by John Grit
“Any shooting starts while you’re out there in the open, just dive for cover. Shouldn’t take me long to find him and take him out. The clearing’s not very large, so he couldn’t be far away. Just stay down so he can’t get a bullet into you.”
Nate smiled. “Listen to us. We’re 99.9% sure there’s no one out there.” Before Deni could respond, he stood and walked away, slipping into the wall of flora and sinking into the darkening gray woods.
She swallowed and said to no one, “Can’t be too careful.”
An outcropping of trees that protruded into the clearing more than ten feet afforded Nate a little more concealment and cover before he was forced to bolt out into the open and rush to the entrance to the cave. He squeezed past the tree he and Brian had planted, and pressed in behind it to get at the entrance to Mel’s cave. He had to fish around in his pockets for the key. Reaching around behind a limestone boulder, he withdrew several hidden bolts that prevented the door from opening even when unlocked. The hinges were rusty and protested when he pulled it open, taking most of his strength to do so. The door probably weighed over 200 pounds, since it was made of cold rolled steel.
Even with the door swung wide open, little light entered the cave because of the tree growing in front of the entrance. He lit a match and used the light from it to help him find a kerosene lantern sitting on a small table. The same match lit the lantern, but he did burn his fingers a little while doing so.
Nate stepped past the five gallon buckets of wheat, rice, and dried beans and headed for the cans of freeze-dried food and quickly stuffed his pack full of a variety of meals. In less than five minutes he was out of the cave and rushing toward the tree line near the large limestone rock he’d told Deni he was going to head for.
He slipped into the shadows, ten feet back from the edge of the clearing, and caught his breath, relieved that no one had taken a shot at him while he was in the open. Moving on to Deni, he dropped to one knee and grabbed her pack. The two exchanged glances, but neither said a word. He stood up and moved to a different location before darting across the clearing again and disappearing into the cave. A few minutes later, he came out with her pack bulging with more freeze-dried food. Before emerging from behind the tree, he took the time to lock the cave door and reinsert the hidden bolts.
This time Deni saw him coming. She grabbed his pack and walked the last 20 yards to him. Together, they slipped farther back from the edge of the clearing and carefully snuck out of the area. An hour and a half later, they were with the others and enjoying their first real meal in days.
“Don’t eat too much, guys,” Deni warned. “We’re going to be hitting the trail again in a few minutes, and full stomachs will weigh you down.”
Brian swallowed his last spoon full of lasagna. “So you two have decided it’s safe to check out the farm now?”
Nate folded the can opener on his Swiss pocketknife and put it in his pocket. “We’ll ease back down into the low country on the edge of the river valley and then make our way south until we get within a few miles of the farm. Then Deni and I’ll leave you three and go on in the rest of the way alone. Won’t be time to do all that before dark, so we’ll be camping out in the woods again tonight.”
“And if there’s trouble at the farm, then what?” Atticus asked. “Are we going to be living out here in these woods for the next ten years?”
Tyrone stopped chewing, but didn’t say anything. He looked at Atticus in a way that revealed he was worried about him.
“If there are soldiers at the farm, there’s no point in picking a fight with them,” Nate answered. “They won’t be there forever. In a week or two, they’ll be called away. They might burn down my house and barn before they leave. But they’re not likely to find our caches buried out in the woods nearby. It’s those caches we need at the moment. We can always go to one of the many hunting shacks out here in the woods and stay there a few months. But we need supplies to do that. We already know Mel’s place is safe at the moment. So we can go back there and get more food before leaving the area and looking for one of those hunting shacks to stay in for a while. Either way, we won’t be sleeping on the ground out in the woods for much longer.”
Deni tried to encourage Atticus. “You’ve been standing up to all of this well so far. It looks like it might be over soon, or at least the worst part of it.” She put on a brave face and rubbed her stomach. “My spirits are a lot brighter now than they were when I woke up this morning. A full stomach will do that for you.”
Atticus laughed quietly, keeping his voice low. “Yeah, I know what you mean. But there ain’t any of us likely to be gaining weight anytime soon.” He glanced at Tyrone. “Don’t worry, I haven’t given up yet.”
Adding to Deni’s efforts, Nate added, “There’s a good chance there won’t be anyone at the farm.”
Brian blew dust off the lens of his Aimpoint sight and adjusted the brightness of the red dot while aiming his rifle at a tree. “That don’t mean we can just move back home though. We’re still being hunted by the government.”
Atticus sighed and pretended to be devastated. “Shit, Brian. Don’t you know Deni and Nate were trying to cheer me up? You just spoiled all their efforts.” He shook with laughter and scratched at his grizzled beard.
Nervous release soon had everyone rolling on the ground laughing.
“Might as well laugh as cry,” Atticus said.
It was Nate who put an end to it. “Okay guys, quiet. We are still being hunted.” He slipped into his pack and grabbed his rifle. “You have a minute to make sure you don’t leave anything behind. Then we’re moving out.”
Deni cleared her throat. “He’s worried. We’ve had people hunt us before, but when it’s the government after you, you’re basically at war.”
“We’ve had the Army after us before,” Brian reminded her. “And he’s been in a real war.”
She put her hand on Brian’s shoulder. “I know,” she said softly. “We’ve all been in a kind of war since the plague, and it’s wearing us down. Before we got ourselves into this last jam, he was hoping we could go back to the farm and find some peace, at least for a while. Everyone here has lost friends and family, so I don’t have to tell you how he feels.”
~~~
Nate purposely chose a route that provided them the best cover from the air. Highflying drones could not be seen or heard, and newer attack helicopters could spot targets on the ground from over the horizon, long before their targets knew they were in danger. They moved silently through a heavily forested area, staying in the shadows as much as possible and always undercover, skirting any clear area they came across.
By nightfall they were where they wanted to be and set up a simple bivouac camp.
Nate quickly ate and grabbed his rifle. “Deni and I’ll take first watch. That way we’ll get plenty of sleep before leaving early in the morning.”
Deni wiped her hands on her dirty pants and stood. “Just so you know. Nate and I have decided that if we run into trouble at the farm, we’re not heading back this way. We’ll lead anyone hunting us in the other direction. So we’ll be heading south.”
Atticus and Tyrone exchanged furtive glances.
Brian started to protest. “That’s bullshit.”
Nate had walked away from the others, but he turned and came back. “Just sit tight, keep your eyes and ears open. Don’t make any noise. Don’t build any fires. Stay right here and wait for us, unless you know danger is coming close and you have to leave. If that happens, move upriver and wait it out. When you think it’s safe, go back to Mel’s cave and get more food.” He handed a ring of keys to Brian. “Don’t come looking for us. If we don’t make it back here in a couple days, it means you can’t do a thing for us.”
Brian fumed, but remained quiet. Finally, he looked at Deni and Nate and said, “Just come back.”
Deni tried to smile. “We will.”
~~~
False dawn turned the dark and brooding forest gray.
Though winter had finally released its cold grip on the land, the early morning hours still brought with it a cold that seeped through a jacket and left anyone standing watch shivering. Atticus felt the cold the most, but even the youngest one among them was not immune to it at this early hour.
Thankful to be able to move again and get his blood circulating, Brian emerged from heavy brush where he had been hiding while on watch and stepped over to Nate where he slept beside Deni. He reached down and shook his father’s shoulder and quickly stepped back while calling to him in a low voice just loud enough he knew Nate could hear. “Time to wake up.” Past experience had taught him it could be dangerous to wake his father from deep sleep. “Combat veterans are like that,” his late mother had told him when he was five. She went on to explain that she always woke Nate by poking him with a broom handle. That put her at a safe distance, or at least out of reach. By the time the plague hit, Nate’s demons had nearly gone away, or at least that’s what those closest to him had thought, but Brian and Deni both had noticed a change in him over the last few months. He had come close to losing Brian and Deni too many times, and the stress was starting to show. The horrible death of Kendell had affected him as much as Brian. His mood, words, and actions told Brian especially that something had changed within him. Nate’s old saying that if you keep kicking at rattlesnakes, sooner or later you’ll get bit was his way of saying that he was becoming ever more worried their luck was running out. Yes, they had lost friends, close friends, but Nate was still fighting on only because he still had Brian and Deni. If he lost them, he might lose the will to go on. Mentally and physically exhausted himself, Brian understood the feeling.
The first thing Nate did was grab his rifle.
“Time to wake up,” Brian said again, just to be sure.
Nate sat up and looked around. “Yeah,” he said, in a whisper barely audible to Brian only a few feet away.
Deni woke up on her own.
Nate whispered to her, “Time to go.”
She coughed. “This will either turn out to be a really good day, or a really really bad one.”
“As long as we make it back here alive and unhurt,” Nate muttered. He quickly rolled his sleeping bag up and stuffed it in the top of his backpack. “We’ll eat a little something before we go, but we better make it quick.”
“No fire and no hot coffee, I presume,” Deni quipped.
“No eggs, bacon, grits, and biscuits, either,” Nate whispered.
Deni made a face. “I can’t stand grits. Must be a Southern thing.”
“I can take them or leave them myself,” Nate responded. “Brian hates them. I guess this is when I say something about painting with a broad brush or something.”
Deni fished for some freeze-dried food in her pack. “Yeah, you remember that the next time you two or one of our friends start in on Yankees.”
Brian smiled in the fast-brightening woods. “You guys must be married. Be careful today. I’m going back on watch.” He slipped into the shadows and found a place to hide.
Nate and Deni had nothing else to say while eating their meager meal and listening to Atticus snore. In less than ten minutes, they grabbed their packs and rifles and disappeared into the gray, brooding forest.
Traveling quiet meant traveling slow. With less than four miles to the farm, they were in no hurry. Rushing through the woods could get them killed. Veterans themselves, they knew how well soldiers were trained to ambush, and they took every precaution. The closer they got to the farm, the slower they traveled and the more they used their eyes and ears, constantly scanning, searching for any sign of danger. Their senses on high alert and turned to full volume, the two felt ever more alive as they crept ever closer to what could be their death. Each had total confidence and trust in the other. Past experience had given them that more than the fact they loved each other. They had both seen the elephant many times and proven themselves.
In between overworking their eyes and ears in a desperate attempt to see and hear their enemy before their enemy saw them, they examined any bare ground they came across for boot prints. Not finding any was of little relief.
They approached the fields on the west side of the farm and stayed as far back from the tree line as they could and still see anything. Nate scanned what little he could see with his binoculars. “The field has grown up so much I can’t see more than the roof of the house and barn from here. Where I last grew tomatoes, the weeds are as tall as a man in places.”
“We’ll have to circle around and get closer to the house.” Sweat trickled from under Deni’s helmet and down her right temple. The day had grown warmer as the sun had climbed in the sky. “We might even go a little further and check out the driveway for sign anyone’s been down it lately.”
Nate slipped his binoculars under his jacket and let it hang from his neck. “Good idea. We’ll do that first and then come back to the house and have a look from a distance.”
Thirty minutes later, they were both relieved somewhat, but still nervous. There was evidence the driveway had been used within a week or two, but only once. Tall weeds had grown up in the driveway and some of them had been flattened by a vehicle. Nate surmised it was probably a Humvee. Soldiers had come looking for them. Finding nothing, they left without burning the house or barn.
Deni kept low behind a pine tree. “They may have booby-trapped the place. I’m not so sure they refrained from burning the house and barn out of kindness. They could’ve left the buildings as bait for a trap.”
Nate nodded. “Yep.” He motioned with his head and eased away from the driveway and deeper into the woods, circling around so they could get a look at the house and barn.
The hardpan around the house and barn hadn’t grown up so much with weeds, and Nate could scan both buildings and the surrounding area with his binoculars from his position 20 feet back from the edge of the clearing and well hidden in the woods. He lowered his binoculars and bit his lower lip. Glancing at Deni, he shook his head. “I don’t see anything,” he whispered. “But I’m still nervous.” He considered the situation for about ten seconds, and then motioned for her to follow.
They retreated into the woods until Nate stopped and waited for her to catch up. He rubbed the salt-and-pepper stubble on his chin and appeared to still be considering what to do next. “I think we should go on to the road and see what’s going on there. There’s a hill about half a mile north of the drive. We’ll take advantage of it and have a good look-see with the binoculars.”
Squatting low next to him, she raised an eyebrow and regarded his face, as if she were trying to read his mind. “Okay. We can’t be too careful. An hour of time is certainly worth trading for all the hours of the rest of our lives.”
Nate started to move on.
“Wait.” Deni touched his arm as he went by.
He stopped and looked at her, his face a question mark.
“I’m mentioning this now, so you’ll have time to mull it over in your head over the next hour or so.” She tapped her military armor with her left forefinger and then her helmet. “I should be the one that goes out there in the open when the time comes. I’ve got this armor and you’ve got a better sniper rifle than me.”
He shook his head and started to speak.
“Don’t answer now. You’ve got plenty of time to think about it. Decide after we get back here. I think you’ll agree that I’m right.”
His chest rose and fell in silence. He swallowed and then moved on without a word.
They stayed 50 yards back from the road until they reached the tall hill. Easing up on all fours, they got close enough to see what kind of prevailing brush grew along the side of the road at their exact location. Both of them covered their faces up to their eyes with olive drab mosquito netting and cut brush to add to their camouflage, helping each other diffuse the outline of their head and shoulders, attaching a few strategically placed leafy limbs to their backpacks. They wanted to be as difficult to spot as possible and weren
’t going to bet their lives on anything less than their best effort. Snipers were trained to be expert at spotting enemy hiding in brush from long distance, and they both knew it.
Nate scanned every inch of both the left and right side of the road as far as he could see from his angle. He also looked for tire tracks and boot prints both in the road and along the edge of the woods line, lingering long in the area where his driveway connected with the road. The driveway was too far for him to see any tracks or boot prints, but he examined it as closely as he could anyway. There just might be something that could warn him of danger. Perhaps a dark place in the clay where someone had dug and buried something like a landmine or even a motion sensor. He handed the binoculars over to Deni. “Have a look. You might catch something I missed.”
She spent 30 minutes examining every inch of the road and woods line. “Nothing,” she whispered, and handed the binoculars back to Nate.
They backed away from the road 30 yards, and then made their way to the other side of the hill’s crest, so they could have a look in the opposite direction. The results were the same. They found nothing suspicious. No sign of danger anywhere that they could see.
“Well,” Nate said, “let’s head back to the house.”
They came in from a different angle and scanned the scene with binoculars again. Still not satisfied, Nate tapped her on the shoulder and they backed off from the edge of the clearing. Fifty yards into the woods, they stopped to have a short conversation.
Nate removed his boonie hat and used it to mop his forehead. “In the interest of staying alive, I think we should head down to the river, cross to the south side of the farm, and then work our way up the hill and do the same thing all over again from the south side.”
Deni had a different idea. “Why not across the driveway and make our way around from the east? We can check out the road to the south a little better, also.”
Nate put his boonie hat back on. “It’s six of one, half a dozen of another. Your idea may actually turn out to be better. I just wanted to check out the river landing. They could have a boatload of soldiers down there waiting. Also, I have caches buried in the area to the south. On the other hand, they may have a platoon of soldiers waiting on the blind side of that curve south of the farm. If they do, we’ll be sorry if we don’t check it out.”
