by A. R. Shaw
Rick sat up in his chair. “All right, look. If the little guy was running for his life from that cougar in our direction, you can’t tell me you wouldn’t throw on your hazmat suit, grab your gun, and go running if you knew Camp Graham wasn’t aware of it. We are involved now, since that first night we let them live. If it weren’t for the virus, we would have already brought them in. They’re good people and mostly children.”
“Deadly children, and that’s why we monitor them. You were the first one to argue against picking up Mark when this all started, and rightly so. It’s just because of boredom and you watching them that you’ve become so soft, Rick. If one of those kids comes wandering into our camp, no matter how innocent, we’ll all die. Are you willing to risk Bethany for that?”
“No, of course not. I just think it can be managed.”
“They need to learn about us so that doesn’t happen. These kids are going to grow up. Theirs and ours. They need to know about the dangers.” Rick pointed at the monitor. “We need to teach them how to live with us, apart and together, if that makes sense. We can help each other.”
“Look, for now I don’t see the real need to put cameras on the east side of their camp. We can debate the rest later with the council. Is the hunt group back yet?” Dalton was changing the subject.
“Naw, they’ll be checking in soon though.”
Dalton began looking over plans for the aquifer for the garden when he heard Rick say, “What the hell? Look, camera five!” he shouted.
Dalton came up behind Rick’s chair and focused on display five as he watched the two previous men in the forest on the lake side hiding behind brush watching as Tala and the girls were hanging clean sheets up to dry on the outside line. “Go to camera three. Can you turn it along the shoreline? See, there.” He pointed to brush lying over their canoe, half concealing it. Going back to camera five, they watched as the men backtracked to their canoe. They quietly slipped away through the water without detection in the late afternoon.
“Dammit, if someone had been on watch south of there, they would have shot the bastards,” Rick said. Then they saw Bang running from the forest line, as fast as his little legs would go, up to Tala.
There had been a witness after all.
35
On Watch
“So they were watching the girls? Then what happened?” Graham asked, trying to remain calm. He held Bang out in front of him. The panic-stricken boy was breathing hard and trying to catch his breath. Mark had found him first and taken him to Graham right away.
Bang looked at Graham, and then up at Tala and shook his head, like he wasn’t going to say more with her standing there. Graham picked up on it and asked, “Tala, can you leave us alone for a minute?”
“Sure,” she said, leaving the men to decipher the issue at hand.
“All right, go on,” Graham said.
Bang made a confused face. He knew it was bad, but didn’t know why exactly what it meant and then said, “Those bad guys said, ‘They have too many women.’ Then the other one said that the younger two wouldn’t hold up, so it would be better to take the mom. They think Tala’s our mom?”
Graham stood up and called, “Tala, where are the girls?”
“They’re on watch,” she said.
Both Graham and Mark raced out the door without saying a word. Each headed in the opposite direction to secure the girls as fast as possible, without having to mention who would go where. Graham came up on Macy’s back, startling her from behind.
“What? Graham, you scared me!”
“Nothing, I just want you to come back to the cabin.” Graham was pointing, and Macy noticed that his finger shaking. Then, out of breath, he rubbed the side of his bearded face and neck.
“What’s wrong with you? Do you always do that when you’re nervous?” Macy asked. He only pointed, indicating that Macy get back to the cabin.
“Did I do something wrong?” she asked him as they walked, with Macy marching in front of Graham.
“No, Macy, you didn’t do anything wrong.” He stopped and hugged the girl into his side and looked behind him as he took her back to the cabin. Once they hit the clearing, he saw Mark dragging a disgruntled Marcy behind him.
“I can’t believe this!” Marcy said, outraged.
“What?” Macy demanded “What’s with you guys? Now there’s nobody on watch.”
“Get in the cabin,” Graham nearly yelled at them. “We’ll talk about it in there,” he said in a slightly lower tone.
Graham held the door open for all of them to enter.
“Look, gang, we have a serious threat. I had hoped they’d given up after we took down one of them, but it looks like I was wrong. My first thought is that no females should do watch,” Graham said.
“That’s crazy. You can’t keep watch with just you and the boys,” Marcy said.
“I said it was my first thought, Marcy.”
“What exactly happened?” Macy emphasized the word exactly with her hands out.
Graham looked her in the eye and said, “Basically, Bang saw the two men that escaped from here the other night spying on you ladies putting the laundry up on the line. They said something indicating that they wanted to take one of you. So, that makes it a threat—to you. Understand now?”
Macy looked a little white, because she understood exactly what he meant then.
“I knew those jokers were up to no good the moment I spied them,” Ennis said.
“Yes, you did,” Graham said.
Tala spoke up, “Marcy’s right, though. You guys can’t do the watch work all on your own. What are we going to do?”
“I think we should block the lake entrance,” Mark said.
“That’s not a bad idea,” Ennis said. “But how?”
After a few seconds of silence, no one had an answer for the situation.
“Ennis, what do you think?” Graham asked.
“Well, we know they’re coming by canoe from the southeast, across the lake. We’ve only seen the three men, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have more at their base. And they want to take one of ours by force, and they’re planning to do it soon,” Ennis said, his angry voice increasing in volume.
“What we don’t know,” Ennis continued, “is when they will act on this threat. But they will act on it, and we need to be ready for them.”
“They’d have to drive a long way, and we’d hear them coming if they came down the driveway. So don’t you think we can still keep watch there?” Tala asked.
“I don’t want to chance it, Tala. They could just as easily go through the east side of the forest, grab you or one of the girls, and haul you back through to their canoe in the middle of the night and we’d never know it,” Graham said, shaking his head as the image of Campos carrying off Marcy popped into his head.
“There are just not enough of us,” Mark said, putting his arm around Marcy’s shoulders. She dropped her gaze; obviously she was thinking about the scenario Graham had just presented.
“I agree,” Graham said aloud. “We’ll run ourselves ragged just on watch patrol and not get the things we need to get done daily. So, we only watch from the lakeside during the day, with two on, and at night we keep sentry up in here.” Graham nodded. They’d already started doing that when it really became too cold to ask anyone to stay outside at night.
“When any of the ladies goes outside, we always have them under guard,” Ennis said.
“We could set up a trap for them,” Bang said. They all looked at him now, not having noticed him before because he was so quiet. But Bang had come up with something brilliant.
“Yeah, we could booby trap the shoreline with those bear traps we found. Too bad we only have two. Some hidden cameras would be nice,” Mark said.
“That’s not a bad idea, boy,” Ennis agreed.
“We have to be careful one of us doesn’t accidently fall into the traps, though. That’s all we need—someone getting their leg clinched by a rusty bear trap,”
Tala said.
“No one goes near the shoreline then. We’ll set it up. The trail leading down is off limits for now,” Mark said, as if making up rules as they went along.
Then Graham remembered his days from camp and how they pranked one another. Those were the good old days. His mind switched back to planning exactly how they could maintain their perimeter with a few well-placed traps. Perhaps they didn’t need greater numbers after all. Graham got to work, taking the boys with him and confining the girls to the cabin for now, just to be safe.
36
A Decision
“Dammit, I wish we’d put cameras in the cabin now!” Dalton could hear Rick yell through to the mess tent.
He smiled to himself as he stirred his coffee. “What the hell are we going to do without nondairy creamer?” he muttered absentmindedly. These odd things continually went through everyone’s minds. The “what happens when?” scenarios seemed like a game they played in the evenings now, right after The Days of Graham’s Camp spiel.
As Dalton walked back into their tent, he knew his friend was running various scenarios through his well-trained military mind. He was the technology equipment expert and, frankly, Dalton could count on his right hand how many times Rick had saved his life with that blessed orb of his. Dalton came through the opening, ducking his head under the frame, and could see Rick as he’d expected to find him, leaning back in his swivel chair, fingers intertwined over his balding scalp, thumping them. It was Rick’s thinking pose.
“Stop it,” Dalton said.
“What? I’m just thinking it through,” Rick said.
“I know, that’s the problem,” Dalton said, pulling up his chair.
“Just hear me out.”
Dalton wanted to tell him they couldn’t get involved again, but he knew the man wouldn’t stop until he had his say. Rick turned in his swivel chair and lifted his hands. He was a hand talker, and Graham often wondered, if they were to literally tie Rick’s hands behind his back, would he be able to say a word?
“Let’s say these are really, really bad guys,” Rick began. “We don’t have audio, but we know they were spying on the girls. It’s highly possible that they’re up to something and plotting a dastardly deed as we speak. The boys and the old man are not enough to help Graham protect that camp.
“These bad guys want something, and they’re going to take it if there are no obvious consequences. If they come in and kidnap Tala, or one of the kids, Graham will go after them and probably get himself killed in the process. Then what? The kids are left with an old man, who probably won’t make it through the winter and then we”—he pointed around—“will have to intervene anyway. Those kids won’t make it on their own. We all know that,” he added, spreading his hands wide for emphasis.
“Let’s just say we give them a few supplies,” Rick continued. “Or better yet, we set the cameras up for them covertly and leave them a note.”
Dalton shook his head. “Too risky. They’re expecting the bad guys to invade, and we walk in? They’d probably shoot one of us. You have to remember that, in their minds, we’re the bad guys too. They don’t know we’re watching them or looking out for their best interest. They just know that we dropped off a boy, tied up and suffering from starvation, dehydration, and hypothermia, and they had to nurse him back to health. Not only that, but we threatened to exterminate them if they didn’t stay to their own areas.
“I’m pretty sure Graham would do anything he could to protect those kids and the others, and if he perceived us as a threat, he’d shoot. They’re armed. Don’t forget that. You’re getting too wrapped up to see the real risk here.” Dalton fell into thoughtful silence, frowning. And, because this had been Rick’s plan all along, he waited with bated breath to see what Dalton had to say.
Finally Dalton spoke again. “But, you know, if we were to go in, two men, use the mist gas. Knock them all out and then put up the cameras with audio. Take them a few gifts so that they’re not too pissed off when they wake up . . .”
Rick nodded, hiding his triumphant smile. He knew from experience that the lure had worked again.
“What do they need, and what can we spare?” Dalton asked.
Rick grinned, but not for long, because he knew better. Dalton recognized he’d been played, but it was a game of theirs initiated many times in the past. Rick called it the Make It Dalton’s Idea Game and said it worked on his wife too, but she was harder to deceive than Dalton—if one could call it deception.
Rick pulled a prewritten list out of his pocket and began to read:
“A generator; motion detector lights; shots for Fido; tetanus and flu shots for the rest, and a pneumonia shot for the old man; a water pump, a can of garden seeds; multivitamins; a radio unit with our call sign in case Graham needs our help.”
“You think you’re pretty swift, don’t you?” Dalton asked rhetorically, then rose from his chair, put on his hat, and said “Get it ready” as he left the tent.
Rick did a silent little happy dance in his chair and started making the arrangements. Secretly, most of it was already figured out. Since the Sterns family, unfortunately, hadn’t made it through quarantine, several immunizations were going to go to waste anyway. Why not use them on the carriers?
Later that evening Dalton addressed the council, which consisted of one member of each family. In most cases that was the husband, but in a few it was a wife. After Dalton had stated the affairs of Graham’s camp everyone agreed the best course of action would be to intervene now, knowing what the consequences would be if something were to happen to Graham. No one wanted to see the children suffer more, even if they were carriers.
It was decided that Rick and Steven would go since Rick was the tech specialist and Steven the paramedic and could perform the immunizations on the sleeping carriers.
“It should take them no more than ten minutes to pull this off,” Dalton said.
“As long as there is no risk of exposure to us,” Steven said.
“There’s always a risk of exposure, and that’s why they will both go directly into quarantine again on their way back. We can’t take any chances. That’s our protocol anyway. Questions?” Dalton asked.
Nancy raised her hand. “If Rick’s in quarantine, who’s going to monitor Graham’s camp?” she asked.
A few snickers came from the group. Dalton rolled his eyes and said, smiling, “I will, in rotation with others. Look folks, I know they’re our only form of entertainment these days, but let’s keep in mind that one encounter with them in person could kill us all. It’s that dangerous. We’ve gotten this far together; let’s be smart about this. Rick’s right about intervening at this point, but we can’t keep doing it.” Dalton hadn’t forgotten, though, that he’d been the one to insist on bringing in his young cousin, then finding a home for him, so in a way, he was the one who’d started breaking the rules. Shoving that thought aside, he added, “Those people have to take care of themselves, just as we do.”
Dalton always hated being the voice of reason, but he could see that if they kept down this road they might become too lax in their vigilance against the virus, and none of them could afford that.
37
Trick or Treat
In the dim evening light, Graham, Ennis, and the boys went down through the snow to the lake, the younger ones making use of their tactical maneuvers. Ennis walked with cautious steps. He wasn’t complaining, but Graham knew he was in pain. As he watched the boys, armed with their bows and acting quite serious, he still only saw boys in pretend mode.
“For the end of the world it sure is getting crowded around here,” Ennis said and Graham had to chuckle at the old man because he was right—cranky, but right.
For some damn reason, those that were left all headed for the woods. Graham wondered if there was something to human nature that embedded a survival instinct to do just that. Like the monarch butterfly, flying from Canada to Mexico every year of its life. Perhaps humans have a natural instinct tell
ing them that when the world goes to hell, head for the trees.
Ennis had scrubbed the rusty bear traps and Mark helped test them to be sure they worked properly. After setting them, they had Sheriff watch, while Graham used a stick to set the trap off. The dog jumped back and learned the danger. They found a few obvious places a man would have to step in trying to come up to the camp, and they placed the traps in these likely places, covering them lightly with shoreline debris to disguise them. This only worked if the intruder stepped in exactly the right spot and, of course, there was no reliable way to make that happen.
“More than likely we’ll see a deer running like hell, with one of these caught on its hoof,” Ennis said.
“Uh, I don’t want that to happen,” Bang said, because he was partial to the animals.
Ennis shook his head. “It can’t be helped.”
Graham found a black permanent marker in the glove box of Tala’s car, took a piece of scrap plywood, and wrote trespassers will be shot. He nailed it to a tree so it couldn’t be missed on approach to their lake entry. It wasn’t lost on him, the irony that Campos had also posted such signs. It disturbed him, but he didn’t know what else to do.
Though it wasn’t a perfect plan, he lacked supplies and better ideas. The men began to pull back strategic tree limbs that would flip loose at the slightest jolt and startle a person sneaking in at night up the trail. They also camouflaged boards with upturned nails in them along the meandering path.
After they were done, the four of them gazed down at their handiwork and Mark said, “Too bad they’re not lasers.”
The two older men chuckled at that. “Yeah. If they were, they’d have a hell of a time getting through in one piece,” Ennis said.
“Well, I think that’s good for now,” said Graham “I’ll stay up tonight. Ennis, you can take over around three,” Graham said.
