The sun dropped toward the horizon as afternoon dissolved into evening. Long shadows offered some security without Mack needing to move under darkness with lights that would be visible for miles. Once Matty and Susan woke from their naps, Mack decided he and Matty would run the dinghy over to the fish house and woke Andrew to help Susan keep watch while the other two were off the boat. As would become their habit, he loaded two guns into the dinghy and wore a pistol in a shoulder holster where he could easily draw the weapon while sitting. Matty perched on the side tube of the inflatable and braced a shotgun across her lap, loaded but safety on. She looked down to confirm she had engaged the safety.
“No matter what you hear, do not leave the boat or motor down stream. We will make every effort to avoid confrontation. If we find any trouble, we will defend ourselves and escape as best we can, so there could be the sound of shots fired, but we will contact you by radio as soon as it is safe to do so. Do not assume the worst. As all of us experienced this morning, we are capable of defending ourselves. If the dinghy takes a hit and we cannot use it to return, we will contact you by VHF. Monitor channel 22, not 16. Wait for our signal and instructions. We may have to seek shelter away from the fish house, so you might not even find us if you motored the Requiem down the river. Two of us are taking this risk; Andrew, you and your mother must not expose yourselves, or there may be no one left to aid me and Matty if we need assistance.”
The morning assault had been unplanned, so there had been no advance discussion concerning the defense of the boat. Mack’s instructions and plans outlined for the investigation of the fish house struck home with the severity of what the entire family would attempt. This was the first of likely many clandestine operations, so Mack’s firm delivery of what amounted to military orders shocked them all even as they understood his attitude and tone. Two of them would be directly at risk by leaving the safety of both the boat and the rest of the family. The two who remained aboard Requiem faced a similar risk because their defensive capabilities would be diminished with two of the family off the boat. Tension mushroomed as they conferred.
Mack reassured his wife and son, “I have no intention of inviting a fight, but Matty and I will stay alert and prepared if a fight comes to us. I would like to slip in near dusk and check the property without anyone knowing we are there or, later, had been there. Ready?”
All nodded to each other. They were morphing from family to fighting force. With many of the same characteristics, members of both the family and the fighting force depend upon each other. Nevertheless, tears welled into Susan’s eyes as she thought about the danger to her family. First and foremost, she was a mother, genetically programmed to protect her children. Still, this was their new normal. It would be impossible to avoid situations of risk as they lived away from towns and defensive compounds, pressured to resupply their own resources. They hoped to be a smaller target than the mutual assistance groups which, by definition, had large concentrations of resources necessary to support the size of their communities. She had agreed with Mack that no amount of chain link or barbed wire fencing and guard posts could hold the Merks or marauders at bay forever. The marauders would peck at the defensive perimeters for as long as it took to create a weakness they could exploit. With the military background of most Merks, they would always hold the advantage in a fire fight. Mack’s strategy was to present a low profile that might make them an undesirable target to marauder groups searching for concentrated resources. If the strategy proved out, the family should never face more than a handful of attackers at a time, small groups attempting to steal a few days’ worth of supplies. Through stealth and a minimal profile, maybe they could prevail against occasional individuals as they had against the fishermen that morning.
Mack pulled the starter cord on the outboard, and the motor rumbled low and even. He turned the grip and eased the dinghy away from the boat. He kept his speed slow as they rounded the peninsula. Erupting from cover onto the river would be foolish. He edged his way along the shoreline. Both he and Matty swiveled their heads, scanning the water ahead and across the river, searching the treeline opposite for movement. When they roused the peninsula to where they could see the fish house, Mack hesitated a moment to be sure they did not overlook something they should have seen. The world appeared quiet and still, so Mack alerted Matty that he was accelerating and twisted the grip to full speed. The hard-bottomed dinghy quickly reached a plane as Mack eased away from the shore and into deeper water, trailing a thin wake as they rushed across the open river toward a creek in the port side river bank. Mack knew that the sound of the motor might attract attention, but he considered the fast motion more exposure than the noise. He wanted to minimize their time in the open, so he chose speed over a muffled engine. With calm water, they reached the creek in less than five minutes. They could see only shadows. Nothing moving and only a security light over the fish house yard.
As they slowed, the wake caught them from behind and pushed them toward a cluster of rough dock pilings with a half-rotten ladder dangling from the dock.
“Matty, grab that ladder and see if it will hold. Watch out for barnacles.”
Matty grasped the bottom rung, and it broke off in her hand. “Oops.”
“No worries. Try the one above it. Out of the water, so it may still be solid enough.”
Mack was right. The next rung up was sturdy though old. Matty handed her father her shotgun and balanced on the outer tubes of the dinghy to reach another rung higher and hoist herself up to the dock platform. In her left hand, she held a line to the dinghy. With her right, she reached down to retrieve the shotgun from her father. She laid it aside on the uneven dock boards and reached down again for his rifle.
“Are we going to tie up here?”
“Yes. I’ve got hold of a piling, so drop the bow line to me. I am going to secure the dinghy under the dock out of sight. If we find ourselves in a rush to depart, you will need to swing off the edge of the dock and try to land in the dinghy. If not, just toss the shotgun in and jump into the creek. You can crawl into the dinghy from there. In the meantime, stay sharp. On my way.” Mack spoke in a firm hushed voice, loud enough for Matty to hear him, but whispered enough that the sound would not carry onto the land. He secured the bow line below the water surface so no one passing by would notice an extra line on the dock, a white line on a dark piling in the dusky light.
While Matty continued to survey the area with her eyes, Mack braced himself on the dinghy while touching the bottom of the dock and swung himself around to the outside of the ladder to climb up, thinking to himself “I am too old for this shit. I am going to hurt tomorrow.” But he said nothing until he landed on the dock and huddled beside Matty.
“Anything?”
“All quiet on the western front,” Matty whispered with a smile.
“No movement? No sounds, noises? Dogs?”
“Nada. I think we’re alone.” Matty could not help but think of the Tommy James and the Shondells song, I think we’re alone now. No one around, her heartbeat the only sound. In the comfort of darkness and quiet, Matty felt at ease and the music repeated itself as an ongoing refrain that soothed her tension.
“But that means the owners may be out fishing and could return anytime now that the sun has set. And it’s possible they are night fishing, but we can’t count on that. We’ll just use the darkness as long as we have it.”
Mack’s heart pounded as they bent low and scurried across the open lot from the dock toward the cluster of buildings. Rough, peeling plank walls created a lighter background against which they could see movement or shadows, had there been any. Running fast, their hearts pounding. At the first wall, both pressed themselves against the siding and surveyed the surroundings again from a different angle, looking for what they might see now that they could not see from the dock. Nothing, so they moved along the wall to a dark opening large enough for a boat to be hauled inside. Mack peeked around the corner of the entrance, then slipped into the emptiness away from the opening. Matty followed at his shoulder. Inside was darker than night except for the red and blue pin pricks of LEDs on electronic equipment. Were they alone? They stopped and listened. Nothing. Mack was tempted to turn on the overhead lights but pulled a flashlight from his pocket instead, painting the room with the beam as he quickly assessed what was available, what they needed or might need. Fuel, oil, tools. There was little of use resting on the work tables or hanging on the wall. Simultaneously he scanned for evidence of current use. Were people living or working here, or had the place been abandoned like so many other structures as people fled the vulnerability of isolation? He spotted a big freezer toward the back corner.
“Stay here and keep watch for anyone approaching.”
Without waiting for a reply from Matty, Mack trotted across the open work space to the back and, holding the flashlight in his teeth, right hand on the shotgun, he opened the freezer. Empty. “Damn!” he muttered to himself. The absence of food disappointed him but confirmed that no one was actively using the building. He and Matty should be safe to complete a more thorough search of the property.
Matty was so focused on what might be outside the building that she did not hear Mack hurrying back across the floor. When he tapped her shoulder, Matty jumped. “Just me. Nothing here. No food. Let’s move on.”
As the two ducked low and hurried across the short open spaces between buildings, they were too nervous to reflect on the scope of what they were attempting. Keep watch for strangers, returning fishermen, anyone else on the premises. Look for useful gear, food, any other resources they might imagine a need for in the future without knowing what, specifically, they might need. They would have to know it when they saw it, recognize the value in something that may or may not have been an immediate need. They could no longer count on stores and were not sure how many people would be open to, or trusted to, barter. The collapse of society remained fresh, and new societal rules had not had time to evolve beyond strength and firepower. Community had mostly dissipated, but nothing had replaced the human organizations. Aside from a few MAGs, militia and gangs, people more focused on taking what they wanted than trying to reconstruct a mutually supportive sense of law and order, prevailed.
They darted into and out of unlit buildings using their flashlights to illuminate briefly whatever was left behind. Their searches were increasingly swift as they saw how little remained. After three buildings, both were convinced that the property was abandoned. The fishermen would not return that night and perhaps never. In the same way, they had left nothing of value that could be easily recycled on a boat. Heavy equipment that might be converted to armored vehicles? Yes, plenty of steel and some welding tools to build protection, but none of that would work on the boat without overweighting the hull capacity and making the boat sluggish when, by its nature, their sailboat never had a hull speed above about eight knots except in storm waves.
“Matty. I think we’ve done what we can, what we came to do.”
“We don’t have anything to show for the risk we took.”
“No, but it appears we’ll return to Requiem safely. And that’s most important. Stay alert, and let’s run for the dock.”
“What about the crab traps?”
“Right. Let’s grab a couple. They’re bulky, but two is better than none.”
Mack led the way and both trotted across the open space between the buildings and the water where they would pass the jumbled pile of colorful traps and tangled float lines. All was quiet until a flash of light surprised Mack. “Down!” They dropped to the ground, less than shadows in the darkness. “Quiet,” he hissed to Matty.
Mack clicked off the safety on his rifle as he slid it up in front of him and prepared to lift his torso into a prone position braced on his elbows. Unfortunately, he did not see where the light originated. “Matty, any idea where that light came from?” He continued to whisper.
“No, Dad. It just flicked across my eyes, or I would not have even noticed it.”
“Keep your eyes on the right side toward the entry drive. I’ll take the left and try to twist so that I can scan behind us. Keep your ears alert as well. Hey, and we leave the traps.”
Matty nodded.
Remaining still and moving mainly their eyes with minor discrete turns of their heads, they searched for the source of the light but saw nothing. Nothing moving and no light.They held their position for several minutes before Mack used his hand to signal that they should begin to crawl toward the dock. Night had entirely enveloped them so even the sky provided no background against which their shapes might be noticed. Slowly, maintaining silence in preference to speed, the two belly crawled over soft sand to the dock, ever mindful for movement or sound or anything not the two of them. When they reached the dock, Mack instructed Matty to slide around and face the land while he rolled over the edge of the platform onto the top rung of the dodgy ladder. From the ladder, once his head dropped below the level of the dock platform, he pulled the line from the dinghy and lowered his rifle, careful to click the safety back on. He settled into the dinghy and untied the line, then tapped a piling and whispered a “Psst” to get Matty’s attention. She heard him and knew that he was ready, so she backed off the dock onto the ladder and handed her father her shotgun. When she had lowered herself into the dinghy, Mack told her they would first paddle away from the land until they were confident that no one was watching. It worried him that they had no idea who or what had cast the light. Surely a person, but they had seen no one and heard no movement nor seen evidence that anyone was still living on the property. Who then? Another scavenger? Another person like themselves checking for opportunistic finds? Were they armed? They must be. A person would be foolish to wander the countryside without a weapon of some sort these days. As he pondered the situation, he and Matty crouched low to the dinghy tubes, carefully stroking the paddles so as not to break the water with the noise of a splash, no matter how soft. The dinghy moved slowly, but quiet steady progress was better than revealing their presence to whomever had been on the land when they were. Sound travels fast and far across still waters, so Mack wanted to get a safe distance between them and the fishhouse property before they spoke or called Susan and Andrew on the VHF. Rushing their communications could ruin all the care they had taken to that point.
When they could only see the outline of the cluster of buildings, Mack spoke softly to Matty. “See if you can hail the boat on the VHF, but first be sure the volume is all the way down.”
Matty used her softest voice to speak into the microphone of the VHF. Her voice was so soft she thought it might broadcast as nothing more than a muffled and garbled noise. She held the radio speaker to her ear to listen for a reply. Nothing, so she eased the volume up a touch until she could hear a voice on the other end. “This is Requiem. We read you but can barely hear you.”