The Savage Darkness (Darkness After Series Book 4) Page 14

  “Please be careful, Mitch,” April whispered as he pulled her close in a long good-bye hug.

  “You know I will.”

  “If she’s there with Mr. Holloway, you might be back as soon as tomorrow.”

  “I hope it’s that easy, April. But until I find her, I won’t be back. No matter how long it takes.” Mitch knew April didn’t want to hear this, but he didn’t want her sitting there watching the creek for his return, either. He was going to find his sister, wherever he had to go to do it.

  This time as he rode the trail, he kept a close check on the ground for signs of horse tracks he might have missed when he wasn’t looking for them before. The problem was that on the narrow trail, in the few places that were sandy or muddy enough to leave a track, the trip west with Lisa from before left quite a mess. With six horses in total that day, plus his ride back just yesterday and last night, most of the bare patches were a trampled mess. It was not until he was within a few miles of Brooklyn that he saw the eastbound tracks again that he’d noted the day before. He dismounted to look closer and see if he could pick out any details. It was more than one horse, but in the soft sand where the prints were not well defined, he couldn’t be sure that there were exactly three of them. And here and there, he saw man-sized boot prints that had been made before the hoof prints. It was impossible to tell if they had been left a few hours or even a couple of days before the horses stepped on them, or if they had been made at the same time, perhaps by men leading horses on foot. Deciding there wasn’t enough here to determine if the tracks had anything to do with his sister, Mitch mounted up again and pushed hard to Brooklyn, where he hoped to get some answers from Mr. Holloway.

  When he reached the creek bank opposite the town, Mitch rode Amigo across the bridge after a long pause to listen for any possible trouble. Nothing was moving in the streets on the other side, so he figured he would find Mr. Holloway at his camp, perhaps taking his early afternoon siesta. If by chance Lisa was there too, he could turn around and head home the same day.

  The camp appeared deserted though and no smoke rose from the fire pit, nor did he see the other horses anywhere around. Mitch dismounted and tied Amigo’s reins to a bush, taking his rifle as he walked over to the makeshift shack the old man had cobbled together to keep out of the weather.

  “Mr. Holloway? Hello… It’s Mitch!”

  When he didn’t get an answer, Mitch walked to the entrance and peered inside. The interior was a jumbled pile of the man’s clothing and blankets, along with miscellaneous junk he’d salvaged in the town and from the vehicles. Mitch didn’t see the .30-30 or the SKS, and wondered if he might have wandered off somewhere nearby to hunt.

  He turned and went to the fire pit, squatting down to put a hand over the ashes. When he felt no heat radiating from beneath, he lowered his hand to rake through the pile, digging to the bottom and finding it completely cold. That didn’t make a lot of sense, because he knew the old man would have had the fire going earlier that morning, when the temperature had dipped to near freezing. Something wasn’t right if he hadn’t.

  Mitch examined the bare ground around the fire. There were lots of footprints, but all of them were more than a couple of days old. He found some that could have been made by Mr. Holloway’s well-worn work boots, and then he found smaller ones that he recognized immediately as his sister’s. So she had stopped here! But there were other tracks too. Some made by a Vibram-soled hunting or hiking boot, and others with a less distinctive pattern. They told him someone else had visited the camp, but who were they? And why? Mitch widened his circle from around the fire, and finally he found the hoof prints of horses, which were likely made by the three with Lisa since he now knew she’d been here. He stood and looked around in all directions, trying to think of possible reasons Lisa and Mr. Holloway might have left and who the other men might have been. Had she come here to tell Mr. Holloway about Mitch not returning from Purvis and somehow talked him into going back there with her? Mitch doubted he would, but he had enjoyed her company and may have been willing to attempt it for her sake. He walked down to the creek and found many more hoof prints and droppings where it was evident the horses had been watered. Then he continued upstream a bit searching the soft sand, and that’s when movement and a whooshing sound of heavy wings flapping from the woods beyond startled him. A turkey vulture was struggling to get airborne, then another, and another. Looking up in the nearby trees, Mitch saw at least a dozen more of the big black birds sitting there motionless, all watching to see what he would do next. Something big was dead nearby…. something at least as big as a deer… or a horse… or a human…. Mitch steeled himself for what he might find, and slowly walked into the edge of the woods.

  Twenty-two

  THE CYPRESS SLOUGH SHE was wading in wound through several sweeping bends between higher ground; allowing her to walk in the water much farther than Lisa had dared to hope. She knew it was her best, and perhaps only chance of eluding the dogs, which she could still hear in the distance every time she stopped splashing long enough to listen. She was almost certain at this point that they were indeed the dogs from the place the three men took her. They sounded closer, like they were coming after her. Her scent trail would end at the water’s edge, but she knew they would search the banks for her inevitable exit onto dry land again. The longer she could keep her feet in the water, the better, but wading like this was slow, and she needed to travel fast almost as bad as she needed to hide her trail. It was impossible to judge the depth of the cold, black water, and several times she stepped into holes, causing her to fall or sink up to her neck in it. There were stumps and logs beneath the surface that she stumbled into or tripped on, and she tried to put creatures like cottonmouths and alligators out of mind, telling herself that it was too cold tonight for reptiles to be active.

  As she waded along, she hoped the slough might connect to Black Creek or at least a smaller tributary of it. She had no idea where she was in relation to the creek, but if she could find it, she knew she could follow it all the way home. Many such swampy areas in the region had an outflow running downstream, but as the water got shallow, finally only ankle deep, Lisa knew she was coming to the end of it. There was no current that she could detect, only stagnant black water that ending in a patch of deep mud. Even without dogs, anyone searching the edge of the slough would be able to see where she left it, but she had no other choice. The banks were muddy everywhere, so she slogged on through and picked up her pace so that it varied from a brisk, forced walk to a slow jog in places where the woods were open enough to permit running. She was determined to cover as many miles as possible, knowing that her tactic of wading into the water would only delay her pursuers for a short while.

  As she ran, Lisa remembered hearing her dad telling of his experiences on manhunts for criminal suspects or jail escapees that fled into the woods. As a game warden, he was often called to help in such cases because of his expertise in the outdoor environment. He said most of them were soon caught, because they typically didn’t go far, attempting to find a place to hide instead. What they didn’t realize was that if they had simply moved faster in a straight line away from the start of the chase, they could have likely eluded the bloodhounds and their handlers. Most weren’t physically capable of this, of course, but Lisa loved to run, and she already had great endurance even before life got harder after everything changed. Remembering this tidbit of knowledge, she was determined to push herself to the utter limits. If the dogs lost the trail at the swamp for even half an hour that would give her time to gain considerable distance. Unless she chanced upon it, she knew there was no use actively looking for Black Creek in the dark, so it didn’t really matter which way she was going, as long as she didn’t stop. She had to slow down from running and catch her breath once and a while, but even then she continued to walk swiftly, doing her best to travel in a straight line as much as the terrain permitted.

  During each of these periods of walking, she listened car
efully for the dogs. A good hour and a half after leaving the water she could no longer hear them at all. She didn’t know if that meant the men and dogs were paused at the slough, looking for where she’d left it, or if she’d simply gotten far enough away to be out of hearing range. Taking off at a jog again, she began to feel much better about her chances. She ran up and down the piney hills, pushing through briars and low bushes despite the pain and the burning in her lungs. She came to a wide gravel road in another half hour, and briefly considered turning onto it one way or the other, but it ran perpendicular to her route and she wanted to maintain the same direction as long as possible, no matter where that took her.

  She was shivering in her wet clothes despite all the exertion, but as the sky began to lighten behind her, Lisa knew she would be warm again soon. With the day dawning in the direction from which she’d been running, Lisa was pretty sure that she must have been moving generally west most of the night. That meant she was likely running farther from home than where she’d started, though she had no idea exactly where that might be. All she knew for sure was that they had taken her away from Brooklyn at a walking pace, traveling maybe three or four hours. It would help to know which side of Black Creek she was on, but she had no way of knowing even that. She’d been so upset over what they did to Mr. Holloway and so disoriented by the blindfold and being tied on the horse at night that she hadn’t been able to tell if they had crossed the bridge or not when they first left the campsite. The creek ran generally east-southeast from Brooklyn to the area of the Henley farm, but she knew she could now be either a few miles north of it or south of it, depending on which way they headed when they left. Until she came to a running tributary or the creek itself, she figured she might as well continue in the direction she was going. Black Creek was a sizable stream that drained a really big area. She had to still be within its drainage, and when she found running water, as she knew she eventually would, all she had to do was follow it downstream to make her way home.

  Sunrise found her on a piney ridge where the forest was more open than in the bottomlands. She stopped to rest, sitting facing the sunlight with a big pine at her back, desperate to warm her body after the cold night of running in wet clothes. She removed her old leather boots and her worn wool socks with holes in both heels, squeezing out the water by twisting them in her hands. Her feet were already tough and not subject to blisters, but they were sore from the miles and numb from the cold. She felt reasonably safe staying put for a few hours, knowing she needed some sleep before she could push on. When she woke the sun was at its midday peak, and she was warm and rested, but ravenously hungry. Her priority for the day was finding water, and she knew that near it or in it she could find something to eat as well.

  * * *

  Mitch edged closer to the thicket around which the winged black scavengers were gathered. The smell of death in there was overpowering, and he trembled at the thought of what he might find. Whatever the vultures were feeding on was likely recently dead—one to three days, at most. Mitch had come across plenty of dead people in various stages of decomposition since this nightmare started, but the prospect of finding his sister like that was terrifying. The death birds perched in the branches above waited patiently, not willing to abandon their feast at his intrusion, but cautious enough to keep a safe distance.

  As he pushed his way into the bramble, Mitch saw a human form lying facedown in the leaves. Long, lanky legs clad in brown denim and shaggy gray hair on the back of the head was enough to identify the body at a glance—Mr. Holloway. Mitch scanned the nearby area from where he stood looking to see if there was another, but saw nothing, much to his relief. If something had happened to Lisa too, it had not been here.

  It was an unpleasant task, but he had to get close enough to the old man’s body to see if he could determine how he died. The vultures grew restless and irritated at the prolonged interruption, but Mitch took a deep breath and circled around to work through the underbrush. Once he was on the other side, he saw that half of Mr. Holloway’s face was missing, the horrific fatal wound no doubt caused by a rifle round fired at close range. Someone had murdered the harmless old man, but for what? His boots were missing, as were the two rifles, but he had nothing else anyone would want. Mitch knew those items were reason enough for some people these days, but the fact that Lisa had been here too was too much of a coincidence.

  He searched all of the woods near the body and on both sides of the old man’s camp, but there was nothing else apparent, and besides, if there were another body there would be vultures around it too. Mitch turned his attention back to the tracks, trying to decipher exactly what took place here. As he worked his way closer to the road, he found a few hoof prints in a bare area close to the shoulder; along with the same boot prints he’d seen near the fire. He thought about the faint tracks he’d seen three or four miles back on the trail, heading east, and though he couldn’t be sure, considered that they could have been made by the same men and horses. Had they taken Lisa and horses that way? Was she perhaps riding one of them while the men led them on foot? It was all he had to go on, so he was going to run with it. Mitch felt bad about leaving Mr. Holloway the way he found him, but if Lisa were still alive he knew he had to find her fast. He sprinted back to where he’d left Amigo and swung up into the saddle to retrace his route back down the Black Creek Trail.

  When he came to the tracks again, he dismounted and slowly picked his way along, losing them where the trail was covered in leaves and picking up faint impressions here and there where the wind had exposed bare earth. Nothing in the sandy soil here was as definitive as the tracks in the firmer ground around Mr. Holloway’s camp, but even so, Mitch felt certain they were made by the same men and horses. And if that were the case, they had taken a different route out of Brooklyn and intersected the trail farther east, probably where it crossed a paved county road a ways back. The tracks didn’t stay on the trail long though. He knew that already from his ride out this morning when he’d been careful to look for them all the way from the Henley farm. There were several gravel road crossings along the way, as well as two-track dirt logging roads. It was likely they had turned off on one of those, because the woods were mostly too thick to take horses cross-country. He had to check each one as he came to it to make sure he wasn’t overlooking something obvious. This was a slow and frustrating process for Mitch, who was growing impatient and anxious, as it was already mid-afternoon and would be dark again soon. Tracking was something that normally came easy for him, but here on the harder ground in the pine hills far from the creek, even the horses were hard to follow.

  He finally hit pay dirt when he came to one of the old logging roads that crossed the trail, dead-ending at the creek bank to the north and intersecting a gravel forest service road to the south. The sign that the men and horses had turned onto it would have been missed by most anyone, but Mitch still berated himself for not noticing on the way home the day before. The gravel didn’t leave distinctive tracks the way bare earth would, but there were hoof-sized impressions here and there in the deeper drifts that he now recognized as the trail for which he’d been searching. He followed it to the larger gravel road, and after dismounting and looking carefully, determined they had taken a right turn there, heading west.

  Mitch was familiar with the road, but he’d not traveled it since the blackout, as it was not on the way to any of the places he frequented since. He knew it wound through the national forest for miles, eventually coming out on a paved county road that in turn led to Highway 29. He couldn’t remember just where it was, but he was quite sure there was an isolated house somewhere along the gravel section not far from here. He didn’t want to round a bend and come upon it unexpectedly, nor did he want to miss seeing it if the trail turned off the road again beforehand. With this in mind, he dismounted, whispering to Amigo that they had to be careful and keep quiet. If the trail led as far as the house and it was still standing, there was a chance he would find them there.
He just hoped it wasn’t too late for Lisa.

  Twenty-three

  MITCH STOPPED AND LED Amigo off the road when he caught a glimpse of smoke filtering through the trees beyond the next bend ahead. He tied the horse off out of sight in the woods, and then made his way quietly on foot to get a better look. He was carrying the rifle in his hands, but his unstrung bow and quiver of arrows was on his back as well. The late afternoon sunlight cut through the tall pines around him, casting harsh patterns of light and shadow that made it difficult to see far ahead. But as he moved slowly in the direction of the smoke, he discovered its source when he came to the edge of a clearing.

  Just as he’d remembered, there was a small, wood-frame house set back just a few yards from the gravel road, the smoke he’d seen pouring from the chimney on its far side. The yard around the house contained a collection of old cars, pickup trucks and motorcycles, and judging from their appearance, some of them jacked up on blocks and missing wheels, they had not been running even before the pulse. Other junk littered the property for as far as he could see, and a couple hundred yards farther back, there was an old barn with a sagging and rusty tin roof.

  There was no sign of the occupants or anything moving, but Mitch was glad he’d seen the smoke before riding down the open road on Amigo, because he had no doubt someone was inside that house. Since the trail of the men and horses he was following led this way, Mitch decided to circle around the property to investigate. Keeping well inside the wood line, he made his way around in the direction of the barn, planning to skirt around the property and check for tracks on the road south of the house to see whether or not they had kept going.