Brandon nodded, although John wasn’t sure how much of what he’d said managed to penetrate the boy’s searing grief.
Chapter 5
After Tim was buried, the two said a quiet prayer. John understood the boy would need some more time and sometimes talk didn’t do a whole lot other than bring the tears to the surface.
Good old-fashioned hard work would help and there was plenty of that left to do. By now the fires had died down, leaving smoldering ash in its place. Although it was still too hot to sift through, nevertheless they could peer into what remained, searching first for any hints of human remains.
That was when he spotted something glinting in the sun at his feet. John bent down and scooped it up. It was Diane’s silver necklace, the one with the sapphire heart he’d bought her to match her beautiful eyes. It had been a gift for their sixteenth anniversary, a night not long before the whole world had collapsed in on itself. The setting had been a swank restaurant in downtown Knoxville. First an amazing meal, followed by live music, dancing and finally home to the kids. His neighbour Al from Willow Creek had never been shy about telling John to keep the romance alive.
John gripped the sapphire silver necklace tightly in his fist, fighting back the tears building behind his eyes.
He distracted himself by sifting through the rest of the ashes so he could be sure no one had died in the fires. After he found nothing, John’s heart lightened. If they were alive, they could be found. And that also went for the men who had taken them.
The few remaining possessions that hadn’t burned up in the fires lay scattered around them. Whoever had done this had ransacked their possessions, taking whatever they felt was useful. A few cans of beans and corn as well as a trail of brown rice had likely been left as one of the raiders slung the bag over his shoulder and carried it off.
Long before the fire, the food stores had been divided equally between the two cabins. The thinking was that if one was ever destroyed, the other would still be there. John knew from experience that keeping all your food in one location was a bad idea. Now he was coming to realize he’d overlooked the possibility of losing both cabins.
The assumption had been that if their camp came under attack and both cabins burned, it would likely mean they’d all been killed. Grim, yes, but that sort of thinking was inevitable now that the thin veil of civilization had been stripped away. What John hadn’t counted on was that some of them might be left behind. In the future, he would need to bury a cache away from the main camp as an additional backup should the worst happen.
Rigid thinking. That was really what it came down to. It was the sort that got people killed and John filed the lesson away, promising to never make that same mistake again.
After a quick look around, it appeared even the vegetables from the garden and greenhouse out back were taken. No doubt the rest of the weapons and ammo were also gone. That meant all they had left to defend themselves was John’s AR and his S&W M&P .40 Pro along with four thirty-round polymer magazines.
He glanced down at the nearly ten-inch Ka-Bar Becker BK9 on his left hip. With no shelter besides Betsy and very little food, John knew this knife would soon become his best friend.
“Let’s gather up what we can,” he told Brandon, who stared at his father’s grave as though he still couldn’t believe it was him under all that dirt. “Brandon.”
The boy looked over and nodded. Already, John could see the first glimmers of manhood—a wide-set jaw and determined glare. He would be a force to be reckoned with some day. If he lived that long.
In the end, they filled the truck with a few canned goods, a tarp, and a length of paracord, as well as a half-dozen three-gallon jugs filled with drinking water. They’d needed to use the hand pump in order to call the water up from the storage tank underground. There was plenty more down there and John knew he couldn’t take it all with him. It would mean heading back every few days to get resupplied.
Either way, staying here wasn’t an option anymore. The property’s location had been compromised and he feared rebuilding would only invite further attacks. No, he and Brandon would find a secure spot in the woods on the other side of the road. Somewhere they could hide the truck, but close enough so that if any family members managed to escape, John and Brandon would see them coming.
The two got into the Blazer and headed down the path toward the road. The goose in the back was still kicking up a racket and John wondered if they’d be eating bird tonight.
“Where are we heading?” Brandon asked, a dull film of sadness still coating his eyes.
“I know just the place,” John replied. Scoping out a secondary bug-out location wasn’t all that common, but this was where his military training had once again kicked in. Sometimes it was smart to have a contingency for your backup plan. As they said in the services, two was one and one was none—a motto which underlined the importance of redundancy when it came to preps.
Chapter 6
John nudged the car across the road and up into the forest on the other side after spotting a space between the trees large enough for him to fit. The tricky part was maneuvering the truck around so he could go in rear first. In the event they needed to escape in a hurry, the last thing he wanted to do was lose time trying to back out of the woods.
Camo netting that he kept in the trunk would offer an additional level of concealment he intended to supplement with leaves and brush. The goal was that only someone staring directly at the truck would be able to see it was there.
Near the top of a small hill was an outcropping of rock which formed a perfect roof from the wind and rain. For security reasons, it made more sense to sleep in the truck, but that wouldn’t make an ideal place to cook and make camp. This was why John had decided to set them up here, at least for now. Slowly, they unpacked the truck and brought some of their items up to the new location. Having learned from his previous oversight, John decided to keep their food and water supply divided into three separate spots. One remained with Betsy. The second was in camp, sheltered from the sun and protected from predators. The third they buried thirty yards away in a shallow hole John dug in the soft earth.
From the outcropping they could survey anyone approaching from below. It also reduced the chances of being snuck up on from behind. An added level of protection came from setting a series of traps designed to alert them should anyone approach from the rear. An Apache foot trap would work nicely. This was made from digging a hole and lacing the edges with sharpened sticks. The blunt end would be sticking out from the walls, the tips pointing toward the middle. The idea was that once a man’s foot broke through, the spears would tear into his flesh as he tried to pull himself free. A second type of trap was a simple hole in the ground covered with a grate and fallen leaves. The drop wasn’t more than a few feet, but the sound of cracking wood and stumbling would alert them to approaching danger.
They were each sitting on a pile of dead leaves they’d collected from the underbrush to use as padding. Both of them were sweating and tired from the effort it had taken to prep the camp.
John filled a plastic cup he normally kept in the truck with water and took a long draft. Among the items salvaged from their property was a Lifesaver water bottle. It was about the same size as a regular water bottle one might bring on a hike, except this one had a built-in filter. Dunk it into a muddy puddle and the water that came out the other end was clean and safe to drink. At least that was what the instructions said. John had never tested it, although given their present circumstances, it wouldn’t be long now before he got his chance.