Into The Darkness

by Doug Kelly

  Dylan nodded his head at Kevin, then spoke directly to the mayor again. “Just calm down—” Dylan tried to plead before he was cut off once more by the mayor.

  The mayor furiously wadded the letter into a ball and threw it at the men. “Arrest them!” he roared.

  The chief drew his pistol and fanned it back and forth at the three men. “Put your hands on your heads and interlock your fingers,” commanded the chief. He stepped closer to the men. “Turn around and face the wall.”

  “You ever hear of frontier justice?” asked the mayor sarcastically. “You’re about to get some.”

  The three men faced the wall and Dylan noticed that the large glossy screen of the television on the wall was reflecting the images of the mayor and chief of police standing behind them. The chief was moving toward the closest man, which was Kevin, and Dylan was directly next to him, in the middle. Out of the corner of his eye, Dylan watched the image of the chief’s reflection, on the flat-screen. As the chief got closer to Kevin, he placed the pistol in his holster and removed a set of dull chrome handcuffs. Dylan jumped on the chief’s back as he reached for Kevin’s wrists with the handcuffs. Dylan wrapped his right arm around the chief’s neck, wiggled his forearm under the chief’s chin, and pulled it back and up to choke him. The chief flailed his arms frantically at Dylan and he flung the handcuffs backward, hitting Dylan several times.

  Kevin desperately grabbed the pistol from the struggling man’s holster and leveled it at the mayor.

  As the pressure from Dylan’s forearm increased on his trachea, the chief let the handcuffs slip from his fingers and desperately clawed at Dylan’s forearm. Dylan pulled his arm violently backward and, as he pressed harder on the chief’s carotid artery, the chief dropped to his knees and then fell backward, unconscious, on top of Dylan. Dylan pushed the limp body off him and stood up, quickly handcuffing the chief’s wrists together. Dylan picked up another pair of handcuffs, and stood to face the mayor.

  “You ever hear of frontier justice?” asked Kevin, parroting the mayor’s sarcastic statement.

  “Just shoot me, you bastard!” said the mayor, holding the letter opener like a knife and pointing it at Kevin.

  Dylan motioned to Kevin to lower the pistol. “I have a better idea,” said Dylan, as he tossed the handcuffs on the table toward the mayor. “Handcuff yourself to this table and we’ll be happy to be on our way.”

  The mayor angrily threw the letter opener down, then handcuffed his wrist to the leg of the large table, which was secured to the floor.

  “For the record, that letter is a fake. We were set up. If anyone from the Air Force base comes this way, show them that letter and tell them Sergeant Haber wrote it. Let them know that he deserted when he left the base. The general just wanted to have an alliance with the surrounding communities. He would supply men to work the fields and provide protection for a share of the food. That’s it.”

  The mayor remained mute, but his anger was obvious.

  “I get it. We’re not welcome here,” said Dylan. “Like I said, we are happy to leave. But we’ll be taking the pistol. I think you understand.” Dylan bent over and grabbed the spare magazine for their new pistol from the chief’s belt. He handed it to Kevin and told him to keep the pistol.

  Before they left, Dylan, with squinting eyes, quickly scanned the dimly lit room for anything they could use on the long journey home. The opposite wall was covered with a mural of the local landscape. Next to the wall was a stuffed bobcat lunging at a stuffed pheasant. There was also a deer head and a trout mounted on the wall. Dylan walked over to the pheasant and removed several of the large feathers to use as fletching for the river-cane arrows. As he walked back toward the door to leave the room, he held up the feathers for the mayor to see, and said, “Just a little something for my troubles.” The mayor cursed at them as they walked away down the corridor.

  “We’re lucky no one else is here,” said Richard, as he nervously scanned the area.

  Dylan rubbed the lump on his head from the chief’s handcuffs. “You’re right. We need to leave immediately, and move way downstream before we set up camp.”

  The men walked toward the gray light coming through the glass doors at the end of the corridor. The building appeared to be devoid of other people, and eerily silent. Near the exit, Richard noticed a room with an open door and commented that it looked like an employee lounge and he wanted to check it out. He opened the cabinets and gave a verbal inventory of the items he saw.

  “Paper plates, cups, spoons, pepper, more plates…nice…a case of instant noodles,” Richard said, as he held a box of noodles toward his companions.

  Dylan and Kevin went into the room and looked around.

  “I don’t see any more food,” said Kevin, with a sullen tone.

  Dylan grabbed a box of trash bags and removed one. He put the eating utensils in the bag with a bottle of dish soap and vegetable oil. He said they could use the vegetable oil to cook with and provide some fat calories. Dylan also wanted to use the oil to rub on the bows he was making. The oil would make them waterproof, allowing him to finish the bows. Dylan carried the trash bag over his shoulder as they left the building. They did not see anyone on the way back to the rafts.

  The men wasted no time in getting the rafts back to the riverbank. Dylan reminded Kevin to engage the pistol’s safety. They pushed away from the bank and floated downstream, staying on the opposite side of the river.

  After several miles, the rain stopped and the gray clouds began to dissipate, but the current remained swift. When they came to a section of riverbank with plenty of driftwood, they got out of the rafts, pulled them out of the water, and carried them to the nearest bushes to conceal them.

  Kevin went directly to set lines for catfish as Richard began to gather wood for the fire. Dylan positioned the nearly finished bows and river cane by the fire. He wanted to finish the bows by tomorrow so they could begin hunting. The food supply was getting really low. As he sat by the fire, Dylan felt the lump on his head from being hit with handcuffs and looked at the deep scratches on his forearms from struggling with the chief. Sergeant Haber had taken the first-aid kit when he stole Dylan’s raft. Dylan knew that their situation provided the perfect conditions for an infection. An infection now could be fatal. He also knew he had to eat to maintain his health. As soon as he placed the bows near the fire to finish drying the wood, he began exploring the area for food to scavenge. He returned to camp with nothing but hunger. This meant they would have to eat more of their rations and hope for fish by morning. Supper was some bread that was beginning to go stale, and instant soup in a cup.

  Dylan was thinking about his family and trying to ignore his hunger as he sat by the fire. A noise in the tall weeds caught his attention. He rose up and turned to the direction of the noise. Kevin and Richard stopped what they were doing and stood quietly in reaction to Dylan’s movements.

  “Look, over there,” Dylan said, pointing to the tall weeds that moved in unison with the sound of dry grass crackling.

  “It has to be an animal,” said Kevin, as he picked up a club-sized piece of driftwood.

  Dylan picked up a rock and signaled to Kevin that he was ready to jump the animal. Their sprint towards the animal was noisy and the furry creature ran away. It was large raccoon.

  “I saw the little bandit,” said Dylan. “It went into a hole.” Dylan looked at the rock in his hand and said, “I have an idea. Help me find a large flat rock and we can make a deadfall trap. I can see where it ran to. It used a little trail in the weeds to get to that hole. Let’s put a deadfall trap on that trail.”

  “What’s a deadfall trap?” asked Kevin.

  “We’ll balance a large flat rock up by a stick. When the raccoon uses its path and walks under the rock, it will bump the stick holding the rock. The rock will fall and you get a flat raccoon.”

  They found a sufficiently flat rock, but the sun had begun to set before they had it positioned correctly and struggled t
o see their work in the dim evening light. They decided against using any of their food as bait and went to sleep hoping for catfish or raccoon for breakfast.

  A large hawk swooped low over the men and screeched, waking them at sunrise. It was a clear morning. There were no clouds in the sky to block the radiance of the sun’s ascent. Dylan had slept by the fire and turned the wood each time he woke from his restless sleep, so that it would be evenly and completely dry by morning. He got up and felt the wood. It was still warm. He thought that if it had been warm all night long, the wood had to be dry, so it was time to apply the finish. Dylan retrieved the little bag of walnut hulls and began to crush them with a stone. This created a dark paste that he rubbed on the bows, and then wiped off the excess. The wood was stained black from the hulls and he placed the bows near the fire to let the residual paste dry. Dylan looked toward the deadfall trap and then looked again at the bows by the fire. He thought about how convenient it would be to hunt after the bows are finished this morning. They would soon be able to take game down silently.

  “I’ll check the deadfall. How about some fish?” Dylan asked.

  After a quick nod, Kevin stood, stretched, and walked to the fishing lines he had set last evening.

  Dylan crept toward the trap. He did not want to make noise and scare a loose raccoon. To his delight, he saw that the rock had fallen and a raccoon’s tail was just visible, protruding from underneath the flat stone. Quickly, he lifted the rock, revealing the fatally trapped raccoon. When he picked it up, he realized the body was still warm and was surprised that he had heard nothing when the trap collapsed. Dylan proudly showed the raccoon to Richard, then rotated the darkened bows and bundles of river cane drying by the campfire. Kevin was coming back to the campfire with the fish lines. He held up one finger indicating that he had only caught one fish.

  Still holding the raccoon Dylan looked down at Richard and spoke. “I’m glad we got this. It looks like we only have one fish coming our way.”

  Richard turned toward Kevin, who was approaching the campfire, and put more wood on it. He looked back at Dylan. “I’m starving. Do you know how to clean that thing?” Richard asked, pointing at the raccoon.

  Dylan tapped the knife in its sheath and nodded. He took the catfish from Kevin and went to the river to clean both for breakfast.

  While Dylan was cleaning their catch at the water’s edge, Richard approached Kevin with the map. Richard showed Kevin landmarks on the map as a guess to their location. He wanted the other men to know what to expect before they crossed the Montana state line into North Dakota. Richard pointed at two locations downstream where roads crossed the river. At these locations, there were public recreation areas and there could be people on camping trips who had become stranded after the grid collapsed. With roads so close to these recreation areas, maybe other stranded people who were traveling on the road had decided it would be a good place to stop. He thought there was a good chance for desperate people to be there, so they needed to be cautious. Further downstream he showed Kevin a lake on the map. Using his fingers to measure the lake to scale, Richard determined the lake was at least one hundred miles long. Kevin shook his head and looked away. He knew that meant endless rowing and another dam to get around.

  Dylan was back at the campsite now with the cleaned catfish and skinned raccoon.

  “Richard just showed me on the map what we have to look forward to,” said Kevin.

  Dylan traded Richard the map for the cleaned game. Richard began to cook the meat and Dylan studied the map where Kevin indicated their estimated position was.

  Kevin explained to Dylan as he pointed to various locations on the map. “We are low on food and have a lot of rowing to do on the lake. I guess it’ll take about a week to get there and a lot of calories to do it. With these recreation areas and roads coming up we could run into some desperate people when we stop to get food or camp for the night.” Kevin pointed to the roasting meat and the two bows by the campfire to emphasize his conclusion. “We have to find more food and get those bows completed.”

  Dylan nodded his head. “I can finish the bows this morning. We have a dozen good arrows to start with. The river cane will need feathers and points to make them useful. The pheasant feathers will work as fletching, but I have no idea what to use for arrow heads.”

  Dylan put the map down and inspected the two bows. He rubbed the residue of walnut hull paste off the bows, then for a finishing touch, rubbed vegetable oil on the stained wood to waterproof them. He cut a length of paracord to use for bowstrings and strung the bows, handing one to Kevin. Dylan then cut a notch at the end of each river cane and attached pheasant feathers to the notched end. They practiced shooting with the blunt-tipped arrows, not wanting to damage the razor sharp tips of the carbon-fiber arrows that Dylan had found in the deer stand.

  Satisfied with the performance of their new weapons, Dylan and Kevin set their bows and arrows down, and rejoining Richard, ate the fish and raccoon. They were not able to find anything else in their surroundings to eat.

  The men left their camp that morning with two new weapons and the hope that those would serve as another means of getting food. The land was barren for miles as they floated downstream. Dylan and Kevin had their bows ready just in case they saw something to hunt as they went along. There was nothing but clear sky and grassland until late afternoon, when they came upon irrigated farmland. They could see massive irrigation equipment on wheels that previously allowed the mechanism to be moved in a circle around the field. They went ashore to filter more drinking water and look at the crops in a nearby field.

  Dylan ran into the field with his bow. He yelled back down to his two companions. “Look, soybeans, a field full of soybeans!”

  Kevin and Richard went up the incline of the riverbank and into the soybean field.

  “How do we eat them?” asked Richard.

  Dylan grabbed a pod from the plant. “Just boil them and open the pod. The beans are inside. They are immature right now, but still delicious.” Dylan opened the bean pod to show Kevin and Richard the individual green-colored beans inside. “This is something we can take with us.”

  Richard immediately ran to his raft to get something to hold their harvest of beans. He came back with a pillowcase and began to pick the beans. Kevin did the same. Dylan volunteered to survey the area for animals to hunt. He strode down the row of beans next to the motionless irrigation equipment. He decided to walk toward a ravine bordered with trees. He noticed a buzzard circling over the ravine, and, as he got closer, thought that the treed area might have game to hunt. Near the tree line, he paused and stared into the greenery. Dylan stood quietly for several minutes as his eyes slowly scanned for any motion, then he heard a noise. There was a slight movement in the short grass and a ground squirrel emerged. Dylan remained still and the ground squirrel did not appear to notice him. Dylan did not want to damage a good arrow on the little morsel. He thought that maybe the blunt tip of a cane arrow might be sufficient to stun the rodent. He slowly put the crude arrow to the string and pulled back. The ground squirrel stood on its hind legs and stared at the man curiously, unaware of its impending fate. The blunt tip of the arrow struck the ground squirrel in the chest. The impact caused a high-pitched squeak from the creature. Dylan picked up the pathetic little animal, held it up for inspection, and said to himself, “Beggars can’t be choosers.”

  He was able to retrieve his primitive arrow before he began the walk back. As he walked away from the ravine he looked closer at what he had earlier thought was a large stick on a flat rock. It was a large black rat snake warming its body in the sunlight. Dylan positioned himself behind the snake and used his bow to pin the snake’s neck to the rock. The captured snake was at least three feet long. Still pinning it to the ground, he cut the snake’s head off with his knife. He put his arm and head through the strung bow to carry it across his torso, so he could carry the decapitated snake in his right hand and the ground squirrel in his left. The su
n was getting low in the sky and it cast his shadow across the ground. He saw the silhouette of a primitive hunter-gatherer. Dylan knew that this was how it would be from now on, kill or be killed. The world had new rules now and he had better learn fast.

  Back at the campsite, Kevin and Richard had gathered an enormous pile of immature green soybeans. Dylan held up the two creatures and shrugged his shoulders at the two men. No one who was as hungry as they were was going to complain. For supper they boiled beans with the squirrel and snake. Their meal also included the last of the food from the hotel. Before bedding down for the evening, Kevin and Richard picked more beans for their journey. The huge pile of beans they gathered was impractical, but understandable. Their hunger was a motivating force and Dylan decided to say nothing because it was a harmless way to feel like they were coping with the situation.

  Not having room in Richard’s raft for the two of them, Dylan went toward the irrigation system with a tarp to hang over a horizontal pipe and a blanket to keep him warm. He brought his bow with him because it was comforting to sleep with a weapon.

  Chapter Eight

  Dylan curled under his wool blanket, the bow in front of him and a few of the good arrows by his side. He closed his eyes and listened to the river meandering its way across the landscape. Within minutes, he was dreaming of his family. Later in the night, his pleasant dream turned into a nightmare, and he woke up sweating. In an effort to regain his composure, he emerged from under the tarp, which he had draped over an irrigation pipe. Standing by the tarp as it gently flapped in the breeze, he could still see the glowing embers of the campfire. Suddenly, he saw something move at the campsite. Rubbing his eyes, he blinked, trying to clear them, and stared again toward the camp by the riverbank. Dylan saw something moving around, so he grabbed his bow and the arrows. He nocked an arrow on the string and crouched low as he walked back toward the camp, stopping every few steps to glance behind himself. He stayed low at the edge of the bean field. The bushy plants kept him completely camouflaged. Slow moving clouds obscured the full moon, so he continued to strain his eyes, peering into the darkness to see what was down at the camp. As he edged further down the bean rows, the clouds drifted away from the moon. Through the filtered moonlight, he saw exactly what was down there. A large mule deer had walked along the river and was eating from their pile of beans. He really wanted to shoot that deer. It would be quite a feast, and he thought they might dry some of the meat for their journey. He quietly took his boots off. The wind was in his face so he had an advantage over the deer; the wind would carry his sent away. The beans occupied the deer, so Dylan slowly crept forward on his bare feet. The deer’s head was down as Dylan slipped toward the side profile of the deer. He was now less than twenty yards away. Dylan raised the bow and leveled the arrow at the deer. He was close enough to see exactly where he should place the arrow, right behind the shoulder blade. At this distance, he hoped the arrow would go through both lungs. He took a chance and stepped a few yards closer. In the darkness, Dylan stepped on a stick and the snap of the twig sounded like dynamite to him. The deer was startled, and spun its head toward Dylan, focusing directly on him. Dylan stood motionless, except now his right hand pulled back on the string. He felt the bowstring touch his cheek. The adrenaline was coursing through his body and it was everything he could do to keep his hands from trembling. He forced his body to remain calm, adjusted his aim, and released the arrow. The arrow flew precisely into the side of the deer, behind the shoulder blade, and the deer made a deep grunt and bolted forward. The placement of the arrow was so good that the deer collapsed almost immediately. Kevin was startled from a sound sleep and jumped from his raft, brandishing the pistol.