ALONG THE ENDLESS RIVER

Mallory could see Jacob moving up ahead along the edge of the fence. He was looking for a spot to climb over or, more likely, a spot that he thought would be easy for her to climb over. Always thinking she needed special treatment. It made her want to aim the crossbow right at his ass and put a bolt in it.

They found a spot and crossed over into the grove of trees that separated the meadow from the road. Their father stayed back, standing guard along the road near the Bronco where mom was curled up inside, sleeping. It was early morning and mom’s allergies had kept her up half the night.

The clearing they were entering led into a state wildlife refuge. The meadow gave way to rolling, wooded hills that held streams and fields of wildflowers. High weeds and little stems holding white blossoms, thistles, and yellow-flecked high grass mingled in. The whole area was filled with turkey, quail, pheasant, and deer. It was a forty-minute drive from the cabin, and Jacob and their father had hunted it several times. Now that Mallory was comfortable with the crossbow, she was getting her chance to shoot at something other than the squirrels and rabbits in the woods around the cabin.

She and Jacob spent almost an hour moving slow and quiet through the meadow. They had started by heading West, taking a wide and looping path. It was peaceful for her, moving silently through the tall grass, fragrant and wet with morning dew. The smells of spring were strong around them and the wind blew softly through the trees ahead. Jacob knew this place, so Mallory was able to concentrate on his hand signals and the sounds of wildlife moving in the brush- instead of worrying whether or not they would lose their bearings and get lost. But, she was beginning to get impatient, she had come there to hunt, not go for a walk with her brother.

As they moved in silence, Mallory’s mind drifted while her eyes and ears stayed locked into her surroundings. It was strange to think that hunting with her brother had become the highlight of her week, or maybe even her month. So much had changed. If she thought too much about her life before, it made her feel like she could curl up and cry. She couldn’t do that, so she had made herself a promise to keep looking forward, not back. To never think too much about the way things had been. But, in the quiet of the morning, her mind drifted back to the days before the world collapsed and everybody died.

She had been so happy and excited about her life. It had really been like a dream in most ways. There just weren’t many painful moments that came back around as memories. Back then, everyone would always comment on how positive she was, but it was really because she had no reason to be any other way. All the things that had mattered then had always come easy.

She had a great mom and dad, Jake was easy to like, and Uncle RJ had been like a guardian angel in her life. She knew not everyone had a family like hers. School was fun for her and all of it came relatively easy to her. She took the hardest classes, liked the challenge, and enjoyed being at the top of her class. Her plan had been law school- either at UK or maybe Georgia- and she had the grades to get there. She had also had so many friends, so many girls who loved to laugh and joke around. She sometimes wished she could pick up her phone again and text somebody, just to dish and talk about boys. And boys- they had come easy for her too, ever since she finished her awkward middle school years. Any of the boys she wanted to notice her would notice her, and more often than not, she found herself disappointed that she wasn’t as into them as they were into her. Some of her friends had made themselves miserable, desperate to catch that one guy’s eye. But Mallory never did that, in fact, she often dismissed that one guy when he noticed her instead of her friends. And somehow, she could do things like that without causing girls to turn on her. It was like she had been above it all.

It was easy for her to think back at how much she once had to look forward to. The world had been hers- but the world didn’t exist anymore. If she got caught looking at everything that she had lost, all her dreams and plans, it would cripple her. Then, she would start drifting away, just like mom had. Mallory couldn’t do that. She was going to stay strong and keep looking ahead. Maybe her dreams had just changed because her life was turned upside down. But, it was still her life and she planned on making the most of it. That meant if hunting with her brother was the big thrill for the season, then she intended to do it well and enjoy it.

As they entered the first grouping of trees, there was a faint rumbling sound in the distance. At first, Mallory thought it was thunder. But as Jacob turned to face her she could see his eyes widening. Then , the rumbling came again , this time more clear and closer. Jacob rushed over to her side, staring out toward the distant fence line that led to the road.

“I think that is a motorcycle ,′ he said in a voice just above a whisper.

“You mean somebody on a motorcycle? People?”

Mallory was dumbstruck. Seeing other people had become a lost hope. A dream surrendered to the lonely reality they had faced for the last half-year. It couldn’t be.

“Yes, and it sounds like maybe more than one. I think we should head back.”

Jacob began a brisk jog toward the opposite side of the meadow where they had entered. Following close behind, Mallory gripped the strap of the crossbow tightly, so it wouldn’t bounce too hard against her back.

Jacob was an athlete, and he set a pace that Mallory had to push to keep up with. But, she had been a runner before, and since they came out from the shelter, she had committed herself to running the fenced perimeter around their cabin daily for exercise. She was grateful for that decision now.

About a third of the way across the field, the sounds returned. This time, much louder.

“Those are Harleys, Mal “, Jacob said over his shoulder. She wondered if he really knew what a Harley sounded like.

They did not break stride, but rather picked up their speed as the noise from the road continued to grow closer and louder. The grass and weeds whipped against her pants, and she kept her balance carefully, avoiding the sticks, ruts, and rocks that lay hidden along the meadow’s floor.

As they reached the middle of the field, Jacob veered to his left. He was angling toward a break in the trees that ran along the fence, providing a glimpse of the road in the direction of the noise. About fifteen yards ahead of her he slowed and pulled his rifle up to get a better look through the scope. The sound of throttling motorcycles was drowning out the other noises in her ears and suddenly, a wave of fear began to wash over her.

“What is it,” she said, breathlessly, as she reached his side, ” What do you see?”

Jacob was locked in on the road with the rifle, and before he answered he began to crouch down with the scope pressed to his eye. He motioned with his off hand for her to get down.

“Mallory we need to get back fast, and we need to stay down and stay quiet.“, he said, still looking through the scope at the road.

She could hear a tightening in his voice that sharpened her anxiety.

“What.?. What are you saying ? Tell me what you see..“, she blurted nervously, trying to keep at a whisper.

Jacob lowered the rifle and swung it around on its strap to his back. He ran a hand through his hair and then across his forehead nervously, lost somewhere in thought. Squatting there in the field he locked eyes with Mallory. She could see this was serious.

“I counted three men on bikes, coming straight in toward where we parked. It was hard to see, but I can’t say that they looked....friendly. The two I could make out clearly had guns for sure.”

Mallory felt tears welling up and went into a blank stare. She felt here pupils widening as her eyes felt stuck and blurry. Her heart was starting to pound like a hammer in her chest. She could sense her mouth was open , but she couldn’t even feel the words coming from her lips.

“Oh my God, oh my God....what should we do?....mom, dad....oh my god....”

She felt Jacob’s hand on her wrist, then sliding down to grip her fingers. He squeezed and pulled her hand toward him, reeling her back in. She blinked hard, snapping back into her brother’s gaze.

“Its going to be alright Mal. They know what to do. Lets just stay out of sight and get closer to where we parked. Everything is going to be alright, I won’t let anything happen to you.”

The two made their way slowly back toward the spot on the fence where they had climbed over, crawling through the meadow hand over foot. The sounds of the motorcycles were obviously very close now, but the engines seemed to be slowing to an idle. They stayed low as they approached, looking up for the trees that ran along the road. She could feel the knees of her jeans soaked through with moisture from the meadow’s floor, and she fought back the urge to squeal as she felt some little creature crawl under her hand as she pushed off the ground. Normally, she would have jumped or at least flinched, but her focus was so sharp that she simply kept moving forward, locked in on her brother. In front of her, Jacob froze up abruptly and reached back with his right hand, motioning for her to hold up. The motorcycle engines had stopped.

They were close to the road now, and Mallory could hear voices and the sounds of squeaking metal, heavy boots on the blacktop. As her ears adjusted and zeroed in, the voices became clearer. Jacob was a statue crouched in front of her, his rifle now off his back and in his hands. Her hands were shaking as she listened.

“Engine been runnin’, but not for a little while.” , a raspy voice with a southern drawl said from the road, “Don’t look like there’s much inside of it.”

“Kentucky don’t put the county on the truck platesth“, a second southern voice slurred, ” Butchie told usth that.”

Another voice joined in, this one older, with less of an accent.

“Even if the county was on it, we don’t know the counties up here you dumbshit. Likely these are farmers, and they’ve been holed up somewhere around here. Leedo, what else you got?”

The raspy voice answered again, and Mallory could hear footsteps now on the gravel near the fence.

“Looks to me they stopped here and two people went over the fence, right here. Gotta be out huntin’. Truck’s empty , ’cept a gas can and garbage bags in the back.”

She heard the click-clack of the boots again, then metallic click of a weapon being locked. For a second she thought she smelled cigarette smoke wafting in the breeze.

“OK. Donnie, you head back to the pack. Get a crew, and we’ll stay here. If these good old boys don’t come out then we smoke out once you get back.”

“Got it bossth. Maybe them good ol’ boysth got some good ol’ country women too. Country women got the besth pussthy”

There was a round of chuckling, and then one of the bikes started up again. The motorcycle roared as the rider hit the gas, and then trailed off to a low rumble as it rode back from whence it came.

Mallory was almost lying flat now, with the balls of her feet, knees, and palms against the ground. Jacob was on one knee, shoulders lowered, gripping the rifle. She was ready to spring up and run like a deer, he was ready to come up firing.

The voices on the road became lowered now, and with the wind died down, she could hear the wheels of the motorcycle rolling onto the side of the road, crunching gravel under its treads. The crunching stopped, and she heard the boots clacking off the asphalt. They were talking quietly again, but she could only make out bits and pieces. The conversation went on for a few minutes, but in such hushed tones that she couldn’t follow any of it. Once more, she smelled cigarette smoke over the weeds and wildflowers, and tiny light raindrops began to flitter against her hand and face. The sounds of the departed motorcycle faded away to a distant hum, then, it could no longer be heard at all. It was silent, save the noise from birds overhead, and the occasional word from the road spoken above a whisper. She and Jacob stayed there motionless, both trying to make out what the voices were saying, trying to figure out where their position was on the other side of the fence.

Suddenly, there was burst of sharp cracks. BAP-BAP-BAP-BAP!!. A muffled shout, then more. BAP-BAP-BAP!!!. She could here commotion on the road, moaning , and the sound of a motorcycle being knocked over onto the ground.

The raspy voice she had heard before now forced out a choked cry. She heard the sounds of footsteps running across the gravel, and then another crackle of gunfire. BAP-BAP-BAP!

In front of her, Jacob leapt to his feet, his rifle up and aimed at the road. She was rising up slowly, her muscles stiff and weak with fear. She didn’t think she could run if she had to. Then, she heard her father’s voice.

“Jake! Mallory! Hurry up! To the truck! ” , he shouted.

Jacob grabbed the front of her jacket and pulled her to her feet. He had to drag her for a few steps, until they both were racing the last twenty yards to the fence. She could see her father now, pacing in the road looking in all directions. He had spotted them.

“Come on guys, you have to hurry.“, he barked.

Jacob went over the fence quickly in front of her, and as she reached it to climb, she could see the bodies lying in the road. She was staring at them as Jacob almost yanked her over the fence-rail, and her father rushed over to help her land on the other side. He grabbed by her arm as they rushed toward the Bronco, where her mom sat behind the wheel, starting the engine. She glimpsed over her shoulder at the scene in the road.

One man was lying face up next to the fallen motorcycle. He had been shot in the face, but beneath the blood she could see a scraggly dark beard, and a mop of dark hair. He wore a green army jacket over a grey hooded sweatshirt , that were now soaked in blood from the bullets that had smashed into his chest. She saw a red band of fabric tied around his left arm below the shoulder, and a semi-automatic rifle lay on the ground beside him. The other was laying on his side in the road, curled almost a fetal position away from her. He was wearing a black leather riding jacket and pants, and she could see sharp, silver toed cowboy boots on his feet. Again she could also a bright red band on the upper part of his lifeless, dangling left arm. Dust was still swirling in the air, kicked up from the road as bodies had tumbled to earth. The second man’s motorcycle was a few yards away from him on the gravel shoulder, with big handlebars and what looked like a human skull mounted to the front of it?

Her father pushed her into the back seat and her mother slid over into the passenger seat. He then jumped in behind the wheel and passed his assault rifle to Jacob who sat beside her. His big hand gripped the wheel hard, as steady as granite. His hands never trembled anymore. Mallory stared into the rearview mirror, trying to get one last look as the Bronco pulled into the middle of the road and roared away. Her father was looking in the rear view mirror too, and his eyes caught hers.

“Don’t look baby. Its over. Its over.” , he said.

She snapped out of her daze and saw that her mom was crying quietly, slumped in the passenger seat. Jacob was turned all the way around, staring at the two dead bikers that were fading form view as they raced away.

“Girls I want you to get down and stay down until we get home. Jake, I need you to shoot at anything that comes down the road behind us. Anything.“, her father’s voice was firm, direct.

Her mother sobbed a little more at this and sunk down lower in her seat. Mallory dropped down below the window line and tried to get comfortable. She stared in silence at the back of her father’s head, and her brother gripping the AR-15 , aimed out of the open back window of the Bronco. She could smell the wet asphalt creeping in through the open rear window, as the morning rain began to fall a little harder.

For the next forty minutes, the only sounds were her father and Jake checking back and forth for trouble as they drove, her mother muttering/half-praying under her breath “HeavenlyFather,HeavenlyFather,HeavenlyFather “ and the symphony of the warm rain pinging off the truck and blacktop, washing away any tracks they might have made.

When they arrived back home, they put the Bronco into the barn and hustled into the cabin. There was almost no talking between them until the curtains had been drawn and the door to the underground shelter opened in the closet. Mallory sat down next to her mother on the bed, putting an arm around her. Her father said something quietly to Jake as they peered out from behind the curtain one last time at the inner gate, then they both pulled up chairs form the table so that they were in a little semi-circle at the foot of the bed. Her father looked at Mallory, and cracked a small, warming smile.

“I want to talk about what happened out there this morning,” he started, looking from Mallory to Jake then back to Mallory.

“Your mother and I were close enough that we could hear those men talking...some of it was about what they planned to do if they found us. They had sent the one man back to bring a search party to find us in the woods. And, they had....they had planned to do us harm when they found us. ”

He looked over at Jake who was listening intently.

“Jake, they were talking about what they would do if they found any women in the woods. If they had found your mother and sister, ” her father continued, “.....and I could tell that they were very serious about what they intended to do. We had to get out of there fast, and they were both heavily armed. I had no choice.”

Her father hung his head , and pinched at the bridge of his nose with his right hand. He took a deep breath and looked over at her mother, who was clutching Mallory’s arm. He looked over at her and Jacob again.

“Apparently those men were part of a larger group. A larger group coming up from the south. If those men were scouting, then the group is probably moving along the highway. So, when the search party finds those two men that I shot, they will be looking for a Bronco like ours. They will search that area, and all along the highway. We are twenty five miles from there, and far enough off of the highway that it isn’t likely they will find us. The rain will help us, because we will not have left a trail. But, I am going to walk to the road and make sure there is nothing that looks out place, should they come this way.”

Their mother spoke up, protesting, ” Paul that’s crazy, you saw what those men had with them. You can’t go out, we need to get down below. Please honey. ”

Mallory thought of the motorcycle, the skull she thought she had seen on it. She asked without filtering her words.

“I think I saw a skull on that bike.” The statement seemed impossible, ridiculous.

“We saw it too.,” her father answered. ” And those men were armed to the teeth. I remember what Dennis had said about groups of men making trouble in Tennessee. ‘Marauders’ he called them. I can only think that those men were part of some group like that. So, your mother is right- you guys are going down below. I am going to check the street out beyond the front gate and then I am sleeping up here, at least until we feel like everything is safe again.”

Her father did as he had said he would, going out on foot to the front gate, with his rifle and a wire broom to sweep any signs of evidence the Bronco might have left at the turn in. When he returned 45 minutes later, everyone was relieved to hear that between the rain and the broom, he had indeed washed clean any dirt tracks on the road. He then bolted the door and drew the curtains, and prepared two of the small oil lamps.

They ate supper in shifts in the bunker, small meals from their shrinking store of canned emergency food. It was a stifled supper, with hardly a dozen words between all of them. Her father barely ate anything, and spent the hours peeking out of the curtains until twilight became night. There was a palpable anxiousness in his movements, in his whisper, and it made her feel sorry for him, for the burden he carried of keeping them safe. Her father set out the high beam spotlight, shotgun, and his AR and kept them with him upstairs when they all went below to sleep. Mallory lay in her bed as Jacob closed the shelter door from the inside and she wondered if there were any people like them left in the world.