by Doug Kelly
Chapter Twelve
Dylan and Kevin struggled in the murky lake. They desperately tried to stay afloat, flailing in the water, while holding their submerged backpacks with one arm. The flat-bottom boat cut between Dylan and Kevin. From the prow, each armed man extended a hand to pull them close to the boat.
A man at the front of the boat commanded, “Hand me your gear,” and then hoisted the waterlogged backpacks into the vessel. Dylan and Kevin hooked their arms over each side of the boat, and the oarsmen turned around and rowed back to the boat ramp. When Dylan and Kevin felt their knees drag on the submerged section of ramp, they let go of the boat, waded out of the water, and collapsed onto the dry concrete while panting for oxygen. Dylan’s rifle had slipped off his back and lay at his side. In a few minutes, a semi-circle of armed men surrounded the two strangers, and Dylan’s rifle was immediately confiscated.
The crowd parted for a tall man with large, gray eyes. He was wearing a red, plastic whistle around his neck. When Dylan and Kevin caught their breath enough to look up and observe their surroundings, they saw the whistle and remembered hearing the shrill noise. It must have been a distress call. Directly in front of Dylan and Kevin, the man went to one knee, removed his broad-brimmed hat, rolled it up, and tucked it under his arm. They looked up to see a kind face. The face had a large grin and wide, round eyes that seemed to smile as well. The whistle dangled from its lanyard like a pendulum.
“Well, well, well,” said the kneeling man. “Fishing was good today, wasn’t it?” The crowd laughed. He raised his hand without turning around, and then the crowd fell silent. “Who are you?” he asked.
“I’m Dylan, and he’s Kevin.”
“My name is Dean.” He paused while he continued to observe them. “We have your rifle, Dylan. Any more weapons? Maybe you, Kevin?”
“I have a pistol,” said Kevin.
“I’m going to take that from you.” Dean stood up. With the two men on the ground, he seemed to tower over them like a giant. “Stand up, put the pistol on the ground, and move nice and slow." He pointed to Dylan. “You’ll have to remove the knife, too.”
Dean took two giant strides backward and removed a two-way radio from his back pocket. He twisted a round knob on top of the device, and it hissed static. He pressed a button on the side and whispered into it, “Light ‘em up.” Instantly, a red dot appeared, dancing back and forth from Dylan’s chest to Kevin’s and only hovered briefly over each heart as it did. It was laser sight, and they understood what that meant.
“Your radio…I don’t understand…how could it work?” Kevin stammered, almost in a daze from seeing the red dot from the laser sight and hearing the electric static from the radio. “And a laser sight, how could it be?”
“I had them stashed in a Faraday cage,” he answered. “To say I was prepared for what happened would be an understatement.” He lifted an eyebrow above one of his gray eyes and pointed to the ground by Kevin’s feet. “The pistol? Slowly.”
Kevin slowly pulled the dripping pistol from his pocket and placed it near his feet.
As Dean held the radio and gently bounced it on his thigh, Dylan stared at it, like Kevin, still not believing his eyes and ears. Dean watched Dylan stare at the radio, and then he looked at Dylan and Kevin in an inquisitive way, trying to determine if they were an asset or liability. Still unsure of the two strangers, Dean pointed to the knife strapped to Dylan’s thigh and pointed to the ground again. Dylan emerged from his trance, unbuckled his belt, and the sheath slipped off the wet leather and onto the concrete.
“Good, that was easy. Let’s sit on the dock and have a conversation. I need to know who comes into my community.” He pointed to a short, wooden pier. It had round posts about three feet apart, with thick rope strung through each, for railing. Their backpacks were there, unopened, but the water had drained from inside the packs to form a pool around each one. Their rescuers had hung the soaked blankets on the rope balustrade to dry.
Dean whispered into the radio once more, and the hovering red dot disappeared. Dylan and Kevin looked around, but could not see the camouflaged sniper. Dean turned the knob and it clicked; the radio was silent. He slid it into his back pocket, extended his long arm in a waving gesture, and told the crowd to leave. The crowd dispersed and went about their business, only casting a few curious glances back at the two newcomers.
On the pier, Dylan and Kevin rested beside their backpacks, and Dean’s tall body hovered over them. He bent over to open each pack and dumped out the contents. Spilling from the backpacks were water bottles, an extra magazine for the rifle, two cans of beans, a plastic container of rice soaking in water, the binoculars, and a photograph of Dylan’s wife.
Dean gently picked up the photograph from the puddle of water by pinching it at a corner. He looked at the men, each wearing a wedding ring. Not knowing who owned the picture, he asked, “Anybody special?”
“My wife,” answered Dylan.
“You almost lost her,” replied Dean. He gently put the wet paper down on a dry section of the wood planking.
“I did lose her,” Dylan replied.
“I’m sorry, my condolences.” Dean’s permanent grin seemed to fade slightly.
“No, he means she’s gone,” Kevin interjected. “We don’t know where she is.”
“Oh, I see now,” Dean said softly. “You’re trying to find her?”
“I don’t know what I’m doing.” Dylan looked over at the capsized boat.
“I can tell you this. I know everyone here. I see everyone who passes by, and I have not seen her. She’s not here.” Dean did his best to express his sympathy for the stranger.
“Can we go now?” asked Dylan.
“You’ve almost passed the smell test. Stand up and take off your shirts.”
They complied, slid the wet fabric off their backs, and wrung the excess water from their shirts back into the lake.
“Turn around.”
They spun around.
“Good, no tattoos. You look healthy, too.”
“You don’t like tattoos?” asked Kevin.
“If you had the number thirteen tattooed on your arm, you would be at the bottom of the lake by now.”
“I don’t get it,” said Dylan.
Kevin clutched his wrinkled, wet shirt tightly with both hands, as he began to shiver and his teeth chattered, as well.
Dean looked at them once more and then looked back toward his house. It was the closest house to the dock. When he had purchased the lot, it was the most expensive lakefront property in the development and he loved how close he was to the water. “You need to dry off. I have a fire pit behind my house. Let’s talk there.”
The shirtless men gathered their items, put them back into their packs, and grabbed their wet blankets. They followed Dean to his house. Walking away from the lake and the boat ramp, they looked up an asphalt street. The street zigzagged up the slope to the top of the hill and away from the community. This road connected the lakeside neighborhood, designed on the slope of the valley, to the lake’s shore. Expensive, custom homes lined the street. Dean’s stucco, ranch-style home had a southwestern design, landscaped with rocks and yucca plants in the front. The center of his front lawn had a three-tiered waterfall that was silent and dry. They followed Dean down the steps beside his house and into the backyard.
The house had a finished walkout basement. A stone paver patio extended from the backdoor and was half the width of his home. In the center of the patio stood a fire ring and a covered table. The chairs that matched the table surrounded a smoldering fire in the pit. Retaining walls, covered with English ivy, projected from the rear corners of the house’s foundation into the backyard.
“Put your wet clothes on the chairs, and I’ll get that fire going,” said Dean. He turned to stoke the embers and placed more wood on the coals of the fire. He turned back around to see that Dylan and Kevin had stripped down to their wet underwear. “Oh, this is awkward,” said Dean, averting his eyes
from the men. “I’ll be right back with a couple of dry blankets.
Dean returned with two blankets. They wrapped themselves with the dry fabric and waited for the crackling heat to arise from the pit. He pulled a chair toward the men and positioned it to face them as he spoke.
“We had some trouble a while back,” said Dean. “We sent some people out on a patrol. They followed the railroad tracks and, not too far away, they found a stalled train. The train was packed full of food. With the help of everyone from our community, we spent days getting all that food back here. A couple guys appeared out of nowhere when we were back home one of those evenings. They had followed us home from the stalled train. Both of them waved around automatic weapons and screamed that we had stolen their food. They said something about being part of a militia or gang. I think they called it the Lucky Thirteen.” Dean pulled back his long hair and wrapped an elastic band around it to make a ponytail.
“What happened then?” asked Kevin.
Dean removed the radio from his back pocket and gently bounced it on his thigh. “Like I said, don’t think for a second I wasn’t prepared for all this. They each got a bullet in the head and we took their weapons. My guy is good. He was a sniper in the military.” Dean tossed the radio onto the table, and it slid to the center. “When we threw the bodies into the lake, I saw the tattoos. Each man had the number thirteen tattooed on his arm. That’s why we checked you.”
“They’re in town at the bartering lot,” said Kevin. “We also found them at a food warehouse. We know where they are.”
Dean raised his eyebrows. “Where is all this?”
Dylan pointed to the opposite end of the lake. “We live at the end of the lake, and the warehouse is several miles past our subdivision.” Dylan stood to readjust his blanket. “We went on a patrol to see what’s around us. We walked up the stream that feeds this lake and stopped near a food warehouse. There were two rotting corpses in the field next to it.”
“Oh, I thought you were strays,” he said with a depressed tone. “I wanted to offer you a place here with us. We take in some strays every now and then. We got a paramedic just last week. He was on the boat that brought you to shore.” Dean’s eyes drifted to the fire and he said, “Damn it,” under his breath. His thoughts took him away for a few moments before he spoke again.
“Our community could use some more healthy men. We’ve had too many crazies come down our street. There’s a cult down the road, you know, not too far from here. For some reason, they thought we would be interested in joining their movement. They had pamphlets to hand out and tried to talk people into leaving this place, but we persuaded them to leave us alone instead. It took a couple visits before they finally got the message.”
“A bullet to the head?” asked Dylan.
“No, no, no. They didn’t threaten us. We had to get a little physical, though.”
Dylan remembered the pamphlet he found in his home. He thought it was the same group, but he kept his story to himself. “How far away are they?”
Dean pointed to the dam. “The road over that dam continues east. Just stay on that road and you’ll see it. It’s not far at all.”
Dylan turned to look at the dam. He remembered the map at his house and now had his bearings straight. He knew where he was, where the bike trail was, and how to get back home. He went to the backpacks, removed the two cans of beans, and placed them in the fire to warm them.
“Hold on a second,” said Dean. “Get those cans out of the fire. I’ll be right back.” Dean’s long legs took him across the patio in a few strides, and he went into his house.
Dylan took the cans out of the fire, but left them near the warm embers.
“Let’s get the hell out of here, Dylan.”
“It’s getting late and our clothes are wet,” Dylan replied. “If we leave now, we’ll get hypothermia in this valley.”
“We could keep walking. That would keep us warm.”
“In the dark? He has our weapons. We’re screwed.”
Kevin hung his head low and shook it back and forth.
“Kevin, if he wanted us dead, we’d be dead by now.”
“Is that so?”
When Dylan heard the door slam behind Dean, he whispered back to Kevin, “Be quiet.”
Dean was holding two sealed Mylar pouches of freeze-dried food in one hand and a metal pot in the other. Dean took the pot to the opposite side of a tall boxwood bush and began pumping the handle of the well in his backyard, filling the pot with water. He placed it on a metal grid over the growing fire. “You’ve got to try this. It’s beef stroganoff. All you have to do is add hot water.” Dean sat back down, holding the two pouches on his lap.
“How…how did you get all of this?” Dylan asked.
“What did you say?” asked Dean.
“The radio, the food, the well…all of this stuff?”
“I ran a successful pest control business. I started it when I was young and worked hard at it. The business grew. Before I knew it, I was sitting at a desk while everyone else did the work for me. I was making a killing, but then the economy seemed to be going in the tank, and, with so many wars going on, I thought it would be a good idea to get prepared for the worst. I designed that home, right down to the bulletproof windows. It’s a fortress. My wife hated it. She called me crazy and left. Nevertheless, I stayed busy. I stockpiled a hoard of food and weapons. Who’s crazy now?”
Dean stood to look into the pot of water and noticed small bubbles rising from the bottom. He opened the two pouches, poured about two cups of water into each, and sloshed it about. Dean handed a pouch to each of them, and they held the warm pouches of food and inhaled the aroma of beef stroganoff. It smelled delicious.
“Sorry, I forgot the spoons,” said Dean.
“No problem,” Kevin replied.
The two men tipped the pouches up and let the warm food slide into their mouths.
Dylan swallowed the first mouthful. “It’s delicious.”
“There is more where that came from, Dylan.”
Dylan heard Dean’s comment as another invitation to stay. “I can’t stay here. I have a family, and that is where I need to be.”
Dean turned to Kevin. “And you? The offer is still open.”
“I’m with him, I can’t do it.”
Dean groaned and smoothed the denim fabric around his thighs with the palms of his hands. The evening air had a chill to it, and he was getting cold. “Sleep on it. You can’t travel back tonight with wet clothes. You should stay here. Sleep in my basement. It’s warm in there.”
“Thanks for your hospitality. We accept,” replied Dylan.
The next morning, they woke on the carpeted floor of Dean’s basement. Through the large picture window, they could see wafts of smoke rising from last night’s fire. Dylan remembered that he had left the cans of beans by the fire and went outside to get them for breakfast. The cans were warm. He pulled the lids off and poured the warm beans onto the soaking rice. After dressing, he and Kevin ate the mixture and drank fresh water from the well.
Dean walked out the rear door and joined them at the fire pit. “Are you leaving now?”
“We have to go,” replied Dylan.
“I’ll be right back; wait here,” said Dean. He returned with the rifle, pistol, and knife. ”I hope you don’t mind, but I cleaned the rifle and pistol, and touched up the edge of your knife blade on a diamond stone. It’s razor sharp now.” After Dean handed the weapons back to the men, he showed Dylan a section on his forearm shaved smooth of hair.
“We appreciate everything you’ve done,” said Dylan.
“Dylan, Kevin, we can take out that militia. I have the resources. Bring your families here. You can stay with us. All I need is some more good men like you, and we can move on them. Take them out before they get too big.”
Dylan shook his head apologetically. “I’ve seen a lot of killing. All I want to do is keep my head low and stay out of trouble. That would be like kicking a
hornet’s nest. I can’t do it.”
“Will you do me a favor?” Dean asked.
“Name it,” Dylan responded.
“You know where I am. Let me know if they are pushing this way. I know this parkland is a good barrier, but if they start coming this way, please get back here and let me know. I like to be prepared.”
They put on the backpacks, and Dylan slung the rifle over his shoulder. They began to walk away. Dean followed them to where the bike trail entered the neighborhood. Dylan and Kevin extended their hands to bond the new friendship before they went into a thicket of tall trees.
They were about twenty yards down the trail when Dylan turned and shouted back to Dean, “You can keep our boat.”
Dean shouted back, “Where was your sense of humor yesterday?” He laughed and turned toward home.
Soon afterwards, they emerged from under the dark canopy of a cluster of trees and crossed a wide and sloping ground, almost bare of trees, where a fire had cleared away the undergrowth. A lush growth of grass covered the ground. The sunshine poured down, and birds were singing cheerfully. They soon passed the clearing and slowed after entering the woods again.
Tall trees with round, smooth trunks stood thick and close on the dry and rising ground. Their branches met above the bike trail, forming a continuous green arch that shaded the path. The space between the trees was full of thick, green vegetation, and the trail had moss growing across it intermittently. In the past, bike tires and hiking shoes kept the moss at bay. As they came into this beautiful place, a white-tailed deer, startled by the men as it quietly grazed on vegetation, ran down the trail. Its swift leaps carried it away like silent gusts of wind. Squirrels scurried up tree trunks as they approached. In the distance, they heard woodpeckers drumming against the trees and hunting for a meal of bugs hiding under loose bark.
