The Darkness After: A Novel

by Scott B. Williams

  “You don’t trust him, do you?”

  “I don’t trust anyone. Do you?”

  TEN

  Before he put the fire out, Mitch picked up the skewered pieces of rabbit they had dropped. After brushing off the leaves and grit, he and April quickly finished them off. Then they pulled the larger pieces of wood out of the flames and kicked piles of the sandy soil over the coals to smother them. With an arrow nocked on his bow at the ready, he led the way out of the dark pine grove to the moonlight-bathed opening of the pipeline.

  At the top of the next ridge, a faint light through the woods proved to him that Mark had been telling the truth about living nearby. A bit farther along, the pipeline passed closer to the light and from there they could see that it was coming from the window of a house—probably an oil lamp burning inside. The pipeline did not cross a road in the vicinity, so it appeared that the house was at the end of a dead-end lane coming in from the north, just as Mark said it was. As they paused for a moment, April whispered that the man was probably honest, and wouldn’t likely have come back to bother them.

  Mitch was aware that breaking camp and moving like this in the darkness might be an overreaction, but being surprised by a rifle fired in such close proximity by an unseen shooter had really shaken him up. He didn’t want that to happen again, and he was determined to make every effort to stay invisible for the rest of the journey. He should have known better than to build a fire so close to a potential travel corridor like a pipeline. They needed to eat, and the rabbit had to be cooked, but he had been careless by not moving farther from the right-of-way first. He had dropped his guard while they were eating, letting himself get wrapped up in the meal and conversation with April, oblivious of what was going on around them. This would have never happened had he been alone and fully alert. He couldn’t believe he had been so stupid. Mark was hardly a woodsman, and despite being out of shape and clumsy, he had crept within a few yards of their camp without Mitch knowing it. He could have blown their heads off just as easily as he fired that warning shot.

  Mitch didn’t like that he made a mistake like that. He took pride in his abilities as a hunter and even though he’d successfully provided dinner, he had utterly failed at an even more important aspect of woodcraft and let an armed stranger get the drop on him and his new friend. He had been helpless in the face of Mark’s rifle, while April on the other hand had almost effortlessly disarmed the man and put him on the ground, completely turning the tables.

  Mitch was still in disbelief at what he’d seen her do, and kept replaying it in his mind as they walked. He had only seen that kind of stuff in movies, where invariably martial arts techniques were embellished and showy, with high kicks and dramatic acrobatic maneuvers. What April had done was smooth, efficient, and incredibly effective. There was nothing flashy about it and even from the point of view of a bystander, it was hard to tell exactly what she had done. It must have been even more confusing to be on the receiving end of it.

  His first thought when it happened was that she was being reckless and taking a risk that could have gotten them both killed. But seeing how cool and collected she was after the man was down, Mitch realized she knew exactly what she was doing and had total confidence that she could pull it off. Seeing her grace under pressure helped explain how she’d taken out the first of the three men who had attacked her on the highway. He had been too far away when that happened to really see what she’d done, but it was clear to him now that there was far more to it than just random luck, and despite what she’d said, the training she’d done with her father must have been anything but casual.

  They put a couple more ridges and hollows between them and the house when they came to a sizable creek in the next bottom. It was several yards wide and bordered by deep drifts of moonlit white sand that glowed in stark contrast to the dark rushing water. Wading was the only option for crossing it, unless they wanted to go well out of their way to look for a downed tree lying across it at a narrow spot, but it was too dark to go searching in the woods for that. Mitch took off his boots and led the way, finding it mostly knee-deep, except for one channel midstream where it came up over his waist.

  “I’m pretty sure this is Red Creek, or at least a tributary of it,” he said, when they were both across. “We can sleep somewhere on this side, and I’ll feel a whole lot better knowing it’s unlikely we’ve been followed. Tomorrow, we should reach Highway 49 easily. From there, all we have to do is make our way northeast, and we will eventually come to Black Creek. It runs roughly parallel to this one and they join together about a hundred miles downstream, but they’re a long way apart in their upper reaches.”

  They found a place in the woods just up the next ridge from the creek. Mitch wanted to get far enough away from the running water so that the sound wouldn’t drown out the noise of someone approaching, but he wanted to stay close enough to refill their water bottles in the morning without backtracking too much. Afraid to risk another fire this close to the pipeline, they sat in the dark, with just enough dappled moonlight filtering through the trees that they could make out each other’s form but not see facial expressions as they talked. They were both too wired to fall asleep immediately, so Mitch began asking the questions he had been suppressing the entire time they were walking since Mark surprised them.

  “My dad died when I was fifteen,” April said. “It was completely unexpected. I mean, he was in phenomenal shape for a forty-year-old man, still working out every day, practicing martial arts, running. Then he just had a heart attack one morning at work, and he was gone before the ambulance could even get him to the hospital. My mom and I were shocked. Everyone who knew him was. It was one of those bizarre things no one would have ever expected.”

  “Was it some kind of hereditary heart condition or something?”

  “Yeah, that’s what the doctors said. Dad never knew he had a problem, because he was so fit. He never got sick, so he never went to a doctor.”

  “I’m sorry you had to go through that. You must have been close to him, to have learned so much about martial arts from him as young as you were.”

  “I was. It was the worst thing that ever happened to me up until that time, but I later found out that things could get much worse. My mom didn’t take it well at all. She started changing about six months after Dad died. She started drinking, and she was taking other stuff—something she got from her shrink—and who knows where else. Less than a year after Dad was gone she started dating other men. I was furious about it, but she didn’t let that stop her. She went from one to another, and she got so wrapped up with some of them that I was pretty much on my own most of the time. It got to where she didn’t even come home some nights. I learned how to take care of myself. I cooked my own meals, did my laundry, walked to school . . .”

  “That’s rough,” Mitch said. “Were you living in New Orleans then?”

  “Yeah, we moved there right after Dad died, because Mom knew someone there who could get her a job in an insurance office. Before that, we had lived in San Antonio. That’s where my dad worked.

  “Anyway, this went on for almost two years. I tried to talk to Mom and I kept hoping she would come back around and be her old self, but she didn’t. I didn’t like any of the men she dated. None of them were anything like my dad, and I knew that none of them were any good for her. Then one night, she was riding home from some party with her newest boyfriend, and both of them had been drinking too much. He ran a red light at an intersection right in front of a big truck, and she didn’t make it.”

  “I am so sorry, I can’t imagine going through all that. I can’t imagine losing one parent, not to mention both.”

  “It’s okay. I got through it. Thankfully, I had David when that happened. I had not known him for very long, but after Mom’s funeral and everything was settled, I moved in with him. I turned seventeen two months later, and Kimberly came along four months before my eighteenth birthday. We didn’t intend for that to happen of course, b
ut having her gave me a whole new reason to live.

  “But I didn’t mean to go into all that. You asked about the training. Yeah, I guess it was more serious than I told you before. I started taking it more seriously after Dad died anyway. He taught me everything I knew, but while he was there, I took it for granted that he would always be around to teach me more. After he was gone, practicing the forms and techniques he taught me felt like a way of connecting to his spirit. I could sometimes feel him with me as I went through the motions, especially when I really focused on what I was doing. I trained harder and harder, becoming pretty obsessed with it, at least during that time when Mom was still alive but not really there for me. Later, when Kimberly came along, I slacked off. I just didn’t have the time, and I didn’t need it in the same way anymore. I’m surprised I still remembered enough to make it work so well, to tell you the truth.”

  “Well, you sure made it work, and exceptionally well, I’d say. Was that Aikido or some kind of karate? Didn’t you say your dad studied Aikido and something else?”

  “Yes, Aikido and Shorin-ryu when he was living in Okinawa. Those are more traditional arts. When he came back here later on, he switched to a style called Kenpo, which is a blend of some of the best of the Chinese and Japanese traditional styles. That’s mostly what he taught me. It’s designed to be a modern method of hand-to-hand combat that’s very effective on the street.”

  “Or the on the highway or in the middle of the woods!” Mitch said. “I never knew karate and stuff like that could really work so well. I’ve always wanted to learn how to fight like that, but growing up out in the middle of nowhere, there are no instructors.”

  “Tell you what, Mitch. I’ll be glad to show you a few moves in exchange for a couple of lessons with that bow, if we have time, that is.”

  “You got a deal!”

  Talking settled them both down enough so that they were finally able to get some sleep, and they passed the night undisturbed until they were awakened the next morning by birdcalls and chattering squirrels. It was going to be a clear, sunny day for the first time since he’d met April, and Mitch knew they would be able to cover a lot of ground that day.

  He went back down to the creek they’d crossed before stopping for the night and searched the banks until he found what he was looking for—a seep spring welling up out of clay—a pure source of drinking water from which he could refill their water bottles without worry. Finding safe drinking water was rarely a problem along the creeks where such springs were common, but by following the pipeline they would have to cross long stretches of higher ground through barren pine forests. He was glad for the bottles as it was too far between water sources to walk without carrying at least a small supply.

  They were on their way east again just as the dawn gave way to bright sunshine lighting the way ahead. Mitch said he hoped they would get east of Highway 49 by early afternoon, but that they wouldn’t make it all the way to the family farm until the next day. They were down to very little in the way of food—just the few remaining energy bars he had—but he figured they could make the rest of the hike to his house on those if they had to. He wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to take another rabbit or other game that presented itself, but he didn’t want to go out of his way or spend a lot of extra time hunting, either.

  They were able to hike all morning at a steady pace thanks to the efforts of a clearing crew that had apparently been working on this section of the right-of-way not long before the blackout. With little underbrush to contend with and a recent rutted road made by heavy equipment, they walked at full stride, slowing down only when the pipeline crossed a rural road. Most of these roads were roughly paved, but some of them were just graded gravel. Mitch told April the gravel ones were U.S. Forest Service roads, and that there were many miles of them in the national forest.

  Each time they came to a road of any sort, April waited while Mitch reconnoitered ahead, since he was wearing full camouflage. It wasn’t worth taking a chance of being seen if it wasn’t necessary. But these remote roads were little used even in normal times, and today they crossed them without incident. It was not until they came to the highway that they saw people.

  “Is that Highway 49?” April asked as they paused in a patch of high grass at the crest of a ridge, looking down at a four-lane highway that intersected the pipeline and lay in their path.

  “Yes,” Mitch said. “There’s nothing else it could be. It’s running north and south, and 49 is the only four-lane in these parts.”

  “How will we get across it without being seen?”

  “We may not,” Mitch said. He was watching the stream of people walking along the wide lanes of pavement, threading their way between stalled vehicles. It was a scene very similar to what he’d left behind in New Orleans, except this was an area well out from any large cities. It was midday Sunday, almost a week since the pulse event. He figured that by now, enough time had passed that many people, like him and April, would have had time to walk quite far, if they were motivated. And by now, many other people who probably sat tight right at first not knowing what to do, were now on the move, trying to get home, searching for their loved ones, or looking for safe refuge, food, and everything else they would need. The majority of them were headed north, but there were a few going south as well. As they watched the widely dispersed foot traffic from their vantage point, they saw an occasional bicyclist weaving through the pedestrians at a faster pace.

  “Let’s get closer,” he said. “We need to get over in the woods, out of the right-of-way and sneak up as close to the road as we can and watch for a few minutes. Most of these people are probably harmless, but we can’t be too careful. We sure don’t want to try and cross in full view of some gang of thugs like those guys back on Highway 11.”

  ELEVEN

  April crouched in the underbrush at the edge of the woods alongside Mitch. From their place of concealment, some thirty yards from the southbound lanes of the highway, they could see roughly a mile of the roadway in each direction. In this cross-section of highway, there were dozens of abandoned vehicles: cars, pickup trucks, minivans, SUVs, and eighteen-wheelers. They weren’t as densely packed as on the Interstate out of New Orleans, but this was a busy highway nevertheless, connecting the Gulf Coast cities, including Gulfport and Biloxi, with Hattiesburg, Jackson, and other parts of the state to the north.

  The refugees traveling the road were moving in singles, twos and threes, and occasional larger groups clustered together. They were strung out along the way as far as she and Mitch could see. Most were moving slowly, burdened by stuff they were carrying in unwieldy travel bags or luggage, some even attempting to drag large suitcases on rollers over the rough pavement. Only a few were equipped with proper backpacks, and some were pushing or pulling various wheeled load carriers, including wheelbarrows and shopping carts. The few bicyclists were threading among the walkers at an only slightly faster pace, because most of them were overloaded and riding cheap department store bikes ill-suited for long distance travel. She saw that many of the refugees had guns: rifles or shotguns carried by hand or on slings, or handguns worn in plain sight, strapped to their bodies. As they watched there was even one family of four that passed them going north on horseback, all their mounts equipped with saddlebags. The man at the lead of the group had a heavily loaded packhorse in tow, and slung over his shoulder was an assault rifle with a long magazine protruding from the receiver. He looked confident and well prepared, and the woman and two preteen boys riding close behind him appeared to be relaxed and well-acquainted with horseback travel. Where they were going, April could only guess, but she got a good look at all of them as they rode close by at a walking pace in the grass beside the highway.

  The flow of human traffic paid no regard to the north or southbound lanes of the four-lane highway, and people moving in both directions used whatever lane they wanted to. There was a narrow median between the two, which was sparsely wooded in some stretches but still open eno
ugh that April and Mitch could see most of all four lanes.

  “What do you think?” she whispered.

  “I say we go,” Mitch said. “I don’t see anybody that looks too crazy. Let’s wait until those folks get a little farther along, so we don’t spook their horses, and then we’ll go.”

  April followed when Mitch walked out of the woods a few moments later. He carried his bow loosely in one hand, down by his side, but there was an arrow on the string just in case he needed it. The horseback riders were now over a hundred yards away, moving north. About the same distance to the south was another group of four people, also walking north, in their direction. They appeared to be two couples traveling together, struggling under the weight of their heavy bags. They stopped immediately when Mitch stepped into the road wearing his camouflage and carrying the bow and arrow, and April didn’t blame them. She waved to put their minds at ease and one of the men waved back, but they didn’t start walking north again until she and Mitch were both across the median and into the northbound lanes.

  As they reached the far side of the highway, Mitch paused for a moment to stare at something in the distance farther south along the road. April saw that it was a circling mass of black vultures, far more than she had ever seen concentrated in one place. They were wheeling through sky, landing and taking off from the tops of the pine trees near a tangled mass of wrecked cars. Many more were clustered in large groups on the ground, hopping around and fighting among themselves over whatever it was they had gathered to feast upon. April did not have to use much imagination to figure out what it was. “I’m sure glad we don’t have to walk the highway like all these other people,” she said. “It’s a hopeless situation for most of them, isn’t it?”