The Forge of Darkness (Darkness After Series Book 3) by Scott B. Williams Page A

When he didn’t find him, would he return to where David was supposed to be waiting with Tommy, unaware these other men were there and run right into them? It was possible, but then she remembered that Uncle Benny was a real woodsman, like her dad and her brother. Surely he would be careful. It wouldn’t do any good for the four of them to go looking for him now with all those strangers already intent on finding the house. And April was alone there with Kimberly, unaware of the much more serious danger they were now facing.
    “We’ve got to get back to the house,” she said. “There’s nothing we can do for Tommy, and we don’t know where Uncle Benny is. We’ve got to tell April what’s going on and we’ve got to do it before those men get there first. Just leave the travois here. We don’t need it now. Let’s go!”

    * * *

    April had been pacing the living room floor with Kimberly since the moment Samantha and the girls disappeared down the drive. She couldn’t help but worry with them going out there while the trespasser who’d shot Tommy was still unaccounted for. They didn’t know that he wasn’t still lurking around and there was no guarantee Benny would find him. Of all the nights that Mitch could pick to stay out hunting, this had to be the worst. Since she’d arrived there, he’d only done this one other time, when he and Jason and Corey had been unsuccessful until the third day of a hunt. Mitch had told her then when they returned that he expected their hunting would be taking them farther afield, as the deer were becoming too wary closer to home. Providing for eleven people was putting a lot of pressure on the local game.
    She’d felt safe enough with Benny and Tommy around, especially since they’d started regular patrols around the property, but now Tommy had been shot. From the way Lisa and Stacy described it; it was bad, too. Lisa told her Benny said the bullet passed all the way through, and that it missed his heart, but it was impossible to know what it did hit and how much damage had been done. She just hoped they could hurry and get him back here and that Benny would get back too. She would feel a lot better when they were all inside the house, then they would see what they could do for Tommy. She had cleared off the big, sturdy wooden table in the dining room and moved the chairs out of the way. The first thing they needed to do was get him onto that where they could see what they were doing. She’d helped Mitch patch up Jason in that very room when he’d been nearly beaten to death, but he didn’t have a bullet wound through his chest. Surviving that would be iffy even with the attention of ER doctors in a fully equipped hospital. April tried not to think about what it would do to Benny if he didn’t make it. He’d already lost his wife and Tommy was all he had until the two of them found her and then Mitch took them in as part of the family.  
    She walked to the door and went out on the porch again to stare down the road. She knew the girls probably had not had time to even reach the spot were Tommy and David were, much less get back with him, but she couldn’t stop herself from watching for them anyway. When they suddenly appeared, running fast to the house with someone else with them, April thought she was seeing things. But they were real indeed when they drew closer, and she could see that David was the forth person running with them. But where was the travois? And where was Tommy?

Thirteen  

    “W HAT DO YOU MEAN , Tommy’s dead?” April asked as Lisa blurted it out even before the four of them reached the porch.
    “David saw it. Those men killed him, and they’re coming here next, April!”
    It took her a minute to get them all to slow down and stop talking at once. April was trying to keep Kimberly calm, as she was getting upset by all the commotion and had begun crying. Lisa and David were saying that a whole group of armed men were now out there by the road and