by Bryn Roar
Bud slammed the door on this fruitless train of thought. He couldn’t be in two places at once. Besides, he didn’t even know which trail they’d chosen! As much as he wanted to go off in search of his friends and his ailing father, it was up to him to find the vaccine.
He gave the Pines a cold, hard look, and then turned his back to them. As if his favorite stomping grounds had somehow betrayed him.
Oak Swamp’s unforgiving waters awaited him…
*******
“Bilbo couldn’t have been more than twenty yards behind us,” Rusty insisted. He stood up to get a better look. “I don’t understand it! Where could he have gone to?”
“Maybe that Rabid that’s been following us snatched him,” Tubby said softly.
Josie nixed that. “No way, Ralphie. Bill’s had the bug for a few hours now. He wouldn’t be the one they’d snatch first. Besides, I just saw him a few seconds ago! Right over there,” she said, pointing past the blow down.
“Maybe he took a wrong turn…”
“Wrong turn, my ass!” Rusty blurted. “A blind man could’ve kept to that part of the trail! Now Bill’s lost, too?”
“Jiminy Christmas! So we are lost!”
Josie ignored her friends. “BILLLBBBOOOO! WHERE ARE YOU?” she bugled between her cupped hands. She ran back to where she’d last seen the man. “FOLLOW MY VOICE, BILL! BILLLBBBOOOO!!!”
“CALL OUT TO US, BILBO!” cried Rusty.
“Guys, do you think that’s a good idea, yelling like that?” Tubby asked them. “What if those things hear you?”
Josie cut him with a black look, and then bellowed just as loud as she could: “BILBO!!! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU!!! BIIIIIILLLBBBOOOOOOOOO!!!”
*******
Bud was wading through the swamp in tea-colored water up to his neck, his eyes peeled for cottonmouths, when he heard a voice call out, far off in the distance behind him…
“Bilbo!!! Where the hell are you!!! BIIIIIILLLLBBBOOOOOOOOO!!! ”
Heart in throat, Bud stopped where he was, struggling to keep his footing, and listen at the same time.
Who was that calling my dad? Josie???
The woeful voice just faded away, though, the cry thus far not repeated. Bud strangled back an angry sob and continued on with his mission, steadying himself with one foot, before moving the other forward. Despite the urgency, he couldn’t just stomp his way heedless through the swamp. Deep holes existed here, as well as those feared nests of water moccasins. Stepping into either of those things, a deep hole or a snake pit, would’ve been the end of Bud, his father, and most likely Josie and his friends. The smell of smoke was growing stronger, too, though he was barely conscious of the fact. It hardly seemed of consequence. Bud held the shotgun and his backpack over his head, trying to keep them dry, and the effort was taking its toll on his aching shoulders and trembling arms. He still had a ways to go, though, before he reached the chain-link fence, surrounding the old Army Base. Past the tall fenceline was a vast lawn, stretching all the way to the base buildings, shielded from view by a stately row of live oaks and huge azalea bushes. Hardly of consequence to Bud. His main concern was the razor wire on top of that security fence. That shit was no joke! The Center’s guard dogs, the Dobermans, barely gave Bud any pause. If they insisted on giving him shit, then the Mossberg would set them straight. Bud had considered going the long way around, traversing the ankle busting, rock covered beach, on the North End, to get to the Center, but the swamp was still the quicker and more manageable route of the two. Like Josie earlier, Bud was now second-guessing his initial instincts.
No turning back now, Buddy boy. Just a little further. One foot in front of the other…
The fence was no more than a hundred yards away when he heard someone calling out his father’s name again, somewhere off in the pine forest…far, far, behind him.
“BIIIILLLLBBBBOOOOOOOOO!!!!”
Yep. Josie O’Hara, looking for his lost dad…
*******
Josie called a halt to the search. They’d backtracked for a mile or so, calling out Bill’s name every few seconds, when she stopped short at a familiar looking palmetto bush. Josie held up her hand and caught Rusty in mid-yell. His echoes continued eerily calling out to Bilbo Brown.
“What is it?” Tubby asked, looking between them.
“This palmetto shrub…”
“Yeah?”
“Where’s the piece of red cloth I tied around this frond, just a little while ago?”
“Are you sure it’s the same one?” Rusty said. “They all look the same to me, Tits.”
“I’m sure, Gnat.”
“Maybe it fell off,” Tubby said, frowning. There was a sinking feeling in his gut he didn’t want to acknowledge, much less say out loud.
“I already looked. Besides, this is the second place missing a marker. One might have fallen off, blown away, whatever. But two? Shite, I don’t think so.” She looked around them, scanning the silent trees and bushes.
“The Rabid that’s been following us?” Rusty whispered. He looked around the woods and then up at the treetops. The sun had already reached its apex for the day and was now on its downward turn in the sky. A chill tickled the back of his skinny neck. Out here in the Pines, exposed as they were, he felt like he had a bit part in a bad horror film. That dude, who in every slasher flick he’d ever seen, goes down into the basement to investigate the “Strange Noises” coming from the cellar, despite everyone in the audience telling him to get the hell outta there. It never ended well for that oblivious asshole.
“Yeah, and it must’ve gotten Bilbo, too,” Josie said, fighting back the tears. She looked like she might be sick. How am I supposed to break this to Bud? She’d failed him, just as surely as she’d failed her own little brother.
Tubby put a hand on her shoulder. “I think Mr. Brown might’ve removed your markers, Joe. At least that one further down by the windfall we had to go around.”
“What’re you talking about, Opie? Why would—”
“Hush, Gnat. Go ahead, Ralph…what’d you see?”
“Rusty and I had just circled around the windfall back there, and Bill was lagging behind us. I turned around, to make sure he could at least see me, you know? And that’s when I saw him untie your marker from that palmetto bush. He…he was sniffing that thing like…like…”
Josie felt her face flush. “Like what, Ralphie?”
Tubby shrugged, unwilling to say what was on his mind; that Bill Brown had a certain look on his face when he was sniffing that scrap of cloth; the way a horny fellow might sniff at the crotch of some discarded panties. “Like he was a damn dog, trying to get a scent,” he finally said, grimacing. “I caught up with Rusty, and to be honest, Joe, I just assumed Bill put the marker back where he got it.”
“Why would he remove it in the first place?” Rusty asked again. It made no sense to him. Unlike Tubby, and even Josie to some degree, he couldn’t see any significance in Bill Brown sniffing at a piece of damn cloth.
Josie opened her backpack and removed a Swiss Army pocketknife Bud had given to her when they were twelve. She smiled tightly, remembering how he’d handed it to her that day. Almost grudgingly. “Here!” he’d said on her front stoop, then running away as if his britches were on fire. No explanation as to why he was giving it to her. Just “Here!” That was the day Josie realized Bud liked her. The genuine Swiss Army knife had his initials burned into each side. Josie had added hers underneath; though she’d never had the nerve to add + to the equation.
She cut an arrow into a pine, the raw white skin of the tree in sharp contrast to the rough brown bark. “Doesn’t matter if he took them or not,” she said, snapping the blade closed. “I’ll leave a blaze the old fashioned way. Should have thought of it before. C’mon, we’re wasting daylight.”
Tubby was right behind her; only Rusty stood where he was, too shocked at first to speak. “Wait a damn minute!” he shouted at their backs. “What about Bill? We can’t just leave him
out here! How will he find us?”
Josie turned to face him. Tears coursed down her cheeks. “That’s just it, Rusty. If we don’t get out of these woods soon enough, you can be sure that he’ll find us.”
*******
Finally! Something had finally gone right! Bud had made it to the Center’s perimeter fence and was about to climb it—hoping the razor-wire at the top wouldn’t shred him to ribbons—when he spied his good fortune, thirty yards down the line. Oak Swamp ended at an earthen dam, which the tall enclosure ran across. The Center’s landscapers had done an admirable job in keeping the swamp’s trees and other marshy vegetation several feet away from the fence line. Despite their best efforts, however, Hurricane Jack had toppled it with a wind-blown cypress. The old tree had flattened one ten-foot section of the chain-link. So much so, that all Bud had to do was to walk across the oak’s wide trunk! Literally, one bridge at a time!
Bud waded over to the tree and climbed aboard, taking a moment to catch his breath and to ease his aching shoulders. Pins and needles coursed through his deadened arms. He checked his watch: 1:02. It had taken him less than an hour to cross the swamp! Despite making up some precious time, it was getting late.
He took his water bottle out of the bag and drank his fill, pouring the rest over his steaming head. He would refill the bottle at the Center. He stood up on the trunk, shrugged on the backpack, and slid the pump back on the Mossberg, snicking a shell into place. The hollow sound ratcheted across the empty grounds…
*******
Now that Bill Brown was a likely threat, Josie made sure she stayed close to her friends, ignoring her instincts to run like hell. Guilt consumed her for not living up to Bud’s expectations—of getting Bilbo safely to the Bunker, where Bud was probably already waiting with the vaccine.
No. Bud wouldn’t wait. Not for long, he won’t.
And that insight didn’t give Josie any comfort at all. It meant that Bud was either looking for them in the wrong place, or that he still hadn’t made it back to the Bunker.
Maybe he’s lost, too!
It made her want to run blindly into the bracken, screaming out his name at the top of her lungs. She swallowed down the rising panic and shook the feeling from her head. She couldn’t afford such selfish hysterics. She considered using one of her shells, in hopes of getting Bud’s attention; then maybe he could locate them from his end. Maybe send off a round of his own; letting her know which direction the lake was. But she couldn’t bring herself to waste even one of the precious shells. All she had to get them through the Pines was five measly rounds. And she was saving the last shell for herself. Just in case…
She carved another blaze, pointing the arrow in their direction of travel. Now that they’d stopped again, Josie heard something lumbering about in the brush behind them. The disturbance ceased as soon as she looked in that direction. The branches of a young loblolly swayed back and forth in the thicket, pine needles drifting down.
Rusty looked ready to say something, and Josie shushed him with a look. She raised the shotgun and pointed the double-barrels at the thicket, her fingers curling around the back-to-back triggers…
The brush erupted in a flurry of human limbs—and like a shot, Bill Brown vanished into the palmettos.
They were all too stunned to speak. Bud’s dad had been stark naked and in a frank state of arousal.
“Now we know,” Josie said, breaking the silence.
Twenty minutes later and the unlucky trio had returned to a familiar spot in the woods.
Two monstrous pine trees had fallen side by side in the storm, blocking the more manageable route.
As she’d done twice before that day, with her longer legs, Josie took the shortcut and clambered over the two trunks. Tubby and Rusty took the long way around, down by the massive root systems. Because they’d chosen to circumvent the trees on the leafy side the last two times, they didn’t know about the sinkhole on the roots-end.
Tubby fell into the shadow-hidden hole first, shouting out a warning as he dropped into the abyss.
Rusty pinwheeled his arms in a futile attempt to keep from following his friend. He dropped headfirst into the deep hole, landing on his back, Tubby’s considerable cushion breaking his long fall.
A sickening crack ensued. It resonated off the earthen walls in a hellish sort of stereo.
Tubby’s left leg had snapped like a stalk of crisp celery. Rusty, who’d come out of the twenty-foot plunge without a scratch, watched helplessly as his friend screamed in agony beneath him.
Josie was looking over her shoulder, when one by one, her friends dropped from view. Seconds later, Tubby was shrieking like a grieving banshee. Josie dashed over.
“SINKHOLE, JOE! “SINKHOLE!!!”
Rusty warned her just in time. Josie skidded on the carpet of pine needles, a few feet from falling in herself.
The sinkhole lay camouflaged in the shadows of the two towering root systems. It was easy to see how her friends had missed it. She’d been looking for the damn hole and nearly missed it herself!
Knowing how unstable the ground around a sinkhole is, Josie crawled the rest of the way over to the edge. She peered over the side but the hole was deep, the bottom concealed in darkness. The earthen walls smelled too rich and loamy for it to have been an old sinkhole.
Good thing for the boys; otherwise it could have been full of rainwater. Or something far worse.
“Ralph! Rusty! TALK TO ME, BOYOS!”
Rusty’s voice carried up to her. “Tubby’s broken his leg, Joe! Or I did it for him when I landed on top of him! How the hell are we going to get him out of here?!”
Josie could hear the hopelessness in Rusty’s voice. That familiar frightened tremor. “Easy, love. Easy. I’ve got an idea. If I drop one end of a skinny pine tree down the feckin’ hole, do you think you could climb out on it?”
Rusty hesitated before answering. “I might…but there’s no way Tubby could! Aww, man, Joe! He’s fucked up bad! Oh, fuck me! I think I see his bone!”
Rusty dug his Maglite out of his pack and turned it on. Tubby had passed out from the pain, and Rusty knew why. Sure enough, a glistening bone had broken through the shin of Ralph’s lower left leg—right through his denim jeans, sticking straight up in the air. The jagged end aflutter with shreds of flesh. Rusty turned his head and threw up.
Up above, Josie had retrieved her flashlight as well. She too saw how desperate the situation was.
“I could still get you out, Gnat,” she called down to him. Wiping his mouth, Rusty looked up at her beseechingly. Looking for a way he could leave this hole, without leaving what was left of his manhood behind. His glasses, with its thick elastic strap, had managed to stay on. They reflected Josie’s light back up at her. She couldn’t read his eyes but Josie knew what her best friend was going through down there. Rusty’s scared shiteless of enclosed places! Those walls were probably already closing in on him. Like some diabolical Fu Manchu death chamber.
“We can’t leave him down here,” Rusty whimpered. He looked up to her for another alternative.
“I could switch places with you, Gnat! You’re faster than I am! You could run and find Bud. Get him to bring a rope. What do you say, tiger?”
Rusty looked down at Tubby; hoping his friend would have an answer for him. Maybe tell him it was okay to leave him down here. Anything that would forgive his cowardice. All at once, the image of his dad came to him: Samuel J. Huggins, looking as hard and unmovable as a big brown boulder. Leaving his friend behind would have been unthinkable to Ham. The man had stayed out looking for Mr. O’Hara until he’d collapsed from exhaustion!