by Raylan Kane
An hour later, Lindsay was the first to spot a cabin situated in thick cover. “Isn't that?”
“A Ranger's cabin,” Marsh finished her sentence for her. “Yes, it is.”
“Front door's wide open.”
As they approached the cabin. Marsh frowned, the first to see a man's body laying on the ground. “Hold up,” she said. “See him?”
“Damn.”
Marsh walked over to inspect the body. He had a bullet wound clean through his head.
“That wasn't natural causes,” Lindsay said. “Our friends from before?”
“I'm thinking so, yes.”
“What the hell is going on?” Mason said. “Why would they be out here deliberately killing people?”
“You've got me.”
They walked into the open cabin and found that most of the supplies had been looted already. “Obviously we weren't the first to find this.”
“I'm worried they might be sending more soldiers out here to finish the job.”
“Finish what job?” Marsh said. “For all anyone knows we're long dead.”
“I don't know,” Mason said, “the whole thing feels off to me.”
“That's one way of putting it.”
Zita felt the most uncomfortable being inside that cabin. She stepped back out to the trees, and she happened to glance right and saw a pair of feet poking out from behind the cabin. “Hey!” She shouted. “There's someone else out here!”
Marsh ran out to have a look. “Same thing,” she said. “Killed the same way.”
“My god.”
“We should get out of here,” Mason said. “I don't like this at all.”
“Agreed,” Lindsay said. “Something isn't right.”
No sooner had she said it, when they heard a terrifying roar echo in the distance. “No,” Marsh mumbled to herself.
Lindsay looked at the deputy, gritting her teeth through the pain. “Looks like things just got a lot more wrong.”
32
“Get inside!” Marsh hollered at Lindsay and the others. “Take cover!”
“Like it'll do any damned good!”
A huge grizzly loped into view. Marsh's jaw dropped as she noticed the gaping holes in the animal's face. It's that same damned bear, she thought. Back to finish the job, are you?
Zita dropped the bag off her shoulder. “The guns in here?”
“Yep.”
Marsh took hold of a rifle, and she passed the other one to Lindsay. “You could stay inside,” she said as the massive creature got closer. “Let me handle this.”
“No,” Lindsay said. “I'm good with the rifle and you know it. Let's nail this bastard.”
Marsh nodded. “Hang back here then at least. I'm gonna run ahead.”
“Good.”
The giant beast bellowed once again. The shrillness of the injured bear's holler set Mason back on his heels and he backed up against the wall of the cabin.
“What do we do?” Zita said. “Where do we go?”
“Stay here!” Marsh shouted. Then she ran in the direction of the bear. “Come here you son of a bitch.” She pointed the rifle at the bear's snout and fired away.
Every bullet Deputy Marsh planted into the creature's face only angered it all the more. Instead of retreating for safety, the big grizzly pounded the earth under it's prodigious front paws and it surged forward until it's swollen belly hung directly over the cabin. Lindsay looked up, perched in the center of its great shadow.
Marsh sprinted to her right and threw two more shots into the bear's hide. “Get out of there!” She shouted and she waved her arms as she screamed.
Mason ducked from around the corner of the small plank building and scurried off into thick brush.
“Zita!” Lindsay called out. “Get out of there!”
Zita noticed how dark it had gotten from her hiding place beneath a table in the Ranger's cabin. She heard Lindsay's warning and then multiple rifle shots. She hesitated and thought about dodging out into the woods, but then figured the better idea might be to stay out of sight from a grizzly on the attack.
Lindsay hobbled from where she had leaned against the building and she fired repeatedly straight overhead into the bear's underbelly. The creature bowed it's head until it could see the structure sitting directly beneath it. Mason kept on running until he'd found a small hill. When he crested it and ran down the other side, the silhouette of the monstrous bear slipped beneath the horizon. And he kept on running, branches scratching at him on both sides as he flew over rocks and heavy foliage.
“Zita!” Lindsay called out again. She fired another round and while grasping her branch she hopped quickly through the trees in Marsh's direction.
The deputy fired until she was out of bullets. Lindsay bounded towards her and she ran ahead to scoop her under her arm and the two fled down a small rise. “Zita!” Marsh called out behind them. “Get away!”
Marsh and Lindsay heard a scream and they turned back to face the cabin in time to see the grizzly smash the tiny building under its feet. Then the bear stuck it's muzzle down into the ruins and until it sniffed out Zita laying under a pile of boards. The grizzly lifted her into its mouth and squished her between teeth almost as tall as she was.
“God!” Lindsay yelled.
“Come on, let's go!”
Marsh helped Lindsay by bearing much of her weight, and they covered ground quite a bit faster than they had been before. They ran for a half-mile and Marsh realized the beast wasn't giving them chase. “It's not coming,” she said. “We got lucky.”
Lindsay nearly jumped out of her skin when the two went to keep going and Mason jumped from a copse of trees.
“Holy hell,” Lindsay said, “you looking to get shot again?”
“I'm outta ammo, by the way,” Marsh said.
“Sorry,” Mason said. “Didn't mean to scare you guys.” He frowned and scanned the area behind the others. “Where's Zita?”
Marsh looked at him gravely and she shook her head.
“No!”
“I'm really sorry. That thing-”
“This is-” Mason was so upset he could hardly speak.
Marsh put a hand on his shoulder. “I know,” she said. “I know.”
“Look,” Lindsay said. “We can't stay around here. And we've left most everything back where that thing is. I've got all of two bullets left.”
“I've got a full magazine for my sidearm.”
“Point is, the Ryback's close, right?” Lindsay said.
“Right. Let's keep moving.”
“Shouldn't we at least go back, give Zita a proper burial or something. I mean, we can't just leave her out in the open like that.”
“Trust me,” Lindsay said. “I'm sorry to say it, but there's not much hope of that, burying her, I mean.”
“God damn,” Mason said. “I just want this to end.”
“We all do.”
“You're certain the Ryback's this way?”
“I am. And we've stood around talking about this longer than I would have liked. We've all lost people out here. We can't stop for anything,” Marsh said. “The mourning's going to have to come later.”
Mason nodded in acknowledgment and the three of them turned to continue on. Marsh's heart leaped into her throat for a split second when Sully bounded out of bushes and greeted the small traveling party with a hearty bark. “I'd forgotten about him,” Marsh said, “hate to say that. It was just, in all the excitement.” She reached down to pet him. “Good to see you, boy.”
“Will he follow us?” Lindsay said.
“He will,” Mason said, “he'd been following me and Zita for a few days. Zita really-” He stopped there and let out a loud sigh, doing his best to keep his tears at bay.
“It's alright,” Marsh said. “Like I said, we've all been through it.”
For another couple of hours, the three of them hiked east until they hit a smoothed out path that cut through to a logging road with dug out wheel ruts. They'd agre
ed that it would probably be best to follow the road, Marsh fairly confident that it intersected with the Ryback in a few places. The intuition proved fruitful when a mile and a half down the road they encountered a dark figure a couple hundred yards ahead of them. At first glance the sight of the dark object caused them to freeze and Lindsay wondered if maybe they'd better find a place to hide. As they walked closer however, they could see the object was a pickup truck.
“You think it belonged to those Army guys?”
“Nope,” Marsh said, squinting in the fading sunlight. “Can't quite tell from here, but that looks like it might belong to the Forest Rangers.”
“Hopefully not those guys we'd found.”
“Hard to say. Regardless, it's worth a closer look. I'm hoping if it is that the radio works.”
“Maybe it'll have a cell phone inside,” Mason said.
“There's no service out here,” Marsh said, “so, that wouldn't matter too much.”
“I don't know how you can live out here,” Mason said.
“You haven't exactly had the welcome wagon rolled out for you,” Marsh said. “I'll give you that much.”
As they walked farther up the road, Marsh's guess proved correct. The truck, a white Ford pickup had the Forest Rangers insignia painted on its side. Lindsay motioned to the tail gate which was sitting open. “I'd like to sit,” she said. The other two helped her onto the gate and she groaned with some amount of relief at being off her legs for the first time in hours. Sully wagged his tail as he neared Lindsay's dangling feet. He sniffed her infection out of sheer canine curiosity and then leaned his whole body backward and used all of his strength to jump up onto the tailgate next to Lindsay. He laid down next to her with a whimper and she began scratching behind his ears. Anything to try and distract her from the pain. “You're a good boy,” she said.
Marsh and Mason searched the vehicle and found little other than an empty aluminum water bottle and paper work with a few receipts in the glove compartment. Frustrated, Marsh slammed the driver's side door closed and as she backed away from the truck, she happened to glance down at the front tire and spotted a key. “No way,” she said, hardly believing her luck.
“What is it?”
Marsh held up the key.
“Oh my god.”
“Please tell me this thing still works.”
“Only one way to find out.”
Marsh hopped in behind the wheel and eagerly shoved the key into the ignition. The engine didn't even so much as sputter. She slammed the steering wheel with her fist. “Son of a bitch!”
“One step forward, two steps back,” Lindsay said.
“What the hell are we gonna do now?” Mason said. “God, I can't stand this.”
“Let's not get too emotional over this, okay?” Lindsay said.
“What's that supposed to mean?”
“She means, it won't do us any good to get too down about it,” Marsh said.
“Didn't you just throw a punch and curse yourself?”
“I was venting. It's alright to let it out, all Lindsay was trying to say was-”
“I get it,” Mason said, “I'm fine, alright? I was just 'venting'.”
“And it doesn't do us any good to fight each other either,” Marsh said. “We're all tired, alright? Let's just try and relax.”
“It's kinda hard to do that when you find our only means of escape and then we find out, oh, nope sorry that doesn't work. It's...annoying.”
“I get it,” Marsh said, “I'm annoyed too.”
“Me three,” Lindsay said. “Maybe we should just sit for a few minutes. Try to cool off.”
The deputy nodded and she looked at the truck's dash display wishing with everything she had that it would magically light up. “A few minutes of rest,” she said. “I'm good with that.”
Mason's eyes then went wide as the pickup's headlights as he looked away from Marsh who was slumped over in the driver's seat when he spied another vehicle tucked in behind two spruce trees surrounded by yellow grass almost as tall as they were.
“We still might be lucky,” Mason said. “Check it out.” He jogged over and hopped onto an ATV.
Lindsay smiled slightly as she looked on from her perch on the tailgate. “Just the one?”
“I don't see any others, unfortunately. But this could be enough to get us to town, right?”
“It would,” Marsh said. “Do you see a key there anywhere?”
“Would you believe me if I told you yes?”
“Please tell me you're not kidding. At this point, I can't really handle any jokes.”
33
Without saying a word, Mason turned the key in the ATV's ignition and a red light blinked on beneath him and with a cloud of gray smoke the machine's engine sputtered to life. Both Lindsay and Deputy Marsh smiled and for a moment hope crept into their thoughts. Then Mason glanced down at one of the circular gauges in front of him and frowned.
“This thing's sitting on 'E',” he said. “I don't know how long it's going to run.”
“Figures,” Lindsay said, though neither of the other two could hear her over the ATV's noisy refrain.
An idea occurred to the deputy and she began waving her arms towards Mason. He was confused at first, not certain if she'd meant for him to step off the vehicle and come over to her. But, she mimed him hanging onto the handlebars and driving the thing. “Bring it over here!” She hollered. “Right beside the truck!”
Mason struggled to hear anything she'd said, but from her arm motions he put two and two together. He pushed the throttle, praying the contraption didn't run out of gas right away. At first he didn't understand why Marsh had asked him to drive it near, but as he sidled up to the Ranger truck, he saw her eyes shift towards the cover of the gas tank. “Do I turn it off?” He asked, worried that if he shut off the engine it might never turn back on again, however irrational that might have been.
Marsh nodded and he and flicked the key over and the eerie silence of the forest was back. Lindsay was partially glad for it, as the noisy ATV made her nervous that they were being exposed to whomever and whatever was out there.
“God, that thing is loud.”
“I don't think it's been all that well-maintained,” Mason said.
“The Rangers would've made good use of it,” Marsh said, “that's for sure.”
“So, you've got the idea to siphon gas I take it?” Mason said.
“Right. I don't know if the truck's empty or not, but I'm guessing the reason it won't start has to do with more than an empty gas tank.”
Lindsay chuckled. “Have to say, Marsh, I hadn't thought of that. Creative.”
“Let's just hope this works.”
“What are we going to do it with?” Mason said. “I don't happen to have a length of hose on me.”
“Have either of you ever siphoned gas before?” Lindsay said.
Mason shook his head.
“I have,” Marsh said.
“Me too,” Lindsay nodded. “Just checking, because I was kind of hoping I wouldn't have to do it.”
Marsh smirked. “No, don't worry. You just sit there and look pretty.”
“I can do that.”
“But, still,” Mason said, “a hose.”
“I have this,” Marsh pulled out a pocket knife that she'd always kept on her. “My old boss was always harping on us to carry one. It's times like this I'm reminded of why.”
“Your old boss, Sheriff Lake?”
“That's the one.”
“One of those things get him?”
“I'd rather not talk about it.”
“Sorry.”
“It's fine,” said Marsh, and she walked around to the front of the pickup. “Mason, pop the hood.”
“Oh, you're going to cut some hose out of there?”
“You got a better idea?”
“Like I said,” Lindsay chuckled, “creative.”
Marsh lifted the hood and Mason walked around to have a look with her. “How
much hose you think we need?” Mason said.
Marsh didn't answer, and she stepped right to have a quick look at where the ATV was situated to judge the distance between the two gas tanks. “Keep an eye out for...well, anything,” Marsh said to Lindsay who kept rubbing her shin trying to ease the ache stabbing upward from her foot.
“Will do.”
The deputy reached down into the trucks engine and grabbed hold of a hose that she could grasp easily in the palm of her hand. “That one,” she mumbled, talking more to herself than anyone else. “Yep, that oughta do it.”
With two quick swipes the ultra-sharp blade on her expensive tactical knife made easy work of the hose in two places. She triumphantly pulled the length of hose out from engine compartment and slammed the hood shut.
“I pity whoever stumbles across this thing and tries to drive it out of here,” Mason said.
“If they're out here that's the least of their troubles,” Lindsay said.
“Good point.”
Marsh held the hose up in front of her so that one end dangled towards the ground. She watched one tiny drip of clearish fluid fall off the end. “Mostly empty,” she said. “That's a good thing.”
“Yeah,” Mason said, nodding, “mixing fluids. That might not have been for the best.”
“Worse than that,” Marsh said, “I've got to suck on this stupid thing. I don't want any more foreign substances in my mouth than necessary.”
“You're certain that hose is cleared out?” Lindsay said.
“Pretty sure.”
Mason stood with his arms folded and his face scrunched up as he watched Deputy Marsh take on the somewhat unpleasant task of sucking fuel into the hose. “Remind me never to do this,” Mason said.
“It's not so bad,” Lindsay said. “A few seconds of misery.”
“You're welcome to come do this,” Marsh said.
“No thanks.”
“There's actually a fair bit of gas in here,” Marsh said. “We got lucky.”
So lucky, in fact, that they were able to fill the ATV's gas tank with what was in the truck.