The Hike (Book 1): Survivors

by Quentin Rogers

  Chapter 16

  It had been quite a while after dusk since they had lost sight of Stuart when he was a little less than half way across the bridge. A stiff breeze had come up and Patrick was beginning to worry about the boy climbing out of the river with wet clothes on and freezing to death before he had sense to take shelter or find dry clothes.

  They had already pitched their tents on a little hill in a stand of trees just up and away from the river where they had left Stuart. Patrick was cooking them some warm oatmeal on his camp stove when he couldn’t take it any longer and called Mackenzie over from her lookout spot to finish preparing the meal. He had brought his assault rifle and pistol up to camp from where they left their bikes near the interstate, but he hadn’t thought to bring his hunting rifle. He walked back to the bikes in a brisk gait continuously looking over to where Stuart would be when he was supposed to light the flare. After Patrick unstowed the rifle, he headed back to camp in almost a jog. He continued to look over to where the flare should have been, but he never saw it.

  Mackenzie had dished up the warm oatmeal and handed him a bowl as he returned to camp. He joined her at her perch next to a tree looking across the river as she ate her dinner. He sat his bowl down on a rock nearby and lay in a prone position with the rifle.

  “Dad, what are you doing!” Mackenzie exclaimed as she looked over and seen her dad setting up the rifle’s bipod and flipping up the scope covers.

  Patrick opened the bolt, ensured the safety was still on, and then peered through the scope. “I’m just trying to see if I can see Stuart down there. I had given him my binoculars in that day pack,” Patrick replied as if laying prone in the dirt and aiming his rifle at their friend across the river was a normal occurrence.

  The moon was half-full tonight without any clouds, so there was enough light to walk around carefully and do normal functions, but there wasn’t enough light for Patrick to see the other side of the river through his scope. He could pick out bits and pieces of the trestle sticking out of the water in areas where the moonlight glistened off the steel, but he was sure that Stuart should have been past those spots by now. Nevertheless, Patrick laid prone staring at the farthest spot that he could make out through the scope for at least twenty minutes before he gave up and decided to give his back some rest.

  Mackenzie had gone and grabbed her sleeping bag from her tent and continued to lean against the tree and watch the other side of the river. Patrick joined her and began to eat his cold oatmeal. He was thankful that she offered to share a corner of her sleeping bag as he was still wearing his light biking clothes, and the steady breeze was somewhat chilly.

  “You think he made it and forgot to set the flare off?” Mackenzie asked.

  “I don’t see how. We went over it four times before he left,” Patrick replied between spoonfuls of cold mush.

  “Do you think he…” Mackenzie started, but stopped abruptly when she thought she heard something. Patrick heard it too as they both looked at each other with wide eyes for a split second before Patrick jumped up and launched over to where his rifle was resting on the ground. He spilled his oatmeal on Mackenzie’s sleeping bag when he jumped up, but neither of them bothered with it at the moment. They both were intently looking across the river to see if they could see what had caused a splash.

  Though the breeze was blowing and causing some rustling of the leaves and branches in the trees that they were in, the world was still eerily quiet in this new lifeless environment. They both were sure that they had distinctly heard a healthy splash coming from the other side of the river. It was a faint sound, but still easily identifiable.

  Patrick used his scope to peer all over the river and bridge, but still couldn’t see anything through the scope due to the lack of light. Mackenzie just sat straight up with her arms around her knees staring across the river intently.

  “You think that he’s okay Dad?” Mackenzie asked.

  “Shhhh… I’m sure he’s fine,” he replied in a whisper. “Let’s listen and see if we can hear anything else.”

  They sat that way watching and listening long enough for Patrick’s back to be screaming at him to move. He finally gave in and stood up pushing his hips forward to stretch his back.

  “I think that I’m going to head across Darlin’ to make sure he’s okay,” Patrick finally said to his daughter even though he had been thinking it for the last hour or so.

  “No you are not!” Mackenzie offered defiantly. “You told him that you would wait until first light if you didn’t see the flare tonight. He’s counting on that and you’re going to stick to the plan, just as he’s going to find a way to light that flare.” Patrick realized that his daughter was right and resigned himself to sit back down with her and share her sleeping bag.

  After a little while more of silence and watching the blackness of the other side of the river, Mackenzie reflected solemnly out loud to her dad “Thanks for taking me on that backpacking trip Dad.”

  “You bet kiddo. Turned out great, didn’t it?” Patrick said facetiously as he rubbed the top of her head.

  Mackenzie giggled a little and said “No; I’m serious. I know that I didn’t want to go, and the whole end of the world thing is bad and all.” She giggled again and continued “But do you remember that first morning before all of this happened that I went off fishing while you slept in?”

  “Yeah. You scared me to death when I couldn’t find you,” Patrick responded. They both continued to lean against the tree and stare out into the blackness.

  “That was a beautiful morning,” Mackenzie said with her tone turning from solemnness to reverence. “I’d walked along the creek as the sun first came up, fishing the holes and bends in the creek just like you taught me. I find myself going back to that morning in my mind.” Mackenzie paused for a couple of seconds and then added “Even if I hadn’t caught those monster size fish, it still would have been a good morning.”

  “Monster size fish?” Patrick exclaimed. “As I recall, we had to supplement breakfast with oatmeal and granola bars,” he finished and Mackenzie feigned that she was appalled.

  Then they saw it. A red glow came immediately to life directly on the other side of the river from where they were.

  Patrick jumped to his feet and his back shot out a signal of pain and stiffness to remind him of his age. He ignored it and scrambled behind the scope of the rifle and zeroed in on the red flare. As he picked up on him, he saw Stuart waving the flare over his head in a big arc staring back across the river towards them.

  Patrick got to his knees, unholstered his pistol, and shot it off at a high arc in a safe direction towards another point on the river. He decocked the pistol, put the safety back on, and slid it back in his holster before getting behind the scope again.

  “Is he okay?” Mackenzie asked.

  “I think so,” Patrick said continuing to peer through the scope.

  He could see that Stuart had laid the flair on the ground while he was putting his clothes on and shouldering the day pack. By the way that he was moving and carrying on, he could tell that Stuart was cold. Stuart picked the flare up and began walking over to the interstate on the other side of the river.

  “He’s limping pretty good,” Patrick told Mackenzie.

  “Can you tell what he’s hurt?” Mackenzie asked with concern. She stood and walked over to where her dad was.

  “No, not really. It’s his right leg that he’s favoring,” Patrick responded as he continued to peer through the scope.

  “Can I take a look Dad?” Mackenzie asked.

  Patrick sighed and reluctantly stood up to let Mackenzie stare through the scope. Without looking through the scope, the flare just looked like a small red ember floating through the sky.

  “I think that it’s his foot Dad,” Mackenzie said.

  “Could be. Can I get back in there?” Patrick asked.

  Mackenzie stood and walked back over to the tree and sat down as Patrick nestled back down behind the rifl
e. After watching the kid walk for a while, he thought that his daughter was probably right about Stuart’s foot being injured.

  Patrick watched Stuart intently for the several minutes as he walked towards the interstate, carrying the burning road flare. Not too far from the interstate, Stuart stopped and dropped the road flare. He kicked in the dirt around the flare and waved again towards Patrick and Mackenzie. Patrick fired off another round from his pistol before climbing back behind his rifle. When Stuart heard the pistol’s report, he then started walking again towards the interstate.

  “Why did he stop?” Mackenzie asked.

  “He’s still going. He just dropped the flare because it was probably getting hot,” Patrick said. “I think that will probably be all of the show for tonight. If he does what I told him to, he’ll go find some place to grab some shut eye and warm up.”

  Mackenzie let out a yawn and Patrick suggested that she go to bed. “Go ahead and use my sleeping bag since I spilled the oatmeal on yours,” Patrick offered. After they argued back and forth a few times about who got the clean sleeping bag, Mackenzie conceded and headed off to her tent for the rest of the night.

  Patrick leaned against the tree and watched across the river for quite some time. At first his mind raced about what trouble the kid was getting into on the other side of the river by himself. He was worried that Stuart wouldn’t have found dry clothes or a warm enough spot to lie down in for the night. By the time that the moon had made an arc most of the way across the sky, Patrick’s body took control over his mind and told him that it was time to rest. He fell asleep while leaned back against the same tree under Mackenzie’s sleeping bag.

  At some point while it was still dark out, Patrick awoke to sounds of movement in the water down below. Patrick had gotten so used to the quiet of this new world that any other foreign sound put him on high alert almost immediately. After listening intently to the sound with his eyes closed for a couple of seconds, his mind concluded that it was indeed an unusual sound and he was instantly awake and fully alert. He peered down to the river where the sound was coming from and he thought that he seen a flash of green light coming from the river. He dismissed what he saw initially as it seemed ridiculous and he’d just woken up, but then he saw it flash again almost in the same spot that he had seen it before. The light was coming from where the sound was emanating from.

  He tossed the sleeping bag aside and climbed back behind the scope. The coolness of the night had zapped the warmth out of the ground, and Patrick was chilled almost immediately as he laid down on the ground behind the rifle. He adjusted his position behind the scope for his right eye to get a full picture, then he panned the scope around in the direction of the sound until he found it. Once he saw the faint green glow a little closer than half-way across the river, Patrick knew immediately what he was looking at. Stuart was rowing a boat across the river along one side of the trestle bridge. Whenever he switched sides with the long oar that he had, the green glow light that was hanging on a string around his neck would flash with a bright green glow.

  Patrick’s heart raced as he watched the boy paddle for several minutes. From what he could see through the scope in the moonlight enhanced by the glow stick, the boat that Stuart picked out looked perfect for what they needed. From here it looked like it was a somewhat small drift boat setup for fishing and had three rows of seats. Stuart was sitting in the bow of the boat and was using one of the oars that he had taken across with him to propel him across the river. He seemed to be doing a good job at rowing and it looked like he was making okay time in the dark.

  Once Patrick realized that Stuart was okay, anger started to boil up in him. He couldn’t understand why the boy hadn’t followed the plan and stayed across the river for the night. Coming across the water in the middle of the night could lead to any number of accidents. The more that Patrick thought about it, the more upset that he became. Patrick got up from the rifle and walked back to his tent. Mackenzie had taken his sleeping bag back to her tent and it sounded like she was still sleeping soundly. Patrick slipped on warmer clothes and grabbed a jacket before walking down to the bank of the river.

  He watched quietly as Stuart rowed the boat closer to the bank. When Stuart got close enough to shore that they could easily see each other, Patrick waved his arm in a big arc above his head. Stuart replied with a similar motion with his free hand.

  After several more minutes, the bottom of the boat ran aground on the bank of the river. Patrick stepped into the river with one foot to grab the boat and help drag it up onto the bank. Before Stuart could get out of the boat, Patrick’s emotion boiled over and he blurted “Just what in the world do you think you are doing?”

  Stuart continued to climb out of the boat without responding. He grabbed a piece of the bow and gave it one more tug onto the bank. When he was done, he stood facing Patrick and said flatly “It’s nice to see you too.”

  Patrick pushed the image back in his mind of trying to bend an eighteen-year-old over his knee. “Listen… We have to have a mutual respect if we’re going to make it. When we make a plan-“ Patrick started to lecture, but was stopped short with Stuart’s response.

  “There’s something over there,” Stuart said flatly again standing still and looking right at Patrick.

  Patrick reeled at those words for a minute and his anger left as quick as it had come on. “What do you mean? What did you see?” Patrick asked with a sense of skepticism coming through in his tone.

  “I’m not sure. I didn’t get a good look at it,” he said averting his eyes from Patrick for a minute. “But whatever it was, it wasn’t friendly.”

  Patrick could now see in the light of the glow necklace that Stuart was shivering. He was also favoring his right foot. “Here; let’s get you up to camp and get you warmed up,” Patrick said now taking pity on the young man that he was ready to teach a lesson about respect a few minutes ago.

  Patrick helped Stuart hobble back up the hill to camp, and sat him in front of his tent with Mackenzie’s sleeping bag wrapped around him as he began to gather wood for a fire in the moonlight. The commotion woke Mackenzie up and she came out to greet Stuart as well. On one of the trips back to where he was stacking the kindling and wood, Patrick saw that Mackenzie had gotten her first aid kit out and was attending to Stuart’s injured toes. Patrick went over and peered down at Stuart’s foot in the semi-dark to inspect the damage, but Mackenzie had already bandaged the area and he couldn’t see much.

  “It doesn’t look that bad, but it sure hurts like hell,” Stuart said.

  After gathering a small pile of kindling and a stack of bigger wood, Patrick made a small fire pit in the dirt a few feet in front of where the kids were sitting and talking. Then he went about starting the fire with some matches. Stuart and Mackenzie were chatting in low tones that Patrick could only catch bits and pieces of the conversation. He made himself have enough patience to wait until everything was settled before trying to piece together the story that Stuart was already telling to Mackenzie. Some of the damp kindling was being difficult to start, and as Patrick was on his fifth match Stuart got his attention and handed him his zippo lighter that he always carried on him. The extra heat from the lighter got the kindling going right away, and within a few minutes Patrick had a good size fire going that warmed all of them. Patrick put a small pot of water next to the fire to make Stuart some oatmeal before sitting down on the other side of the fire and waiting for Stuart to tell him about what happened on the other side of the river.

  “Okay, let’s hear about your adventure,” Patrick asked now fully at attention.

  “Well, I was running out of a house near the top of the hill and…” Stuart started before Patrick cut him off.

  “No. No. No,” Patrick said. “Tell it from the beginning. From where you left us. We have plenty of time.”

  “Oh. Well, when I reached the bridge, I kicked part of it below the water and split my toe,” Stuart started. He made a grimacing face as he thou
ght about the pain of that moment, and then he continued. “You wouldn’t think something like that would hurt so bad, but I could hardly walk by the time I got to the other side. You’d be amazed at how long that bridge is when you’re actually on top shuffling along it.” Stuart paused and took a swig of water. The other two sat quietly and listened intently to the story.

  Stuart continued on with the story “I finally made it over to the other side and lit the flare that you guys saw. I had put my shoes on because that metal from the bridge was smoking hot at first. So, I was freezing from the wet shirt and shoes by the time that I started walking into town. I thought at first that I would walk up to that hotel on top of the hill; but my foot hurt so bad and I was so cold that I didn’t feel like I could make it, so I started down a side street into town and saw that boat parked in someone’s drive way. It looked perfect, and the trailer was lined up and ready to head to the river. I went into that house to find a place to crash for the night, but the scene wasn’t good.” Stuart paused again and took another swig of water. He was trying to collect his thoughts and figure out how to explain what he saw.

  “It’s okay. Just tell us like you remember it,” Patrick said.

  “Well, it just didn’t feel right from the time I went in,” Stuart started again. “Something was just off. The place was a mess. I walked upstairs and found the kitchen where there was food, pots and pans, and everything just everywhere.”

  “What do you mean?” Mackenzie asked. “Like pots and pans in the sink and on the counter?”

  “No. No,” Stuart corrected. “I mean like everywhere. On the floor, on the counters, on the kitchen table. Not just pots and pans, but spoiled food, canned food; I mean everything. I know that you told me not to use the glow sticks unless I absolutely had to, but I had to see what was going on in that place.” Stuart took another swig of water.