The Forge of Darkness (Darkness After Series Book 3)

by Scott B. Williams

  Thanks to her lifelong familiarity with the land, Lisa managed to lead them unerringly to the bay thicket where the canoes were hidden, despite the darkness. They removed the branches and debris covering two of them and turned them upright to carry them to the water. Mitch always kept paddles lashed to the thwarts in all the boats, so once they reached the creek bank, all they had to do was untie them and go.

  Eighteen

  “DID YOU SEE HOW many of them there were?” Drake asked when Chuck stepped off the porch to meet him as they rode into the yard.

  “No, I couldn’t see a damned thing! Kenneth and I heard two gunshots over there at the edge of the woods. One was a high-powered rifle and the other one was a .22 like the one we heard earlier. Hanberry is down, and I’m pretty sure he’s dead.” Chuck pointed to a body sprawled in the grass at the edge of the shadows. “I don’t know about Mosley. I haven’t seen him at all, so it doesn’t look good. When we heard those shots, Kenneth stepped out the door to see what was going on, and took three rounds from that .22 and went down. I wasn’t close enough to the door to see the muzzle flash, so I still don’t know exactly where they were shooting from, but I dumped over half a mag into the tree line there behind Hanberry. There wasn’t any return fire and they didn’t shoot at any of you when you rode up, so I think they must have run off. I still haven’t seen or heard from Mosley.”

  “How bad is Kenneth hit?”

  “It’s bad, Drake; two rounds through the gut and lower chest, and one in the pelvis; probably hi-velocity .22 hollow points. He’s not gonna make it.”

  “Dammit! And Marcus and Bobby might be dead too! I sent Clint and three of the others with him to try and find that bastard with the shotgun. He’s still out there somewhere.”

  “Yeah, we heard the shots out that way before this happened here at the house.”

  Drake turned to his remaining men and ordered them to check the area beyond Hanberry’s body before asking Chuck what he and Kenneth had found in the house.

  “We could tell there were several people living here; some of them women or girls for sure. One of them has a little kid too. It looks like they’ve been here a long time, probably ever since the lights went out. We were going to check the barn when Mosley and Hanberry got here, but that never happened. There’s a game warden’s pickup parked out back of the house for some reason.”

  “Is that right? That could explain the asshole with the shotgun then. Whoever he is, he’s got some woodcraft. We’ll check all that stuff out later. Let me take a look at Kenneth.”

  Drake found Kenneth doubled up on the floor, soaked in blood and obviously in a lot of pain. Chuck was right. His chances weren’t good. The damned thing about those little .22 bullets was that they could zip around inside a body once they penetrated, ricocheting off bone in all kinds of crazy directions. There was just no telling what kind of internal damage the three rounds had done. As he sat there lying to Kenneth that he was going to be fine, the other men came back with their report after checking the perimeter:

  “Mosley and Hanberry are both stone dead! We found Mosley just inside the woods, shot right between the eyes, and it looks like Hanberry took a bullet in the back of the head. Whoever it was that shot them took off in a hurry though. They had moved some blankets and other stuff out of the house, but they left it piled up and ran, it looks like.”

  “They probably moved that stuff out there when they first heard the shooting out at the road,” Drake said. “Chuck’s M4 must have convinced them they didn’t need it as bad as they thought they did. I doubt they’ll go far in the dark in this weather. Clint and the others will find the one with the shotgun—he’s probably in charge here—and we’ll track down the rest in the morning. I’m not going to let them get away with killing Mosley and Hanberry, not to mention Kenneth. Chuck’s right, he won’t last until morning. That’s three good men right there, and that’s not counting Marcus and Bobby, who I’m afraid might be shot too. And then there was that no account boy of Kenneth’s they got first. That’s four lost in one raid and more likely, six! Damn! It’s been a long time since we’ve had a day like this!”

  * * *

  Benny moved as quickly as he could in the dark, cutting through the woods on the shortest route back to the house. It was essentially the same route he and Lisa and Stacy had taken that afternoon when they set out to find a Christmas tree. He knew the men on horseback would be using the gravel lane to get to the house, and he wished now they’d done more to make it less appealing to visitors. The lane made it obvious that a house was nearby, even though Mitch had removed the mailbox months before. If the condition of the barbed wire fences and the presence of the cattle weren’t evidence enough, in the daylight the house and barn were visible through the trees from certain angles along the road. And while the gate at the entrance might discourage honest passerby, Benny knew men such as these could simply ride their horses around it after cutting the fence.

  The extra weapons he carried slowed him a bit, but Benny expected he would need them soon. Both of the rifles he took off the men he killed were imported eastern European AK-47s, modified to semi-auto for the civilian market. Such weapons had been plentiful and cheap at gun shows and pawn shops before the blackout and were a common choice now among the thugs who were out to raid and pillage in the aftermath of the collapse. Benny didn’t like them for his personal use, because in his opinion most weren’t accurate enough to be worth a damn for hunting. But they were reliable and would give him a lot of firepower, even if he only had the single 30-round magazine that was in each when he picked them up.

  Benny didn’t know exactly what he was going up against, but he knew he needed more than his shotgun. He was pretty sure the automatic fire he’d heard from the house wasn’t from an AK though. The rate was different, more like multiple 3-round bursts back-to-back than straight full-auto, and he figured if these men were wasting ammo on spray and pray this long after the collapse, it was probably a common caliber like 5.56mm they could have easily gotten more of in their pillaging. They may have even stolen the weapon from a law enforcement vehicle or taken it from an officer they killed along the way.

  Benny hadn’t gone far before he came upon the wheeled travois, abandoned and lying over on its side in the leaves. Seeing the outline of it there in the dark was heartbreaking; his hopes it would be of use in getting Tommy safely to the house completely shattered. The girls had not gotten there with it in time, but Benny knew it wasn’t their fault. He had made the mistaken assumption that there was only one shooter at large and had left Tommy to go find him. He would have dragged Tommy all the way home right by himself if he’d had any idea so many more were closing in on the farm. But he hadn’t known, and neither had the girls.

  The girls might still be unaware Tommy was dead for all he knew. Since they’d left the travois here, he thought they might have heard the men’s voices or the sounds of the horses and turned back to go and warn April. The other possibility was that the men had seen them first and taken them. But the fact that he’d heard a .22 during all the shooting from the house gave him hope the latter wasn’t the case. If Lisa was involved in the shootout, she had made it back to the house, but there had been only silence after the burst of automatic fire he’d heard in answer to the .22. Benny didn’t want to assume the worst, but there were a lot of bad possibilities. One thing was certain now though—some of the intruders were already at the house. He just hoped April had gotten the warning and gotten her child out in time.

  As he neared the yard, he slowed his pace while slipping through the last trees separating the woods from what had once been a well-trimmed front lawn. He’d just heard some of the horses coming down the lane, and as he picked his way to a point where he could see the house from the shadows, he saw several men dismount in front of the porch. Another stranger already inside stepped out of the house to greet them, and Benny figured they were discussing what had happened there with all the shooting. He saw two of the men head f
or the woods off to one side of the house and that’s when he noticed something lying in the grass at the edge of the yard. Benny could tell it was a body, but from where he stood he could not discern if it was male or female, friend or foe.

  He still had no idea if April and Kimberly or any of the other girls were inside or not. Because of this, an outright attack on the men gathered there was out of the question, even aside from the great risk it would involve, going up against so many armed men alone. It was a real dilemma for Benny, because if they were inside he had no doubt as to what these men would do to them and there wasn’t much time to act if he were to get them out. But if Lisa had managed to warn April and all of them had escaped to the woods, it would be foolish for him to hang around near the house and risk getting shot. The only way he was going to know was to get closer, and Benny figured the best thing he could do was to work his way to the side yard where he could see that body. Once he knew whether or not it was one of his friends, he would then study the house and barn from that closer position where he might see or hear a clue as to whether or not any of them were still in there.

  Benny was so focused on the scene before him that the possibly of danger from behind was the farthest thing from his mind. After all, he could see several of the horsemen right there in front of him at the house, and he’d killed the two they’d left behind where Tommy and the boy lay dead. The rainfall that aided him in making a stealthy approach muted any audible warning he might have had too. And so it was that just as Benny was about to take his first step, he was frozen in place by a voice just a few feet behind him:

  “Make one move and you’re dead! I want you to drop that shotgun and then slowly unsling those rifles and drop them too. Don’t turn around. Don’t look back. Just do it!”

  Nineteen

  APRIL FELT A WAVE of relief wash over her the moment David pushed the canoe off the sand bar and handed Kimberly back to her. Afloat on the dark waters of the creek, she had the sense she really had escaped, at least temporarily, from the nightmare they were leaving behind on the farm. As she’d learned from her first time to paddle one with Mitch, a canoe would leave no tracks. The creek would take them to a place of safety, and if where they went first didn’t seem far enough, they could continue downstream on the current as long as necessary.

  David and Samantha paddled the canoe while she sat amidships in it with Kimberly, Lisa and Stacy paddling the other one. They were all in agreement that they should only go as far downstream as the first sandbar on the opposite side of the creek from the Henley land. It was about a quarter mile away, and difficult to reach without a boat. The men wouldn’t find them there in the dark, but they would still be close enough to Mitch’s usual route to and from his hunting grounds to intercept him and the guys in the morning.

  “It’s going to be all right, Kimberly. You’re being such a good girl! We’re going to have a big adventure camping out tonight, you’ll see.”

  April knew Kimberly was confused by this sudden departure into the woods at night and in the rain at that. But she’d been through worse in the months since the collapse and was remaining surprisingly calm and agreeable. Her crying had nearly gotten them killed back in the woods by the house, but April understood how frightened she must have been at first. It was a relief that she was now going along for the ride like this was really all in fun.

  It was even darker out on the creek tonight than it had been that first night out here with Mitch. With the heavy overcast preventing even starlight from penetrating the gloom, they bumped into logs and were swept by the current into overhanging branches they couldn’t even see until they felt them slap against their faces. After this happened a time or two, Lisa said she was glad it was winter, and relatively cool, or else they would have the additional worry of a snake falling into the boat.

  “Do you think they’re looking for us now?”

  “I don’t know, David. It would be hard to find anybody in these woods at night, especially for people who’ve never been here. They probably don’t even know there’s a creek back here. I’ll bet they’ll wait until morning.”

  “Yeah, and besides, they’re probably going through everything in the house tonight,” Lisa said, the anger making her voice tremble. “They’ll eat all the food we have left and take everything we own!”

  “I know. I don’t even want to think about it. It just makes me sick.”

  “Benny might stop them,” David said. “If he found out they killed Tommy, he will kill all of them.”

  “Or die trying. That is, if he hasn’t all ready. I’m worried about him.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Samantha said. “Even if he’s okay, he’ll never be the same after losing Tommy like that.”

  April had been so preoccupied with getting Kimberly out of the house and to safety that she had not allowed herself to think too much about the fact that Tommy was actually dead. She knew it would hit her hard, probably starting now, since they were relatively safe for the moment and were still facing several hours of darkness during which she doubted she would sleep. Benny and Tommy had saved her and Kimberly from a fate she did not even want to think about. She had seen nothing but good in either of them. Both had hearts of gold and their presence at the farm had been a blessing in so many ways. Everyone there liked them and both of them were so grateful to have a place to call home after their many months of drifting up and down Black Creek, living off the land. April hoped Benny would survive this—both the risk of getting shot himself and the risk that he would simply die of a broken heart after losing both his wife and his only son in such a short period of time. She wished he were here now, with the rest of them so they could talk to him and comfort him. The reality though, if Benny was even still alive, was that he was out there in the dark rain somewhere too, no doubt looking for them while trying to elude the men who were hunting him.

  The big sandbar that was their destination was easy enough to find even in the dark. When they reached it, they pulled the two canoes up to the highest level and turned them over, for shelter from the rain. It was cramped, with all five of them and Kimberly lying under the two narrow hulls, but better than sitting out in the weather all night. April just hoped dawn would come soon, and that the rain would stop when it did.

  “All I wanted to do was find a Christmas tree,” Stacy said. “I should have known that was stupid. We can’t have Christmas again the way things are. And now we don’t even have a house to put a tree in if we’d found one.”

  “It’s not stupid,” Samantha said. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to have Christmas. And we haven’t lost the house yet. Don’t forget that when Mitch and your brother and your cousin come back, they’ll figure something out. We may have that Christmas tree anyway. It’s still almost two weeks until Christmas.”

  “Even if we did, it wouldn’t be the same without Tommy and Uncle Benny,” Lisa said.

  April knew she was right. Just like her dad had been right. The only thing she could count on in this life she now knew was that nothing would ever be the same again.

  * * *

  Benny did exactly as he was ordered. There was no uncertainty in the voice of the man who’d slipped up on him out of the dark, and he had no doubt that he would be dead if he made one wrong move. He opened his hand and let his beloved Remington fall to the ground beside him, and then without turning or looking back, slowly reached up first to his right shoulder and then his left to dump the slung AKs to the ground behind him. He knew there was no use berating himself for his stupidity, but it was entirely his fault. He had been so upset about Tommy and so focused on sneaking up on the house to check on the girls that he’d been careless about his own back trail. These men were more organized and more experienced than he’d given them credit for. Now at least one of them had gotten the drop on him and he had only himself to blame. But when the man spoke again, Benny knew there was more than one:

  “I think Kenneth is going to be pretty happy when he sees what we’ve found for
him, Clint.”

  “Yeah, it will make him feel better, I’m sure. You hear that old man? You’re about to meet the father of that kid you shot in cold blood out there. What do you have to say about that?”

  Benny said nothing, nor did he turn to look at his captors. He just stood there in the edge of the woods and waited, until they ordered him to move forward.

  “Just keep it nice and slow. We’re going to walk up to the front porch. Pick up his shotgun and those AKs, P.J. And blow that horn to let Langley and Gerald know to come on to the house. They’re probably still out there looking around by the road.”

  The man sounded the horn and Benny knew it was the one he’d heard earlier that had been a signal to the men on horseback. Benny did as he was told and walked at a deliberate pace ahead of one who was right behind him, prodding him with what he was sure was the muzzle of a rifle. He knew they’d probably kill him anyway, but it would be nice to stay alive at least long enough to learn whether April and the others had gotten out of the house or not.

  “HEY DRAKE! KENNETH! LOOK WHAT WE GOT!” the man behind him shouted, when they were ten feet from the porch.

  Half a dozen horses were tied up to the railing, but all the men were apparently inside until the man’s announcement brought them out. Benny recognized the tall leader he’d seen earlier when he’d been watching from the woods while the horsemen waited on their signal. He hadn’t gotten a good look at him then, but now he couldn’t help but notice the man’s wild braided beard that hung down to his upper chest. Benny figured he might have been an outlaw biker or prison inmate in the world before the collapse, or maybe he was just trying to look like a viking warrior. It made him look fierce, no doubt, but at this point Benny wasn’t afraid of him or anybody else.