The Forge of Darkness (Darkness After Series Book 3) (12 page)

The signal he had been waiting for from the house never came. Right after the four men he picked moved out to look for the gunman, Drake heard two rifle shots, the second one unmistakably a .22 rimfire. Then, a couple seconds later, there were more rounds from the .22, and then several 3-round bursts back-to-back from an M4.

“That’s got to be Chuck!”
 

“Yep! It sounds like he and Kenneth have run into trouble. Let’s go!” Drake urged his mount forward, taking the lead down the driveway. He didn’t want to run into an ambush, but the shooting stopped after the staccato bursts, so he figured Chuck and Kenneth might already have the situation under control. The shotgunner was still out there somewhere, but Drake was confident his other men would eliminate that threat shortly. Once he and the rest joined up with Kenneth at the house, there would be enough of them to set up defenses to make sure no one could return if anyone who’d lived there was still hiding out nearby. In a couple more days, all of his people would be here and he intended to make it safe for them beforehand. As he rode down the driveway, even with the possibility of a gunfight at the other end, Drake couldn’t help but take in what little he could see of the property in the dark and the rain. He would know more after having a good look around in the morning, but so far he could already tell he liked what he saw.
 

* * *

The darkness closed around her, reminding April of her first nighttime trek there with Mitch when she had known nothing of the woods. She had trusted that he did though and had agreed to follow him and help him in exchange for all he was doing for her. It was a dangerous mission, going out at night to rescue Lisa and Stacy from the depraved Wallace brothers who had taken them, but it was something Mitch had to do. April remembered her terror at every unfamiliar sound as the two of them walked through the dark woods and paddled down the inky black waters of the creek. Her fear of the wild was a natural reaction for someone who had lived her entire life in cities, and Mitch understood. But each life or death situation she’d encountered had proven him right; the real threat was from her fellow humans, not the wild creatures inhabiting the forest.
 

Now that April understood this, she had no hesitation about fleeing into the forest, even on a gloomy wet night such as this when it was difficult to even see where to place her next step. When she stumbled over something unseen on the ground and almost fell, David offered to carry Kimberly for her and April let him. Kimberly, of course, had no objections to going to her daddy, even though poor David didn’t really believe he was. But at least he was willing to play along with it, despite his memory loss, and for that April was grateful. She knew it was a bit selfish of her to think this way, but David was so much more useful and agreeable to be around now than he was before he got smashed in the head by a rifle butt. For his sake, she hoped he regained his memory, but she didn’t look forward to having to deal with the “old” David if and when he did.
 

April wished they could find Mitch and Jason and Corey tonight, but Lisa had assured her that wouldn’t be feasible and that it would be a waste of effort to try. April knew she was right even before she suggested it. The guys wouldn’t have stayed out at all if they were still close to the house, not to mention they would have heard all the shooting if they were anywhere nearby. In the tens of thousands of acres of national forest lands that bordered both sides of Black Creek, finding them at night, or even in the daytime for that matter, would be practically impossible. The best she could hope for was that
they could intercept them in the morning, before the three of them returned to the farm and unwittingly ran into the intruders now occupying it. It terrified her to think of that happening, because they could all be shot before they realized what was going on if they simply walked into the backyard unaware.
 

April had voiced this concern to Lisa and she agreed. Lisa was certain that Mitch and the others had gone downstream, as that was the way to his favorite hunting grounds. She said if they took two of the canoes and paddled down to the next bend, they could camp on the sandbar that was across the creek there. They would be out of reach of the killers if they came looking for them, but close enough to Mitch’s return route that he would probably spot them on his way home. April dreaded what would come next once Mitch learned what had happened in his absence. Her worries for him would be just beginning at that point. He would be outraged at the idea of strangers in his house and on his land, killing his father’s cattle. And if that were not enough to make him declare war, learning of Tommy’s murder would send him over the edge of fury.

She was afraid for him because she knew there was no other choice he
could
make than to stop at nothing to drive out these men. This was not a fight he or any of the rest of them could simply walk away from. The house and barn and the tools and other things in them were all they had. They were going to have to take their farm back, not simply for revenge but as a necessity for survival. April couldn’t help but dread the thought. Just as she’d allowed herself to feel somewhat safe again, her world had once more been upended in a matter of hours. Would there ever be a respite from this uncertainty? Lately, she had dared to hope there might be, but now she doubted it. Her father was fond of saying that change was the only thing that
was
real in the world, and that any semblance of stability or permanence was in fact an illusion. Back then, his stories of the old Zen masters and their teachings that he passed along as part of her instruction in the martial arts were hard for her to grasp. But over time, especially after she lost him, she began to understand that he was right. It wasn’t long after his death that she lost her mother as well, and then, like everyone else she knew, she lost
all
the comforts of the world in which she had grown up. In the blink of an eye it had fallen apart; the effortless communication and connectivity, the artificial insulation from heat, cold and rain, and the rest of the manmade safety nets that created the illusion of separation from nature.

April had adapted quite well to life with that illusion stripped away though. She had accepted change as her father had told her she must if she were to ever understand, and in many ways she found the transition easier than she would have imagined. She had learned new skills and survived challenges she wouldn’t have dreamed of in that life before, but still she was weary of the fear and uncertainty; especially the fear of yet more loss. She could
not
lose Mitch. He was the most amazing young man she’d ever met in her life, and she was determined to spend as much of it as she had left with him, no matter how hard or how short that remainder might be. Reaching the creek tonight and finding a place to hide until morning was the first step, if she were to ever see him again.

Thanks to her lifelong familiarity with the land, Lisa managed to lead them unerringly to the bay thicket where the canoes were hidden, despite the darkness. They removed the branches and debris covering two of them and turned them upright to carry them to the water. Mitch always kept paddles lashed to the thwarts in all the boats, so once they reached the creek bank, all they had to do was untie them and go.

Eighteen
 

“D
ID
YOU
SEE
HOW
many of them there were?” Drake asked when Chuck stepped off the porch to meet him as they rode into the yard.
 

“No, I couldn’t see a damned thing! Kenneth and I heard two gunshots over there at the edge of the woods. One was a high-powered rifle and the other one was a .22 like the one we heard earlier. Hanberry is down, and I’m pretty sure he’s dead.” Chuck pointed to a body sprawled in the grass at the edge of the shadows. “I don’t know about Mosley. I haven’t seen him at all, so it doesn’t look good. When we heard those shots, Kenneth stepped out the door to see what was going on, and took three rounds from that .22 and went down. I wasn’t close enough to the door to see the muzzle flash, so I still don’t know exactly where they were shooting from, but I dumped over half a mag into the tree line there behind Hanberry. There wasn’t any return fire and they didn’t shoot at any of you when you rode up, so I think they must have run off. I still haven’t seen or heard from Mosley.”

“How bad is Kenneth hit?”

“It’s bad, Drake; two rounds through the gut and lower chest, and one in the pelvis; probably hi-velocity .22 hollow points. He’s not gonna make it.”

“Dammit! And Marcus and Bobby might be dead too! I sent Clint and three of the others with him to try and find that bastard with the shotgun. He’s still out there somewhere.”

“Yeah, we heard the shots out that way before this happened here at the house.”

Drake turned to his remaining men and ordered them to check the area beyond Hanberry’s body before asking Chuck what he and Kenneth had found in the house.

“We could tell there were several people living here; some of them women or girls for sure. One of them has a little kid too. It looks like they’ve been here a long time, probably ever since the lights went out. We were going to check the barn when Mosley and Hanberry got here, but that never happened. There’s a game warden’s pickup parked out back of the house for some reason.”

“Is that right? That could explain the asshole with the shotgun then. Whoever he is, he’s got some woodcraft. We’ll check all that stuff out later. Let me take a look at Kenneth.”

Drake found Kenneth doubled up on the floor, soaked in blood and obviously in a lot of pain. Chuck was right. His chances weren’t good. The damned thing about those little .22 bullets was that they could zip around inside a body once they penetrated, ricocheting off bone in all kinds of crazy directions. There was just no telling what kind of internal damage the three rounds had done. As he sat there lying to Kenneth that he was going to be fine, the other men came back with their report after checking the perimeter:

“Mosley and Hanberry are both stone dead! We found Mosley just inside the woods, shot right between the eyes, and it looks like Hanberry took a bullet in the back of the head. Whoever it was that shot them took off in a hurry though. They had moved some blankets and other stuff out of the house, but they left it piled up and ran, it looks like.”

“They probably moved that stuff out there when they first heard the shooting out at the road,” Drake said. “Chuck’s M4 must have convinced them they didn’t need it as bad as they thought they did. I doubt they’ll go far in the dark in this weather. Clint and the others will find the one with the shotgun—he’s probably in charge here—and we’ll track down the rest in the morning. I’m not going to let them get away with killing Mosley and Hanberry, not to mention Kenneth. Chuck’s right, he won’t last until morning. That’s three good men right there, and that’s not counting Marcus and Bobby, who I’m afraid might be shot too. And then there was that no account boy of Kenneth’s they got first. That’s four lost in one raid and more likely,
six!
Damn! It’s been a long time since we’ve had a day like this!”

* * *

Benny moved as quickly as he could in the dark, cutting through the woods on the shortest route back to the house. It was essentially the same route he and Lisa and Stacy had taken that afternoon when they set out to find a Christmas tree. He knew the men on horseback would be using the gravel lane to get to the house, and he wished now they’d done more to make it less appealing to visitors. The lane made it obvious that a house was nearby, even though Mitch had removed the mailbox months before. If the condition of the barbed wire fences and the presence of the cattle weren’t evidence enough, in the daylight the house and barn were visible through the trees from certain angles along the road. And while the gate at the entrance might discourage honest passerby, Benny knew men such as these could simply ride their horses around it after cutting the fence.

 
The extra weapons he carried slowed him a bit, but Benny expected he would need them soon. Both of the rifles he took off the men he killed were imported eastern European AK-47s, modified to semi-auto for the civilian market. Such weapons had been plentiful and cheap at gun shows and pawn shops before the blackout and were a common choice now among the thugs who were out to raid and pillage in the aftermath of the collapse. Benny didn’t like them for his personal use, because in his opinion most weren’t accurate enough to be worth a damn for hunting. But they
were
reliable and would give him a lot of firepower, even if he only had the single 30-round magazine that was in each when he picked them up.
 

Benny didn’t know exactly what he was going up against, but he knew he needed more than his shotgun. He was pretty sure the automatic fire he’d heard from the house wasn’t from an AK though. The rate was different, more like multiple 3-round bursts back-to-back than straight full-auto, and he figured if these men were wasting ammo on spray and pray this long after the collapse, it was probably a common caliber like 5.56mm they could have easily gotten more of in their pillaging. They may have even stolen the weapon from a law enforcement vehicle or taken it from an officer they killed along the way.
 

Benny hadn’t gone far before he came upon the wheeled travois, abandoned and lying over on its side in the leaves. Seeing the outline of it there in the dark was heartbreaking; his hopes it would be of use in getting Tommy safely to the house completely shattered. The girls had not gotten there with it in time, but Benny knew it wasn’t their fault. He had made the mistaken assumption that there was only one shooter at large and had left Tommy to go find him. He would have
dragged
Tommy all the way home right by himself if he’d had any idea so many more were closing in on the farm. But he hadn’t known, and neither had the girls.

The girls might still be unaware Tommy was dead for all he knew. Since they’d left the travois here, he thought they might have heard the men’s voices or the sounds of the horses and turned back to go and warn April. The other possibility was that the men had seen them first and taken them. But the fact that he’d heard a .22 during all the shooting from the house gave him hope the latter wasn’t the case. If Lisa was involved in the shootout, she had made it back to the house, but there had been only silence after the burst of automatic fire he’d heard in answer to the .22. Benny didn’t want to assume the worst, but there were a lot of bad possibilities. One thing was certain now though—some of the intruders were already at the house. He just hoped April had gotten the warning and gotten her child out in time.