by Howard, Bob
Rumors had circulated through the coastal towns for years about a stash of supplies hidden by a local man who was preparing for the end of the world. Some of those rumors said he owned some land that included an island formed by an oxbow in the Pee Dee River, some said the Santee River, and some said it was on an island along the coast. There were even rumors that there were several such treasure troves of precious food, weapons, and medicine.
Jed took off down the path in the direction he knew would take him into the center of the oxbow. There was a big, looping turn in the river, and Jed felt like it was either the path used by someone to reach their favorite fishing hole, or it was something much more mysterious. Thirty yards later he knew it wasn’t a fishing hole. It just came to an end. The trees were close on three sides, close enough for Jed to extend his arms outward and touch trees with his fingertips as he turned in a circle.
Ben laughed at his friend who was acting more like a kid than someone who was trying to survive for another day, but Jed had always been the thinker when they were together. He wasn’t always right, but he always had a good reason for what he thought.
Jed was in his second turn when he saw what he was looking for.
“Deer stand.”
About ten feet into the trees was a well disguised ladder that went up to a covered platform on a tall tree.
“What kind of hunter puts a deer stand in an oxbow?” asked Ben.
Jed pushed his way into the bushes toward the ladder as he answered.
“A hunter who isn’t looking to shoot a deer. It’s more like a watchtower.”
Both of them knew what they were doing in the woods, and shooting a deer in an oxbow was a quick way to lose a deer in the water. If the deer didn’t go down on the first shot, there were no clearings where the hunter could hope for a second shot, and the deer would hit deep water if it ran in three directions. In this case it was four sides, and the deer wouldn’t use that rickety bridge. If it could somehow run out of the oxbow, it would have dense trees where it could hide.
Jed dropped his backpack and climbed quickly. He made a second discovery when he reached the top. The platform curled around the tree so he could get a clear view in all directions.
“Hey, Ben. Go through the trees to the river. I want to find out if I can still see you.”
Ben disappeared into the trees, and Jed lost track of him immediately. He rotated in his loft about twenty feet high and couldn’t find him again. He could see the opposite bank of the river on all sides of the oxbow, but the trees were so close to the river that he couldn’t see the banks on the island side.
“This would be an easy place to defend,” said Jed out loud.
“What?”
Ben was standing below his tree.
“I said this would be an easy place to defend. We would only have to build traps and barricades along one side. The banks are too muddy and steep for the infected to climb out of the river. The water is deep, and the current is strong enough to carry them right around the oxbow island.”
“If someone buried supplies here, it won’t take long to find them,” added Ben.
“How far did you go?” asked Jed.
“Straight through to the river. Didn’t see nothing except an old gravestone.”
It took everything Jed had not to laugh. He didn’t want his friend to be embarrassed, but the odds of a gravestone marking an actual grave on an oxbow island this far from the beaten path were slim. He went through the trees where Ben had gone and walked right to it. The bushes were so thick that Jed could see the path that Ben had made.
The grave looked old. As a matter of fact, it was so old and eroded that he couldn’t even tell where the dates had been. He ran his hand across the cold stone and didn’t find any indentations that would give him a clue. He shook his head as if he was denying something.
“No, this gravestone is wrong, Ben. It’s all wrong. There’s no wind through here, no dust beating on it when the storms blow through. The rain can only drip down at it. I don’t think anyone was ever buried here. I think this stone was put here just to make people think that it was a grave.”
Ben wasn’t too excited about digging up a grave, but he didn’t stop Jed as he retrieved his camping shovel from his backpack. Jed eagerly pushed the tip into the black topsoil and very quickly had a tall mound next to the hole. He was rewarded by a scraping sound on the top of something flat, and he moved his shovel until he located the edge of a large sheet of metal roofing. He had to be careful not to cut his fingers on the sharp, rusty edge of the metal, and he was excited by the discovery.
“This isn’t a grave,” he said.
Ben wasn’t feeling like he was disturbing the dead anymore and joined in at the edges, clearing away dirt all the way around.
“Too shallow to be a grave,” he said, “and no roots growing across it.”
With two of them attacking the hole together, two edges and then three were uncovered. They got shoulder to shoulder and slipped their hands under the edges at the same time. On three they lifted together, and the metal lid came free with no trouble. They found themselves staring at waterproof tarps arranged in rows, and they eagerly dragged the first bundle from the hole. They laid it next to the pile of dirt and found where it was sealed. When they opened it, they could hardly breathe.
“You ever shoot a rifle that looks like this?” asked Ben.
“I’ve never even seen one of these in real life,” said Jed. “Just on TV. They’re AR-15 rifles. I think they’re supposed to be common or something. It should be easy to find ammunition for them if they are.”
“You don’t think there’s any in that hole?”
“I hope so, but I won’t get my hopes up just yet.”
There were eight rifles in the bundle, each one individually wrapped in clear plastic. The plastic was also sealed so no moisture would get in.
“I’m sure we’re going to get a lot of practice just shooting at the infected, so we won’t need to really teach anyone how to shoot these,” said Jed.
They moved to the ends of the next bundle and carried it free of its hiding place. It was also full of rifles, and it was a relief to know they were going to have enough of them to protect the colony.
Any concern they might have had about ammunition was dispelled by the next four bundles in a row. Whoever had buried this cache of weapons believed in keeping it simple. There was one type of rifle and one type of ammunition, and there was plenty of it. According to the labels on the tightly wrapped packages, there were thousands of rounds. The same was true for the Smith & Wesson 9 millimeter M&P handguns that were in the next four bundles.
Under the weapons and ammunition they found antibiotics, medical kits, pain killers, and an unbelievable supply of morphine. There were several people in the colony who had become skilled at battlefield medicine. One had served as a Corpsman in the Navy and had done three tours in the Middle East. They could probably count on her to teach them how to shoot the AR-15s as well.
Over the next two hours they opened bundles and did an inventory of the gear. Jed wrote everything down in a notebook they found in a briefcase along with other office supplies. He didn’t know how much use he would get out of paperclips and rubber bands, but he felt a strange bit of nostalgia when he handled the items. There were military issue MREs, candy, cookstoves, Coleman lanterns, fuel, matches, lighters, flashlights, batteries, hatchets, tents, fishing equipment, flares and flare guns, water purifying kits, short range radios, salt, sugar, coffee, and most surprising of all, night vision goggles. Whoever had hidden this treasure planned on surviving a long time. Jed told Ben that he hoped their benefactor was alive and well somewhere. They kept doing their inventory even after it got dark enough to light a lantern so they could go back to the colony with a complete list.
When they finally finished, Jed had almost filled the notebook. He sat back and peeled the wrapper from a candy bar. He savored the first bite and seemed to be studying the treat as he chew
ed.
“Something wrong with it?” asked Ben.
“No. I was trying to remember if they tasted like this before. How could I have forgotten about chocolate?”
“You put it out of your mind.”
When he finished enjoying the last bite, Jed reached for an AR-15 and unwrapped it. He loaded rounds into a magazine and inserted it into the rifle. He was pleased that it was all common sense, and he had no trouble loading one of the handguns. When he held it up to show Ben how easy it was, he saw that Ben had given in to temptation and was unwrapping his own candy bar.
Ben saw that Jed was watching him and grinned.
“I could smell yours while you were eating it.”
The snap of a twig made them both freeze. Jed reached out and closed the fuel valve on the Coleman lantern that had bathed them in warm light as the sun had gone down. The temptation to keep it lit was too strong, and the darkness was so close in around them that whatever was out there would see them long before they could see it. Neither of them said a word. Until they knew what was out there in the dark, there was nothing that needed to be said.
The snap came again, Jed locked in on the position of the sound. He was straining his senses so much that he realized he could smell Ben’s candy bar. Whatever it was that was moving, it was somewhere behind Ben. Jed remembered that the night vision goggles were about eighteen inches from his left foot. He allowed himself to bend at the waist and reach into the dark packages. He squeezed each of them one at a time until he felt the irregular shape he was searching for. The plastic around the goggles was soft and flexible, so there was no sound as he slowly unwrapped them and eased them toward his face. He thought he heard a faint whisper from Ben, just barely loud enough to be heard.
“Jed?” There was a tremble in his voice.
He wanted to tell Ben that he was going as fast as he could without making noise, but he sensed there was more motion behind his friend. Saying anything at all could be a death sentence for Ben.
The straps of the goggles went over his head and he adjusted them in front of his eyes. When he powered them on there was no sound, but the green light was almost bright enough to make him dizzy.
Every movie or TV show Jed had ever seen where someone used night vision goggles made it seem like it was the easiest thing in the world to do, but he was disoriented. No one had ever told him that he had to focus them to a specific distance and then get used to what he was seeing. They could give him plenty of advantage over someone who wasn’t wearing them, but they took away a lot of his depth perception, and everything looked like it was stacked on top of things that were closer to him.
Jed’s eyes were facing to the right of Ben, and he turned to sight in on his old friend so he could get his bearings. He saw Ben raise the candy bar to his mouth and silently take a big bite. It was like watching an old movie before high definition. Everything was flat. He also saw that Ben must have moved over slightly to lean his back against the stump of a tree. The tree seemed awfully short to be as wide as it was, and Jed felt like there was something wrong with what he was seeing.
Ben’s arm lowered back to his lap, and it helped Jed to understand the depth a little better. He felt like he wanted to ask Ben something. When had he moved over to lean on the stump? Had there been a tree stump by the grave marker? He didn’t remember seeing any. So what was Ben leaning against?
When Jed focused the goggles a bit more, everything took better shape, but without depth perception it was hard to tell Ben from the stump. Until the stump moved.
Ben felt the movement at the same moment that Jed saw it. He turned his head without turning his body and looked at the place just above his right shoulder. Jed saw Ben’s head lean backward away from his own shoulder as if he was trying to focus his eyes on something that had just landed there. He had stopped chewing his candy bar, and his mouth was open like he was going to say something.
Jed didn’t know for sure what was sitting on Ben’s shoulder until it leaned toward Ben’s face. It took shape when it was only inches away and its mouth opened wide. In the bright green light the black outline of the head and the gaping mouth converged with the clearer face of Ben, and his scream broke the silence.
Jed remembered later that in the split second between the scream and the sounds that came from the Smith & Wesson in his right hand that he hoped Ben had screamed in fear. He didn’t think about the gun. It was just there. He raised the gun as if it was an extension of his arm, aimed, and pulled the trigger repeatedly. Everything in his vision disappeared. He didn’t know what he had hit, but Ben was gone, and so was the tree stump.
The smell of the gun shots had replaced the sweet smell of chocolate, and Jed remembered just in time to flip the goggles off of his face before lighting the lantern again. The warm glow came back to their little place in the middle of the trees, and Jed saw Ben wasn’t moving. There was something next to him, but from the angle where he sat, he still wasn’t sure what it was. He stood very slowly and held his breath as the scene became clearer.
He didn’t know how many shots he had fired, but his aim had been good enough to put several rounds through the right ear of the infected. It had landed on its left shoulder facing Ben. Its head was destroyed, but its mouth was still open with its teeth bared.
Jed stepped closer with his eyes fixed on Ben’s unmoving body. He was praying that Ben had passed out or was just staying very still, paralyzed with fear. He knew how stupid it was to hope such a thing, but at the moment, hope was all he had. Another foot closer and Jed saw there was no hope. One of his shots had gone to the right and must have killed Ben instantly. His eyes were open, and he appeared to be looking straight into the face of the infected dead that was about to sink its teeth into him.
No one should have to die looking into the eyes of an infected, and even though he knew Ben was already dead, Jed reached for his eyelids to push them shut. It wasn’t until Jed dropped to his knees that he was able to see the two curved rows of puncture marks in the center of his friend’s face. The lower teeth had torn into Ben’s upper lip and pulled it almost to his nose. The second row curved down across the bridge of Ben’s nose onto each cheek. Jed knew that his one stray bullet had killed his friend, but if he hadn’t shot him accidentally, he would have been forced to shoot him on purpose, and that would have been worse for both of them.
Jed sat back on the damp ground and wept for his friend just like he had when they were kids. They had been there for each other through every broken bone and every illness, and when one felt pain the other felt it too. For the next two hours, Jed felt the pain just as if he had been bitten in the face, and he seriously considered putting the gun to the side of his head to experience the same life ending pain of a bullet the way Ben had. It would be over fast. All he had to do was lift the gun. Through the rest of the night, the pain became numbness, and Jed just stared at nothing.
At sunrise the light filtered slowly through the trees until Jed became aware of his surroundings. He wondered about the lone infected dead that had killed his friend.
“Correction,” he said out loud. “Would have killed him if I hadn’t.”
His voice sounded like it belonged to someone else. The words were dry and strange sounding with the trees being so close. That made Jed lift his head and try to see between the thick growth.
“Where did you come from?” he asked the crumpled mound that was slumped only a foot from Ben’s head. Jed could see why he thought it was a tree stump. It didn’t look much different even in daylight.
Jed pushed himself from the ground. His legs shook, but he ached from spending the night on the ground without a sleeping bag or at least a blanket. He put his weight against several small trees and focused his eyes on the infected. There was something about the body that wasn’t right.
A few weak steps in the direction of the bodies was all he needed, and he realized the infected must have approached them by crawling on the ground. Both legs were twisted and pointing
away at unnatural angles like it had fallen off of a building and landed badly.
Jed turned his head and his eyes searched the trees for the platform. He looked too low at first and saw that the watchtower was higher than he had thought at first. It was more than high enough for someone to break both legs if they fell. Jed had no doubt that’s what happened and that the man had been alone when he fell. He had died out here and then crawled toward the sound of living men talking. He felt guilty to be relieved that the little island was really as safe as he first thought. He mentally buried his guilt as he buried his childhood friend and the unknown man who had left his treasure for the colony.
******
The colony had been on the move for almost a month, but they tried to stay in the general area above and to the east of Lake Moultrie. They had become nomads, breaking camp every day and continually moving to outflank the infected. They even camped in the same places they had used weeks before. Wherever it was safe, they set up camp again and only did enough work to the area to last a short time. Sometimes they sent out hunting parties to find supplies, and they had to move out before the hunters returned. It was never a cause for concern, because the hunters already knew where the colony would have gone.
They had mostly been raised in the area, so they felt like they had an advantage over the dead. All they had to do was stay one step ahead of them. For some unexplainable reason, the dead seemed to be migrating to the south, and a fair number of them walked straight into the water of Lake Moultrie and the Cooper River. All the colony had to do was move out of the way and not get caught with their backs to the water.
Jed had returned with the bad news about losing Ben, but as was often the case, he had been lost in pursuit of a better existence for all of them. Sooner or later they wouldn’t be able to get out of the path of the migrating infected, and they would be forced to go in a direction they didn’t want to. They were also getting tired. They needed to find a place they could defend. This new place had the added bonus of the supplies that Jed and Ben had uncovered. It was the legendary cache that had been buried by a survivalist. Jed had come back with two boxes containing four dozen candy bars. There were forty-five people in the colony, and most of them had forgotten what it was like to bite into a piece of chocolate and caramel. They chewed in silence and whispered their thanks to Ben.
