by Gary Chesla
It was a clear night, a bright halfmoon started in the east, making it easier to see in the darkness than usual.
When the moon was directly overhead, I decided it was time to go wake up Ed and Bill, so that they could start watching outside the fort. I didn’t have any illusions that they were both still wide awake at their posts. Besides, nothing ever seemed to happen until deep into the night, and since Bear didn’t seem to be concerned, I decided to let them get some rest until I felt the time when something could happen approached. Maybe it would make them more alert.
I had watched and listened with Bear until late into the night. I let Bear focus on what was outside the fort, while I concentrated on listening for any sounds inside the fort.
I was trying to figure out what could have happened to the girls that had disappeared. I knew the dead didn’t come inside the fort and take them, that thought, in itself, I found to be almost amusing that anyone would have seriously thought of that as a possibility. I was also almost certain that someone, some other group of survivors, hadn’t come into the fort to take them either. The logistics of such an operation was too complex. If there were anyone outside the fort that had been watching these people, I feel that they would have just showed up during the day and taken what they wanted. Anyone watching the fort could have easily determined that the people inside the fort were not capable of putting up any kind of resistance. In fact, to anyone with any kind of aggressive tendencies, this place would be a pushover.
I was convinced, with everything I had seen to this point, that the girls had decided to leave on their own. For what reason I didn’t know, but without any evidence showing that anyone came into the fort, the only other possibility was that the girls had somehow left on their own.
My first thought had been that someone inside the fort was abducting the girls, that was the only way the girls could have disappeared without me or Bear being able to find any trail outside the fort. But after getting to know the men inside the fort, I knew that none of them were capable of pulling off something like kidnapping the girls, and then being able to hide the girls inside the fort where no one could find them. I also couldn’t think of a reason why any of these guys would do something like that. None of the women here would ever be confused with being a model, and none of the men fit the description of a playboy, pervert or child molester. The only thing left was that the women were leaving on their own. I didn’t know why, and quite frankly at this point I really didn’t care. I was just hoping to finish what I had started, and in the process bring some closure to Ed and Bill before I left.
Why? I wasn’t sure any longer other than maybe it was the right thing to do. No one else at the fort seemed to care, but I was hoping that solving this dilemma would ease my mind. Deep down inside I knew what was going to happen to these people after I was gone, that was a disturbing thought to walk away from. My only comfort was that I had tried, but you can’t change something that doesn’t want to be changed. You can’t save someone that doesn’t want to be saved. Sometimes you just need to accept things for what they are, and then move on.
But tonight, I was determined to find out how those girls got out of the fort. To be honest, my curiosity had gotten the better of me and I needed to know how someone was pulling off these disappearing acts right under my nose.
When the moon was high over my head, I finally got up to go check on Bill and Ed. It was time for them to start paying attention and to do their job.
I got up and quietly moved across the courtyard. The sound of my feet on the ground was the first sounds I had heard all night. I was sure nothing had taken place that I had missed, if it had, I would have to say that someone was really good at sneaking around without being detected by Bear. That was something that I felt was next to impossible to do.
Bill was waiting for me when I reached the top of the ladder.
“I heard you coming,” Bill smiled in the darkness.
“I thought you would be sleeping,” I replied.
“No, it was hard not to, but I’ve been able to stay awake,” Bill said. “But I think I heard Ed snoring s few times.”
“I think he’s been under a lot of pressure lately,” I replied. “I’m glad he is able to sleep, but I’m going to wake him up next.”
Bill seemed to be thinking for a moment, then he spoke up.
“I hope he changes his mind and comes with us,” Bill said. “I don’t think that he will do so well here on his own. A lot of the other guys make fun of Ed, in case you didn’t notice, Ed is kind of slow.”
“I think a lot of the others are also kind of slow,” I added.
“When we leave, where are we going to go to first?” Bill asked.
“I’ll try to break you in easy,” I replied. “There is a cabin up in the mountains a few days north of here that Bear and I found last winter. I thought we would go there first, the hunting was good and I figure we can stay there until to put together enough supplies to begin our trip higher up into the hills.”
“Do you think that we will meet up with any other people in the hills?” Bill asked.
“I don’t think so, but you never know who or what you will run into out there,” I replied. “I imagine anyone that has managed to survive up until now will be moving around looking for food and maybe hoping to find other survivors. It gets awful lonely when there isn’t anyone else around, so it might be nice if we do run into some others.”
“Will there be snow up in the mountains?” Bill asked. “We had three feet of snow here last winter. It made it really hard to find anything to eat. That’s when we had to eat….”
Bill suddenly stopped and changed the subject.
I had finished his sentence in my mind before he stopped. But unless Bill volunteered to tell me what it was that they had been forced to eat to survive, I didn’t want to try and force him to tell me. The thought of eating another human, which was my guess of what he didn’t want to say out loud, was horrifying enough, I didn’t want to humiliate him further by having him admit what he had done. If that’s what he felt he had to do to survive, so be it, that was something that he and his conscience had to deal with. I’m sure a lot of people had done things over the last year that they would prefer not to admit. There were also things that I would prefer not to know. The past holds different memories for each of us, personal things that we struggle to find a way to live with, if we can. We all had our horrible secrets.
“Will it be hard to find food in the mountains?” Bill asked.
“It was at first, but Bear and I developed a system about six months ago and we’ve eaten well ever since. Mostly deer, squirrel, rabbit, ground hog and other small animals,” I replied. “When you know what to look for, you discover that there is a lot to eat in the mountains. We shouldn’t have to worry too much about starving.”
“It sure sounds a lot better than it was around here,” Bill said quietly. “Last winter was a nightmare here at the fort.”
“It’s not going to be like living at the Old Country Buffet, but I think we’ll manage,” I smiled.
“If there is a lot of food and there aren’t very many of the dead in the hills, the mountains sound like paradise,” Bill said.
“Trust me, it’s not paradise,” I replied. “You’ll have to work for everything you get, or you can starve or freeze to death. And if you don’t pay attention to where you are, the dead will find a way to get you just like anywhere else.”
“It still sounds better than staying here,” Bill said. “I just wish Connie was here to go with us. I think she would have liked getting away from here.”
“I wish she was still here too,” I replied.
Before Bill could say another word, we heard a scream echo throughout the courtyard.
I quickly looked down at the foot of the ladder where I had told Bear to stay.
“Bear, find and hold,” I shouted.
Bear took off like a flash and disappeared into the darkness. In the black of the night, all I
could hear was the sound of his feet pounding the ground going towards the sleeping quarters.
“What did you just tell your dog to do?” Bill asked as we rushed down the ladder.
“I told him to go towards the sound and to corner and keep whatever he finds from getting away until I get there,” I replied.
“What if he finds something bigger than he is?” Bill asked.
“Bear won’t care how big it is,” I replied. “If I tell him to hold something, it gets held. Besides, that was a woman’s scream, I don’t know of any man or woman that can get away from Bear. I think we might have just discovered how the women at this fort have been disappearing.”
“You think so, well I hope your dog rips him apart,” Bill growled.
“Bear will just hold him until I give him the word,” I replied. “Besides, if we just managed to capture our kidnapper, we need to talk to him first and see what we can learn about what happened to the other girls.”
“Good Idea,” Bill replied. “I didn’t think of that.”
By the time we reached the sleeping quarters, many of the others were coming out of their buildings to see what all the noise was about.
A few of the guys were holding small torches out in front of them as they stared off into the darkness.
Bear was sitting on top of a sobbing woman that he had pinned to the ground.
“Bear, come,” I commanded as Charlie came out of his quarters and joined the group.
“What’s going on here,” Charlie shouted.
The woman slowly got to her feet.
“Janie?” Charlie asked when he recognized the girl. “What happened to you?”
Ken came running over to comfort his sobbing wife.
“I had to go to the bathroom,” Janie sobbed.
“I told you not to come out here at night by yourself,” Ken said. “Why didn’t you wake me up to go with you?”
“You were tired after working so hard today, that I didn’t want to get you up,” Janie replied. “I thought it would be OK since we had guards posted, so I decided to let you sleep.”
“So what happened when you came outside?” Charlie asked.
“I hadn’t gone more than twenty feet,” Janie said as she continued to sob, “when someone grabbed me. I screamed then started kicking and hitting whoever it was, then he let me go and ran away. The next thing I knew, some huge hairy animal jumped on me.”
“Tom, where were you when this happened?” Charlie asked, I didn’t care for the tone in his voice. It sounded like he was accusing me of attacking Janie.
“He was with me up on the wall,” Bill jumped in. “We both came running when we heard the scream.
“Why was your dog attacking Janie,” Charlie asked again with the same tone of voice. “I thought you said you had him under control. Maybe we need to have you tie him up when he is in the fort.”
“Bear didn’t attack Janie,” I replied sternly. “When we heard the scream, I thought we might have another kidnapping in progress, so I told Bear to go and hold whoever he found in the courtyard, hoping that we might catch whoever has been taking the girls.”
“It looked like an attack to me,” Charlie growled.
“If I would have commanded Bear to attack, Janie would not be in any condition to talk,” I replied. “The goal here was to capture the kidnapper, not kill him.”
“Are you alright?” Charlie asked, shifting his attention back to Janie. “Did that dog hurt you?”
“No, he just sat on me so I couldn’t move,” she replied. “That, and he licked my ear.”
“He did that because he likes you,” Ken laughed and hugged his wife. “Tom told us how his dog licks people’s ears when he likes them. We’ve also seen what he does to things that he doesn’t like, I’m sure Bear wasn’t trying to hurt you, you are going to be fine.”
“Bear might also be responsible for scaring the kidnapper away,” I added. “No one or nothing with any brains would have hung around to finish attacking Janie when he heard Bear coming his way.”
Ed came running up to the group, “What’s going on?”
“And where have you been for the last twenty minutes?” Charlie asked.
“I fell asleep up on the wall and just woke up when I heard everyone down here talking,” Ed replied. “Sorry, Tom. I tried to stay awake, but I couldn’t help myself.”
Charlie turned and looked at everyone.
“Well then, who the hell attacked Janie?” Charlie asked.
“Whoever it was has to still be somewhere in the fort, because after the attack, no one had time to get out through the gates,” I said.
“I want everyone to go check your quarters to be sure no one is hiding there,” Charlie said. “Then I want everyone to meet back here in five minutes. We’re going to search the fort, if there is someone hiding in this fort, we’ll find them. Tom, Ed, after you check your quarters, I want you to stand watch at the gates so no one can get out.”
When everyone took off to check their quarters, I looked at Charlie.
“Charlie, if someone would have gotten into the fort and attacked Janie, Bear would have spotted him before he would have made it ten feet inside this place,” I said. “Bear can see in the dark, he can hear the slightest sound and pick up any strange smell. Charlie, I think what we have is an inside job.”
“A what?” Charlie asked.
“Since Bear didn’t detect anything unusual before the attack,” I continued. “The attack had to have been committed by someone already inside the fort that Bear knew and didn’t consider to be a threat.”
“That’s crazy, Tom,” Charlie replied. “I know all of these people, no one here would do such a thing. I think that maybe your dog was sleeping and that’s why someone was able to sneak in here and attack Sandy. Isn’t that possible?”
“It’s possible but trust me,” I said. “I know Bear, and that possibility isn’t very likely. Over the last year, I’ve never seen anything that has been able to sneak past Bear, day or night.”
“I think it is more likely than the idea that one of my people did this,” Charlie barked. “Go watch the front gate while we search the fort, if there is an outsider in the fort, by God we’ll find him. He won’t get by us.”
I was now certain that the attack was committed by someone in the fort, but I decided to just keep it to myself, Charlie was reveling his authority and wasn’t going to take my word for anything right now. Even if he believed what I said, he wouldn’t admit it in front of the others if his life depended on it. I knew there was no point in pressing the matter, I could wait until they ended up not finding anything, then let them settle down before bringing up the subject again.
I turned and walked over to the front gate. When you sleep under a lean to, you don’t have to worry about someone hiding there, so I didn’t feel the need to search my site.
A few minutes later the group met back at the firepit. Now, all the men were carrying small torches.
“OK, men, spread out and search all the other buildings and all the shadows where someone could hide,” Charlie ordered. “Call out if you find anything.”
The men, in groups of two, began to break up and start their search of the fort.
I knew they wouldn’t find anyone, especially if the attacker was one of the people doing the search.
I just leaned back against the front gate and watched the small torches move around in the dark, but I was now even more curious than before. I had no idea who could be the attacker, it just seemed like something that was too difficult a task for any of these people to pull off.
The search went on for ten minutes before they gave up and then they all met back at the firepit. When I was sure they were all back and after they began to carry on what sounded like a serious conversation about something, I walked over to see what they were talking about.
When I joined the group, Charlie looked up and said, “Good job men. We didn’t find anyone, but we believe we found how they have been getting
into and back out of the fort undetected.”
Charlie grinned triumphantly, “We found their tunnel in the blacksmith shed, who knows how long they have been coming in here, that also explains some of the missing food that had been reported before the women began to disappear. Do I have a volunteer to stand guard at the opening of the tunnel tonight so we can catch them if they try to get back inside again tonight? Tomorrow we’ll fill that damn tunnel back in, that should put an end to the mysterious disappearances we’ve had around here lately.”
“Charlie, no on one came in through that tunnel,” I said. “We just started digging that tunnel today.”
“Why would we do something like that?” Charlie asked. “I think that is crazy, who knows what could come in through that tunnel. This fort is well secured, we haven’t had to worry about anything getting in here until now. What made you decide to do such a thing and why wasn’t I informed about it before you started this tunnel? We need to vote on things like this.”
“You told me yesterday morning that I should do whatever I felt we needed to do to protect the fort and these people,” I replied. “I had Ken and Dave working on the tunnel today. The tunnel starts in the blacksmith shed, but it doesn’t come out anywhere yet. There is no way anyone could use it to get into the fort. I thought it would be a good idea if the dead broke into the fort that we all had a way to get out of the fort without being detected by the dead. The tunnel is to be our emergency escape plan.”
“We can’t have something like that here at the fort,” Charlie said shaking his head. “It’s a disaster waiting to happen. I want that tunnel filled in tomorrow before the dead discover it is there and sneak in during the middle of the night and kill us all.
Let’s make it official, everyone in favor of filling in that damn tunnel, raise your hands.”
