Rabid

“You’re starting to get good at this,” Taylor said.  “Acting like a grown-up.”

Carl looked at his brother, smiled, and said, “Shut up.”

Taylor slid the gun into the waistband of his jeans, feeling the cold metal of the Glock resting at the small of his back.  He took the Ruger, slinging it over his shoulder, and grabbed one of the backpacks, filling it with water to the point that it was heavy, but still comfortable enough to carry.  He handed Tina the other rifle.

“What?  That’s all you’re giving me to carry?”

“You’re complaining?”

“If you’re taking it easy on me because I’m a girl then, yeah, I guess I am complaining.”

“Look.  It’s not a long walk.  Between Carl and me, we’ve got plenty of water for such a short trip.  On the other hand, if one of us gets tired, you can carry one of the packs for a while.”

Tina closed the trunk, noticing the smirk on Taylor’s face.  “You’re full of shit,” she said.

Taylor turned to Carl.  “Why does everybody keep saying that?”

“Because you are.”

“Right.  Anyway, if you’re still itching to carry something more, I’ll hand over my pack at the halfway point.  Fair enough?”

Taylor stopped and handed her the car keys.  “There.  You can carry those.  What they lack in weight they make up for in importance.  That makes it even.”

“You’re a dick,” she said, taking the keys anyway, and following them as they began the walk.

You don’t know the half of it, Taylor thought.

Tina glanced back at the Escort every so often.  It looked lonely sitting there along the side of the road; like an abandoned puppy.  It was also the first time she could readily admit that it had been a dependable vehicle and served her well over the last three years.  While unappealing to the eye, the fact that it had gotten them here was an endearing quality.  As they crested a hill she looked back once more before they descended the hill and the Ford vanished out of sight.  Instinctively, she thought it would be the last time she would see it.  She couldn’t explain why.

They traveled at a diagonal angle from the road.  “It’s faster,” Carl said.  “The road narrows some more and then curves around in a half-circle.  Without it being wet, you can usually make it with four-wheel drive.  This is kind of a shortcut because we can cut across instead of following the road all the way around.”

It was a leisurely hike.  Almost recreational.  At the halfway point, Taylor removed the pack and offered it to her.  “This is halfway.  You still interested in lugging this thing around?”

Tina, not wanting to contradict herself, took the pack and clumsily shouldered it.  Taylor adjusted the straps so that it rested snugly against her back.

“Okay?”

She nodded.

“Good enough.”

“It’s pretty up here,” Tina said.

“Yeah,” Taylor said.  “I’m surprised you haven’t been here before.”

“I may have been.  I just don’t remember coming here.  I think I’m more of a city girl.  Is that possible?  To be a city girl without ever having really lived in a big city?”

“I guess so.  I figured with you studying to be a vet that you would be more a country gal.  You know, live on a farm with horses.”

She shook her head.  “Nope.  Not for me.  I do like horses, though.”

Carl had been right.  The ground became damp, and as they progressed Tina could feel her shoes sinking into the mud.  If those things tried coming after us now it would be hard to outrun them, she thought.

They climbed a steep hill.  When they reached the top, Tina stopped, awed by the view.  Ahead of them, she saw the lake.  It wasn’t large by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a thing of startling beauty.  The water was dark and still.  The land surrounding it was decorated with large moss-covered rocks and trees.  It’s beautiful, she thought.

A boat sat in the center of the lake.

Even from this distance, they could tell that it was empty.

“That’s Dad’s boat all right,” Carl said.  “But where are they?  You don’t leave a boat sitting in the middle of a lake.  The only way out would be to swim to shore.  You think those things attacked them and they had to swim?”

“No.  I don’t think so.  Whatever happened, I don’t think they were attacked.  At least not while they were in the water.  Those things wouldn’t step foot in the water.  Right now, I’d say that boat is probably one of the safest places in the world.”

From most of what they had seen, Taylor thought it was sound logic, but he remembered how the rabid things hadn’t seemed to be bothered by the rain.  He hadn’t really thought about that, but it occurred to him now, making him a little uneasy.

“Then what?”

Taylor continued forward without saying anything.  They were careful coming down the hill.  The steepness and muddy terrain made it a precarious descent.  When he reached the bottom, Taylor removed the Glock from his waistband with every intention of using it should the need arise.

Taylor guessed it was something like fifty yards from shore to the center of the lake where the boat sat.  The boat rocked gently on the water.

“Should we swim for it?”

“Maybe later.”

“What if they left a note for us?” Carl said.

“Let’s have a look around first.”

He followed the edge of the lake.  On the opposite side, he found the remains of a campfire; a pile of twigs and broken branches charred into a black pile of ash.  Several twigs surrounded the campfire.  One end of each of the twigs had been sharpened to a point.  He said, “They camped here.  They used those twigs to eat.  Hot dogs or marshmallows would be my guess.”

Taylor picked up one of the twigs and examined it.  Carl stood behind him and said, “Abandoned?  Why would Dad leave the boat in the middle of the lake?”

“They might have decided to find higher ground.  Maybe the boat drifted out there on its own.”

“But it’s right by the lake.  What better place could there be?”

“The van isn’t here.  That’s a good sign.  Wherever they went, they took the van with them.”

“Or if they were attacked, the van could have been stolen.”

“I can’t see any of those things being able to drive.”

“No,” Tina said, “but I don’t think he was talking about the rabid things.  There are people that turned bad because of this disease or whatever it is going around, but there are also people that are just bad in general.  People that don’t have an excuse to be…they just are.”

“Dad could have tied the boat off to one of those trees.  You know how it is around here.  It can get windy as hell.  Maybe the knot was loose to begin with.  So the boat gets loose and eventually drifts to the center of the lake.  Nothing mysterious about that.

“The other thing is that we know dad packed most of his guns.”  He looked down at the ground surrounding the abandoned campfire.  “I’m no expert, but I don’t see any signs of a struggle.  There are footprints around the fire where they would have sat.  There are more that go that way, which is probably where he parked the van.  Some faint ones that travel in that direction.  To me it looks like they lead up to one of those trees over there.  That’s where he could have tied the boat off.”

“I don’t see any rope,” Carl said.

“That doesn’t mean anything.  So the knot came undone from the tree.  The rope went with the boat.”

Carl wanted to say that something about his brother’s theory didn’t gel, but it wasn’t that as much as simple pessimism.  The reality of the situation was that it was hard to believe that such a simple explanation existed.  His mind insisted that it must be something far worse.