Into The Darkness

by Doug Kelly

  Dylan’s sunglasses protected him from the glare of the store’s glass window. His hidden eyes glanced into the store. He saw a man trying to conceal himself behind the shelves of the first aisle, and peeking over it at them.

  “We want to buy a few things,” Dylan said, trying to smile.

  The woman looked at the sign on the door and tore it off.

  “We’ve decided not to sell anything. We’re closing now. Goodbye.”

  Dylan cautiously stepped toward the woman, and said, “Hold on. We just—”

  As Dylan spoke, a small gust of wind blew his loose shirt back, revealing the pistol. Seeing the pistol, the nervous woman screamed. Instantly the man hiding in the store ran down the aisle toward the door. At the doorway, he leveled the shotgun and pointed it at Dylan and Kevin. Both men raised their hands above their heads. Dylan began inching backwards and Kevin followed.

  “Nobody is going to rob me! Keep walking or I will fill you full of lead,” the man said, as he continued to point the shotgun at both of them.

  “We have cash. Look, I’ll show you,” Dylan said, as he slowly moved his hand toward his front pocket.

  “Move your hands another inch and I’ll kill you. My neighbor was murdered last night by thugs like you. It’s not going to happen to me,” the man said, as he jabbed the shotgun toward them in short, violent strokes.

  “Okay…okay…we’re leaving…we don’t want any trouble,” Dylan replied, as he began to back away from the man at a quicker pace.

  When the man began to slowly lower the shotgun, they turned and continued walking away at an increasing speed. They repeatedly looked over their shoulders at the man holding the shotgun as they retreated, feeling some relief when the man relaxed his arms and the shotgun finally pointed down. However, at that moment, from a distance up the street, they heard another man’s voice yelling at them.

  “Hey! Hey!”

  They quickened their pace toward the bridge. Then they heard a barking dog. Looking back, they saw the man that was yelling and that he was restraining a large vicious-looking dog with a chain leash. The man had a shotgun pointed toward Dylan and Kevin, and then he dropped the chain to the ground. The dog sprinted forward.

  “Run!” Dylan screamed.

  Kevin was already in motion, sprinting for the embankment by the bridge as fast as he could. Dylan felt the adrenalin instantly course through his body and his legs turned into steel springs propelling him forward. He could hear the dog’s claws on the asphalt, getting closer, and with a quick turn of his head, realized that he could not outrun the dog. Dylan stopped running, grabbed the pistol from his belt, and spun around. He gripped the pistol tightly and used his other hand to chamber a cartridge. He dropped to a kneeling position and the dog lunged directly into two bullets and landed at Dylan’s feet, dead. Two men were now coming their way with shotguns.

  “Get on the river! I’ll hold them back,” said Dylan.

  Kevin disappeared down the embankment.

  “Don’t come any closer. I have the advantage,” yelled Dylan, as he held the pistol up for them to see.

  “You killed my dog!”

  Dylan did not reply. He walked backward to the embankment and was ready to run for his raft. Before he jumped down the embankment, he yelled back at the men to stay away or he would shoot to kill. Dylan slid and jumped his way down the dirt slope and motioned for the others to push off. He jumped into his raft and pushed off the riverbank. Dylan pushed his paddle against a concrete pier supporting the bridge and fiercely paddled away. As the river curved, he paddled toward the cover of low hanging trees. He heard a shotgun blast from the bridge, but the distance was too far. They had successfully escaped and headed downstream again.

  The sun was at their backs and getting lower on the horizon when Beth said that they were just upstream from Great Falls. They slowed down near an airport observation tower on their left and hugged the riverbank with their rafts. Beth explained that it was a civilian airport and the military base was further down on the right side. Dylan did not want to get closer to the city and pointed to a little island splitting the river. They put ashore on the island and carried the rafts and equipment into the shrubbery for concealment. They all gathered driftwood for a fire and Kevin found grubs under a fallen tree to use as bait. Kevin set the lines for the night and joined the group back at the campfire. He found an abandoned cooler by the riverbank and offered it to Beth to use as a seat for her and the baby.

  “What do we do now?” asked Richard.

  After a brief silence Dylan said, “We need to eat. I think we’re all starving at this point. It would be best to eat what we got from the hotel first. It’ll spoil the soonest.” Dylan stood up and looked around before speaking again. “Go ahead and split up the food. I’ll take a walk around to see if there is anything else to eat.”

  “Oh, not more cattails,” Richard moaned.

  Dylan pointed to the bow staves and said, “If I can get those done, we’ll have more options for food.”

  “Need any help looking?” asked Kevin.

  “No, this won’t take long,” replied Dylan. “Try to get some fish for us.” He gestured toward the far end of the island. “I don’t hear any frogs nearby. The best I can do will probably be some greens.” Dylan walked away to forage and Richard grabbed the axe to get more wood for the fire.

  “You’re home,” Kevin said, smiling at Beth.

  Beth smiled back. “Almost. The best thing for me would be to go further downriver and go ashore just before you have to go around the first bridge. It wouldn’t be good to start walking the rest of the way now that it’s getting darker.” Beth began to rock her child. “I keep wondering if, at a place like this, martial law would be declared. Nervous people can get trigger-happy. I don’t want to get shot in the dark.” The baby began to cry again. “I really need to get a new towel on her and clean this one in the water,” she explained and excused herself to go to the riverbank.

  Kevin toasted a bagel in the flames and thought it tasted delicious. As he ate, he noticed Dylan moving about in the tall grass. He felt guilty sitting there, so he got up and trotted over to Dylan. He noticed Dylan had an armful of some green plants.

  “What is that?” inquired Kevin.

  “I call it lambsquarters. I remember my grandmother showing it to me when I was young. She told me they gathered and ate it all the time on the farm. I have it growing around my house, too. It grows like a weed.”

  “That reminds me. Did you tell Richard that I’m continuing to Kansas City with you? Did you invite him, too?”

  “No, I am dreading that, but I should get the invitation over with,” Dylan said, as he shook his head in doubt.

  At the campsite, Dylan pulled each green leaf from the plant, making a mound of primitive salad. Dylan grabbed a handful and began to chew. It had a bitter taste, but he thought it would suffice. They were at nature’s mercy now and had to make do with what they had.

  “Is it any good?” asked Beth, not realizing the grimacing expression on her face.

  “Not as good as a fancy restaurant salad with lots of ranch dressing, but it’ll do,” said Dylan.

  Beth took a bite. “Bitter, but okay. Kind of tastes like spinach.”

  “Well, I like spinach and I’m starving. Here goes nothing,” said Kevin.

  Richard was the most reluctant and the last to try the greens. He gagged slightly and said, “I need a cigarette.”

  The next morning Dylan woke to the noise of green wood crackling on the fire. The Montana air smelled fresh and complimented the hint of pine smoke from the fire. Dylan saw that it was Richard stoking the fire and approached him to speak.

  “Kevin is going to Kansas City with me. You’re invited too. You can stay at my place. If we all work together, maybe we can have a better chance to get through this,” said Dylan.

  “My condo is in the middle of a concrete jungle. I don’t have a chance there. I can stay at your house…really?”

&nbs
p; “Yeah, really. Where’s our fisherman?”

  Richard pointed toward Kevin. He was already up and had checked the lines. Kevin had two fish strung through the gills using a willow branch. In his other hand, he had a large crayfish. He held the crayfish up for Dylan’s inspection.

  “Well, well, well…what do we have here…lobster for breakfast?” Dylan asked with a laugh. “Not a bad idea. I’ll be right back,” Dylan said, as he picked up an empty pan and darted toward the river.

  Dylan went to an area with shallow water. He carefully turned all the large flat rocks over to reveal the creatures underneath. The crayfish were plentiful. He caught seven more and returned to the campfire with his bounty. They ate some bagels with the roasted catfish and boiled crayfish. The baby ate a little crushed cereal, but no one was full. They had to stretch out the food supply.

  Dylan wanted to work on the bow for a while before heading downstream to the first dam. He needed a way to hold the wood tight and still so he could use both hands to hold the knife and carve the wood. He noticed a small tree that bifurcated into an acute angle at its trunk, a few feet above the ground. With Kevin’s assistance, he set the bow stave in the bifurcation of the tree trunk and Kevin stood on the other side of the tree pulling the end of the stave at an angle to lock it tightly in place. It worked; the stave held solid in that position. Dylan angled the knife toward the wood and held the blade tightly with both hands. Slowly, he pulled the knife toward himself removing more thin shavings of wood. Occasionally he would remove the stave from the tree and compare both sides for symmetry. When Dylan judged that he had completed enough rough carving, he held one end of the stave in his left hand and put the other tip of the stave to the ground. He pushed onto the center of the bow and it started to bend. Then he went through the same process with the other bow.

  “Perfect!” Dylan exclaimed. “These need to dry completely, then I’ll take the length down to size. We’ll keep them in the sun. With this dry air, it shouldn’t take too long at all.”

  “We still need arrows and strings,” said Kevin.

  “One thing at a time, my friend. Trust me. Now let’s get out of here. We have five dams waiting for us,” Dylan said, holding up all the fingers of his right hand.

  It was another bright, clear day. The morning sun was in their eyes as it rose higher in the distant horizon. Dylan thought about the sun as he paddled toward it. Should he blame the sun? Or maybe the blame should go to humans for being so completely dependent on little computer chips. The answer did not matter; they could not change their predicament. He looked upward and saw buzzards circling in the sky on invisible columns of air. He reaffirmed his promise to himself that he would survive and make it back home to his family.

  Where the interstate crossed the river, there was a small road running parallel and close to the water. They got the raft to the riverbank and let Beth and her child out.

  “Thank you so much,” she said profusely. “I don’t know what would have happened to us if you hadn’t come along.”

  Dylan asked, “Where will you go? What will you do?”

  “I live off base in an apartment. I’ll go back there and see what happens. I really don’t know.”

  She turned and walked away, stopping once to smile back at the men as they receded from her view.

  The men floated under several bridges on the way to the first dam. They observed men, wearing uniforms of military camouflage and holding automatic weapons, patrolling the bridges. Whispering amongst themselves as they stealthily floated downstream, they speculated on what the military’s orders were. Was there already martial law? They agreed this was a bad situation and they should surreptitiously continue toward the dams and away from this city and the military base.

  According to the map, they would get closer to the base as they went toward the dams. At the first dam, the Air Force base came into view just past the crest of the riverbank on their right side. The men noticed a walking trail parallel with the river and going toward the dam. Unfortunately, the trail was on the military base’s side of the river. Kevin retrieved the binoculars from the backpack and slowly scanned the dam and trail. He saw no one patrolling the dam. He wondered if the military was just patrolling streets in town and roads into the military base.

  The men stopped at the riverbank where a tree had bent over and leaned into the river. The tree’s fallen canopy gave them cover from unwanted observation, as well as a place to secure the rafts.

  “This is it,” said Dylan.

  “Now what?” Richard asked.

  “We get these rafts to the top of the dam one at a time, and move as fast as we can.”

  On dry land, Dylan placed the front of the raft on his shoulders and looked forward with an uncomfortably bent neck, but the pistol felt reassuring, tucked in the waistband of his pants. Kevin and Richard held up the raft from the back. They all moved to the top of the dam as fast as Richard could go. At the trail’s crest at the end of the dam, the rear of the raft suddenly fell to the ground. When Dylan turned around and straightened his neck, he saw the horrified look on his friend’s faces. Their eyes were wide, jaws open, and their hands were in the air. Dylan turned quickly forward and saw two soldiers with automatic weapons running toward them. The soldiers had been just over the crest of the dam and out of view.

  The first soldier commanded, “Freeze! Don’t move or I’ll shoot!”

  “The colonel said we can shoot intruders. Should we shoot them?” asked the second soldier.

  “Get the colonel. He may want to see this,” said the first soldier.

  Dylan stared in silence at the remaining soldier. The name on his shirt was Ramirez. He looked young. Probably still a teenager. Ramirez paced around the three men, still pointing his automatic weapon at them. He had the men standing on the trail with their hands on their heads. He stopped behind them and began to taunt them.

  “Bang…bang…bang,” jeered Ramirez, as he stood behind them and laughed.

  “We didn’t do anything!” screamed Richard.

  “Shut up, fat ass!” commanded Ramirez. “Now get your fat ass on the ground. Face down. Now!”

  Ramirez stood over Richard and straddled his body. He began to poke Richard’s head, neck, and back with the barrel of his rifle. Ramirez was debating aloud to Richard exactly where he should shoot him before he threw his body over the dam. As the rifle barrel slowly worked its way down Richards’s spine, Ramirez noticed the pack of cigarettes in Richard’s back pocket and took them. He lit a cigarette, pulled the smoke deep into his lungs, and slowly exhaled.

  “Thanks, fish bait. I needed a cigarette,” Ramirez sneered mockingly at Richard.

  Still standing over Richard’s prone body, Ramirez did not notice the second soldier returning with the colonel.

  “Ramirez, what are you doing?” barked the colonel.

  Ramirez jumped at the sound of the colonel’s voice. He flicked the lit cigarette into the air, dropped the pack of cigarettes, and nervously stood at attention. “Sir, we captured intruders, sir.”

  The colonel turned to the second soldier. “You said you captured terrorists.”

  The colonel was a short, stocky man with a shaved head, camouflage hat, and sunglasses. He stepped in front of Dylan and Kevin to get a look at the captured men. He stared at them and tilted his head to the side. He kept looking back and forth at Richard on the ground and the two men standing, and then he took a step back and began to laugh loudly as he removed his hat and sunglasses.

  “Colonel Byrd?” asked Dylan.

  The colonel laughed louder and slapped Dylan and Kevin on the back.

  Ramirez’s disposition totally changed. He kept glancing at the other enlisted soldier with a confused look on his face. The other soldier tried to ignore Ramirez staring at him, because he had just realized that they must have made a terrible error.

  “You ladies made a dumbass mistake here,” the colonel said, looking at both soldiers.

  The colonel stepped c
loser to Dylan and lifted Dylan’s shirt enough to reveal the pistol in his beltline. “If this ‘terrorist’ wanted you dead, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now. Go find your sergeant. Both of you are relieved from patrol.”

  “Am I glad to see you,” said Dylan.

  “Now that you’ve been captured, do you want to be interrogated in the mess hall?” the colonel asked, laughing.

  “Food?” Richard asked, still prone in the dirt.

  “Yes,” the colonel replied, but then he corrected himself, “a ration of food.”

  The colonel leaned down close to Richard’s ear and whispered, “You might as well get up now. I already know you pissed your pants.”

  Chapter Six

  Colonel Byrd escorted the men into the mess hall for an early lunch. They each got a ration of cold food, and sitting at a small round table, they devoured it. They told the colonel about their plan to get home and what they had seen so far. He nodded with approval at their plan and reminded them that they needed more practice at not letting the bad guys catch them. The colonel started to tell how he made it to Great Falls, but was interrupted.

  “Sir,” said a young soldier, standing at attention.

  “What is it?”

  “Sir, the general needs to speak with you right now, sir.”

  Colonel Byrd reflexively looked at his wrist to see the time and was embarrassed when he realized that the digital watch was no longer there. It had stopped working, along with all the other computerized devices he owned, and being useless, he had already thrown it away. He sent the soldier on his way with orders to let the general know he would be right there.

  “Duty calls,” said the colonel. “Follow me. I’ll take you to my room on my way to meet the general. You can get cleaned up there. When I come back, I want to trade some more stories before you go.”

  The colonel’s room had a small window facing in the direction of the river. The window allowed adequate light for the three men to see as they cleaned up in the bathroom. They took quick showers, washing their dirty clothes in the shower with them. Dylan opened the window and they spread their clothes out to dry. The men, overcome with fatigue, promptly fell asleep.