The Forge of Darkness (Darkness After Series Book 3)

by Scott B. Williams

  “We’re on edge though, you know that. If it’s like most farms, I’ll bet there are a few cats hanging around that barn. If there was anybody living in the house that had a little kid, I’d wager they’d still be holed up in there, trying to hide. Either that or they’re long gone already, hiding off in the woods somewhere. The one that shot Kenny or the one with that .22 could have run back here to warn them, if there was anybody here to warn. Come on. We ought to go see what they found in there. Whatever the shooting was about out there, Drake can handle it and you can bet he’ll be riding up here any minute with the rest of them. We got here first, so we ought to get first pick if there’s anything special inside. If we wait, we’re going to miss out. In fact, we might be missing out now. Maybe Kenneth and Chuck did find someone hiding in there. Maybe they found a girl like Chuck was saying.”

  “Maybe. I’ll tell you what. You go on ahead and I’ll be right along in a minute. I’m just going to take a quick look over there first.”

  “Suit yourself, but I doubt you’ll see that cat in the dark.”

  April felt the adrenalin flood her body, as she now knew that what she’d feared was inevitable. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the man who’d dismissed the sound step into the edge of the open yard. Her focus though, was on the shadows in the direction from which their voices had come. Her Ruger Mini 14 was at her shoulder as she waited for a form to materialize from out of the gloom. When it did, the man had to be less than 10 feet away from the muzzle of her rifle. April couldn’t make out the details of his face, but when she was certain her sights were centered on it, she squeezed the trigger. The man dropped like a stone and she quickly turned her attention to the other one that was in the yard. She needn’t have worried about him though. Before she could get him in her sights, she heard the crack of Lisa’s .22 rifle and saw him fall too, likely shot in the head as well.

  “Good shot, Lisa! Now let’s go!” April wanted nothing more than to grab Kimberly and get as far away from here as possible. David didn’t hesitate to go with her, but Lisa did. April heard her open up with the .22 again, firing several rounds at the front door of the house as one of the men emerged. It looked like he was hit, but in the next instant bullets were shredding the trees and branches around them as the other one opened fire on them from inside with an automatic weapon.

  “LET’S GO LISA! WE’VE GOT TO GET OUT OF HERE NOW!”

  Lisa listened to her this time and the three of them quickly reached Stacy and Samantha, April taking Kimberly into her arms as she slung her carbine over her shoulder and prepared to run.

  “Is anyone hit?” she asked, feeling for Lisa and David in the dark.

  “I’m not,” David said.

  “Me either. But I wish we’d gotten that other one! He’s got a freaking machine gun!”

  “Mitch will take care of him later, Lisa. We’ve got to get out of here now. Those other men with the horses will be swarming the house any minute. There’s nothing else we can do here. We’ve got to get to the canoes and find someplace safe to wait!”

  Lisa didn’t argue further. They’d gotten two confirmed kills and maybe a third, but none of them had any illusions about being able to drive off all the intruders if there were as many as David said. They needed to put some distance between themselves and the house before the rest of those men began combing the woods looking for them. They left most of the supplies they’d brought from the house right where they’d put them on the ground. There was no time to be burdened with loads that would slow them down.

  April let Lisa lead the way through the dark woods because she knew the lay of the land better than anyone other than her brother and dad. With the creek not far away and several canoes hidden nearby, at least they had options. She just hoped they could warn Mitch and the other guys before they returned. April was disgusted at the thought of filthy strangers ransacking Mitch and Lisa’s family home. She was sure they would take everything of use or value in the current environment, and they might destroy the rest out of pure meanness. They’d already killed some of the cattle and David had heard them talking of rounding up the entire herd. But the most atrocious thing they could do was what they’d done to poor Tommy. Tommy was such a sweetheart and a good, innocent man. He, of all people did not deserve such a fate. Nor did Benny deserve the heartache of losing his only son. And April knew he might well be dead too. There was simply no way they were going to know tonight. All she could hope was that tomorrow revealed some answers and some ideas for a course of action. She couldn’t imagine what their lives would be like if they couldn’t rid the house and property of these trespassers. The Henley farm represented the center of their universe now. The house provided shelter and in it and the barn were the tools and other things they needed to survive in a world where getting more goods from the outside was out of the question.

  * * *

  Mitch was restless after nightfall, feeling confined and bored in the minimal shelter of the tarp. It would be uncomfortable even alone, but it was miserably crowded to share it with two other guys. There was little they could do to pass the time while stuck under it in the rain. Jason and Corey were keeping a small fire going near one end, but that was mainly because Mitch had insisted they build it to practice their wet weather fire building technique. It wasn’t really cold, but the light was welcome and the flicker of the flames at least gave them something to stare at as they sat there talking.

  Dinner had consisted of strips of venison jerky they were each carrying with them, and didn’t require cooking anyway. Mitch dreamed of roasting the backstrap of Jason’s fresh kill over the fire instead, but that wasn’t going to happen tonight. The jerky was dinner and would be breakfast in the morning too. Mitch didn’t mind, but he couldn’t help thinking how nice it would be back home out of the rain, in the house with April. What made those thoughts better was that he knew she would want that too.

  Mitch had been infatuated with April from the beginning, especially after seeing how she handled herself in that first violent confrontation when he’d met her. He soon discovered she was a city girl completely out of her element in the woods, but that was okay. At least she was willing to learn and she’d done just fine, even in those first few days. Mitch had never met anyone who fascinated and captivated him the way April did, but he’d been careful not delude himself with wishful thinking. After all, she was nearly two years older and she already had a child—a child who had a father. Her only goal in life at that time was to get back to her daughter and Mitch had assumed after he helped her do so and said good-bye that would be it.

  He knew she’d been impressed with his archery skills and his knowledge of woodcraft, but that was understandable considering the situation they found themselves thrown into. In normal life, she wouldn’t have even noticed him and he’d figured even if she did, she wouldn’t have been interested in him, even if she had no one. After all, he was just a high-school country boy from rural Mississippi who had little knowledge of the kind of lifestyle she’d lived before the collapse. That she’d actually come back here looking for him seemed like a minor miracle. And not only that, she came not just because she needed refuge for herself and her child; she came because she wanted to be with him again.

  When Mitch had found David lost and filthy and disoriented in the woods, he didn’t even know April and Kimberly had been rescued from the man who had taken them. He had been shocked to see her at the house, and he’d assumed she would be thrilled he brought her fiancé (or husband by now, for all he knew) back alive. She was glad to see David had survived after being left for dead, but Mitch soon found out the feelings she’d once had for him had long since cooled to bare tolerance of his presence. He was Kimberly’s father, but that’s all he was to April, and as it turned out, it was convenient for both April and Mitch that David no longer remembered his prior relationship with her.

  They had talked a lot over the days that followed, and he had been delighted just to be in close proximity to her again.
Of course it wasn’t the same as those first days he’d known her, when it was just the two of them traveling together; facing dangers that increased by the day in a world that was coming apart around them. It was different now, with nine other people living in the same house with them, so they had far less time alone with each other, but still, there was some. Mitch began giving her serious instruction in shooting the bow and arrow, and in return, she was teaching him some basic movements from her father’s martial art that she’d put to use so effectively more than once since the blackout. It was one day while doing this when they were in close contact, she showing him how to break free of a chokehold, that she suddenly put her arms around his neck and pulled his face close to hers and kissed him full on the lips. Mitch had been taken completely off guard by that move; which proved far harder to defend against than the attack scenarios they’d been training. But he wasn’t complaining. Her kisses were more wonderful than he’d imagined in the frequent daydreams he’d entertained since they met. It had been all too brief, that magical first moment in her embrace, but she’d promised there’d be more, much more to come.

  She’d told him nothing would ever come between them again after that day; but Mitch was still the most skilled and productive hunter among their small group. And it was his job to show the others and make sure they acquired the skills they needed, too. And so here he was, crowded under a tarp with two guys in the rain. Mitch tightened the drawstring of his jacket hood to snug it around his face, and curled up on the ground between Jason and Corey. When he closed his eyes he hoped sleep would come quickly and erase the hours until daylight. Then he could find that deer and go home to her again.

  Seventeen

  DRAKE WAS WAITING FOR the signal from Kenneth and the others who’d gone to scope out the house. What he hadn’t expected was more shooting back at the spot where Kenneth’s son had been killed. Two reports, one right after the other from what he was sure was a shotgun, followed by the sound of horses taking off in panic was not good. There had been no return fire or other sound from Marcus or Bobby, who were waiting there with the extra horses and watching the site. Whoever killed Kenny had used a shotgun, so Drake figured the odds were pretty good that the same person had come back for more.

  It took stones to pull off something like that with so many of his men nearby, so to Drake it was obvious they were dealing with a dangerous adversary, or at least someone unafraid to die. Either way, the elusive shotgunner could not be dismissed as some clueless farmer. It wouldn’t do any good to go charging down there on horseback only to get more of his men shot, so Drake whispered to the others gathered around him and four of them dismounted and entered the woods on foot. Two of them would work their way back through the trees alongside the road to where Marcus and Bobby were supposed to be waiting and the other two would cut through the woods between there and the house and try and slip up on the crafty shotgunner from behind. Drake had no intention of wasting time chasing down the horses that had run off. They would either come back on their own or instinctively run back west the way they’d come from until they eventually met the rest of their people bringing up the rear.

  The signal he had been waiting for from the house never came. Right after the four men he picked moved out to look for the gunman, Drake heard two rifle shots, the second one unmistakably a .22 rimfire. Then, a couple seconds later, there were more rounds from the .22, and then several 3-round bursts back-to-back from an M4.

  “That’s got to be Chuck!”

  “Yep! It sounds like he and Kenneth have run into trouble. Let’s go!” Drake urged his mount forward, taking the lead down the driveway. He didn’t want to run into an ambush, but the shooting stopped after the staccato bursts, so he figured Chuck and Kenneth might already have the situation under control. The shotgunner was still out there somewhere, but Drake was confident his other men would eliminate that threat shortly. Once he and the rest joined up with Kenneth at the house, there would be enough of them to set up defenses to make sure no one could return if anyone who’d lived there was still hiding out nearby. In a couple more days, all of his people would be here and he intended to make it safe for them beforehand. As he rode down the driveway, even with the possibility of a gunfight at the other end, Drake couldn’t help but take in what little he could see of the property in the dark and the rain. He would know more after having a good look around in the morning, but so far he could already tell he liked what he saw.

  * * *

  The darkness closed around her, reminding April of her first nighttime trek there with Mitch when she had known nothing of the woods. She had trusted that he did though and had agreed to follow him and help him in exchange for all he was doing for her. It was a dangerous mission, going out at night to rescue Lisa and Stacy from the depraved Wallace brothers who had taken them, but it was something Mitch had to do. April remembered her terror at every unfamiliar sound as the two of them walked through the dark woods and paddled down the inky black waters of the creek. Her fear of the wild was a natural reaction for someone who had lived her entire life in cities, and Mitch understood. But each life or death situation she’d encountered had proven him right; the real threat was from her fellow humans, not the wild creatures inhabiting the forest.

  Now that April understood this, she had no hesitation about fleeing into the forest, even on a gloomy wet night such as this when it was difficult to even see where to place her next step. When she stumbled over something unseen on the ground and almost fell, David offered to carry Kimberly for her and April let him. Kimberly, of course, had no objections to going to her daddy, even though poor David didn’t really believe he was. But at least he was willing to play along with it, despite his memory loss, and for that April was grateful. She knew it was a bit selfish of her to think this way, but David was so much more useful and agreeable to be around now than he was before he got smashed in the head by a rifle butt. For his sake, she hoped he regained his memory, but she didn’t look forward to having to deal with the “old” David if and when he did.

  April wished they could find Mitch and Jason and Corey tonight, but Lisa had assured her that wouldn’t be feasible and that it would be a waste of effort to try. April knew she was right even before she suggested it. The guys wouldn’t have stayed out at all if they were still close to the house, not to mention they would have heard all the shooting if they were anywhere nearby. In the tens of thousands of acres of national forest lands that bordered both sides of Black Creek, finding them at night, or even in the daytime for that matter, would be practically impossible. The best she could hope for was that they could intercept them in the morning, before the three of them returned to the farm and unwittingly ran into the intruders now occupying it. It terrified her to think of that happening, because they could all be shot before they realized what was going on if they simply walked into the backyard unaware.

  April had voiced this concern to Lisa and she agreed. Lisa was certain that Mitch and the others had gone downstream, as that was the way to his favorite hunting grounds. She said if they took two of the canoes and paddled down to the next bend, they could camp on the sandbar that was across the creek there. They would be out of reach of the killers if they came looking for them, but close enough to Mitch’s return route that he would probably spot them on his way home. April dreaded what would come next once Mitch learned what had happened in his absence. Her worries for him would be just beginning at that point. He would be outraged at the idea of strangers in his house and on his land, killing his father’s cattle. And if that were not enough to make him declare war, learning of Tommy’s murder would send him over the edge of fury.

  She was afraid for him because she knew there was no other choice he could make than to stop at nothing to drive out these men. This was not a fight he or any of the rest of them could simply walk away from. The house and barn and the tools and other things in them were all they had. They were going to have to take their farm back, not simply for revenge but as a
necessity for survival. April couldn’t help but dread the thought. Just as she’d allowed herself to feel somewhat safe again, her world had once more been upended in a matter of hours. Would there ever be a respite from this uncertainty? Lately, she had dared to hope there might be, but now she doubted it. Her father was fond of saying that change was the only thing that was real in the world, and that any semblance of stability or permanence was in fact an illusion. Back then, his stories of the old Zen masters and their teachings that he passed along as part of her instruction in the martial arts were hard for her to grasp. But over time, especially after she lost him, she began to understand that he was right. It wasn’t long after his death that she lost her mother as well, and then, like everyone else she knew, she lost all the comforts of the world in which she had grown up. In the blink of an eye it had fallen apart; the effortless communication and connectivity, the artificial insulation from heat, cold and rain, and the rest of the manmade safety nets that created the illusion of separation from nature.

  April had adapted quite well to life with that illusion stripped away though. She had accepted change as her father had told her she must if she were to ever understand, and in many ways she found the transition easier than she would have imagined. She had learned new skills and survived challenges she wouldn’t have dreamed of in that life before, but still she was weary of the fear and uncertainty; especially the fear of yet more loss. She could not lose Mitch. He was the most amazing young man she’d ever met in her life, and she was determined to spend as much of it as she had left with him, no matter how hard or how short that remainder might be. Reaching the creek tonight and finding a place to hide until morning was the first step, if she were to ever see him again.