They hid the backpacks amongst the rocks, then returned to the trail and walked along in silence for another half hour, when they saw a faint light in the distance and heard the sounds of laughing and swearing.
“This is it,” whispered Ben. He was nervous. He knew it wasn’t much of a plan. If they’d had a few more people to help with the attack, it could all be over quickly, but that wasn’t the case.
They got down on their hands and knees and crawled, single-file, on the edge of the trail the rest of the way. The noise was getting louder. Ben motioned for them to stay there, while he moved ahead to get a look. There was a large fire in the center of a clearing. The men had pulled some logs from the woods and were sitting against them. Others were standing near the fire warming themselves. The evenings were becoming chilly, and most of the men weren’t dressed for it. Weapons were scattered around, leaning against logs. Ben counted six men.
He quietly made his way back to where Lila and Jack were nervously waiting.
“There are six,” he began. “They’re around the fire. I think the sooner we go in, the better.”
“Shouldn’t we wait until they’re asleep?” asked Jack.
“No,” answered Ben. “The fire will have died out and it’ll be harder for us to see. And right now they are looking into the fire. They won’t be able to see a thing in the woods. Are we ready?”
“I guess so,” said Jack.
“Where do you want me?” asked Lila.
Ben looked around. “Actually, right in the woods across the trail there. There’s a good hiding place. Your job will be to pick off anyone we don’t get.”
They hugged and kissed each other.
“Be careful,” she said. “I love you.”
“I love you too. We’ll all be okay.”
He only wished he was as confident as he was trying to sound. He also knew that Lila could see right through his false confidence.
She moved off into the woods, and almost immediately was gone from sight. Ben and Jack headed into the woods on the other side of the trail so they could come up from behind the group. The other reason Ben wanted to do it now, rather than when they were asleep was the ability to sneak up while they were still making noise.
They approached the camp. Ben found a spot for Jack behind some fallen trees at the left back corner of the camp. Jack’s rifle had magazines that held nine rounds, so he wouldn’t have to change them as often as Ben. Jack pulled out a couple of extra magazines and set them beside him. Ben patted him on the shoulder, then moved over to the right corner and found a place behind some rocks. The men in the camp weren’t more than thirty feet away. The plan was that he was going to shoot first, and Jack would follow his lead.
It didn’t happen that way.
Ben had barely gotten himself in position, and hadn’t even pulled out his extra magazines, when Jack’s gun went off. He heard Jack swear. He had fired it by accident.
The camp went quiet, then erupted in confused bedlam as the convicts went for their weapons. Ben pulled out a couple of extra magazines, then took aim and began shooting. Immediately after, he heard Jack firing. The men were close and Ben’s skills with the rifle had improved immensely since the day with the coyotes. Jack wasn’t very good at all, but at that distance, even he couldn’t miss all the time. The convicts grabbed their weapons, then hit the ground and started firing. Most of them had automatic weapons, and the spray of bullets was overwhelming.
Then Ben realized that he had made a major tactical mistake. They weren’t running to the trail. They were fighting back. Leaving Lila there had been a mistake. She had no one to shoot at. They had done all they could do. There was no more element of surprise.
“Jack, go!” he shouted. He backed out of his spot and ran further into the woods, keeping low, bullets hammering the trees around him. He felt one clip his neck. He stumbled, then regained his footing, and continued on. He could feel blood running down under his shirt. It was pitch black in the forest. The running was slow and dangerous. He stopped behind a tree for a moment to pull out his knife and cut a section off his shirt. He pressed it against his neck wound and held it there as he resumed his escape.
Gradually, the roar of the guns died down, then finally stopped. By now, though, he was deep in the forest. He came across some rocks and slid down behind them, gasping for air. He felt like his lungs were going to burst. Gradually, his breath returned to normal and he took stock of the situation.
Jack’s gun going off was unfortunate, but in the long run, probably didn’t make a huge difference. They were more prepared than he had figured, and he hadn’t planned on the automatic and semi-automatic weapons. He realized in hindsight that he hadn’t planned on a lot of things.
Ben knew that he had taken down a couple, but he didn’t think Jack had gotten any. That left four—still a formidable number. He hoped that Jack had made it away safely, and he wasn’t too worried about Lila. They didn’t even know about her.
He was safe for the moment. They wouldn’t come after him this far into the forest. He just had to make sure he could find his way back up to the trail. If he got lost, he could wander out there for weeks. Suddenly he was scared of being separated once again from Lila. He hoped he had gone in a straight line from the trail, but suppose he hadn’t? After all, he was running for his life in the dark of night. He didn’t know if he had veered to the right or to the left. Frankly, he had absolutely no idea where he was.
The ground rumbled under his feet. It was a strong one, but it quickly subsided.
Oh great, he thought. Just what I need.
While the rocks he was behind were okay, he felt he needed something a bit safer, so he looked around. The tree cover was a little sparser here and the moon shed some light. Further into the forest he saw a small knoll, so he headed for it. It was about ten feet higher than where he had been, and it had a few more rocks on top for protection. While he knew they would never follow him, he still felt better with the added protection. He took off his rifle, his crossbow and quiver, and settled down to wait out the night.
I made a lot of mistakes that day. Overestimating my abilities was probably the biggest. I had let this folk hero thing go to my head. Granted, I hadn’t even wanted to go after these guys in the first place, but once I had made the decision, I felt I was invincible. From ice cream scooper to Rambo in a couple of months. Who was I kidding? We had come a long way, but this time we had bitten off way more than we could chew. I was lost in the forest with no idea of what had happened to Lila or Jack. Could things get any worse?
Just before sunrise, Ben had to pee. He got up and moved over to a tree to relieve himself. He was halfway through the process when a bullet struck the tree inches from his head. He fell to the ground, wetting himself as he dropped. He quickly tucked himself in, zipped up, and crawled back to the rocks. He looked over the top to see four shadows moving in the woods.
He knew then that he had made yet one more critical mistake. They had followed him after all!
Chapter 20
(Lila)
Something had gone wrong. Lila could sense it almost immediately. The first shot had come from Jack’s gun—she knew its sound from the hunting they had done. That wasn’t the plan. Ben’s first shot came next. Then all hell broke loose. The convicts were more heavily armed than they had figured. She waited for the first of the convicts to come up to the trail, but deep down, she knew that wouldn’t happen.
After a few minutes, she no longer heard Ben or Jack’s guns. But the other guns continued, and they were receding on the right side of the camp—the side Ben was on. Hopefully this meant that Ben was still alive and was eluding his pursuers. Had Jack escaped, or would she find him dead by the fire? She had to force herself to stay where she was. It would do no good to go after them now, not in this darkness. She’d have to wait until the sun came up. She found herself praying to … to what? ... the universe, she guessed, that Ben was okay.
The gunfire continued for awhil
e before finally trailing off. She took that as a good sign. If it had stopped suddenly, she would have assumed the worst, that he had been found and killed.
She sat wide awake all night. There was no way she could sleep. The hours passed excruciatingly slowly. A half a dozen times she got up to go after them, and a half a dozen times she sat back down. She’d never find their trail in the dark. Meanwhile, the convicts’ camp was silent. They hadn’t returned from their hunting mission.
Finally, the first faint signs of morning appeared in the eastern sky, and she started to stand up. Suddenly, she heard the sounds of footsteps on the trail, and she knelt down, quietly cocking her rifle.
A ragtag group of five survivors furtively crept down the trail, not saying a word. The group was comprised of two teenaged boys, a younger boy, and two middle-aged women. Lila could tell that they weren’t a family; events had probably thrown them together. They had some small backpacks, but no weapons.
Lila wasn’t sure why she made the contact with them. She could have just as easily stayed hidden. But she knew she had to warn them about the convicts.
“Good morning,” she said softly from her hiding place.
She would have thought a mortar had gone off. As one, the five jumped, with terrified expressions on their faces.
“Shh,” she put her finger to her lips. “I’m friendly. C’mon off the trail for a minute. You could probably use the rest.” She was anxious to get going, but besides being able to warn them, she was also curious about any news that might be passed on. Every bit of information could be helpful down the line.
The survivors looked at each other, then moved near to where Lila was hidden. They all sat down and were invisible from the trail. They seemed relieved for the break.
“My name’s Lila.”
“We’ve heard of you,” said one of the teens. None of them offered their names, so Lila didn’t push it.
“Just wanted to get any news you might have. Don’t see a lot of people out here.”
“It’s bad,” said the same teen. “We’re heading to Florida. We heard that a lot of people are, so we figured there might be some towns, or at least camps down there.”
“There’s a group of really bad men out there,” said the youngest one. “We’re trying to get away from them.”
“They’ve killed a lot of people,” offered one of the women.
Lila’s worst fears were confirmed. They had left a long trail of death behind them.
She cocked her head and said, “I find it curious that you’re going in the same direction that they are.”
“We didn’t know that. We weren’t quite sure where they were going,” answered the woman. “We were scared. They killed the rest of our group. We just started walking.”
One of the teens dropped his eyes to the ground. It was obvious to Lila that he didn’t want to admit in front of her that he was scared as well. The other one, however, the one who had spoken first, needed to impress.
“I wasn’t scared.”
“You should be.”
He shrugged off her comment. “Why don’t you come with us,” he said. The way he was looking at her, Lila knew his hormones had kicked in.
‘No thanks. I have things to do.”
The fact was, every time I ran across other survivors—with a few exceptions, like Nick and Jason—I wanted to be sick. I didn’t feel as if I belonged to the human race anymore. People were just getting in the way. The thought of joining some group in Florida was worse than the thought of dying.
Lila was sorry she had made herself known. Now she just wanted to get rid of them.
“Their camp is right over there.” She pointed across the trail. The five stiffened. “But they’re not there. You can get ahead of them. If you’re lucky, by the end of the day, there won’t be any left to worry about.”
No one bothered to ask her why.
“So I’d suggest you leave now and go fast.”
Without another word they got up and filed out.
Lila just shook her head.
She moved from her hiding place and crossed the trail into the woods, skirting around the right side of the camp hoping to pick up Ben’s trail. She looked into the clearing as she crept through the woods, and saw two downed convicts. One twitched, but didn’t make a sound.
Two down, four to go, she thought. Now she was regretting the whole thing. Ben was right in wanting to avoid them, but being the loyal person he was, he did it for Lila, even if she wasn’t being rational about it all. Her irrationality might have gotten Ben killed. And there was no sign of Jack.
She saw where Ben had chosen to shoot from, so she used that as a starting point. It was easy at first. The area was pretty trampled down from the group who had pursued him. She followed the shell casings and the broken branches into the forest, keeping her eyes and ears out for the return of the convicts. She came across blood spatter on some leaves and went cold with fear. Ben was wounded. She knew it was him because she hadn’t heard him shooting back at his pursuers. She came across the tree Ben had hidden behind to fashion a bandage, and saw a blood stain on the trunk. She picked up her pace, her heart pounding.
The sun was rising. She had been on Ben’s trail for almost an hour and was surprised at the perseverance the convicts were showing in their pursuit of him.
It didn’t fit. These were men who were used to taking what they wanted. They had to work at very little. Why would they expend the effort to chase a man through the forest? I seriously doubted that they cared that much for their dead comrades. For that matter, I doubted that they cared for much of anything or anybody. And then it hit me, and I found the rage returning. It was a sport for them. They were after Ben, not out of anger, but out of amusement.
She heard a shot. It didn’t come from Ben’s gun. They weren’t too far ahead of her. She ran for a short distance, then slowed down and carefully made her way through the trees.
Another shot. Much closer this time. And then a voice.
“Hey you up there. You know we’ve got you surrounded, right? You might want to think about using one of those bullets on yourself, ‘cause when we get to you, we’re gonna carve you up. Did you think you were going to be a hero and wipe us out?”
Automatic gunfire punctuated the speaker’s point.
No sound came from Ben. Lila could see where he probably was—on a small hill with a ring of rocks at the top.
She looked around and, one by one, located the convicts. It was up to her to lessen the odds a little. The closest one to her was about forty feet away. He was nearly the same distance from the next one in line. They had spread out so that they had, in fact, formed a semi-circle in front of Ben. Lila took a deep breath. One more time. She vowed to herself that her child was only going to see the beauty in the world, and if she was going to ensure that happening, then she had to immerse herself in violence one more time. One last time.
When did I reach the point of no return? When did I change from Lila the incredibly average teenager to this? I thought of my friends in school, and some of my teachers—oddly, not my parents—and their reactions if they saw me now. What I was about to do went far beyond the limits of my former life. The transition was now complete. The person I once thought I was died along with millions of others. But it gave birth to a new version of me, and despite everything, I wasn’t unhappy with the result.
She slipped her knife from its sheath and silently crept closer to her prey, all the while trying to decide how to dispose of him. She could see that he was a lot bigger than she was, so her first thought of grabbing him by the head and slashing his throat was risky. If he had fast reflexes, he could grab her before she had a chance to use the knife. She could use her rifle or her Sig, but that would alert the others quicker than she wanted. No, she had to kill him before he had a chance to react.
He picked up his rifle—an M-16—and fired a few shots at Ben. Lila moved closer with the sound of the gun masking her movements. She was within a couple o
f yards. He aimed his rifle again and shot a few more rounds. As he did, Lila moved in and swung her knife hand in an arc from right to left, embedding the knife to the hilt into his temple. He dropped his weapon and slumped over forward. Lila felt her stomach turn over and she thought she was going to throw up. She sat and let the wave pass. Now the hard part. She pulled the knife out to a slurping sound. Blood and bits of brain-matter flowed out of the wound. Her stomach let loose and she vomited. She was able to do so somewhat quietly, and no one heard her. When she was done, she wiped the knife on the man’s shirt. She didn’t think she’d be able to do that a second time.
She wasn’t given the opportunity. The man in the middle of the group quietly called out to his men that it was time to move in. It was now or never. She picked up the M-16 and aimed for the next man in line. As soon as he moved, she let go a burst. As she shot, the barrel rose and she missed her target. He turned to her in surprise and she shot again, this time catching him in the body. She swung the rifle toward the tree line and opened fire at the spots where the two others had been. She heard a scream, followed by shots from the top of the rise. Ben was alive and shooting!
She searched her first victim and found a couple more magazines. She figured out how to change the magazine and quickly did so, immediately continuing with her firing. She saw the man who had screamed on the far side limping into the woods. She aimed and fired a burst. The man dropped to the ground.
“I surrender!” The last of the four threw his weapon out into the clearing where it would be seen and came out of his hiding place with hands over his head. “I give u…..” Ben shot a hole in the man’s forehead.
Lila ran across the clearing to the knoll where Ben was hiding. He stood up. She saw a bloody piece of cloth stuck to his neck. They embraced and stood hugging each other.
Eden Rising (Eden Rising Trilogy Book 1) Page 17
