The Sky Grew Dark (The End of the Golden Age)

by E. L. Montclair

  Suddenly, I heard a voice, telling me to calm down. I froze. As soon as I could turn around I did, flailing and freeing myself from my captor’s grip. I was shivering and trying to adjust my eyes. A man stood before me, who looked vaguely familiar. White teeth gleamed out of a bushy, dirty blond beard. He was smiling. I tried to scan the area around me, but since I was still partway in the water there wasn’t really anything I could use as a weapon unless I grabbed a rock.

  “You all right?” The stranger asked. I stared at the man in front of me, my eyes narrowed as I tried to determine if I should reply.

  “What happened out there? Something get ya?” I still didn’t answer. I just scowled. Why did he look familiar?

  “Listen, I’m not trying to hurt you. I saw you wandering around out here, far away from your camp, and I was going to see if you needed some help.”

  A chill ran down my spine. He knew where our camp was. And then it hit me. He was the man that had been near our cave that night. I started shivering more, my teeth clattering loudly against each other. I tried to stop them, but couldn’t. I needed to get my clothes on.

  He smiled again.

  “Don’t worry. I can help you out.” He reached his hand out to me and I shirked back, afraid of what he might do to me, out here all alone.

  “Listen to me.” He said, a cold tone entering his voice.

  “If I wanted to hurt you I would have already. I know where your camp is, I know you all are running out of food. I want to help you.”

  I shook my head and kept my eyes on him as I moved toward my clothes.

  “I don’t need your help.” I said, snatching my clothes out of their hiding place.

  “You’re not going to find fish in this stream.” He said, and turned away from me.

  I stood there, for a moment, before I realized I was still standing there in my underwear. I quickly dressed and thought about what he said. We were on the brink of starving. If we didn’t do something different we wouldn’t make it.

  He seemed a bit older than me, a shaggy, dirty blond beard covering most of his features. His hair looked greasy, and he seemed very unkempt. It struck me that he must be alone. I probably wouldn’t have kept up my appearance if I had been completely alone. He had a big, tattered overcoat that he put back on over his wet clothes. Wet because he had helped me from drowning myself.

  I could tell he knew his way around here, and he was probably right, he could help us. My only problem was what he wanted in exchange.

  I took a deep breath and called out to him.

  “Hey!”

  He stopped.

  “What are you doing out here?” I asked, for a moment thinking he could be some kind of spy.

  He turned to face me.

  “It’s a long story.” He was quiet for a moment. I didn’t know if he was going to tell me the long story or if that was all I was going to get.

  “Was that your husband that died?”

  I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. I hadn’t really talked to anyone about it since it happened. It seemed like so long ago, but I realized it was just a couple of weeks.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.” He said, softly. “If you don’t want my help, I understand. I see you have kids, and would hate to see you all starve to death. “

  I stood there, still unable to focus.

  “What’s your name?” He asked, as he took a step closer to me.

  I backed a bit.

  “Izzy…Isobel. How about you?”

  “John.” He put his hand out to shake my hand. I frowned for a moment, then decided to acquiesce.

  “How about this? You head back to your camp, and I will keep looking for a fishing spot. I saw your little garden; you can trade me the food for vegetables when they are ready.”

  Tears filled my eyes. I didn’t want to owe him but we really needed this. I nodded, barely.

  “But I want you to show me the spot, when you find it.” I demanded. He nodded, still watching me.

  “Alright.”

  I turned away, and then I thought of something. I didn’t think it was a good idea if my family knew that some guy was aware of the exact location of our camp. I suggested we meet by the garden, weekly. He agreed and we parted ways.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I didn’t know what to do. I decided to tell my mom and sister as soon as I returned, but I could tell they were both scared. I assured them he didn’t know where we were, and they actually seemed very relieved he was going to help us out with food.

  The first week there was nothing ready from the garden, so we gathered extra roots and berries. I arrived at the appointed place, and worked in the garden while I waited. I was nervous. Not only had I not been around another person in almost six months, but I was leery of him. I didn’t know him at all. How did I know if his intentions were good?

  I could not appear to my family that I was unsure of him, I had to put on a face, and act as though I had great confidence in his character.

  A sound in the bushes startled me out of my thoughts. My heart started beating wildly and I crouched into the shadows. I had a knife hidden in my pants and I waited quietly.

  “Hello, there.”

  John stepped out from behind a redwood, his left hand open in front of him and his right hand holding a string of fish in front of his body.

  I showed him our small basket of roots, berries, and edible leaves and grasses, and explained that nothing was ready in the garden. He seemed impressed with our collection, and asked a few questions about some of the plants.

  He gave me the fish, thanked me, and walked back into the woods. I was surprised. I expected him to stay and chat; to ask more questions and to be difficult to get rid of. Instead, he was quickly gone. I made my way back to our camp and showed them the fish. I could see my mom and Lisa were relieved nothing had happened, and I felt this could be a good arrangement.

  It was just about the beginning of March. It was raining frequently, our garden was growing rapidly, and we added seeds as often as we could. We also collected seeds from the berries we found, and cuttings from a few herbs, and planted them, too.

  The rabbits were big enough to slaughter, so we set aside another pair for breeding and had rabbits again for eating. The chickens had started laying again, and we decided since we had this arrangement with John, we should start fertilizing eggs, also. We could do with a few more laying hens, and it would be nice to have a roasted chicken down the road.

  The second meeting with John I was able to offer him a handful of peas and pea shoots, a few beets, some radishes, and some lettuces. I also included three eggs and a dead rabbit. He looked at it for a moment.

  “I don’t need that much food. You can keep some of it.” He said as he handed me the fish.

  Somehow I had expected him to say something like that. I explained that we would have good weeks and bad weeks, but if he consistently brought us fish he would keep us from starving the bad weeks. He slowly nodded, but I didn’t think I had convinced him.

  He reached around his back and started to pull something out.

  “I have something for you.”

  I took a step back and moved my hand toward the knife I had in the wasteband of my pants. As soon as I saw what he had I blushed, feeling so foolish and hoping he hadn’t seen me.

  He pulled out two small wooden swords. The hilt was tied on this some sort of string.

  “For your boys.” He added, with a sheepish smile.

  I smiled in return, feeling awkward and out of practice with social gestures, and almost started crying. It was very kind, and they would appreciate it very much. I had been so focused on surviving I hadn’t thought about finding fun things for them.

  “They will love these. Thank you.” I said. I looked at the ground, feeling bad for being so skeptical of him. He was probably more starved for human interaction than we were. He asked me a few questions about edible roots and then thanked me for the food and ducked out of sight.

 
When I brought the swords back my mom just stared at them for a long moment before speaking.

  “Maybe we should see if he wants to live with us.” My sister and I looked at her, then each other. I knew my mom was beyond stressed about not having someone to help with the chores, and there were many things that needed doing and fixing, but that was a bit premature.

  Lisa spoke first. Well, she erupted.

  “Mom, we don’t even know him!” She was worked up. I tried to think of something to say, but Lisa kept going.

  “So we should show him where our camp is? What if he tries something? What if he kills us?”

  Mom scowled at Lisa. “You don’t need to be so rude to me. You really think he doesn’t know where we are? He knows that Izzy has two boys. How do you think he knows that?”

  Lisa looked at me for a long moment, “He knows, doesn’t he? Is he spying on us? Where did he come from?”

  I took a deep breath.

  “I don’t know, alright. I didn’t ask him all that stuff because it doesn’t matter. He knows where our camp is, so what good would it do to tell him he can’t bring us food? He probably just wants to be around people. Listen, why don’t we invite him to eat with us? We can ask him some questions, and maybe find out where his camp is. Unless you want me to try and find it myself.”

  Lisa turned on her heel and stomped away. I knew she was probably scared, as she should be. My mom looked back at me for a moment.

  “I think we should have him eat with us. I would like to meet him.”

  I nodded. Fine.

  That night, as I was lying in my sleeping bag, the wheels were still turning in my head. I decided it might be a good idea to find out what was going on with him. The next morning, I sat down with my mom and Lisa and we hashed out a plan.

  At the next scheduled meeting, my mom would take John the food. She would tell him I was sick and couldn’t make it. I would be hidden in the direction he came from and follow from a distance and find out where his camp was.

  The whole next week I was anxious. I was worried something would go wrong, or we would find out something about him we didn’t really want to know. The boys loved their swords, and we had decided that my mom would ask him to come for dinner when she took him the food. I was beginning to worry about my Grandpa. He still hadn’t returned and I honestly wasn’t expecting it to take him this long.

  The morning that the meeting with John was scheduled I got up extra early. I dressed and went out to hide in the woods. My adrenaline was pumping and I kept telling myself to calm down. Our camp was to the south east of the garden, and John went northeast when he left. I hid just a few yards away. It wasn’t the easiest thing in the forest. It had seemed dense, but really there was a lot of visibility around me. This was going to be more difficult that I thought.

  After about an hour, I saw John in the distance. He was quick and quiet, and made his way to the meeting place. I heard my mom’s voice, then his, and they seemed to be talking for longer than usual. I heard my mom laughing. It was weird. It had been a while since she had laughed. I hoped she wasn’t hitting on him, because that would be embarrassing.

  It seemed like forever but finally he started making his way in my direction again. I waited quietly. I decided I needed to stay very far behind him if I wasn’t going to be seen, and when he was just out of view I moved.

  After just a few moments, John turned sharply to the right. He was heading straight for our camp, but he would end up a few hundred yards above it if he continued this way. He circled back around and ended up very near our camp. Here I saw that he had a perch of some sort in a nearby tree. I waited and watched, and noticed that he was able to see everything that was going on at our camp.

  I realized he could have noticed my absence, but I was supposedly sick, so it would be natural for me to be out of view. I felt unsettled, knowing that he watched our camp. He pulled out binoculars and some sort of food and settled in.

  He seemed like he was going to stay a while, so I decided I may as well get comfortable. As quietly as I could I tucked myself behind some bushes. I couldn’t see him when I leaned back, but I knew as soon as he moved I would be able to hear him.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I woke up and realized that dusk was settling. The entire afternoon had passed and I quickly looked around, wondering where John was. I searched the horizon and noticed some branches moving, so I hopped up and continued my pursuit. I briefly wondered if he watched us every day or only sometimes.

  He continued into the forest until well past dark. I had to get closer to him to keep him in my sights. I tried to still my breathing so he wouldn’t hear me. The moon began to rise and soon I saw light from a fire.

  I stopped, dead in my tracks. There shouldn’t be a fire if he was out here alone. I remained still, trying to decide what I should do. I watched the fire and thought about my options. I didn’t think I could get back our camp in the dark. Hell, I didn’t even know what I was going to do when I got here. I shook my head. I was in deep.

  Glancing around, I decided I should take my chances heading back. I backed slowly away and suddenly there were arms wrapped around me. A large hand covered my mouth and stifled a scream.

  “Don’t move and keep your mouth shut.”

  I flailed, knowing that I could be dead in a matter of moments if I didn’t make some noise. I tried to elbow his gut and bite his hand.

  He pulled me close to him, engulfing me with his arms. I could hardly move, but still tried to squirm as much as I could. I heard a whisper in my ear.

  “Stop that, it’s me, John.”

  I continued thrashing and trying to scream. I didn’t trust him.

  Then there were voices, coming from by the fire. People talking excitedly and I saw shadows dancing on the forest floor. John started dragging me away and without warning threw me to the ground behind some bushes. He pushed me over by a fallen redwood and used his weight to pin me down.

  He kept a hand over my mouth and got his face about three inches away from mine.

  “These people aren’t friendly.” He whispered. “You need to keep it down or you are going to get both of us killed.”

  I swallowed. I didn’t know if I should believe him but I wasn’t dead yet so I decided to go along with it. After a moment, a group passed. They were filthy; their ragged clothes looked like they didn’t even bother washing them.

  Three passed that I counted, each one carrying a gun. After what must have been an hour of lying underneath John I realized my arm was asleep. I started wiggling and he moved away. He sat up, his back turned away from me.

  “Why did you lie to me?” He finally asked.

  “You’re the one that lied! You were spying on us.” I challenged.

  He motioned me to be quiet and a moment later we saw one of the campers return.

  “The rest should be back in a minute,” he said, just above a whisper, “and then we can get the hell out of here.”

  We sat in the silence for a moment and my stomach growled. I realized I hadn’t eaten anything at all today. I had been too nervous earlier, and I had completely forgotten to pack food. I pulled out my water bottle and took a swig. At least I had remembered that.

  I turned back to John and he was holding out a piece of some dried meat. I took it and gnawed on it for a while, hoping we could go soon. I felt awkward and I just wanted to leave.

  The other two campers returned, and I could hear them arguing about something, but couldn’t make out the subject matter.

  John motioned that we should go, so I quietly got up and followed him, hoping the sound of their arguing covered any noise we made.

  As soon as we were clear of the camp I started off on my own. I was mad. John wasn’t being truthful about things and had failed to mention that there was another camp nearby. We could have been helping each other out this whole time. Also, he seemed to be in the business of spying on people and that didn’t sit well with me.

  I walked a few steps away
from him and he turned to follow me.

  “Hey.” He called, just above a whisper. I ignored him and kept walking.

  He tried again, and then jogged up to where I was. He grabbed my wrist and pulled me back.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” He growled at me.

  “Going home.” I said and I wrenched my hand out of his grasp. I turned and marched away.

  After a few yards I turned back to see him standing there, in the dark, watching me. I was so angry. I’m supposed to be protecting our family and I just trusted this guy without even thinking twice.

  I circled back the direction I thought we came and headed toward the ocean. I had spent most of the trek uphill so I figured if I was going down I was going the right way. In the dark I could hardly tell where I was going. I began to get nervous as the moon rose high in the sky. It illuminated the ground around me, but nothing looked familiar.

  The chill wind was coming down the cliff and I realized I hadn’t dressed very warmly. The excitement of everything that had been happening had kept me from noticing. As I wandered around I tried to sort out my thoughts. I felt a little foolish now, and wondered if I had made a mistake. I could be heading miles in the wrong direction by the time daylight hit.

  I didn’t know what to think about John. I decided that we should just sever ties. I didn’t really know anything about him and I would rather try to survive on our own that risk him harming our family. The rabbits were big enough to slaughter and spring was right around the corner. We could make it.

  After what seemed like hours I sat down. I had no idea how much time had passed, and I had no idea where I was. I put my head in my hands and tried not to cry. I didn’t know what to do. The weight of the world was on my shoulders and I felt like I was miserably failing. My mom was on the point of insanity. I knew if one more thing went wrong it would push her over the edge.