Into the River Lands (Darkness After Series Book 2) (12 page)

Looking for her next track beyond the left shoe print he was touching, Mitch could not find the expected one from the right shoe in the place it should have been. The tracks of the men were all over the place as well, and maybe one had landed over April’s, but as he looked farther down the streambed, he kept finding her left prints, but never any from her right. As he considered this, he dropped to his knees again to look closer. The left prints he found were deep, and always beside them where the boot prints of one of the men, both the left and the right. Mitch began to think that his first assumption that it could have been April who slipped and fell down the bank was correct. If so, had she injured her right foot or leg so that she was unable to walk on it? Would that explain why she and the others had not attempted to climb the opposite bank?
 

Mitch followed the trail until the ditch ended where it opened up and entered Black Creek. There was a small sandbar at the mouth and the prints here told the same story. There were several more made by April’s left shoe, but not a single one from the right. The tracks led right to the water’s edge and there, cut deeply into the edge of the sandbar, was the telltale V-shaped groove where the bow of a canoe had recently landed. Mitch’s heart sank with the realization of what had happened. This explained why the canoe was missing from the sandbar where April and David left it. She must have fallen hard enough that she was unable to walk without help. That was why he had not seen any prints from her right shoe. One of the men had to have been helping her along until they reached the water’s edge. Another of them must have gone upstream to get the canoe, paddling it back and then landing here to pick her up. Mitch checked the sand and mud along the bank to confirm this, and sure enough, he found the boot prints from one man heading back upstream.
 

 
He could find no evidence that April had gone anywhere other than straight into the creek. They must have put her and Kimberly into the canoe and one of them had set off with the two of them, paddling it downriver. There was really no other explanation. Mitch checked every track on the sandbar and followed those that doubled back until he found the place where the others had continued on foot. It took him a few minutes to find a good spot where the tracks were clear, but finally he came to another mud flat where he could identify three distinct sets of footprints, all made by man-sized boots. At this point, there was no doubt in his mind. These three had continued downstream on foot, following the creek along their original route before the mishap at the gully. But April and Kimberly were in the canoe with the forth. It was not what he’d expected when he first picked up the trail where it began at the sandbar. Mitch had been confident that four men and a woman would leave a trail he could not lose, but he had not foreseen the possibility of the group splitting up. People on foot could be tracked but canoes could not. And April was in the canoe rather than with the group still traveling on foot.
 

His mind was racing with the implications of this and Mitch felt the pressure to make a quick decision. Surely since the four men were traveling together before chancing upon April and her family, they would not remain separated for long. If April was injured too badly to walk, the men had probably seen the canoe as the only option for taking her with them, and it was feasible to do so only because they were headed downstream anyway. They couldn’t all go in the boat of course, but if one of them had taken it with her and Kimberly aboard, it was likely they planned to rendezvous soon, probably before dark so they could camp together. If that were the case, then following the trail of these three would lead him to her anyway. Trying to catch up with the canoe might not be so easy. He didn’t know if any of these men had experience with canoes, but he did know that a skilled paddler could get down the creek much faster than anyone hiking at a normal pace on foot. This was mainly because it was impossible to follow the waterway bend-for-bend, making walking slow and difficult, while the current in the creek would assist even a casual paddler in making good time.

He had no idea where they were going or how far they intended to travel, but Mitch knew if he were to have any hope of catching up, he was going to have to move and move fast. He could follow the three on foot without much difficulty and if he was right, they would rejoin the one who had paddled off with April and Kimberly. But if he was wrong and they didn’t have plans to meet up somewhere downstream, then he would have no way of knowing where or how far the one in the canoe was taking her. Catching up to the other three and taking them out would be easy enough, but if they did not rendezvous with the canoe, he was going to have to take at least one of them alive to find out their intended destination. It was a risk, but Mitch decided the risk of not being able to catch up to the canoe was greater. He needed to stick to the trail of the three because that was a trail he could follow. If they didn’t lead him to April and Kimberly directly, he was determined to make them do so by whatever means necessary. And if he had to follow Black Creek all the way to the Pascagoula River and beyond to find them, he would do that too.

Eighteen

J
ASON
B
URNS
STOOD
WATCHING
until Mitch disappeared into the woods on the opposite side of Black Creek, then he set out to make his way back to the Henley farm and house. The trail they had been following since Mitch had found the spot where one of them hit the deer with the arrow had led them quite far from home this morning. Jason was familiar with the woods in the immediate vicinity of the farm, but every time he followed Mitch farther afield on a hunt, he realized just how vast these river land forests really were. He hoped he could find his way back without too much difficulty, but he would have preferred not to have to do it alone. Mitch was depending on him though, so he was determined to get there as soon as he could. He had to let Lisa and the others know what was going on and just as importantly, get them to come back with him for David.

Jason had checked one last time before he left to make sure the unconscious man was still breathing and that he still had a pulse. Nothing had changed in that regard but he still showed no signs of coming to, so there was nothing more he could do by himself. A part of him wished he was going with Mitch instead, tracking down the men who took April. Jason barely knew her, but he felt like he owed her a lot. First, she had helped Mitch get him back to the house after the two of them found him beaten half to death on the side of the road. Then she’d risked her life to help Mitch rescue his little sister Stacy, who along with Mitch’s sister Lisa, was in the hands of those worthless Wallace brothers who’d done that to him and left him for dead. After that, she had fought fearlessly by Mitch’s side when they were attacked in Hattiesburg, helping Mitch defeat a gang of looters. From everything Mitch had told him about their journey together, Jason knew April was really something special.
 

Jason was so out of it when he met her that he couldn’t remember many details of her face or her voice. But Mitch had been infatuated with her and even all these months afterwards; she frequently came up in conversation. Jason knew it had to be an incredible shock for Mitch to see her again today, especially out here in these woods after all this time. And it had to be much more of a shock to see her in such a dangerous predicament. If Mitch had asked him to, Jason would have certainly gone with him to help find her, not only for his sake but for what she had done for him and Stacy as well. But despite this sense of obligation, another part of him was also relieved that Mitch sent him on this other, far less dangerous task.
 

Perhaps he had in him a bit of cowardice; Jason was not afraid to admit, at least to himself. But he didn’t relish the idea of trying to track down four heavily armed men with the intention of taking their prize away from them. It had been one thing this morning, tracking the unknown lone hunter with Mitch, who was leading the way and knew exactly what to do. Jason hadn’t expected that they would have trouble, but if they did, he had confidence in Mitch and the numbers were two to one in their favor. But when that one had turned into four, and the four had proven what they were capable of and willing to do, the picture was suddenly different. There could only be one thing at the end of the trail Mitch was following—and that was a fight—almost certainly a fight that would end in death for the loser.

Jason knew fighting for survival was a part of the new reality they all found themselves in, but still, he didn’t like it. He was doing better than before, without a doubt, but he had a long way to go yet and knew he would likely never be even half as competent as Mitch. Adapting to a life without cars and electricity was hard enough. But then he had to learn how to hunt and kill animals just to eat. Hunting and woodcraft were things Jason had no interest in before the grid went down, despite the fact that he lived in a small community practically surrounded by national forest lands. Most of the other guys he went to school with had grown up hunting squirrels, deer and other game with their fathers and brothers, but Jason had neither of those to take him or teach him how. He and Stacy lived with their mom and only saw their dad for a couple of weeks in the summer, when they went to visit him and their stepmother at his home in Dallas.
 

Jason’s only passion before the pulse shut down the power grid was music, and he spent most of his spare time after school locked in his room with his guitar and amp. Though it was only a cheaper, imported imitation of the Fender Stratocaster he dreamed of, Jason learned to play it and play it well. He had been determined to get as good as the rock stars he idolized when he suddenly found himself unplugged by the effects of the solar flare.
 

Weeks later, after he was healed from his injuries and he and Stacy still had not heard from their mother, Jason and Mitch had made the journey back to the little town of Brooklyn on foot. Following the Black Creek hiking trail that roughly paralleled the stream, they went back that last time to see if his mom had somehow made it back home, but found no sign that she had. To this day Jason did not know if she was alive or dead, but he had come to accept the greater likelihood of the latter possibility. They had taken a few things from the house, and though it was a burden, Jason shouldered the guitar as well and carried it back to the Henley farm. He still picked it up now and then, even though it would never sound the same without the amplifier and his effects pedals and he sometimes wondered why he bothered. It didn’t look like the lights were ever going to come back on again, and his dream of someday playing on stage in front of his screaming fans seemed farther away than it ever had.
 

Now instead of learning new lead riffs, he was studying the habits of game animals and learning to move quietly through the woods. Under Mitch’s tutorage, he was slowly getting more proficient at shooting guns and even the bow and arrow. He had made a few kills of his own; although Mitch brought home far more of the meat they needed than anyone else staying at the house. Mitch had shown him how to skin an animal and gut it, and though he still hated the feel of the slimy entrails and warm blood on his hands, he could do a passible job with everything from a rabbit to a whitetail buck. It no longer bothered him to kill, but so far he had avoided having to kill another human being—something Mitch had done numerous times since the blackout. Jason had no doubt he would be doing it again soon too, he just hoped his friend could indeed maintain the element of surprise that he so badly needed in his favor. If things went as he expected, he would soon be coming back home and bringing April and her little girl with him.
 

“I sure wish he would have waited for the rest of us!” Lisa said when Jason finally made it back and told her where her brother had gone. “He’s so nuts about April he just couldn’t wait. He’s always taking chances he shouldn’t, and it really worries me.”

“He didn’t want them to get that much of a head start,” Jason said. “He said he didn’t even want to let them out of his sight long enough to come find me, but he knew he had to. It would have taken way to long to come all the way back here first, especially if we were trying to bring David back on a travois.”
 

“It’s still stupid for him to take off tracking four men by himself. I think we need to follow that trail too, just in case he’s in trouble and needs help. We could all go back to the creek together, and Stacy, Corey and Samantha could get David moved back here. You and I could go after Mitch. I’ve been shot at before. I’m not afraid.”

“Yeah but what if we can’t follow the trail? No one can track people and animals like Mitch. And what if we make too much noise and mess up his plans? We could make it worse, and besides, by the time we even get there, I’ll bet he will have already caught those guys and taken them out. He might have already done it now.”
 

Lisa continued to argue but Jason cut her off. “Let’s just get back to the creek first and then decide. That David guy is lying out there in the woods unconscious and helpless. Anything could come along and find him, and he
is
April’s husband. She probably thinks he’s dead. It will be a nice surprise for her when Mitch does bring her and Kimberly back and he’s here waiting for them. If he ever wakes up, that is.”
 

Lisa agreed that whatever they were going to do, they couldn’t waste time. She went to her room and got her rifle and Stacy’s and then made sure Corey and Samantha were armed too; Corey with a shotgun and Samantha with a 10/22 carbine. Jason wasn’t sure how those two would react if they got into a gunfight, but it made sense for them to at least carry weapons. Corey and Samantha had less experience with guns and the woods than Jason did before the pulse, if that were even possible. Refugees from the Gulf coast town of Long Beach, these two nineteen-year-old college students had turned up at the farm about a month ago after escaping from a shelter that had turned out to be more of a prison than a safe haven. Though they hadn’t known each other before the collapse, they were a devoted couple by the time they got to the Henley property. Mitch had liked both of them from the start, and seeing that they were not a threat and could possibly be an asset on the property, he had taken them in with the consent of the others. It never hurt to have more eyes and more guns to keep watch over the house and farm when he was away, and though they were unskilled when they arrived, both were eager to learn how to hunt and willing to work and do whatever else was needed to earn their place there.