Sea (A Stranded Novel) (18 page)

The night was barely lightened in the east when Emily and her friends filed out of the cabin and stood on the front porch. The outline of a person was walking towards them from the main road. Emily felt a surge of apprehension. For some reason she felt that things were not going to go by the plan. She let out the breath she didn’t know she was holding when Joanna stepped into the torchlight and she was smiling in greeting.

“Good morning! I see you are all ready to go. Follow me. The trucks are waiting out on the main road.” She turned back the way she had come and they followed her out of the campground. Waiting on the road were three old pickup trucks and seven different ATVs and Quads. Two of them had supplies strapped to the back but were riderless. Joanna walked them over to them and waved her son, Will, to join them. He was still clearly upset by his Mother’s decision but he didn’t say anything.

“I want you to stay between the trucks at all times. The men will be on guard and they all have weapons. Stay with them until they get to the last drop off and then William will show you the way to go from there. You should try and stay off the interstate. There are a lot of desperate people out there that would kill you for what you have.” She paused and looked at each one of them before continuing. “I will pray that you get home safely. Good luck.” Joanna pulled Will into a tight embrace and spoke softly to him. When they separated
, she smiled at the kids again and turned to walk away.

Emily called out to her. “Thank you
, Joanna! Thank you for saving us!”

Will stared at her for a moment before barking out at them.

“Load up! Stay between the trucks and keep your mouths shut. Once we get to the mainland, anything or anyone could be waiting for us. We need to stay sharp and we can’t be babysitting you bunch.” He practically snarled the last sentence before turning away. Emily saw Mason’s face darken in anger and she quickly grabbed his arm and shook her head. There was no point in fighting with the jerk. In a few hours, they would be away from him and on their way alone.

David, Mason and Emily were all experienced riders but they had decided to let the boys drive for the first leg. Once they were on and settled, Emily climbed on behind Mason and Lisa joined David. Lisa had made peace with Mason over their past but she was still uncomfortable being too close to him.

They stayed tucked between the first and second truck. It was still too dark to see any of the scenery so Emily spent the first hour with her head tucked down behind Mason’s back. By the time the sun was up and it was bright enough to see, they had crossed the landbridge and were on the mainland. Emily didn’t know what she expected to see but everything looked fairly normal. There were all types of vehicles that had been pushed off to the side of the road, but that was the only thing out of place. As they got closer to the first town that they would drive through, there were more signs of destruction. Some of the homes were boarded up and had smoke coming out of the chimneys but others had windows smashed out and doors hanging open. There was a block that they drove by that all the houses had burned to the ground. The strangest sight to Emily was a long stretch of road that had every car wide open. Front and back doors and trunks were all open. What she didn’t see was people. No one was out walking around and that coupled with the silence made her shiver.

As they went through the main business district
, the damage was much more prevalent. Stores and restaurants had been looted heavily and there weren’t any windows left intact. She was saddened by all the damage around her and then baffled. For some reason, someone had pulled down the golden arches of a McDonald’s sign and it hung from its pole by wires. Shaking her head at the senselessness of it, she heard her belly rumble and images of the restaurant’s famous breakfast came to mind. She groaned at the knowledge that there might never be another one made. A sudden anger came over her. Who had done this? Who had caused the misery all around them?  They had been so focused on getting home that none of her friends had even asked that question. They only had what Emily had seen on CNN the day everything stopped to go by. Did anyone even know who had done this terrible thing? At this point, did it even matter?

A shout from ahead pulled her from her dark thoughts and she felt the ATV slow before coming to a stop. With the big truck in front of them she couldn’t see what was happening but a look at the relaxed guards told her everything was fine. They were moving again in minutes and they passed through an open gate. Chain link fence surrounded a building that Emily recognized as a large hotel. The guards jumped from their machines and dropped the tailgate of the truck that they had been following. David quickly jumped in to help when he saw that they were unloading the boxes and crates and carrying them inside. Will scowled at him but didn’t say anything when David lifted a crate and followed the others. Emily nudged Mason and he joined in as well.

The men made quick work of the unloading and they were heading back through the gate within twenty minutes. Emily was happy when they left the damaged town and got back into the countryside. It was easier to look at the new spring growth on trees and in fields than the destroyed town. That thought ended when she started to see people walking along the sides of the road. They were like zombies. Whole families would stop and stare at them as they drove by with empty eyes. They were filthy and ragged and way too thin. Emily had to sob when they passed a mother and father with their two small children. The mother was holding a toddler and it looked like it was dead. The father held the hand of a little girl in a ragged pink dress and when they passed them she waved her stick thin arm like it was a parade. Mason reached down and squeezed her arm that was around his waist but they didn’t stop. She wanted to scream at the guards to do something, anything to help, but their blank faces told her that they wouldn’t.

The next time she looked to the side of the road
, they were passing a pile of bodies. They had been thrown in a heap like garbage. After that sight, she couldn’t take anymore so she tucked her head down behind Mason’s back and stayed that way until they came to the next stop. Emily didn’t even look up when Mason left her to help unload. She couldn’t face any more of the horror in this new world. Then they were moving again and she tried to distract her broken mind with all the things her parents would have done in the last few weeks.

They had plenty of food in the cellar and with the chickens and cows food would not be an issue, at least not right away. She tried to remember if there was anyone in their area who had older farm equipment. She knew that Quinn’s grandparents had a few antiques that they displayed at farm fairs so they most likely would have started tilling and planting some of the fields. It was too soon to plant the garden where they lived and it was possible that there had even been a final snow. She could picture all her neighbours gathering for a meeting to plan for getting the fields planted. Her mother’s face popped in to her head and Emily could imagine the worry lines between her eyes deepening as she tried to come to terms with her only child’s fate. “I’m coming
, mom. I’m coming!” she whispered softly.

The ATV slowed for a third time and Emily straightened her shoulders. This was it. They would be leaving the convoy and heading out on their own after this. After the men had unloaded the final truck, this time into a huge community center, they went back out the gate and drove on for another twenty minutes. When they finally stopped they were away from any buildings and there were trees and fields all around them. The guards all dismounted and stood around them. Will came out of the lead truck and walked back towards them. He scanned their faces and firmed his mouth.

“Alright, this is as far as we go. Grab your stuff and as much of the supplies as you can carry.” He told them in an even tone.

Mason, David and Lisa looked at each other in confusion but Emily just stared right at him. David was the first to speak.

“What are you talking about? Why do we have to carry the supplies?”

Will didn’t answer him
. He just stared him down with cold resolve. Emily pulled herself from behind Mason and grabbed a pack. As she started to pull things off the back of the machine, she answered David for him.

“He’s not letting us take the ATVs. He was never going to let us go with them.”

Her voice was flat. She had somehow known last night that this would happen. Once the ATV was unloaded, she looked up at David.

“Get your stuff
, David. Once they are gone, we will try and spread it out amongst our packs.”

She started to carry things over to the side of the road when Lisa grabbed her own pack and started to help her. Her friend’s face was fierce but she didn’t say anything and she didn’t even look at the men that were waiting for them to finish.

David spun around and shouted at Will. “How can you do this? Your Mother was trying to help us! Jacob was trying to make up for what he did to us!”

Will said nothing. He just waited. Finally
, with a yell of frustrated rage, David spun away and started to pull the supplies from the back of the machine that he had been riding. When they were finished, there was a large mound of backpacks and supplies sitting on the side of the road. Two of the men who had been passengers in the trucks jumped onto the machines and moved them back down the road. Will stepped forward and looked at the pile of supplies that his mother had given them and then looked at each one of them.

“There is no way you will be able to carry all of that. I’ll take…” That’s as far as he got before Emily stepped right up to him and yelled in to his face.

“YOU will take NOTHING! You went against her wishes with the ATVs but the supplies she gave us are ours! I will stand here and give this food to the starving people you and your men so callously drove past. Unlike YOU we are good decent people and WE will help others if we can! So if you want this food you will have to shoot me to get it!” She stood there with her chest heaving in a rage and met every one of the men’s eyes until they looked down in shame. Emily seared Will with her anger until he too broke her stare and backed away.

“Load ‘
em up! I want to be home by supper,” he called out to his men. None of them looked at the kids on the side of the road as they turned their trucks around and drove away.

Emily stared defiantly down the road until the sound of the engines faded. When David stepped up to her and put his hand on her arm, she turned and stared at him.

“Every time we find good people we get slapped with the bad. David…I…I just want to go home!”

“
It’s okay, Em. We’ll get home. I promise. Come on - let’s get this stuff sorted out,” he told her.

She looked down at the pile of supplies and nodded. There was too much for them to carry but they could still take a lot of it. As they divided up the pile, Emily glanced at Lisa. She hadn’t said anything but her face was tense and her eyes were filled with anger. Mason just looked lost. As he latched his pack and swung it onto his shoulder, Emily saw a glimpse of tears in his eyes. He would have to adjust. He had been handed almost everything in his life and now the harsh reality was that he would have to work for it all.

Once they had crammed as much as they could into the six backpacks, there was still a pile on the road. Emily hoped that it would help some poor family make it through another day. David spread the map open on the road and they all crowded around it. He pointed out their location and ran his finger north towards the border.

“We should get off this road. If we take side roads and cut across fields
, we should have less of a chance of running into other people. I think we should head northeast. That way we can cross over the border somewhere here.” He pointed out an area that had no towns or official crossing. “Walking is going to take longer but we should still be in Canada within three or four days. The last town we dropped supplies in was only forty miles south of the border. We just need to keep going.”

He looked up at the others and everyone nodded so he folded the map and stood up. He grabbed one of the extra packs and Mason hauled the other one. They would have to take turns carrying them but the supplies were too precious to leave behind. No one spoke as they started north. They were still reeling from the betrayal of Joanna’s son and soon they fell in to a rhythm. There was nothing to do but walk, one foot in front of the other, every step taking them closer to their country and home.

The highway they were travelling on ran straight north to the town of Sumas. People in the campground had told them that the border guards weren’t allowing anyone through so they took the first eastbound side road. They walked past fields that hadn’t been planted and farm houses that had been boarded up. Twice they saw men with cold faces standing in their driveways with guns. They kept walking. When the road they were on bent to the south, they cut across fields until they found another road going east. The fields were soft with spring mud and they were all exhausted by the struggle to get through them. When they got back onto a road
, they would stop and scrape the sticky mud from their pant legs and shoes. Emily felt like she was walking in concrete blocks instead of shoes when the mud dried. They eventually came to a forested area and entered the cool dimness on a game trail. The forest floor wasn’t as muddy and they kept ploughing ahead.

Emily saw Lisa stagger over a root and called for a break. She had no idea how many miles they had walked but she knew that they all needed to rest and
eat. Her best guess was that they still had three or four hours until dark. When she dropped her pack to the needle-covered floor, her shoulders ached from the unaccustomed strain the straps had caused. She was hungry and thirsty but she needed to just sit for a minute before addressing either need.

Looking at the others
as they’d dropped down onto the forest floor, she could see that they were just as tired. It was to be expected. None of them had done any exercise in the last three weeks other than sitting on a boat and they all felt the pain in their muscles. Emily dragged her pack over and pulled out a bottle of water and two granola bars. They disappeared quickly into her hungry body and she added a strip of beef jerky to her meal. It wasn’t the most satisfying food but it gave her flagging energy a boost and she knew in a few hours when they stopped to camp for the night, they would have a hot meal.

While they rested
, there was no conversation. That suited her just fine. There was nothing to say. When David stood, the others did the same and they trudged on. After twenty minutes of navigating the trail, there was a crash of foliage ahead of them as some large animal fled through the forest. All four of them froze in their tracks and Lisa let out a frightened squeak. Emily saw a flash of tan as the deer they had startled fled deeper in to the forest away from the trail. They continued on, but it reminded Emily that bad people weren’t the only thing they might have to worry about. Bears, cougars even wild pigs could be a danger to them if they stayed in the forest, and they would have to be on watch for them as well. She slid her hand into her jacket pocket and felt the cold hard metal of the gun. She had put it in there before they left the campground that morning and was reassured by its presence. It wouldn’t stop a charging bear but it might help scare one off.

As much as Emily tried to stay focused on her surroundings, she found herself blanking out as she followed behind Lisa and David. Her eyes stayed on the floor of the forest to avoid tripping on the roots that covered the trail. It was two hours later when she walked right into Lisa’s back. Quickly catching her balance
, she looked up and saw the light had changed. They were at the edge of the woods that they had been travelling through. Emily moved up to stand by David and she looked at what was ahead of them. There was an unploughed field that ran all the way to a town in the distance. There were several fires burning and she counted eight smoke trails. They backed up further into the woods and tried to decide what to do.

David rubbed his face in exhaustion. “I think we should move further back into the trees and set up a camp. I don’t know about you guys but I’m beat. The sun will be down in an hour and it would take longer than that to circle around that town. What do you guys think?”
he asked.

Mason kicked at a root that was sticking out of the ground before answering
, “Yeah, I think we’re done for the day.”

Lisa just nodded. Instead of replying, Emily moved back down the trail and started looking for a good place to set up camp. She found a decent clearing and dropped her pack. She asked Lisa to help her and they started searching for rocks. They collected enough to make a fire ring and she used a sharp edged stone to scoop out some dirt before going to search for small twigs and moss to help start the fire.
While the girls got the fire ring arranged, the boys started to collect dry firewood. Emily let David start the fire as he had always been better at it than her. She pulled a pot and a pan from the backpacks and started to sort through the food. Emily didn’t have a lot of energy left but she wanted a hot meal. Joanna had included powdered eggs, three tins of ham and a dozen potatoes in the supplies she had packed for them so that’s what they had for supper. It was simple to prepare and cook and it filled them up.

After they had eaten, they washed the pan with as little water as possible and set the pot on the coals for hot water. As it was heating, she helped Lisa clear a spot for their blankets and had to dig up a few rocks that would have stabbed into them. They only had a few blankets from the boat and Joanna hadn’t included any in what she had provided for them so Lisa and Emily were going to double up. With the water steaming, they used a wash cloth and cleaned themselves up as best they could before banking the fire and lying down for the night. The soft forest sounds and Lisa’s warmth coupled with the long day helped Emily fall asleep despite the hard ground.

She felt like she had just closed her eyes when Mason’s angry curses jerked her awake. There was a soft hazy grey light of dawn and she could see him stomping around. She sat up quickly and grasped the gun in her pocket while looking frantically around for the threat. When she spotted David sitting with his head in his hands she relaxed slightly but still looked around in confusion. Lisa sat up and looked at Mason in annoyance.

“Mason! What is wrong with you? What’s going on?” she snapped at him.

He swung around to stare at her and opened his mouth to answer but then shut it and walked over to a tree and kicked it. Emily looked at David who met her stare across the almost out fire. Before she could ask, he told her.

“We were robbed. Somebody came in while we were sleeping and stole our packs.” he told her in a dead voice. She automatically reached down and flipped her and Lisa’s ground sheet back. Relief flooded through her at the sight of the two packs they had used as pillows.

“Lisa and I still have ours!” she exclaimed.

David closed his eyes in relief for a moment before they flew open in anger.
“Arggggg! I’m such an idiot! We should have never had a fire until it was dark. They would have seen the smoke and known right where to find us. What a stupid mistake!” He dropped his head in to his hands again.

Emily shook her head. It was a dumb mistake and so was not posting a watch. They were going to have to start being more careful if they had any chance of making it home. She pulled open her pack and dumped out the contents and did the same with Lisa’s. Eight water bottles, six granola bars, four power bars, two small bags of rice four packages of ramen noodles, one bag of beef jerky and some multi vitamins was all the food they had. Two changes of clothes, two flashlights, some first aid, two tooth brushes, a stick of deodorant and a roll of toilet paper were all that was left for four people. They had lost almost everything.

Emily stood up and went over to pick up the pot and pan by the fire. She brought them back to her bag and started stuffing everything back in except for two water bottles. When she was done she handed one bottle to Lisa and one to Mason.

“Half for each of
us, enjoy your breakfast.”

She started to roll up the blankets and make a sling of them. She was on autopilot and didn’t notice the others staring at her. When David said her name
, she looked up and saw them all looking at her.

“What? People suck but they didn’t kill us and there’s nothing we can do so let’s go.” She stood and slung the blankets over her shoulder and across her chest.

Everyone was still standing and staring at her so she shook her head and started back to the trail. There was no point in dwelling on what they had lost. All they could do was keep moving. When she hit the trail, she stopped to wait and the others joined her in a few minutes. She looked to each one of her friends as they joined her and raised her eyebrows in a question. They all nodded determinedly so she fell in behind David and they headed north.

They had left their camp at dawn and walked for hours. They skirted the small town they had seen the previous day and kept going. She and Lisa passed the bottle of water back and forth taking small sips so that it lasted for two hours. The hunger she ignored. Emily knew that it was nothing more than a
nuisance at this point. They had eaten well for the last twenty days and after seeing the starved people on the highway she knew her rumbling stomach didn’t mean anything. Her biggest concern was water. They would have to get more and as their small supply of bleach was gone that meant boiling and filtering it. All of that would take time. As she followed along, she kept her mind focused on what steps they could take to get food.

When David slowed down and came to a stop, Emily guessed that they had been walking for six hours and it was somewhere around noon. He dropped the pack that he had been carrying and looked off into the distance. They were in a field and there was a house not far away. When he asked if they still had the binoculars, she could only shake her head.

With a grim expression, he squared his shoulders.

“Ok
ay, you guys stay here and take a break. I think that house is empty and I’m going to go take a look. If it’s abandoned, I’ll come back and we can all go in and see if we can find some stuff to help us.”

When no one objected, he turned and jogged towards the house. While they waited, Emily broke a power bar into three pieces and handed them out. The small amount of food only made her want more. David was back in less than ten minutes. He squatted down and took the small section of bar that Emily handed him. As he ate it
, she pulled another bottle of water out and they all shared it.

When David finished his portion of the water
, he told them what he had found.

“Both the doors are wide open and a couple of the windows have been busted. I didn’t go in but it looks like no one’s been there for a while. I think we should go check it out. At the least we might find some clothes for Mason and
me.”

Everyone got to their feet and followed David to the ransacked house. When they walked in the open front door and into the destroyed living room, Emily tried not to let it affect her. The place had been trashed and she carefully stepped over a family portrait that was lying in broken glass on the floor. She looked away quickly and tried to harden her heart but it was hard not to realize that this used to be a family’s home. The kitchen was beyond bare. Whoever had come in here had ripped cabinet doors off and smashed all the dishes. She knew it was useless but she tried the kitchen faucets anyways. Nothing, they were bone dry. They all separated and started looking for anything they could use.

Emily wandered from room to room. She felt like a ghost. Is this what her home looked like? Had people came in to her family’s home and ripped it apart? She went up the stairs and the first room she came to was done in shades of purple and pink. Stuffed bears had been thrown everywhere and posters of boy bands had been half ripped from the walls. An iPhone in a hot pink case caught her eye. It was half way tucked under the bed ruffle on the floor. She reached down to pick it up and saw that it was clipped to a dark purple school backpack that had been shoved under the bed. Emily sat on the bed and opened the zipper. It had a few binders and note books in it so she removed them and set them carefully on the night stand. In the bottom of the bag were three Mars bars and a package of jolly ranchers. She closed her eyes and thanked the girl for the calorie packed treats.

Emily left the room and went into the master bedroom down the hall. David and Mason were sorting through the pile of men’s clothing on the bed so she went into the attached bathroom. It was a spa like setting with a huge sunken tub. There were bottles of lavender bath salts and creams on the side and she imagined sitting in a steaming tub of hot water filled with bubbles. With a sigh, she turned away and started to search through the cabinets. Two towels and a half roll of toilet paper went into her new empty pack. After digging around under the sink she came out with a half filled box of tampons and sighed in relief. Taking one last look around the room
, she started to leave when something made her stop. Her forehead furrowed in concentration. What was she missing, something about the tub and a hot bath? When it came to her, her face broke out in a grin and she raced into the bedroom.

“David! We need to find the hot water tank. It should be filled with clean water!” She told him happily.

He smiled at her and started nodding. “Good thinking, Emily! Can you put these clothes in that pack? I’ll go down into the basement and start looking for it. See if you can find some containers or plastic bottles we can use.” He handed her the clothes he had picked up and left the room. Mason followed him with a confused look on his face.

When she got downstairs, Lisa was in the dining room and she had some things spread out on the table.