Fade to Grey (Book 2): Darkness Ascending

by Brian Stewart

  Michelle got up from the table, returning a few seconds later with two cups of tea. The wisps of steam rising convinced me to wait a bit, but she tilted her cup and took a sip of the almost scalding liquid.

  The muted tap of her mug returning to the table broke the momentary silence. “I know you, Eric,” she said, “you’re like your uncle—always two steps ahead of everybody else. I’m guessing that you haven’t stopped thinking about this trip ever since I brought it up.”

  “And I know you,” I said, “you’re a planner . . . a list maker. So how about I tell you what I’m thinking, and then you organize it into a workable arrangement that we can both follow.”

  Michelle nodded, and I angled the screen of the laptop towards her. “OK,” I started, “geography lesson time. We’re assuming that the main roads will be dangerous, or at least not passable. Whether that’s only at junction points where they intersect with another highway, or just in the cities—it doesn’t really matter. So . . . I think one of our main goals should be to avoid traveling on the highways, even if we could find a way around the roadblocks.”

  “Agreed.”

  “OK, we’re still going to have to cross two major roads, though.” I pointed to the map displayed on the screen, “We’ve got U.S. Highway 2 NW that runs between Minot and Grand Forks, and Highway 281 that runs just past the west side of Devils Lake on its way up to Richland.”

  She took another sip of her tea and nodded.

  I tested my own mug with the slight dip of my finger into the liquid . . . still too hot. “OK, we can take some back roads.” I zoomed the image down to an aerial view from 1000 feet, watching as previously unseen lines appeared, “Most people have no clue about these. A lot of them look just like a gravel or dirt road heading through a field. In any event, we should be able to avoid any roadblocks or traffic pileups by doing that. I’d like to plan our route so that when we get close to Highway 2, we’re near the Wurgler National Wildlife Refuge. There are several county roads that cut across the highway, but if for some reason they’re blocked or compromised, I happen to know the combination code for the gate that will give us access to the firebreak through the refuge. After that, it’s more back roads . . . basically east instead of south this time . . . until we get to about here.” I zoomed out a little and pointed to a thin blue line on the map.

  She nosed closer and studied where I indicated as I continued. “This is a canal—a creek really—that flows out of Lake Ibsen, meanders about eight miles as the crow flies . . . probably double that in real paddling miles . . . before it enters Silver Lake. Before it gets there, it crosses underneath Highway 281. Once we’re in Silver Lake, we have water access to everywhere else in the Devils Lake area.”

  “Is it deep enough to float?” She took over and zoomed down on the canal.

  I slid my hand underneath hers and retook control of the mouse pad, earning a raised eyebrow from Michelle.

  “Ahem . . . as I was saying . . . right about there,” I pointed again toward the blue line, “is an abandoned farm. It backs right up to the canal, and it’s probably a safe place to park our vehicle. From that point we can run a bass boat without too much of a problem.” I turned to look at Michelle, “What happened to the bass boat we took to the campground?”

  “Callie dropped its anchor offshore when you were telling Sam to sink my Explorer.” Her voice was serious, but her eyes were taunting as she spoke.

  “I’ll buy you a new truck.”

  “Damn straight you will.”

  I chuckled at her answer before continuing, “Anyway, either that boat, or one like it should be fine . . .”

  She cut me off. “That’s kind of a small boat to run on the big lakes safely, especially if you plan on getting away from shore.”

  “As I was saying, once we get access to Silver Lake, it’s really only about a dozen or so miles through the interconnected waterways until we can hit the Pelican Lake ranger station.” Both of her eyebrows lifted and held their arched position as I finished. “There are two ranger stations at Devils Lake. The main ranger station is smack dab in the middle of the town of Devils Lake. I’m pretty sure we want to try and avoid that area. The Pelican Lake station, however, is a small, auxiliary outpost just south of Oswalds Bay. Anyhow, at the Pelican Lake station, I’m hoping to switch out for one of their patrol boats. And to answer your questions, yes, I have the keys, and yes, I’m aware that the boats might be missing. If so, we’ll run with what we have.”

  “Assuming that everything goes according to your plan,” Michelle asked, “what happens next?”

  “That depends. I was assuming that your dad’s cabin was somewhere along the shore near the town of Devils Lake. I guess that I kind of figured we’d just pull up to it by boat, get your mother if she’s there, and head back the way we came.”

  “His cabin isn’t in town. It’s actually on East Devils Lake . . . I remember that much.”

  “So the real question is ‘can you find it from the water’?”

  I watched as she took another sip of tea and closed her eyes. After a moment she spoke, “I remember that it was a brown, wooden-sided A frame cabin with a little dock.”

  “That won’t really help us . . . most of the cabins and rentals along the lake are built similar.”

  “I know, but I remember standing at the end of his dock and looking to the right—northwest, I think—and being able to see the divider road that crosses between Devils Lake and East Devils Lake.”

  “That’s county road 0353. About how far away do you think it was from his cabin?” I asked.

  “At least a mile . . . maybe two.”

  “OK, we’re getting somewhere now. Take a couple minutes and try and remember anything else that you can . . . anything at all.” Michelle nodded, and I reached for my cup of tea.

  Another few minutes of silence passed—Michelle with her eyes closed—me nursing the raw tip of my tongue from the still too hot liquid.

  “There was a sign nailed to the end of his dock.” Her eyes were still shut and she was speaking slowly, almost like she’d been hypnotized by magician. “It was something like a . . . a . . ., um, like a stop sign shape . . . not as big though. Maybe about the size of a basketball. I think it was yellow . . . or maybe faded orange—I can’t really remember.”

  “Do you remember what it said?”

  “Maybe something about an alarm system, or one of those neighborhood watch, ‘we call the police’ signs . . . maybe.”

  “OK, good to know.”

  She opened her eyes and shook her head, “I’m sorry Eric, I know that this is going to make it a lot more difficult . . . a lot more unsafe.”

  “We’ll make it work . . . no worries, OK?”

  Her halfhearted nod was unconvincing.

  “Besides, I’m hoping that my uncle was meticulous enough to give us an edge.”

  “What ‘edge’?”

  I picked up the radio. “Walter, this is Eric, do you copy?”

  “I was beginning to wonder about you, boy . . . thought you got lost or something.”

  “What’s on the menu for supper?” It was our prearranged code to move to the private channel.

  “Let me check with Bernie and I’ll get back to you.”

  “10-4.”

  I punched in the code for the private channel and waited. It didn’t take long.

  “You on board yet?” Walter’s gruff voice came through.

  “Yeah, we’re both here—still at the cabin.”

  “Still planning your little vacation to the lake?”

  “Actually, that’s why I called. I’ve got a question about something that my uncle might have, and I’m hoping you might know the answer.”

  “Ask him yourself. The old buzzard has been talking nonstop since he discovered he wasn’t dead. And I’m sorry to add that although his chatterbox has been reactivated, he’s still dumber than a bag of hammers, and uglier than a five gallon bucket of smashed assholes with all the best ones pi
cked out.”

  Michelle groaned and buried her face in her hands at the insult. I couldn’t help but laugh.

  The sound of my uncle’s voice came through a moment later. It was chuckling weakly along with me. “Eric my boy, I’m sorry to hear you recently joined the family business of getting shot at.”

  “At least I haven’t mastered the art of actually getting hit by a bullet . . . yet,” I added.

  “Don’t . . . it’s highly overrated, and your nurse ends up being a mean Asian man who doesn’t have the sense to know that a cold beer cures almost everything.”

  In the background I heard Doc Collins chiding my uncle. When it faded, my uncle came back. “What do you want to know?”

  “I need to know if you have any form of night vision equipment here.”

  “Did Walter tell you how to get into the room beneath the outbuilding?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Go down there and look at the wall rack. You’ll see several guns. There are three of them—two 5.56’s . . . the other is a 7.62—that have ATN ARES 2-3P night vision scopes mounted.”

  “Are they sighted in?”

  “The 5.56’s are sighted in with Lake City XM855 ammunition. You’ll find some of it there on a pallet. The 7.62 hasn’t been zeroed in yet.”

  “Can I borrow them?”

  “Don’t ask questions that you already know the answer to.” His voice softened and he added, “Am I going to get to see you before you leave?”

  “Yeah, we’ll be back tonight.”

  “Good enough.”

  I switched back from the private channel and turned to Michelle. “Let’s go see this mysterious ‘down under’ room.”

  We walked over to the new storage building and went in. The inside was set up with multiple workbenches against the walls—the walls themselves alternated between sheets of plywood and sheets of peg board. About a million odds and ends hung from various hooks in the peg board, and the floor was littered with overturned tubs and boxes, the contents of which reflected a thorough ransacking. Even though we had cleared the building yesterday, both of us had entered with hands on our guns. There was nothing, alive or otherwise, inside.

  I walked over to the back left corner and reached behind a mounted vice. A metal barrel bolt was cleverly hidden in a covered recess that had been routed out of the bench top, and I flipped the cover up and slid the bolt. An eight foot section of workbench was now free to swing on concealed hinges toward me, and it brought with it the corner four foot wide plywood sheet. Behind it, a wide set of stairs angled downwards to the right.

  “Pretty clever. Unless you measured the outside wall, you’d probably never notice that you were missing three feet of depth from the inside,” I volunteered.

  “Remember,” Michelle pointed out immediately, “we haven’t been down here yet. They might have.” She cocked her head in the general direction of the garden.

  We went down the stairs, flashlights blazing and guns ready, but found nothing infected. “Holy crap,” Michelle exclaimed as our lights circled the basement, “somebody has been a very busy beaver.”

  She wasn’t kidding. The basement was filled with shelves stacked floor to ceiling with plastic tubs, five gallon buckets, and various other containers. All of it was labeled in my uncle’s precise script with itemize lists of contents. A rapid glance at the back wall showed everything from freeze dried meals to rice, water, medical supplies, sanitation equipment, and spare parts. Other shelves were similarly piled high with additional supplies of every description. The wall underneath the stairs was built into a computer workstation, and several monitors, radio frequency scanners, and other electronic whatnots were neatly organized on top of it. Behind the computers, a plywood sheet was attached to the wall and had various cables, wires, and antenna leads neatly coiled and labeled for their supposed connections. None were currently attached. The wall next to the desk was built into a two-tier gun rack, and each slot held a weapon. There had to be at least forty long guns right front of me. Most of the top section was made up of AR-15’s, although there were at least a half dozen AK47’s as well. The bottom section had more of the same, although I could see a lot of shotguns, deer rifles, and .22’s mixed in also. The far corner had two entire pallets worth of ammunition encircled in shrink wrap. More was stacked and piled on the shelves.

  “I can’t believe you didn’t know about this,” Michelle gawked as she turned slowly around the room.

  “I knew he was a pack rat, but I’m not complaining.”

  “Yeah, me either. Not now, anyway.”

  I nodded, “Let’s get what we came for, and anything else you see that might come in handy, and then get back topside.”

  “Are you planning on us taking the 5.56’s when we go, or are you leaning toward the 7.62—or both?”

  “We need to double up so were both shooting the same ammunition, at least in our rifles. The 5.56 is what I had in mind for our run, but I’m also going to take the big gun back to the marina for them. I honestly wouldn’t mind having the extra firepower with us, but I don’t want the extra weight. Fast, light, and sneaky is what I have in mind for Devils Lake.”

  “It seems like I heard that same slogan before the massive firefight you dropped us in at the campground.” Her smile betrayed her words.

  “If you remember, Officer Owens, I wasn’t the one that fired the first shot and stirred up the hornets’ nest.”

  “Good point.”

  Thirty minutes later we were back in the cabin with the night vision scoped rifles, ammunition, MRE’s, and a few other supplies for our journey. While we still had daylight, we made sure the AR’s—both the 5.56’s and the big 7.62—were sighted in. I also took the time to switch out the barrels on my 10-22. Unfortunately, the mount for my weapon light wouldn’t transition without drilling new attachment holes, so I had to leave it off. The threaded silencer from Walter, however, fit like a glove. Using it in combination with the heavy subsonic ammunition made the Ruger run quiet and smooth. I cannibalized a reflex sight from one of the rifles in the gun safe and put 300 rounds down range from various shooting positions and angles. After that, both of us ran several magazines worth of ammunition through our pistols. We went back inside and spent the next forty five minutes cleaning the weapons. After we finished, Michelle began to plan our route while I packed. Just before dark, Max returned with a bloody muzzle and a big smile. I closed my eyes and said a quick prayer that our hunt would be as successful as his.

  Chapter 39

  *click*

  I feel good. Did you get that . . . whoever’s listening to this recording? It’s probably a statement you haven’t heard frequently from me. But it’s true. Oh, where to begin this time? Well I guess that kind of answers it . . . ‘where’ to begin. I’m on the wooded slope northwest of Walter’s house . . . probably about 400 yards from his tractor shed. It’s almost 5:00 AM, and I’ve been here for the last hour or so, just letting my senses open up. There’s nothing quite like being alone in the dark forest to heighten your awareness. I have a feeling that I’m going to need all of my senses working overtime today. Anyway, I heard the passage of several deer about thirty minutes ago, and the scattering yips of a pair or three coyotes not long after. There’s also some type of FWC—furry woodland creature—pushing up leaves about eight feet to the right of where I’m leaning against the trunk of a thick aspen. It’s probably a mole. Other than that, the occasional call of an owl, or slight rise in the breeze are the only sounds. The cloud cover overhead, combining with the drop in temperature and the heavy scent of moisture in the air is signifying impending rain. Or maybe even snow. Lovely. But I feel good. Michelle is still sleeping—I hope, anyway—on the “hay bed” I made. Max is in the tractor shed with her. She was up later than I was, planning our route and printing out copies of the map using my laptop and Walters’s printer. They, meaning her and my uncle the techno-nerd, also found a way to save the satellite mapping images from our planned route to Michelle’s i
Pad. And, did I mention there’s good news? Actually, a lot of good news. The first thing is that Michelle is fairly certain that she’s narrowed down the stretch of shoreline where her dad’s cabin is located. Unfortunately, that still leaves us with about two dozen possibilities. Still, it’s better than where we were. The second thing . . . and I’m not mentioning these in any particular order—just as they come to me—is that my uncle was up and walking around. Not fast, and not long, but enough to show the prospect of a full recovery. Doc seems to think that’s a real possibility. Lots of prayers answered with that one. Oh . . . I forgot to tell . . . OK, hold up the minute. Let me backtrack. Michelle and I left the cabin just a little after dark. I let her drive my truck, and I drove my uncle’s. We made it back to the marina with no problems, and just in time to eat a supper of pasta, rice, mashed potatoes, and reheated macaroni and cheese. It was carb heaven. After that, Walter took me down to see my uncle. He stood and we traded manly hugs, you know the ones—specifically designed to minimize the possibility that any spectator could see an emotional commitment. After some small talk, Walter unfolded a few chairs.