by Chris Lowry
“Good man.”
It may not have been the best fish I’ve ever eaten in my life, but it was one of the most satisfying meals ever.
We nestled together shoulder to shoulder as we ate, and then in silence as we watched the fire. I felt satisfied.
I hoped they did too.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Wake up,” I whispered in Bem’s ear and shook her shoulder.
She shot up into a crouch, ready to run.
I shook the Boy and repeated it.
The fire had burned down to embers, but I could see our mistake now. It was the only light in a river of darkness. Anyone on the shore could see it, anyone on the water too.
Apparently, they had.
I put a finger to my nose to tell the kids to be quiet. We could hear the splashing of paddles rowing.
There was not time for our eyes to adjust though. The sounds meant they were close. I grabbed the rifle in one hand and a sleeve in the other.
“Stay close,” I said softly and hustled up to the bluff.
Bem grabbed her brother and dragged him along with her.
We made it to the tree line and up into the brush. I pulled them behind a tree.
“Move ten yards in and lay down. Don’t let me pass you.”
I didn’t want them out of my sight, but it was so dark I couldn’t see them anyway. But I needed to see who or what was coming to shore.
The kids moved behind me, and then I didn’t hear them as they hid. I turned back to the bluff and sighted down the end of the rifle, waiting for anything to move between the fire and my position.
The sound of metal on rock cut over the noise of the river as their boat ground ashore. Then they muttered as they jumped out, strong southern accents from the Mississippi side of the water.
“Told you we was making too much noise,” said one. “They done run off.”
I watched shadows move in our camp below, but that’s all I could make out.
“How else we supposed to get here then?” said a second voice. “It ain’t a big place Travis. We could just go hunt them down.”
I zeroed in on that shadow. At least I think it was that one. It was hard to tell who was taking in the dark, and they were bending and scooping up our packs and suitcases.
They left the sheets we tied up as lean-to’s, and the comforter ground cover, but as I watched, they filled their boat with our gear.
“You can hunt if you want to,” said the first one. “We got what we came for.”
He jumped into the boat along with a couple of others.
After a moment, Travis jumped in with them. I heard the scrape of oars as they pushed off and the steady beat in the water as they rowed away. I also heard our boat scrape off the rocks and watched the shadow of it drift after them.
“Pirates,” I thought and began to take aim.
But that might bring them back.
Like the first one said, they got what they came for. I had the kids, we were safe, and we could go ashore to hunt for more supplies.
I pushed off the ground and began walking slowly back toward the kids.
“They’re gone,” I called out.
Silence.
They were good at hiding. I counted out the ten yards, but didn’t see them on the ground.
A twig snapped to the left of me.
“Boy?” I whispered.
Something arced out of the darkness and slammed into the side of my head. It sent me reeling. I bounced off a tree, my feet hit the edge of the bluff and I slipped over the side as it swung back and missed.
Someone was trying to bean me with a piece of driftwood.
I hit the ground and rolled, trying to put space between me and whoever it was that was playing homerun derby with my ear. I jumped up and searched the night.
Where were the kids?
I heard two bodies jump off the bluff and crunch in the sand on two sides of me. They were big, man sized, not kids. More pirates I guessed.
“You think he’s worth the trouble?” the one on the left drawled.
I pulled a pistol and shot him, then swung to the man on the right. All I could make out was his shape against the bluff.
“Hey, hey,” he screamed. “Hold it.”
“Where are my kids?”
“On a boat on the other side.”
I took two steps closer so I could see better.
“Don’t shoot me. Please.”
I pulled the trigger and let him fall.
Other side. I had to reach the other side. Over the bluff and through the woods?
Anyone with the kids would have heard the shots.
I took off running around the beach, past our campsite and up the far side where the mud colored water slowed and eddied against the Mississippi shore.
A hundred yards away, a small boat pulled away from shore. I couldn’t make out individuals, but there were five shapes I could see.
Would they put the kids in the bottom? Or hide behind them.
I raced faster, feet slurping in the mud as the current caught them. Two of them pulled on oars, gaining distance.
I’ve never been a sprinter. Long distance running is about staying power. But thousands of hours running over the past decade trained the muscles, and I dug deep.
The boat was churning parallel to shore. I pounded across the beach catching up. One of the shadows turned and a flash of fire bloomed from his hand. The bullet zipped over my head.
I stopped, planted my feet and held my breath as I aimed. I squeezed the trigger and the shape threw up its arms and pitched over the side of the boat.
That set it to rocking, and the two shadows with oars mumbled shouts.
I ran harder.
The boat was fifty feet off shore and twirling in the current as it floated downriver. The two shadows seemed to argue, but neither set oar in the water to correct their course or pull further away.
Could they be the kids?
I passed the boat, and kept running working to get ahead of it. I shed my coat, my shirt, stopped slipped off my boots and hit the water in a shallow dive. I slapped through the water on an intercept course for the boat, hoping the current would carry it to me.
The other two shadows in the boat began shooting at the shore where I once was, but not into the water.
I treaded water, felt the river tug on my legs in a swirl as the shallow wall boat floated right to me.
The men inside were focused on the island.
I grabbed the gunwale and yanked myself over into a tumble of river water and squirming bodies in the bottom of the boat.
I kicked one shadow over the side, took an oar whack against my shoulder and grabbed a second man by the shirt and launched him over with my foot.
There were two left in either end of the boat, and two still bodies in the bottom. The Boy and Bem, hands tied, mouths gagged, frozen in wide eyed fear.
They didn’t recognize the wet monster that rolled out of the river and on top of them.
I grabbed a fallen oar and speared it into the closest shadow. He tried to get his gun up and shoot. The bullet plowed through his partner and sent him into the water with a gurgle filled curse.
The oar knocked his gun up, and I hopped up on a metal seat and did my best extra point kicker impression going for a Super Bowl win.
My toe connected with his chin, cracked his head backwards. The pistol dropped into the bottom of the boat and I slammed into the limp man before he collapsed and tipped him over the edge.
Then we were past the island and in the dark river, the boat spinning about in the current. The dark on the water seemed heavier, the black banks rolling by like undulating shadows.
I crawled to the kids and lifted them up.
The Boy fought back, still unable to see more than a shadow clawing at him.
“Boy,” I grunted and he went still. “Bem.”
I untied them and they grabbed each other.
Not me.
Maybe that would come later I r
easoned.
I felt around for something in the boat, anything to steer with, to try and control our ride. I found a short oar and took it to the back of the craft, shoved it in the water to act as a rudder.
“Are you hurt?”
“Scrapes and bruises,” said Bem. “We tried to fight back.”
She broke down crying then, tiny shoulders heaving. I could see the shadows merge as her brother held her.
Then I was crying too.
I came to close to losing them again. This world, I swallowed the lump in my throat. This ever-loving bloody world.
I was going to find T, and get Anna and take my family away from it all. Away from militia, and mad Generals, and away from cults, and rednecks and river pirates.
The survivors were worse than the Z.
I felt the rage bubble and boil, the anger swelling up in a surge that threatened to take me into the red.
I fought it down by breathing. In four counts, hold for three, out four counts, hold for three. It helped. My racing heart slowed a little.
The tide receded on the rage, and I could feel the tunnel vision open up. I breathed some more.
“Did they bring guns?”
I tried to find a task we could do in the dark, some action to take their mind off what almost happened. I needed an action too, but holding the oar was working for now.
My kids had seen more people die at my hand. Maybe they didn’t me to hug them because they thought I was a monster.
I heard the clatter of fingers on metal as they searched.
“Empty,” said the Boy.
Referring to the boat.
I fished in the water in the stern and pulled out the soaked pistol the last man had dropped before going over into the water. I would have to dry it and clean it later, once the sun came up.
“No food,” Bem called out.
I watched them huddle together for warmth as the wind picked up on the water. My wet clothes soon got cold and stiff, my body started shivering. I remembered reading a piece about a man who got out of his Jeep in a snowstorm and froze to death. I tried to recall the details of hypothermia, but I knew the core temperature only had to drop a couple of degrees before it was a problem.
Often during a long-distance race, back when I ran one hundred milers’, I could start shivering at anything below eighty degrees. Air temp, not my core.
I knew I shouldn’t have started thinking about it because my muscles responded by contracting, cramping and twitching in spasms, shivers that rocked my whole body.
“You okay Dad?” Bem asked.
She couldn’t see me, unless my shadow was moving like a backlit marionette.
“Fine,” I chattered.
“You want my coat?”
“No Boy. Keep it.”
“We need to get off the water.”
It was good advice. I should have thought of it.
The article also said brain function decreases the colder you get. I didn’t have much to start with so if I got much colder we were in trouble.
“Distance,” I told them. “More distance between us.”
“Stay here,” the Boy told Bem and worked his way back to me across the eighteen-foot expanse of the metal boat.
“You need to get off the metal,” he told me. “The cold is leaching.”
Leaches, in river water? Could I feel them on my skin?
I swatted at my legs and held the oar in a death grip in the other hand. The boy sat next to me.
“The boat doesn’t have anything in it but us. I guess those guys didn’t plan on taking us far.”
That reached me, sent off pings of worry in the base of my brain.
Just how far were they planning to take the kids?
I worked the kinks in my neck and forced the muscles to move so I could see the eastern shore. It was far enough away that I didn’t worry.
“We should stop and build a fire,” the Boy argued. “We’re all wet and cold.”
I wished we could. But a fire is what drew them to us.
And they would be looking. I couldn’t remember how many were dead, one or two on the island, a couple of more in the river, maybe a drowning also.
If they were a tight knit group, they would come after the boat.
I couldn’t recall if pirates were bound by honor, but it didn’t matter. We weren’t stopping until after daylight.
“Sunrise,” I told him.
He looked at his wrist and sighed.
“I wore a watch back when it mattered.”
“I never did,” I told him.
“I remember. But you were always on time.”
“Used my phone.”
“Want me to steer for a while?”
I tried to shake my head and it devolved into a shivering spasm.
“Rest,” I chattered. “Sleep if you can.”
“I won’t. I can’t.”
He crawled to the stern and huddled with his sister for warmth. I stuck the handle of the short oar between my arm and torso, and curled my arms around me.
Cold again. This time though, no lucky fish camp to crawl into, no saltines and soup. Just river water and waiting for daylight.
CHAPTER SIX
I don’t remember passing out. I don’t remember waking up until I was being carried on a stretcher. I opened my eyes and stared at the sky, blue with white cloud puffs rolling overhead.
Then into a building.
I could feel the wheels jump over a door jamb, felt the rocking of the stretcher and tried to sit up.
“Hold him,” said a man’s voice.
Soft, firm and gentle hands pushed me back onto the foam mattress. White straps were tied to my wrists and held me to the metal of the stretcher.
I looked around for the kids, stomach roiling.
They were walking with the stretcher, Bem’s arm over the boy, holding him tight as they followed.
She smiled.
Not scared. Not panicked. Just a tiny smile that eased the clenching sensation in my gut.
If they weren’t scared, we might be okay.
“You can take the restraints,” I said. “I’ll lie still.”
“What did he say?” a female voice this time.
“It will take a few hours for his voice to come back,” said the male voice again.
He leaned over me. Green scrubs. Stethoscope.
“You’re in our clinic,” he explained. “You’re going to be okay.”
I felt pressure on my shins.
“Can you feel that?”
I nodded.
If they couldn’t understand me, I wasn’t going to waste my breath.
“Feet or leg?”
“Can you feel your feet Dad?”
The Boy was by the bottom of the stretcher. I looked at him, then down at where my feet were. White, shriveled waxy looking flesh under the dark skin of the doctor touching them with long fingers.
I couldn’t feel it.
“No.”
“Sounds like a no,” said the woman. I saw her then on the other side wearing a similar outfit to the man.
“You have hypothermia,” he explained.
I guessed that one. Wet clothes on a windy night on the river.
“Soup,” I grunted.
“Yes,” he nodded. “Soup and liquids. You should get feeling back in a few hours.”
“Where?”
“You shouldn’t try to talk,” said the woman. “Let the Doctor take care of you.”
“Vicksburg, Dad,” said Bem. “We’re safe.”
She smiled another tight little smile.
Safe.
I wouldn’t be sure until I could check it out myself. But that would have to wait until I could walk. Maybe my voice would come back before then.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I woke up in an empty room and didn’t like it. My memory of hospital rooms before the zombie plague was full of beeps, and whooshing noises, the sound of people bustling as they rushed about to save lives.
; Here there was nothing.
I wondered if there was a map on the door saying here there be silence. It opened and there was indeed a sign saying quiet please.
Close enough.
“You’re awake,” a fresh face boy said. He had eyes that matched his green scrubs, and looked too young to be a doctor.
“I’m Zach,” he introduced himself. “Don’t get up.”
I couldn’t if I wanted to.
My legs and wrists were strapped to the bed.
“That’s a joke,” he explained as he untied my right hand.
I snatched the green scrub and yanked him close.
“Where are my kids?”
It seemed like a perfectly reasonable question. I’d just crossed half the country to find them, killed a couple hundred zombies, a couple dozen more humans, maybe more because who was keeping count.
Just that past night, at least I think that’s when it was, I fought off river pirates to save them and spent half the night frozen to the bottom of a boat to keep them safe.
Now I didn’t know where we were. More importantly I didn’t know where they were. I knew they were not in the room.
And now I was free.
Zach responded as many brave men before him had when faced with a dangerous situation.
He piddled.
I watched the stain spread across the front of his green scrubs, his leg growing darker, his face glowing scarlet.
But I didn’t let go.
Zach might be trying to play a trick on me.
I did look at him closer though.
Zach had zits. Acne, like a teenager and then I realized he was one.
Another trick.
Send in a kid to soften me up, because good guys don’t hurt kids.
“Untie my other hand,” I told him.
He fumbled the strap loose.
“Your legs too?” he stuttered. “Sir?”
The Sir made me let go of his shirt.
And the kids walked in the room with another nurse carrying a tray of food.
“Dad?” asked Bem.
“Dad,” chastised the boy.
“What happened?” the nurse set down the tray and untied my other leg.
“He woke up confused,” Zach explained.
Give credit to the kid, he was being pretty cool about getting scared piss-less. Made me respect him.