by ES Richards
“I’m sorry too,” he eventually replied, looking across at his companion and forcing a smile onto his face. “About what I said – I didn’t mean it.”
“I know,” Samuel said. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”
“So, what do we do now?” Austin asked after a short pause, looking at the long road ahead of them, unable to guess how much further it was before they would come out the other side of the State Park.
“The only thing we can do I suppose,” Samuel shrugged in response. He unbuckled his seatbelt and stepped out of the truck. “We walk.”
The fresh air of the forest was pleasant and enjoyable compared to the stuffy inside of the truck. At first the walk didn’t bother either of the men, both shouldering their rucksacks and continuing down the interstate toward Poughkeepsie. There was no need for a map as they both knew to simply follow the road. It was unlikely they would find any oncoming traffic and if they did, they could deal with that when it occurred. Whether they tried to hail the driver down for a ride or whether they hid amongst the trees until they had passed by, it was a decision they didn’t really need to worry about just yet.
On any other day, the walk would’ve been beautiful. Samuel may not have been an outdoorsman, but Austin knew a thing or two and he filled the silence between them with entertaining anecdotes from his adventures. He’d camped in the nearby Catskills on a couple of occasions and told Samuel the easiest way to start a fire from scratch or how to figure out which direction to travel in to find water.
Samuel found himself enthralled by Austin’s teachings and cast his eyes out into the trees to try and visualize himself walking in amongst them. The forest didn’t start off very dense by the roadside, but he could see that as you walked further in, the trees grew closer and closer together, their branches weaving a dark roof that blocked out the sunlight and created a chasm of mystery.
As a child he would’ve loved the adventures that could unfurl within those trees, his imagination taking him to a magical land or a forbidden garden. Now as Samuel looked into the trees, his childlike dreams returned and he found himself far less afraid than he ever had been before. Perhaps it was due to the real fears he had faced in the last few days, but for once looking into the unknown didn’t frighten him so much. That was at least, until he felt Austin’s hand on his shoulder and heard the low whisper in his ear.
“Don’t move.”
Samuel’s first instinct was to look to the road ahead of them, expecting an oncoming vehicle that Austin had spotted in the distance. But there was nothing there. Turning his head toward his companion, Samuel saw Austin gazing off into the tree line, his eyes focused on something within the darkness. Squinting, Samuel did his best to see what his friend was seeing, both men frozen in place as whatever lingered in the shadows decided whether to reveal itself or not. With a deathly roar, it finally came into the picture.
“No!” Austin grabbed hold of Samuel’s arm as his friend tried to run. A huge black bear lumbered out of the bushes, coming toward them on all fours, saliva dripping from its mouth as it gnashed its teeth, targeting both men as prey and charging down on them. It was Samuel’s instinct to run in fear, but Austin held him in place, remembering what he had been taught several years ago: never run from a bear. If you run, it only makes them identify you as prey and then you’re doomed to be a part of the hunt. Stand your ground, try to make them back away and only retreat if you absolutely have to. As the bear skidded to a halt a few feet ahead of them, Austin kept a firm grip of his friend’s arm and tried to calm him down enough so he could explain what they needed to do.
“Don’t react,” Austin whispered as the bear sniffed around their feet, Samuel shuddering like a child with hypothermia. “It’s not going to hurt us if we don’t move.”
Samuel wanted to believe Austin, but as the bear gnashed its teeth and saliva dripped onto his walking boots, he struggled to hold his nerve. He trembled with fear and felt his heart pounding in his chest, thumping loudly despite his best efforts to control his breathing. Opening his mouth to speak, Samuel was silenced as the bear lifted its head and seemed to look right at him. Then, to Samuel’s horror, it kicked up off the ground and stood on its hind legs, towering over the pair of them. Despite Austin’s warning, Samuel lost it and ran. He couldn’t stop himself, fear controlling his legs as he spun around and sprinted away from the predator.
Austin had seconds to react. The words never run from a bear echoed in his head but he knew he couldn’t leave Samuel to fend for himself. Cursing under his breath, he pivoted and ran after his friend, the bear only a few seconds behind.
The serenity that Samuel had been feeling as they walked through the forest had vanished in its entirety as he ran through the trees. He didn’t have time to wonder what a black bear was doing there or why it was rushing toward them; all the usual thoughts that swam through his head disappeared and were replaced with only one basic instinct. Fight or flight and he knew instantly it was a fight he couldn’t win.
“Wait!” Austin shouted as he chased after Samuel, quickly trying to figure out what they should do. Despite his experience outside, this was entirely new to him and he’d never thought to learn if there was a way to stop a bear mid-charge. Now that the animal was thundering after them, he doubted whether it was possible.
Samuel was leading them toward the tree line and without another option, Austin followed and emerged out onto the road beside his friend. But the bear wasn’t far behind. While the road was a more familiar terrain for them both, Austin knew they stood a chance of losing the bear in the trees and he was hedging his bets on that. Samuel was capable of doing nothing more than following his friend as Austin took the lead, running for his life becoming quite a frequent pastime by now.
As they entered the forest, Austin tried to recall whether black bears could climb trees or not. He’d once encountered a grizzly in the wild and remembered that had stayed firmly on the ground, but was that because it couldn’t climb or because it simply hadn’t chosen to on that occasion? Glancing back over his shoulder, Austin saw the bear was still giving chase, though thankfully not yet at full pace. It sort of ambled along behind them as if it were toying with its prey, swaying through the trees like an intoxicated child, but one that could switch to a deadly killing machine in an instant if it chose to.
Weighing up his options, Austin decided that whether the bear could climb trees or not, he and Samuel stood more of a chance on the ground. At least with their feet planted in the soil they could always run away, there was no telling what they could be forced to do if they became trapped up in the branches.
“Arrghhh!”
Looking back over his shoulder once more, Austin this time focused in on Samuel rather than the bear. His friend had tripped over a protruding tree root and lay on the ground clutching his ankle. Austin stopped and moved toward Samuel to help him, before he noticed the bear had also seen the fall and had changed its angle of pursuit. While it had been focused on Austin before, it now moved in on Samuel, the man on the ground the easier target of the two victims. In a split second, Austin knew what he needed to do.
“Hey! Hey! Over here you big, dumb bear. Come and get me!”
Waving his arms around and jumping up and down to make as much noise as he could manage, Austin did everything he could to get the bears attention. The beast stopped in its tracks toward Samuel who was desperately scrambling to his feet, and cocked its head to one side, listening to the racket Austin was making.
“Yeah, over here,” Austin goaded the animal. “Come and get me.”
Austin was just starting to wonder whether what he was doing ever really worked when the bear blew a huge huff of air out of its nose and changed its path again, charging toward Austin. His plan had been successful and Samuel was no longer a target, now he just had to figure out what to do next as he started sprinting further into the forest, the bear hot on his heels.
Samuel finally climbed back onto his feet just in time t
o see Austin disappearing into the darkness of the trees ahead of him with the bear just behind. It looked like the animal was making up ground with each second, much faster on four legs than Austin could ever hope to be on two. He opened his mouth and shouted after his friend, but his voice disappeared into the trees along with any sight of Austin and made no impact on the chase. The bear had lost all interest in Samuel now and was focused solely on his new target, Austin enforced into a particularly deadly game of cat and mouse.
Looking into the forest with his mouth hanging open, Samuel tried to figure out what to do. He couldn’t see or hear Austin or the bear now, the forest falling back into silence just as quickly as the sound had erupted in the first place. Bending over, Samuel checked his ankle and put some weight on it to test how badly he had been hurt. It twinged slightly as he walked, but nothing was broken – it was a sprain at most, something he could deal with.
Hobbling back in the direction he thought the road was, he kept his eyes and ears open, glancing around the forest for any sign of his friend or other animals. Austin had the Glock 19 with him, but Samuel had no idea whether a gun was any match for a black bear. Despite everything Austin had told him, he hadn’t mentioned a word about bears or what they were capable of; Samuel could only hope it was knowledge Austin just hadn’t decided to share. If his friend was as clueless as he was, then he didn’t feel like he stood a chance, bullets or no bullets.
All the beauty of the forest was long gone now as Samuel tried to retrace his steps and find the road again. If he could at least make it there, then maybe Austin would try and circle back around and they could regroup. He didn’t want to entertain the idea of his friend not returning; they had no car and Samuel didn’t even have a map in his rucksack. His odds of survival in this forest were drastically reduced if he didn’t have Austin by his side and Samuel was painfully aware of that fact.
With time and daylight running out for the two men, all Samuel could do was keep walking and hope that he wouldn’t be alone for much longer.
Chapter 19
After almost a week of the new regime in Hawaii, the magic of it all had faded away and the remaining residents of Kauai were facing a harsh reality that this truly was their life now, for the foreseeable future. The days were long and hard, everybody waking at the crack of dawn to carry out their new jobs, each person tasked with something important to keep the community functioning.
In the beginning spirits had been high, everyone worked together for the end goal of survival and was happy to make small sacrifices in order to get there. As the days wore on though, these small sacrifices started to get bigger and bigger: people lost their possessions so they could be pooled together and shared out evenly and families lost the chance to spend precious time together as the parents were forced away to work. The knowledge that their days may well be numbered was not a secret amongst the islanders and so as the hardship wore on, there quickly became those among them who tried to fight back against the new lifestyle put in place by the leadership council.
One of the biggest jobs on Kauai was one which quickly became clear wasn’t possible. The island struggled to maintain a source of power, but without the resources they needed from America it just wasn’t possible. The island operated over seventy percent of its electricals through petroleum energy. Despite their location, wind, wave and solar energy only made up a small proportion of what the community used and without this petroleum being flown in from the mainland, usual luxuries were stripped back to a bare minimum and then abolished completely.
Electricity was already one of the most expensive commodities in Hawaii before Trident collapsed; afterwards there was simply no chance they could manage to keep it running. In a matter of days, Kauai fell into complete darkness and the way of living was changed for everyone who remained.
The leadership council tried to do everything they could to maintain a sense of normalcy, but it was just too difficult. Families completely lost the ability to cook any food in their own homes and so the group meals which Martha had implemented became the only source of food. People couldn’t take hot showers or clean their clothes and so the engineers who had previously been tasked with maintaining the power source were given a new task: building industrial wash houses and implementing fire powered showers.
This brought with it entirely new problems, with manpower required around the clock to maintain the fires and kindling quickly becoming an issue. Other teams were dispatched into the islands thick forests to chop down the trees and hack them up into kindling, something which quickly caused uproar amongst certain members of the community.
No matter what the new problem was each day, there were always opposing sides and the idyllic island life which had been envisioned when the leadership council was first formed quickly fell into shambles. Jamie and his council tried to maintain the peace, but even that created problems. No matter which route they tried to take, there was always someone that wasn’t happy and it didn’t take long for minor upset to spiral into full blown arguments.
Arthur was maintaining the water irrigation pipes toward the south of the island one afternoon when he happened upon a private meeting held by some of these people. Keeping himself low and hidden behind the piping, he crouched down and listened, unsurprised to see the group was led by Dennis Bates. Art and Jessie had never liked the man and despite being elected to the new leadership council; Dennis had been more than happy to fuel the fire of dispute over the last few days on the island.
“We should break off and form our own community,” Dennis spoke to the few men crowded around him, a few of whom Art recognized from the engineering group he had been with recently. “Take only the best people with us and stop being forced to support people who can’t look after themselves.”
“But where would we go, Dennis? I don’t want to leave my home.”
“We’ll make new homes on the north side of the island,” Dennis replied, his voice filled with wonder and potential. “The beaches there are less ruined by tourists and the sea less fished. We’ll be able to have everything we need and more when we’re not forced to share with everyone else.”
In recent years, the island of Kauai had become quite divided from the north to the south. The southern beaches were larger and more attractive with tourists and the local businesses there were more targeted to the summer trade as well. It made the south of the island richer and more prosperous. People preferred to buy houses there and in turn, that boosted the economy and prowess of the south.
The northern side of the island, hidden by the large mountain range in the middle, was occupied mainly by poorer residents who didn’t care for the tourist trade. They were ancestors of the original inhabitants of Hawaii, their lifestyles different and less evolved than the other islanders. Very few of them remained now and since the crash, they had been forced to move to the south in order to survive. The north side of Kauai was now almost uninhabited, a collection of empty villages waiting to be overhauled. It was a perfect opportunity.
“It seems a bit extreme doesn’t it,” someone else in the circle spoke up, Arthur nodding along with their opinion. “We’ve just spent a week making everything around here work again without power, why would we move and have to go through all of that again?”
“If we take a group of people we can rely on,” Dennis said, “we’ll only have to set up life on the other side once. Over here you can almost guarantee that there’ll be another problem tomorrow and we’ll be the ones required to fix it. Then it’ll happen again the next day and the next day and when will we be able to reap the benefits? Never. We’re the ones doing all the work around here and we never get to enjoy what we’ve done because there’s always some other problem waiting for us.”
“Dennis is right. I was called out to the wash houses three times yesterday to fix the same problem because people couldn’t follow simple instructions. It’s ridiculous.”
“Yeah! I had to stand in the kitchen last night and help with the cookin
g because those silly women didn’t understand how to keep the stoves running. You’d think out of everyone left, they would know how to run a kitchen.”
A rumble of laughter rippled around the group. Art curled his bottom lip and frowned. It would put their community in severe jeopardy if these men made good on their plan to move to the north side of the island.
Dennis was the most skilled engineer on the island and his friends were all talented individuals as well. Several of them were engineers or architects, the wealthiest people that remained in Kauai. They were used to a more comfortable way of living. They were all happy to work, but were used to receiving a large figure for their time. They didn’t do the boring, repetitive tasks or the dirty work.
Art crept away from where he had been hiding and made his way back into the center of town. It was true that life was harder now, but the vast majority of them sucked it up and dealt with it. It’s human nature to try and find an easy way out, but in this case, there was no easy. They all had to work together to help one another survive.
As he strode into the center of town, Art spotted one of the members of the leadership council. She stood on the corner, hands clasped behind her back, wearing fatigues that looked like they’d seen a lot of action. He rushed over to her. “I need to speak with Jamie. Do you know where he is?”
“I think he’s back at the shack,” she replied, gesturing to the surf shack where they held all their group meals now. “Is everything okay? You look a bit tense, Art.”
“I’m fine, April.” Art replied, trying to relax and smile at the woman. “Thanks.”
Glancing over his shoulder as he rushed away, Art saw the woman watching him with a suspicious gaze on her face. It must have been her military training—the woman read people extremely well. No wonder they wanted her on the council.
“She can probably kick ass like nobody’s business, too” Art thought as he headed for the shack. If Jamie thought there was merit in what Art told him, perhaps they should go to April first – she might have ideas about how to diffuse this potential mutiny.