miserable existence.

  As he thought about it, his hand traced the gap between two floorboards beneath him. The wood was worn smooth and stood proud where his fingers found a knot. He wondered how many footsteps it took to wear a board smooth. Above, the flat planks that made up the ceiling still showed the saw marks.

  “What’s up there?” he asked.

  Turning his head and darting his eyes around, it took a moment for him to even locate the access panel. Over near the chimney, there was a spot where several of the planks were broken by a line to form a small rectangle. Tim pushed himself up to his elbows again and then dragged himself to the chair so he could stand up. Using it like a walker, he positioned himself below the spot.

  Standing on the chair, his fingers were just able to push the panel up and out of the way. He extended to his toes in order to get a grip on the edge. With that, he lifted himself enough to get his good foot up on the high window ledge. Raising himself up, he realized that he didn’t have a way to get down. Since it was already too late, he decided to keep climbing.

  Some light filtered through the logs at the far end, and some light came up through the hatch with him. Tim pulled himself up and wedged his good foot against the wall. His other foot dangled at the end of the swollen ankle. Sharp jabs of pain ran up his leg as it swayed.

  With a grunt, he got an elbow over the lip. After that, it was just a matter of rolling onto his back and pushing with his good leg. Tim was panting by the time he sat up and blinked at the dim light.

  The cabin below had been mostly bare. There was the desk, chair, some water jugs, and the bed. Up in the loft was where the previous resident had stashed most of their stuff. Tim saw wooden crates and more jugs. He saw something at the far end that looked like it might be a crossbow. A long thing tucked under the eaves puzzled and excited him. Tim pulled himself toward it before he dared to believe what he was seeing.

  His hand stroked the side and he gave a low whistle at the craftsmanship of the wooden canoe. He flipped it, realizing how heavy it was. The perplexing thing was how it had gotten up there.

  “Did they build the cabin around you?” he asked the canoe. The panel was too small to fit it, and there was no way that it would make the turn without being fol
ded in two.

  Tim’s eyes returned to the light leaking through the logs at the far end. Sliding his way down to it, he figured out the problem before his hands proved that his idea was true. The light was leaking through because the logs on the end peak of the cabin were cut out to form a door. It swung inward on protesting hinges, letting in a square of morning light.

  From up there, he could see part of the lake over the bushes. Turning back to the dim attic, he saw what was hiding under the eaves on the other side—a wooden ladder. Tim smiled as he dragged himself over to it. He wasn’t even thinking that it offered him a safe way to get down from the attic. His first thought was that he could use it as a steep ramp in order to lower the canoe safely to the ground.

  He didn’t spend any time wondering if he should bother.

  Once he shoved the ladder through the door at the end, it slipped on the uneven ground below and the rails began to slide away. He caught it, just before it toppled. Tim managed to wrangle it into a good enough position to be stable and decided to leave the final adjustments for later.

  As he worked, sliding around on his butt and as he grunted and shoved things around, Tim lost track of the morning. His swollen ankle ached, but he forgot about it as he used a pry bar to take the lids off of the crates. Some of the supplies packed in there were too old to be useful. He found a shrunken object that might have once been a wheel of cheese. He found stoppered jugs that might have once held wine. In some of the vessels, the liquid had pretty much evaporated. In others, it smelled of vinegar.

  One crate held what looked like potatoes. They were still firm and smelled fine. Tim began to sort the supplies. He found a crate of seeds sorted into glass jars. The most interesting thing he found was a box of books. The writing wasn’t like anything he had seen before. He couldn’t even tell where one word ended and another began. Each page was filled with a string of nonsense.

  “Robby could figure this out, if it’s a code,” he said, closing the book and putting it back in the box.

  Tim pulled a string that broke the wax seal on a ceramic container. Inside, he found what looked like bark. After sniffing it and touching it to his tongue, he figured it was something like beef jerky. He nibbled a corner. It tasted good—salty and savory—but he decided it would be best to wait and see how it sat in his stomach before he tried more.

  Most of the stuff, he moved toward the ladder. The clothes, he slid toward the hatch. The wood stove had been mostly cold that morning, but he still leaned through the hatch before he tossed the clothes toward the bed. He didn’t want to burn down the cabin now that he had found its treasure.

  Tim slid back to the canoe. The floor beneath him made a strange noise when he slid. It almost sounded like a voice.

  The canoe was heavy and difficult to maneuver. It would have been hard regardless, but with a bad ankle the chore was nearly impossible. He got the end up over the rails of the ladder and slid it forward, trying to inch it along so it didn’t just push the ladder over. Once it reached the tipping point, it was all Tim could do to hold it from dragging him out after.

  The landing on the ground behind the cabin was a little rough. Tim held the rope and tried to lower it gently, but there was only so much he could do. Eventually, he had to let go of the rope and hope that it didn’t take too much of a beating on the roots and rocks below.

  It picked up speed as it thunked down the last few rungs. Tim winced as it collided with a tree and then rolled. He slid himself over the edge and hopped down the rungs, trusting most of his weight to his hands.

  With a quick inspection, it didn’t look like the canoe had suffered any serious damage. Tim flipped it upright and used the rope to drag it away from the cabin, and onto the path toward the lake. He didn’t make it far before he lost his balance and had to put some of his weight on his bad foot. The pain was sharp and discouraging.

  Tim dropped the rope and hopped back to the cabin, leaning on the log wall for support.

  In the clothing crate, he had found something that he thought could work as a compression bandage. It might offer him a little stability to the joint. Before rounding the corner of the cabin, he bent to pick up a decent stick. It was straight and solid. The thing worked decently as a cane.

  Back inside, sitting on the cot and wrapping his ankle, he realized that he had to make a decision. With the bandage and the cane, he might make it down to the river. The question of optimism came up again. To go down to the river to look for the others, he had to believe that they were alive. Otherwise, he was leaving food and shelter for nothing.

  Tim was able to convince himself that he should stay in the cabin, at least until his ankle was doing better. With a day or two to rest, he might be able to actually offer help if he found the others.

  The decision felt right except for one aspect.

  The image of Penny alone in the river haunted him. What if Lisa and Ashley had both drowned, but the dog had survived? She might make it to the shore, weak and shivering, and nobody would come to save her.

  “I’ll never find her, if that’s the case,” he said to himself. “If that happens, she’ll be better off trying to find me.”

  He bound his ankle tight enough that he could feel his heartbeat each time it pulsed through the swollen flesh. The pressure felt reassuring. It didn’t stifle any of the pain when he tried to stand up, but it was reassuring. Using the walking stick, he hobbled fairly well over to the window that looked at the canoe. It had plenty of space for a bunch of supplies. A new idea began to materialize and Tim acted as quickly as he could. He gathered what he wanted from the cabin—the fishing poles and the bow—and made his first trip out to the canoe.

  Then, over the course of several agonizing trips, he loaded the canoe with everything he thought might be useful. He made small packages of the food and seeds and secured them under the seat. He found two paddles in the cabin and tied one of them down. When he was done, it looked like it would even survive rapids, if he somehow reached them.

  Spinning the canoe around, so the rope was pointed toward the lake, he realized how difficult the next step was going to be. He had to drag the heavy canoe—now fully loaded—down the forest path without damaging it or his ankle. He took the rope in two hands and leaned back toward the lake. Getting it to move was the easier part. Catching himself without crunching down and finding agony was the trick.

  Sweat jumped out on Tim’s forehead as he worked. Half of it was from exertion. The other half was from the pain. Before long, he was panting and grunting with each tug. He looked up and saw how little progress he had made from the cabin and wanted to give up.

  The idea of Penny made him keep moving. The women had come on their own. They were responsible for their own fate. Penny had only come because she was loyal to him. Even though he had left her with Gloria, she had broken free in order to be at his side. The river had divided them and he would never forgive himself if she had died that day.

  Tim opened his eyes again. He had been pulling as he thought of his guilt. He had actually made decent progress as he wallowed in his shame. He closed his eyes and flayed himself again with the memory of losing the dog to the current.

  Tim didn’t stop pulling until he ran backwards into a tree and had to reorient himself. He was halfway there. Tim put himself back to work. This time, when he closed his eyes, he saw Cedric. The last few weeks of the dog’s life had been spent in their living room. Cedric couldn’t even get up to go outside without Tim holding him up. They had held on until Ty and Murphy came down with Dr. Matthew. By that point, the veterinarian had already examined Cedric with Tim’s help via the audio link. The issue with his hind quarters had been dubbed degenerative myelopathy, not that it made any difference. The real problem turned out to be organ failure—the “unspecified origin” kind. At least that’s what Tim heard. He really wasn’t making any sense of Dr. Matthew’s diagnosis.

  It was Ty who communicated clearly with Tim on that day.

  “It’s his tim
e,” Ty had said, laying a hand on Tim’s shoulder.

  Even the dog seemed to understand. Cedric had laid there with his ears folded back and his bright eyes mostly closed. There was none of the typically happy Golden Retriever smile on his gray muzzle. Murphy, Cedric’s daughter, had lain down between Ty’s legs, as she always did when he was worried or upset.

  Tim pulled savagely at the canoe as he remembered Cedric’s last breaths.

  That dog had been such an unwavering companion, saving his life more often than he could remember, that he had ruined Tim for other dogs for quite a while.

  Still lost in memory, Tim’s good foot hopped backwards into the water.

  He barked a laugh and leaned on the edge of the canoe to hop his way around back. Soon, he was pushing the canoe alongside the dock and watching as it bobbed in the water. Using one of the dock posts to stabilize himself, he lowered down until his legs were in the vessel.

  Tim pushed off.

  Everything had been so clear when he pictured it. Tim was surprised when he didn’t paddle around the corner of the lake and immediately see a stream that led downhill. It was stupid, now that he really analyzed his own plan. His thought was that there would be a beaver dam or something that created the little lake, and that if he managed to get the canoe past it, he would be able to take the stream all the way down to the river. The plan was stupid because there was too much elevation drop between the lake and the river. If there really was a stream, it would be nothing but rocks and waterfalls. No canoe would be able to traverse it.

  Even worse, he found no stream at all. The lake was just a lake.

  After paddling the perimeter once, Tim investigated some of the marshy area on the south shore that looked like it might eventually go somewhere. Every little inlet petered out. He pushed his paddle back against the tufts of grass angrily, nearly tipping his canoe.