The Devil Dog Trilogy: Out Of The Dark

by Boyd Craven III

  “Just a man,” I said, raising the goggles with my left hand. “Who are you looking for?” I asked him, walking closer slowly, watching his hands.

  “I thought we heard somebody driving through. When the motor stopped, I figured ya’ll broke down. You guys ok, do you need a hand?” he asked me in a Southern drawl.

  What?

  “We’re ok,” I told him. “I don’t think we need any help.”

  “Oh, well, if you don’t mind lowering that big bore there, I’ll head back to the fire with my friends.”

  Was it really that simple? I lowered the gun.

  “Sure, but answer me a question first.”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “Why are you guys camped out in the median?”

  “Oh, we found a food truck. It’s mostly cans, but we’ve got a ton of it. You hungry? We’ve got more than we can ever—”

  “Food truck?” I asked him.

  “Yeah, big Walmart truck full of canned goods. Besides, we’re kind of in the middle of nowhere. It’s safer here than in the cities, from what I hear.”

  “It is,” I said as I lowered my guard. “We just left Chicago. It’s a little safer than it was a month ago, but all cities are pretty bad. Hell, the highways are dangerous.”

  “I know, that’s why when we heard your motor, we stashed our wives and kids.”

  “Your wives and kids?” I asked him. “Out here? Why?”

  “Because it’s where the food and water is. Listen, stranger, we don’t want any trouble, but we’ve got more people than you saw. Please don’t mistake my offered hospitality as a sign of weakness.”

  I smiled a big, huge smile and offered him my hand.

  “Dick Pershing,” I said as he took it.

  “Clint Wood,” he said, giving my hand a quick pump, a relieved grin lighting up his face.

  “Listen, I got some more folks with me. I’d like to just drive through with no problems. You folks wouldn’t mind that, would you?”

  “Oh, Lord no,” Clint said. “In fact, if you’d like to stop a spell or get more water, we’ve got some.”

  Part of me was saying this could be a trap, but my gut told me he was on the level. I was not often the trusting type, but the open and honest way he was talking at me put me at ease. I looked at his hand, and a wedding band shone on his finger. At least he hadn’t been lying.

  “Let me go get my people. We’ve been riding in the dark, so I’d appreciate folks not shooting us up when I ask them to turn on the lights,” I told him.

  “Oh, no problem. Feel free to stop and sit for a spell, but if ya want to drive on through, may the Lord bless you with safe travels, Dick.”

  “Thanks,” I said and flipped the goggles back down.

  In the same easy gait he made coming up here, he started back. Only when he was away a bit did he inspect his rifle and shake the barrel to make sure nothing was down the pipe. I walked back slowly to the truck and saw barrels pointed at me from every opening and over the cab.

  “Easy now, it’s just me,” I said, taking the goggles off and handing them to Jamie.

  “You talked to him?” Courtney asked from the bed of the truck.

  “Yeah, surprised you could see that,” I said.

  “We heard murmurs,” Mel said. “Sound really carries farther than I thought.”

  “Yeah, that’s why we plan on noise discipline,” I told her. “Listen, Clint there is with a group. They have some sort of Walmart truck, and he says he’s there with friends and family—”

  “I didn’t see any families there,” Jamie interrupted. “Just the men.”

  “I think that he’s telling the truth. In fact, he heard the truck shut off and got up to see if we needed help.”

  “He thinks he’s Triple-A?” Luis asked.

  “Seemed friendly enough. When he had a chance to make a move, he didn’t or wouldn’t. My gut says he’s ok. Said we can either stop in or drive on through. They aren’t holding the interstate up.”

  “And you believed him?” Courtney asked me in disbelief.

  “Kind of,” I told her. “To be honest, there didn’t seem to be any malice in his words.”

  “I’ve known guys like that. They try to be sweet and promise the moon, and then you’re tied up, being punched and—”

  “Hey babe,” Luis said, quickly getting out of the truck and moving to the side next to her. “Easy. That’s not us.”

  “I know, it’s just that I don’t think I want to… I mean… We can’t stop.”

  “You don’t trust easy,” he told her.

  She knelt down, and he gave her a hug. She let out a long shuddering breath. If I could make out her features more clearly, I’d think she’d been holding back sobs or screams. She had been through a lot. Maybe even more than me.

  “No, I don’t,” she admitted.

  “You trusted Dick,” Luis told her. “Trust him now.”

  “What, to stop?”

  “We don’t have to stop,” I told her. “We can drive straight on through. With what we’ve got for armament now, people would have to be fools to take us on,” I told her.

  She smiled, and Luis held up the M4 that we’d claimed from Chaz’s corpse, as well as Mel and Jamie’s pistol and carbines. Courtney held up her AK and then looked back at me and nodded.

  “I don’t want to stop,” she said.

  “Then move over, I’m going to crawl back in,” I said, and she held out a hand.

  I used the tire as a step and Courtney’s offered hand and got in, finding my spot.

  “With or without lights?” Jamie asked me.

  “Without. Let’s roll slow, and gun it if we yell or they start shooting.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Mel piped up. A moment later, we were rolling slowly in the far right lane.

  I considered the folly of what we were about to do and mentally shrugged. This was already a trip down the Devil’s Road, and I was becoming numb to all the action. Something happened, we would react. Sometimes it would go our way, sometimes it wouldn’t. The one thing I kept in mind to fight away the numbness was my thoughts of Maggie and Mary. I felt somebody tap me on the shoulder and looked to see Courtney pointing out to the left side. I turned to look, and a little girl no older than Mouse had poked her head out from behind a disabled car and was waving shyly.

  “She looks like Mouse,” I said.

  “She’s white,” Courtney told me, bumping my shoulder with hers.

  “I know,” I said, “but how shy yet carefree she is. She… reminds me of how my daughter was when she was younger.”

  We rolled past the little girl and were within fifty feet of the campfire when I saw the trailer on the eastbound side of the highway. People were jumping down and heading to the fire. Normally this would have alarmed me, but it was, in fact, the ladies and kids, coming out of hiding to camp out beneath the stars. Now that we were closer, I could see bedrolls, tarps, and comforters spread around, pushing the tall grass down.

  “Here we go,” Jamie said as we pulled past them.

  “Be ready,” Luis cautioned.

  “Look, it’s Clint,” I said as a man waved to us.

  His rifle was slung across his back, and he waved.

  “Safe travels,” he yelled to us.

  “Peace and safety to you and yours,” I shouted back.

  “That was kind of surreal,” Mel said after a few minutes.

  “How so?” I heard Jamie ask her.

  “Nice people. And a group of them. Even the folks from Pastor Horton’s community were more hostile, even though they were the good guys. They didn’t even bother us.”

  “There’s still good people in the world,” Courtney said into the window, surprising all of us.

  “Coming from Mrs. Doesn’t Trust Anybody,” I teased and bumped her shoulder.

  “I was talking about you, dickhead.”

  We all got a good laugh at that and waved back to the folks who were coming out of the darkened trailer, pro
bably to go back to bed. I wondered how many times they’d had their sleep interrupted to hide, or how often they actually had problems. They were too calm and serene. Like I would imagine pre-apocalypse America, but even then, people sucked. A life on the streets might have hardened me, or jaded me, but as a whole, most people were selfish pricks.

  We pulled off to the side of the road somewhere near Prophetstown, where 30 split and went north a little ways, and got out to look at the maps. We weren’t making great time because traffic was making us weave more the closer we got to the city. I didn’t want to end up somewhere we couldn’t back up, so I had her go extra slow. Courtney and I were both standing to give our bruised bottoms a chance to stretch as everyone else piled out.

  “So, are we going to do the detour?” Luis asked me.

  “Yeah, I don’t want to go too close to any big cities,” I told him.

  “Yeah, I don’t blame you. We’ve been pretty lucky so far tonight.”

  “Too lucky. Let’s take a bathroom and food break and then we’ll decide on what to do.”

  “But, we haven’t even traveled that long tonight,” Courtney said.

  “Probably seventy or eighty miles,” Jamie said, startling all of us.

  “That’s like two or three days on the bike,” Mel said after a second.

  “Exactly,” I said with a small smile.

  “Ok, well, I’ll be right back,” Jamie said, heading towards a small clump of trees.

  “Wait for me,” Mel piped up, and after a moment, Courtney hopped out of the truck bed, holding a roll of TP.

  “You boys stay on this side of the road,” she said to Luis, a hand trailing down his shirt.

  I watched him look at her. He was totally smitten, and I knew right then that he’d never be able to rag on me again, not without me pulling hard on his man card.

  “I’m heading to the scrub on the north side,” I said and started walking so I could do my business.

  It wasn’t long, and we were all back at the truck. Luis and Mel had pulled the bikes out so we could get to our packs. Since we weren’t staying, I wanted some real food. Surprisingly enough, we hadn’t had any while we were in the community, but we had the fixings to do at least a pot of instant chili and some instant cornbread. I got to my pack and pulled out a small foldable camp shovel and started digging.

  “What’s that for?” Mel asked as I tore through the sod in the soft area of the median.

  “Fire hole. I figured we could all use a hot meal,” I told them.

  Courtney flopped down on her knees in front of me and started pulling sod away from the edges of the hole.

  “I don’t know what you’re doing, but I don’t want to light a big grass fire,” she said.

  “That would be next. If you want, peel the sod back towards you too for the second hole.”

  “Second hole?” Jamie asked, sitting down to my left between me and Mel, who was still standing there watching.

  “Yeah, I’ll show you,” I told them.

  Digging got a lot easier after the first dozen scoops. The ground went from gravel and rooty to deep rich soil. I made the hole about the size of a coffee can on top and slowly flared it out on the bottom like the legs of bell-bottoms.

  “You going to use wood for that?” Luis asked me, just as I was starting to scrape clear the rest of the bottom.

  “Yeah, if you want to grab some. Small stuff, the size of your finger or thumb. Doesn’t need to be huge,” I told him, and he nodded and started walking, dragging his feet.

  “You always said fire and cooking can draw people out to you,” Jamie said. It was more of a statement, but I knew it for the question it was.

  “It can, so what we’re going to do is to take away one of two things that can give us away. We’re going to build a Dakota Fire Hole—that’s why I’m digging the second one here.”

  And I was. I was careful not to put my knee in the hole or dirt I just dug out, but within five minutes I had a twin of the first hole. I pulled the shovel out and folded the handle down so it was a lot shorter, and went to the bottom. I dug sideways, and when I felt some give, I reached in the other hole until I could feel the soft cascade of the rich loamy soil as I poked the shovel through. After that, it took me a couple of moments to clear it.

  “I found some, but it’s a little wet,” Luis said, a little sheepishly.

  “As long as it isn’t waterlogged,” I told him and frowned.

  He hit the jackpot of firewood. He had a whole armload of small dried-out sticks. They were wet from the dew in the night, but I wasn’t surprised. I felt around in my vest pocket and found some hand sanitizer.

  “Will that work?” Jamie asked me, giving me a wry look.

  “Don’t know to be honest. It’s got a high alcohol rating. Let’s see,” I said and took a handful of sticks and broke them into small six- or eight-inch sections.

  I placed them as much in a teepee as I could on the bottom and then gave them a good squeeze with the sanitizer. Then I took a longer stick from the pile Luis had dropped and put a dab on the end. I fished out an old Zippo and gave it a turn. For a works everywhere, anytime lighter, mine didn’t even spark.

  I flicked it again. Nada. Nope sammich. The Gods hated me tonight.

  “I got one,” Mel said, fishing a disposable one out of her pocket and handing it over to me.

  It was bright yellow from what I could tell in the moonlight and had one of those stupid childproof covers over the striker wheel, but I was able to flick it into life after a couple of tries. I held the flame under the stick, and the sanitizer lit. It flared up nice and bright, so I lowered the stick in, and soon I had a small fire going.

  “Now what? Put the pot on the top?” Courtney asked me.

  “No, I got to find some rocks, then load this up with wood a little more,” I told her. “But if you want to get out some of that instant chili we got from Horton’s people, I’d appreciate.”

  “Uh huh, I see how you are, make the ladies—”

  She yelped when Luis swatted her on the butt playfully, and Mel busted up into giggles.

  “What’s the rocks for?” Jamie asked.

  “To set the big pot on. See, we’re going to have the fire on one side here, and the hole in the bottom will keep it fed with air while we have the pot over the flames. It’ll cover the flames, but it won’t put them out. Feel this,” I said, motioning into the empty, interconnected hole.

  “The air is getting sucked in,” she said, puzzled.

  “Yes, it’ll be even more pronounced when I have a pot covering the side up. Let me make sure this thing is good to go before I load more wood and…”

  “Here you go,” Courtney said, holding out an eight-quart cooking pot I’d taken from the house we had been staying in.

  “Thanks,” I told her.

  I found three rocks from the pile I dug and lined the sides. It took five rocks of almost equal size, and I made sure the edges of the hole weren’t going to crumble in before I threw in another handful of sticks and set the pot on top. Using my canteen, I filled the pot to the halfway mark and then pulled out the Mountain House packets that David had given us. I still had a few MREs, but how I hated MREs.

  Everyone took a seat and watched. I poured the contents of the dehydrated meal in and then went for my pack. I got out a roll of aluminum foil that was also looted from the house and two boxes of Jiffy mix and went back to the fire. Everyone watched me curiously. I took two sticks of about the same size and tied a piece of paracord between the two ends. I had what looked like nunchucks that would work for a two-year-old, but I wasn’t done. I tied another length of paracord between the two pieces and made myself a handle that ran between two sticks laid parallel. It was easy to fit two more sticks across the top.

  “I don’t know what you’re doing, but the chili smells amazing,” Courtney said, breaking the silence that had overtaken the group as the food cooked.

  “Making a Dutch oven…” I told them and dug through
the pile until I found two sticks with Y forks in them.

  They weren’t very long, but they didn’t have to be. I set those aside and then pulled out a long piece of foil. I folded it in half and then folded it again, making a small ten-inch square. It had raised edges, and I flared them out a little bit. I checked the corner folds and pulled off some scraps from the roll to reinforce the corners. I placed this contraption on the stick and paracord frame. After that, I poured in the Jiffy powder and enough water from my canteen to almost make a thick soup out of it.

  “What will we use for bowls?” Jamie asked, looking at the bubbling chili.

  I grinned and pulled a spoon out of the inner pocket of my vest. After some fishing, everyone but Jamie was holding up spoons and grinning at her. She made a rude gesture and went for her pack. I grinned and used mine to stir the stew that was now starting to boil.

  “Who wants to try it out?” I asked. “First victim?”

  “Me,” Mel said, almost shoving me to the side.

  I laughed and gave her room, and she dug in. She blew on the first bite and then went for a second and a third….

  “Hey!” Courtney said, moving over next to her.

  “It’s not too hot?” I asked, taking the plastic handle of the pot and pulling it off the fire.

  “No, it’s…” Mel said with her mouth full, fanning her tongue, “just about…”

  I put the pot down between them. There had been times of extreme stress, danger, but this was what I’d been missing in my life. The simple joys, the simple moments. A laugh, a shared smile. Eating together as a family. And I knew I wasn’t going to confuse Mel with Maggie this time. It was hysterical how they all dug into it and ignored me as I stirred the Jiffy mix one more time before pushing the two Y-shaped sticks into the dirt next to the fire hole and slowly lowering the batter over the opening.

  It took a little pushing on the sticks and moving the paracord, but I got it approximately over the fire hole. Then I pulled a new sheet of aluminum foil off and draped it over the top. I had enough room to flip the empty pot over the whole setup, and that was going to be my plan if I ever got a chance to get some chili. I reached over with my spoon and got a bite and promptly dropped it into the pot when Mel growled and acted like she was going to bite my hand.