“Hold still because I got it,” Mary told Chris with tweezers inside the wound. Gritting his teeth and tears streaming from his eyes, Chris nodded as Mary tried to pull the splinter out fast, but it was too jagged and too big. To keep it from breaking, Mary slowly pulled it out as Chris held his breath and his face turned colors.
“Shit,” Mary gasped with one inch of the splinter out and more coming. “Got it,” Mary sighed, and Chris let out the breath and tears rained from his eyes as his head dropped on the bedroll. But not once did he ever cry out or make a noise. Looking at the splinter, Sandy wasn’t sure if she could’ve stayed that quiet.
“Holy cow,” Tyler stated with wide eyes, staring at the splinter. It was almost three inches long and bigger around than a toothpick. “Chris, look at the splinter that was in your butt!”
Slowly lifting his head, Chris covertly wiped the tears from his face, then glanced back. To him, it looked like a log Mary was holding with the tweezers. “I’ll never slide again,” Chris vowed as he panted, trying to catch his breath.
“Chris, I need to wash it out and make sure that was all of it,” Mary told him, putting the splinter down. Nodding, Chris turned his head and put his face in the bedroll. Using a syringe from the first aid kit to irrigate, Mary was again thankful for that scout camp.
As Mary worked on Chris, Sandy pushed Tyler until he was lying down. “Time to clean cuts and it’s going to hurt, but you can be tough,” Sandy smiled, and Tyler gave a determined nod with a smile. The smile fell instantly when Sandy started washing the cuts out on his feet. Fighting not to pull his foot away, Tyler laid back while gritting his teeth as Sandy used a needle to dig dirt out from a cut.
“Got more,” Mary announced, and Sandy glanced over to see another splinter half the size of the first. “Chris, you had half that board stuck in your butt,” Mary declared, and Chris chuckled through his tears.
It took Sandy and Mary an hour but finally, the boys were tended to. Sandy was sure if they hadn’t had to constantly look around, it wouldn’t have taken nearly that long. Dabbing antibiotic ointment on all the cuts, they put on dressings. “Time to eat,” Mary said, getting up and headed for the stove and carried over a kettle.
Both boys wiped tears from their eyes as Sandy held out pills. “Take these and the pain won’t be as bad.”
“I can’t swallow pills,” Chris stated, and Tyler nodded.
Closing her hand and nodding, “That’s okay, we can give you shots. But I’m sorry, all we have are really big needles that are only a little smaller than that splinter,” Sandy informed them with a sorrowful sigh.
Both boys held out their hands. “We’ll take the pills,” Chris decided. Handing over a bottle of water, Sandy explained it was just in the mind, and talked the boys through it. It took Tyler longer, but even he swallowed the medicine.
Mary put the underwear on the boys that Sandy had laid out, and pinned them up so they wouldn’t fall off. Then she pulled the compression shirts over the boys’ heads. “Slow down,” Mary told the boys as they ate, and she pulled the socks over their feet.
“Sorry,” Chris replied with a mouthful, and elbowed Tyler to slow down. To his credit, Tyler did slow down, but was still eating in a blur.
“When are we leaving?” Chris asked, making an effort to eat slower.
“When it’s dark,” Sandy answered, picking Tyler up and setting him in her chair. “That should be around nine.”
Tyler looked up at Sandy with a chipmunk grin as she moved over and rolled up her bedroll. Seeing Mary coming to pick him up, Chris tried to stand and move to her camping chair, but his sore feet informed him otherwise. Scooping Chris up, Mary sat him in the chair and pinched his cheek lightly, then rolled up her sleeping roll.
“What can we do?” Chris asked.
“Get better first, then you will help,” Mary told him. “We need help, but you two need to get healthier first.”
Giving a long sigh, Chris nodded and finished his bowl off. After Sandy tied her bedroll on the saddle, she came over to grab the empty water bottles and filled them with the filtered hand pump. Walking past the boys, Sandy stopped and saw four empty water bottles between the two. She handed each another, then packed the rest.
“You guys didn’t eat much,” Chris stated as Sandy grabbed the empty water bottle between them.
Patting Chris’s leg as she stood up, “We’re full,” Sandy smiled.
Lying back in the chair, Tyler panted. “That was the best food ever. What was it?”
Trying not to laugh, “Freeze dried chicken and mashed potatoes,” Mary answered, emptying the shower bag.
Having no idea what ‘freeze dried’ meant, Tyler just shrugged as Dan and Ann finished off their dog bowls and moved over. “Hey, puppy,” Tyler said, petting Dan, and Ann immediately came over to let Tyler know she wanted some.
Taking the boys’ empty bowls, “That’s Dan and that’s Ann,” Mary told him, touching each dog as she spoke.
When Mary came back from washing the bowls, Chris was staring at them in amazement. Then Mary and Sandy started putting on their tactical vests and checking equipment. “Were you guys like SWAT or in the Army?” Chris asked.
“I wish,” Sandy chuckled, shaking her head. “No, we had to learn because I’m sure you know what happens now if someone doesn’t know how to take care of themselves.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Chris said as Sandy and Mary came over. Expecting them to pick them up Chris tried to stand, only to have Sandy put a hand on his shoulder to keep him in the chair.
“Learning time,” Sandy smiled, getting to her knees and pulling Tyler closer. She held up the topo book opened up to the page they were on. “We are here,” Sandy said, then started describing the map.
Chapter Seventeen
Carrying Tyler to her horse, Sandy gave him the light jacket. “It’s really hot,” Tyler informed her.
Sandy grinned. “That’s in case you get cold,” she told him. Then Sandy put on her backpack and she and Mary walked around the camp area. Satisfied they hadn’t left anything they needed, they climbed up with the boys. Each turned their caps around and put on the head harness with the monocular.
Holding her bow in her left hand, “Tyler, lie down on the horse’s neck,” Sandy told him, and pulled her bow back. Finding she couldn’t aim straight ahead, Sandy stood up in the stirrups and found she had enough room between the bottom of the bow and Tyler to shoot. Letting the bow down, Sandy sat back in the saddle and saw Mary doing the same thing.
“I want a bow,” Tyler said as Sandy pulled him back until he was sitting up.
“Oh, you’ll get one when we get home,” Sandy assured him. Pulling her AR up from under her arm, Sandy furrowed her brow trying to figure out how to arrange it. Finally, Sandy just let it go to hang under her arm, realizing that was the best place for it where she could grab it quickly.
“Here,” Sandy said, handing Tyler one of the NVG binoculars Mary had collected. “They aren’t binoculars that zoom in, you can just see in the dark,” Sandy explained. Truth be told, Sandy had only figured them out that morning after Mary had gone to sleep. The binoculars just looked like two of the PVS14 monocular she was wearing. She finally found where it said PVS15 on the side. It even clipped to the head harness, but Sandy wanted her right eye used to the dark.
“Wow,” Tyler moaned and Sandy showed him how to turn them on and off.
“We have batteries, but don’t just leave them on. You have to help me keep an eye out for danger,” Sandy told him, trying to find a spot where she could rest her left hand as it held her bow. “Don’t yell out or make loud noises. If it’s close, tap my leg and point. We only kill stinkers that are close and people that are a threat, but you always tell me if you see people.”
Glad he was going to help, “Okay,” Tyler replied rather joyfully.
Seeing Mary lead her horse over, Sandy saw Mary was letting her left hand rest on her thigh with the bow string under her arm. Trying that, Sandy
sighed and figured that was going to be the best she could do. “Want me to start off?” Mary asked.
“Only if you want, but we can do it,” Sandy answered, flipping the monocular down. “I think I can get down to cut fences faster with Tyler riding.”
“Well, with Chris riding, I won’t be able to retrieve our arrows by leaning out of the saddle.”
“We won’t start retrieving until we have two hundred left,” Sandy told her, and Mary nodded.
Giving her horse a kick, Sandy steered him through the trees. “Stay near the trees,” Tyler warned when they entered the field. Lifting up his binoculars, Tyler scanned around, and Sandy felt Tyler’s body tense up the instant they’d left the trees.
“We do our best because it’s harder for people to spot us like that also,” Sandy told him, and saw Tyler kept swiveling his head and scanning. Reaching the fence row, Sandy climbed down while grabbing the bolt cutters.
“Want me to hold the driving things?” Tyler asked.
Wrapping the reins around her wrist, Sandy grinned as she cut the first of the strands. When she was done, Sandy put the cutters up and climbed back on. “They are called reins and you will, but first you have to know how to handle them if the horse tries to move,” Sandy told him, guiding the horse through the fence.
Slowing and turning left to follow the fence row, Sandy scanned the field ahead and felt Tyler tense at the same time she spotted a stinker stumbling to the south. Tyler tapped her leg and pointed to the right at the stinker stumbling away. “I see him,” Sandy whispered, and turned the horse out into the field to cross it.
Halfway across the field Tyler’s body relaxed, but he never lowered the binoculars. Holding Tyler with her right arm, Sandy guided the horse into the strip of trees to the next field. Not seeing a fence in the ‘fence row’, Sandy wondered what you called the strip of overgrowth that separated properties if it didn’t have a fence. Making a mental note to ask Lance, she continued to scan the area.
Not spotting any stinkers in the field, Sandy casually steered the horse north while getting closer to the fence row. “This is how you tell the horse to steer,” Sandy said in a low voice, and Tyler lowered the binoculars for the first time, blinking his eyes.
“Okay,” he whispered, and lifted the binoculars back up.
Following the strip of trees, it wasn’t long until Sandy guided them toward a blacktop road. “Stinkers,” Tyler whispered, pointing ahead.
Leaning down, “I see them,” Sandy told him, and pulled the reins back to stop the horse.
Pulling out the thermal binoculars, Sandy scanned ahead and only saw two stinkers heading west on the small blacktop road. “See anything?” Mary asked, moving up beside her.
“Just two stinkers,” Sandy answered, passing the thermals over.
“Don’t need them,” Mary said, and Sandy turned and saw Mary flip up her monocular and use the thermal monocular Johnathan and Bill had pulled off a stinker soldier.
“Should’ve thought of that sooner, since we have batteries again,” Sandy mumbled, turning the thermal off and putting it away.
“I hate using blacktop roads,” Mary grumbled, lowering the thermal.
“Well, if they didn’t put up those cable traffic barriers on interstates, we wouldn’t have to use any,” Sandy reminded her. “I don’t know how to make a horse jump, but all I can see is one getting hurt trying to jump them.”
“Oh, I agree,” Mary nodded, putting her thermal away. “Let’s get this over with.”
Sandy kicked her horse and guided him to the road. When she steered the horse onto the shoulder, Sandy could feel Tyler tensing up, but she didn’t see any stinkers ahead. Glancing back, she could see the ones they spotted earlier, but they were still heading away from them.
“You see something?” Sandy asked.
“No, but stinkers like roads,” Tyler informed her.
Ahead, Sandy saw the overpass they were aiming for. “We need that bridge,” Sandy told him while motioning ahead and Tyler just nodded, scanning around with the binoculars. They passed two dark houses and could see the front doors caved in.
Before they reached the overpass, Sandy turned left and right to look on the interstate and caught her breath, seeing stinkers as far as the limit of her monocular’s range. If it unnerved Sandy, it petrified Tyler.
Cringing, Sandy moved the horse up on the shoulder, so they could cross the overpass. The soft clack of hooves sounded, and Sandy saw stinkers on the road below stop and start looking around. Just guessing, Sandy was sure she could see a thousand stinkers to the north and south on I24 and all were looking around.
Halfway across, they looked up and started converging toward the overpass. Scanning ahead, Sandy gave a sigh to see fences on both sides of the overpass bordering the interstate. “Okay, I’m starting to like fences,” Sandy mumbled as the stinkers headed under the overpass, reaching up. “Glad they didn’t take off and try to get ahead of us,” Sandy confessed, knowing the fence wouldn’t stop that many for long.
Reaching the end of the overpass, Sandy guided the horse across the road to the opposite shoulder and saw stinkers already bouncing off the fence. Feeling Tyler trembling, Sandy held him tight with the crook of her right arm. “I see them,” Sandy told Tyler, looking ahead at half a dozen stinkers on the road heading for them.
Thankful that the overpass didn’t have interstate access ramps, Sandy moved the bow between her and Tyler. Resting the bow between them, Sandy grabbed the reins with her left hand and pulled the 22/45 from under her left arm.
Steering the horse onto the grassy part of the shoulder, Sandy leveled the pistol and flipped the safety off. When the green cross in the sight centered the first stinker’s face, Sandy pulled the trigger and the pistol gave a soft cough and pop.
Watching the stinker drop, “That sounded rather loud,” Sandy commented, moving her aim. Waiting until the next stinker was within twenty yards, Sandy squeezed the trigger and dropped it. Shooting four more, Sandy glanced back and saw a wall of stinkers at the fence, and could tell the fence was leaning. All of a sudden, the wall of stinkers fell forward as the fence collapsed.
Turning back around, Sandy shot the last three stinkers in the road, ejected the magazine, and put in a new one. Shoving the pistol back in the shoulder holster, Sandy guided the horse off the road and into a field.
Grabbing her bow, Sandy moved into a small strip of trees and soon, the horse stepped out on a dirt road that headed south. “Need to move a little faster,” Mary said, moving up beside Sandy. “This road leads to the one we just left and if the stinkers get there before we get out of sight, they’ll follow.”
“Okay,” Sandy said, easing the horse into a slow trot. Thin strips of trees were on each side of the road and Sandy could see a few houses.
“Stinker,” Tyler whispered, tapping her leg.
Glancing ahead, Sandy saw a stinker stumble out on the road. “Tyler, down,” she said, pulling an arrow from the quiver and slowing the horse back to a walk. Standing in the stirrups while flipping up her monocular, Sandy pulled the bow back and rested the middle pin on the shadow of the stinker’s head. She released and watched the stinker drop. About to sit down, Sandy saw two more walk out on the road from the other side.
Grabbing arrows, Sandy pulled back the bow and shot the first one ten yards away, then nocked the next arrow and pulled the bow back, letting her pin settle on the head and released. “Fuck,” Sandy grumbled, watching the arrow hit the stinker in the neck and pass through.
The stinker stumbled from the hit but continued on as Sandy pulled another arrow out and quickly pulled back as the horse started steering to the other side of the road. Releasing the arrow, Sandy grinned to watch the stinker drop six yards away. “Don’t like them that close,” Sandy mumbled, sitting back down in the saddle.
“You can sit up,” Sandy told Tyler and he popped up, looking around with the binoculars. The dirt road turned, but Sandy just headed straight off at the curve and
into trees.
“I was ready to shoot that last one,” Mary said, moving up beside Sandy. Sandy glanced over and saw Mary shoving the 10/22 in the scabbard.
“Not used to shooting standing in the stirrups on a moving horse. Sitting down it’s more stable, but I’ll get the hang of it,” Sandy replied.
“Why didn’t you just shoot?” Tyler whispered, scanning the trees.
“There is another big road we have to cross ahead. We’ll go under the parkway. This close and stinkers could hear. I was a mile away when I shot those on the road,” Sandy explained.
Even though he didn’t understand, Tyler just nodded because it seemed Ms. Sandy and Ms. Mary knew everything. Looking ahead, he saw breaks in the trees. Then what Sandy had said clicked in his young mind when Sandy slowed at the tree line. Tyler looked at the four lane road packed with stinkers. Some were heading north, but most were heading south toward the interstate.
When Sandy guided the horse out from the trees Tyler tensed up, expecting the stinkers to charge them with open mouths. Then, Tyler realized the road was getting higher than they were. Dropping his gaze, Tyler saw a dirt road going under the four lanes, and trees blocked his view up and down the parkway. Tyler contemplated if he couldn’t see the stinkers; they couldn’t see him.
Coming out the other side, Tyler panicked to see the dirt road opened out into a small field. When the horse stepped out from under the parkway, Tyler swung his binoculars left and right before giving a sigh, seeing bushes blocking them from the parkway.
“Don’t lean so far out,” Sandy told Tyler when he tried to look back. When they were only fifty yards from the parkway, Tyler realized the stinkers could see them.
“They see us,” Tyler whispered, and Sandy grabbed his head and turned it forward.
“We move faster than them, and they will lose sight of us when we reach those trees,” Sandy answered, and Tyler saw the trees looming ahead. “We aren’t traveling in a straight line and that’s why we go cross-country, stinkers don’t dodge obstacles well.”
Forsaken World (Book 5): Homecoming Page 19