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North of Mansfield, Tennessee
Feeling a hand squeeze her shoulder, Sandy jerked awake and before she could say anything, Mary put her finger on Sandy’s mouth. “We need to move,” Mary said in a low voice. As panic filled her body Sandy nodded, and Mary took her finger away.
Climbing out of the hammock, Sandy saw Mary move over to the other shelter they’d put up to shield the gear. Grabbing one of the pack saddles, Mary carried it over to the horses as Sandy grabbed her vest, putting it on. Sandy froze at seeing how skittish the horses were acting.
Turning her eyes to Ann beside Mary, Sandy saw Ann cowering next to Mary’s leg. Pulling the vest over her head, Sandy felt Dan lean against her own leg. Looking down, Sandy saw Dan’s ears laid down in a submissive pose. Stepping from under the tarp, Sandy saw the two creeks beside them were very high and then turned north, the only way to get to them without crossing the raging creeks.
All she saw were trees with sunlight streaming down through the canopy. Tightening the side closers down on her vest, Sandy paused. “No birds,” she mumbled and then realized all she could hear was the water rushing in the creeks and Mary putting saddles on the horses. It was like the forest was holding its breath.
Grabbing her AR, Sandy slung the loop over her head and let the AR hang under her arm. Moving over to the other shelter with Dan walking beside her and his tail tucked, Sandy grabbed another pack saddle and saw it was almost two in the afternoon. Picking the saddle up, Sandy barely registered the weight as adrenaline flooded her system.
Faster than they had ever done before, Sandy and Mary had the camp packed up and horses saddled in minutes. Grabbing Johnathan’s messenger bag, Sandy pulled out the plastic bag with the topo book refreshing her memory for the route and felt Dan trembling as he sat next to her leg.
Glancing up from the map, Sandy saw Mary tying the packhorses in a line before taking the hobbles off or untying them from the hitch line. When Mary took the first horse’s hobbles off, the packhorse started pulling away from the others, but the lead line held tight. Walking over, Mary smacked the horse hard and the horse moved back to the others.
Fighting to suppress the panic building inside, Sandy looked back at the map. “First route cross Kentucky Lake at Camden eighteen miles away,” she mumbled and then made a route to the north and south. Then she looked back at the city of Camden, not liking how big it was and they would be crossing in daylight. Quickly finding a path that skirted around Camden to the bridge, Sandy put the topo book back in the plastic bag, then tucked it inside the messenger bag.
“Sorry,” Mary whispered, leading the horses over but wasn’t looking at Sandy. Mary’s eyes were scanning the forest around them. “Ten minutes before I woke you, the entire forest became deathly quiet. The birds, insects, hell, everything just stopped making noise. Then the horses started pulling on the hitch line and the dogs started cowering down.”
Just slinging the messenger bag on her left side, Sandy pushed it to her back. “We are fucking leaving,” Sandy whispered back, grabbing her backpack and throwing it on. “Get on so I can hand Ann up to you.”
Not arguing, Mary moved to her horse, climbed on, and Sandy passed Ann up. As Ann laid down in front of Mary, Mary held Sandy’s horse’s reins. Grabbing Dan, Sandy climbed up in the saddle while Mary rode up and passed the reins over. Dan had no problem lying across the saddle.
Gripping the reins, Sandy glanced around the camp area. “We are leaving and if it’s not packed, we can replace it,” Mary whispered, scanning the forest.
Feeling her AR dangling off the right side of the horse, Sandy grabbed it and laid it across Dan. When Sandy gave her horse a kick, she wasn’t expecting the response. The horse lurched forward, going into a gallop.
Yanking back on the reins, Sandy made the horse skid to a stop and then she let the tension up on the reins. The horse immediately moved into a fast walk, weaving around the trees as Sandy guided it east. Dropping her eyes for a second, Sandy was relieved to see Dan had handled the lurch of the horse very well and had barely moved. Holding the reins in her left hand Sandy patted Dan, trying to stop him from trembling so much.
Coming around a large oak, Sandy gave a small gasp to see two does lying in the tall grass. Both deer looked at Sandy as she passed but didn’t sprint away. “Oh shit,” Sandy mumbled, looking around. Reaching up, Sandy lifted her cap off and wiped the sweat from her forehead.
Seeing a sunlit field ahead, Sandy had to fight her horse to get it to stop before they left the tree line. All she could manage was to get the horse to slow its walk down. Settling for that, Sandy reached behind her and dug her binoculars from the saddle bag. Lifting the binoculars up, Sandy pushed down her sunglasses before peering ahead.
Not seeing anything in the field ahead, Sandy just hung the binoculars around her neck as the horse stepped out into the field. Scanning the field, Sandy saw trees to the north and south only a few hundred yards away. To her front, Sandy saw the blacktop road they would follow to Camden.
The horses’ hooves made no sound in the damp ground as they crossed the small field. The small field opened into a larger field and Sandy scanned around again, but only saw trees to the north and south with the road several hundred yards to the east and a few trees past it.
A gentle breeze blew in from the south and Sandy fought not to gag as the horses snorted and the dogs whined. “Please tell me you don’t smell that?” Mary asked in a quivering voice.
“Stinkers,” Sandy gasped, turning to the south as the field they were in emptied into another and the trees to the south stopped three hundred yards from the road. Squinting her eyes, Sandy saw something in the distance well over a mile away. Lifting up the binoculars, Sandy zoomed in and her mouth fell open.
A virtual wall of stinkers was stumbling toward them. At first, Sandy thought the stinkers were just filling the roadway and fields beside the road, until she saw trees being pushed down and stinkers pouring out of trees and into the field a half a mile from the road. Realizing a solid wall of stinkers over a mile across was to the south, Sandy fought not to panic.
Dropping the binoculars, Sandy kicked her horse hard. “Let’s go!” Sandy called over her shoulder as her horse took off. Not feeling her saddle being tugged by the packhorses, Sandy glanced back and saw the packhorses right behind her in a full gallop. Lifting her gaze, Sandy saw Mary right beside her, holding the reins with one hand and Ann with the other.
Blowing over the small blacktop, Sandy felt her horse jump the ditch and prayed the packhorses would as well. When the horse landed Sandy sighed, figuring the packhorses were still with her. They galloped hard across the open field and Sandy pulled back on the reins, slowing the horse before they reached the trees.
Again she had to fight, but the horse slowed to a walk yards before they entered the trees. “You knock me off and I’ll shoot your ass and let the stinkers eat you,” Sandy warned the horse as she patted Dan.
“That was our road,” Mary panted with wide eyes. “That was a wave of stinkers.”
“We’ll just hit Highway 69 to the east. We were going to be following it anyway.”
Visibly trembling, “They were knocking over trees,” Mary gasped.
To keep her mind occupied, Sandy glanced down to check her equipment and make sure it was still secured. Seeing her bow was only shoved in the scabbard, Sandy reached down and tied it in. Finding nothing else loose, Sandy saw a field ahead past the trees.
“Highway 69 is a mile past the tree line. If there are fences, move up to my horse and support Dan while I cut them,” Sandy instructed, tensing her body up.
“I fucking hate fences.”
“Yeah,” Sandy nodded as her horse stepped into the field. Sandy never touched or instructed her horse to run; it took that up himself.
Galloping hard across the fields, Sandy felt her hat getting pulled by the wind and reached up, turning it around. Seeing a small drainage ditch ahead, Sandy tried to slow her horse, but he wasn’t having any of that.
As her horse leapt the ditch, Sandy gave a sigh to see it was only six feet across. She felt her saddle tug as each packhorse landed, and glanced back to see them all running behind her. Turning back around, Sandy saw the highway a half a mile ahead and thankfully, no barbed wire fences.
When they neared the highway Sandy yanked back on the reins, slowing her horse to a fast walk. Turning to the south, Sandy felt her blood turn cold. “Mary, follow me and if you need me to stop, shoot your pistol.”
“We have the radios,” Mary said, then turned to the north and saw a black crowd of stinkers a half a mile away.
“We can’t hear them with the horses running,” Sandy pointed out, kicking her horse and it took off. Crossing another field, Sandy only slowed her horse to a trot when they reached the trees. When they came out on a dirt road, Sandy steered her horse east and kicked him in a canter on the dirt road.
Several times she had to yank on the reins to keep her horse from going into a full sprint. Glancing back, she saw Mary was having the same problem with her horse but like Sandy, Mary won. Turning back around, Sandy prayed she had remembered the map correctly.
Twenty minutes later, Sandy saw a large stream beside the road and gave a sigh of relief that she had remembered the map. Slowing her horse, Sandy steered it toward the stream. Never hesitating for a second the horse walked into the water, but never had to swim with the water only coming up to Sandy’s knees.
When the horse came out on the other bank, Sandy yanked back on the reins, feeling the horse tense up to run again. “You need to save that energy, bub, because I’m carrying Dan before I carry your ass,” Sandy told the horse.
Crossing several fields, Sandy led them onto another dirt road that headed due east. Mary looked around them and sighed, seeing empty fields to the south. Ahead, she saw a road running north to south. “What’s the road ahead?”
“Highway 69A,” Sandy answered over her shoulder. “It leads to Big Sandy.”
Giving a sigh, “So, we are taking the north route using 79?” Mary asked. “You think we can make it through?”
“We can try.”
“Sandy, there were thousands of them!” Mary cried out, and Sandy yanked her horse to a stop very much against his will.
“You saw them to the south. You want to try going through a wave of stinkers?” Sandy asked, and saw Mary’s face pale and her mouth fall open.
“They were to the south also?” Mary whimpered, and Sandy felt nauseous.
“Mary, didn’t you look south?”
Shaking her head, “No, didn’t you look north? The stinkers were flowing across that road we were taking to Camden like a wave.”
Feeling faint, Sandy closed her eyes, “No, I was looking south at a wave of stinkers flowing north.”
“Oh my God, we’re surrounded!” Mary gasped, and Sandy opened her eyes and kicked her horse.
“Come on!” Sandy barked getting her horse back into a canter. When she crossed 69A, Sandy looked south and could see the mass in the distance, then turned north and had hope. There were stinkers, a lot of them, but not a wall.
Crossing the highway, Sandy followed a small blacktop road, steering her horse to the shoulder. Glancing up, Sandy saw a gaggle of stinkers stumble out of the trees on the north side of the road. Her horse never changed pace, realizing it would be past the group long before they were a threat.
When they were past, Sandy breathed through pursed lips to slow her heart rate down as another group of stinkers plowed out of the trees to the north. Giving up on slowing her heart rate down, Sandy just held on as the horse cantered past the hundred-yard-long wall of bodies that plowed out of the trees.
Riding for ten minutes and only seeing occasional stinkers around, Sandy steered her horse off the road and into a field. Mary was about to pull up and ask, but saw Sandy heading straight for a hill ahead of them. Granted, after the hills and mountains out west, the small bump barely registered, but it was over a hundred and fifty feet higher than they were.
Reaching the trees, Sandy slowed and steered her horse in, guiding him up the steep slope. When they reached the top, Sandy moved along the crest until she found a spot she could see south. Sandy didn’t need her binoculars to see the dark mass a mile away that went east and west as far as she could see. Hearing Mary give a yelp, Sandy just turned her horse around and headed back along the ridge until she found a spot she could see north.
Finding a spot, Sandy saw a mass from the west hitting the town of Big Sandy. The mass just flowed around where the bank of a bay of Kentucky Lake met Big Sandy. Then she turned to the northeast and saw the finger of land that ran between the bay and lake, realizing it wouldn’t be long until the mass moving into Big Sandy would fill that peninsula.
“Okay,” Sandy sighed, reaching around and digging out the topo book. Flipping it open, “The base of the peninsula is seven miles wide and eleven miles long. The narrowest part of the bay is over a mile. We would have to swim,” Sandy noted.
“The horses can’t swim that far with the gear on,” Mary panted, staring at the mass pouring into Big Sandy with her binoculars.
“And I see some sandbars on the map of the lake, but it’s still over a mile,” Sandy said, slowly running her finger along the lake that looked more like a large river.
Letting out a gasp, Sandy closed the topo book and shoved it back in the plastic bag. “What?” Mary asked unenthusiastically.
“Come on,” Sandy answered, then led her horse down the hill heading north.
“We are heading on the peninsula?” Mary called out, following.
“It’s the only place we can go,” Sandy told Mary over her shoulder.
Giving up on stealth, Sandy steered her horse on to a road and committed to speed, getting her horse back into a canter heading north. Seeing stinkers on the road ahead, turn around and start toward them, Sandy lifted her AR. After four misses, Sandy started timing her shots with the horse’s canter and only missed every other shot, plowing them a road north.
After two miles and three magazines, Sandy slapped in a new one and sighed at seeing only single stinkers ahead. Mary pulled up beside Sandy and helped clear the road. “Turning right ahead!” Sandy shouted out as Mary shot, dropping a stinker.
“The horses can’t swim a mile!” Mary shouted back.
“They won’t have to swim a mile!” Sandy answered, lowering her AR and shooting a stinker before taking a right turn.
Following the twisting back road, they shot any stinkers that would get in the way. It was when Sandy reached down, only feeling four magazines left in her vest, she started to get worried.
