“We need to take a look,” I said to Gary.
He nodded.
“Without getting killed,” I added.
He nodded again.
“You stay here,” I told him. “I’m going back to my pack to get something.”
Without waiting for a response, I felt my way back in the direction I’d come from, trying to avoid taking any branches in the eye. I finally saw the white glow of my Tyvek sheet and reached down for my pack. In one of the outside pockets, I felt for a black zipper pouch with a lanyard string attached to it. When I found the string, I tugged the pouch free, unzipped it, and removed a Bushnell night vision monocular from it. I hung the lanyard string around my neck and headed back toward Gary and Randi.
“Night vision,” I stated, reaching for the on button.
“Night vision?” Randi asked sarcastically. “Really?”
“Really. Nothing fancy. Nothing like the soldiers wear.”
Once the monocular screen came to life, I scanned the woods in the direction of the burned tent. I could see a few glowing embers around the outline of the tent, but not much star light penetrated the thick canopy of trees. A second button on the monocular activated an infrared spotlight. The spotlight greatly increased the effectiveness of the scope and was invisible to anyone not wearing night vision.
With the assistance of the IR illuminator, I could now see a pair of legs extending from the brush past the tent. The legs slowly drew up at the knees and then relaxed again. The screaming was nearly gone now, replaced by crying. I scanned the rest of the bushes and couldn’t see anyone else. I passed the monocular to Gary.
“Take a look,” I said. “I only see the one guy.”
Gary put the scope to his eye.
“Damn,” he whispered. “This thing is cool. How much was it?”
“Under $150. It’s only first generation so it’s kind of cheesy.”
“It does the job,” he said. “We know what’s out there now.”
“Not exactly,” I said. “We’re missing one guy.”
There was another choked cry from the man lying in the weeds near the burned tent. He was down, but not out. I kept the monocular to my eye, holding it with my left hand, the Beretta in my right. I stood and advanced slowly. The poor optical quality of the monocular would be difficult to use if I was running, but it was more than capable of dealing with the slow speed I was moving at now. The man was less than thirty feet away and as I turned around a cluster of Rhododendron I found him sprawled on the trail, his legs still moving without purpose, his hands curling and uncurling. His eyes were open, his chest saturated with blood that bubbled when he breathed. Blood came from his mouth and ran down his ears, cheeks, and neck. There were multiple wounds but one was clearly a lung shot, fatal in these conditions.
I scanned the bushes around me for as far as the IR illuminator would go. I saw no one.
“I can’t see anyone,” I called out. “Gary, you come up. You can use your light but keep it low.”
Gary closed the distance quickly, his Glock held at the ready. When he reached me he ran his light over the wounded man.
“Jesus Christ,” he whispered.
I put the night vision in Gary’s hand. “Take a position over there near the trail and keep an eye out with this thing. We’re going to start packing gear. I think it’s time to get moving.”
Gary moved toward another clump of bushes to set up a watch. I removed my headlight and turned it on, aiming it down toward the ground to cut down on how much stray light flew around. I turned around to head for my gear and ran straight into Randi. She had been standing immediately behind me, her flashlight glued to the face and chest of the man she’d shot. She stumbled backward and I reached for her, gripping her arm and steadying her. She pulled away, twisting, and spraying vomit into the weeds.
I stepped back and gave her a moment. While she retched and gagged, Walt and Katie approached with another light.
“Get her some water,” I said to them. “There’s a bottle beside my pack.”
Walt hurried off.
“He’s not dead,” Randi said, wiping her mouth with her sleeve.
“No,” I said. “He’s not.”
“I did that,” she said in a low voice.
“You had to do that,” I corrected. “He made you do that.”
“He’s my daughter’s age,” she said sadly.
“He’s likely a murderer and he got what he deserved.”
Katie approached with the water bottle Walt had retrieved. Walt was apparently too scared to come near us. That was insightful on his part. This was partly his fault for falling asleep on his watch and I felt like I could hurt him for endangering all our lives. I took the water bottle and passed it to Randi. She washed out her mouth and spat in the bushes. I could see tears in her eyes when she turned back to me.
“What are we going to do with him?” she asked.
“We’re going to leave him,” I said calmly.
“But—”
“But what?” I interrupted. “There’s no 9-1-1, no ambulances up here, and I’m not carrying a man that tried to kill us. I’m also not particularly interested in putting a bullet in his head to put him out of his misery. I’m not so hardened yet that I can do that.”
“You seem like it,” she said, catching my eye.
“Seem how?”
“Like you’re good at this,” she said. “Like you were ready for this. Almost like you enjoy it.”
I shook my head. “I don’t enjoy this. Things in the world weren’t perfect but they were better than this. I may be a little bit better prepared than the next guy but that’s because I worked at it. I read a lot of books, I watched a lot of videos. I chose to spend money on preparing for things like this rather than wasting it on a boat or a Harley or renting a house at the beach.”
“You weren’t in the military?”
I laughed at that. To anyone who had been in the military, it would probably be very obvious that I had not been in the military, but Randi was sincere in her question.
“No, I was never in the military,” I told her. “I am not a soldier. I am a paranoid hillbilly wanting to get home to my family, and under the right circumstances a determined father is every bit as dangerous as the most highly-trained soldier.”
She took a deep breath and braced herself. “Then maybe a determined grandmother can survive, too.”
“A determined grandmother may have saved some lives tonight,” I told her. “Now harden the fuck up, Granny, and let’s get out of here.”
I patted her on the shoulder. When I did, she dropped the beam of her light from the gasping man on the ground, turned, and went to pack her gear.
Within fifteen minutes, our gear was all packed and we departed camp by flashlight, each of us strolling by the wounded man, his eyes blinking as he watched us go, his mouth moving wordlessly. When he walked by the wounded man, Gary leaned over and picked up the single shot shotgun from where it lay in the weeds. He opened the breech and ejected the spent round. He leaned over and patted the wounded man’s pockets, finding a half-dozen or so shells in a pants pocket. I waited on a comment from Walt and Katie, but there was none. The last surprise of the night came about a mile down the trail when we came to an area where the trail was torn up and the bushes were crushed and broken. It was clear that an ATV had been parked here, probably while our attackers stalked the trail looking for us. It was also clear that whoever had been parked there had left in a hurry, swinging wide and accelerating too fast, causing the rear end of the four-wheeler to slew about on the muddy trail. They had grazed a thick cluster of rhododendron in their haste, losing one of the packs we’d noticed on their ATV earlier. It lay in the dense brush, a single shoulder strap caught on a broken branch and holding the pack upright.
I looked at Gary, who shrugged.
“In different times I wouldn’t take another man’s gear,” I said to him. “I think the original owner of this pack is probably dead or long gon
e and its last owner had no right to it. I’m not going to leave gear out here that may help us on our journey.”
“I can’t carry that,” Randi said, staring at the large and overstuffed pack.
“You’re not ready for it yet,” I said. “For now we dump your gear in my pack and you can carry that. It’s a little smaller. I’ll carry the Gregory pack and we’ll sort through the gear later and adjust the loads.”
“Works for me,” she said.
She was not quite so sure that it would work for her once she actually slung my pack on her back. Even though it was only a low-volume weekend pack, it was still pretty heavy. Her eyes widened for moment and she staggered, adjusting to the weight, but once we got the straps and waist belt adjusted she said that it was in fact more comfortable than the pillowcase pack she’d been wearing. I started to toss the pillowcase pack, but ended up stuffing it in a side pocket of the Gregory pack for now.
I shouldered the Gregory pack, and it was clear that this was indeed a through-hiker’s pack. It must have weighed fifty pounds, though the pack’s excellent suspension did a good job of handling the weight. I quickly adjusted the straps, belt, and load lifters, and had it tuned to my body in a moment.
We started walking again, heading for the Blue Ridge Parkway and my friend Lloyd’s house.
Chapter 19
We reached the Blue Ridge Parkway while it was still dark and began following it west. After the embrace of the deep forest, the open road made me feel exposed and vulnerable. In the circle illuminated by our flashlights this could have been any road. By the time the sky lightened and the world became visible we found that our highway was little more than a paved ledge looking out over dozens of rounded peaks and fog-filled valleys. Under other circumstances, it would have been a breathtaking sight.
By 6:30 a.m., we’d been walking about four hours and we took a break at a scenic overlook. There was a picnic shelter and, more importantly, pit toilets, a luxury after what we’d become used to, even though they were really just cinderblock outhouses painted in Park Service Brown. Under the shelter, we sat on brown log tables watching the sun rise over the horizon.
After a few moments’ break, and after using the facilities, Walt and Katie stood and gathered their gear.
“We appreciate the help,” Katie said. “We’re going to take off and find our own way home from here.”
They’d apparently been talking among themselves as we walked and come to some conclusions. I shrugged. Gary had no comment, either.
“I appreciate your help, too,” Walt said. “We’re just going to hit the highway and see if we might be able to catch a ride from there. It will be faster.”
It was obvious that they were just being polite. There were philosophical differences between our groups and they didn’t agree with our tactics. With their lack of information, they had no idea what they were walking into. They thought things would be better on the road, that they could hitchhike or walk and everything would be okay. We had tried to tell them differently but you couldn’t make people’s decisions for them. They would have to find out on their own.
“Be very careful,” Randi warned. “And don’t trust anyone. It’s really bad down there.”
Katie smiled at Randi. “We appreciate it,” she said. “We’ll be careful. We’ll look out for each other.”
“Good luck,” I told them. “You’ll need it.”
They pulled on their packs, took up their trekking poles, and strode away. I’m sure they were relieved to be free of us. I hoped things went well for them. If they couldn’t handle what they’d seen with us over the last day or two, they would most certainly have a hard time finding their way in the world that awaited them.
“I’m hungry,” Gary said.
We divvied up some of the remaining vending machine loot and tore into it less than enthusiastically. Holding a granola bar in his teeth, Gary dug in his pack and came up with a flattened cardboard sleeve wrapped in electrical tape. From the open end, he shook out half a hacksaw blade and began sawing off the barrel of the shotgun he’d taken from the wounded man. He obviously wanted to reduce the weapon to a more user-friendly and concealable size. While he did that, I took time to get my own gear reorganized.
Starting with the outside pockets of the Gregory pack, I sorted through the gear inside it. I unzipped the pocket in the pack lid and came up with a blue nylon wallet. I opened it and immediately found a drivers license, a little cash, and a credit card all wrapped together with a rubber band. The license had been issued in Vermont to a Larry Baxter, a 56 year old man with a graying buzz cut and blue eyes. From the picture I could see that neither of the men on the ATV was Larry Baxter. I considered whether I should hold onto the wallet and attempt to get it back to Larry Baxter when I made it home – if he was even still alive. This was outweighed by my concern at being caught with another man’s identification and possibly being accused of theft, or even worse. I gathered the wallet with all its contents and tossed them in a nearby trash can.
The rest of the pockets contained bits of gear that a hiker might need during the day: spare batteries, a headlamp, ibuprofen, moleskin for blisters, a water pump, and a bandana. There was a cellphone and charger in one of the pockets. It was dead and I threw it in the trash, along with a copy of Paul Bowles’ The Sheltering Sky, which was bookmarked about halfway through and showing significant trail wear. Inside the main compartment of the pack, I found a nice down-filled Marmot sleeping bag, which I kept.
There was a one-man MSR tent, which I did not keep. It was a damn good tent and one I’d specifically looked at before when shopping for tents. I knew it was less versatile, though, than the shelter materials I already carried and my pack was way heavier than I wanted it to be. Throwing away good gear gave me a pang of guilt, but I still had a long way to go and both my speed and agility would be affected by carrying too much gear. It also increased the risk of injury. I’d once strained my IT band – likely from carrying a too heavy pack – and had still had to go twenty-seven more miles on the injured leg. It made for a very difficult hike and I spent three months limping when I got home.
There was some clothing and I checked a tag for the size; it wouldn’t fit me. I set aside the shirts and rain gear for Randi. The pants were too small for any of us so I tossed them onto the pile I had started with the tent. I would leave that gear here under the shelter, hoping that someone down the road may find it and benefit from it. I kept two pairs of hiking socks, a pair of light gloves, and a toboggan. There was a folding twig stove, which cooked food by means of a tiny fire built from twigs. With the stove was a cook set, which I put in the pile to discard. I did keep the utensil set, though. There was no food, no water bottles, and no other personal gear.
I set about re-packing the pack, taking the majority of my items from my Get Home Bag and finding room for them in the Gregory. I helped Randi repack my old pack with her gear and made certain that the strap adjustments were working for her. By that time, Gary had finished removing the barrel from the shotgun. I knew he was done from the heavy clang of the barrel dropping to the concrete. It bounced a few times, then rolled across the shelter and off the edge into the grass.
Gary pulled a Leatherman multi-tool from his pack, selected a file, and removed any burrs from the barrel tip. When he was done with that step, he closed the file blade and unfolded a wood saw blade from the tool, sawing the shotgun’s stock into a crude pistol grip. Despite the short blade length of the saw, it was extremely sharp and Gary had his weapon done in short order. It was crudely done, but would pack a devastating punch at close range. He loaded a live round into the chamber and drew the hammer slightly back to the safe “half-cock” position.
“You gonna carry that thing?” I asked.
“Not in the open,” he said. “In my pack. It was too good a weapon to leave behind.”
“I agree,” I said. “I must have not been thinking clearly up there last night. I should have thought of it. We need every ass
et that may help us get home. It would have been dumb to leave it.”
“We were all a little rattled,” Gary said. “Even soldiers have to get used to war. Our war is just starting.”
I thought about what Gary said. Since shooting that man who tried to wrap a crowbar around Gary’s head in the gas station parking lot, I had been going through a lot of self-talk about focusing on our mission and not getting hung up on the violence. We were all still a little in shock from the turn of events of the past few days. I knew it was a collateral effect of events like the current terror attacks. I had studied how people react in times of stress and chaos, and had tried to prepare for it. I thought of my grandfather again, who’d carried a gun and knife every day of his adult life, dropping them in his pockets when he headed out the door like I did with car keys and a cell phone.
I recalled a story my uncle told me at a family reunion, one of the few he attended. He was not very social, either. He told me he’d been riding my grandfather’s truck route with him one evening when he was about twelve. This would have been in the early 1950s. It was fall, and my grandfather picked my uncle up when he got out of school so he could ride his route with him to a nearby town. My grandfather drove a truck for a living, delivering meats and produce to small country stores.
When they finished their route, it was around 7 p.m. The sun had already gone down and the night had cooled. They stopped to eat. There was not much around except for a little beer joint on the side of the road called Buster’s. It was a classic roadside beer joint with a low ceiling and stained hardwood floors covered in sawdust. My grandfather ate there whenever he made this late run and assured my uncle that their cheeseburgers were hard to beat. He was right. They both had large cheeseburgers and fried potatoes and my uncle said it was one of the best burgers he’d ever had.
On their way out, my grandfather lit a cigarette and smoked as they walked across the dark parking lot to his refrigerated truck. Their path took them across the front of the building and by a shed that housed the refrigeration equipment for the restaurant. When they passed that shed, a man stepped out of the shadows. My uncle said he could see the glint of a knife in the man’s hand and he froze.
The Borrowed World: A Novel of Post-Apocalyptic Collapse Page 20
