Week 28: Comparing Notes

So much has happened since the incident on the bridge.

First of all, Brenda took care of my gunshot wound. It hurts like a bitch but otherwise it was not too bad. Mike managed to send the bullet straight through the meaty side of my thigh. It didn’t hit bone or a major artery. I was lucky.

We also did some preliminary scouting around the river bank to see if we might spot Mike’s body. Not easy with my injuries and no Dead Dozer. We gave up early on. Mike is either dead or he survived. If he is dead, good riddance, if he is alive, chances are he didn’t stick around for us to find him. And if he did it was only because he had set up another trap.

Seemed foolish to waste time looking for Mike when we should be looking for Matthew. And Matthew is still out there. Brenda’s story about how Mike abducted her seems to confirm it.

When Mike caught her, Brenda had not even made it around the western tip of the lake. She had stopped for the night in an abandoned fast food restaurant. She was making some food on a camp grill when Mike just burst through the door. She said Mike was obviously breaking in to catch someone, but at the same time he seemed legitimately surprised to find her there. He even said something about how he didn’t expect to find her, but that she would do.

From there Mike had taken her back east and into Santee… the same Santee that I had covered in messages to Matthew proclaiming that I was still alive. Brenda said that Mike already had a base of operations set up there. The whole time Brenda was with Mike she did not see Matthew but there was evidence that Matthew had been there, comic books laying around, an extra pallet, etc, etc. She tried to ask about Matthew and Mike would tell her to shut up, obviously irritated by the subject matter.

So after comparing notes, it seems to me that perhaps my original plan had worked after all. Maybe Mike had thought he would cut straight across through Santee to Summerton and beat us to it while we took the long way around. Then when he entered Santee Matthew saw one of my signs and escaped. In an effort to try to get Matthew back, Mike stumbles upon Brenda and decides to take her hostage instead.

A lot of assumptions and perhaps some wishful thinking, but it is the best I have so that is what we are going to pursue.