Into The Darkness by Doug Kelly Page A

we can have a better chance to get through
this,” said Dylan.
    “My
condo is in the middle of a concrete jungle. I don’t have a chance there. I can
stay at your house…really?”
    “Yeah,
really. Where’s our fisherman?”
    Richard
pointed toward Kevin. He was already up and had checked the lines. Kevin had two
fish strung through the gills using a willow branch. In his other hand, he had
a large crayfish. He held the crayfish up for Dylan’s inspection.
    “Well,
well, well…what do we have here…lobster for breakfast?” Dylan asked with a
laugh. “Not a bad idea. I’ll be right back,” Dylan said, as he picked up an
empty pan and darted toward the river.
    Dylan
went to an area with shallow water. He carefully turned all the large flat
rocks over to reveal the creatures underneath. The crayfish were plentiful. He
caught seven more and returned to the campfire with his bounty. They ate some
bagels with the roasted catfish and boiled crayfish. The baby ate a little
crushed cereal, but no one was full. They had to stretch out the food supply.
    Dylan
wanted to work on the bow for a while before heading downstream to the first
dam. He needed a way to hold the wood tight and still so he could use both
hands to hold the knife and carve the wood. He noticed a small tree that
bifurcated into an acute angle at its trunk, a few feet above the ground. With
Kevin’s assistance, he set the bow stave in the bifurcation of the tree trunk
and Kevin stood on the other side of the tree pulling the end of the stave at
an angle to lock it tightly in place. It worked; the stave held solid in that
position. Dylan angled the knife toward the wood and held the blade tightly
with both hands. Slowly, he pulled the knife toward himself removing more thin
shavings of wood. Occasionally he would remove the stave from the tree and
compare both sides for symmetry. When Dylan judged that he had completed enough
rough carving, he held one end of the stave in his left hand and put the other
tip of the stave to the ground. He pushed onto the center of the bow and it started
to bend. Then he went through the same process with the other bow.
    “Perfect!”
Dylan exclaimed. “These need to dry completely, then I’ll take the length down
to size. We’ll keep them in the sun. With this dry air, it shouldn’t take too
long at all.”
    “We
still need arrows and strings,” said Kevin.
    “One
thing at a time, my friend. Trust me. Now let’s get out of here. We have five
dams waiting for us,” Dylan said, holding up all the fingers of his right hand.
    It
was another bright, clear day. The morning sun was in their eyes as it rose
higher in the distant horizon. Dylan thought about the sun as he paddled toward
it. Should he blame the sun? Or maybe the blame should go to humans for being so
completely dependent on little computer chips. The answer did not matter; they
could not change their predicament. He looked upward and saw buzzards circling
in the sky on invisible columns of air. He reaffirmed his promise to himself
that he would survive and make it back home to his family.
    Where
the interstate crossed the river, there was a small road running parallel and
close to the water. They got the raft to the riverbank and let Beth and her
child out.
    “Thank
you so much,” she said profusely. “I don’t know what would have happened to us
if you hadn’t come along.”
    Dylan
asked, “Where will you go? What will you do?”
    “I
live off base in an apartment. I’ll go back there and see what happens. I
really don’t know.”
    She
turned and walked away, stopping once to smile back at the men as they receded
from her view.
    The
men floated under several bridges on the way to the first dam. They observed
men, wearing uniforms of military camouflage and holding automatic weapons,
patrolling the bridges. Whispering amongst themselves as they stealthily
floated downstream, they speculated on what the military’s orders were. Was
there already