They paddled without stopping through the morning, still full of energy from the hearty breakfast at the Holloways’ house. It was the first time they’d been well fed since losing the car, and April trusted there would be plenty of food at Mitch’s house after he had told her how his mom kept the pantry stocked. Again she started to feel guilty—she was going to have plenty while her Kimberly might be doing without. It was a struggle to push those thoughts out of her mind, but April knew she had to take care of herself if she wanted to maintain the strength to get back to her baby and look out for her.
As they rounded a bend, Mitch snapped her out of her thoughts by announcing, “We’re almost there! Just past that sandbar ahead, that’s where we get off the river. I know a shortcut that will take us right to our land.”
“What are we going to do with the canoe, leave it on the bank?” April asked as they paddled past a sandbar and Mitch steered them into an eddy that lay behind it.
“No, someone might find it. We’ve got a couple of canoes at the house, but with this situation being what it is, you never know what will happen. I may need it later, or if I don’t, someone I know might. We don’t have to carry it far, but I’d like to haul it at least a couple hundred yards up into the woods and hide it. That way I’ll know where it is even if I don’t need it, and when all this mess gets straightened out, I can return it to the rental people it belongs to.”
Mitch ran the bow up onto the sand and April stepped out of the boat. Then he hopped out and put both of their paddles inside. It took both their strength to drag the canoe up the bank, and then they carried it between them, Mitch at the bow, leading the way. When they were a good distance from the creek, he led the way into a thicket of dense evergreen shrubs that he said were bay trees. It was the perfect place to hide something as big as a canoe. After covering the overturned hull with branches and leaf litter from the forest floor, it was invisible to anyone who might happen to walk through the area along the creek bank. This done, they shouldered their light bags again and set off on foot, Mitch leading the way with growing anticipation.
April followed him along an unseen path that led through an expansive area of huge old-growth hardwoods with a canopy so dense they were walking in the shade most of the time. Then the terrain turned hilly, and the hardwoods gave way to more pines, similar to the forests they had traversed along the pipeline, but with taller trees. Other than their own footsteps, the only sounds were birdsongs and hammering noises that Mitch said were made by big pileated woodpeckers. The forest here was beautiful, much different than the scrubby, under-brushed choked woods they had passed through on most of their journey. April could see why Mitch talked about his land so much, and as they walked, they crossed some invisible boundary she would have never guessed was there and he announced that they were now entering the six hundred acres of the Henley family property.
FOURTEEN
The route from the banks of Black Creek through the forest to the Henley property boundary was intentionally obscure. Black Creek, being a federally designated national wild and scenic river and flowing mostly through public forestlands, was a popular destination for canoeing. In the peak summer season, it attracted hordes of recreational paddlers, especially on weekends. Most of the paddlers kept to the river and seldom ventured far into the surrounding woods, but hunters and fishermen with small, outboard-powered John boats used the creek, too, as a travel corridor to access remote areas away from roads where there was less competition for their quarry. Many of the deer hunters motored far upstream and pulled their boats up to the bank at a likely spot to hunt the bottomland forests in the vicinity.
Any kind of well-marked path or track would be an open invitation to follow it, so Mitch’s dad had always cautioned him to avoid making obvious trails from the creek to their property line by taking care to avoid using the same route too often. Having traveled so many different ways, Mitch knew the national forestlands in the area where they landed the canoe like the back of his hand. He didn’t need trails or markers, because he was familiar with the lay of the land, even though he knew to a stranger like April, it would all look the same.
Mitch had long since learned that when navigating dense forests areas like this, it was impossible to get lost if you followed the drainages, both the tiny tributaries that fed the larger creek and the dry draws in the hollows between subtle ridges. To Mitch these were as obvious as city streets, and he knew every one of them within miles of his house. Such natural corridors could be easily overlooked by someone unfamiliar with them, and people who got lost here often pushed through the thickets and up and down the hills and hollows, trying to walk in a straight line but invariably getting off course before they made it far. Mitch had encountered lost hunters and hikers in these woods on more than one occasion and lead them back to where they’d lost their way.
Given the current situation, it was likely some of the traveling refugees would eventually make their way here, but he doubted anyone would find their way to his place from the creek. More likely they would come by way of the county road, finding the house if they ventured down the long gravel lane leading to it. That was the only entrance to the property other than this backdoor route from the creek. Mitch had already been thinking about what he could do to secure that entrance once he got home and made sure Lisa was there, too. He wished he could simply hide it somehow, but that would be virtually impossible. He could at least fell a couple of large trees across the lane and render it impassible by car, but anyone approaching on foot could go around such a roadblock. A barbed wire fence enclosed the part of the property adjacent to the road to keep the thirty or so head of cattle on the two forties out front, but such a fence was no obstacle to a human.
Like Mark Rainey, the landowner who’d surprised them by their campfire near the pipeline, Mitch knew he was going to have to make regular patrols of the property part of his routine until things got back to normal. It was not that he would mind if someone passing through needed to camp on their land for the night. That was fine, and he would help them if he could. Far more worrying, though, was the idea of the truly desperate coming to the house and trying to take what they had there or poaching the cattle that would be much easier prey than wild game like deer. Mitch knew he was going to have his hands full, but first he had to make sure Lisa was okay and then figure out what to do about April.
The transition from national forestland into the Henley property was not marked by a fence or even a posted sign. The cattle were acres away on the other side of property, and the lower sections closest to the creek were still in a natural state of mature pines mixed with a few hardwoods. Mitch knew where the line was because it paralleled a slight elevation change that put it right on the edge of the creek’s flood plain. As he crossed that invisible line, he felt a great sense of well being, at least for his own security, and he tried to remain positive about the odds of finding Lisa at home as he quickened his steps in the direction of the house.
“I can’t believe you live out here,” April whispered as she followed close behind. “There’s nothing but woods!”
Mitch laughed a little and told her that the house wasn’t exactly in the woods. They did have pasturelands on their acreage, too. “We even have a yard,” he said, “with azaleas and rose bushes and hedges and grass I have to mow in the summertime—just like people in the suburbs. You’ll see.”
As if to prove his point, they reached the edge of the first pasture just minutes later. Mitch wanted to be cautious about approaching the house, though, just in case someone was there who was not supposed to be. That was easy, because when he started bow-hunting years before he had made a series of trails around the edges of the fields, just inside the trees, where he could move without being seen. The hidden routes came in handy for stalking rabbits and grazing deer, allowing him to move silently and unnoticed.
The path around this first pasture led up a gradual slope. At the top a narrow band of trees separated it from another field wh
ere his grandfather used to keep horses. Mitch had a path within that buffer zone of trees as well, and he led April along it until they emerged in a clearing behind an old wooden barn.
“That’s where Dad keeps that old tractor I told you about,” Mitch whispered.
He led her along the back side of the barn and then motioned for her to wait while he crept forward to the far corner to have a look at the house. From this vantage point he could see the back of the house without being seen, and he crouched there, looking and listening for any sign that Lisa or anyone else might be there. But it was quiet and nothing was moving except for a few of the cows he could see grazing in the pasture on the other side of the yard.
From this angle, Mitch could not see into the carport to tell whether or not his mom’s car or the antique Ford truck was still in there. He could, however, see that his dad’s dark green patrol truck, furnished by the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks, was parked where it always was, next to a shed on the side of the house where his state-provided patrol boat was also sitting on its trailer. Mitch had expected the state truck to be there. It was a Chevrolet Sierra 4x4 only a year older than his dad’s brand-new personal truck and certainly wouldn’t run after the pulse.
What he did not expect to see, though, was that the driver’s side window of the pickup was shattered. Someone must have deliberately broken it. Lisa did not know where the spare hidden key to the vehicle was because of the rifle his father kept locked in its special security rack inside the truck, but he had been entrusted with knowledge of both the truck key and the weapon lock. The rifle was his father’s state-issued Smith&Wesson M&P 15, a semi-automatic 5.56mm carbine with standard thirty-round capacity magazines. It stayed in the truck all the time, secured in special locking rack that held it in an upright position right beside the driver’s seat.
Mitch wondered if Lisa and her friends would have broken into the truck to get the rifle, given the circumstances. It was not out of the question, because all of the other firearms he and his dad owned were locked in a gun safe that would have been much harder to get into. It was not that Lisa didn’t know how to use them, but their dad just didn’t think she was old enough to be entrusted with access to them, especially since she often had friends from school over and they might not have the same respect for firearms that he had ingrained in the two of them since they were old enough to handle BB guns.
Mitch didn’t doubt for a minute that Stacy Burns’ brother, Jason, would break into the truck to get that rifle. Mitch didn’t particularly like him, but on the other hand, if the three of them did try to go to Hattiesburg to get their mom, they needed to be armed and he hoped they were. Lisa would have probably told him it was okay to do it, because she was smart enough to know it would be too dangerous to travel unarmed if there was any possible alternative.
But crouching there at the corner of the barn, Mitch had no way of knowing for sure who had broken into the truck. Could it have been someone else who got to the house first? Could they still be around, maybe even inside the house now? That was certainly a possibility, and he couldn’t afford to be careless. He crept back to April’s side and whispered to her, explaining the situation. He asked her to stay put and keep quiet while he made his way around to the other side of the house where he could get a view of the front entrance while staying out of sight.
Drawing an arrow and nocking it on the string, just in case, he set out to skirt the perimeter of the yard, slipping from one clump of bushes to the next, following a route he had memorized as a kid when he had practiced sneaking up on family members in his endless games of pretending to be an Apache scout or a wily mountain man. It was through those games that he’d developed the stalking skills that served him so well as a hunter now, and he was confident in his ability to move around the house undetected by anyone who might be inside, especially wearing full camouflage as he was today.
Taking no chances, he moved slowly, stopping often to look and listen until he reached a point that allowed him to see into the carport. What he saw when he did was exactly what he had feared he would find; the old Ford truck was gone! His mom’s Trailblazer was still there, right where she always parked it, and from where he stood he couldn’t see any sign that it had been broken into. The side door into the house from the carport and the main front door appeared to be intact, too.
Mitch felt it was reasonable to assume that if someone other than his sister and her friends had been there and broken into his dad’s truck and taken the old one, they would have also broken into the house to see what they could find. Still, he was almost certain that Lisa, Stacy, and Jason were who had been here, and they had taken the truck. He cursed under his breath. If only he had gotten here sooner—and he would have if only those stupid cops hadn’t taken April’s Mustang. Now there was no telling what kind of danger his sister and her friends could be facing, and he was stuck here without transportation and unsure what to do about looking for them. On top of all that, he now had to tell April the bad news that she wasn’t going to get a ride to Hattiesburg.
After several minutes of watching to make sure the house was empty, Mitch crossed the lawn to the carport and retrieved the hidden key from under a rock in one of his mom’s flower beds. The door was locked as it should have been, and there was no sign it had been damaged or forced open. There was also no note on the door for him, which really made him curse under his breath. Lisa should have known that he would make his way straight back to the house as soon as possible. She could have at least let him in on her plan with a note. Then he realized that maybe she left it inside on the kitchen table instead. He unlocked the deadbolt and stepped inside, almost choking on the smell of death that greeted him in the kitchen. Mitch covered his mouth and nose with one hand as he fought back the urge to vomit and the sudden feeling of panic at what he might discover.
When he recovered, it only took a moment to realize the source of the smell. The power had been off for over a week. The refrigerator and the extra freezer in the pantry had thawed out in the warm spring weather and, of course, the fifty or sixty pounds of venison and beef stored in them had begun to rot. The kitchen floor was a sticky mess from the ice cream and frozen foods that had melted and leaked out of the smaller freezer in the top of the refrigerator unit. Mitch cursed again. Why didn’t Lisa get Stacy and Jason to help her throw all that thawing meat out before they left? Maybe the smell wasn’t so bad when they were here or maybe it didn’t occur to them, but now the house was uninhabitable until something was done about it. He couldn’t stand it for long, but he made a quick trip down the hall to check Lisa’s bedroom and the gun safe in his dad’s office. Her closet doors were open and some of her dresser drawers were half open, as if she had hurriedly rummaged through them to grab a few things and go. But when he checked the safe, he was relieved to see that it was still undisturbed. He opened the combination lock and grabbed his Ruger .357 Magnum revolver that he had stashed there right before they left for the airport. The Ruger was in its leather holster with a belt already threaded through it, lying right beside his dad’s Glock 22 .40 caliber service pistol. Mitch left the Glock there and strapped the Ruger on outside his shirt before locking the safe and heading back out to the barn to get April. He dreaded telling her about the truck, and as he rounded the corner to her hiding place his anxiety doubled at the anticipation in her eyes.
“They’re not here,” he said. “Neither is the old truck. It looks like they were here briefly and just as I was afraid they would, they must have taken it to go look for Stacy and Jason’s mother. They also broke into my dad’s truck and got his patrol rifle.”
April recoiled as if she’d been hit. Her hopes of a ride to Hattiesburg were gone with the truck, and Mitch could see what was going through her mind—that she’d followed him here for nothing. “How do you know it was them?” she asked. “I mean, maybe someone else took it?”
“I wondered about that, too, at first,” he said, “but no, it was them
. The house wasn’t broken into, and I could tell Lisa went in her room and got some clothes and things. They must not have been here long at all. Just long enough to get the truck running and get dad’s rifle. I don’t blame them for taking the rifle, and I’m glad they have it, but I wish they’d taken a few minutes bag up the thawed-out food in the freezer and get it out of the house. I’ve got to warn you, the smell of rotting meat in that house will make you puke.”
“I see you have a gun,” April said. “Is that the only one they didn’t take?”
“No, this is just my everyday around-the-farm carry gun, the one I told you I should’ve had with me when I got stuck in New Orleans. We’ve got lots more guns, you can be sure of that, and like I promised, I’m going to fix you up so that hopefully you won’t have use that knife again. But it looks like you’re not going to have to worry about going to Hattiesburg alone anyway. I have no way of knowing if they’re still there or where they are by now, but since they’re not here, there’s no reason I have to be, either.”
FIFTEEN
April followed Mitch as he led her from the barn to the house, first stopping by the dark green truck to see just what was missing. “I knew it was the rifle they were after,” Mitch said. “It looks like Lisa or Jason must have found Dad’s hacksaw in the tool shed and cut right through the locking rack. That AR-15 wouldn’t be my first choice, but I’m glad they’ve got it if they did try to go to Hattiesburg. They sure needed something. I know Dad had several loaded thirty-round magazines in here, too, and it looks like they found them.”
“Well, I like ARs,” April said. “Dad taught me to shoot his Bushmaster, and I could hit with it better than anything else I tried.” April couldn’t help but notice the look of surprise on Mitch’s face. “I told you I knew a little about guns,” she explained.
The Darkness After: A Novel Page 11