When they came with fifteen feet of us, they killed their engine. In the silence of the woods, the only sound was the pinging and ticking of their cooling engine. When they stopped in front of me, my eyes were immediately drawn to the front and rear cargo racks of the ATV. Strapped to the racks with bungee cords were two bulging backpacks.
We stared at each other, and I broke the ice, nodding at the two. “How’s it going?” I asked, hoping to set a friendly tone.
The driver nodded back, spat, and met my eye. “Alright, I reckon,” he said. “You folks camping?”
“Nah,” I said. “Not hardly. Just trying to get home. What are ya’ll up to?”
The two men were no longer meeting my eye, nor were they simply ogling the women as I might have expected. Their eyes moved over us, seeing what we carried, how many packs we had, if we had weapons visible – which we did not. Yet. They were assessing us, both as foes and for the potential value of what we might be carrying.
“We’re doing some hunting,” the rider in the back said. “Ya’ll seen any deer?” His speech was slow, heavily accented, and he wore an inappropriate smile. It was the expression of someone impaired by drugs or suffering a mental disability, or perhaps even that of a sociopath. I noticed a scar under his eye and several missing teeth.
I shook my head. “No, haven’t seen any deer.”
“Got a smoke?” he asked. “We’re out.”
I looked around to confirm that Randi wasn’t smoking, then replied. “No,” I said. “No smokers here.”
He nodded at me, not saying anything. He continued to look at me, smiling that odd smile, sizing me up. I could feel tension rising. The driver of the ATV wrung his hands on the handlebars, not sure where this was going, not sure if he should stay or drive off. It showed me that the dangerous man, the decision-maker, was the one in back. If this turned violent, my first shot would be aimed at him.
It was at this point that the offended liberals in our newly-formed group could not contain themselves.
“You shouldn’t have that four-wheeler on this trail,” Walt spat. Apparently the idea of people hunting on and defacing the trail was too much for him. “Look at what you’re doing to the trail. It will take years for that damage to repair itself.”
The two riders glanced at each other and grinned, each revealing teeth coated in flecks of smokeless tobacco. They were truly amused by the comment.
“What you gonna do?” the rider in back asked. “Tell on us? Who the fuck you gonna tell, college boy?”
“I w-will if I have t-to,” Walt stammered. “When I get out of here.” Walt raised his cell phone, snapping a quick picture of the men on the ATV, making a big show of collecting evidence.
I intervened then, waving an arm toward Walt to hush him up.
“He ain’t telling on nobody,” I said. “You all know as well as we do that there isn’t anyone right now who gives a shit if you all hunt up here or not. No one even cares if you ride on the trail now. None of that matters.”
“Damn straight,” said the man driving the ATV. “Nobody can’t do shit about it. You thinking you can do something about it, college boy?”
It was about this point that Walt realized he’d stuck his foot in it and he started to backpedal. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean it.’
I rolled my eyes. First Walt had provoked them and then he revealed his weakness by folding like a wet noodle. This wasn’t going to end well. “Forget him,” I said, gesturing at Walt. “He’s all talk. We’re out of here. Good luck hunting.”
“Where ya’ll headed?” the passenger asked, his attempt at friendliness chilling my blood. He was definitely a killer.
“West,” I said.
The driver gave us all another once over, then started his engine. He thumbed the throttle and accelerated away, his passenger giving us a parting nod and a non-committal grin that could have meant just about anything.
“We haven’t seen the last of those two,” I said to no one in particular as the sound of their engine faded down the trail.
“What do you mean by that?” Walt asked.
I looked at him and shook my head. “Let’s get out of here,” I said. “You’ve stirred the hornet’s nest.”
*
With our group experiencing a division from the tension of our earlier discussion about firearms, we cliqued up for the afternoon’s hiking. Walt and Katie hiked together, while my group stayed to themselves. We made good time, chugging away like machines and cresting a peak 4,000 plus foot peak known as The Priest. By early evening, we gradually lost elevation and were within an hour’s walk of the Blue Ridge Parkway. My plan was to overnight here, a good distance from the road, where we would hopefully be safer. Tomorrow, we would head for the Blue Ridge Parkway and follow it until we came to another road that would descend even further. If all went well, by nightfall we would be at my friend Lloyd’s place.
We had yo-yoed with Walt and Katie all afternoon, taking turns between our group leading and them taking the lead. I was in the lead when I reached the point where my GPS told me I was as close to the Blue Ridge Parkway as I wanted to get. I didn’t know for sure that the road was being utilized by travelers, but my gut told me to avoid people when possible. Tonight it was possible to avoid them. Tomorrow it might not be.
“Before you set up your gear, I have a plan,” I told the group when we had all made it to the clearing. “I don’t think we should set up right here beside the trail.”
They stared at me blankly.
“We need to pitch camp here at this clearing, but I think we need to sleep a little further back in the concealment of the woods,” I continued. “My gut tells me we might have company tonight.”
“Those men?” Katie asked. “Aren’t you being a little paranoid?”
I shook my head. “No, I’m not. Gary, did you notice the firearms?”
Gary’s face was slick with sweat and he appeared exhausted. “Single shot shotgun,” he stated. “Looked like a 12 gauge Harrington & Richardson or something similar. The lever gun was probably a Rossi .30.30. I know it wasn’t a Winchester because I’m familiar with those.”
“Are those expensive guns?” I asked.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “The shotgun is probably something you could pick up for under a hundred bucks. The Rossi is a little more but still on the low-end of the price scale.”
“Do you think those guys were locals or backpackers?” I asked Walt.
“Locals would be my guess,” he said. “They probably just wandered up here from their parents’ homes to look for game like they said.”
“Did you see their packs?”
“I saw they had packs,” he replied. “Didn’t see what brand.”
“Gregory Baltoros,” I said. “You ever price one?”
“We did,” Katie said with surprise. “They were close to $350 each.”
“What about the sleeping pads tied to those packs? Did you get a look at them?”
No one said anything.
“I did,” I said, answering my own question. “They were Thermarest Neoair. One on each pack. Anyone ever price one of those?”
Katie replied again. “Around $100 each.”
“So, we’re at nearly a thousand bucks and we’re not even to the contents of the packs yet,” I said. “Who carries that kind of gear? Local hunters or through hikers?”
The group responded with a dawning recognition of where I was going with this. Their faces wrinkled and their expressions grew dark.
“You think they may have killed hikers and taken their gear?” Walt asked.
“They got it somehow and I doubt anyone would give up that kind of gear willingly.”
Randi and Gary said nothing, clearly aware enough at this point in our journey that they should not be surprised with this possible scenario. They knew what people were capable of. We’d seen it with our own eyes.
“What do you propose?” Gary asked.
I took off my p
ack and set it in the cleared center of what was obviously an established and well-used campsite. It was right beside the trail and large enough for group camping. A firepit of blackened rocks formed a ring in the center.
“I think Walt and Katie should set their tent up here, just as they would if they were camping. We pitch a tarp here in an A-shape that restricts anyone’s ability to easily see inside it. We can leave a fire smoldering here and give the entire camp the appearance that we sacked out right here for the night,” I said.
“But we don’t?” Randi asked.
“No. We make a rough camp about a hundred feet over in that direction. It’s not likely to rain tonight so we don’t really need a cover over us. We can lay out a tarp and sleep on it with our blankets. I want to be far enough that they won’t stumble on us if they come up here, but close enough to know if anything crazy happens.”
The group pondered this.
“If they do come, and they find empty tents, won’t they just keep looking for us?” Walt asked. “Won’t we still be in danger?”
“We post a watch,” Gary said.
“Exactly,” I said. “With a group this size, a ninety minute shift should be sufficient. We rotate in and out until morning.”
“I won’t carry a gun,” Walt announced defiantly.
I couldn’t stifle a laugh, but it was not a friendly laugh. “I wouldn’t give you a gun,” I said. “I’d rather deal with an armed intruder than deal with someone who is scared of guns, doesn’t know shit about guns, and is wandering around my own camp with one. Both are dangerous.”
Walt’s virtue deflated. With nothing else to say, he dropped his pack and removed his tent, clearly too beat to argue. His action broke our inertia and we began setting up our own decoy shelter.
Since we weren’t actually intending to sleep in them, it went pretty fast. Walt and Katie had their tent up in a matter of minutes. For our own shelter, Gary strung paracord between two trees, draped a tarp over it, and weighted the ends down with rocks. Randi packed both ends with leaves to make it appear that we had created a leafy sleeping pad. When we were done, we moved as a group to an area a little deeper in the woods. We quickly located a sufficient spot and spent a few minutes dragging branches and debris out of the way. The area was covered in a thick moss that made any further padding unnecessary. We just spread our Tyvek tarp over the moss and had a surprisingly comfortable bed.
We offered to share with Walt and Katie but they found their own spot about a dozen feet away and rolled their sleeping bags directly out onto the moss. Walt and Katie were out of provisions, so I had planned on digging into my stash of rice and beans for dinner. After some discussion, we agreed that we could probably build a fire in the fire ring of the established camp, where our decoy shelters were set up. Leaving some burning embers in there would only help create the picture of it being our actual camp if we did end up having visitors that night.
Using a butane lighter and twigs, we had a blaze going in no time. Gary ended up digging into his stash for the beans and I provided the rice. He also had a pot about the size of mine in his own pack. Both pots had wire bails on the top for lifting them, so we rigged a system for hanging the pots over the fire. It was easier to control the temperature if you had the ability to raise and lower the pot. Both the rice and beans took some time to cook so we spent that time going over the details of the watch and determining where the sentry would be positioned.
By the time dinner was cooked, darkness was beginning to fall. We built up the fire in the decoy camp, scraped our pots clean and rinsed them with some of our water. Then we all headed back to bivy further in the woods. The plan was that Katie would take the first watch, then Walt, followed by me, Gary, and finally Randi. As we settled down for the night, I checked the chamber on my Beretta and made sure that there was one in the pipe. I considered the option of sleeping with it tucked under my side, but decided instead to leave it in the holster. If I awoke and took off running in a half-dazed state I didn’t want to forget the pistol and have to come back for it. In my exhausted state, this was as far as I got in turning the day’s events around in my head. I rested my head on my pack and was out in just a couple of minutes.
It was a shot that woke me. It was immediately followed by more in rapid succession. I knew at least one shot was from a shotgun. What I was hearing now sounded like a pistol. I bolted upright, flinging my blanket to the side. My first reaction was to reach for my headlight, but I hesitated, not wanting to have a blazing target on my forehead. My left hand shot out, patting along the ground cloth for Randi who should have been beside me. Her spot was empty, only a crumpled blanket left.
There was screaming. A man screaming.
“Gary!” I hissed.
“I’m here,” he said. “There’s a fire. Something’s burning.”
We stood, rising unsteadily on our stiff muscles on the uneven and unfamiliar terrain. I could see that Walt and Katie’s empty tent was on fire. I stumbled toward it. In the dim glow, I could see Walt seated in the spot that we had designated for a sentry. He was frozen in terror – the terror of a man jolted from his sleep.
“Where the fuck is Randi?” I whispered.
Gary shook his head rapidly but no words came out. I would have to deal with him later.
“Randi?” I whispered.
A scream came again, from the woods past the burning tent. The same man’s scream.
My Beretta was in my hand; I’d taken it from the holster at some point. I could not see Randi in the light from the now-fading fire and I didn’t want to go charging out into the open without knowing what was going on. I dropped to a crouch and started forward, staying concealed as best I could.
Another shot rang out, this one definitely from a high-powered rifle. It was followed by another that struck a tree high over my head. The shooter clearly had no one in his sights. He was firing randomly.
“Randi!” I said in a louder voice.
“Jim!”
“Where the hell are you, Randi?”
More screaming. “You fucking bitch!” the man yelled. “You shot me!”
Ahead and to my left I saw a flashlight illuminated and held in the air. She waved it around trying to get my attention.
“Turn that off and stay down,” I told her. “I’m coming.”
I scrambled toward her position, branches raking me across the face and neck. When I got to her side, I could barely see her but I could tell she was rolling around on her back, her hands scrabbling at her waist. I dropped to her side.
“Are you hit?” I asked urgently.
“No dammit,” she hissed. “I’m trying to get my freaking pants back on.”
“What happened?” I asked. “Who is that screaming?”
She cursed and wallowed some more, then managed to get her pants fastened and roll over into a sitting position.
“There was someone out there,” she said, panic in her voice. “I heard a lighter and I thought someone was smoking.”
“Guys?” Gary whispered loudly from behind us. “You okay? What’s going on?”
“Keep low,” I said. “There’s someone still out there.”
“I’m coming to you,” Gary said. “Don’t shoot me.”
There was the sound of movement in the underbrush behind us, then Gary emerged and knelt beside us. “What happened?” he asked.
“I was working on that,” I said. “Randi hasn’t told me yet.”
Gary looked at Randi. She was scared, her eyes wild in the diffused light of my covered headlamp.
“I was up and I heard the sound of a cigarette lighter being flicked,” she said. “In the quiet, I could hear it clear as day.”
“Why were you up? I haven’t done my watch yet so it couldn’t have been your turn.”
“Dammit, I had to go to the bathroom,” she said in a hostile whisper. “I haven’t been in days. I wanted some privacy so I got up to go. Walt was asleep on his watch. I was going to wake you up and tell you when
I was done but then everything went all crazy.”
“Okay,” I said. “Sorry I asked. Keep going.”
“So, I hear this lighter and think that someone is smoking. I’m about out of cigarettes so I was excited to think that Walt and Katie might have some. I raise up from where I’m squatted and take a look and see someone is flicking a lighter but it’s over next to that tent. Then the tent starts glowing.”
“They set it on fire?” Gary asked.
“Yes! Then while the fire was spreading, one of those guys from earlier steps out from behind it with a shotgun and fires right into the side of it.”
That must have been the shot that woke me.
“I was so scared that I must have made a noise,” she continued. “He looked right at me, his shotgun pointed at me.”
“You had the pistol I gave you earlier?” I asked.
She nodded. “I had it in my hand because I was scared a bear would sneak up on me.”
“Did you fire at him?” Gary asked.
“Hell yeah,” she said. “I was afraid he was going to shoot me. I just pointed the gun at him and started shooting. He kind of fell or jumped or something, and then I could see the other guy was behind him so I just kept shooting at him until the gun stopped.”
“Where is the gun now?” I asked.
She reached behind her and pulled it from her back pocket. “I needed both hands to get my pants back on,” she said.
The urgency of the screaming was diminishing, the cries more sporadic. There were attempts at words, wet and garbled, the sound of a man drowning in his own blood.
The Borrowed World: A Novel of Post-Apocalyptic Collapse Page 19
