The Borrowed World Series | Book 8 | Blood & Banjos

by Horton, Franklin

  Lloyd didn’t have the ingrained paranoia and distrust that made Jim a natural in this world. In the old world, those personality traits made Jim too intense for some of the people around him. He’d been called everything from an asshole to a crackpot, but he was fine with it. He suspected those folks who called him out years ago might be having a change of heart right about now, wishing they’d been nicer. They were probably wishing they had someone like Jim Powell in their life.

  Jim mounted up and rode south across the dam. To his right, far below him, a doe and fawn were wading through the marshy grass along the tailwaters. The gravel road beneath Jim was showing signs of neglect. Weeds poked through, both wildflowers and tall stalks of grass heavy with seed.

  Beyond the dam, Jim rejoined the same trail he’d ridden earlier to the old campsite. He didn’t have to follow it far until he ran into a flat clearing that would make a decent campsite for the night. There was enough grass for his horses and a thin feeder stream ran alongside the camp, dumping into the lake. He unsaddled the horse and stacked the gear nearby. He didn’t anticipate rain so he strung a hammock between two trees and tossed his sleeping bag into it. He was tired and the sight of the hammock was inviting. He was ready to stretch out and call it a night but his stomach had other plans. It was demanding food.

  He removed a surplus Gerber entrenching tool from his gear and dug a small pit for a fire. The forest loam was soft, the digging easy. When he was done, he piled a few rocks around it to offer even more protection against the fire being seen from a distance. There was plenty of deadfall around and he soon had a tiny blaze going. He laid out his wire grate across the rocks and filled a pot in the stream, setting it over the heat to boil. He returned to his gear and searched through his supplies, coming up with a freeze-dried tuna casserole that looked tolerable.

  When the water had boiled long enough to kill anything of concern, Jim poured the appropriate amount into the freeze-dried meal packet and sealed it back up. He squished the pack between his fingers to thoroughly distribute the water, then set it aside to rehydrate. He dumped the extra water from his cooking pot and pulled his grate off the fire to cool.

  While the meal cooked, Jim refilled his water bottles by the light of his headlamp. There was no sediment visible in the clear mountain stream so he didn’t use a pump filter. He filled the bottles directly from the stream, then twirled his ultraviolet Steripen in each of them.

  Jim took a sip of the cold water and felt it coursing through all the places in his body that needed it. He took a seat on the ground and leaned back against a tree. He clicked his headlamp off, staring at the glow of his fire and listening to the forest around him. It was dark now and the wildlife was changing shifts. The songbirds were clocking out, the owls and whippoorwills clocking in. Somewhere along the dark shore a heron issued its raspy and prehistoric cry. Raccoons, bears, coyotes, and possums would all be moving around out there too. It was a reminder that he’d need to hang his food bags when he was done eating.

  When the tuna casserole reached the right amount of squish, Jim opened the package and dug into it with a long-handled spork, specially designed for eating from freeze-dried pouches. He kept his fire to twigs, low enough that it wouldn’t illuminate the tree canopy overhead. He just needed enough of a fire to provide light for his lonely camp.

  Laughter rolled across the water. Jim recognized the sound. It had to be Lloyd laughing at one of his own jokes. It must have been funny enough to amuse Andrew because he was braying along. Despite the fun they were having at the other camp, Jim didn’t mind being alone. He’d always been comfortable in his own skin and his own head. However, the laughter made him think of his family. What were they doing tonight?

  He imagined their day had been longer with someone else having to perform the chores he usually did. He assumed Hugh and Charlie were helping them out with that. They would be canning tonight, trying to preserve as much of the garden food as possible. Nana was probably helping while Pops read stories to Ariel.

  Jim would return to them soon. He knew that now. When he’d left home, it had been with the understanding that he could be gone for months. Yet in the short time he’d been gone he’d come to some conclusions. Bring what it may, he wasn’t going to hide anymore. Let the community wonder why he’d survived. Let them wonder why he had the nerve to walk among them after what he’d done. If they dared, they could come for him. He had a lot of shovels and a lot of places to dig holes.

  The tuna was okay, but not something he’d ever crave. In his current condition it filled his stomach and would help him sleep. When he was done he tossed the pouch into the fire. He washed his spork in the creek and set it in his cooking pot to dry. He’d pack that and his fire grate in the morning. He clicked his headlamp on then used the toe of his boot to rake dirt into the fire hole, extinguishing the low blaze.

  Before laying down, Jim prepared his gear for the night. He didn’t ready his gear to bug-out in the middle of the night. That would be difficult with the horses, the amount of gear he had, and with Lloyd sleeping in a separate camp. He did prepare to come up fighting if it came to that. He hung his plate carrier on the tree beside him and propped the rifle against it. He would sleep in his gun belt with the handgun ready to go. He kept his backpack beside the hammock with the top open. Nestled there in the open top was his good nightvision. If he had to get up at night, his hand would fall right on it. He’d pull the rig over his head and be good to go.

  He yawned and stretched, then unrolled his sleeping bag onto the hammock. He carefully took a seat, making sure he didn’t dump himself out on the ground. He crossed his legs and was preparing to unlace his boots when a rifle shot split the night. The crack of the round rolled over the water like thunder, followed by a scream of terror.

  Lloyd’s scream.

  25

  Laurel Bed Lake

  Clinch Mountain Wildlife Management Area

  Jim doused his headlamp and yanked it down around his neck, leaving him in the dark. He shot up from his hammock and dropped his plate carrier over his head. He groped for the nightvision he’d left at-hand and pulled the skull-crusher rig onto his head, cranking it tight. He dropped the twin-tube goggles down in front of his eyes and hit the power. Before the white glow even filled his vision, he had his rifle in hand and was tearing down the trail toward the dam.

  Running the rough trail in the dark would have been hard enough by headlamp. In the otherworldly glow of nightvision, it was an acquired skill that Jim hadn’t yet mastered. He couldn’t see his feet and it was hard to see the obstacles that tried to snag them. Several times he slipped or stumbled. The hardest part wasn’t regaining his balance, but suppressing the urge to curse out loud.

  There was a second gunshot. Perhaps the same high-powered rifle. Lloyd was no longer screaming. In fact, there was no sound at all. Even the creatures of the night had fallen silent at the eruption of violence in their peaceful haven. They knew when to lay low.

  Jim listened as he ran, desperate for any information his ears might provide. There had to be someone, maybe several people, out there moving in the night. If there was more than one attacker, they were probably speaking to each other at that very moment, coordinating their movements. All Jim could hear was his heart pounding like a freight train in his ears, his breath rushing in and out of his chest like a bellows.

  He hadn’t camped too far down the trail so it only took him a few minutes to emerge from the forest near the dam. He hooked a right and could see the glow of Andrew’s bonfire in the distance. While part of him wanted to barrel into the scene and find Lloyd, he forced himself to slow down. There was at least one shooter out there in the darkness and getting himself killed helped no one. It was not the time for reckless, stupid moves. He wasn’t going to die up here and leave his family not knowing his fate.

  Jim cut into the weeds alongside the gravel road that stretched over the dam. It was further from the lakeshore and closer to the steep bank that sloped do
wn to the tailwaters. The weeds there were waist-high, the ground beneath his feet quieter than the crunching gravel. He doubled over, getting as low as he could, and rushed toward Andrew’s RV. There was no sound from the camp and that was terrifying. The injured could cry out. The dead were silent.

  He dropped to a knee and forced himself to carefully scan the camp. Although the bold campfire, way too bright in his opinion, illuminated the full breadth of the camp, he couldn’t see everything. The high weeds prevented him from seeing the ground, presumably where the injured or dead were laying. He moved forward about a dozen more feet and did the same thing again, poking his head up like a gopher checking his surroundings. This time he saw movement in the trees beyond the boat landing.

  Jim was perhaps sixty feet from the camp, near the point where the weeds stopped and the gravel parking lot of the boat ramp began. In the ghostly white glow of his nightvision, Jim spotted a thin, bearded man in camouflage creeping into the camp with a hunting rifle raised. He was moving stealthily, like a man approaching a wounded bear to see if it was indeed dead. Jim wanted to throw up his rifle and drop him immediately, but what if he wasn’t alone?

  Jim dropped his head and crawled toward the end of the grassy stretch. There, trees lined the edge of the parking lot and he took cover behind the base of a thick poplar. He raised his rifle and braced it against the tree. He wouldn’t take the shot yet but wanted to ready himself. Sure enough, the camouflaged figure paused in the firelight and waved a beckoning hand toward the darkness.

  Not hearing any cries from the camp, Jim had to assume the worst. He tried to not think about it. His best friend was probably dead and the stranger before him was responsible for it. A second man, also dressed in hunting camo, approached the camp. He moved slowly, his rifle at the ready.

  The two camouflaged men conferred, then walked closer to the RV. Jim couldn’t see the ground, couldn’t see what they were looking at. One of the men drew back and kicked at something. Whatever response that provoked made both men jump back. The first snapped his rifle up and was preparing to fire toward the ground when Jim beat him to the punch, squeezing the trigger on his M4.

  The man in the crosshairs of his reticle flinched and twisted, dropping his rifle. The second man swung toward the darkness where Jim hid and let a shot fly. He couldn’t see what he was shooting at and the shot wasn’t even close. The man desperately worked the bolt, his eyes never leaving the darkness as he tried to find his target. Unfortunately, his target found him first, nailing him with a rapid double-tap. The first shot hit his rifle, splintering the stock and sending shards of wood into his face. He jerked and slapped at his bleeding cheek. Jim’s second round went high of center mass, punching in just below the man’s Adam’s apple.

  Jim flipped his nightvision up and waded in, trying to keep the RV between him and the men he’d shot. He heard gurgling, moans, and attempts to shout. He couldn’t be certain if the men were trying to shout at him, each other, or for help that lurked out there somewhere in the darkness.

  Andrew’s RV was surrounded by the old man’s belongings and Jim had to watch for it as he moved. Old coolers, plastic buckets, a shovel, and a folding chair. A barbecue grill, a canoe paddle, a spare tire, a car jack, and more stuff hidden beneath tarps. Jim popped around the edge of the RV to find one of the men crawling toward his dropped rifle. The other lay on his back, clutching at his throat with both hands as if he could stop the bleeding and survive this. Jim put a round in his temple and the two hands slowly unfurled from his throat. That solved the matter. There would be no surviving.

  Jim flipped his rifle to safe and swung it around to his back. He drew his knife and dropped onto the crawling man. He hauled his head back and stuck the point of his knife to the man’s throat. He may have been pressing a bit hard because blood was already oozing from where the razor-sharp tip met flesh.

  “Why did you do this?” Jim growled.

  “Supplies.”

  “Are there more of you?”

  The man hesitated.

  Jim wasted no time pressing the knife harder. The tip pierced the skin and buried itself several millimeters deeper into his neck. The man flinched hard and Jim could feel the pain ripple through the body beneath him. “Are there more of you?”

  “Our families are camping down the mountain,” he croaked. “We came up here alone.”

  Jim didn’t believe a word of it. He shoved the blade through the man’s neck and pushed forward, raking it out the front. He choked as his blood ran free, swallowed by the dirty gravel beneath him. Jim crawled off him and launched himself toward the fire, tipping a plastic bucket of water over into the roaring blaze. There was a hiss and a mushroom cloud of steam rose in the warm night. The fire wasn’t completely extinguished but reduced to the orange glow of coals.

  Sheathing his bloody knife, Jim whipped his rifle to the front of his body and dropped the nightvision goggles over his eyes. Only then did he dare look down at the two bodies on the ground beside the camper. Andrew was toppled over backward in his camping chair, half of his face missing. Lloyd was beside him, eyes wide and mouth open, blindly groping at the ground around him. He was alive but petrified with fear.

  “Lloyd! It’s me! Are you hit?”

  Lloyd’s head shook in a violent tremor.

  “Are you sure?” Jim demanded. “You’re not hurt?”

  “I…I was playing dead. I didn’t know what was happening. I didn’t know what to do.”

  Jim scanned the ground around his fallen friend and located Lloyd’s shotgun. He picked it up, confirmed there was a round chambered, and shoved it into his arms. “You sit right fucking there! Don’t move and don’t run off. I need to check the woods and make sure there’s not more of them. Got it?”

  “Got it,” Lloyd said, his voice quavering.

  As much as Jim hated to leave his friend behind, he raised his rifle and moved away from the RV, walking in the direction from which the men had come. He desperately wished he had a thermal optic at the moment. In the darkness, he’d have had no problem picking up the heat signatures of anyone lurking out there within range. As it was, he had good visibility but there could be someone hiding in the underbrush and he might never see them.

  Assuming there might have been a grain of truth in what the man said, Jim stuck to the road. He walked slowly, trying not to dislodge any gravel as he moved. He scanned both sides of the road, watching for anything out of place in the dense vegetation. Leaving the boat ramp behind, he turned a bend in the road and spotted a nervous-looking figure standing in the road about seventy feet ahead of him. He was frantically pacing, likely alarmed by the shots he’d heard and uncertain of what he should do.

  Jim moved to the shoulder of the road and took cover behind a tree.

  The figured must have heard him or detected his movement. He stopped and raised his gun toward the darkness. “Who’s out there? Is that you, Miller?”

  “Drop your gun!” Jim bellowed.

  The figure did drop his gun but Jim couldn’t tell if it was because of his command or out of fear at the loud voice coming from the darkness. Before the gun had even hit the ground, he turned tail and ran. Jim tracked him through his optic, conflicting thoughts battling in his head. He knew the dangers of letting a survivor escape. He could get back to his camp and lead others here. He could also hide and ambush the two of them later.

  “Dammit!” Jim hissed. He didn’t like being put in this position.

  He did a hasty calculation for hold-over and laid his crosshairs on the crown of the fleeing man’s head, then pulled the trigger. The gunshot exploded in the darkness and the man’s head instantly snapped to the side in response. He hit the ground and tumbled into a pile.

  Jim watched him for a moment, his teeth gritted against what he’d been forced to do. The man didn’t move. Jim watched the woods for several minutes before he was satisfied there was no one else in the immediate area. He didn’t like having to do things like this. He could just as
easily have let the last man go, but experience had been a hard and merciless teacher. He’d learned a few bitter lessons over the last year and this was one of them. He didn’t leave survivors. To do so would most certainly cost lives later.

  Jim hustled back to the boat landing. “Lloyd, it’s Jim!” he called before he got close. “Don’t shoot! You hear me?”

  “I hear you.”

  Jim could hear a hollowness in Lloyd’s voice. He knew that sound. It was the tone of someone disgusted with what the world had thrown at them. Steam from the partially extinguished fire hung over the camp, illuminated by the glow from the embers and from stray flickers of firelight. Jim waded through the otherworldly scene and found Lloyd standing over Andrew’s body.

  “We were just having a good time,” Lloyd said. “Playing some music and cooking some dinner. Having a little drink. He said it was safe. He said everyone he’d run into was friendly and he hadn’t had any trouble.”

  “Any one of those men he talked to could have been scouting out what he had. They could have planned to come back for it later. These men I killed might have been here before and played all nice. Doesn’t mean they weren’t dangerous. It doesn’t mean you can let down your guard.”

  Lloyd couldn’t pull his eyes from his new friend’s mangled face. “It’s my fault. Too much noise and a big old fire. Not paying attention to what was going on around us.”

  “It’s not your fault. He wasn’t taking any precautions before we came along. We didn’t bring these men here. This probably would have happened with or without us.”

  Lloyd shook his head slowly. “You don’t know that. The music might have drawn them in. You knew enough to camp away from us, we just didn’t want to listen. We thought you were being paranoid.”

  Jim scanned the darkness behind him again. “Lloyd, we need to get out of here. If there’s more of them, the shooting might draw them. We can’t stick around.”