What's Left of My World (Book 1)

by C. A. Rudolph

  “How far away do you think they are?” Lauren queried as she busily began squaring herself away.

  “I think they just cleared the hill to the east,” Christian said.

  Lauren shouldered her backpack and snapped it into place. She put on her waist pack and slid the Glock pistol into the concealment sleeve. She then reached down and picked up her rifle, slinging it over her head.

  “Do you need me to help carry anything?” Christian asked.

  Lauren looked down at his freshly bandaged calf and shook her head. “You’re probably going to have a hard enough time dealing with that leg,” she said.

  “I’ll manage,” Christian began. “In spite of my pretty-boy appearance, I’m a pretty tough guy.”

  “That’s good. Because we have a bitch of a trip to make up this hill.” Lauren nodded to the west.

  Christian looked at her in surprise. “I thought you said I couldn’t go with you—”

  “It’s not my first choice—but do you see any other option right now? I can’t just leave you behind.”

  Holding back a smile, Christian nodded humbly and said, “Guess I’m following you then.”

  Lauren led him out of the campsite and up toward the old forestry road that led along the banks of Cedar Creek. There was just enough daylight to lead their way and Lauren was more than comfortable with it, having hiked in early morning light numerous times. As they walked, she turned to watch Christian who was limping a bit, obviously in a bit of pain, but he didn’t complain. As they approached the intersection where the Tuscarora Trail left the road and ascended, she turned around once again to see a confounded look on Christian’s face. She stopped and turned to face him.

  “What? What is it?”

  “I don’t know. I’m thinking that following this trail is a bad idea,” he said.

  Lauren sighed. “Why’s that? This is the way back.”

  “That’s what I’m worried about. I have a feeling they’d go this way even if they didn’t have dogs, which they do have, by the way.”

  “Why?” Lauren asked.

  “It’s what I would do.”

  Lauren shrugged and sighed. “What do you suggest then?”

  Christian looked down the road in both directions and thought for a moment.

  “We need a detour,” he said. “And some countermeasures to confuse the dogs. I guarantee that the handlers are using my scent to track us.”

  “What about the creek? Can’t we just walk in the water for a while and then hike out?”

  Christian shook his head. “That’s a common misconception. The water will drip off of you and leave your scent all over the woods, and as it evaporates, it’ll end up in the air as well.”

  Lauren stood still and thought for a minute, trying to come up with another option. “We can take this road just a bit north,” she said, pointing to their right. “There’s another forestry road that heads up the mountain a way. A trail on the left hand side leaves the road and leads through a hollow, rejoining this trail just south of the ridge. As far as losing the dogs, I’m not sure what you have in mind, but I’m all ears.”

  Christian pulled out the emergency bivy, that Lauren had given him the night before, from his pocket. He began ripping it into several large pieces as Lauren watched him, giving him a strange look. Walking up the Tuscarora Trail, he tossed some of the pieces into the mountain laurel surrounding the trail. He then took a few pieces and rubbed them onto the trail. He picked up a couple rocks, wrapping them with pieces of the bivy, and tossed them as far as he could up the trail. “Let’s go,” Christian said taking the lead. “We can figure it out on the way. Do you have any Vaseline or mineral oil in your pack?

  “No, why?”

  “Dogs track you by following the scent of dead skin cells that your body is constantly shedding. Dandruff counts, too. It’s believed that if you coat your skin with Vaseline, or something similar with a neutral scent, that it’ll help you not to shed so much.”

  Listening as he spoke and understanding slowly that he seemed to know a bit about evasion, Lauren followed him down the forest road until they found the intersection with the road that she had mentioned to him. They turned left and began hiking up the road, soon crossing a steel forest service gate.

  As they trudged uphill, Christian began, “It’s much easier to evade the dog handler than it is the dog.” He paused a moment to catch his breath, but kept pace with Lauren. “Every dog needs a handler who is capable of tracking and working the dog. But not all handlers are in the best of shape. They get tired just like we do.”

  “I’m listening,” Lauren said as the road began to moderately ascend.

  “The best strategy against them is distance. Since I’m not sure how much of that we have, we may need to find a way to confuse the dogs. Sending my scent up the trail back there is a start. Plus, once at our campsite, they’ll spend a bit of time trying to figure out how long it’s been since we left. Doubling back is out of the question—we’re fighting an uphill battle and that’s one we’ll lose if we get too winded. Do you have any pepper spray by chance?”

  Lauren thought for a moment and then answered, “I have bear spray.”

  “Perfect. We can spray that on the road every so often. The strength of bear spray will more than likely damage the dog’s olfactory nerve. They’ll have a hard time catching our scent again, if ever. Problem is, that’s also a marker. If the handler sees that his dog is injured, he’ll know we did it on purpose and with that, he’ll know which route we took. You said the trail breaks off the road up here—does the road continue on?”

  “Yes, for a mile or so—in the other direction,” Lauren said.

  “Let’s hope they go a different way than we go, then.”

  “If they don’t, we’re screwed, aren’t we?” Lauren blurted out, sounding frustrated.

  “We just need to keep moving. Try to keep a better pace and get as much distance from them as we can. You said the trail rejoins the other one eventually. Worst case scenario—and I do mean worst case, we ambush them. You have guns. We can try to fight them off,” Christian added.

  Lauren thought about that for a moment and began mentally inventorying her ammunition supply. She then started to imagine what a firefight in the middle of the woods would look and sound like. Scenes from movies began popping up in her mind. She started to feel afraid. She felt like she had when her dad had to shoot two thugs in the National Park. “We don’t know how many there are, Christian,” she said solemnly, “and you know as well as I do, that they’ll have guns, too. Big ones.”

  “You know these woods,” he said. “It’s your territory. We’d be above them and we’d have the advantage of high ground. We’re also moving downwind which means they won’t be able to pick up our scent in the air.”

  They continued up the road for a while before taking their first break. Lauren could easily tell that Christian was in relatively good shape. It seemed, at least for the moment, that the only thing truly holding him back was his injury. She was certain that without his gunshot wound, Christian would be able to keep a pace that she wouldn’t be able to maintain. Then she smiled inside, remembering that she was carrying a forty-pound backpack, along with a rifle. She could still hear dogs in the distance, but they didn’t sound any closer than they’d been earlier.

  Still breathing deeply and sweating quite a bit, in spite of the cool morning air, Christian said, “If we get away from these people, I’m going to be a very happy guy.”

  Lauren smiled. “If you get me away from these people, so will I,” she replied quickly almost not noticing her word fumble. “Well—happy girl, that is. This trail is about a mile longer than the other one and it’s not very steep. We should be able to maintain a good pace.”

  “Fantastic,” Christian said.

  The two paced up the road for quite a while in silence. Lauren had pulled the bear spray from her pack and given it to Christian, who every so often would spray it across their path. They conti
nued trudging along until the road began to level off and a trail appeared, veering into the woods to their left beside a small stream. The stream ran underneath the forest road through a culvert and a small dilapidated wooden sign that read ‘Sulphur Springs Gap Trail’ stood at the intersection. Lauren stopped and pointed to the trail as Christian stopped beside her.

  “That’s it. It’ll take us up and through the gap and then to the ridge,” she said, breathing heavily. “It’s just over three miles.”

  “Are there any vantage points along the trail?” Christian asked still trying to catch his breath, “anywhere we can get a view of the group tracking us?”

  “A couple, I think,” she replied. “But it’s been awhile since I’ve hiked this trail. I honestly can’t remember.”

  “Ok,” Christian said. “We’ll play it by ear, then.”

  Lauren and Christian continued onto the trail, which ran alongside a small stream. Occasionally, Christian would stop to get a handful of water from the stream and splash it on his face. Lauren just kept moving when he did so. Christian, for some reason didn’t appear to be bothered by the chilly air, in spite of the lack of outerwear he had on. Lauren was constantly maintaining her body heat by zipping and unzipping her jacket as she hiked on, like she always did during her hikes in cooler weather.

  “I can’t believe that you’re not cold,” she said as she huffed and puffed. “That water has to be frigid.”

  “I don’t have time to be cold,” Christian said, “I’ll be cold once we get to where we’re going.”

  “If we make it,” Lauren added, not sounding convinced.

  “We’ll make it, I promise you,” Christian said reassuringly.

  Just as Lauren had described, the trail continued up and through a very narrow gap in the mountain and started moving away from the stream that it ran alongside. Lauren leaned up against a tree as the two, once again, took a break. She pulled a Nalgene bottle from a side pocket on her pack and handed it to Christian, who took it willingly.

  “Thought you’d never ask,” he said, trying to catch his breath. He opened the bottle and began gulping the liquid down. Lauren reached for the hose of her hydration bladder and stuck it in her mouth, sucking a large gulp of water down.

  “Sorry about that,” she said. “I’m used to hiking alone. My social skills need work.”

  Christian nodded in between gulps. He finished drinking and screwed the top back on the bottle, handing it back to Lauren. She took it and shoved it back into the side pocket of her pack. A moment of silence followed, as both listened for the barking dogs they had been hearing earlier, although nothing was heard.

  “Can’t hear the dogs anymore—but I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing,” Christian said.

  “Yeah,” Lauren said as she spit the hydration hose from her mouth. “It’s only about a mile to the intersection back to the Tuscarora. Let’s go.”

  Christian nodded and followed her once again up the trail. It began steeply but once again leveled off, and they were able to cover the distance in a short amount of time. At about one hundred yards from the trail intersection, Christian looked to the left and noticed a rock outcropping surrounded by trees. When he stopped to take a look, Lauren noticed and turned to him.

  “This might be the vantage point that we’re looking for,” he said as he began walking through the trees and mountain laurel toward the rocks.

  “What?” Lauren asked rhetorically. “We haven’t heard dogs in a long time—you don’t think we’ve lost them?”

  “Hell no, we haven’t lost them,” Christian affirmed. “And we’re not going to. They’re coming for me. They’re not going to stop until they find me. If they find me, they find you.”

  “Shouldn’t we continue on then?” Lauren asked.

  “They’ll just follow us and eventually end up where we end up,” Christian said. “This has to end here.”

  Lauren sighed loudly and adjusted the pack on her sore shoulders. She was becoming irritated, but was also feeling very vulnerable at the moment, and she didn’t like it. It was apparent to her that Christian had known the outcome of their predicament before they’d begun their trek. If that was the case, he had planned this whole thing out, up to and including an ambush and he hadn’t let on to her his ultimate plan, other than it being a possibility. The contingency plan was appearing as the only plan, and she was beginning to feel a sensation of false hope.

  “Christian, if you have a plan, I wish you would just fucking tell me already,” she said, her irritation showing.

  He looked back at her. Just as their eyes met, the sound of the dogs barking that they hadn’t heard in a while became audible again, this time sounding closer to them than it had ever been. The proximity of the sounds got their attention almost as much as would a sudden gunshot. Lauren froze and her face turned pale. Very quickly, becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the situation, she turned away and began heading up the trail in haste. As she did, her foot became anchored under a tree root. She tripped and fell, her right hand and the rifle that hung in front of her, the only thing breaking her fall. She landed hard onto the cold ground with a grunt, her head hitting the dirt. Then, a sudden pain registered in her brain. It was a pain she had felt before and was all too familiar to her. She knew at that moment that she had sprained her ankle. She rolled over, tangled in her own gear and grabbed her foot.

  “Son of a bitch!” she exclaimed under her breath, the anger in her voice only quelled by the pain.

  Christian ran to her and tried to help her up. Lauren responded by pushing him away. She grimaced as she held her injured ankle in her hands.

  “Are you ok?” he asked as he looked her over.

  “No, dammit,” she barked. “I sprained my fucking ankle!”

  “Let me see it,” Christian said, trying to offer some sort of help. She only pushed him away again.

  “NO! It’s sprained. I know what a sprained ankle feels like.”

  Christian gazed at her, feeling bad for what happened, but turned to look up to the rock every time he heard a dog bark or a spoken word, echoing from the men on the trail below. He was torn between trying to help a fallen friend and doing what was necessary to stop the enemies who were following them. At this point, he only knew one way out of this and therefore, there was only one thing left to do. He had no idea how Lauren would respond to what he intended to say to her, but he felt at this point; especially now, it didn’t matter. Both of their lives depended on it. She was just going to have to understand. There were only minutes separating them from being discovered by their pursuers.

  “Give me your rifle,” he said as he stared into her hazel eyes.

  Lauren’s eyes met his. At first, her expression was of disbelief and quickly turned to anger. Then, it changed to outrage. No fucking way, she thought. Then she said it aloud, giving Christian a look that made him second guess his decision to say what he had just said to her. If looks could kill, he would’ve been dead two times over. He pushed away the thoughts and considered just taking it from her, which he was more than certain that he could do. He could just overpower her and do what was needed, and then they could move on. He then thought to himself that doing so, would most likely end with her Glock in his face, and a bullet in his brain. He decided that he wasn’t above begging.

  “Lauren, please, just give it to me,” he said. “I know you don’t trust me, but that’s not important right now. If you don’t let me do this, we will both die today. I promise you that.”

  “I’m not giving you my gun,” she said as she looked back down at her injury and cursed profusely under her breath.

  Christian took both of his hands and placed them on Lauren’s cold, red cheeks. She became immediately furious and began to fight him, but the fight in her subsided quickly. The feeling of hopelessness that she had been holding back overcame her, and she let go. A tear rolled down her cheek, and Christian gently removed his hands from her face. She had become vulnerable a
gain. She had hardened herself as best she could in the absence of her father, but this situation was nearing too much for her to bear. She needed someone to protect her. Trying to pretend she didn’t was a losing battle for her.

  “I will get you home,” he said in a grave tone. “I promise you, I will get you back to your family, Lauren. But I can’t do it without a gun. I can end this now, for both of us—I just need your rifle.”

  Lauren looked up at Christian and another feeling began to manifest inside of her that she couldn’t help—one of faith. She felt as if she had no choice, other than to believe in this man whom she had just met only yesterday. She hadn’t even known him a full day yet, and he had somehow managed to gain her trust. This wasn’t supposed to happen. She was as vulnerable now as she had been when she was much younger. Her father had always had her back, but he wasn’t here right now. All she had was herself, and the man kneeling in front of her. This new faith that she was feeling had to be tested. She reached down and unsnapped the quick-disconnect, separating her rifle from its sling. She then, slowly handed it to Christian. In that moment, she somewhat expected him to turn it on her. As she began to accept her possible fate, she noticed that it didn’t happen. Instead, Christian pulled back on the charging handle to expose the reflection of brass in the chamber, indicating a loaded weapon, and verified the safety.

  “Do you take care of this rifle?” he asked as he looked it over closely. “Do you keep it clean?”

  “Yes,” Lauren replied.

  “When was the last time you fired it?

  “A week or so ago. My neighbor has a range in his backyard that we train on,” she replied again.

  “What distance is this scope sighted in at?”

  “One hundred yards,” Lauren replied, “it’s dead on at that range.”

  “Extra magazines?” Christian pondered yet again, his questions becoming nearly consecutive.

  Lauren pulled off her waist pack and handed it to him. “There’s two in there,” she said, “and four more in my pack.”