The Dark Roads

by Lemmons, Wayne

  ***

  "Almost," the follower whispered, startled by his own voice.

  He hadn't spoken a word in weeks, silence being an affirmation of his commitment to seeing the journey through. If he verbalized out of turn someone might have heard him. If he talked himself out of the privation to do what he was doing, his own death might quickly follow. He’d made a pledge that he would follow and see all of this through. The follower wasn't a man who broke his promises.

  The moon was high and bright, showing him the image of a group of well-fed people walking along the roadside. He smiled to himself. He was the only one of them who knew where the food came from, he was sure of it. If they'd realized the origin of the stuff, they might've rather gone hungry than eat it. Surely he would've seen the dehydrated packs laying on the ground behind them if they'd figured it out. They would've also become more vigilant than they'd been before. The inverse had seemed to happen. They were less cautious now.

  It surprised the stranger. Honestly, he felt that at least one of the group would've questioned the appearance of such bounty. It was clear that they hadn't.

  Only one thing bothered the traveler about the people that walked ahead of him. It wasn't anything that they were doing. It was the fact that he was beginning to feel like one of them. He laughed at their conversations when he could hear them, applauded them for making smart decisions, was saddened by their losses. He was watching them so closely that he almost became a part of their pact. They were all on the same journey, after all. He shook his head as if trying to empty something from his mind by the visceral force of the movement.

  Befriending them wasn't part of his plan. He would resist that line of thinking and continue on his original path. It would lead them all to salvation.

  ***

  Amanda was the first to notice the body lying in the road ahead of them. She slowed her steps, holding a hand up to the others and pointing out the new sight. They all braked with her, Richie being the last to see her signal and almost running into Buddy. In seconds weapons were out and pointing at the thing that lay straddled across the faded yellow line. The formation was like reflex to them with Buddy taking the point, Amanda and Dylan flanking him, and Richie turning to guard their rear. Abby stayed in the center of their group with the cat in her arms. She was wide-eyed and frightened by the sudden flurry of her companions' movements.

  The body was motionless, its clothing dark and brittle looking as if it had been laying in the sun for quite some time. Richie searched the area behind them and found nothing to be alarmed about. He stepped slowly backward, timing his own stride with the sound of the others' footsteps. Nothing was moving in the area other than them. The coach barrels seemed to float in time with his glance.

  Buddy was a few feet from the body, taking his time as he scanned the area. His steps were slow and deliberate, keeping the others in sequence with him. He was nearly sure that the body was simply another fallen person that had been caught in the light, but he wasn't about to approach without caution. It seemed that his friends agreed with him as usual.

  He knelt within a foot of the slumped form, blinking a bead of sweat out of his left eye and wishing that he'd taken the time to clean the lenses of his glasses before this. There were smudges around the edges that wouldn't hamper his vision terribly, but could make seeing something off to the side difficult. He would just have to rely on Amanda and Dylan to watch his flanks.

  Buddy poked the body with the barrel of his pistol, nudging the entirety of the form slightly, and felt no resistance. If anyone had been in front of him, they'd have seen his brow crinkle in disbelief. The figure should've been tough and unmoving, affected by rigor mortis and the hateful sun. As he started to turn, words of warning on the verge of spilling from his lips, a voice boomed from their right flank. Its words stopped Buddy in mid turn.

  "Don't touch him again and don't fucking move!"

  All of them turned to see the source, but no one stood within range of sight. The look of confusion on Richie's face was mirrored by the others. None of them moved, not ready to challenge the voice in case they were in more than obvious danger.

  "Drop your weapons onto the ground in front of you! Do not test me or you will be shot where you stand and your body left for the sun!"

  Richie's mind whirled, as did his eye. The voice was too loud. It had a resonance to it that almost made him think of a child yelling into one tin can that was tied to another. He didn't drop his weapon.

  "I repeat! Drop your fucking weapons or we'll open up on you! You will be shot but left alive to wait for sunrise!"

  "Megaphone," Richie whispered, finally understanding why the voice sounded as it did.

  "What?" Amanda asked.

  "Drop your guns," Richie said, finally letting his coach fall to the asphalt, "They've got rifles and scopes on us."

  "How in the hell do you know that?" Dylan asked through clenched teeth.

  "He's the smart one," a new voice stated, "Drop the guns or they'll put you down."

  Richie looked at the bundle that they'd been investigating. The body was up on one elbow now, a dirty face peeking out of the burnt rags it was wearing. The sound of hand guns hitting the ground was the next to be heard.

  "Well, fuck me," Buddy said quietly, "What do we do now?"

  "We get captured," Richie said. His eye was wide and dreamy.

  I hope this is the dream, Richie said to himself just before he saw the two groups of men walking toward them. Their guns, rifles mostly, were pointed at the five of them. Richie reached for the watch, clasping it in his fist like a talisman, and closed his eye hopefully. When he opened the lid, he knew that they were in a bad situation. The men were all much closer, now, and all of them looked fit and strong.

  "Any ideas?" Amanda asked the group.

  "Pray, I think," Dylan replied mildly, "Because these people look well fed."

  Buddy said nothing as the man who'd been playing possum in the road stood, Buddy's discarded pistol in his hand, and threw off the clothes he'd used to cover himself. He pointed the gun at Buddy, the barrel wavering slightly. Buddy smiled at him.

  "Cannibals?" Buddy asked the man.

  "We like to think of ourselves as survivors, but labels aren't really useful these days, are they?"

  "You don't have to do this," Abby said from the coverage of their group, "You can just let us go."

  The man smiled as his own companions surrounded all of them. He dropped to one knee, bringing his face level with the girl's, and looked at her with faded hazel eyes for a long moment. His gaze traveled to Amanda. She met the man's look with her own and said nothing.

  "If we let you go, honey, then somebody else will just have to go in your place. That's not very Christian of you, now is it?" he asked.

  "Let the girl go, then," Buddy said, "You don't need her if you have all of us."

  "And if I do that, she'll just die on her own," the man offered, "Wouldn't want her to suffer."

  Richie, who had been silent since the men had surrounded them, spoke. His words were sober and annunciated. His manor was calm. What he said didn't fit with the way he said it.

  "You can let us be. We'll keep walking and won't try to hurt any of you if you let us go now," Richie said amiably enough, "But if you take us prisoner it won't work out for you. I promise that all of you will die. You'll beg me to kill you fast, but I won't. You'll scream for help but none will come, because the only help for you is one another. I want you to consider that. I want you to think about what kind of pain you can look forward to before you take this path."

  Everyone looked at Richie, his own friends included, with surprised countenances. The man on his knee in front of Abby stood, smiling now, and walked to Richie. He tilted his head as if considering what he should do, but he did not look away from Richie's working eye. His smile widened just before Buddy's surrendered pistol flashed out and impacted with Richie's temple. He fell to the ground in a heap.

  "Tie them up and let's g
o."

  ***

  "No!" the follower shouted in a rasping whispery voice, "No! You can't!"

  He'd been watching all of them through his binoculars. He'd begun to sweat as the group pulled their weapons, had started to shake involuntarily as they were surrounded, and finally had no other choice than to shout his displeasure to the heavens when they were apprehended. Who were these people to take his group captive? Who were they to hit one of his charges? It was unthinkable.

  He had suffered in order to make sure they got this far, had traveled so many miles to get the thing he needed from them. These people had just stumbled onto the group and decided to claim them. They hadn’t even worked for it.

  The follower paced back and forth, looking through the field glasses at the disappearing forms from time to time. Each time they were farther away and he would curse the hijacking bandits for what they were doing. Once he'd calmed down enough to think, they were nearly too far away to be followed. He began to hurry after them, a rifle held in one hand and the binoculars in the other.

  They're so fucking close! he thought.

  It didn't take him long to catch up to the caravan of travelers. He was alone, after all, and able to move more quickly than a group carrying prisoners. He wondered if there were many more of them, counting eight in the capturing group. He'd have enough ammunition for twenty of them, but no more than that. If there were more then he'd have to kill the thieving fuckers by hand.

  Richie and the rest weren't theirs. They belonged to him.

  He decided not to wait for them to get to whatever destination they were headed toward. He would have to take the attackers before they could improve their own odds. The follower began to run.

  Chapter 7

  Burwash Landing, YT

  July 25, 2021

  2:15 AM 77*F

  The world was upside down and obscured by darkened cloth. Turbulence mottled his view with the motion of walking that would normally have been canceled out by his mind. Richie was almost thankful that during his forced slumber he wasn't projected into the dream he'd been trying so hard to avoid in his waking hours. He was being carried.

  Voices, murmuring specters in his ears, were evident in his surroundings. The men who were leading them, corralling them really, were talking amongst themselves quietly and excitedly. He didn't take their unintelligible words as a good sign. On the contrary, their speaking was alarming. That meant that they were alive and still able to converse while imprisoning his group.

  "Let me down," Richie said weakly.

  A sudden stop. He was let easily down to his feet and allowed to hold his friend's shoulders for balance. Finally, when Richie was confident on his feet, he looked up to the face of Buddy, who had been carrying his sleeping body for who knew how long. His friend did not look happy.

  "Keep moving," one of the men said, nudging Buddy with the barrel of a rifle.

  "Will do," Buddy said, turning toward the direction in which they were being forced, "How's the head Richie?"

  "Still there," Richie replied as he began to walk.

  "That was some speech back there," Amanda said from Richie's side, "Any ideas on how to make all of that happen?"

  "Give me a second to focus my eye. Then we'll decide how to kill all of these assholes."

  "You sure are the confident one," Dylan spoke.

  "We've managed to keep alive so far," Buddy said, "Richie's usually the guy with the plan."

  "Should we be talking like this when they can all hear us?" Amanda asked.

  "Doesn't matter. Just be ready."

  They all looked to Richie, who was smiling in a disturbing way, Buddy being the only one of the others to grin. Abby hadn't spoken during this exchange, focusing her attention on King as they walked, but Richie could see that she'd heard him. Her thin shoulders bunched as if she was getting ready to run. He put a hand on her shoulder and looked around at the opposing men.

  "Last time I'm going to say this," Richie said with a raised voice, "Let us go."

  "Want another lump on that fucked up head of yours?" one of the men asked.

  "Can't say I didn't warn you," Richie told him, his eye scanning the area off to their right.

  "Whatever you're going to do, Richie, you need to do it soon."

  Richie grinned at Buddy without actually looking at him. He'd seen what he was looking for as his companion spoke. The moving shape among the dead trees was up ahead of them. It had stopped moving suddenly. The packaging on their dehydrated meals flashed through his thoughts. He'd figured out where he'd seen it before, but hadn't fully understood why they were there until he’d had time to consider the significance. Someone had left it for them, but poisoning them wasn't likely to be the motivation behind the gesture.

  "As soon as I give the word, tackle the fucker next to you," Richie whispered to Buddy.

  Buddy had no idea of what was going on, but he nodded. He knew that he would have to trust his friend. His body coiled in preparation as Richie whispered similar commands to the others.

  "Now!" Richie shouted, jumping on the closest man to him.

  The others followed suit without question as gunfire erupted around them.

  ***

  The glass on his scope was filthy, but serviceable. He was able to see the men and align the crosshairs with their magnified images easily enough. When the first shot rang out in the distance, a man had already fallen and the follower was taking aim on another.

  He had been fast enough to get ahead of the group, which was the best position to be in for something like this, and figured that he had another five shots before he would have to switch clips on the rifle. The second man fell to his shot, blood spurting from his chest just below the collar of a ratty looking polo shirt. He watched the fidgety image in the scope's glass, took a deep breath, and fired on the third man. The bullet glanced off of his shoulder, taking a chunk of meat with it, but did little harm. The follower triggered on him again, this time planting the round in his chest. The target fell hard.

  The scope warbled as he searched for his next victim, cursing under his breath at his own impatience. He slowed the barrel of his rifle as he caught another man in his sight. This one was crouched and turning quickly this way and that with a pistol in his hands. The follower squeezed the trigger of his own weapon, catching the man in mid turn. He fell, the pistol firing until his ammunition was emptied. The follower watched him for a moment to make sure he wouldn't be getting up again. He didn't.

  His ex-wife had once told him that he wasn't the best with judgment of distance. The follower, a different man in a different life now, silently scolded her for the judgement. He was doing just fine with the rifle, noting the direction of the wind, of which there was none, and allowing for the movements of his targets. He laughed to himself. They weren't even running, the idiots. The ones still standing simply stood there searching for the source of their attack. As the follower took aim on the fourth man, he laughed again, nervously. The man's head snapped back with the impact of the high caliber round.

  He felt the dirt kick up at him, looked down to see a burrow a foot or two to his left and got serious again. One of the fellows was shooting at him. He understood the reasoning for the shot and took no offense. The follower merely aimed, obtained his mark, and fired.

  ***

  The struggle between Richie and his own target didn't last long. He'd quickly taken the imprisoner to the ground with a body tackle and begun hammering his fists into the man's head and throat. Once his opponent had gone still, Richie looked around to see that the others had come upon the same luck. Both Dylan and Amanda had jumped on one of the men as Buddy took another down to the ground. Anyone else who might have tried to attack them was dead at the hands of a stranger wielding a rifle.

  Stranger? Richie asked himself, I don't think he's that much of a stranger to us.

  The rebellion was over in minutes. Five men lay dead as three more lay unconscious. Richie and his friends spent more time relievi
ng the fallen men of their weapons than had been spent dispatching them. Soon their group was outfitted with more ammunition than they'd seen in months.

  "These guys?" Dylan asked, waving a hand toward the men snoozing on the ground.

  Richie looked at Dylan for a moment as if he was considering something. He motioned toward Abby and waited for the other man to understand. Dylan nodded finally, and coaxed Abby into following him along the road. Amanda said nothing, but followed after the other two, knowing the fate of their would-be captors.

  "Let them get ahead a little," Richie told Buddy.

  "Should we be worried about this mysterious stranger that just saved our asses?"

  "Is he still shooting?"

  "No," Buddy answered, "But he could start up at any time, right?"

  "I think we're safe."

  "Why?"

  "We'd already be dead, otherwise."

  Buddy watched his friend for a long moment before speaking again.

  "Do you know something I don't?"

  "Buddy," Richie said with a grin that seemed eerily like the friend Buddy had known in a long ago world, "I have always known something you didn't."

  "Fuck you, one-eye," Buddy spat, shaking his head with a smile.

  Just then, Richie broke his promise to the men on the ground, killing them quickly with a shot to the head instead of torturing them.

  "Yeah. Fuck me," Richie said, holstering the pistol he'd stolen from a dead man.

  "Should we have, maybe, asked them some questions? Maybe they could've told us if there are more of them to deal with."

  "Would it matter?" Richie asked.

  "It could."

  "There were eight of them. They were carrying a shitload of supplies. There aren't any more in their group."

  "But there could be, Richie."

  "If more come, we'll kill them."

  "You have gotten seriously fucking morbid since you lost that eye, man."