“Your daughter told me about the U-Haul. Wouldn’t tell me what all she had in there, though.”
“Damn straight. Anyways, the other thing she did was organize the farming. Instead of folks doing their own thing, she came up with something called a work-share system. Nobody seems to mind doing a few hours of hoeing and planting here and there, and everyone gets to feel like they had a hand in making the food that goes in their bellies.”
“Very nice. She strikes me as a competent, smart lady.”
Skeeter chuckled. “I’m sure she does. See over yander?” He pointed to a distant field dotted with orange blobs nestled amongst low green foliage. “That one’s pumpkin and butternut squash. Ain’t just for the kids to carve up later this month. There’s all kinds of nutrients in them things. Delicious, too.”
Ray nodded.
“Okay, boys!” Skeeter hollered once they were out of sight of the two people in the onion field.
Harlan and Cricket emerged from a thicket of dense shrubbery speckled with clusters of round, black berries.
“Better not have eaten too many of them choke berries or you’ll get the chicken-shits while we’re on our mission.”
Cricket giggled. “No, sir. We only ate a handful.”
Skeeter sighed. “Let’s get going. North, right?”
Both boys’ heads bobbed.
“Harlan, I know you’re a good scout, but I gotta be in front, so you stay just a few feet behind me and tap on my shoulder of the direction we need to go. Cricket, you’re after Harlan. Ray, you bring up the rear. Daylight’s burning. Let’s move.”
Under different circumstances, the hike would have been pleasant. Autumn had arrived with its usual magnificence in the Smoky Mountains. Before the pandemic, this was the time of year visitors flocked by the tens of thousands to the area, cameras in hand, determined to capture the vibrant orange, gold, and red of the foliage. The cool temperature felt invigorating, not biting, and the aquamarine sky belonged in a painting. Every now and then, Skeeter stopped, then whistled a strange little tune. After a whistled response came from somewhere in the distance, they resumed.
The beautiful scenery was largely lost on Ray. The physical weight of his stuffed backpack wasn’t intolerable; it was the figurative weight of the Mossberg rifle he carried that felt oppressive. Ominous, even, like gray-green thunderheads building on the horizon. Something about the ‘Mossy’ exuded a vague malevolence that the firearms from his warehouse hadn’t. When he’d been hunting Lizzy on his own, it hadn’t felt like this. He’d been scared, of course; wilderness wasn’t his forte. But the only life in jeopardy had been his own. While he enjoyed having company, the burden of protecting three other people — two of them children — weighed on him.
“Don’t you worry, young man,” Skeeter said from a few yards ahead. “I ain’t the tracker and sharpshooter Otis is, but I’m pretty dang handy with a firearm. More so with the Mossy.”
“How did you...?” Ray said, then stopped himself. Right. The mysterious ‘talents.’
Maybe there was something to it after all.
He watched Harlan pat the old man’s left shoulder. Then the boy glanced back at him. The unblinking gaze latched onto him and drifted away. For a few seconds Ray felt like an Alcatraz escapee caught in a guard-tower spotlight. For the next hour, Ray kept his thoughts to himself. Navigating the briars and the brush became increasingly difficult the farther away from the village they forged. Skeeter and Harlan moved soundlessly through the woods. Not so with Cricket or himself. Occasionally Cricket would catch up to Harlan and the two would communicate through whispers and sign language. Then both heads would nod in agreement, Harlan would catch up to his grandfather, and off they’d go again.
Another hour passed. They had gone left and right so many times, Ray had lost track. Two small hands touched both of Skeeter’s shoulders simultaneously — a silent directive to stop.
Harlan turned and signed to Cricket. Cricket nodded and pointed to the right. Then the dark-haired boy turned and whispered, “We’re gettin’ close. Prolly about another half mile that-a-way.”
This part of the plan terrified Ray. The boys would stay behind, hiding like newborn fawns in the forest shadows, while he and Skeeter approached the cabin. At least fawns blended into the sun-dappled foliage and exuded no scent. Virtually silent Harlan would probably be fine, but the noisy Cricket couldn’t be quiet. And two sweaty boys who probably hadn’t had a bath in days certainly exuded scent. Ray could only hope that Lizzy was in residence inside the cabin and not skulking about in the surrounding woods.
After another ten minutes of brush and briar navigation, a clearing appeared twenty yards ahead. Through the foliage, Ray made out a structure; the mechanical sound of a generator reached his ears. Skeeter tilted back his bald head, nose pointed skyward, scenting the air.
Ray breathed deeply as well and processed what his olfactory senses revealed: decaying leaves along with a faint tinge of rotten-egg. Propane exhaust. A remote residence like this required off-grid self-sufficiency. A generator would power lights, refrigeration, HVAC units, and hot water tanks — all the modern luxuries — if it had been outfitted to do so. Had Lizzy lived here before the pandemic? Or had she commandeered the place afterward? When he’d first spotted her with the drone, he assumed she’d been on the road like other survivors, looking for food, shelter, and companionship. Of course that hadn’t
