“WHAT ARE WE GOING to do when it gets dark?” Jessica asked Grant. “Are we going to keep going, or stop?” The sun had dropped behind the tops of the trees in the forest surrounding the Bogue Chitto and the day was quickly fading into twilight.
“I would keep going if I knew he was still paddling, but at night there’s too much chance of running up on them in the darkness or even passing them if they stopped to camp somewhere out of sight of the river, which is what I would do in his place. Considering that, I don’t want to risk missing them entirely and somehow getting ahead of them on the river, or worse, getting shot.”
“But if he does keep going, we’ll never catch them, will we?”
“That’s always possible, but there’s no way to know what he might be thinking. I know the farther downstream we get, the more we’ll begin passing side creeks and sloughs that connect to the river. Most of them don’t go very far, but someone in a canoe could easily hide in any of them. I don’t want to pass them in the dark, because I want to stop at every creek and look for signs that they may have turned off the river. We really have no way of knowing where this guy may be going, Jessica. The big swamps down on the lower Pearl River are a good guess, but a guess is really all we have.”
“I’m so scared for Casey,” Jessica said. “Trying to find one person out here is like looking for a needle in a haystack, even if she is in a canoe. And what if he has already raped and killed her! He could have dumped her out in the river or hidden her body in the woods by now and we would never know.”
“I don’t think he would have done that, Jessica. He knew we were still in the vicinity and that we had a canoe. He may not think we could have figured out he had her when we saw him, but he wouldn’t take a chance by stopping right away to do anything to her. And besides, I don’t think he would kill her any time soon anyway. If that had been his intention, he wouldn’t have bothered to take her with him. I think he’s trying to take her somewhere and take his time doing what he wants to do to her. At least that’s what it seems like guys like that do from the news stories I’ve read and crime documentaries I’ve seen.”
“I’ll never understand those sickos. What could be so wrong with someone that they think they can do horrible things to another human being? How can anyone not have a conscience?”
“They’re psychopaths, I guess.”
“I know one thing, it doesn’t matter if we stop for the night or not, or how tired I am, I won’t be getting any sleep tonight thinking about what she must be going through. I just can’t believe this is happening, Grant.”
“Me either, and I will worry about her all night too, but we’ve got to try to get some rest since we can’t travel anyway. Tomorrow will be a long and hard day, and we may need every ounce of our combined strength both to catch this guy and to help Casey when we do catch him.”
Grant slowed his paddling as the darkness increased, carefully guiding the canoe among the many snags of fallen trees that protruded from the current, waiting to tip an unwary or unskilled canoeist. He was looking for a good place for them to stop for the night, not out on one of the exposed sandbars, which would be his first choice if this were a mere recreational camping trip, but someplace that would allow them to pass the night out of sight of anyone else who might chance along by river or afoot. He found the perfect spot at the end of a long horseshoe bend, where a sandbar tapered to a narrow sliver and a clay bank three feet high bordered the river. The hardwood forest here was made up of mature timber, and the undergrowth was sparse. Grant guided the canoe alongside the bluff and held it while Jessica climbed out. Then he stepped out and pulled the boat up over the bank and away from the river until it was hidden among the trees. It was much darker within the edge of the forest—so dark they could barely see each other. Grant crept back to the riverbank and reached out to take Jessica’s hand, guiding her to where he’d pulled the canoe.
“I can’t see anything,” Jessica whispered. This is just like that place we camped last night.”
“Yeah, but at least it’s not raining, and I think we’re going to have good weather for a few days. I’m not going to bother with the tarp, if that’s okay with you. We can just spread it out on the ground and sleep on top of it.”
“I’m scared of snakes after what you said last night.”
“I don’t think we have to worry too much. You see how quickly it’s gotten cool since the sun went down. That’s one good thing about these weather fronts that come through this time of year. After the rain passes it always turns cool for a few days afterwards. I’ll bet the temps will drop into the low 50s or high 40s tonight. Reptiles generally aren’t moving at night when it’s that cool—same with bugs. It’ll be nice not to have to worry about mosquitoes, because in hot weather in the woods along these rivers, they would eat you alive at night.”
“It is getting cold. Can we build a fire tonight since it’s not raining?”
“I don’t think we should. I wanted to camp out of sight in the woods to be on the safe side, even though I think it’s highly unlikely anyone would be coming down the river at night. And although I’m pretty sure we’re still a good distance behind this guy who’s got Casey, building a fire would defeat the purpose of camping up here instead of out in the open. There is a little bit of propane left in the one canister we have, though. We can use the stove to make some hot chocolate and cook the last of the rice packets. Maybe if we do that quickly, there will be enough left to heat water for oatmeal in the morning. You can have what’s left of that too. I’m going to try and catch a fish tonight for my breakfast.”
“How are you going to see to fish in this dark?”
“Not the kind of fishing you’re thinking about, Jessica. There were some hooks and trotline in that tackle box where we got the canoe. I’m going to take some small pieces of the beef jerky I have left and use it to bait some drop hooks. What you do is tie them to a branch hanging out over a deep, still hole in the river, like the one just upstream, and leave it out all night. With any luck at all, a catfish will come along and smell the bait and hook itself when it swallows it. Jerky isn’t ideal, but that’s all I’ve got. I hope soaking it in the water for a few hours on the hook will soften it up and it will still have enough smell to work.”
“Well, good luck with it, but I hope we can find a riverside salad bar for me tomorrow. I’m looking forward to trying those cattails you were talking about.”
Grant left her for a few minutes and carefully picked his way along the riverbank in the dark. He had been trying to maintain a positive attitude as much as possible in front of Jessica, but he was overwhelmed with fear of what would become of Casey, and full of doubt that they could ever even find her, much less rescue her, out in the vastness of these river woodlands with no help. More then the fear though, he felt guilt for his own failure to protect her. He realized now he should have never left her alone to guard the stupid bicycles. They should have all stuck together and none of this would have happened. He had brought them both out here to the middle of nowhere with the promise of a safe refuge, and now look where that had gotten them. Not only was Casey in immediate and grave peril (if she were still alive), but he had now gotten Jessica, who was completely inexperienced in any life outside of a city, into a hardcore wilderness survival situation. It was up to him to somehow provide for her safety, shelter, and food, as well as take care of his own needs.
He found branches from which to hang four drop hooks. It was hard to tell in the darkness if the locations were ideal, but all he could do was hope for the best. This wasn’t a method he’d learned from the Wapishana in Guayana, but rather a technique used by the locals on the Bogue Chitto and most other rivers in the South to catch catfish. The beauty of it was that it was passive—setting out hooks was like setting a trap. You could forget about it and do other things and it would either work or it wouldn’t, depending on whether the quarry took the bait.
He returned to Jessica’s side by the canoe as quickly as possible, knowing she was terrified to be out in these dark woods and devastated by what had happened to Casey. She said she wasn’t hungry, but when the last of the cheddar-broccoli rice packets was cooked on the stove and he offered her most of it, she wolfed it down. Then he heated water for hot chocolate and they sat close together sipping it, leaning back side by side against the hull of the canoe, talking about Casey and trying to reassure each other that she would be okay. Grant knew the next day would likely be long and hard and they would need their sleep, but neither of them could relax because of their worries. He spread their sleeping bags on the tarp, putting Jessica’s next to the canoe and his close by on the other side, shielding her from the dangers she was certain lurked in the inky blackness surrounding them. Before lying down, he stuck the point of his machete in the soft ground so that the handle was within easy reach, though he knew there was nothing in the wild to fear here and the chances of a human intruder stumbling across their camp in the night were slim to none. But they had barely settled into their bags to try to rest when a barred owl unleashed its demonic, half-laughing, half-screaming, and utterly ear-piercing cry into the forest close by. Jessica grabbed him in a panic and nearly suffocated him in her arms, terrified by a sound that he had assumed everyone was familiar with.
“What in the hell was that?” she whispered, barely able to breathe in her choking fear.
Grant laughed a little and hugged her back to reassure her. “It’s just an owl. They’re common here in these big hardwood forests. We’ll probably hear them all night. They’re perfectly harmless.”
“That was worse than something from a horror movie! I’m so scared, Grant. I believe you that it was an owl, but I’m so scared after what happened to Casey.” Her tears flowed freely as she clung to him, and soon she was sobbing uncontrollably. Grant felt his own eyes moisten as he stroked her hair as if she were a little girl and tried to reassure her.
Jessica stayed snuggled up against his shoulder the remainder of the night, and when he opened his eyes, he realized they both must have fallen fast asleep. The impenetrable darkness of night was replaced by a thick morning mist that hung over the river like heavy smoke. Birdcalls and the barking chatter of gray squirrels echoed through the forest. It was cool enough that Grant thought about a hot cup of coffee with great anticipation, but he then he remembered his hooks and gently pulled himself away from Jessica to go check them.
When he got to the river’s edge, the first two hooks were just as he’d left them, and when he pulled them up the jerky had swollen to the consistency of raw bacon, but was untouched. He pushed his way through the river cane to the next hook and saw that the branch he’d tied it to was bobbing up and down. When he grabbed the line, there was strong resistance as he pulled it in and he found on the other end a nice, sleek catfish that he guessed weighed at least two pounds. He grinned as he hooked a finger through one of its gills so it couldn’t get away, and checked the last hook with heightened enthusiasm, but found it empty. He was thrilled with his success nevertheless, as this fish represented a good meal that would make a fine breakfast for both of them—if only Jessica could get over her aversion to eating things from outside the plant kingdom.
Back at the canoe, he used the machete to cut a small sapling down and quickly cut three equal-length stakes from it, about a foot long. The propane left in the single bottle he’d brought was barely enough to heat some oatmeal for Jessica. He decided to save it since it wasn’t enough to cook the fish with anyway. In this heavy morning mist, he felt it was safe to build a quick twig fire that would put out very little smoke, so he made a tripod of the green sapling pieces by pushing one end of each one into the ground so that the tops were spaced just a few inches apart—just the right distance to support the cooking pot.
Jessica was awakened by the whacking of his blade and sat up to watch him build the fire. “I can’t believe you caught a fish that easily. That’s amazing.”
“Not really. Any good fisherman in these parts who knows what he’s doing would have probably caught at least two or three, if not four, with four sets. I hate to waste time cooking anything, but this will only take minutes. If we don’t eat, we won’t be able to paddle all day. I sure wish you would try some of this.”
“I’m okay, really. You said there was oatmeal.”
“Yeah, but only enough for today. After that, it’s gone, and we’re down to a few almonds and raisins.”
Grant put the pot on top of the tripod and collected a handful of pencil-sized dry twigs from dead branches still on the trees in the vicinity. He got the fire started and instructed Jessica to feed it with just a few twigs at a time while he went to the riverbank to clean the catfish. There wasn’t time to do it right, so rather than worry about trying to remove the tough skin typical of the species, he simply gutted it and cut off the head, then split it into two halves and washed these in the river. He was so hungry for meat he could have eaten them raw, but a kiss of the flames for a few minutes would make the fish much tastier and would be simple and quick enough. When the pot of water was boiling, he poured enough for Jessica’s oatmeal in her bowl, then added some ground coffee to the rest. Then he laid the fish halves over the flames.
“So, what made you decide to become a vegetarian? Casey told me you made that choice before she met you at Tulane.”
“Yeah, I had thought about it a lot since I was in about the seventh grade, I guess, when we learned in school how animals were treated in modern factory farming. The more I learned about it from reading on the Internet and all, the more I realized how cruel it really is to raise animals for meat. I decided to give up eating all chicken and beef and things like that first, then the more I got into the vegetarian lifestyle, the more I realized I didn’t even want fish or seafood, or any kind of animal foods that require killing the animal. I still eat cheese, and occasionally drink milk. I just don’t eat meat. It’s been four years now, and I feel fine.”
“Well, I can understand how the details of factory farming could be disturbing, but you do realize that humans have been eating meat as well as plant foods since the dawn of time, don’t you? The thing that bothers me about vegetarianism is that it implies we are somehow ‘above’ or ‘better than’ the other species, when in fact, we are animals too, and are subject to the laws of nature just like all species, despite our technology, which, as you can see, has failed us miserably now. Anyway, as an anthropology student, I find it a fascinating topic. I’m not trying to put you down or change your mind, I’m just trying to understand, that’s all.”
“I know most primitive people ate meat. But it’s just not necessary today. We don’t have to live that way because we have infinite choices available to us now.”
“Had infinite choices,” Grant reminded her as he used his pocketknife to turn the two slabs of fish over in the flames. “Everything’s changed now. Getting all that variety of fruits, veggies, and grains delivered to your neighborhood grocery store is a thing of the past until the whole system gets rebuilt, as you are well aware by now. Regardless of that, we are presently in an environment not unlike that of our distant primal ancestors. I can assure you that I have learned through my extensive studies of the subject, and my time spent living among the Wapishana, who are among the few truly aboriginal people left in the world today, sustaining human life from plant food alone is extremely difficult, if not impossible, in the wilderness. I hope you can see the difference between eating this fish, caught from the wild in the river, compared to fattening up chickens or hogs on growth hormones in inhumane cages for slaughter. If I didn’t eat this fish, chances are a hungry alligator or a bigger fish would.”
“I can see your point. I’m not saying I’ll never eat it. I’d much sooner eat that than a rabbit or something. I just hope it doesn’t come to that.”
“I’m afraid that it will, Jessica. That’s my point. Our situation isn’t going to change, and I don’t want to see you get weak or sick as a result of clinging to an unsustainable lifestyle.” Grant lifted the fish off the flames and quickly put out the fire by kicking sand over the burning twigs. He poured them each a cup of coffee and squatted next to the canoe, where he began pulling chunks of half-cooked fish off the bones and skin with his fingers. It was the best meal he’d had since leaving New Orleans.
“It does smell good cooked,” Jessica said, as she ate the last bite of oatmeal. “I’m not saying I won’t eat fish, I’m just not ready today, okay?”
“I’ll tell you one thing I’m going to miss the most about civilization,” Grant said, “and that is coffee. What we have left will last three, maybe four days, and then we’ll be caffeine-free for good, unfortunately.”
With no tarp or tent to take down, breaking camp and getting back on the river took only minutes. The mist hanging over the water limited their visibility, so Grant took it easy and paddled as silently as possible, instructing Jessica how to do the same. He felt sure that they were still a good distance behind Casey and her abductor, but he didn’t want to take a chance. The sun would soon burn away the fog, and then they could focus on making up lost time.
As they paddled around the wide, looping bends of the river, they passed huge sand and gravel bars on almost all of the inside bends. Grant knew that this part of the Bogue Chitto was the site of extensive gravel mining, but that most of the operations were just out of sight of the river. Paddling this way before in normal times, he’d heard the sound of bulldozers and other machinery off in the distance almost constantly in the daylight hours. He knew all this must have shut down the first day after the lights went out, and didn’t expect to see anyone associated with that work out on the river. Other people that would use the sandbars before the solar flare occurred were recreational weekend canoeists and some of the local country folk who loved to ride four-wheeler ATVs across these wide beaches and through the shallows.
As they paddled by these wide beaches, Grant kept their course as close as possible to the edge of the sand, scanning for signs that the man who had Casey had stopped on any of them. Grant knew he had to stop sometime, if for no other reason than to get out of the canoe and relieve himself. Since it had been less than a full day after the heavy rains let up, Grant figured that it was unlikely anyone else had visited any of these sandbars, except for those that were near the occasional camps that were scattered along the river course here and there. Stopping at each one and getting out for a close examination would take far too long, but he surmised that if Casey’s abductor had indeed stopped, the evidence would be right at the water’s edge anyway, and his theory proved correct after they had been paddling about an hour or so.
“There!” he said, as he quickly dug his paddle in and did a correction stroke to turn the bow into shore.
“What is it, do you see them?” Jessica asked, as she scanned the river ahead, thinking Grant was looking that way.
“He stopped right here!” Grant said as he leapt out of the canoe and pulled it up for Jessica. As soon as she was out he warned her not to walk over the tracks and then he crouched down to see if he could make sense of them.
“Yep, it was him! Look, it’s the same footprints, those moccasins or whatever they are that he’s wearing. The tracks are identical to the ones on the sandbar where he took Casey. Now we know for sure he’s still ahead of us, somewhere on the river. See, there’s the mark he made when he pulled his canoe up, like I just did with ours.” Grant followed a straight line of the tracks off across the sandbar to where a lone, stunted cypress tree stood weathered and broken out in the open. “He walked over here to pee,” he called back to Jessica, then he went back to the canoe.
“I don’t see any other tracks,” Jessica said.
“He probably didn’t let Casey get out. That could be a good sign. At least he didn’t make her get out so he could try to rape her or something.” Grant was still bent over, looking carefully at the tracks. The man had walked back and forth around the place where he stopped the canoe quite a bit, and the details were vague as there were prints on top of prints.
“I’m amazed at how you can tell all this just from looking at the ground. I would have never thought of any of that.”
“I only know the very basics. If it wasn’t for all the sand along this river, I wouldn’t know any of it—even that Casey had been taken. Real experts, like the Wapishana hunters I spent time with, could find and read signs even in dense jungle where you can’t see the ground. But that’s what they do for a living. At any rate, I know he stopped here, and I’m sure Casey must still be with him, but then again, I can’t even prove that without a single track of hers to be found. And I’m afraid I’m not good enough to tell if these prints were made last night or sometime earlier this morning.”
“So, you think they’re still somewhere ahead of us?”
“They pretty much have to be downstream, the question is how far. Come on, let’s go.”
Over the course of the next four or five miles they paddled before noon, the character of the river and its surrounding forest began changing somewhat. Occasional areas of high bluffs with pine trees on them gave way to almost unbroken hardwood forest and large stands of cypress. In many stretches the sandbars disappeared, with the river’s edge running right up to the bases of the cypress and tupelo trees. They passed several sloughs connecting the river to dead oxbow lakes left behind long ago when the river had changed its course over time, and at the entrance to each of these, Grant stopped to investigate and look for any clue that the man who had Casey might have turned off the river. He looked for tracks in the mud and on both sides of each tributary, but only near their entrances, as it would have killed the entire day to paddle each one to where it came to a dead end. Each time he stopped he came to the conclusion that the mysterious paddler must be still ahead of them, and each time they got underway, he dug in and paddled hard with renewed determination not to give up until they caught up with him.
The hours of darkness seemed to Casey to go on forever, lying bound in the bottom of the canoe, watching the trees go by overhead against a backdrop of starry sky while worrying about what was to become of her. This man who had taken her against her will, who called himself Derek, relentlessly and tirelessly paddled hour after hour, expertly guiding the canoe among the countless snags and fallen logs that were everywhere in the river. Sometimes he spoke to her, but for the most part he was quiet while he paddled, and she was glad he was. She had no idea how far they’d come since he had found her the afternoon before, but at this pace she knew it had to be many miles, and with every hour they were on the river, she was being taken deeper and deeper into a land of swamps and forest that separated her from everyone and everything she knew.
When the first pale grays of dawn replaced the darkness, he turned off of the river into an opening in the forest, and paddled into a stagnant, smelly slough of still water. At the far end he ran the bow of the canoe into the stinking mud and hopped out to pull it aground. “We’ll stop here awhile,” he said, “and rest and eat.”
Casey didn’t want to acknowledge him, but she was hungry and thirsty, and more than anything, her bladder was about to burst and she couldn’t hold it any longer. “I have to go to the bathroom,” she said.
“Of course. I’ll untie you so you can go over there in the bushes. But don’t get any ideas. This is an island with the river on one side and a dead lake on the other. There’s no way out of here on foot, and I’m going to be right over here. Believe me when I tell you, you cannot outrun me out here, so don’t bother trying.”
Derek squatted behind her and worked at the lashings binding her wrists, and then he untied her ankles. “I’m sorry I’ve had to keep you all trussed up like this, but you understand I couldn’t have you jumping out of the canoe or something.”
Casey avoided eye contact with him as she rubbed her wrists and ankles and tried to get the circulation going in them again. Now that the morning light was getting brighter, she could see a bit more of what he looked like. He was tall and lanky but it was hard to tell much about how he was built because of his loose-fitting clothes—olive drab military fatigues and an untucked, long-sleeved shirt that was a couple of shades darker green than the pants. The most unusual thing about the way he was dressed was his footwear—tall, over-the-calf moccasins that looked to be homemade from some kind of animal hide. From what she could see of his hands and bearded face, he was deeply tanned, as if he spent a lot of time outdoors, and his shoulder-length hair was shaggy and somewhere between blond and light brown. His movements suggested that he was fit and at ease in this environment, as he showed no signs of fatigue despite paddling all night without rest.
After he untied her, he ignored her while he pulled one of his backpacks out of the canoe and rummaged through it for something. “Go ahead and do your business,” he said, “just don’t go far.”
Casey was both surprised and greatly relieved that he would offer to let her have her privacy. She had been holding it all night because she was so afraid that he wouldn’t and had decided she would sooner pee in her pants than have him see her naked, though she knew he had seen her bathing. She pulled herself up out of the canoe with difficulty, and nearly fell back down as she waited for the numbness to go away in her feet. She stepped over the gunwale into the muck and wet leaves of the forest floor, still barefoot because she had left her shoes on the log where she had undressed for her bath. She picked her way carefully over fallen branches and around thorny vines, feeling the disgusting, foul-smelling mud of the swamp squishing up between her toes with every step until she had gone far enough to screen herself from his view with foliage.
When she stood again, she thought about running as fast as she could in the opposite direction, but peering through the trees and bushes that limited her view to just a few dozen yards, she could see that there was indeed more water that way, just as Derek had said. With no shoes, she knew it would be hard for her to walk fast, much less run with all the protruding cypress knees, fallen branches, and twisted briar vines covered with thorns that were everywhere on the forest floor. From the ease with which Derek moved and paddled the canoe, she knew he was in good shape, and she doubted she could outsprint him even in open terrain. She resigned herself to the hard truth that there was no use trying to escape right now. It would be better to wait for another opportunity when she had a better chance of succeeding, and she was determined to find one, and not miss it when it presented itself.
When she made her way back over to the canoe, Derek had just finished tying a dark green cloth hammock between two nearby trees. “I’ve got to get some sleep,” he said. “I hate to have to do it, but I’ve got to tie your hands and feet again. You can sleep in the bottom of the canoe if you like. I’ll move my stuff out to give you more room. I don’t plan to stay here more than four or five hours though, and then we’re going to be on the move again.”
Casey had no choice but to submit to being tied up again. At least this time he tied her hands in front of her body instead of behind her back, so she could lie down comfortably. He had also tied a piece of light rope between her bound ankles and one of his own wrists, so that when he fell asleep in the hammock he would know if she was trying to get away. She resigned herself to wait. The only way to escape now would be to somehow untie her wrists with her teeth without waking him, and then launch the canoe and paddle away in it. She knew that was hopeless, as his hammock was strung squarely in the path the canoe would have to be dragged to get it afloat again.
They were back on the river around noon, and to Casey’s surprise she too had dozed off to sleep in the bottom of the canoe while Derek slept in the hammock. Fear had kept her awake the entire previous night, but today exhaustion had caught up with her, and in a more comfortable position, she probably slept at least two hours. As they traveled through the afternoon, she was once again low in the canoe among his gear bags, and more than once he pulled the tarp over her head to hide her when they passed riverside cabins. He did refrain from using the gag or blindfold again, but he told her any outcry in the vicinity of anyone they happened to pass would be met with a swift blow from the paddle that would knock her out. She had no reason to doubt that he would do it, and kept quiet, even when he exchanged a few words with a man who was fishing on the bank near one of the weekend getaway camps they passed.
Just as she could no longer resist sleep, hunger overcame her that second day as well, and the next time they stopped she accepted some of the smoked venison jerky he had offered her before. It was surprisingly delicious, even better than the processed beef variety Grant had bought that first day when they had stocked up at the grocery store near campus. She knew it could have been simply that she was really hungry, but this stuff was delicious. After trying it she ate another piece.
“Venison,” Derek said. “I eat it year round; it’s much better than eating fat, grain-fed cattle. I hunt year round too, even before, when it was illegal and there were people trying to enforce their idiotic laws. Now most of the people that thought up laws like that are probably dead already—too stupid to survive in a world without a government to take care of them.”
“This isn’t going to last forever,” Casey said, “and it’s no excuse to break the law and do as you please. But I don’t care if you kill deer out of season and want to live in a swamp. Just please let me go. I’ll walk back to where you found me, and you can just go on and do whatever you want to do.”
“You know I can’t do that. I can’t let a beautiful young woman like you take off walking on the roads the way things are now. You still don’t get it, but I’m saving you. I’m doing you a favor and saving you from the fate that would have awaited you if I hadn’t come along, and will still catch up to your two friends. I don’t think you understand, but most people are going to die as a result of the power grid going down. Most of them don’t have the will to do what it takes to survive, but I’m different, and always have been. I’ve been literally living for a time like this. I’ve been preparing for it and knowing it would happen eventually. The artificial lifestyle you and everyone you know has been living is just that—artificial. It’s not real, and it could not go on indefinitely. Now, at last, we get a chance to live a life that is real, and I’ve chosen you to be my partner in that life. I know it’s all new and unfamiliar to you and maybe a little frightening, but I’m going to teach you. You’re going to love it when you get used to it, and we’re going to live in a beautiful place—a nearly perfect place that is wild and natural—where we will have everything we need, and be free, like our ancestors were before modern civilization screwed everything up.”
“You’re insane,” Casey said. “I would rather die than be anywhere, even in a paradise, with someone who would do what you did to me. I don’t know where you came up with your fantasy, but it doesn’t involve me! Why didn’t you bring your wife or girlfriend, or whatever? Oh, never mind, you probably never had one. You’re too weird to get one! And you’re completely wrong if you think I needed ‘saving’ from anything. My friend Grant knew what he was doing, and we had a place to go where we would be safe and have everything we would need until this was all over.”
Derek’s only response was to laugh. He was genuinely insane, of that she was certain—insane in a dangerous way, but she felt more confident than ever that he wouldn’t hurt her, at least not deliberately, unless she tried to escape or cry out to someone. It seemed that he really believed his delusion that she would eventually be grateful to him for ‘rescuing’ her, and that they would somehow live off the land deep in some swamp hideaway, like some kind of happy pioneer couple or something.
Back on the river, Derek continued to rant about the evils of civilization as he paddled the canoe. He told her that he had never fit into modern society, and had known he was not meant to live that way ever since childhood. Instead of playing sports in school, he spent every spare minute hunting and fishing, and often played hooky to get in more time doing so. He said that as an adult, he hated working for money, and didn’t want most of the things it could buy anyway. He mostly did odd jobs on a friend’s farm and then took off for weeks at a time to live in the woods and do what he really wanted to do. In between these excursions he read everything he could get his hands on about the way the Indians and later the white trappers and explorers had lived before the whole country was settled and tamed and completely ruined, as he saw it. He practiced their skills and learned to use every part of the animals he killed, pointing out the deerskin moccasins he wore as an example to her. Then he said that he had a brain-tanned deer hide rolled up in his bags and promised that once they got to his secret camp he would make her a pair of nice moccasins like his, since she didn’t have her shoes.
He talked about the solar flare and how everybody in modern America was so dependent upon electric power that they didn’t know how to do anything else but go apeshit crazy when the lights went out. He said they were all so stupid they would just sit and wait for the government to bail them out and only a few would take any initiative to do anything, and then, if they did, it would be the wrong thing.
“I may have hated school,” he said, “but I’m not some ignorant dumbass backwoods hick like most people around here. I didn’t like somebody else telling me what to read and having to take a test on it, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t like to read. I studied what I wanted to learn about on my own and one thing that always interested me was the history of various cultures and especially the decline of ancient civilizations. I was into a lot of philosophy too, especially Thoreau and the ancient Chinese Taoist teachings. Do you know who Lao Tzu was? Have you ever read the Tao Te Ching? Would you like to hear what my favorite quote of his was? “Water flows in the places men reject.” You can see now how true this is. Look at this river, for instance. It winds and twists for more than a hundred miles through some of the finest woods and wild lands left anywhere in these parts, and what do all those ‘civilized’ idiots do? They sit in those square boxes they call houses or take off down the road, stuck in their way of thinking that nature has to be shaped and conformed to their needs, and not the other way around. All the while, this river flows nearby, twisting quietly and unnoticed through these forgotten ‘places that men reject,’ offering a route of travel, a refuge, food to eat and water to drink. Yet they’re just too blind to see it. That’s why they will die, and that’s why they deserve to. We’re entering a new era now, and those who can’t figure out fast that they’ve got to give up on their technology are not going to be a part of it. It might be hard for a while until the die-off is complete, but give it a good year or so and we won’t have to lie low in one area anymore. There’ll be so few people around that there will be room enough for everyone who is smart enough to still be here. Then we can live the way we were meant to—free—as nomadic hunter-gatherers roaming whenever and wherever we please. There will be others like us too, and it will take time to reconnect, but someday we will eventually join together and form new tribes. By then, we will be fully adapted to the old ways, and this transition period will be a distant memory.”
Casey had to listen to this for hour upon hour as Derek paddled. The longer they were together, the more he talked, but he wasn’t really trying to engage her in conversation. For the most part she didn’t bother trying to argue with him, and had given up on asking him to let her go. They traveled through the rest of the afternoon and another night, and the farther downriver they went, the lower and swampier the terrain surrounding the river became. By now, the wide sandbars that were in nearly every bend upstream were non-existent, replaced by low, muddy banks where the forest reached right to the river’s edge and the understory was a green wall of head-high palmettos. The current in this lower part of the Bogue Chitto was much slower, but Derek’s tireless stroke kept the canoe slicing through the nearly still water at the same relentless pace. Before dawn they passed a man-made canal extending north and south, and the Bogue Chitto reached the end of its course, becoming less defined as a separate river as it joined a maze of channels and bayous of a much larger river system flowing south to the Gulf.
“This is the Pearl,” he said. “We’re home free now. There are miles and miles of winding little bayous in this swamp that are so small a canoe can barely pass through them. I’ve been coming here for years, and I’ve found one of the most remote spots in the entire basin that I always figured would be my go-to place when the shit finally hit the fan. You couldn’t find a better hideout anywhere in the state, you’ll see. There’s no way in and no way out except by canoe or pirogue, but everything we need is already there.”
Casey saw nothing but woods and water. She found it hard to believe, but the entire time they had been in the canoe she had seen little else but woods and water, save for the occasional cabin built on the riverbank, and a couple of highway bridges they had passed under. If she had not seen all this for herself, she would have never believed there could possibly be so many endless miles of woods and water along a river course so close to the huge urban sprawl of New Orleans.
Now that they were in this swamp where even the boundaries of the river disappeared in walls of flooded forest on either side, Casey felt more lost than ever. When Derek turned the canoe off of the broad waterway they had been following and into a narrow bayou barely two canoe-widths wide, she knew that she was utterly and thoroughly hidden away from the outside world and completely out of reach of anyone who might save her from this man who was determined to keep her that way.
The canopy was completely interlocked overhead on this route, so it was so dark Casey could barely see a few feet beyond the bow of the canoe. Derek slowed down to a drifting pace, using his paddle only to keep them from banging against trees as the current flowing beneath the boat carried it deeper into the forest. When dawn finally came, Casey saw that they were gliding among hardwood and cypress trees of tremendous, primeval proportions. It was a place like no other she had ever seen, with long, wispy curtains of Spanish moss hanging from almost every branch and limb, creating a mysterious, haunting atmosphere that was both beautiful and foreboding.
The waterway they were following lost all definition in a labyrinth of narrow swift sections interspersed with lagoons where it spread out and surrounded the boles of the giant trees, making it impossible for her to understand how anyone could find their way through it. Derek paddled as if he knew exactly where he was going, though, and here in the hush of early morning in this cathedral-like forest, he remained silent once again, much to her relief, after having heard hours of his indictment of modern civilization the afternoon and evening before. In places the canoe was swept by low-hanging branches, forcing her to duck even from where she was seated in the bottom of the boat, propped up against a duffel bag. When this had happened several times, Derek stopped and cut her hands loose so she could fend off branches before they hit her in the face. She knew he wasn’t worried about her escaping now, as there was absolutely nowhere to go in a place like this without a boat.
They had been traveling in this manner for a good two hours since they left the main river, when Derek turned off to their left onto yet another branch of the bayou they had been following. This one was even narrower, but to Casey’s surprise, the water was clear and the bottom was white sand instead of mud. Small sandbars, miniature versions of the huge beaches in the bends of the Bogue Chitto, lined the banks intermittently, and at last Derek stopped and pulled the canoe onto one that had a flat shelf at the top just wide enough to accommodate it.
“We’re here,” he said. “Welcome to my little piece of paradise.”
Casey said nothing as Derek untied the ropes holding her ankles together and began taking his duffel bags and packs out of the canoe. She climbed out, grateful for the opportunity to stretch her stiff joints, but when she looked around, she saw no sign of a camp. There was a narrow path leading off through the palmettos, though, and she could see that somebody had made it by cutting their way through there. Derek stepped into the path and motioned for her to follow.
Not wanting him to grab her arm and lead her or touch her in any way, she complied. The terrain rose slightly and the vegetation in the understory changed from the tropical-looking fronds of the dwarf palmettos to a dense thicket of sweet bay bushes, their waxy emerald-green leaves screening from view what might lie ahead at the other end of the path until they pushed their way through.
“There it is,” Derek said. “My perfect bug-out hideaway.”
Casey had not expected anything quite like this. When she looked where Derek was pointing, she saw a shelter that blended in so well with its surroundings that it would be easy to miss even from a short distance unless you were specifically looking for it. It was the primitive construction of mostly natural materials that made it blend in so well, though the camouflage tarps that made up the roof and one side certainly did their part to help.
The most unexpected thing about it was that it was built about 10 feet off the ground, on a platform of poles cut from small trees, lashed horizontally between four much larger hardwood trees, like a much bigger version of a child’s tree house. As they walked closer, she saw a crude ladder going up to it, also made from lashed poles, and then saw that the floor was made up of very old and weathered-looking planks of wood. Rolled up mosquito netting was hung from the edges of the roof all the way around and a tarp formed a single wall at the back, but otherwise the structure was open-sided. She could see that that the only things in there were some camo-colored five-gallon plastic pails with lids on them and a stack of large, square metal boxes, the olive-drab green kind that Casey knew were Army surplus ammo cans.
Beneath the platform, a heavy wire was stretched on a diagonal between two of the supporting trees. Suspended from it hung several skillets, cooking pots and utensils, and an axe and shovel. A fire pit was dug in the sand nearby, framed on both sides by chunks of heavy logs that obviously had been chopped to length by the axe.
“It’s built above the forest floor like this to stay above high water in times of flooding,” Derek said. “This is an island we’re on here, though you can’t tell because of all the trees. It’s one of the highest elevations in the area, and it’s rare that the bayou gets over the bank, though I have seen it happen in the years I’ve been coming here. But regardless of floods, there are always plenty of big cottonmouth snakes in these palmetto thickets, and everywhere else in the swamp. It’s a lot better sleeping off the ground, and a lot cooler in the summer too. This is the way the Indians that lived in these parts built their houses, and it makes sense to do the same.”
“How can you plan to live in a place like this?” Casey asked, tears starting to roll down her face as she slapped at the mosquitoes that were buzzing around her head and neck. “There is nothing here but trees. You can’t even see the canoe from where we’re standing, and it’s just a few yards away. I feel like I’m going to suffocate.” She slumped to the ground and sat with her head in her hands, gripping her hair with both hands and trying to resist the urge to yank it out as hard as she could. She was so frustrated, terrified, and exhausted. Every day since her alarm had failed to go off that morning that now seemed so very long ago, her life had gotten harder and scarier with each new passing day. Now that she saw this place that Derek had been planning to take her, the prospect of coming up with an idea for escaping his clutches and finding her way out of this nightmare seemed truly hopeless. And here at his camp, their journey on the river done, she feared time was running out before he would try and force his way on her.