After Darkness Fell

by David Berardelli

  But I had to find some way of getting through this. Fields depended on me.

  Straight ahead, the voice in my head told me.

  What?

  Straight ahead, about fifteen feet. Three trees down, you’ll see a log.

  Without hesitation I holstered the Ruger, dropped to my knees and crawled toward the dead log. As I moved, the flashlights continued drifting across the uneven brush toward me, jumping up into the trees and then sliding back down to the ground. I reached the log. The deadfall had once been a huge tree where a large section of bark had slid off, forming a crude cover between it and the dead limbs leaning against the pine tree a few feet from it. I found a depression in the ground directly behind the bark. Some sort of den an animal had once used, obviously. I couldn’t risk flicking on the flashlight and hoped the space was large enough to accommodate me. I also hoped it was vacant.

  I squeezed into it and, lying on my left side, pulled the leaves carefully over me, until I was completely covered. To prevent dirt, leaves and twigs from getting in my eyes, nose and mouth, I grabbed the front of my jacket and covered my face.

  The crunching of leaves grew louder. Footsteps smashed dead branches and crushed leaves directly behind me, and I could soon tell by the increasing vibrations in the ground that they were just a few feet in front of me. One of them jumped over my log and landed heavily on the ground a foot or so to my right. He stayed there for long, tense moments, shifting his weight as he moved his flashlight beam around. Then he stepped away.

  I lowered my jacket about an inch below the level of my eyes and pushed a couple of dead leaves aside. Someone came into my sight, and then someone else, and finally two others. The foursome reached the tree line and stopped moving. Through my mask of dead leaves I could see them moving their beams toward the front yard then turning around and aiming the brightness directly into the woods. They were all slender—some tall, others short. Although I couldn’t see their faces in the dark, I could distinguish holsters dangling over skinny legs and rifles perched atop narrow shoulders. They were all young—probably around the same age as the one I’d just killed. The memory of that unfortunate incident forced the cold knot in my gut to grow into a heavy block of ice.

  A blinding whiteness slammed into my hiding place. I closed my eyes, nudged the jacket back up over them and remained completely still. The light stayed on me, and I was certain I’d been spotted ... but I knew better than move.

  They can’t see you, the voice told me.

  It didn’t matter; I did what my gut, as well as my training, told me. Relax, don’t move, breathe slowly, and become one with your environment. Become the ground, the tree, the dirt. Above all else, survive.

  After a couple of long, excruciatingly-tense minutes, the blinding white beam finally shifted, and the comforting darkness that had become my only ally rushed back to console me.

  “Jackie’s dead!” whispered one of them harshly.

  “Fucker got Jackie?”

  “Told ya I heard eight shots. Sounded like a fuckin’ twenty-two.”

  “Fuck!”

  “Shit!”

  “Simon’s gonna be pissed, man ... really and truly, man.”

  “He’s got weed for days. He’ll be all right.”

  “He’s got a little crank for tomorrow, too.”

  “What about the stuff he got from Doc’s wagon?”

  “Doc only likes Zanax and Vicodin when he really wants to get fucked up. Took Zanax this mornin’, when he found out Doc and James got capped. Doc had enough weed for a coupla weeks in the wagon, but you know Simon.”

  “Yeah, he likes to have a month’s supply on hand for parties. And now we gotta find the stuff for ’im.”

  “Yeah. Doc ain’t around no more.”

  “Damn. Gotta find that stupid fuck.”

  “That’s why we’re here, bitch.”

  “Where the fuck is he?”

  “Fucker’s gotta be here somewhere.”

  Silence.

  “Think maybe he circled back?”

  “Fucker could be anywhere.”

  “Dammit, Jackie, you stupid asshole!”

  “Spread out, we’ll go back in and come out the other way. First one sees ’im, shoot the flare. ’Member, Simon wants this fucker alive!”

  The lights scattered, and the boys rushed back into the woods.

  I held my breath as two of them shuffled back, stopped about three feet in front of the pile of leaves covering me and slammed my area once again with a trio of blinding fireballs from their flashlights. Then they split up and went back to their hunt.

  I didn’t start breathing normally again until the comforting silence told me they’d gone.

  ***

  After a couple of minutes of heavy silence, I decided it was safe to leave my little nook. The hunting party would be looking for me at the other end of the woods. I had time to circle the property and find a way back through the back yard. If Fields was being held in the guest house, I had to get her out without alerting anyone in the main building. If she wasn’t there, I had to find someone who could give me answers. I didn’t have much time, and would have to resort to crude interrogation tactics. The thoughts of torturing a kid disturbed me, but I reminded myself that they were armed and dangerous, out of control and beyond hope. In this new world, everyone was doomed, especially children.

  I pushed away my blanket of dead leaves and crawled out from behind the sheet of bark. I spent another minute or so listening to the silence before moving away from my sanctuary. When I was sure the silence indicated no immediate threat, I crawled over to the tree line. Once I reached the boundary of the property, I ran over to the chain-link fence.

  I no sooner got to my feet when I noticed a flurry of blinding flashlights emerging from behind the trees in the distance, coming my way again. I counted ten of them; they were moving quickly through the woods.

  I sprinted over to the end of the property and scrambled down the short hill that emptied onto the narrow one-lane dirt road cutting through the residences. As I crossed the road I found myself waist-high in weeds. The silvery haze of a flickering flashlight beam grew steadily as it came down the road. A kid on a bike searched for me as he rode, moving the flashlight in wide, wavy arcs along the road and into the hilly terrain on both sides of the narrow path.

  I flattened myself in the bushes and waited as the intense beam swept over me. It immediately shifted, moving in the opposite direction. Just as the cyclist turned away, I dashed out of the bushes, ran over and pushed him off his bike. He went down easily, the bike slamming to the ground, the boy landing with a surprised gasp. The flashlight flew, slapping the dirt and rolling toward the ditch, its haze spilling onto the hilly knoll beyond it.

  I leaped on him, and we clutched at one another while rolling across the dirt road. I climbed on top of him and tried sitting on his arms, but he went for his gun before I could pin him. His leg came up, his knee catching me in the tailbone. A heavy spike of sizzling pain sliced up my spine. Gasping, I forced myself to ignore the pain while grabbing his right arm and pinning it beneath my knee. He tried slamming his knee into my back again. I grabbed his throat and squeezed. He choked and his leg went limp. When I let go of his throat, he tried throwing me off by twisting his pelvis and bringing up his legs again. Reaching behind me, I slapped him in the crotch. He howled and doubled up. Then I punched him in the jaw and he went slack.

  As he lay there, gasping, I reached behind me and pulled his gun from its holster. It was a .45 Desert Eagle. A heavy, powerful weapon, especially for a kid. This boy appeared to be about eighteen and went around one-forty or so. I wondered if he’d ever fired the damned thing. But it didn’t matter; the fact that he was carrying such a formidable weapon and would have used it was enough to encourage me to be extremely cautious.

  I slapped him sharply on both cheeks. His eyes shot open and narrowed when he saw me, and he grunted and tried bucking me off him again. I cocked the hammer of the Eagle an
d pressed the slab barrel into the soft part of his neck, just above the Adam’s apple. He immediately stopped resisting.

  “I’ll make this short and simple. Give me the right answers and I’ll let you go. Fuck with me, and I’ll blow your head off. Understand?”

  A nod.

  “Good. Now ... where do you keep the women?”

  He blinked. “Huh?”

  “The women. You idiots just brought one back a couple of hours ago.”

  “Huh?”

  “Deer Creek Road. Don’t act stupid. I saw five of you morons wandering around in a beat-up pickup.”

  He did something that didn’t help his situation; he laughed.

  I whacked him sharply on the jaw with the barrel. He squealed. His body tensed up.

  “I guess I should’ve told you this before, but I thought it was obvious. Apparently it wasn’t, so now I’m going to spell it out. I’m not in the mood for any shit right now, and I don’t consider any of this funny. Get it?”

  A nod. His eyes narrowed, and he swallowed. “Who the fuck are you, dude?”

  “I’m the dude asking you questions. I’m also the dude with the gun. Now ... where is she?”

  The boy smiled sheepishly. Apparently he didn’t believe just how serious I was about this.

  Without taking my eyes off him, I grabbed the little finger of his right hand. Then, placing it between my thumb and index finger, I snapped the finger like a twig. He opened his mouth to scream, but I shoved the barrel down his throat, and he gagged and began choking.

  “One last time. Where is she?” I pulled the barrel out of his mouth and reapplied it to his throat.

  He began sobbing. “H-Hurts, man! Hurts like a mother...”

  “Just be glad you haven’t pissed me off yet.”

  He sniffed and turned to gawk at his hand.

  I grabbed his second finger. “You’ve got nine left. Consider yourself lucky you only have to answer one question.”

  He began whimpering. Rage suddenly showed in his glossy eyes. “They’re ... comin’ here, man ... they’ll be here in ... in less than...”

  “As you already know, it only takes me a second to break a finger. So let’s just up the ante.” I let go of the finger and grabbed his index finger. “If I break this one, you’ll have to learn how to shoot with your other hand. But that won’t work because I’ll probably decide to break the other one as well.”

  “Man, don’t! Please? C’mon now, I didn’t do nothin’.”

  “Where is she?”

  “I ... dunno. I think Simon has ’er in the house out back.”

  “Why there?”

  He shrugged. “She’s a doper, man. He ... he keeps the dopers there.”

  “Why?”

  “When he brings one back, he finds out what they can do. The ones that look good but can’t do nothin’, he keeps whenever he needs a good fuck. If they don’t fuck, he sends ’em back to the guest house.”

  The back of my neck heated up. “Then what happens?”

  “Simon won’t fuck no female that’s doped ’less she’s a babe.”

  “So he just keeps the doped women in the guest house?”

  “Yeah, man, but not for very long. The ones that piss ’im off get taken away right off.”

  I swallowed a lump in my throat. “Taken away?”

  “Tomorrow mornin’ we gotta take ’er the dump. He don’t want no female he can’t fuck.”

  “Wouldn’t want that, would we?”

  “Hey man, don’t break any more of my fingers, please!”

  “Where’s this dump you keep talking about?”

  “Just up the road.”

  “How far?”

  “Mile, maybe two. It used to be a farm, got an old well out in back. Ol’ man used to live there. Simon and a bunch of us went there for supplies one day, seen ’im sittin’ there on his front porch, mumblin’. We went in the house and took a bunch of good shit—food, even some meds. While we were loadin’ up the truck, ol’ man started cryin’, pissed off Simon. Simon wasn’t in the mood to hear an ol’ man cryin’, so he took the ol’ dude out back and pushed ’im down the well.”

  “Why?”

  “Simon don’t like nobody sufferin’, ’specially an ol’ man. No sense in that, right?”

  “I guess not.” It was getting extremely difficult to keep from pulling the trigger.

  “Anyway, whenever Simon wants someone dead, we jus’ take ’em in the truck and drop ’em down the well. Simon don’t like smellin’ dead bodies, says it ain’t sanitary, makes ’im crazy. When Simon gets crazy...”

  I cracked him hard on the back of the skull with the Eagle and rolled him back into the ditch. Then I tossed the Eagle into the high weeds. I wanted to keep it, but its weight would inhibit my movements.

  At least now I knew what was going on. I was glad Fields had been able to keep Simon from raping her, but now I had to make sure I found her before these monsters could dump her. I just hoped she was alive when they brought her out here.

  I went over and picked up the bike. As soon as I situated my butt on the seat, clusters of bright lights exploded from the darkness about half a mile behind me.

  Grabbing my flashlight and gripping it in my left hand, I began pedaling vigorously down the narrow dirt road.

  TWELVE

  I stayed on the dirt road for the next mile or so before heading west at the turnoff. I had no idea how far I should go before stopping to rest. I had to find the abandoned farm the boy was talking about. I sincerely hoped he hadn’t been lying when he’d told me it was just a couple of miles up the road. I saw no reason to doubt him. He was a stupid, misguided kid. He lacked the strong emotional discipline necessary to withstand someone breaking his fingers while the slab barrel of a Desert Eagle was shoved down his throat.

  On the bike, I could cover sufficient ground, but I’d already begun to get tired and hungry, and had to find food and rest for a few hours. I couldn’t be tired or hungry when I faced them again.

  I had to assume they’d already found their friend. It would delay them for a few minutes but would also force them to continue with the hunt. The boy had probably been a scout. Since I’d already killed three others of this brood, Simon would consider me a major threat and send out his entire pack in the morning, when it was easier to see. I had to be fully rested and alert when this happened.

  The area was woody, hilly and desolate, the houses considerable distances from one another. The bike would help, but I had no idea how long it would take to find food and shelter. I’d already cursed myself for ditching the backpack. It had been necessary, but now I badly needed some of its contents.

  I had to stay focused. Otherwise, I’d run the risk of losing my concentration, and knew from experience that such an oversight always turned deadly.

  Once I’d found food and had some rest, my next step was to find the abandoned farm, locate the well, and fashion some booby traps that would give me the edge I needed to rescue Fields.

  I turned at the corner and went down a private dirt lane. Three homes sat in complete darkness in the distance. I saw no signs of life. The first place I came to, an old one-story ranch, sat in the middle of a small, neglected yard. A dying flower garden spanned the front of the house. Bushes and weeds had taken over, strangling most of the grass. Climbing ivy had choked off both trellises, their tentacles reaching out and covering the window shutters. A gazebo sat off to the western end of the front yard, its paint peeling, one of its walls leaning toward the ground. The red wooden mailbox had toppled over and lay across the cobblestone walk leading to the front porch.

  I got off the bike, applied the kickstand, and bent to pick up the mailbox. I don’t know why I bothered; no one was around to notice. I thought it undignified, lying there like that. It looked like someone had been proud of it at one time.

  I stuck the bottom end of the post back into the hole in the dirt. I didn’t have any tools to work with, so I pushed some dirt back into the hole with my
tennis shoes and patted it down. It swayed a little, so I let it rest against the picket fence beside it. Then I went back to the bike and brought it through the entrance. Tall weeds had engulfed the fence just beyond the gate, which had fallen over and nearly touched the ground. One rusty hinge kept it from falling altogether. Two large plastic garbage bins sat beside one another inside the fence. I shoved the bike behind them, among the weeds. Then I turned around and noticed a dark figure sitting in a rocker, watching me.

  He was about seventy or so, with curly gray hair and a full gray beard. He wore overalls and a long-sleeve shirt. He didn’t move. I couldn’t tell if he was alive or dead. If he was alive, he was doped, and probably wouldn’t move much at all. I hated going inside the man’s house and making myself at home, but I couldn’t be picky right now. I’d done this same thing several times before, but that didn’t make it easier, nor did it make me feel better about myself or the situation in general. I thought of Reed once again, and a cold feeling of depression swept through me.

  I could not take advantage of this poor man. All I wanted was something to eat, a glass of water, and a chair to relax in for an hour or so. If I was lucky, I might find some bottled water and a can of tuna or vegetables in the house. If not, I’d just leave and look elsewhere.

  “Hello, sir.” I waved as I started up the walk.

  He didn’t acknowledge me, but as I drew closer, his head turned very slowly to his left, toward the road.

  I turned to my right and stiffened.

  Flashlights flickered about a block down the road. In the darkness I could make out shadows of boys on bikes. They slowed down while turning the corner at the end of the street.

  ***

  I grabbed the Ruger and hurried back to the garbage bins. Squeezing in among the weeds, I crouched down and let the darkness swallow me up.

  There were four of them, and they all had flashlights. They stopped outside the open gate and parked their bikes while shining their lights on the old man, who still hadn’t moved. The lights jumped across the front yard, over to the garbage bins and across the road, before returning to the front porch.