The Savage Darkness (Darkness After Series Book 4) Read online

  A forth arrow was on his bowstring immediately as he dropped back behind the tree and watched and waited. Were the two men coming behind the dogs, or had the hounds abandoned the chase and turned tail for home? At the pace the dogs were moving, Mitch doubted anyone was right behind them. The men might have caught up with Lisa and could be bringing her back even now, or they might still be hunting her. Mitch waited a good ten minutes and when nothing moved; he walked over to examine the dead dogs. Both were wearing collars, but they were scrawny and half-starved, their hides scarred from what looked like beatings with a whip or rope. Mitch hated to kill dogs but he really had no choice. If they had discovered him and started barking he would have lost all his advantage of surprise as he trailed these men who had no idea they were being hunted. But after seeing the poor animals up close, Mitch had put them out of a miserable existence anyway. He retrieved and cleaned his arrows and carried the dead dogs well off the trail and hid them in the bushes before continuing on.

  He moved much more carefully now, expecting to encounter the two men and maybe his sister with them. A half-hour before dark he heard their voices before he saw them. They were coming his way, just like the two dogs, but this time Mitch had enough time to move well off the trail to the concealment of a thicket, where he waited for them to pass his position.

  Their conversation continued non-stop as they walked into view. Although he half-expected to see Lisa with them, she was not. Either they hadn’t found her, or they had, but were not bringing her back. Mitch hoped it wasn’t the latter, but he was determined to find out momentarily. Both men were dressed in camouflage coveralls, with similar camo caps. They were lean and dirty looking, with unkempt beards, one with little hair under his cap and the other with a ratty-looking ponytail hanging out the back of his. The ponytail dude was carrying a scoped hunting rifle while the other man had an SKS that Mitch immediately recognized as the one he’d traded to Mr. Holloway for the bottle of Ibuprofen.

  Possession of that innocent old man’s rifle sealed this man’s fate, even though he didn’t yet know it. Mitch waited for the two of them to walk on past and keep going, not leaving his place of concealment until they were almost out of sight. The darkness was closing in rapidly and was on his side, as he could tell the men were tired and no longer alert. Their minds were on home, but they still had a long way to go to get there, and it was a journey they would never complete.

  Mitch slipped through the trees behind them like a wraith, setting up his position for the perfect shot to take out the trailing one first. This happened to be the ponytail dude with the hunting rifle, which suited Mitch fine. It was the other one with the SKS who deserved to suffer most. Using the narrow bundle of brown hair that hung down the center of the man’s neck as his aim point, Mitch released his arrow and heard the satisfying smack of it strike flesh seconds before the man collapsed. His partner turned around after taking another step, apparently hearing the sound of his buddy falling. Mitch had already drawn his next arrow, which he aimed low, targeting the man’s pelvic girdle.

  Although there was still a risk of an instant kill if he happened to hit the spine, Mitch hoped to question this one as to the whereabouts of his sister before he died. The man staggered when the arrow struck him, firing a wild round from the SKS before dropping it as he doubled up on the ground, screaming in agony. Mitch was standing over him within seconds, another arrow nocked and ready in case he still had any fight left. But the man was focused entirely on the wooden shaft protruding from the right side of his lower abdomen. He wasn’t going anywhere, and he was no longer a threat to Mitch or anyone else.

  “Where is she!” he demanded.

  The wounded man looked up at the sound of Mitch’s voice, seeing who had done this to him for the first time. He didn’t seem to grasp the meaning of the question at all.

  “Where is my sister? The girl you took to your house from Brooklyn. The girl you two were tracking!”

  The man stared at him in disbelief. Unable to comprehend how this archer who had appeared out of nowhere was somehow connected to the girl that had already caused them so much grief.

  “I don’t know! We didn’t find her! She got away. We didn’t hurt her, I swear!”

  “You’re lying!” Mitch said. “Did you find her and kill her already? Is that what happened?”

  “No! I swear we didn’t hurt her! I haven’t seen her since Johnny took her out to the barn and she about half killed him! We looked for her, but we gave up. She went too far.”

  Mitch watched as the man writhed in pain. He didn’t really see that he had a reason to lie at this point. He relaxed his bow and bent to pick up the fallen SKS. Then he put the arrow back in his quiver and turned to resume his journey west along Lisa’s trail.

  “Help me!” The man screamed as he walked away. “PLEASE! DON’T LEAVE ME HERE LIKE THIS! I’M GONNA BLEED TO DEATH!”

  Considering how these men had murdered Mr. Holloway in cold blood and taken his sister, the wounded one deserved no mercy and Mitch could have left him there to bleed out and die slowly in agony. But that wasn’t who he was, so when he was some twenty paces away, he turned around and raised the SKS to his shoulder to fire a finishing round into the man’s head. The echo quickly faded and silence returned to the forest as he continued walking west until it was too dark to see. He found a place to camp, as once again, he would need daylight to pick out Lisa’s trail in this terrain. But this time as he closed his eyes go to sleep, he felt much better about the prospects of finding his sister alive. Lisa had eluded her pursuers, and he’d made sure their days of preying on old men and girls were over.

  Twenty-five

  BENNY KNEW DAMNED WELL that he didn’t have pneumonia, no matter how much Stacy and the rest of the kids insisted that he did. His cough had been bad all right, one of those cases of deep chest congestion that made a fellow miserable because it robbed his strength by making it so difficult to breath. He knew it could have turned into pneumonia eventually, so he didn’t hesitate to start taking the antibiotics Mitch brought from the trading post, and the effect was noticeable within just a couple of days. He was back on his feet and restless to do something by the third day, especially since Mitch still wasn’t back and they were all worried about him and Lisa.

  “They would be here by now if he’d found her in Brooklyn with Mr. Holloway,” April said.

  “I expect you’re right. But that don’t mean she hadn’t been there at all,” Benny said. “Maybe Mitch stopped and talked to the fellow and he told him where she went after that. Or maybe Mitch found sign that the two of ’em went on back towards Purvis to look for him. They just ain’t any way to know.”

  “Someone should go to Brooklyn and see. I wish I could.”

  “I think we need to hold off on that, like Mitch said. Give him a couple more days at least. He ain’t had time to go all the way to Purvis and back again, if that’s where he ended up going.”

  Jason had been making daily security patrols of the Henley farm and home site ever since Mitch and Lisa had first set out for the trading post. Now that he was feeling better, Benny insisted on taking a turn at that duty. Stacy tried to talk him out of it, but Benny was adamant.

  “You’ve done a good job as a nurse, young lady, and that’s why I’m going. If I thought I was still sick, I’d do like you say and lay around here being worthless. But a little walking and a change of scenery will do me some good. I won’t be gone all that long, but I’ll bet I’ll feel even better when I get back. Just let me try it, and if I’m wrong, I’ll stay here and shut up tomorrow.”

  “We could both go if you like,” Jason said.

  “Naw, every one of you needs a break after having to hear me coughing around here night and day for nearly a month. And I need a little alone time anyway. Besides, I might sit a spell at Tommy’s graveside. I sure do miss my boy, and I’ve been thinking about him a lot.”

  Benny took his shotgun and his fishing rod and shoved off in the canoe that he
and Tommy had lived out of for so long. He paddled upstream against the gentle current, feeling better already just seeing something besides the inside of the lean-to for a change. At the first sandbar above the camp, he ran the boat aground and stepped out, pulling the canoe up far enough to keep it from drifting and leaving his paddle leaning against the side. He pushed through the dense streamside undergrowth and on into the forest, looking for a place to sit for a minute and think about Tommy. It had been a long time since he’d been to the grave, and he wanted to get his mind right first.

  He had been sitting there in the woods maybe twenty minutes when he heard movement from somewhere on the other side of the creek. Thinking it was probably a deer coming down to drink, Benny eased himself to his feet, the shotgun in both hands and ready. He could see part of the creek from where he stood if he ducked down a bit, and soon he heard a small splash as something entered the water. Benny figured the deer was likely crossing to his side, and if so, it would come out just upstream of where he’d left the canoe. He stood there motionless and waited for it to enter the patch of visible water. But what he saw was not at all what he expected. What was crossing the creek wasn’t a deer, but a man! When Benny spotted him he was chest deep in the water, an AR-type rifle held over his head at arm’s length. The man was moving carefully after making that initial little splash, probably because he slipped on the muddy bank. Benny knew he’d already spotted the canoe and that was likely why he was crossing the creek, perhaps planning to steal it. He watched and waited as the stranger walked over and inspected it, and then he saw him stoop to examine the footprints Benny had left there in the sand. After looking at them for nearly a minute, the man rose to his feet and began following the trail into the woods. Benny barely had time to sidestep out of sight behind a beech tree before it was too late. He knew his tracks ended in the heavy leaves at the edge of the woods, so he hoped the man would give up trying to follow them. He held his breath to suppress a cough, as his coughing, while much better, wasn’t completely gone.

  If not for the large diameter of the tree he was standing behind, the man would have surely seen him as he walked by only a few feet away while Benny quietly edged around, keeping the trunk between them. Whoever this fellow was, he was entirely too close to their camp for comfort, and armed and hardened looking as he was, Benny couldn’t let him go any farther. The simplest solution would be to shoot him in the back and be done with it. But even after what happened at the farm, Benny couldn’t bring himself to do it until he knew for sure the man was up to no good. Instead, he took a step out from behind the tree when the man was a good ten paces away and cocked the hammer of his shotgun with an audible click followed by a non-negotiable command:

  “Set that rifle on the ground and turn around real slow, Mister, or I’ll blow your head right off!”

  The man immediately stopped in his tracks at the click of the hammer. He held both hands out to his sides, the rifle in the right, and slowly bent his knees to a half squat to place the weapon gently on the ground. Then he obeyed and second part of Benny’s order by turning around to face the muzzle of his 12-gauge. Benny saw from his calm demeanor at gunpoint that the man was no stranger to such situations and likely smart enough not to try anything stupid, but he was glad for every foot of distance between them. The bearded stranger was half his age and looked like he was no stranger to violence. Benny’s finger was resting lightly on the trigger, but he didn’t want to pull it unless it was necessary.

  “I’m not looking for trouble,” the man said. “And I don’t have much of anything worth taking but my rifle. If that’s what you want, I’ll back away. You don’t have to kill me for it.”

  “I ain’t looking to kill nobody, but I seen you cross the creek over to my canoe, and then follow my trail into the woods, so it seems to me you are looking for trouble.”

  “I followed your tracks because I’m looking for my son. My son and my daughter. I knew that wasn’t his canoe, but he’s been near here.”

  “Ain’t nobody around here but me. You must be mistaken, and you’d best go back to wherever you come from. There’s folks in these parts that would have shot you just now without asking questions. I ain’t one, so figure yourself lucky.”

  The man studied him for a minute, clearly thinking of what he was going to say next. “If you’ve been around here for awhile, then you’d have to know that my son and daughter were here too. That’s my house that was burned down on the next place south of the creek upstream of here. I know they were there before whatever happened to cause the fire, and I know he was hunting in this area recently too. I’ve found the sign.”

  Benny was looking into the man’s eyes as he said this. They seemed honest and open, like he had nothing to hide. But the heavy beard just wasn’t right. Could this man really be the notorious Doug Henley? And Mitch and Lisa’s father?

  “I know the place. And I know who owned it.”

  “Is that so? I don’t recall ever meeting you, but it’s been a rough year and I’ve probably forgotten lots of things from the world before. I’m Doug. Doug Henley.”

  “We ain’t met, and you don’t look just like the pictures I’ve seen of you, but everybody in these parts knows who Doug Henley is. And I know too that he’s been missing ever since the lights went out.”

  “That’s right! I’ve been trying to get back here for nearly a year. I finally made it to the home place this morning and found it burned down. And now I’m looking for my son and my daughter.”

  “And what are their names, then?”

  “Mitch and Lisa. Mitch is… well, I guess he’s about to turn 18 now. And Lisa has turned 14 since I’ve seen her last.”

  Benny had already moved his finger from the trigger guard, and when he heard this man name Mitch and Lisa as his children, he lowered the shotgun and decocked the hammer. “Well, Mr. Henley, I reckon you are who you say you are, even if you do look more like a mountain man than an officer of the law. My name’s Benny Evans, and Mitch and Lisa are my good friends. They’ve told me all about you, and they are going to be real happy to find out you’re alive and well!”

  “You know them? You know where they are? Are they both okay?” Doug had taken a couple of steps towards him, but then he hesitated, still eyeing Benny’s shotgun even though it was now pointed at the ground.”

  “Well yes sir, I know them! They took me and my boy in and treated us just like family. That girl of yours has been calling me her uncle ever since. All of them kids do. Mitch and Lisa aren’t there right now, but we’ve built a new camp since the house was burned. It’s real close by and that’s why I was concerned when I saw you snooping around. We’ve had more than our share of run-ins with outlaws, and the last bunch would have done us in if it weren’t for Mitch. They shot my boy, Tommy, and Jason’s cousin, Corey too before they burned us out. But they paid for it, let me tell you.”

  “Corey! I found a necklace on one of the graves by the house site that had his name on it. But I didn’t know who was buried in the other one. I thought it might be one of my kids.”

  “No sir. That other one’s my boy, Tommy’s grave. I was going up there to visit it today until I saw you crossin’ the creek.”

  “I’m really sorry to hear that,” Doug said. “I lost my wife not long after all this started. All I’ve been living for is getting back here to Mitch and Lisa. I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to them. They’re all I have left.”

  “I lost my Betsy too. Tommy was all I had until your kids and their other friends took me in. We’ve just been doing the best we can at surviving, trying to work together to make it.”

  Benny went on to tell Doug about Mitch and Lisa going to the trading post in Purvis, and how Mitch had returned thinking Lisa was already back, but found that she wasn’t. Doug was understandably let down and worried at learning this, just when he’d thought he was about to be reunited with his son and daughter.

  “I know you’re going to go look for ’em, and I s
ure can’t say I blame you,” Benny said. “I’d be out there myself if there was enough of us to defend the camp. Mitch may be back with Lisa anytime, but I know you’re not gonna wait and see. But since you’re so close you’ve got time for me to show you to the camp. And you’ll get to meet April and her little girl, along with David and Samantha. Jason and Stacy will be glad to see you too, I’m sure of it.”

  “Yes, of course, let’s go! I want to talk to them all, but you’re right, I won’t be staying around with Lisa missing and Mitch out looking for her alone. I’ll go to Brooklyn first, since that’s where you said he was headed, and if I don’t find them there, I’ll go on to Purvis. I think there might still be enough folks over there that know me that they won’t lock me up like they did Mitch.”

  “I reckon not, since telling them he was your son is what got him out. But I’d trim up that beard and hair first if you want ’em to recognize you.”

  Twenty-six

  LISA HENLEY HEARD NOTHING more of the dogs that were trailing her. When she woke from her nap after her long night of running, the sun was hitting her face from a high angle through the tops of the trees, and she felt refreshed and energized by its warmth. She put her boots on and continued making her way west, determined to maintain the same course until she found some landmark to get her bearings. She expected that would be a small stream that drained into Black Creek, but before she found such a tributary, she emerged from the woods at the edge of a four-lane highway.

  She stopped where she was and studied the scene before her. There were a handful of abandoned cars scattered along the two lanes she could see from her side of the median, and knowing she was still going west, it was obvious that those lanes were northbound. At first she was certain that it was Highway 49, as that was the nearest four-lane highway in the region, but then it occurred to her that it could also be Interstate 59 if the men had taken her west of 49 while she was blindfolded. She knew she had covered many miles since her escape, but not knowing the starting point was really confusing. If she was south of Black Creek, either road would take her to it if she followed it north, but on the other hand, she knew it was possible she could already be north of it.