Cannibal Country (Book 1): The Land Darkened

by Urban, Tony

  Devan spun sideways, dropping the shotgun and falling to a knee. Wyatt raced to him, kicked the gun away, then kicked him in the face. Devan hit the ground hard.

  Wyatt stood over him, holding the pistol with both hands. “I should blow your head off you fucking thief. Fucking liar.” His voice cracked with fury.

  Devan held his hand up. One of them was smeared red with blood but his face remained calm, smug even. “It’s your rodeo.”

  No matter how much Wyatt tried to hold firm, his hands trembled. “Tell me why I should let you live?”

  “I ain’t gonna do that. A man’s got to decide what kind of person he wants to be all on his own.” He propped himself up on his elbows, wincing. “I’m unarmed. Hurt. And I might’ve stole from you but I didn’t kill none of yours. They’re all safe in the garage. Cause I’m no killer, hoss, and I don’t think you are either.”

  “You have no idea what I am.” Even Wyatt wasn’t believing that bluff.

  “That’s right, I don’t. But if you kill me then June’s out there pregnant and all alone and what chance do you think she’s got? You want to live with that?” He scooted himself back, putting a few more inches between himself and the gun Wyatt had trained on him. “Now I’m gonna stand up real slow and harmless-like. And I can either walk into the dark or you can shoot me down. I won’t judge you either way.”

  He stood, hands still raised and backed away, step after step. Wyatt wanted to shoot him, needed to shoot him, even though doing so would solve nothing, but Devan knew him better than he knew himself. He removed his finger from the trigger.

  “We left you enough food for a few days because we’re not all bad. And you’ve got that little Ruger and the shotgun so you can fend for yourselves.” Devan faded away, only an outline now. “I used to be a lot like you, Wyatt. But there’s no place for good folks anymore. You change or you die.”

  With that he was gone.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “I heard a gunshot,” Trooper said as Wyatt peeled the tape from his mouth, the skin stretching, fine hairs ripping free from his face. When he’d heard the pistol, his first thought had been that Wyatt had been shot. That he was out there, lying in the parking lot bleeding to death or was dead already and they were trussed up like turkeys unable to do a damned thing about it. At least he wouldn’t have to live with that.

  Wyatt nodded. “I shot Devan.”

  Trooper sucked in a mouthful of air. Truth be told, he didn’t think Wyatt had it in him. He was never so happy to be wrong. “You kill him?”

  Wyatt’s gaze shifted to the floor, and that was answer enough. Part of him was glad Wyatt wouldn’t have to live with the guilt of taking another man’s life, because no matter how wrong they’d done you, no matter what horrible acts they’d committed, there was always guilt.

  On the other hand he wanted that hick dead. Dead for stealing. Dead for talking too much. And maybe most of all, dead for being able to fool them. Because even though he had reservations about Devan and his sister, if she really was his sister, which Trooper doubted, he’d let his guard down enough to sleep soundly enough to be taken by surprise. And that pissed him off to no end.

  “Motherfuckers!” Barbara screamed from the next room over. Wyatt had freed her first, and she immediately went to check their supplies.

  “Don’t sound good,” Trooper said.

  Wyatt shook his head.

  Barbara stomped into the garage.

  “How bad is it?” Trooper asked.

  “They left our clothes. Took all the guns. All the bullets. All the food except for a case of wax beans.” She kicked an empty oil drum and the hollow thud reverberated off the concrete block walls.

  Trooper almost said ‘Calm down’ but he knew from decades of living with his mother that those words were apt to have the exact opposite effect. Besides, she had a right to anger. The way it sounded, anger might be about all they had left.

  She wasn’t done. “I can’t fucking believe this! Is this how it is out here? Is this what we left our homes for? To be tied up and robbed by a couple kids?”

  As annoyed as Trooper was with the night’s developments, he knew just how much worse it could have been. Devan and June could have easily murdered them, but they didn’t. Sure, they were in a bad spot now, but there were ways out of it. It was time to be the leader they all needed and try to put as good a spin on the situation as possible.

  “Barbara, we’re alive,” Trooper said.

  “Oh fuck off, Trooper!”

  “Mom, please don’t.” Seth still sat on the floor. Trooper could see the anxiety on the boy’s face.

  “I don’t want to hear it Seth. What do you think is going to happen to us now? Are we going to starve first or get picked off by more of these assholes? Make your prediction.”

  Trooper leaned against an old air pump. He watched Barbara have her moment and debated on stepping into it again, but decided against it. In the corner, Wyatt was pressed so tight against the wall that he looked as if he wanted to melt into it and disappear. Trooper approached him and kept his voice to a low whisper.

  “Have you seen your mother like this before?”

  “Just once, when Dad… You know...”

  Trooper nodded. He remembered that day. Her screams reached across the street from the Morrill house and into his own.

  Before they left Maine, he knew something like this might happen. He almost assumed it would happen. And he’d made plans for how to fix it because that’s what he did. Trooper prepared.

  “Look, Barbara--”

  “Trooper, I swear to God. Let me freak the fuck out for a few minutes, okay?”

  “Let me tell you one thing first. Then if you want to freak the fuck out, I’ll let you have at it.”

  She looked to him and he thought some of the boiling rage was already leaving her eyes. “What?”

  “I know where we can get weapons and food.” Trooper didn’t enjoy being the center of attention, but now he was.

  “You what?” Barbara asked.

  He almost wished he’d have kept his old mouth shut. That he’d have just let Barbara go off the rails for a while and then hit the road, scrabbling together whatever they could find along the way. That would be hard, but the other option might be even worse.

  “You still got that map, Seth?”

  Seth nodded. “In my pack.”

  “Wyatt, get it.”

  Wyatt left the room and Trooper tried to avoid Barbara’s curious stare until he returned. He took the map from him and squatted down beside Seth as he unfolded it. He was pleased with how well Seth had been keeping track of their progress. It would make what was to come easier, if that was possible.

  “You’ve done good, boy. Real good.”

  Seth gave a contented smile.

  Trooper pointed to the end of the line Seth had traced. “We’re here.” He dragged his finger southeast until it reached one of the T.P. markings. “And we need to go here.”

  “They even took your toilet paper, Trooper?” Seth asked.

  Trooper couldn’t hold back a chuckle at that. “No, son, I fibbed to you. T.P. doesn’t stand for toilet paper. It means trading post.”

  Over the last five years he’d had to make friendships with the types of people he’d normally send to a jail cell. But desperate times and all that.

  This was where they needed to go. He only hoped he wasn’t taking his friends to their deaths.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Three days of walking, of eating nothing but a few spoonfuls of wax beans, of almost freezing through the night, and they still hadn’t reached the mysterious trading post that Trooper assured them was out there. Somewhere.

  Wyatt was beginning to wonder if the man had received bad info, that there wasn’t actually anything to find. Or, even worse that his aged friend was losing his mind.

  Stop that, he told himself. Trooper was razor-sharp and nothing had changed. He just had to keep believing. To have faith that something bet
ter waited ahead.

  In his mind Wyatt was turning it into a mixture of the land of Oz mashed up with one of those towns that sit off the interstate that seem to only exist so you can fill up your gas tank and dine at any of twenty or so different restaurants. He pictured a smorgasbord of options from which they’d be able to choose, of foods to eat, of weapons to claim.

  That’s what the hopeful part of his mind conjured, anyway. The realistic part, the part he tried to lock away inside a soundproof box to protect himself from the nagging worry, knew they didn’t have anything to trade. He doubted this world, which seemed more violent and selfish with each passing mile, took pity on those with nothing. That the people who ran the trading post had patience for beggars.

  Trooper has a plan, he assured himself.

  That wasn’t much, but that was all he had.

  They’d made camp as day transitioned to dusk, not that it was a dramatic change. Light gray to dark gray, quickly followed by pitch black. As Wyatt unrolled his sleeping bag, he thought the murky atmosphere mirrored his mood.

  He blamed himself for the theft. For allowing Devan and June into their cadre. For trusting. It was another straw atop his back. First letting his mother be assaulted and mauled. Now putting them all at risk of starvation - or worse. He couldn’t help but think how much better they’d all be if he was gone. Or better yet, had never existed.

  “You okay, brother?”

  Wyatt turned and found Seth sitting on the ground. He’d taken a break from arranging a pile of twigs and brush into a pyre and now stared at him.

  “What? Yeah.”

  Seth snapped a small branch with his hands but didn’t take his eyes off Wyatt. “I don’t think you’ve said twenty words since the gas station.”

  Wyatt dug through his pack, avoiding his brother’s prying gaze. “I didn’t know you were counting my words. There’s eight more for your tally.”

  “I worry about you.”

  This wasn’t a conversation Wyatt wanted to have. He grabbed an empty plastic bottle from his pack and stood. “Well, don’t.”

  “It wasn’t your fault. We all got fooled. Even Trooper.”

  Wyatt understood that as the truth, but in his head, he’d forever be a thirteen-year-old boy. The one who’d helped his father lug his bags toward a taxi on the last morning they ever saw each other. ‘Take care of your mom and Seth while I’m gone,’ his father had said as he flopped into the back seat of the cab. ‘I will.’ Wyatt promised.

  What a joke that was.

  “I’m going to look for water.”

  He didn’t wait for a response.

  As he knelt beside a shallow creek and let the vaguely brown water fill the bottle, he heard a whimper. He flinched at the sound, the bottle almost slipping from his grip. After pushing it into the soft silt so it wouldn’t float away, Wyatt drew his pistol and turned in the direction of the noise.

  He heard it again.

  It wasn’t human. And that meant it could be food. The notion of returning to camp with a rabbit or hell, even a squirrel, to roast was better than finding a pot of gold. It would be his chance to make amends. And this time he wasn’t going to fuck up.

  He pushed through a thicket of dead mountain laurel, the dry branches clawing at his face and arms. He moved slow, trying not to snap them, trying to remain quiet. Between the brush and the rapidly coming dark it was almost impossible to see, and he worried that whatever was there would hear him or smell him or sense him and disappear into the shadows for good.

  He crouched, kneeling on the soggy, rotting leaves and felt the moisture seep through his jeans and lick his skin. He’d regret that when it got cold, but if he handled this right, wet knees would be nothing more than a minor inconvenience because he’d sleep well with meat in his belly.

  He reached forward and pushed aside a branch, easing it back far enough to gain a window through the bush. And there it was. A mass of tan fur thirty yards away. His mind immediately connected the color with a deer. One sprawled on the ground, resting before a long night of foraging.

  Wyatt knew killing the deer with one bullet would be a challenge. An impossibility at this distance. He had to get closer.

  He held his breath as he slipped through the last of the laurel and into the clearing ahead. Every footfall was slow, measured. He sought out leaves and mud upon which to step, careful to avoid any branches, anything dry, anything that might rustle or crack under his weight.

  By the time he’d halved the abyss between himself and the animal he’d lost almost all light. What had been a mass of tan was now an outline. He knew he had to take his shot soon or it would be too dark, a waste of a bullet. But he needed to get a bit closer before he could trust himself to fire. Five more yards.

  He only made it three when he mis stepped and his size tens came down on a broken tree limb. It popped, and he leveled the pistol, sure the deer would bounce to its feet and dash away. Only it didn’t run.

  Instead, the animal raised its head, swiveling it toward the disturbance. That’s when Wyatt realized it wasn’t a deer at all. It was a dog.

  It whimpered again but didn’t move from where it laid. As Wyatt got closer, he thought it looked like a German Shepherd, one mixed with something smaller, maybe a terrier. Its chest rose and fell rapid fire the closer Wyatt got, but still, it didn’t flee.

  It had been years since he’d seen a dog. The friendly, fearless animals had been some of the first animals picked off when fresh food supplies ran low. He could hardly believe any remained.

  The dog wasn’t running. It was sick or injured. It waited for Wyatt to put it out of its misery and provide for his family. Two birds, one stone.

  But he wasn’t ready to become that man. Not yet. He holstered the gun.

  “I’m not gonna hurt you, buddy.” He extended his hand. The dog sniffed, pressing its warm, dry nose into his palm, then gave a tentative lick. Its dry tongue felt like high grit sandpaper skimming his flesh.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “You’ll be okay.”

  Wyatt had no medical knowledge outside of prime time hospital dramas, but he didn’t need a degree to know the dog was dying. A good forty percent of its fur was missing, allowing hard, dark skin to show through. Its body was riddled with scars and scabs. One area near the center of its back was ulcerated and oozed pus.

  Despite all of that, when the dog felt his touch it panted happily and rolled onto its side to provide him easy access for a belly rub. As he scratched the dog’s undercarriage, clouds of dust puffed from its fur and he watched fleas leap and bounce into the air. He saw the dog was a male, one that had been neutered, and realized it had been someone’s pet.

  “How’d you end up all alone,” he wondered. But that train of thought came to a quick end when he caught sight of the dog’s back right leg.

  The appendage was two-thirds of the way to being torn off. The skin was mangled and ripped, hanging in loose tendrils. Through the gnarled mess of matted fur, dried blood, and pus he found something even worse. The flesh undulated and rippled and when the wound gaped open maggots rained from it.

  “Oh shit.”

  He leaned in closer to inspect the injury. That was a mistake. The smell of infection and death and rot was worse than the sight. Wyatt felt his stomach tighten but aside from a half cup of beans he’d eaten nothing since the morning. He spat out a mouthful of saliva tinged with bile, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  As he stared down at the dog, he knew what he needed to do.

  Chapter Twenty

  Trooper heard Wyatt coming but knew from the sound of the boy’s footfalls that something was off. He moved slower, but it also sounded as if he was dragging or carrying something as each step came down with more heft than usual.

  “It’s about time.” Seth grabbed an empty pot, ready to accept water for boiling. “I was starting to think he got lost and we’d have to mount a search and rescue party.”

  Barbara stared into the fire, disintere
sted, or too tired to give much concern to her son’s return.

  Trooper made sure the shotgun was within reach, just in case, and held his breath. He didn’t have to wait long.

  Wyatt marched toward camp, his arms laden down with the scrawny husk of a medium-sized animal. It took Trooper a few seconds of staring before he realized it was a dog.

  “Holy shit, dinner is served!” Seth shouted.

  That finally brought Barbara out of her malaise and she turned toward the arriving party. “Wyatt?” She asked.

  When Wyatt was within a few feet of the fire, he crouched down and eased the dog onto the ground. “It’s not dead,” Wyatt said.

  Trooper leaned in for a better look, not that he needed to make a thorough examination. “It will be soon.”

  Wyatt was busy rummaging through his backpack and ignored the remark. Seth scooted closer to the animal but Barbara grabbed his wrist. “Don’t! It could be rabid or have distemper.”

  Trooper grabbed the shotgun and rested it across his lap. “You want me to finish it?”

  Wyatt spun toward him, eyes blazing with the reflection of the campfire. “Don’t you dare. I’m going to help it.”

  Trooper fought off a sigh. They didn’t need melodrama, didn’t need a reason to bicker amongst themselves. This journey was hard enough without all that nonsense and he wanted to end it before it began. “It’s beyond fixin, Wyatt. Anyone can see that. Hell, I can smell that.”

  Wyatt returned to his bag. “You shoot that dog, Trooper and so help me God I’ll leave this camp, leave all of you, and never come back.”

  Damn fool, Trooper thought as he set aside the gun and stood. He circled the fire and settled in between Wyatt and the dog.

  Its breathing was quick and shallow but, as he knelt beside it, that was the least of the critter’s problems. Its back leg was near rotted off and infested with maggots and infection. He couldn’t believe Wyatt thought it could be fixed. For a smart boy, he sure could be a moron at times.