by J. W. Vohs
David asked, “You sure about this, Father? I mean, we’ve become a family here, and you have an important role with us. We have fighters, but we don’t have anyone with your wisdom and experience, and we don’t have any spiritual leaders to keep our hearts and minds focused where they need to be.”
O’Brien looked around the group, his gaze lingering on Luke and Gracie before continuing, “That’s where I have to disagree with you, son. There are people in this group who were born for this world; nothing man does, no matter how evil and destructive, can alter God’s plans for us. He is raising up leaders for the next generation right before our eyes. They carry the Spirit of God in their hearts, and His strength in their weapons. As for wisdom, I played my part by getting you here; I have little to offer from this point forward. During the next stage of your journey I would be a liability, but on Middle Bass I could really help them survive. The choice is clear, and I must follow God’s lead on this.”
Christy placed a hand on David’s forearm as he took a breath before resuming his argument. She quietly interjected, “We love you, Father, and we’ll miss you. But we’ll know how and where to find you. At this point we can’t be selfish; humanity needs to survive. You can be a great help here on the lake. For all we know there are other groups out there too. I know that you have carried a great burden in your heart for most of your life, and I suspect that you’ve decided that this is definitely a way to bring meaning to that suffering. The thing is, I believe you may be on to something. Follow your heart, Father, and go where God’s leading you to go.”
A silence settled over the group for a few moments before O’Brien explained, “The world we made has ended, and now we adults have to prepare a new legacy to leave to our children and the generations to follow. Our lives are not our own now; we must sacrifice for them. This is the part I will play.”
David finally spoke for the group, “Thank you for getting us this far, Father. We will see you again, and soon, if I have anything to say about it. You’ll always be in our hearts.”
O’Brien just smiled and slapped David on the shoulder, “That’s the spirit, son. No sadness here, I plan on seeing all of you again. Get these people to safety, and carve out a safe place for the children.”
David just nodded as he fought back a lump in his throat, “I will, Father.”
Silent tears were streaming down Gracie’s cheeks, but she offered no more objections. Luke and Chewy scooted over to her, the dog nuzzled her chin while Luke wrapped a protective arm around her shoulders. She leaned into the embrace and wept quietly for several minutes. Finally, she wiped her eyes and apologized for her foolishness. Looking at Father O’Brien she reassured him, “I know your plan makes sense, and I know that it’s best for everyone. I will see you again, and in the meantime you will be close in my heart.”
Father O’Brien wiped a tear from his eye, “You will always be in my heart, Gracie. You have no idea how proud I am of you.”
The small group spent the next few hours sitting in a circle, talking about all of the great times they’d had together, as well as how they couldn’t wait to summer on the island when things settled down. By the time they bedded down and tried to sleep, everyone was happy for Father O’Brien and excited about the trip that would begin the next day.
CHAPTER 18
Everyone gathered on the beach before the sun peeked over the tree line in the morning. Goodbyes had all been said before they left the yacht, and Father O’Brien stood on the deck of the anchored vessel watching them finish their final preparations before setting off on their journey. Jim was going to motor for Christy. Trudy was paired with David. Blake and Lori had both Jenny and Addison with them. Vickie and Sal carried their two kids and the dog. Gracie and Luke were in their own canoe, and Jerry had the final boat to himself. All of the craft were loaded with gear and supplies, and when they had to wade and tow Sal was going to pull Jerry’s canoe so the former cop was available for guard detail.
With everything set and ready to go, the group waved final goodbyes to Father O’Brien and pushed off from the shore. They paddled for a few moments in order to reach deeper water before turning on the trolling motors¸ and then they turned into the current and began heading upstream. David knew the dangers ahead, but that didn’t prevent the feeling of exhilaration that washed over him during the first moment back on the water. All of the planning and preparation that had taken place to even bring them to this time and place had been incredibly time-consuming and life-threateningly dangerous at times. Now that was all past them, and more than ever before their success or failure would depend on their brains and their fighting ability.
As the sunlight finally began shining on the water before them, a million tiny flashes sparkled at the tops of the little waves produced by the light breeze. Everyone was excited to be under way, knowing that great difficulties lay ahead but relieved that the thinking was over and the action had begun. If all went well, they would be with David’s brother in relative safety in less than ten days, and for that they were ready to endure whatever suffering mother nature decided to throw in their path as they traveled the river and beyond.
All too soon they reached the shallows that defined the Maumee around Perrysburg, and the first of what would be many wading and towing episodes began. Whatever feelings of adventure that had swelled in the hearts of everyone at the beginning of the day’s journey were burnt away in the first half hour of negotiating the rapids. The water level on the river was low, which was a good thing since they didn’t know how they would have managed to get through the rushing water if it was any higher. The bad part of the summer-level Maumee was that so many areas could not be motored. The canoes were actually easy to tow in spite of the current, but the rocks under the surface were slippery and nearly everyone fell into the rushing water several times as they slowly learned how to stay upright while wading a swift river.
Less than ten minutes into the first shallows Jenny slipped and fell into the current and rolled several feet downstream. Sal forgot all orders and shouted for help even as Jenny screamed in fear. She was never in any real danger, even if Luke hadn’t been walking fifty feet behind the main group to watch their rear. He quickly moved forward and plucked Jenny from the current and stood her up in water that barely reached her knees. She was still crying and Luke did his best to quiet her, but it wasn’t until Sal grabbed her up in his huge arms and handed her to her father that the girl finally calmed down. The entire group had halted while the mini-drama played out, and Luke walked forward to address the entire group.
He couldn’t keep the irritation from his young voice as he explained, “There are too many houses and neighborhoods around here for all that noise to go unnoticed. Stay as close as possible and keep weapons ready. And no more noise! If they come we fight silently.”
Sal apologized profusely, and promised to be more careful in the future. Lori embraced the large man and told him that he never had to apologize for caring about her children. Blake agreed, and he reminded his daughter and the rest of the youngsters that everyone was looking out for them, and that they had to remember to be as quiet as possible at all times. “You don’t have to make a sound; we will know if you’re in trouble. No one will be left behind.”
They resumed their trudging upstream, but soon a pack of four hunters was on the eastern shoreline, growling and snapping their teeth at the site of humans in the river. As the first of them began testing the water seven more appeared at their sides and these seemed braver than the first group. Luke was moving toward them after warning David to keep watch on the opposite shore. The first creatures in the water slipped and thrashed in the current, but when they regained their footing they moved more carefully and deliberately toward the person closing on them. After seeing their mates able to walk in the water without going under, the rest of the pack ran in with the same results as the first to enter.
Lori was coming up behind Luke with the suppressed .22, but the teen had already killed
the first two hunters with his bow and was picking of the others as they figured out how to stand in the current. Lori killed three of the eleven, while Luke’s arrows destroyed the rest. They recovered six of the arrows before the corpses floated downstream, then rushed back to rejoin the group that was already prepared to resume the journey. Luke took up his guard position once again and waived everyone forward, again leaving David to wonder how the gangly teenager had become so deadly in such a short amount of time. Frankly, he didn’t know where they’d be without him.
A few times during the next ten miles they found places where they could ride in the boats for short distances, but mostly they waded. Everyone was on high alert after the attack so early into their trip, but the shoreline was often high and covered with trees and brush. In most other places the view was obscured by houses and other buildings. Even though they knew that the surrounding areas had to be crawling with hunters, they managed to avoid being spotted by any of the monsters for the rest of their time on the river that day. In spite of the difficulties they were facing, the group remained silent and nobody else experienced a fall as serious as the one that had washed Jenny downstream. When most of the group seemed to have reached their limit, they finally stopped for lunch on a small sandbar in the middle of the river. The physical demands placed on their bodies by the brutally hard work had left everyone famished, and little conversation took place while they ate. David allowed a fifteen-minute rest after the meal, then they set off again.
The group struggled upstream for about nine hours until they saw a large island ahead, and everyone hoped that they were finished for the day. The water deepened for several hundred feet between the rapids and the land mass, so they motored the short distance to the island where David had everyone pull the canoes onto a sandy beach. He then called the group together and quietly explained what was going on. “We’ve only traveled about eight miles today, but they were as difficult as any we will find on this river. Tomorrow will be tough too, but not as long. We’ll have the same type of water to travel over until we reach the dam above Grand Rapids. After that we should be in the canoes for most of the rest of the journey. Right now we need to sweep this island and then set up a camp. I think we should all stick together while we do this. Any questions?”
Nobody had any, so they pulled the canoes up into the trees and covered them with brush before forming a tight skirmish line with armed children placed between the fighters. They spent nearly an hour walking the eight-hundred-foot-long island and finding no sign of infected anywhere. The water ran fairly deep on both sides of the land mass, and large trees covered most of the ground. According to David’s map the island was the smaller of two that formed the Van Tassel Wilderness Area. Near the center they found a group of big oaks that surrounded a grassy area perfect for setting up the tents. A cold dinner was quickly consumed, and those not on guard duty immediately hit their sleeping bags. Half of the adults would keep watch until they switched with the others midway through the night. They were now on their own in the middle of a hostile wilderness filled with man-eating monsters, and nobody complained about the increased security measures as the warm summer night filled with the hum of insects slowly passed.
When the guards roused everyone a half-hour before dawn, many of those in the group had to work hard to stifle moans of agony as they struggled to move about with pain-wracked muscles crying out in protest from the previous day’s mistreatment. Most of them were certain that there was no way they’d be able to resume their journey without another day’s rest, but after fifteen minutes working to break camp they loosened up enough for the pain to become bearable. Christy was concerned about her parents’ ability to keep up, but Trudy reassured her that people in their fifties still had some stamina left in their old bones. Jim chuckled, “You better watch yourself, Christy. Your mom has always been a bit sensitive about her age. You know she’s two years older than me.”
Trudy playfully smacked her husband’s back side and added, “I’m just glad you can still keep up with me. You really should have come to my yoga classes; my back feels just fine after a few minutes of downward dog.”
Jim grinned, “That must be why Chewy seems so full of energy this morning—he does that dog thing all the time.” Sure enough, Chewy was scuttling back and forth between the children and dancing around on two legs for attention. “I tell you what, Honey, once we get to Indiana you can show me all the yoga moves you know. To be perfectly honest, my back is killing me.”
Vickie supplied aspirin to the stiff-muscled adults, and after a breakfast of granola bars and filtered river water they were back in the canoes.
The first mile or so was powered by the trolling motors, but once again they came up against shallow rapids and had to resume the towing methods that by now were thoroughly despised by everyone. The wading was more difficult this day, and not just because they were all so sore and tired from yesterday’s efforts. The water they were confronting was deeper and swifter, and they kept the kids and dog in the canoes as they struggled to pull the craft upstream. At times the entire group would have to backtrack and find new paths through the current, and increasingly they were finding themselves too close to the shore for comfort.
Everyone was on edge, but weariness was dulling their senses so nobody saw the attack before it happened. They were struggling through a section of the river where the bottom was formed by slippery, bowling-ball sized rocks, and virtually everyone had fallen at least once in the previous ten minutes. They were wet and exhausted, and the roar of the water from the rapids farther out on the river prevented them from hearing the snapping of branches as the hunters moved closer, or the moans and howls they normally made when they spotted prey.
Blake was towing a canoe loaded mostly with the two girls and Chewy, slogging along in the middle of the pack when the little dog began barking and snarling so ferociously that he stopped and turned just in time to see a nearly naked hunter leap from the bank and crash into his unsuspecting wife who was on guard duty behind the craft. The creature’s momentum carried it past Lori, who had fallen into the water and rolled ten feet in the current before she regained her footing. By that point other hunters were in the water, and the one that had first hit her had turned his attention on the canoe while a second beast focused in on Lori.
This second creature wore the tattered remains of a pair of jeans, and its body was covered with dirt, raw scratches, and numerous places marked with the pink scar tissue they’d first noticed on Middle Bass Island. The long-haired hunter reached for Lori with dirty, scab-covered hands as the soldier pointed the .22 in its face and squeezed off two rounds that killed the beast but didn’t stop it from landing on her. The weight of the monster pushed her down into the current once again, insuring that she would be of no help against the creature attacking her family.
Jenny and Addison were growing up fast. They rode in the canoe with small spears lying alongside them, and as the first hunter turned its attention on them they somehow fought through their panic and lifted the weapons to try and keep the creature at bay. One of the sharp points actually hit the monster in the abdomen, ripping open the skin under the right side of the rib cage as the hunter spun away from the threat before resuming its advance on the canoe. Blake was pulling in the slack on the rope as quickly as possible to try to get between the boat and the infected killer, but he was still five feet away when the hunter finally stepped close enough to reach out for the girls who were now screaming in spite of themselves.
Looking back later on what happened at that moment, some in the group used the word miracle, but Blake simply used the term, “hero” for the rest of his life. Chewy leapt snarling at the monster’s face, ripping a huge chunk out of the beast’s cheek before gravity pulled him to the river. The wounded hunter didn’t make a sound of pain, but it did pause for just a moment to swipe at the dog as it tumbled out of reach and splashed into the water. The few seconds little Chewy bought with his suicidal attack allowed Blake t
o move close enough to jump on the hunter, landing on top of it as the current rushed around them. With adrenaline-fueled fury he held the beast under the surface with one hand, and pulled his dagger free with the other before repeatedly plunging the wicked blade into the hunter’s face.
When he finally stood up he noticed that Lori was stumbling their way as quickly as possible, and the girls had their spears pointed out in case any more threats appeared. All around the group the last of the attackers were floating away in the current with clouds of black blood flowing behind their shattered corpses. Blake looked at Jenny and Addison, who were both sobbing, “Find Chewy, get Chewy!”
He looked up frantically to see Luke walking his way holding what looked like a soaked little rag doll. As the teen approached he quietly asked, “Everyone all right?”
Blake nodded mutely as Luke gently placed the bedraggled Chewy back into the canoe, where he immediately jumped into the girls arms and began joyfully licking their faces amid the cries of praise raining down on him as his little tail wagged furiously. Luke smiled in spite of the desperate battle he’d just witnessed. He gently prodded, “Hey buddy, they’re okay. We gotta get outta here before any more show up. C’mon, let’s go.”
That seemed to snap Blake out of the shock he was in, and he turned and automatically began towing the canoe toward the rest of the group. Everyone was shaken after the surprise attack they had just fended off, but they knew they were very lucky to have avoided casualties this time. Luke asked Lori if she was all right as he waited for the rest to pull far enough ahead for him to resume his rear guard duty. She was bent over catching her breath and simply nodded before standing up and moving off to her position near the boat with her family in it. They had just endured a horribly close call, and thoughts of sore muscles were now easily pushed aside as fear lent them new strength in their struggle against the Maumee. Five hours later they reached the second day’s objective.
