EMP (Book 3): 12 Years Old and Alone

by Whitworth, Mike

  I built a fish trap in the creek, mostly by piling up stones that I could lift with one hand. That took me a couple of days. The first fish tasted great.

  I peeled some of the inner bark from several saplings. I wasn’t sure what species the saplings were so I tested each inner bark for strength by peeling a long strip, standing on one end and pulling on it with my good arm. I chose the strongest for my cordage.

  First I twisted three strands together and then folded it over like King showed me. Then I twisted the two halves into a longer strand, adding a thin strip of bark just before each one ran out in one of the strands. It was a slow process, but I wasn’t in a hurry. I knew better. Crappy cordage wouldn’t catch me a deer.

  I used the first batch of cordage to make some heavier cordage. When I was done, my hands and shoulder hurt like hell.

  I made a half-dozen deer snares and set them in likely spots, always careful to use dead limbs and such to block the trail so that the deer would have no option but to put their head in a noose.

  Three days later, I had two deer and three broken snares. Good enough. I thanked the deer for giving life to me and Sackett.

  Sackett sat and drooled the entire time I roasted a deer haunch on a spit that night. Come to think of it, I did too.

  I thought about how easy it was now to find game. Was it because there weren’t so many people around? Was it because I used quiet methods like the Indians?

  I remembered my dad saying that his grandfather told him that, during the Great Depression, game became so scarce no one could depend on it for food. He said it was hunted out. Why was that so then, and not now?

  I pondered that question a bit before I understood. During the depression, there was no huge die off of people, and many more people knew how to hunt back then. Nowadays, not as many people, especially those from the cities, knew how to hunt. And now there probably weren’t as many people alive as there had been during the depression. Times were different. Shit, you didn’t even need money now.

  In a week I could pull my bow and in a month it was like I was never injured. Me and Sackett took to woods running. I explored the area thoroughly. It was something to do while I was thinking about what I was gonna do, I guess.

  Three days later it occurred to me. I needed to entice the two men to come to me, in an area I knew much better than they did. It gave me something to think about.

  I spent many evenings and parts of days thinking about how I could entice my family's killers to come to me and what I’d do when they came. Sometimes, I even lay awake at night, but not often. The work required for survival ensures sound sleep.

  I read about the Vietnam War in school, and how the other side set booby traps. Shit, I could do that, well if I knew how to make a booby trap anyway. Then I realized trapping men wasn’t much different than trapping critters. I set to work.

  I made cordage until my hands bled. Red, well dried-blood-brown, is such a pretty color for cordage, don’t you think?

  Then I went back to the dead man’s trailer and found a notebook and some pencils. With that I made a detailed map of the area, making measurements with a tape measure. I kept notes of every location I thought I could set a trap. Shit, you would’ve thought I was back in school.

  But how to get them to come to me was a problem. Then I figured I’d just send them a map showing where to find me.

  But would they come? Since I put two arrows into Tolliver and because he was a vengeful man, I thought they would.

  I dug, I chopped, and I twisted cordage until I thought I was ready. Then I did some more.

  Don’t be in a hurry, I thought. I studied my maps and the terrain even more. I found a couple a small flaws in my plan so I fixed them. I was ready. Sackett was asleep.

  The only way for me to deliver the message to Tolliver was to do it myself. I wrote it out on a piece of paper, drew the map, and went to deliver it. I made Sackett stay behind but he didn’t like it.

  I snuck up to the house Tolliver had been staying in after dark. It was empty. They’d moved. I wished I’d brought Sackett. He might be able to smell where they went.

  An hour after daylight I went looking for Tolliver. I saw a few people here and there. Most were friendly, though all carried guns. I stayed away from any that looked as rough as Tolliver and his men, and talked only to men with families.

  Two days later, I still didn’t know where they went. I kept looking. An old lady in ragged jeans and a floppy hat finally told me what I needed to know. She’d seen two men who fit their description move into a house three blocks away. I gave her some of my jerky and thanked her. She gave me a toothless grin, looked at the jerky and shrugged her shoulders. She was sucking on a piece of jerky when I left.

  I found a hiding place from where I could watch. Three hours later I saw four men go into a big house in the middle of the block. None was Tolliver or the other man I was seeking. I just kept watching. An hour later I saw Tolliver come out of the house and sit on the front steps. Jackpot! He was swigging from a bottle. It looked like whiskey or bourbon to me. My dad liked both so I knew what the bottles looked like. Shit, my dad even used to send me to buy him moonshine on weekends. Yeah, I knew a lot about booze. I also knew I didn’t like it. I didn’t like what it had done to my mom and dad, and I sure wasn’t gonna drink any. Of course that made no never-mind to Tolliver as he sat there swigging away.

  I looked over the map I’d drawn. The message on it said:

  Tolliver. That little shit who stuck you with arrows is living in the national forest with a woman and three girl children. I done sketched you a map of how to find em. I hope you find him and kill him. The little bastard stuck an arrow in my leg and I can’t use it too good no more or I’d go after him myself. Just follow the map. Yer Friend, Dil.

  One thing about growing up in the South, poor grammar was easy for me. Just ask my English teacher.

  I stuck the note to the front door of the house in the wee hours and went back to my hiding spot to wait. A man found the note a couple of hours after dawn and brought Tolliver out to see it. Tolliver stomped his feet and yelled a lot. My plan seemed to be working. The problem was it was working too well. Before noon, Tolliver led nine armed men with packs away from the house. Shit, I hadn’t planned for more than two men. Dumb-ass! I mentally flagellated myself as I took the shortcut back to camp. I was gonna fetch Sackett out of there and run like hell.

  Chapter 22

  I made it back to Sackett. He was glad to see me and licked my face. I was so glad to see him I almost licked his face too, until I remembered I wasn’t a dog. Shit, maybe I did need a more civilized life than I was leading?

  I gathered up Sackett and the bundle of stuff I had ready and we hauled ass to the other side of the meadow. There we crouched in a hide that was waiting for us and I watched the trail at the bottom of the hill. That was where the men would come from if they followed the map.

  An hour later, seven men jogged up the trail with Tolliver in the lead. They must have left two men to guard their back trail. I hadn’t counted on that either.

  “Sackett, we may be fucked,” I said.

  Sackett wasn’t paying any attention. He was watching the men as they fanned out to either side of the trail and approached my camp on the other side of the meadow. I’d hoped Tolliver and the other man would do that, but I wasn’t ready for seven men.

  Then one of the men triggered a snare trap as he ducked under a fallen tree. The noose caught him around the neck and jerked him into the air as the four-inch diameter hickory tree whipped straight. It was a son of a bitch to bend that tree in place and set the trigger. I made a bush windlass, like King taught me, to bend the tree.

  The man hung there, three feet in the air, soundless, kicking and pulling at the noose around his neck until he finally went limp. Tolliver and the others just gathered around and watched. Not one of the ice-hearted bastards tried to cut him down. They seemed entertained by his death. A cold chill grew in the pit of my belly. W
hat was I up against? These weren’t men, they were monsters. I thought people that bad only existed on TV. Shit.

  Now I really didn’t know what to do. I probably should run, but the men would see us if we left our hide. All I could do was wait. Once the men were closer to my camp, we’d be able to leave our hide.

  But the men weren’t in any hurry. Three of them cut long poles and searched for more traps. When they found one, they either triggered it or avoided it. They found every single trap I set in that area. Something else I hadn’t counted on. Damn. I hugged Sackett tighter.

  Finally, the men were out of sight and, from the sounds, making slow progress while they searched for more traps. Sackett and I slipped out of our hide and ran the back way to the top of the hill overlooking my camp. There were more surprises waiting for the men there, but I was afraid they’d find the traps and disarm them. But we had to go to the hill to run away anyway. Our escape route started behind the hill.

  When I planned this, I’d wanted Tolliver and the other man to follow us along our escape route, if they weren’t killed or injured by the first traps. Now I wasn’t so sure I wanted to be followed. No matter how good I thought my traps were, it seemed I was wrong. Another dumb-ass move on my part. Me and Sackett should have just skedaddled instead of riding the vengeance trail.

  I couldn’t help myself. I watched as the six remaining men entered my camp. They prowled around, looking through everything, just like I thought they would. I was pleased when one man opened a pot sitting on a rock and the rattlesnake inside, whose rattle I’d carefully removed, bit him on the hand. Another man dug out a snakebite kit and treated the bitten man. Shit. Something else I hadn’t thought of.

  The men searched the camp and surrounding area carefully. They found all of my other traps, except one. They would find that one, one way or another, if they followed the trail to the top of the hill where me and Sackett were watching.

  The men finished searching my camp. Sure enough, one of them pointed to the trail up the hill. Sackett and I got ready to run. Three of the men started up the trail in single file. The man in the lead walked into the clear monofilament fishing line trigger and the arrow from my bow trap caught him in the stomach. He screamed and clutched at his belly. The arrow passed completely through him and into the man behind him. I could see it sticking out of the second man’s abdomen while he silently stared at it. The second man slowly fell over as the first man sat down beside the trail.

  The bow trap had worked better than I thought it would, but the results made me feel sick. No matter how bad I told myself those men were, I couldn’t get the thought out of my head that this was murder, like Mrs. Johns had said.

  Then I remembered my mom and sisters, and Zee. No time for tummy flutters. If Sackett and I were to survive this, I had some bad men to kill. Me and Sackett left our hide and ran down the back side of the hill to our next hide. On the way, one thought kept bouncing around in my brain like a Superball in a concrete box. We were gonna die. It just made me run faster.

  Sackett and I ensconced ourselves in the next hide. I watched carefully for the men. I thought they would be following me along the trail.

  Four men down out of nine. Not bad for a kid. Sackett nudged me. Okay, a kid and his dog. Dang that dog was turning into a mind reader.

  Two of the four were dead. The gut-shot man was unlikely to be able to follow. I wasn’t sure about the man with the snakebite. So, worst case, I was facing six men. You’d think I’d be happy at my success, but I was just scared shitless. But that was okay, I forgot to pack any toilet paper anyway.

  An hour later it dawned on me that the men weren’t gonna come up the trail. Shit, I hadn’t planned on that at all. They could have turned around, but they probably still thought there was a woman and girls with me. I’d scattered some women’s and girl’s clothes from an empty house around my camp. No, they wouldn’t quit. Especially not Tolliver and the other man.

  If they didn’t leave, then what were they doing? Were they trying to flank me? Which side, or both sides? Did they know I was here or were they just assuming? It didn’t matter. It was time to leave. Me and Sackett hauled ass out of there, hoping to outrun the men so they couldn’t trap us.

  As I ran through the woods I heard a loud thwack, and something buzzed by my nose. Almost in the same instant, I heard a deep, hollow boom. Someone had just taken a shot at me with a heavy caliber weapon. The sound of the shot echoed through the trees as I ran faster, dodging behind trees and through bushes.

  Shit, they found us.

  I slid into a steep-sided gully. Sackett followed. Once on the floor of the gully, we ran as fast as we could, twisting between the trees and bushes like a Maseratti at a demolition derby.

  At the head of the gully, I scrabbled up the slope and ran smack into one of the men. The impact knocked me down and knocked his rifle from his hands. Without thought I reached for the small pistol in my belt as he reached for one in his. I was faster. I fired three shots into his chest and watched the expression on his face change from anger and determination to confusion as his body refused to obey him and the pistol fell from his fingers.

  I holstered my pistol and grabbed his as me and Sackett ran past. By now the man was sitting on the ground and staring at a blood covered hand.

  I heard yelling from our left. “Frank, did you get the little son of a bitch. Are the women with him?”

  Me and Sackett ran for all we were worth, and I was a damn good runner now. I’d had a crap-ton of practice since the lights went out.

  It wasn’t until I ran out of breath and slowed down that I realized I’d almost been killed. I thought it was a good thing I’d practiced drawing that pistol so much around the campfire.

  In truth, it had been just play. I never once thought I'd ever have to draw it. I kept the pistols ‘just in case’ because it seemed to be the thing to do. Even the only cop I knew in town, a friend of my dad’s who had been a policeman for thirty years, had never had to use his gun. But then times had changed, and not for the better.

  When I got my breath back, me and Sackett ran some more. I couldn’t think of anything better to do.

  Five against two, those were the odds now. Yes, three, maybe four, of the men were dead now and five remained, including the snake-bit guy. But I’d been pushed off of my home ground and I’d lost most of any advantage I had.

  It was time to leave. My goal now was simply to get away. Once safely away, I’d decide if I wanted to come back and try to kill Tolliver and the other man for what they did to my family, or just move on to somewhere they wouldn’t find me.

  I ditched all but the most essential stuff. I kept my two pistols, my bow and arrows, a knife, fire starting kit, and some deer jerky. I tossed the big pistol I picked up, and cut one of my blankets down to the smallest size I could wrap up in. Once my gear was tied tightly in my rucksack, I ran north. Sackett followed.

  At first running was easy. I bounced along the trail with Sackett beside me. He was a good runner, but mostly he was a sprinter. I’d seen him, from a standing start, catch a rabbit twenty feet away that was already in motion. But sprinting wasn’t the same as long distance running. I had to be careful not to run him too hard.

  After eight hours, Sackett was pooped. He couldn’t run another step. We needed a better way to escape. I knew there was a big creek to the north. I’d fished it a couple of times since the lights went out. It flowed to the east and then south. Maybe me and Sackett could float our way to safety. If we could float along the creek far enough, we would be behind the men, where they wouldn’t expect us to be. From there I hoped we could escape.

  When Sackett was able we ran north, more slowly this time. I just hoped we weren’t going too slow. The thought of leaving Sackett behind never crossed my mind.

  We kept moving after dark, only at a walk with starlight for our guide. A couple of times I got confused, but just moving around until I could see the North Star set us back on our path.

 
We reached the creek mid-morning of the next day. It wasn’t until I was taking a drink of water from the creek that I remembered its name, Graves Creek. I hoped that wasn’t a sign or some shit.

  So how were we gonna float unseen down the creek? A boat would be too obvious, besides there weren’t none. I could’ve made a raft, but I left the axe behind. As I sat there wondering about making a raft, a big snag floated into sight.

  “That’s it, Sackett,” I said. “That’s our ride.”

  Sackett looked up at me like I was fucking nuts. Of late, he had that look down pat.

  And maybe he was right. I could just hang on to the snag with my hands, but Sackett’s paws weren’t very good grabbers. I needed a way to keep him on the tree that wouldn’t wear him out.

  I still hadn’t figured out how to accomplish that when the snag floated on by.

  Chapter 23

  Sackett and I waited on the bank hidden in some bushes. I studied the creek. It was about eighty feet wide and seemed plenty deep. Both banks were heavily wooded, with large trees growing right up to the water's edge. I looked downstream. In the distance I could see white sand bars.

  Other than figuring out how to float the creek, the only problem I could see was that the creek meandered its way through the forest. If Tolliver's men spotted us on the creek, they could easily head us off, even in these heavy woods. Fuck, I needed a submarine.

  I wondered how long Sackett could tread water?

  Oh well, time to get moving. Sitting here would just get us killed. I led Sackett into the water and we swam across the creek. My guns, bow, and arrows got wet, but there was no way to help that. Once on the other side, I used some leaves to clean and dry the pistols while I wished for a Ziplock bag.

  I also dried the bow and arrows. Then I stowed the sinew string in a pocket, and slipped a nylon string onto the bow.