Ten minutes later, they were sitting in the cover of trees. Peter worked on the quiet man’s ankle, examining it to determine if it was broken or if there was any serious injury. Just a moment ago, Natasha and the quiet man had come hobbling in together. Drawing close to Peter’s location, Natasha ran ahead to get the medical bag, before remembering that they no longer had it. Happily, there was no need for it; the man’s ankle wasn’t in any serious danger.
“It’ll be sore awhile, and if we were in the old world I’d tell you to stay off of it and take it easy, but obviously you can’t do that now.” Peter looked at the others and wondered if they remembered what it was like to be back in that other life, then he looked back to the man to see if he gave any indication of his thinking, but he did not.
Peter turned to Lang, “I don’t even know if he speaks English or if he understands me. Perhaps he’s a mute.” He raised his voice to the man, speaking slowly, “Do you understand?”
“He speaks English,” Lang said with a slight smirk on his face. “And he understands you. At least, he understood Natasha well enough, back at that bridge.”
“People communicate in many ways,” Peter said, “sometimes body language conveys as much understanding as words.”
Natasha nodded her agreement to Lang’s opinion. “He understood the words I said. Apparently, he’s just the quiet type.”
The quiet man—about twenty years old, handsome and well built, with blue eyes and sandy-colored hair—looked slowly over to Lang and smiled without saying a word.
“Well, there’s not much I can say for his gifts of conversation,” Peter said. He helped the man re-lace his boot and then stand to his feet. The man gave a little hop as he did so. The ankle was tentative, at best, but he applied weight to it and then stood up straight, as if to indicate that the injury was not going to be a problem for him.
The man was dressed in what had once been an army green coat and BDU pants, but the man had engaged in some makeshift winter camouflage attempts, and the coat and pants had been hastily spray painted with splotches of white paint, and here and there outlines of green pine branches appeared among the white patches.
His gun, a bolt-action sniper rifle with a pricey scope attached to it, he’d camouflaged with white and green as well. His backpack matched the rest of him.
Peter nodded to the man, and then to the weapons each of them carried, as if he was bringing attention to the fact that he was not going to cause anyone trouble, and he didn’t want any in return.
“Well, sir,” Peter said, “I don’t know who you are, where you came from, or what you’re doing out here.” He glanced at the man. “We don’t know whose side you’re on, or if you are a good guy or a bad guy, but—”
“It’s okay,” the man said quietly. It was the first words he’d spoken. “It’s really… it is best…” The four others stared at him, and he shook his head that he meant it. He wanted the older man to understand that he appreciated the hospitality, but he understood that the group now had to be on their way.
“We should just part and wish each other well,” the man said.
Then, the awkward moment was over, and the man just stared at Peter without any hint of a response on his face.
“Well, sir, you’re free to travel with us,” Peter told him, in case that might influence his decision. “We’re short-handed and under-trained, but we could use the extra gun and skills. Up to a point. It’s up to you.”
The man shook his head no, and he picked up the rifle and tossed it over his shoulder by the strap before doing the same with his bag over the other shoulder. He turned to walk away, limping only slightly on his injured ankle. Just as he was about to disappear into the thick brush of the woods, he turned and looked at all four of the travelers, one at a time.
“Ace,” he said, matter-of-factly and without any apparent emotion. “That’s my name,” he said. “And thank you all.” He acted as if that was all that needed to be said. Ace then turned back toward the woods, and with a few confident steps, he was gone.
Lang looked at Natasha and Elsie and noticed that they sat there staring for a few extra beats, watching as Ace disappeared into the woods. Ace was a good-looking man, no denying it, Lang thought. He didn’t blame the ladies for being a bit taken with him. A smile broke across his face. He shook his head, and they all stared at each other for a moment, searching to see if everyone was having the same thoughts about the strange encounter with this man, and then they all broke into laughter.
They came upon the abandoned cabin just as darkness began to fall. Some kind of violence had occurred there, though there were no corpses evident lying around the place. They could tell there had been violence by the pockmarking of bullet holes in the walls, and the telltale signs that looters or bandits, or maybe just regular folks had ransacked the place. The door hung loosely on the hinges, and the glass from most of the windows was lying shattered on the ground instead of safely in its frames.
We know the events that we experience, and we have some knowledge of the legends that we are told, but the mind reels at the stories a place like this could tell when the world as we know it has ended. This lonely cabin in the woods had seen numerous such tales play out as individuals, groups, and bandits, and maybe even armies had crisscrossed these woods in search of someplace “safe.” The story of our four travelers was just now intersecting with this cabin, but dozens of other stories, all of them just as important to the characters living through them, had unfolded here. From the looks of the place, not all of them had ended well.
“Buildings make me nervous,” Peter said. “We don’t have enough people to secure a building, for one thing.” He paused, as if there were no reason number two. “It is shelter, sure, but it’s not much more than that.” He looked around at the place and considered the things that to him were painfully apparent, if one only cared to look. “If we stay too long, more people will be coming along.”
“Lang has to rest, Peter,” Natasha said. Elsie nodded her head in agreement and added, “And his wound needs treatment. He’s growing weaker, and the pain is obvious on his face.” Natasha touched Peter on the arm, and gave him a little smile, “We need to stop.”
They went through the building thoroughly, checking every place where someone might be hiding, but they found no one. Then they began to prepare an area to treat Lang’s wound. Peter briefed the women on what they would need to do, which didn’t take long seeing that their meds and first aid case had been stolen.
He patted Lang lightly on the back, then told Natasha, who’d been standing lookout at the door, that he needed go up front and secure the premises.
“You guide Elsie through the steps that I taught you. Do it thoroughly, and call me if you need anything.”
Elsie helped Lang remove his shirt, and it became clear, very quickly, that things were not right. The skin was pale and the area on the arm surrounding the wound was angry, red, and warm to the touch. The gunshot wound was infected, and it was much worse than they’d suspected.
The darkness was starting to invade the cabin. Natasha called to Peter who came down the hall, and, as he did, she stepped out into the hallway to meet him. Peter knew that if there were anything at all that they could do to help Lang, they’d have to do it quickly, before the cabin became shrouded in darkness. He might not survive another day if we don’t do something now, Peter thought, the world itself might become shrouded in darkness.
Something must be done. But what?