Chapter Three #2
People everywhere saw her in her bright orange working-dog vest with no one in close proximity, and they chuckled at her antics. Creed knew what she was doing; she was right on track, following the trail for the entirety of the boy’s time running around the field.
A woman saw Rou stop and sniff a particular spot and reached out to grab her collar.
She thought she was being a good Samaritan, helping to capture a loose dog.
Creed cupped his hands around his mouth and called out. “Working dog, please release her collar, ma’am.”
The woman startled and jerked her hand back, grimacing at Rou, who had been thrown off her task and sat staring at the woman. As Creed jogged over, he made a mental note that they would need to teach Rou what to do if such a thing were to happen on future searches.
“I’m so sorry,” the woman said as Creed pulled out the scent source bag. “I thought I was helping.”
“It came from a good place, I’m sure. Misunderstanding is all,” Creed said as he got Rou back on task.
Soon, Rou was in the woods, and Creed had high confidence they were on target.
Creed predicted that there he wouldn’t find a footprint with paw prints or otherwise.
This debris was dry throughout its entire thickness, down to the clay below.
On the way in, Creed noticed that a fire hazard warning sign had the needle pressed to the far extreme of red.
Tracking behind Rou, Creed could see the dangers that a nonchalantly flicked cigarette could pose.
Where that impacted his ability to find prints, there were places where the leaf litter was disturbed, and the stride seemed short enough to be a child’s track. And there, it looked like someone had dragged a stick.
This property was situated on a bowl-shaped peninsula with two rivers ribboning around it. That bowl formed the dell, which was a natural place to set up a permanent stage. Folks could sit on the slope and see clearly. The acoustics were good.
Following that slope away from the water and up the hill, there was an opulent mansion from back at the turn of the nineteenth century, when coal lined pockets with enormous wealth.
The company used it as a retreat center for their national conventions.
The boy might catch a glimpse of that and go to investigate.
If the boy continued in this direction, the rivers would act as a natural barricade. The child couldn’t wander but so far before he was stopped on three sides by the water.
One of the risks of searching for children who were about seven years old was that they knew enough to think they might be able to get themselves out of their mess. They’d try to backtrack, and usually that’s how they got themselves lost.
A tree was a tree was a tree.
If you thought you could find your way because you recognized a tree, you were lost for sure.
Right now, Rou was a red dot on Creed’s map app. She was running faster than a human could catch up, and she wasn’t holding back for anything. She had her scent. She felt the call of her genes to do the job she loved. And off she went.
Of course, she was wearing her collar with the camera and two-way communications. Creed could recall her if necessary.
Right now, Creed was peeking at his phone app because he was still learning to trust his shirt.
Mind-boggling that he could just run along and know where to go because of smart clothes.
Seeing that his shirt had him in line with the phone—again, mindboggling—Creed slid his cell phone into the zippered pocket on his right hip and paid attention to the pressure on his arms.
Did the shirt understand that sometimes Rou went in a straight line and sometimes she had to zigzag to pick up the scent again? Apparently not.
The right sleeve would inflate, then the left.
Creed would have to discuss the extra steps and pivots the shirt wanted him to take with the software engineers. There should be a way to put the data in a straight line from his position to Rou’s.
The engineers wouldn’t know how things went down in the field unless it was explained to them, so Creed made a mental note to bring it up.
By this point, Jeb had been in the woods for almost forty minutes, and Creed would admit, he was starting to worry that Jeb had made his way to the bank of the river and might get swept in.
A major storm was raging in the mountains. There, the waters were already high from a previous downpour that hadn’t made its way down to this parched patch of land at the base of the Blue Ridge. Coming over the bridge this morning, they’d seen how the water was running fast and muddy.
A foot of muddy water could carry off a truck. Six inches could take an adult.
It didn’t take much to sweep a child.
If Jeb had stepped in to retrieve a cool-looking rock, he could have been pulled into the current without much hope of keeping his head above water.
Creed stopped and stilled.
He strained to hear past his own heartbeat thrumming in his ears.
From a distance, Creed thought he could hear Rou barking.
This was highly unusual. If Rou found someone, she’d come back and signal Creed to follow her. But in this instance, it was so apparent that Rou wanted him to be with her now.
Creed pulled up the video feed that linked to Rou’s collar.
On Cerberus Team Alpha, there was a German shepherd officially named Valor, but she was known as Little Mama because she would never leave a child in distress.
As a matter of fact, it was because of Valor’s resistance to leaving a child—or anyone who had a serious injury—that Cerberus’s search K9s were outfitted with two-way comms and video.
The dogs could remain with the subject, and if the person was communicative, the subject could be assured that help was on the way.
And sometimes, even if they weren’t communicative, the team could use the video feed to assess the situation to get the right equipment heading their way.
Right now, all Creed could see from Rou’s angle was that she was among the trees and stationary. But the ambient audio was that of a screaming child.
Creed raced through the woods, running at breakneck speed.
From his time growing up as a feral child in nature, he knew from his own experiences and those of his siblings and friends just how badly things could go, and just how fast.
Up ahead, Rou stood using her whole body to amplify her barks. But louder still was the screaming child. The boy was clearly Jeb. He stood next to a tree, his hands gripping his throat, screeching. Eyes squinted tightly, tears bubbled from the corners of his lashes and ran down his cheeks.
This wasn’t the sound of fear. It was pain.
Rou stopped barking and lay down, looking both relieved that Creed had shown up and hyper-alert, waiting for her next command.
“Good girl, Rourou, good girl.” Normally, Creed would take out a tug toy and reward her. Rou looked like a better reward would be to make the small human stop screaming.
“Here! I’m here,” Creed called. “I’ve come to help.” He pulled out his phone to show the child the video his mom had recorded.
But as he spoke and as the video played, nothing changed about Jeb’s posture or behavior.
Breathing heavily from his sprint, Creed pressed his sternal comms to open a connection to Striker to let him know that the child had been located, was in distress, and Creed needed backup.
“Copy,” the response came through the magnetic comms. “Gator was securing the area behind the stage. He’s not that far out. I’ll head him your way. He’s on your trail. Out.”
Having the shirt navigate Gator meant he’d be here much faster than holding out a phone app and lining up with a red line that didn’t account for trees and the ubiquitous sweet briar and rhododendrons that blocked a beeline.
Slowing his gait, Creed approached, “Jeb. Hey, there, buddy, your mom sent me out to find you.”
The boy sucked in a breath, peeked through his eyes, then was right back to it.
“Jeb, my name is Creed. And this good girl is Rou. Can you tell me what’s hurting you?”
The boy faced him, opened his mouth wide, and a screech came out that made the hairs on Creed’s arms stand up.
Creed took a moment to sweep the area, looking for any clues.
March, in Creed’s experience, just wasn’t as dangerous a month as others.
Animals were still mostly sleeping through the cold.
“I’m going to check you over, buddy. I see you have your hands around your throat.
Can you tell me why?” Creed asked as he knelt beside Jeb, scanning the child’s front and back for blood.
He saw nothing. Creed thought that he’d been screaming loud enough and hard enough that he was sounding hoarse and his throat would probably hurt for a few days from that.
Pulling his first aid kit from his day pack, Creed unzipped the MOLLE system and pulled out a penlight.
From the way the boy was squinting his eyes tight, Creed thought that he might have been running into a branch and gotten a flick in the face.
Eye injuries on searches weren’t uncommon, and Iniquus required eye protective gear in the woods.
There were no welts or other signs of trauma on either side of the child’s face, no scratches or scrapes.
At a loss, Creed went with a methodical approach.
He started by examining the boy's hair, head, and neck. Next, he felt along his limbs for signs of abnormalities. He found nothing that suggested dislocation, break, or even a sprain. There was no blood. He didn’t see a sting, swelling, or bruising.
Just screaming.
Screaming that was unabated by time or attention.
Gator raced up the hill, and the men caught each other's gaze.
Creed gave a shake of the head as he lifted the pen light to look in the boy's mouth.
Saliva pooled under the boy’s tongue and drooled out the sides of his lips. The flesh looked red and irritated.
“Did you eat something that made your mouth hurt, buddy?” When Creed asked that, Gator seemed to realize they were dealing with more than a frightened child.