The Trip to Raptor Bluff

by Annie O'Haegan

  Brenda turned panicked eyes to the bus and gasped. It was tilted slightly sideways and only the two front wheels and the closest rear wheel had full contact with the road. The far rear wheel was spinning in air above the cliff. “Oh my god! The whole highway is gone!”

  Lucy had checked to make sure the teens were all unharmed before she stumbled towards Rick and Brenda. Her arm was in a hugging grip around Dakota’s waist.

  “We are stranded. We will be stuck here for who knows how long,” said Rick, letting his eyes sweep the ledge where the bus teetered. “We have to get our supplies and our clothes off the bus.”

  “Rick, don’t you dare!” cried Lucy.

  “What are our other options, Lucy? Everything we need to survive is on that bus. All of our food, clothes, the emergency kit Joshua packed for us… It could be weeks before we are rescued. We have to plan for that. I have to go back in the bus!”

  Brenda caught Rick’s eye and nodded. They didn’t have a choice.

  “He’s right,” said Abby, who had come up behind them. She was strangely calm when she said, “Someone needs to get on the bus and retrieve our supplies before an aftershock hits. I’m the lightest of the students and I can help.”

  “Me too,” said Leanna, who had tripped across the ground with Abby.

  When Brenda began to protest, Rick cut her off. “It’s settled, Brenda. Abby, Leanna, and I are going into the bus. Unloading will go much faster with three of us working. We will need everyone’s help to move our stuff away from the cliff, though. Get the girls together and have them form a line starting at the bus door and ending near the bathrooms. We will pass things hand-to-hand. Now hurry!”

  Brenda looked from the bus to the groups of cowering girls who were just beginning to stand up. “Oh my god, Rick!”

  “Go! Get an assembly line ready for us. An aftershock could toss the bus right off the edge!”

  Brenda rushed back to the clusters of students as Abby, Leanna, and Rick sprinted towards the bus. The open door faced them but was raised higher than it should have been due to the slight rear tilt over the edge of the cliff.

  “I’m going in first,” said Rick. “I’ll start grabbing stuff from the back and tossing it forward. Abby, you pass it to Leanna, and Leanna, you throw it out the door.”

  “Bull,” said Abby, cutting in front of him. “Leanna and I will go in first. You weigh twice as much as we do and you could tip us all over the edge.” She was already hoisting herself up the steps when Rick reached up to grab her. She jerked away and clamored into the bus.

  “Don’t be a moron,” Leanna said as she pushed in front of Rick and held out her hand so Abby could help her up the first step. “If your weight tips the bus, all three of us die.”

  Rick couldn’t argue with the logic and reluctantly let them precede him. “Rush it! I’m right behind you!”

  The bus felt surprisingly stable, even with the tilt, as Abby and Leanna quickly made their way down the aisle.

  Everything from the overhead racks on the driver’s side had already fallen onto seats or into the aisle. The girls quickly began lifting and sliding everything they could reach towards Rick, who was standing near the front. He hurled the items out the door as fast as he caught them. The considerable weight and bulk of some of the items went unnoticed as they passed from Abby, to Leanna, to Rick, and finally to the line of girls waiting outside.

  The bags, backpacks, boxes, and coolers moved quickly out the door until Abby handed Leanna the bag belonging to Tara. Rick and Abby stared dumbfounded as Leanna propped the bag on a seat, unzipped it, and began rooting around inside.

  “What are you doing?” shouted Rick. “We don’t have time…”

  Leanna, her face in a grim smile, held up the prize she fully expected to find in Tara’s duffel. It was a small, zip-sealed bag filled with yellow pills. “OxyContin,” she said. “Enough for an addict’s two-week supply. Why do you think she got hysterical when we tried to make her leave the bus without her bag?”

  Rick’s face still registered shock as he caught the bag of pills that Leanna tossed to him. He quickly stuffed it in his pocket. “Keep moving! We’ll deal with this later! How many more bags, Abby?”

  “Two more!” grunted Abby from underneath the back seat. “They are wedged in the far back corner. Got them!” She clamored to her feet and threw the first bag to Leanna. She was reaching for the last bag when she felt the bus tilt slightly.

  “Run! Get out of the bus!” screamed Rick from the doorway. He reached for Leanna’s outstretched hand, yanked her forward, and threw her onto the ground outside. “Tell the others to move back! Move everyone away from the cliff!”

  Abby was on her hands and knees, trying to push the heavy bag in front of her. Rick ran towards her, lifted the bag with one hand, and grabbed a handful of Abby’s windbreaker with the other. He tossed both out the door. Abby sprawled onto the ground and was scrambling to her feet when the bus’s movement caused a loud, screeching noise. The bus tilted sickeningly towards the edge of the cliff and stopped. “Rick!” she screamed. “Rick, get out!”

  Rick was digging frantically in the large storage compartment above the driver’s seat when the bus began to tip cliff-wise at a slow but steady rate. He jumped from the groaning mass of metal and sprinted across the ground seconds before the earth beneath the bus gave way. The gravel parking area collapsed and fell downwards to the coast, taking the bus with it.

  His legs were shaking so badly he could barely walk when he approached the others who had already moved to the far edge of the picnic area. A cluster of pale, terrified faces confronted him.

  “Everyone is accounted for and OK,” Lucy said as she wiped away tears. “I don’t know what we are up against going forward, but I’m counting my blessings at this moment.”

  No one responded. Instead, people looked around in dumb shock as they tried to comprehend what had just happened. Whimpers and the sounds of soft crying melded with the noise of a deceptively calm breeze wafting through the trees.

  Brenda’s thoughts were the first to travel towards surviving in this altered universe. Her composure began to gather and she asked the teenagers to find their bags and place them by the trees at the east edge of the clearing while she separated the coolers and boxes holding food and drinks. When she and Rick were alone, she said, “This seems to be the safest spot in the area. We need to stay away from the southeast side of the clearing, though. I’m afraid another landslide will hit.”

  Rick surveyed the area and took a shuddering breath. “Let’s stay right here and figure out a plan.” He eyed the growing stack of unperishable snacks Brenda was tossing into a haphazard pile. “And Brenda, I apologize for giving you so much grief for buying six weeks’ worth of snack food for a two week trip.”

  “Yeah, well now we are even. I gave you grief for warning us that a massive earthquake could happen at any minute.” She wiped her eyes with her sleeve and sniffed. “Rick, how much trouble are we in?”

  “There’s no way to know the full extent of the earthquake at this point. I see a trailhead sign at the northeast end of this area and it’s at the base of an incline. I’m hoping the trail leads to the summit of Hammer Mountain. If it does, we should be able to see how Port Fortand fared. I thought I would take Abby and Leanna along as lookouts.”

  “Here, take these with you,” replied Brenda, tossing him three jumbo-sized candy bars. She also set three sports drinks at his feet.

  Rick started to tuck the candy into his pocket but was hindered by the bag of OxyContin he had placed there earlier. “Crap,” he muttered. “Uh, Brenda, we have a big problem. We need to get Lucy over here, without Dakota.” He whistled sharply and beckoned for Abby and Leanna to join him. When Lucy glanced his way, he beckoned to her also.

  Brenda looked up from her sorting task and rose quickly when she saw the expression on his face. “What’s up, Rick?”

  Lucy approached with Dakota tucked protectively under her arm. Rick met them
halfway, whispered something in Lucy’s ear, and then turned to Dakota. “Hey, Sweetie, I need you to do me a favor. Will you be my messenger and tell everyone with cell phones to turn them on and look for coverage? Tell them if they don’t see any bars, to turn their phones all the way off and leave them off. Once their batteries wind down, there’s no way to recharge.”

  “Go with Dakota, Sweetheart,” Brenda told her daughter Shelly, who was standing a few feet away.

  Rick waited until the youngsters were out of earshot before he reached in his pocket for the bag of OxyContin.

  “Hold it,” hissed Leanna. “Here comes Tara’s mother.”

  “Send her away, Lucy,” Rick said under his breath. “I mean it. You will understand why in a minute.”

  Lucy gave Rick a questioning look before she said to the approaching Andrea. “We are having a private conversation, Andrea. We will be done in a minute.”

  “I’m a chaperone and I’m not allowed to hear what you are saying?” Andrea crossed her arms over her chest and threw a searing glare at Abby and Leanna. “How come they get to stay?”

  “Leave, Andrea. I mean it,” Lucy said in a tone that dared argument.

  “This is bullshit!” Andrea muttered as she stomped away.

  “What’s this all about, Rick?” Brenda asked, perplexed. She also wondered why Abby and Leanna were allowed to stay.

  Rick pulled the bag of pills from his pocket and held it up. “This is Tara’s OxyContin. It’s the reason why she didn’t want to leave the bus without her luggage.” He turned to Leanna. “You knew about this all along.”

  “I wasn’t sure but I really suspected that Tara was using. I’ve suspected it for a while now: since I started at St. Mary’s in September, actually. Tara is always either scratching or nodding off during classes, and she’s been getting a lot of hassle from the nuns over her grades dropping. Then, when she freaked out over having to leave the bus without her bag, I knew for sure. I mean, we were in the middle of an earthquake and her bag was more important than her safety? I dug the Oxys out before I let Rick pass her bag off the bus.”

  Rick was counting the pills as Leanna talked. “There are forty-five in the bag, all stamped with 40 on one side and OC on the other,” he said. “She has a stash that allows her three pills per day throughout the trip, with a few left over.”

  “I’m not sure, but I think those are time-release Oxy. You are only supposed to take one every twelve hours. She’s probably crushing them to kill the time release so she can get high.” Leanna glanced at the aghast faces around her and shrugged. “What? I know about Oxy because I went to public schools in the Bay area for most of my life. Oxy is like candy out there in the real world. It’s everywhere.”

  “Oh my god!” cried Lucy. “No wonder you didn’t want Andrea to hear this!”

  “Well, she’s on her way over here now, charging at us like a mad moose,” Brenda said under her breath. “What do we do?”

  “What’s worse?” Rick mused aloud. “Trying to hike out of here with a drugged up kid, or holding up the whole group while we wait for her to go through withdrawals? She’s going to be as sick as a dog if she doesn’t have her drugs, and just plain dangerous if she’s high. She’ll be a huge liability either way.”

  “Tara says there are some personal items missing from her bag,” stormed Andrea. “She thinks Abby or Leanna stole some stuff while they were unloading.” The look she gave Abby and Leanna was a blatant accusation.

  “Yeah, right, Andrea! Abby and Leanna risked their lives going into that bus just so they could rummage through everyone’s personal belongings and take what they wanted,” said Rick between clenched teeth. “Go get Tara. I want to hear what she has to say.”

  Andrea glared at Rick before she flung her hair over her shoulder and went to collect Tara. Tara had moved away from the others and was standing by a boulder with the contents of her bag strewn around on the sopping ground.

  “We have more important things to deal with here,” seethed Brenda when Andrea was out of earshot. “Andrea behaves like a two hundred pound, overtired toddler when she doesn’t get her way, and now we have her addict daughter to contend with, too.”

  Rick took three pills from the bag and zipped the rest in his pocket. “I’m handling this now, my way, and the rest of you just stay quiet and listen. Brenda is right. We don’t have time for this. We need to worry about keeping these kids safe through the night, and then we have to find a way out of here.” He stared into Lucy’s eyes and said, “It’s your job to keep Andrea under control, Lucy. I mean it. You are the only person she won’t defy.”

  Tara was sobbing and Andrea was shaking with anger when they joined the group. Rick opened his hand to display the three OxyContin pills and Tara’s reaction was instantaneous. She snatched at them but Rick was prepared and pulled his hand out of reach before she could grab them. “The treasure in your daughter’s bag was a stash of OxyContin,” he said, handing the three pills to Andrea. “They fell out of her bag when it was tossed to me on the bus. I took out these three pills so I could see what they were, and that’s when the cliff started to give way.” He looked into Tara’s panicked eyes. “The bag of drugs went down with the bus, Tara. Your Oxy is gone. The three I was able to save are to soften your withdrawals. There is no more.”

  Andrea was staring open-mouthed at her daughter. Tara’s desperate lunge for the pills when she saw them in Rick’s hand had negated any grounds for denial.

  “Give Tara half a pill tomorrow morning, and the second half the day after,” Rick told Andrea. “Then start using quarter pills to wean her off completely. That might temper her withdrawals somewhat. Tara is going to be miserable and sick during the weaning process but it won’t be nearly as bad as cold turkey.”

  Andrea was still too stunned to speak. Without saying a word, she gripped Tara’s upper arm and dragged her away.

  “Throw the other pills over the cliff,” muttered Brenda.

  “I’m keeping them, but that’s our secret. These pills might be useful if we run across other earthquake survivors,” said Rick solemnly. “Abby and Leanna, let’s go. We have to find higher ground with a clear view of Port Fortand.” Looking at Brenda and Lucy, he warned, “Count on aftershocks. They are more frequent right after an earthquake and will diminish with time. The earliest ones are the worst. Keep the kids away from the cliffs and the landslide area. We should be back in a couple of hours.”

  “Please be careful, you guys,” whispered Brenda.

  “Notice how much Lucy cares about me,” Leanna said sarcastically as the threesome started up the summit trail. “She’s completely forgotten that I’m her foster kid. She’s been hovering over Dakota like a mother hen, but she hasn’t said a word to me since before we got on the bus this morning.”

  “It really bothers you, huh?” asked Rick.

  “Nope. She’s given me the best foster home I’ve ever had. My feelings aren’t hurt.”

  “Liar,” said Abby. “You wouldn’t have mentioned it if it didn’t bother you.”

  “OK, how about this? It hurt my mind for a split second but it doesn’t hurt my heart. What I don’t know can’t hurt me, right? I have no idea how it feels to be somebody’s kid.”

  Chapter 4 Port Fortand

  “What are you expecting to see at Port Fortand, Rick?” asked Leanna, huffing as she tried to keep up. Rick was moving up the long trail at a near running speed, regularly glancing to the west to find a view of the coastline below.

  “I have no idea what to expect. Anything…” Caleb’s frenzied barking alerted them to the aftershock before they felt it. The ground shook beneath them as they fell to the ground and covered their heads. Rick listened for landslides over the rumbles of the quake and said a silent prayer of thanks when the rocky and heavily wooded area above them remained stable. When the tremors finally died down, he hugged Caleb from his kneeling position. “Looks like we have a custom warning system; Caleb started yowling at us right before it
hit. Is everyone OK?”

  Both girls nodded and scrambled to their feet. “I didn’t hear any more of the cliff crashing down to the coast so the others must be OK,” said Abby shakily. “Do you think we will be safe where we left our stuff?”

  “I don’t think there is any accessible place that is safe right now. We’ve been unbelievably lucky so far, so stop worrying, OK? Now hurry up.”

  “What’s the rush?” puffed Leanna after ten more minutes at Rick’s rapid pace. “Geez!”

  Rick ignored her and sprinted up the final stretch of the mountain’s balding summit. Abby, who was close behind him, took one look at his shocked face and forgot her screaming muscles and overtaxed lungs. She raced to where he stood and covered her mouth with her hands. Leanna was the last to arrive and stopped dead when she saw the sight below. The quaint town of Port Fortand, so picturesque from high above while they were approaching on the 101, was unrecognizable.

  “It looks like the whole town was smashed and then swept into a bunch of rubbish heaps!” Leanna cried. “The long docks where all the boats were are gone, along with every single boat! And where is that big marina? Was the whole town washed out to sea?”

  “I don’t remember the beach being so wide,” whispered Abby, beginning to shake.

  Rick didn’t answer. He stared at the ocean for a long time before he pointed, “There. There it is. See that white line of breaking waves out on the horizon? You can barely see it from here. That’s another tsunami making its way to shore. It looks like at least one small one has already washed through town and retreated back to the ocean. That’s why it looks like someone piled the wreckage into rubbish heaps. The tsunami grabbed everything in its path on the way in, and then dumped what it couldn’t carry on its way out.”

  “The beach is getting bigger right in front of our eyes!” cried Abby. “Rick, what’s happening?”

  “An earthquake is the first warning that a tsunami could be on the horizon, and an extreme tide change following the quake confirms it,” he said while his eyes stayed trained on the approaching wave. “It’s called drawdown. When the water retreats from the beach that fast and that far, then the people on land had better run for the hills because there’s big one heading for shore.” The three of them stood on the hilltop and watched the harmless looking band of breakwater move towards land.