The Darkness After: A Novel

by Scott B. Williams

  When he released the string and heard the solid thunk of the arrow strike, he knew he was right. The man fell in his tracks without uttering a syllable, and because the point was likely lodged in the back of his skull, the arrow did not over-penetrate to go flying across the clearing where the others might see or hear it. Mitch breathed a sigh of relief. The six men remaining around the fire were too occupied with their laughing and talking to have heard the sounds of the bowstring, the arrow strike, or the body when it fell. And Mitch knew that hours of looking into the fire would effectively blind them to anything in the dark shadows beyond the circle of light cast by its flames, making it impossible to see movement out here from their perspective.

  He was shooting from a low kneeling position, situated beneath the leafy foliage of several small bay trees that would keep him in the darkest shadows and hide the motion of drawing the bow. Before taking out the first man, he had placed several arrows at the ready on the ground in front of him, and next to them, the Remington 870 with a round in the chamber and the safety already off.

  Just as he’d expected, when the man he’d shot didn’t return to the fire after several minutes, the others began to wonder why. He heard them call his name and heard them ragging the second guy who walked straight to the side of the camper to look for his friend. Mitch waited until he was far enough from the fire that the others couldn’t see him but not quite close enough that he would see the body of the fallen one.

  When he released his second arrow, the shot was a repeat performance of the first. Like the first man, this one dropped instantly. Mitch readied another arrow immediately, knowing his luck with remaining unheard and unseen was about to run out. When one of the other five men called for the two in the woods and still didn’t get an answer from either, he got up with his weapon to come look. Mitch knew that the game was over and the real fight was on.

  He drew the bow and took down this third target, not caring that he was still out in the open among his friends, and when the man fell with an arrow through his chest, Mitch reached for the shotgun. The four remaining men never really had chance. The element of surprise was just too complete, and Mitch had eight rounds of double-aught buck shot at his disposal for as fast as he could pull the trigger and at a range from which he really couldn’t miss. The only thing he had to worry about was watching his line of fire to avoid shooting into the buildings behind his targets. When one of the men made a desperate attempt to low crawl under the trailer, Mitch hesitated to shoot because it was just too close, but then he heard the crack of April’s rifle and saw that he wouldn’t have to. The man collapsed to the ground, still moving but not going anywhere until she fired two more shots in rapid succession and then all was still in the clearing except for the dancing flames of the fire.

  Mitch reached into his pockets for more shotgun shells and fed them into the magazine by feel. A horrified scream startled him as he was about to step forward, and he saw a woman in a bathrobe with long, wild blonde hair run barefoot out into the clearing by the fire. She screamed again and then fell to the earth beside one of the men and wailed, grabbing him with both hands and shaking him as if to make him get back up. Mitch cautiously emerged from the woods and, keeping the shotgun leveled on the woman. He didn’t want to shoot her, though if he saw a weapon, he wouldn’t hesitate to do so. But she was so distraught over the dead man, she was not an immediate threat. Mitch kept her covered while he picked up the weapons the fallen men had dropped. There was a bolt-action deer rifle, a lever-action carbine, and, on the ground behind one of the chairs, an AR-15 that he recognized immediately as his dad’s patrol rifle. As he bent to pick it up, April walked into the firelight, her carbine also pointed in the general direction of the grieving woman.

  “Are you okay?” he asked April, still keeping his voice low.

  “I’m fine. I can’t believe they never even had a chance to shoot back.”

  “Yeah, so far, so good. But there could be others inside; she was,” he nodded at the woman, then stepped closer to question her.

  “I’m looking for my sister. I know these men took her and her friend. Where are they?”

  The woman ignored him until Mitch got her attention by pushing the muzzle of his shotgun against the side of her head.

  “Inside,” she said.

  “Is there anyone else in there?”

  “No! Everyone is dead! You’ve killed my husband!”

  Mitch turned back to April. “You wait here and keep her covered while I go look for Lisa and Stacy.”

  Not sure if the woman was telling the truth or not, he stepped into the shadows between the cabin and the mobile home, looking and listening before proceeding around to the front. He knew there was some risk of encountering another armed family member or friend of the seven slain men, but since they had been watching the camp for so long before the attack, he doubted there were any other men around. He couldn’t discount the possibility of another woman or a small boy with a gun, though, so he was extremely cautious.

  “LISA! STACY! ARE YOU IN THERE? IT’S ME, MITCH!”

  There was no reply. He called out their names again and then stepped around to the front of the trailer. The door was shut, but he noticed the door of the cabin was open. He figured the woman must have run out of that one, and he started up the steps, keeping the muzzle of the shotgun pointed ahead of him to clear the way if needed. He was about to call his sister’s name when he heard a frightened voice from just beyond the doorway.

  “Mitch?”

  “LISA!”

  His sister’s voice was unmistakable. He sprang up the steps and through the open door. The room he entered was a kitchen, with a roughly built table in the middle, on top of which was a burning kerosene lantern. The light from the oil lamp was bright enough to illuminate the whole interior, which was small and quite bare. Along the back wall was a wood stove and some plywood counters with a few pots and pans on them. Adjacent to that wall was one other small room that was connected to the kitchen by an entryway with no door. To close it off from the kitchen and the only exit from the cabin, someone had nailed several pieces of two-by-four and two-by-six lumber across it in a haphazard fashion to form bars. Mitch picked up the lantern and stepped closer, shining its light through the makeshift prison bars, where he saw two frightened but very much alive teenaged girls huddled together on the floor in the far corner.

  “LISA! STACY! Are you two okay? Are you hurt?” They looked all right, considering the circumstances, but both of them looked at him with wide eyes. Mitch remembered the wild camouflage patterns April had painted on his face and wiped at it with his sleeve. “Sorry about that. It really is me, Lisa.”

  He glanced back around the kitchen and the doorway he’d come through to make sure he was still alone. There was no one else here but the two girls. The woman wailing outside reminded him April was still out there, and he yelled to her to let her know Lisa and Stacy were here. The he saw an axe leaning against the wall near the woodstove and quickly dashed over and grabbed it.

  “You two stay back, Lisa! I’m going to get you out of there. He slung the shotgun over his back to get it out of the way and swung the axe with both hands, quickly hacking through the board barricade until he was able to pull the broken pieces aside and get through. Then he threw the axe down and rushed to crouch in front of Lisa and Stacy, taking them both into his arms and hugging them close.

  “I thought you were dead, Mitch,” Lisa cried. “I thought you and Momma and Daddy were all dead. Where are they? Are they here, too? I knew Daddy would find those bad guys and make them sorry for what they did if he was still alive.”

  “It’s all right, Lisa. I’ve been trying to get back to you ever since the lights went out. Momma and Daddy are not with me, but I’m sure they’re trying to get here, too. I’m sure it won’t be much longer.”

  “They killed my brother,” Stacy said, tears streaming down her face as she pulled away from Mitch’s embrace.

  “No! He’
s not dead, either. We found him, Stacy. That’s how I knew you two were here. Jason told us what happened. He was hurt bad, but he’s going to be okay. We took him back to my house. He’s there right now.” Mitch saw Stacy’s eyes light up, and Lisa was clearly happy to know that Jason was all right. Mitch didn’t see any sign that either of them had been hurt, and that was a surprise, considering Jason’s condition when he and April found him. “Are you sure you two are all right? Did those men do anything to you?”

  “No,” Lisa said. “That woman, the one that’s screaming so loud, she wouldn’t let them. They argued about it. One of them was her husband, and two of them were her brothers. They put us in here so we couldn’t get away. I don’t think she could have kept them away from us much longer, maybe not even tonight. There was another wife or girlfriend of one of them, too. She was arguing with them about leaving us alone, too, and I saw her get knocked down really hard by the man she was with. I don’t know where she is now. She ran away into the woods, I think.”

  Mitch was surprised that just two women had been able to stop all those men for so long, but then he thought they probably figured they had all the time in the world and that the two women who were protesting would give in eventually. He was glad he hadn’t shot the woman outside now that he knew she helped his sister, but he didn’t know what was going to become of her now.

  Were those seven the only men around? Did they have other friends and relatives that may come here later or may have been here and just gone somewhere temporarily? The one thing he did know was that he had no intention of hanging around to find out.

  “Come on. Let’s get out of here. Is that old truck still running okay, Lisa?”

  “I think so. They’ve been driving it around and coming and going in it ever since they took it and brought us here in it. I’ve been hearing it racing up and down the road out there. All they’ve been doing is drinking and raising hell.”

  “Well, they’re finished now. When we go outside, I want you two to try not to look at the bodies out there, okay? I used Daddy’s shotgun and my bow, and it’s not pretty and definitely not something you want getting stuck in your memory. I’ve got a friend out there I want you to meet, though, and I think you’re going to really like her.”

  “You’ve got a girlfriend?” Lisa asked.

  “Not exactly, she . . .” Mitch’s answer was cut short by the report of another gunshot from out back. His heart nearly stopped when he heard it, because he instantly knew it was not loud enough to be the sound of April’s 5.56mm carbine. It sounded more like the crack of a pistol shot. “Get down and stay where you are!” he ordered the girls, as he swung the shotgun around from his back.

  Before he could make it to the door, another shot stopped him momentarily in his tracks. This one was a rifle shot, he was sure of that. With his finger on the trigger, ready to blast anything that moved, he stepped outside and descended the steps to the ground. He stopped behind the corner of the building, and called out in a loud whisper, “April? Are you all right?”

  For a very long moment, there was silence. Then he heard a strained voice, “Mitch . . . Mitch!”

  It was April’s voice. He felt a huge relief just knowing she was alive, having feared the worst the instant he heard the shot. But when he rounded the corner and saw her down on her knees, using the carbine like a crutch under one arm and her hand bloody, clutching at the side of her chest, he feared the worst all over again. He took in the scene before him and instantly knew what had happened: the woman who had been weeping hysterically over the dead man on the ground was now sprawled lifeless on top of him, blood spreading onto her robe from the exit wound in her back. Beside her outstretched hand on the ground was a small stainless steel revolver, the kind designed for deep concealed carry, a weapon of last resort. She had shot April with it and then April had returned fire and killed her before going down herself.

  “APRIL!” Mitch was at her side in an instant. Seeing all the blood on the hand she was holding against the side of her rib cage nearly brought him to tears. “April! Where are you hit?” He put his hand over her bloody one, and with his other arm around her shoulders, eased her to the ground on her back, expecting her to fall over at any second.

  “I had no idea she was about to do that,” April said. “She was completely ignoring me, just hugging that man’s body and crying like I’ve never heard. Then, before I realized what was happening, she suddenly sat up and put her arm out toward me. I didn’t even realize she had a gun until she was pulling the trigger. It felt like fire burning through my side, and I realized I’d been shot. She tried to shoot me again, but her pistol just clicked. That’s when I shot her. I just did it without thinking.”

  Seeing her that way, Mitch felt like he was the one who’d been shot, but he knew he had to stay calm and show no fear or his panic would be infectious to April. “I know it hurts, but I’ve got to see where you’re hit,” he said steadily.

  April moved her hand away from the wound, but with Mitch’s mom’s black sweatshirt on, he couldn’t see anything, other than that the shirt was a bloody mess. He slid it up from her waist to the level of her bra strap and wiped away some of the blood from her rib cage. The wound was right in line with her second lowest rib; he could see where the bullet tore into skin and muscle, seemingly following the bone like the blade of a knife, ripping a narrow gash a few inches long and probably losing little velocity as it continued on. It couldn’t have hit any vital organs, but the nasty swath it cut made it bleed like mad, and the rib that deflected it had to be hurting her plenty.

  Mitch glanced back over his shoulder at the little revolver on the ground. It was a .22 caliber, like the rifle he normally hunted with. He had seen little .22 caliber, high velocity bullets do all kinds of strange things when they hit an animal. Sometimes they went under the skin and completely changed directions, doing incredible internal damage. April was lucky the bullet hit her rib at an angle that deflected it away from—rather than into—her chest cavity. People underestimated the .22 because it was so small, but Mitch knew better.

  “How bad is it?” April asked.

  Mitch smiled, feeling just as relieved as he had a moment ago when he had found his sister alive and unharmed. “You’re lucky. The bullet just grazed you. It might have cracked a rib, though, I don’t know. I do know you’re going to be sore for a while.”

  Satisfied that he was sure of the track of the bullet and that it had not lodged in her body, he held pressure on the wound with the bloody tail of the sweatshirt as he talked to her. “We’ll find something to wrap this with for now, and when we get back to the house, I’ll make a better bandage. I’m sorry I was so stupid. That man she was crying over must have had that gun on him, somewhere. I should have checked more carefully.”

  “It’s not your fault,” April said. “I should have been paying attention. I should have realized what was happening as soon as she raised her arm, and I should have shot her right then.”

  “It would have surprised anybody. I’m surprised, too, after what Lisa and Stacy just told me. It was this woman and another one that ran away who kept these men from the two of them all this time.”

  “You found Lisa and Stacy? They’re both okay?”

  “Yes. Here, let me help you over to the truck, and then I’ll go in and bring them out. I want you to meet my sister.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  When the four of them pulled out of the Wallace place, Mitch was driving, Lisa was sitting on the middle of the bench seat beside him, and April was curled up against the passenger’s side door, trying to make herself comfortable as she kept pressure on her wound to control the bleeding. Stacy volunteered to ride in the back of the truck to give April more room and help Mitch keep a lookout as they got out of the area as fast as possible.

  When they were up to speed on the road, April began to feel like they had actually pulled off their midnight raid and were going to get out of there in one piece—even if that piece was a little wor
se for the wear. She knew she was lucky, though. If that woman’s aim had been better it could have easily meant the end of the journey for her. The pain was bad enough, even if her wound wasn’t life threatening. She felt certain her rib was cracked, and the stinging sensation from where the bullet had cut through her flesh had barely abated, despite the two shots of whiskey she’d drank from a bottle Mitch found in the cabin.

  Taking part in the ambush of the seven men had been surreal for her, even before the deadly encounter with the grieving woman. She had mercilessly shot a man to death—a man who was trying desperately to crawl for cover—but in doing so she felt nothing. She had been in a state of detachment, acting as the scene unfolded. And when the woman shot her, her decisive reaction was practically automatic. Maybe all that would bother her later, but in reality, she doubted that it would. She certainly had no regrets about killing that man on the road the day she met Mitch, especially after learning of the murdered couple inside the nearby house.

  Other than getting shot herself, the biggest surprise for April was that they had succeeded in carrying out their plan and had actually found Mitch’s sister and her friend. She had not expected to find them in the condition they were in, if alive at all, after being in the hands of men capable of what they’d done to Jason. Before coming here, she had dreaded what they might find even if they succeeded in taking out the bad guys. It was simply amazing how well Mitch planned and executed that attack, given how little time he had to work with. She knew luck had played a large part in it, too, of course, especially the luck of having them all in one place, out in the open around that campfire. But Mitch’s skill with his bow and even the shotgun would impress anyone, and she was glad that she didn’t let him down by freezing up or hesitating when he needed her.