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Northwest Keavy, Kentucky
For two hours, Sandy led them in a zig-zag course and backtracked several times. When she reached a stream, they would let the horses walk in the water for a while and then get out. The sun was setting when they finally left the Daniel Boone Forest and entered farmland. In the forest they hadn’t seen a single stinker, but no sooner than they crossed Highway 192, stinkers started appearing.
Not able to hold it in anymore, Mary kicked her horse until she was next to Sandy, “Our boys blew up a town?” Mary asked.
Holding her chin high, “I’m sure they had a good reason,” Sandy countered. “That’s another reason I couldn’t let Diane come with us. Victor doesn’t need to know the Wild Ones are kids.”
“It may not be them,” Mary countered, but sounded like she was trying to convince herself. “Sandy, they don’t know war and stuff.”
“Oh, I beg to differ. They know war very well. Just look at all they have had blamed on them. They can attack and can’t be blamed.”
Shaking her head, “An entire town?” Mary mumbled.
“With numbers that matched Victor’s, so a nice-sized gang,” Sandy said rather proudly. “Yes, we are taking the boys when we go Thelma and Louise.”
When the sun dipped below the horizon, they pulled on night vision and continued on, staying near or in trees. The memorized trip was the same one the boys had used to get to the cabin, but since they had been pushed so far north, Sandy made changes by finding a creek running under Interstate 75.
A mile from the interstate they entered trees, and had to slow down to dodge stinkers trying to hide. Pulling her bow back, Sandy let the arrow fly and didn’t even watch it punch in the stinker’s forehead. Her mind was still trying to comprehend all she had learned.
Feeling Tyler squeeze her leg, Sandy turned to the right to see a stinker hiding behind a tree. “Some of you really have the concept hide and seek down, but I like the stupid ones,” Sandy said, releasing an arrow. Behind her, Mary leaned over and pulled the arrow out.
“Smell them?” Chris whispered, and Mary just nodded.
A hundred yards from the interstate, they could hear feet shuffling and bodies bumping into the cars. They couldn’t see the interstate until they were about to go under it. Feeling her saddle get wet, Sandy patted Tyler’s chest and felt him trembling.
Keeping her horse on the grass, Sandy didn’t want to even risk whispering to Tyler. When they came out the other side, Tyler tried to lean out to look back, but Sandy grabbed his head before turning it forward. Yet she glanced back, and shivered at the packed interstate.
Reentering the trees, she gave a sigh of relief after not hearing one fall over the side, which would’ve meant they had been spotted. North of Lily, she started heading southeast and was soon left to follow fence rows.
It was 2300 when they were south of Bailey Switch. It pissed Sandy off knowing if she just headed east, she would pass through Hinkle and reach the cabin in six miles. But because of this perimeter and traps, she had to turn southeast again and head nine miles to Dewitt and then five miles to the cabin, staying on the road.
When they passed below Cannon, Sandy noticed a drastic decrease in stinkers. Hearing Mary move up, “Sandy, are there less stinkers here?” Mary asked.
Nodding, “Yeah, I was expecting more with Barbourville to the south,” Sandy admitted.
Nearing Bimble, Sandy pulled her map out to make sure she would stay outside of the three mile perimeter. Measuring from the outskirts of Bimble to the perimeter, she saw there was only a mile wide gap. Then she heard Johnathan in her mind, ‘I guarantee you: they have lethal traps everywhere, except from Dewitt to the field below the cabin’.
“We’ll hug closer to Bimble?” she mumbled.
“Huh?” Tyler asked, scanning around.
Patting his chest, “Nothing, baby. Keep scanning,” she told him, and glanced down at Dan beside her. “You have earned some downtime, Dan,” she smiled.
It was just after one a.m. that Sandy led them past a pond in a narrow valley that led up a draw. She turned and saw a tin building elevated off the ground and wondered what it was doing out here, not knowing Lance had thought the same thing when they’d found Holly and Dawn in that very building.
Not even an hour later Tyler gave a jerk, and Sandy yanked the reins back to stop the horse. “What?” she asked, leaning down to Tyler.
“I hear a TV,” Tyler told her, then cocked his head to the side. “It sounds like South Park.”
Knowing exactly where she was at, Sandy knew there wasn’t a house close. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, but I don’t hear it now,” he said, looking up the steep slope to their front.
“Chris said he heard a TV,” Mary said, stopping beside Sandy.
“So did Tyler,” Sandy told her.
“Dewitt is right over that ridge,” Mary said excitedly.
“Anything or anyone gets in our way, we kill their best friend’s baby before killing them,” Sandy offered.
“With a bottle of baking soda,” Mary added.
Letting her mind come up with images to that, Sandy kicked her horse to steer it up the steep slope. Halfway up, she began to wonder if she shouldn’t have found a gentler slope. Reaching the top, Sandy yanked her horse to a stop which he didn’t mind. Turning as Mary rode up beside her, “I heard Family Guy,” Sandy said.
“Stewie” Mary nodded.
“What dumbass would be playing a TV that loud?” Sandy scoffed and kicked her horse, steering it through the trees. Then she saw light ahead, artificial light, and the sound of Family Guy was getting louder. “Is someone grinding up trees while listening to a TV under a spotlight in Dewitt?” she wondered out loud.
“What’s that ‘RRRRug’ sound?” Tyler asked. Staring at the light coming up from the valley, Sandy just shrugged. With the world pitch-black, the light radiated into the sky.
“Fuck a rubber duck,” Sandy gasped, reaching the tree line. Six hundred feet below them was a machine with flashing police lights, driving around in a box that was outlined with a pile. Stinkers would charge it and fall in the front of the machine and disappear, with stuff flying out the sides.
Digging around for real binoculars, Mary just lifted her scope up and gave a gasp to see the front was covered with rollers and when a stinker fell in, it was ground up and spit out the sides. “What in the hell have they made now?” Mary wondered in awe.
Looking through the binoculars Sandy was speechless, seeing the ‘pile’ around the box wasn’t dirt, it was ground up stinker. “What is it?” Tyler asked.
Giving a shrug, “A stinker eater,” Sandy offered, then noticed another machine parked in a corner, but that one had eight wheels unlike the one eating stinkers, that one had tracks.
Mary climbed off her horse and pulled out the telescope. She fought the urge to cheer, seeing a group of ten stinkers charge into the box at the machine. It spun toward them and drove right at them. The grinding sound changed to a deep pitch as four fell in at once. While the machine ate those, the other stinkers surrounded it, beating on the sides.
Backing straight up, the machine turned to the group on the left and charged. In short order the ten were gone, littered across the ground. Family Guy ended and rock and roll started playing. Sandy lowered her binoculars and numbly climbed off her horse. She turned toward Dewitt and didn’t see any buildings standing or stinkers heading for the machine.
When the machine moved, she whipped her head around as the humming stopped and she lifted the binoculars up. Very clearly, she could see the rollers on the front of the machine were lined with rows of teeth. Furrowing her brow, she watched the machine drive to the edge of the outlined box of gore.
Coming to a stop the machine spun, drove a few feet and then turned around and drove to the other side. Turning around and repeating the process, Sandy saw the plow blade at the bottom pushing the gore in the box to the side.
“Sandy, Ian and Lance made that stinker eater! It’s even cleaning up after itself!” Mary said in awe.
Lowering the binoculars slowly, “Oh, Jonathan, I’m so sorry for doubting you,” Sandy said with a little fear in her voice.
“Huh?” Mary asked, watching the machine clean the area.
“Jonathan said they would build stuff we couldn’t even imagine, and we were to only come in from Dewitt.”
Dropping her hand holding the telescope, “Yes, so did Bill, and we did just that,” Mary said.
“Mary, look where it is. It is right beside the road we take to the cabin. That’s why they said we only come in during the daylight. It has a defined area to attack, drawing stinkers to it. Jonathan and Bill knew the boys would do this, and wanted daylight to make sure they saw what the boys had put out. They only said the road was clear, but not how much of the road. What if one of those is beside the road further down, but doesn’t have lights or music playing.”
Getting scared, Mary turned to the machine and noticed the area the machine was driving in was nearly clean. “Sandy, I want to get home just as bad as you, but we are waiting till nine o’clock. By then, the sun will be high enough, it will be shining down into the bottom of all the valleys,” Mary told her.
Nodding, “If they made that and consider it safe, what the hell else do you think they have built?” Sandy wondered, helping Tyler out of the saddle.
“Like Bill and Jonathan, even if we guess, I’m sure we won’t be close.”
They tied the horses up and just sat down on the hilltop as Sandy pulled out the map. As she and Tyler sat down with Mary and Chris, Mary gasped while watching Sandy use string and draw a perfect circle out from the cabin. “You marked the map,” Mary chided.
“Hell, yeah! I want to make sure we are well outside of that perimeter,” Sandy snapped.
Leaning back and looking north up the ridge, “How far away are we?” Mary asked nervously.
“Just over three hundred yards,” Sandy answered.
“Think we need to move?”
Shaking her head, “No, they knew to keep this route clear, but I’m glad we didn’t get closer anywhere else. I think we should’ve gone south of Bimble. We were never supposed to come this way, but I was anxious,” Sandy said, feeling very guilty for not doing what Jonathan and Bill had drilled into them.
“You think they put lethal stuff outside the three mile perimeter elsewhere?”
“I can almost guarantee it. We both noticed few stinkers on the west side of the perimeter. If you look at the map, it makes the most sense, that side is where the towns are,” Sandy explained.
“Sandy, we are here and won’t head in till nine,” Mary said, reaching over and patting her leg. “Let’s eat and watch the stinker eater, another group is coming.”
Pulling out food the four sat on the hillside, watching the display of the imagination of Ian and Lance.
