Slow Burn (Book 5): Torrent

by Adair, Bobby

  The power lines went off in a direction that roughly paralleled the river. I pointed and in a soft voice said, “That’s our path.”

  The canoe wobbled from left to right on Murphy’s shrug.

  I led. Murphy followed.

  Broken bits of limestone crunched under foot. Nothing in the trees seemed to notice the rhythmic noise. The infected were strangely absent. As I watched for movement in the trees, the reason for their absence occurred to me. The terrain on this side of the dam was hilly, cut by steep ravines, and dense with cedars, oaks and all manner of thorny bushes and vines. It was a difficult and expensive place to build. Still, the hilltops and ridge crests, with their breathtaking views of downtown Austin, were dotted with widely spaced, extravagantly priced houses. Any infected or their victims in this part of town were likely to be up there. Down where Murphy and I hiked were only fire ants, scorpions and swarms of mosquitoes.

  The roar of the water pouring over the dam started to dissipate and I realized we were spending more time going up than down. The path under the power lines, as easy as it was to walk, was taking us inconveniently far from the river. I started examining the woods to our left, looking for a game trail that might lead back to the water.

  But one of the habits keeping me alive in the post-viral world was paying attention to everything happening around me. I’d made plenty of mistakes by focusing too intently on things at the center of my attention, only to be blindsided by something else. So as we moved, as we searched for a game trail, I kept looking ahead, behind us and to the other side of the clear-cut power line easement.

  That’s when I spotted movement.

  I froze, but just for a second.

  I spun and urged Murphy to move quickly behind some concealing cedar branches. I hustled over beside him, and whispered, “There’s something ahead. I’m going to sneak up through the woods and see what’s up. You wait here.”

  “Wait here? Why? Ain’t like somebody’s gonna come and steal the canoe if I leave it. Besides, my arms are tired.”

  “Sometimes I think you live to be contrary.”

  “Talk about the pot calling the kettle white.” Murphy grinned, amused with himself.

  “White?”

  “Yeah, you know, ‘cause we’re all white now. It seemed apropos.”

  “Apropos? How do you even know that word?”

  “Just ‘cause I spent most of my educational career skipping class and getting laid doesn’t mean I don’t read.”

  “Oh, Jesus Christ.” My frustration was coming out.

  “Lighten up, man. You’re gonna give yourself an aneurysm.”

  “Whatever. Put it down and c’mon.”

  It took several long minutes of stealthy sneaking to get into a position with a good view. From our hiding place behind the dense cedars, we saw a six-foot chain link fence topped with barbed wire cutting across the power line easement, on a line running right down to the river. On the other side of the fence was Redbud Trail, a street that ran from the bridge Dalhover warned us about all the way to the top of the hills, south of the river. And an unending helix of naked Whites snaked their way up the steep road.

  I squatted down to reduce the chance I might be seen. Murphy dropped down beside me. “I guess that explains why we haven’t seen any Whites since we came ashore.”

  Murphy’s face asked silently for an explanation.

  “The chain-link fence. I’ll bet this whole area, from the road, down to the river and back to Bee Creek belongs to the utility company, and it’s surrounded by that fence.”

  “You know they could knock down the fence, right?”

  “Of course,” I said, nodding. “But why? There’s nothing over here but trees as far as they can see.”

  “Good point.”

  “I wonder if they’re all migrating west, now that they’ve found a way to get over the river.”

  “Do you mean south?”

  “Jesus, does it matter?”

  “Not to me.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I wonder how many of them there are.”

  “A shitload.”

  “I knew that much.” I looked back over my shoulder through a gap in the foliage. “We can’t get across Redbud Trail with all of those Whites out there. You know as well as I do that Smart Ones are in the mix. They’ll spot us. With the canoe, we won’t be able to evade them.”

  Murphy peeked around the tree. “What are you thinking?”

  I shrugged and pointed toward the river. “I say we go cross country and see if we can get into the water somewhere on this side of the fence. Otherwise, we need to scrap this canoe plan and figure out another way to get across town.”

  “Man, I wish I knew where we could find some silencers nearby. I’m not diggin’ this idea of going back over to UT.”

  “They might be all over town, for all we know. But we don’t have any idea where.”

  Murphy asked, “Do you know where any gun shops are on this side of town?”

  “I’m not exactly from this neighborhood.”

  “Yeah, my billfold’s too skinny for this side of town, too.”

  I looked into the woods. “You want to give it a go?”

  Murphy made no effort to move. “I’m not a whiz at maps and geometry and stuff, but if we’re on this side of the fence and the road is on that side of the fence, it seems to me if we go in the water back here somewhere, we’re gonna be upstream from the bridge Top told us to get downstream of. ‘Cause that road up there is the one that runs right down to that bridge.”

  “Yep. I’m sure that’s right.”

  Murphy gave me a flat stare. “You’re gonna try and drown me again, aren’t you?”

  I grinned. “Let’s just go down there and look. Dalhover might be wrong.”

  “It seems to me he keeps being right about stuff when nobody thinks he’s gonna be.” Murphy paused. “You want me to get the canoe?”

  “Why? We might not even use it.”

  It was Murphy’s turn to grin. “You hear that noise, right?”

  “The water from the dam?”

  Murphy nodded. “That’s not all the dam. That’s the sound of rapids.”

  “And?”

  “I know you, Zed. We’re gonna get down there and no matter what it looks like, you’re gonna come up with some crazy rationalization about why you think we’ll be able to get down the river in the canoe alive.”

  “Leave the canoe. That’ll give you time to talk me out of my crazy idea on the way back up here to get it.”

  Murphy shook his head. “If you give me the time, I’ll talk myself out of it. I say let’s take the canoe and if you think we should go, let’s go. You’ve been good luck for me so far.”

  “You’re a frustrating man, Murphy.”

  Murphy shrugged.

  Chapter 25

  It took a while to carry the canoe through the woods and down to the edge of the river. It was clearly running two or three feet over its banks, and water was rushing between the trunks of trees lining the shore.

  Out in the main flow, the water rose up in white, frothy humps over submerged rocks and sank in deep eddies. It was rough. Not class five rough, but it bordered on dangerous for two city boys, one of whom couldn’t swim.

  “A couple of things,” I said.

  “Shit.”

  “Shit?”

  “You wouldn’t have started that way unless you were thinking about getting into that.”

  “Well, a different couple of things.”

  “You’re gonna shame me into going, aren’t you?”

  “No. I wouldn’t do that.”

  “You remember I can’t swim, don’t you?”

  “That water’s not more than five or six feet deep.”

  Murphy looked at the rushing water. “I don’t think that makes it any better when it’s like that.”

  I pasted on a smile. He was right. We could both drown out there. “Yeah.”

  “Remind me. Why do we need the silencers s
o bad?”

  “We can kill all of the Whites we want. Our guns become an advantage, rather than a liability.”

  “And we can’t make it without them?”

  “Murphy, you know as well as I do that the only people we’ve seen who’ve had any success against the infected were those guys with silencers who killed Jerome. I think the silencers are the only thing that can ensure we’ll live through this.”

  “And this has got nothing to do with hunting down Mark and killing him?”

  I looked at the bridge. I didn’t want to answer that question. “We can try and figure out another way.”

  “Why don’t you just tell me your couple of things and I’ll let you know if I’m stupid enough to follow along?”

  “What couple of things?”

  “The couple of things you mentioned when you looked at Niagara Falls out there and decided it might be a good idea to jump in.”

  “Look, I can go myself if I need to.”

  Murphy laughed derisively. “You’re going to jump in the river by yourself, somehow not drown, paddle all the way downtown, hike up through the middle of Austin and get to the university campus, all without getting killed. And then you’re going to find those silencers, like you even know what one looks like, pick them all up, again without getting yourself killed, and find your way all the way back across Austin to the river boat.”

  I nodded.

  Murphy finished. “And you base your optimism about being able to do this by yourself on what?”

  “I’m not dead yet.”

  Murphy rolled his eyes and shook his head. “If we go, we go together.”

  “Fine.” I pointed inside the canoe. “First off, those bungee cords holding the paddles to the benches will keep them from floating away.”

  Murphy’s face turned to worry. “Why would they float away?”

  I turned and pointed to the bridge. “Because the canoe will be upside down.”

  “This plan already sucks.”

  “The water is only about two feet below the bottom of the bridge. We can’t be in the canoe and go under.”

  Murphy scrutinized the bridge and nodded. “I’ll give you that. But why upside down? Why don’t we just hang onto the canoe’s sides and float down with it that way?”

  “We could, but if we’re going to be in the water anyway, it doesn’t matter if the canoe is upside down or not.”

  “It’ll sink.”

  Pointing at the bow of the canoe, I asked, “See this compartment at each end of the canoe?”

  “Let’s go back to that basic fact that I can’t swim, Zed. I don’t swim. I don’t canoe. I don’t kayak. I don’t ski. I don’t scuba dive. I don’t like it when you drive the Humvee into the river without warning me. I’m not into water sports, in case you haven’t deduced that yet.”

  “You don’t need to get all pissy about it.”

  “I’m not. Just stop asking me stupid questions.”

  I decided to put the conversation back on a productive track. I pointed at the bow. “Lots of canoes have those watertight compartments at the bow and stern. This canoe won’t sink whether it’s upside down or right side up. Sure, it’ll fill up with water and swamp, but it’ll never sink.”

  Murphy gave the compartments a long, hard look. “Are you sure about that?”

  “Positive. I’m thinking if we turn the canoe over, it’ll work better for us in a couple of ways. First, we won’t have to hang onto the sides with one hand. We’ll be able to hang onto the cross braces with both hands. That reduces the chance the current will pull us away from the canoe and drown us.”

  “Okay.”

  “If we’re beneath the canoe, we’ll have a pocket of air to breathe, and the Whites on the bridge won’t ever see us. If they don’t see us, they’re not likely to follow us downriver and fuck with us when we try and get out.”

  “You think they’d follow us all the way into downtown?”

  “Murphy, I don’t know what they’ll do. All I really know is every time I make an assumption about how safe I’ll be around them, they surprise me and I end up in danger.”

  “I heard that.” Murphy examined the river again. “So you really think this’ll work?”

  I shrugged. I thought it would be easy, though I should have known better. “As long as we stick with the canoe, we’ll get wet, but I think that’s the worse that’ll happen.”

  “Back to that point about me not being able to swim. You know if I lose my grip on the canoe, I’ll probably drown, right?”

  “I’m a good swimmer, Murphy, and if I lose my grip on the canoe, that water is rough enough that I’d probably drown, too. So we’re even.”

  “I’m not sure if that makes you dumber than me or not.”

  “If I didn’t think we could both hang onto the canoe, I wouldn’t suggest we try.”

  “And how sure are you that this’ll work?”

  “Ninety-nine percent.”

  Murphy laughed. “That’s bullshit.”

  “Yeah,” I said, grinning. “I’m pretty sure we’ll be fine.”

  Murphy shook his head. “Fuck it. Let’s do it.”

  We spent enough time on shore to make sure everything we had was secure.

  I laced my shoes up tightly. I buttoned the flaps closed on the big pockets on the thighs of my shorts. Those held four magazines for my rifle. Two more magazines were stuffed into one of my back pockets, but they were long enough that they prevented me from buttoning the flap closed. I worried I’d lose those in the rough water. My other back pocket held a few magazines for my pistol, but I was able to stuff those in sideways. My knife was secure in the old leather sheath on my belt. As for the pistol, I’d been carrying that in a front pocket, but didn’t want to risk losing it. Tucking it into my belt wouldn’t work. So I set the safety, undid my canvas belt, rolled the end and pushed it through the trigger guard before lacing it back through the loops on my cargo shorts.

  “You should take the magazine out and make sure there isn’t a bullet in the chamber.”

  I looked down at the gun dangling on my hip.

  “You don’t want that safety getting flipped off when the river is dragging you over some rocks. You could shoot your dick off.”

  I grimaced. “I like my dick.”

  After that, Murphy helped me adjust my sling so my M4 was strapped across my back, rather than dangling by one end.

  And we were ready to go.

  Together we lifted the canoe over our heads and carried it beside an outcrop of stone and bushes that would keep us hidden from curious eyes on the bridge. Knowing Murphy would not be the first to step into the river, I led the way.

  By the time I was knee-deep, the current was tugging chaotically at my legs. It was strong enough to be a worry. When the water was up to mid-thigh, I was having trouble keeping my balance.

  Murphy was just stepping into the river behind me.

  “Be careful with the current.”

  Murphy grunted something. All of his concentration was focused on making himself do something he must really have hated.

  At waist-deep, bracing myself on the outcrop, I could proceed no further without getting washed away.

  “Damn.” Murphy cursed as the canoe lurched to my left.

  I bent my knees and prepared to go in, but Murphy caught his balance. For the moment, we weren’t moving. Looking back over my shoulder, I saw Murphy was well into the water, mid-thigh. With our heads inside the upturned canoe, I said, “This is our last chance to bail out of this.”

  Murphy grumbled something to underscore his reluctance, but he was willing to go forward with the plan.

  “Hold on tight. We need to take a couple of steps to our left and just drop down into the water. Then we can let the current carry us. Don’t fight it, okay? If you do, you’ll lose your grip and then you’ll be fucked, if you know what I mean.”

  “I know exactly what you mean. Let’s do this before I change my mind.”

  “Here go
es.” Not waiting for a response, I shuffled to my left, going deeper as I moved. The current pulled exponentially harder the more I submerged my body.

  Just as my footing slipped and I knew I was going, I shouted, “Now.” I sank into the water and lifted my legs as the canoe torqued and jostled. With a big splash behind me, Murphy fell into the main current.

  With the canoe settling into the water and the current pulling us rapidly downstream, I looked back over my shoulder and flipped my hands on the cross brace so I could face Murphy. He was wide-eyed and gripping his cross brace tight enough to leave hand prints.

  “That was the hard part.” I hoped. My voice echoed oddly over the water and under the canoe’s aluminum hull. “Relax and flow with the water. Don’t try to walk or push against the rocks with your feet. That’s how you get hurt.”

  The canoe bounced up over a wave.

  “How do you know this shit?” Murphy asked, urgency heavy in his voice.

  “I’m guessing.”

  We started to float sideways in the current.

  “I’m gonna punch you in the face when we get out of this.”

  I couldn’t tell if Murphy was serious.

  More jostling.

  The canoe jerked hard to the right and I almost lost my grip. Water splashed my face.

  Murphy cursed.

  The ride was much worse than I expected.

  My feet dragged through some underwater bushes and got caught. I panicked. The canoe jerked out of my hands. I got pulled underwater.

  All of those moments over the past month when I’d chanted my calming mantra taught me how to quickly stuff my panic into a little black box and ignore it. Panic was the enemy of clear, quick thought and clear, quick thought was what I needed more than anything.

  Murphy’s knees hit me in the face just as his boots kicked me in the gut. But that was okay, as okay as things were going to get. I threw my arms around his legs and hoped his grip on the boat was stronger than the bush’s hold on my feet.