Page 142 of Darling Wildfire
I’d do whatever it took to ensure we got out of this.
69
THERON
A month passed, and we still hadn’t wandered into civilization yet. We looked like an extension of the wilderness—our clothing cut and torn, hair scraggly and dirty and rough beards on all our faces. We hadn’t seen any sign of Vetticus but I wasn’t surprised because now, he had to contend with three military trained men who had the upper hand and who didn’t want to be found. I had no intention of ever letting him find us.
Nyx’s hand was slowly healing. The process hindered by lack of nutrition and proper care. Atlas’ back was no longer open wounds but I could tell the skin was still sensitive and because I couldn’t stitch it up, he was sure to have some wicked looking scars.
But overall, we were alive. We were surviving.
And that was all that mattered.
It was the only thing I allowed myself to focus on. I couldn’t afford to think about anything else or I knew I wouldn’t be able to pick myself up and go on.
We were always hungry and expended massive amounts of energy walking every day so we had nearly no fat on our bodies anymore and our pace was slow. We caught what game we could—usually rabbits, once a porcupine. After the first clear night, it rained almost every day so we had plenty of water. We rarely spoke, operating off hand signals if needed but I could tell we were all nearing our limits. Our bodies just weren’t holding up well enough with such little food.
I called a halt midday and Atlas collapsed onto a tree stump, his head in his hands. Nyx leaned against a tree, staring off into the greenery with a dull look of someone working on autopilot.
Suddenly, Atlas’ head whipped up.
“Do you hear that?” His voice came out raspy and hoarse from lack of use.
“A car,” Nyx said.
Nyx and I followed him through the trees until we saw a break throughthe forest and an old beat-up pickup truck was rolling down a furrowed dirt road. We followed the truck through the forest for a few miles until the trees abruptly ended and the road spilled out across a valley with mountains far in the distance. The truck was headed towards a farm that sat about half a mile from where we crouched at the treeline.
“We’ll wait for dark,” I said and made myself comfortable in the shadows of the trees.
I watched the truck come to a stop in the yard and a woman got out, two paper bags clutched to her chest as she lugged her groceries into the house. The farm looked like in the past it had been well kept but now had the hint of neglect tugging at its edges. The garden was the only thing that looked taken care of, having been recently weeded and trimmed, but the yard needed a mow, there was fencing in one pasture that needed repairing and the barn looked like it hadn’t been swept out in some time. A few horses sat in the backfield, a few sheep and goats in another near the house and there was a chicken coop on the side yard.
The house was a two story old style farmhouse with peeling white paint and a bench swing on the wrap-around porch. The place held a nostalgic feeling about it as well as an underlying sadness I couldn’t place. We sat watching the house the entire afternoon and didn’t see anyone but the woman. No kids, no men—just an old hobbling german shepherd who emerged when the woman returned home and hadn’t moved from his spot laying on the porch steps.
When night finally came, we carefully approached the house in the cover of darkness and split up. Atlas took the barn and Nyx and I flanked the house. There was a single light on in one of the upper windows which I assumed was the woman’s bedroom, otherwise the house was dark.
The backdoor was unlocked, alluding to the level of security the woman felt by being this far out in the wild. She must be a comfortable distance from any neighbors or towns to not feel any threats. We met Atlas back at the barn. He had a basket full of vegetables from the garden.
“There’s a well,” he whispered.
Nyx nodded and moved off to fetch water while Atlas and I entered the barn and headed towards one of the far stalls. The barn didn’t look used in a while, with cobwebs heavy in the corners and the straw smelled of mildew, but it was relatively dry and I was thankful for a warm shelter as the rain started up again outside.
“It’s a feast,” Nyx said when he came back, eyeing the food hungrily. I agreed and for the first time in a month we went to bed with full stomachs.
For the next week, we settled into a routine.
An hour before dawn, we’d head back to the treeline to watch the house during the day, then creep down and raid the garden and well before sleeping in the barn. If the woman noticed, she gave no signs of it. Her daily routine consisted of letting the dog out, having coffee on the porch and then she’d do some farm chores such as weeding the garden, taking care of the chickens and livestock, and a few other odd jobs before she’d move inside the house and we wouldn’t see her again.
As we sat down in our stall in the back of the stable on the seventh night; I bit into a carrot and nodded towards the house.
“I’m going inside tonight,” I said.
“Do you think that’s a good idea?” Atlas asked.
“I want to see if we can get a read on where in the world we are. The truck doesn’t have a license plate.”
Nyx nodded. “See if you can find some more food. Veggies are good and all but I’d love some fresh bread—with butter…or some meat.” He moaned at the thought and Atlas scoffed under his breath.
“Always hungry,” he muttered.
