The Devil Dog Trilogy: Out Of The Dark

by Boyd Craven III

  This area of Chicago hadn't been hit as hard by the planes coming down. I didn’t know how it got spared, but for once, in the middle of all of this asphalt and concrete, in a little pocket of nature I could take a deep breath of fresh air. I sat there quietly, watching the surroundings as the sun rose, the rays warming my body. It was going to be a warm day today, and we'd have to move more into the shade if it got any brighter.

  21

  I was getting ready to crawl over and wake up Luis when I heard a rhythmic tap tap tap coming down the street. I strained my eyes, and I made out a figure of a boy followed by what had to be a golden retriever. I started crawling closer to my sleeping group when Courtney stirred and sat up. I snapped my fingers as quietly as I could, to get her attention. I used my index and middle finger to point at my eyes, and then I pointed in the direction the boy and the dog were walking. I held a finger up to my lips for her to be quiet.

  Courtney nudged Luis awake, and I winced as every move made the tarp crackle and pop. Mel rolled over and looked at me. She opened her mouth as if to speak, and I held my finger up to my lips again in the universal gesture of shushing her. I then made the same motion and pointed down the street, where the little boy and the dog were coming from. Mel nudged Jamie, and when her mom rolled over to find out what was wrong, she repeated the same shushing gesture.

  I looked all around, up and down the interstate, and then up and down the streets. The boy was using cover, but since he was walking directly towards us, every time he moved from one dead car to another, it was easy to follow his progress. His dog, on the other hand, wasn't using cover and walked slowly down the middle of the street. In one of the boy’s hands was a small blue bucket with some sort of rope tied to it. When the dog bumped into him, the kid dropped it in surprise. A small coil of rope tumbled out, and he quickly stuffed it back in and looked all around.

  He spoke to the dog then, but I couldn't make out the words he was saying. All I heard was a quiet murmur from the boy.

  “He's alone,” Luis whispered to me.

  “That's my take too,” I told him quietly. “But you never know who's watching in the buildings down the street. Let's lie low here and make sure he doesn't have people following him.”

  “It looks like he's coming right here,” Jamie said. “We should get out of here.”

  “He doesn't look very old,” Courtney said, looking to Mel, who was nodding in agreement.

  “He doesn't have to be very old to get eyes on us,” I told them just as quietly. “But I don't think we can take off now without being seen. Like I said, let's just lie low here and hope the dog doesn't come to investigate.”

  Lewis looked at me and nodded, but he was already reaching for his pistol, just in case. Though I wasn’t wearing camo, I had drab-colored clothing, so as long as I held still I wasn't worried about being seen. Despite that, I put the KSG loosely in my lap. The others quietly rolled onto their stomachs so they could better watch.

  There were a couple dangers here. The first one was that the boy was being sent ahead to scout for someone else. Only creeps and slavers would even think to go after a boy, so was he being used as a decoy? Or maybe it was something worse. Maybe he was being used as a decoy to ferret out kindhearted people who had supplies. It had been most of the summer since the EMP took out the power grid, so to see a well-fed companion animal such as the golden retriever following him made me more than a little suspicious.

  The other danger I could think of was, that if the boy were to find us, he would run back and tell whomever he was staying with about us. They could then, in theory, come back and try to get whatever it was they wanted. Just because youth had a sort of innocence all its own, didn’t mean the kid’s parents had not resorted to extreme measures yet. I'd seen it myself time after time when the bellies were empty and the kids were crying - parents would do just about anything for their kids.

  “Everybody be real quiet now,” Courtney whispered back at me.

  That annoyed me, because it should not have needed to be said. Dogs had better hearing and sense of smell than humans. Maybe it was from being used to having a bunch of sweaty people around, but I knew each person carried their own unique scent. If we were lucky, they would get their water, and they would leave.

  “Hey Roger, get your stick?” The boy's voice floated from across the pond from almost sixty feet away as he reached down to pick up a stick and throw it towards the water.

  The dog took off like a shot out of the gun. Watching that noble beast break into a dead run and at the edge of the water leap for all it was worth was an amazing thing to see. Despite being annoyed, that made me grin. It had been a long time since I'd seen something like that, and the boy’s laughter and shouts to the dog to “get it, get it, get it!” was a moment I’d remember forever.

  Whatever the kid had been worried about while being careful getting here, he must've forgotten completely as soon as his pet got into the water. He was yelling encouragement to the dog, and when it finally grabbed the stick and swam back to him, the boy let out shrieks of laughter as the dog dropped it at his feet and shook its long coat out, drenching him.

  “You're a good boy,” the kid said clearly, and then took the end of his string and wrapped it around his hand and threw the bucket towards the middle of the pond.

  The wind caught the flimsy plastic bucket and blew it to the side some, but it made it almost twenty feet into the water before the water started rushing in. Like a fisherman, the boy started pulling the bucket back in using the string. I thought on that for a minute and wondered why he didn't just get it from the shore. He got the bucket out and set it next to him before he picked up the stick. Roger, the dog, was savvy to what was about to happen again.

  “Hey Roger, do you want to get the stick again? One last time, boy,” he said as he waved the stick in the air. The dog let out an excited yelp as he tried to lunge up and pull it from the kid’s hands. “Get it,” the boy yelled and then threw it.

  The stick flew even farther this time, and it landed almost all the way on the opposite shore. The dog looked at the water, and then he decided to run around in the dried mud, directly towards us. My whole body tensed, and I clicked the safety off the KSG. That metallic clicks drew sharp looks from both Courtney and Luis. Ignoring that, I more or less pointed the shotgun towards the shoreline where the dog was running at breakneck speed.

  I prayed for the wind to keep blowing at our faces and not at our backs like it had been moments before. It would do a lot to take our smell away from the dog. But I didn't have to worry. The dog launched itself into the water and swam the ten feet to get the stick. The now soaked dog made it to shore, shook itself off, and took off at a run for the boy.

  “That's a good job, Roger,” the boy said. “Maybe later on we can come back and you can get a duck.”

  We watched in silence as the duo started walking back the direction they'd come from. The boy held the bucket loosely in his left hand, being very careful not to spill the water. I thought about the tracks leading up to the water, and I thought about the fact that the tracks didn't go all the way to the water. Now I knew why. It wasn't that they hadn't stopped using the pond, rather they'd started using a new method for collecting the water. I was curious, why would he throw a bucket towards the middle of the pond to collect the water?

  Why wouldn't he just scoop it from the edge of the pond?

  “Hey Dick, is it safe to get some food yet?” Jamie asked, reaching for her pack.

  “Yeah, I think so. We're just going to have to keep an eye out. If we see anyone else coming, maybe we ought to move on. I didn't think this place was still being used by people, but I was wrong, and I don't know why the kid got the water the way he did. It really makes me nervous.”

  “Yeah man,” Luis said to me. “There's got to be a reason for that. Maybe he's just trying to get water off the top of the pond to avoid getting silt and duck shit in his water.”

  I mulled that one over, and it m
ade sense. And if the tracks were from the same boy getting a gallon of water a day, then maybe it wasn't a big security threat. All I knew was that I'd been up for almost twenty hours, and had ridden for at least eight hours of the night. I was tired, and my eyes were getting heavy.

  “I'm gonna get a quick nap in,” I told them. “Luis and Courtney, can one of you guys keep watch for a while?”

  “Yeah, man, I got it. I'll stay awake and keep an eye on things. You guys eat if you want to, but Dick looks like he's ready to fall over and start snoring.”

  “Yeah, he's looking pretty rough.” Mel turned to me and said, “Sorry, man, but you do.” The kid grinned.

  I slept hard and woke up with a headache and dry mouth. The sun was almost directly overhead, showing me that I’d probably gotten a handful of hours’ worth of sleep.

  “There you are,” Jamie said, crawling over and handing me a tin mug.

  I looked at it, the liquid inside it an off-orange color. Tentatively I sipped it. It was an orange flavoring, probably from one of the MREs. There was a slightly salty, sweet aftertaste. I took one more sip to see if it was going to taste any better. It wasn’t. It was just as bad as I vaguely remembered from a long time ago. I handed the mug back to her and shook my head, pulling my canteen out of my open bag.

  “You can’t drink it either?” Mel asked, grinning as she turned to look at us.

  “No,” I said, looking around the area. Courtney and Luis were nowhere in sight, but the hump where I’d hidden the bikes remained the same size and shape.

  “Yeah, we all took bets. Mom said since you were used to eating gross stuff, you’d probably drink it down and ask for more.”

  They were being quiet, but they must have been up for a little bit and figured the place was safe. I trusted them, but still, I didn’t want to give our position away again. That’s why when I next spoke, I did it at an extreme whisper.

  “That stuff’s worse than the camel piss they had us drink in Iraq,” I told her, but it was Jamie who was grinning. “Where’s the other two?” I pointed to the empty tarp and sleeping bags.

  “Luis had to go use the restroom, Courtney went to cover him,” Jamie whispered back, her voice quieter than it had been.

  “We haven’t seen anybody since the kid and the dog came by,” Mel told me. I grunted and pulled my pack to me.

  “You two eat anything yet?” I asked them.

  “Yeah.” It was Mel who answered for both of them. “Mom had me eat some beef stew out of the can, and we ate a can of green beans.”

  “Figured if cooking food makes the smell carry far, I’d eat up the easy stuff while we’re in the populated areas. It’ll cut down on the weight we have to lug around,” Jamie said.

  It was actually a pretty good idea. I knew I had told them we wouldn’t be stopping for food for a few days, but just a little bit was all it took to improve the mood. Still, I’d have to pump water into our canteens and water bottles. I’d scoffed at the term bottle, because they were repurposed two-liter bottles. All sturdy water containers we could have brought were too big or too heavy or both.

  “Good. Make sure you get rid of the trash so it doesn’t look like we were camped out here.”

  Jamie nodded and then opened her mouth but didn’t say anything as a broken twig sounded off into a thicker part of the overgrown park. I rolled in the direction the sound came from and pulled the KSG into a comfortable, ready position. I was pretty sure it was Luis, but if it wasn’t, the worst that could happen was he got a scare.

  I heard Jamie move, the tarp making a soft noise as she shifted her weight, and I turned to see she’d drawn the .45 she’d taken to carrying. It was a Springfield 1911 model, one that I hadn’t owned. She’d got it in trade for some of the pills she’d had, plus some jewelry from the stash we’d recovered. It would be good to not be the only one who could fling lead, as long as she knew what she was doing.

  I clicked off the safety of the KSG. Pulling a knee up, I rested the shotgun across it and got ready. I could make out somebody moving in the thick brush that had started growing just past the pine trees, and when a hand reached through to hold a branch out of the way for Courtney, I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. I clicked the safety back on as they came the remainder of the distance quietly.

  “Sorry about that, Dick,” Luis said, kneeling and then sitting on the plastic.

  “It wasn’t that loud. You two all squared away?” I asked him.

  I wasn’t sure if he had snuck off with Courtney for some private time or if he had killed a tree, but judging by the folding shovel he was breaking down, I guessed it was tree murder.

  “Yeah,” Courtney said. “He had to use the bathroom. I was standing watch a ways off so I could—”

  “Shhhh,” Mel said, interrupting.

  For a minute there, both Luis and Courtney gave the young lady a weird look, as if to ask her what the hell, but her eyes were glued in front of her and down the road. I followed her gaze, and I made out the forms of six people heading towards us.

  “Looks like we have company coming,” Luis said, turning to look at me.

  “You think they’re coming here for the pond?” Jamie asked.

  “I think it’s likely. Let me get my binoculars out.” I was already reaching for the binoculars to get a good idea of how many people they were, and if they were armed.

  “I’m a little bit scared,” Mel whispered to Jamie, who just patted her on the shoulder, as everyone lay as low as they could and watched the strangers approach.

  Without moving too fast, I pushed myself into a sitting position and looked at the group walking this way. I didn’t see any guns, but one of them was carrying a baseball bat while everyone else was holding old milk jugs.

  “It looks like they’re definitely coming this way for water,” I told Louis, handing him the binoculars.

  He looked for a moment and then turned and handed the binoculars back to me. I stored them away and waited.

  “Are we just gonna sit here?” Courtney hissed.

  “It’s too early in the day to start moving on the open road, and we picked a really good spot to hide out in. The only problem we have is the water right there, and we have to fill our own jugs up before we leave from here,” I whispered back to her.

  She didn’t like it, but she nodded. This was the uncomfortable truth of the situation; we had to sit and wait and try to hold still. It was a skill I’d developed and utilized in countless situations, but I could see the nerves start to take hold in the women first. Nervous twitches, legs or hands moving, or they would stretch. Luis looked back at Courtney, which she saw, and she went still. Slowly, I eased down into a prone position with the shotgun at my side. I got it pointing more or less towards the pond again and waited.

  I saw that there was one woman with a group of five men. She looked healthy, no bruises, and seemed to be walking of her own accord. Nobody was forcing her to come, so I relaxed a little bit. I figured that the suburbs, that saw less gang activity, wouldn’t be as hardcore as the inner city. The violence had always been like that, in concentric waves that spread out like ripples on a pond, reaching out to the other shore when somebody dropped a pebble in. With the EMP, some days it felt like, instead of a pebble, somebody had thrown a cinder block. Still, I had high hopes to get out of here without bloodshed.

  Mel turned her head and looked at me, her eyes so wide I almost thought they would bug out, but when she saw me calm and ready and giving her a thumbs-up, she blinked and then gave me a slight nod. She snaked her hand across the sleeping bag and found her mom's. They squeezed hands to comfort each other, and something in that little action pulled at me. Something in my chest, half of a memory.

  I was packing my bags. It had been a week since I’d signed the divorce papers, and things were becoming official. The divorce was almost over, and we were through fighting. I was going to get a job with the CST, and I’d gotten my DD214’s in hand. Medically disabled. Not fit fo
r active duty. I didn’t know if that was true or not, but I’d had dreams and nightmares. I wasn’t sure how much of that was knowing that, when I got home, I’d be getting a divorce.

  Still, Mary wanted it, and I couldn’t fight it. I’d had my chance to be a good father, a good husband, and I’d run from my responsibilities and literally waged war across much of the Middle East for most of my lifetime. Now things were winding down, and I hadn’t passed my psych evals after the last hospital stint in Germany, where I’d lied to Mary over the phone about how bad I’d been hurt. It wasn’t the shrapnel that had hurt me, it was losing Michael. It was all the killing, all the blood, and the whole pointless mission.

  We weren’t really there to give them freedom, we were there to affect a regime change, one that was beneficial to our own government. That realization had hit me hard, coupled with losing my best friend, and the knowledge that my entire career was spent avoiding my duties to my family. I’d lost my military family in that bank shootout in Falluja, I’d lost more friends off and on during the campaigns, and now I was losing Mary and Maggie because I was a failure.

  “It’s not going to be forever, Daddy,” Maggie said, taking my hand. “Mom said once we get settled in you can come visit.”

  “I know, sweetie,” I told her, trying not to tear up. “I’ve got an apartment, and I start a new job next week. As soon as all of us get settled, I’ll come visit. If that’s still ok with you, Mary.”

  Tears glistened in her eyes as well, and she took my hand in hers.

  “Richard,” she said, taking my hand with both of hers now, pulling me close so she could whisper. “This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. This is the only thing I can do to help you. To help us, someday. I want you to go to the doctors, I want you to take your medicine, and I want you to quit the drinking and pills. I love you, but I can’t live with who you are right now. It’s not good for you, it’s not good for us, and it’s not good for Maggie to see.” Then she leaned in close and kissed me.