Storm Tide Rising: Blackout Volume 2 (7 page)

Ch. 9

Historic Latta Plantation

The sun was gone now and had been for a while. The shadows of the trees on either side of the power line cut through had grown so dark and dense that Alyssa couldn't see anything beneath the canopy. They hadn't passed a building in a long time, and Alyssa was tired. She wanted nothing more than to sit and rest her aching legs, but Mike still pressed on.

Every few dozen yards, he would kneel and check something in the shadows along the left side of the cut. After a moment, he'd stand and shake his head before moving on down the path. Finally, Mike nodded and motioned for Alyssa to come to him. He pointed down at a faint arrow laid out in small, round stones. Mike held his finger to his lips to keep her from talking yet. He knelt and touched one finger to the last stone in the stem of the arrow, and he looked up to wink at her.

Mike stood and turned his back on the arrow, marching quickly across the cut through. Alyssa hurried to follow him. At the other side, he scanned the edge of the woods quickly and found his target. He pointed to a small flat rock that had three round stones roughly the size of her fist, each stacked on top of each other. Mike bent and collected the stones quickly. He grabbed Alyssa's hand and pulled her quietly into the shadows beneath the trees.

"What the—" Alyssa began, but Mike shook his head firmly and placed his finger back over his lips. He pulled her along in a generally straight line for a time, then turned sharply to the left and knelt behind the stump of an old windfall pine tree. He motioned for Alyssa to sit behind him, and she did.

Mike leaned back and whispered, "If someone saw the arrow and went into the woods there, they might have doubled back to wait for the person that put down the arrow in the first place. This way, if they are there and they follow us, we'll know it, and they won't be able to tell where to enter the woods. Now, stay quiet, no matter what you see, got it?"

Mike's tone was calm, but serious, and Alyssa could just make out how wide his eyes were in the dim shadows cast by the thick woods. Mike was scared, and she knew it. Alyssa nodded and waited, her ears straining to pick up any sound of pursuit. Mike turned to face the edge of the woods and began untying a pair of braided leather chords that hung around his neck. He pulled a small patch of tooled leather from his wallet and tied the two chords to the patch to complete the sling. The pouch was just big enough for the stones he'd stacked to mark his trail, and they would do a lot of damage even from a glancing blow if it came to that.

It was quiet.

They waited for what seemed like an eternity, and Alyssa's feet began to tingle from kneeling in an awkward position. At last, Mike nodded and stood. "If anyone was going to follow us," he whispered, "I think they would have by now. C'mon. I've got a camp set back a few hundred yards with fresh water and a small shelter. All we need to do is prop the roof up."

Alyssa's scowl turned to confusion, but she followed Mike as he turned and began walking confidently through the near pitch black woods. "Look," Alyssa said finally, planting her feet in the leaf litter and pine straw and her fists on her hips. "Where the hell are we, and where are we going?"

Mike sighed and gestured around them. "This is the Latta Plantation," he said, then leaned closer to her, "and even though we're a long way from the main roads, do you mind keeping your
voice down
? It's quiet out here and noise carries farther than you'd think."

Alyssa nodded reluctantly and hissed in an angry whisper. "Fine. How do you know where you're going? I can't see anything out here."

Mike just chuckled softly. "I grew up in woods a lot darker than this," he said cryptically. "Come on, it's not far to the camp site where there's a bed of thick green pine needles and cedar boughs. Very aromatic and...relaxing..."

"Are you trying to tell me to
relax?
"  Alyssa spat, her eyes narrowing.

Mike quickly shook his head and held up both hands. "No, not at all. I was just making a statement. I'm tired and ready to stretch out is all."

Alyssa snorted hard through her nose and waved a hand absently at him. "Then why are you just standing there, wasting time?" 

Mike ground his teeth and turned away from her without speaking. He walked through the shadowy forest and finally stopped next to a pair of forked saplings that had been bent and tied together at the tops. "Here we are," Mike said with a grin. "Home sweet home for the night."  He bent and lifted a long branch as thick as his forearm into a fork in the two saplings that were bent in toward each other. Then he motioned for Alyssa to take one corner of what looked like a carpet of leaves and sticks and lift it. To her amazement, the entire sheet lifted together, and Mike hung it from two branches that had been cut off and shaped into pegs, forming the leaning roof of the lean-to shelter.

The roof was pretty low to the ground, but there was enough room for Mike to crawl inside and stretch out on his back with a little more than a foot to the ceiling. It was sturdy enough to keep out anything but the hardest rain, and the skies overhead were crystal clear. Alyssa reached in, and the bed of evergreens was indeed springy and felt inviting.

Mike nodded to her. "You sleep first," he said. "I'll keep the watch and wake you up in a few hours so I can get some sleep, okay?"

Alyssa nodded and set her backpack over to the side. She stretched out on the make-shift bed of evergreen branches, and after a few moments of shifting restlessly, she got comfortable, and her breathing grew deeper. Several long moments later, she broke the silence between them. "How did you learn to do this?"  she asked softly.

Mike chuckled before answering. "I was a Boy Scout, if you can believe it. An Eagle Scout, actually, although that seems like an eternity ago now. Wilderness Survival merit badge was a requirement, and I guess some things you just don't forget." 

Alyssa answered with a yawn and a grunt.

"If you wake up," Mike whispered, "and I'm not right here, you don't make a sound, okay? Stay quiet and wait, and I'll be back soon."

Alyssa mumbled something that sounded like agreement, and Mike settled his back against the trunk of a large pine. He wasn't exactly comfortable, but he wasn't exactly trying to be either. He wanted to be difficult to see against the shadow of the tree and still have a clear view of their back trail. In fact, part of the point was to be just uncomfortable enough to keep him awake through the watch.

Mike looked up at the crystal clear night sky and the few small glimpses of starlight he could see among the trees. Somewhere in the distance, a whippoorwill began to sing.

Ch.10

Breaking Protocol

Clouds to the southwest that had begun to rise in thick white and orange towers before the sunset were beginning to flash with lightening, and the distant thunder could just barely be heard when Eric finally stepped out from under the grape vineyard and into the back yard of Granddaddy's farm house. Joe and Henderson were close behind him, and all three were out of breath. It had been a long and difficult walk with the added weight they had taken from the Pharmacy, and Joe had set a hard pace to get back with the medicine.

Joe barely paused at the edge of the vineyard before climbing the porch steps and tapping softly on the door. Beth opened it and threw her arms around his neck, kissing both of his cheeks as tears streamed down hers. Joe held her for a moment, then whispered in her ear and handed over all three of their bags before shutting the door softly.

As Joe was stepping off the last step of the porch, Chris came trotting up from the direction of the river. He seemed barely winded and nodded to Joe in the gathering gloom. "We're clear," he said softly. "I stayed back and watched that crowd until they got tired of waiting and kicked down the front door. The pharmacy won't be much of a pharmacy for a while, though. They busted out all of the windows, emptied the place, then torched it. The crowd scattered once the fire got really going. I think it got a lot bigger a lot quicker than they thought it would."

"We got a problem, though."  Joe said softly, casting a glance at Eric. "Did you see the burning farm house?"

Chris frowned. "Yeah, I took a peak. I was gonna ask you about that," he said, a bit confused. "It was too dark to make out much through my scope, but looked like three pretty young guys, a tent, and a burning house. I didn't try and go closer, though."

Joe nodded. "We know the family," he said after a moment, and Chris sucked his breath in through his teeth in a hiss. "Yeah. Eric was close with their son. We're heading back to see what happened."

Chris thought for a moment before speaking. "You need more bodies? I can get Tom and we'll be five. Extra man might make the difference."

Joe shook his head. "No, just us. We go fast and light, and if
anything
looks the least bit hairy, we come straight back. We're not looking for a fight if we can avoid one."  He said that last bit looking Eric in the eye with a serious glare. "You got me, son? You follow my lead, and when I say move you move, or we don't go at all. Got it?"

Eric's answer was quick and firm. "Yes sir, "I understand."

Joe shook his head. "I already told your mother. She didn't even argue, which really makes me nervous....but we'd better go anyway."

"I'll keep an eye on things here, Captain," Chris said as he patted Eric on the shoulder. "I hope your friend's okay."

Before Eric could find the words for a response, Chris and Henderson had both turned and were halfway to the back porch. Joe took a long drink of water from a bottle he pulled out of his small rucksack, and he handed the bottle over to Eric, who drained the last of it.

Joe asked softly. "You sure you want to do this, son?"

Eric nodded without hesitation. "I spent as much time at Brant's house growing up as I did at ours. I've got to know what happened in case he asks one day. I know he'd do the same if it was our house he'd seen half-eaten with flames."

Joe saw the determination in his son's eyes and nodded. "Okay, I just had to ask. Now, you've gotta know, it could get ugly. I mean real ugly real quick. I gotta know that if I ask you to pull that trigger, you will."

"Whatever you need me to do," Eric replied without hesitation. "You know that, Dad."

Joe shouldered his rifle and patted his son on the shoulder. "Well, we'd better get to it."

Joe took the lead this time as he and Eric jogged down the hill through the muscadine vineyard and past the old, dark hog house. The road ended at the river where a series of irrigation pumps had sat for as long as Eric could remember. Joe turned to the left and headed downstream toward the junction with the creek that would take them toward town and the Thompson's place. The woods were dark, but Joe used his flashlight only for brief flashes to cross fallen logs or navigate the occasional cross creek or runoff ditch.

Eric was impressed with how quietly his father could slip through the shadows and how quickly he was able to cover ground. They stuck to game trails and the random ATV paths as much as they could to make good time, and before long Joe found the fence line of the Thompson's lower pastures. Despite his general good health, Joe was more than a bit out of breath and paused to lean against the fence post for a moment before catching Eric's eye.

"If the house is still burning, they'll be focused on that," Joe began. "If it's pretty much out, there's no telling where they'll be looking. Whatever direction they're facing, we'll circle around wide to get behind them, and on my word come at them from behind. If any of them pulls a gun, you hold your fire until I say otherwise, got it? Once we cross into the upper pasture, no more talking until we get things secure or we're back in the lower pasture. I'll give you signals to let you know when to move."

Eric steeled himself with a deep breath, and Joe crossed the fence into the pasture. Eric felt an unexpected rush of adrenaline jolt through him as he set foot in the ankle-high grass. The cows were all crowded together about a third of the way up the gentle slope from the river. Several large heifers watched as Eric and Joe passed them, still over protective of their spring calves.

And maybe, if any of the old herd remained and saw him in the starlit shadows of night, they would recognize Eric when they hadn't in the light of day. More often than not, Eric and Brant had snuck into the lower pastures at night to try and tip a cow. They never did actually tip one over, but they did get chased by them on a regular basis. Once Eric had to jump in the river to get away from the herd at a full charge, and Brant had climbed halfway up a now-dead cedar tree that had been struck by lightening the next spring. To be on the safe side, Eric tried not to make eye contact with any of the cows as he passed.

These thoughts and a thousand other small flashes played across Eric's memory like a home video. His palms were growing sweaty, and his pulse was pounding in his ears. He tried to slow his breathing, but he couldn't. His body and mind teetered on that thin line between fight and flight, and it was all Eric could do to steer his mind to the task at hand.

At the fence that separated the upper and lower pastures, Joe stopped again. He looked at Eric, and put a hand on his son's shoulder. "You can feel it, I can tell. It's like when you went hunting the first time and drew down on a buck. There's that queasy feeling in the pit of your stomach and a tightness in your throat. Don't worry, son. That'll pass, I promise."

Joe said it so calmly as he spoke straight to the heart of all Eric was feeling. The reassurance helped snap him a little bit back to the moment. He gave his father a grateful look and nodded. Joe nodded back, reached into a pocket inside his tactical vest, and pulled out two pairs of dark sunglasses on neck cords. He handed one pair to Eric and hung the other around his own neck.

"When we get ready to go in," Joe said, "if we go in—and if it's bright enough—the last thing you do is put on the shades. They'll protect your night vision in case we have to make a rapid retreat. Get away from their lights and take your shades off. Your eyes will be instantly better off than theirs, and that gives you a slight advantage. Any leg up counts. Now, from here on out, you stay two steps behind me, two steps to the left. If the shooting starts, I don't want to hit you by accident."