The Trip to Raptor Bluff

by Annie O'Haegan

  “I’m not one of the slower folks,” stated Dakota. “Mom, I’m going with Brenda and Shelly.”

  “Dakota! No! You stay with me!” Lucy was kneeling on the ground with clothes and supplies scattered around her. She blinked back frustrated tears when Dakota trotted into the woods after the others.

  Rick arrived at the spring thirty minutes after the first group. A sweaty and breathless Lucy walked behind him, her face still furious. Andrea was next. Her flip flops were made of leather and had survived the hike. The thongs on Reba’s and Tara’s rubber flip flops had broken and both girls were barefoot and crying. All three of them had cuts and scrapes where the rocks and undergrowth had torn at their exposed feet.

  “We’re here! Oh, thank god!” puffed Reba. She collapsed on the ground and shrugged out of her backpack. The hike had clearly taken its biggest toll on her. Her thin, shoulder length hair was plastered to her head and neck, and her obese body heaved as she struggled to catch her breath. Her face was an alarming shade of red. Tara and Andrea dropped to the ground beside her and immediately began inspecting their feet for injuries.

  “Can I get some first aid supplies over here please?” Andrea looked at Rick and snapped her fingers. “Hey, I’m talking to you! Our feet are a mess!”

  “You ladies get exactly three-fourteenths of the first aid supplies,” snarled Brenda, taking the bag with the first aid kit away from Rick. “I will divvy things up right now. Then you can come over here and get them yourselves.”

  “Get your own first aid supplies, Andrea,” said Lucy, stabbing her with a warning glare. She ignored the tearful doe eyes that Andrea turned to her and clapped her hands together to get the group’s attention. “OK, listen up, people! Here is what we are going to do. We are going to take a short rest, we are going to drink and fill our water bottles at the spring, and then we are going to walk to Port…”

  “Hang on a minute, Lucy,” said Rick, holding up a hand to silence her. “We have other plans.” He didn’t wait for her reply before he addressed the watching teens, “Kids, why don’t you start filling water bottles at the spring?” He turned to Lucy, Brenda, and Andrea. “Follow me. We need to talk.”

  Andrea held up a hand so Lucy could pull her to her feet but Lucy walked past without acknowledging her. Andrea was the last to join them as she made a show of limping forward.

  Lucy placed her hands on her hips and was looking at Rick when she said, “I’ve made the decision. We are going to Port Fortand. I know we will just have to walk back the way we came, but it’s the only thing that makes sense. Help will be heading for Port Fortand as we speak, since everyone has to know that it was hit by the tsunami.”

  “I disagree, Lucy. Port Fortand will be overflowing with dead bodies and injured refugees in need of serious help. There won’t be any food or clean water, and the people who can still walk will be walking away from town, not towards it.”

  “We are going to Port Fortand!” ordered Lucy. “I’ve made the decision and it is final!”

  “I agree with Lucy,” said Andrea. “I’ll start asking around to see if anyone has extra shoes. If not, we can take turns going barefoot so Tara, Reba, and I have shoes at least part of the way.”

  Rick made no effort to hide his disgust when he said, “You have no say in where we go, Andrea. Tara will be too sick to move in a few hours and you know it. You, Reba, and Tara are staying here where the water is. And Andrea? Even if Tara were well enough to hike out with us, I would not allow any of the others to share their shoes with you and risk injuring their own feet.”

  “You are staying here, Andrea,” said Lucy, giving Andrea a scathing stare. “Rick is right. Once Tara starts to withdraw from those drugs, she’ll be so sick she won’t make it to the woods before she craps in her pants. It’s going to last for days.”

  “You can’t just leave us here!”

  “You’ve already been left,” said Rick, “so just deal with it.”

  “You are on your own, Andrea,” said Brenda with unconcealed loathing. “I don’t want you anywhere near Shelly or me.”

  Andrea’s panicked eyes shot to Lucy. “Lucy? Are you really going to just leave us here alone?”

  “What Rick said. You’ve already been left. And thanks to you, Reba is without tennis shoes and is stuck here with you and Tara. How dare you tell those girls that I would lie for them so they could skip out on their community service! You disgust me, Andrea.”

  When Andrea collapsed to the ground in hysterical tears, Rick ignored her and tipped his head to the side to indicate that he wanted to continue the conversation without the noisy distraction. Lucy and Brenda followed him to a spot a few yards away. “I’m taking Abby and Leanna northeast in search of roads leading away from the coast. Brenda is heading south towards those remote neighborhoods in the hills that we passed right before we got to Hammer Mountain Park. She and Shelly will take Libby and Pepper with them. Once they find refuge, they will stay there and wait for rescue. Lucy, you and Dakota are taking Kate and Sarah with you. Brenda and I are already taking on the responsibility for two of the students.

  “Excuse me?” sputtered Lucy. “You decided all of this without my input? I’m a member of the Zeem family and an officer of the company and you didn’t even consult with me?”

  “It makes no sense to head towards the devastation in Port Fortand, Lucy, and I’m done arguing this point with you,” snapped Rick. “Besides, if we all go in different directions, we have a better chance of finding someone with a satellite phone. Whoever finds help first can point the rescuers to where the others are.” He glanced at his watch. “We need to head out. We’ve wasted enough time already.”

  “Fine!” said Lucy. “Then I am taking Leanna with me and you can have Sarah or Kate, Rick. Leanna is my foster child and my responsibility.”

  “We divided the students by fitness levels for a reason, Lucy. The faster that one of our teams finds help, the sooner the other teams are rescued. Leanna is the only kid who is fit enough to keep up with Abby and me.”

  “Exactly! And that’s why she’s coming with me. She is strong enough…”

  “To be your Sherpa,” cut in Brenda. “I don’t believe you, Lucy. A slower kid will hold up Rick’s whole team, but that’s OK as long as it makes things easier for you!”

  “Knock it off!” barked Rick. “It’s settled!” He and Brenda both walked away abruptly, effectively cutting off Lucy’s objections.

  Brenda called Shelly, Pepper, and Libby into a huddle to explain the plan, and then guided them to the spring where they drank as much water as they could. They carried their baggage to the south end of the clearing to wait for Rick, who was writing Joshua’s satellite number on strips of paper.

  When Rick crossed the clearing and handed Brenda the phone number he said, “Lucy is determined to take her team to Port Fortand, against my better judgment and advice. She’ll be going the same direction as me until we get to the split where I go east and she goes west, but my team is going to rush ahead; I have to put some serious distance between us before Lucy plays the foster mother card and tries to steal Leanna away again.” His eyes grew misty as he wrapped Brenda in a hug. “Lucy should be in Port Fortand by tomorrow night at the latest. If my team is really lucky, some Good Samaritan will pick us up on the road and drive us inland. We’ll send help your way as soon as we can. God bless you all and good luck. Now get out of here before Andrea has another meltdown, or worse, Lucy tries to seize control again.”

  “Wish Lucy and her team good luck for me, Rick,” said Brenda. “I hate Lucy’s guts but I do want her team to make it out of here safely.”

  “She sent me over with the exact same message for you, including the ‘I hate Brenda’s guts’ part,” smiled Rick. “It’s all good.”

  Brenda watched as Rick crossed the clearing and led his team towards the woods. Lucy’s team was right behind. Both Lucy and Rick turned at the same time to wave farewell. Brenda waved back and headed south with the sounds of
Andrea’s hysterical bawling at her back.

  Chapter 6 The Teams Day Two

  Andrea, Tara, and Reba

  Andrea, Tara, and Reba sat morosely on the damp ground a few feet away from the spring that trickled down from the rocky hillside. The area in which they sat faced a small copse of old-growth forest that stopped abruptly at a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. A steep, fern-covered hill rose behind them and there was dense forest on either side.

  Andrea’s convulsive sobs eventually dissolved into weak mewling sounds and Reba was grateful the drama had died down, although she knew the respite was temporary. As soon as Tara began to feel the symptoms of opiate withdrawal, things would skid downhill fast.

  “Lucy hates me,” sniffed Andrea, breaking in to a fresh bout of sobs. “I can’t believe she just left us here.”

  “You stopped taking your meds, didn’t you, Mom?” sneered Tara, who was feeling more and more irritable as the minutes ticked by. She looked at Reba and said, “Every time my family plans a vacation, or there’s some other big event to look forward to, Mom gets all excited and happy and convinces herself that she doesn’t need her meds anymore. It never fails. By the time the big event arrives, she’s already a basket case and her meltdowns ruin it for everyone. She has ruined every single vacation we’ve ever taken.” Tara anticipated Andrea’s open-handed slap to her face and ducked before it hit her, then scooted out of reach. “Of course Lucy hates you, Mom. We all hate you after the way you behaved last night. It’s your fault we are stranded out here. If you hadn’t lost it and made the phone fall in the fire, help would already be on the way. No one even knows where we are, thanks to you.”

  Reba was relieved when Andrea sighed miserably and did not respond to Tara’s goading. Still, she was uncomfortable enough in the tense environment to stumble on her torn feet to a tree several yards away. She had not slept well the night before and her nerves were frayed. One thought kept circling through her head and wouldn’t go away; her friendship with Tara was a perfect mirror of Lucy’s friendship with Andrea. It was a master-slave relationship. Lucy’s contempt for Andrea was sickeningly obvious, and it was no different than the contempt that Tara often showed for Reba. And now Tara’s drug addiction was out in the open and Reba would go down with her.

  The obese and shunned Reba had been delighted when Tara befriended her at the beginning of their freshman year at St. Mary’s. As their friendship became well-established, Reba emerged from her self-conscious shell and bloomed in the light of Tara’s acceptance. Tara used Reba, who was willing to do anything to please her popular friend. Reba rose in status but only because people feared Tara. For Reba, being feared by association was good enough.

  Reba was the only person who knew about Tara’s addiction to prescription drugs; the girls had tried OxyContin together over a year before. Luckily for Reba, she broke into a cold sweat and felt nothing but nausea when the drug hit her system. Tara, on the other hand, felt euphoric. In less than a year, Tara moved from one pill a day to three. As her resistance grew, she started crushing the pills to kill the time release so the effect was stronger. After a year of constant use though, even crushing the pills no longer brought her to the desired state of euphoria; she simply had to take the drugs to feel normal. If she waited too long to take her next hit, she felt terribly ill.

  Tara started dealing Oxy in small quantities at other high schools to support her habit; the pills she craved cost ten dollars apiece and there was no way she could afford them even on her generous allowance. When her habit grew to a minimum of three pills a day, she started dealing heavily, but she used Reba to perform the sales transactions while she stayed in the background.

  An onslaught of stabbing hunger pangs jolted Reba from her bitter reflections and added to her misery. She waited for Andrea to go into the woods to relieve herself before she rose painfully to her feet and limped towards her duffel bag still sitting by the spring.

  “Try to control yourself, Piggy,” said Tara as Reba reached for her bag. “I’m not sharing my food when yours runs out.”

  “Shut up, Tara.”

  Tara saw the glimmer of tears in Reba’s eyes and taunted, “Ooooh, now Piggy is going to cry, isn’t she?”

  Reba ignored the barb and carried her bag back to the tree. In the past, Tara’s random cruelty could paralyze her for hours. Today though, Reba dug deep inside herself to find the ember of rage that had begun to smolder after the drugs were found in Tara’s bag. Tara would implicate Reba in the Oxy scandal with no qualms. Reba had not taken Oxy since her first nauseating trial, but she had allowed herself to be Tara’s dealing mule. Tara would go down for buying drugs, but she would make sure that Reba got in at least as much trouble, if not more, for selling drugs to other high school students.

  Reba tasted the sweetness of chocolate in her mouth but was too preoccupied with fear and self-pity to remember actually eating the candy bar. As she tore the wrapper from a second bar, Tara made snorting pig noises from her seat by the spring. It was the last straw.

  “I’m going straight to the cops after we get back, Tara. I’m telling my parents about your Oxy habit first, and then I’m going straight to the cops. I’m going to tell them everything.”

  “And how is that going to help you, Piggy?” scoffed Tara. “You sold the drugs to other kids, not me. I didn’t force you to do anything. It’s as simple as that, moron. You will be in ten times more trouble than me. Besides, I am the poor addict, remember? I can’t control myself. What’s your excuse for dealing drugs to kids?”

  Tara’s cruel eyes glittered from across the small clearing and Reba’s smoldering rage erupted into flame. Enough was enough. “I changed my mind. I don’t need to go to the police at all. My second act, after I tell my parents about your habit, will be to call your dealer. That was his Oxy you brought on this trip wasn’t it? There is no way you had the cash to buy a whole two weeks’ worth. It was your dealer’s Oxy and you were supposed to sell it, but you stole it instead.”

  The fright that swept across Tara’s face was all the confirmation and encouragement Reba needed.

  “Here’s my story, Tara. I am going to tell your dealer that you were planning to blackmail him. You took his drugs like you were going to sell them, but you brought them on this trip, for your own use, instead. I will tell your dealer that you told me you were going to turn in his dealers if he didn’t give you free drugs from now on.” The threat Reba uttered so matter-of-factly had materialized from out of nowhere but it clearly found its mark.

  Tara’s bravado sounded false even to herself when she said, “Yeah, like I even know who his dealers are!”

  “I am going to tell him that you know all about his chain of dealers – that you followed him all over Del Norte and Humboldt Counties until you knew where he got his supply. He is going to take my word over yours and you know it. You are just a lying addict who will sell her soul for a few pills. Why would he trust you anyway? After all, you did steal the Oxy you brought on this trip.”

  The words slammed home. Tara’s face drained to a sickly gray color and her terrified eyes blinked rapidly. “You don’t even know who my dealer is.”

  “You are so stupid! How many times did you leave your phone lying around? I’ve stolen every number in your contact list, and I know exactly which number to call first. You always turned your back on me and whispered in your phone when you called your dealer, didn’t you? Then you left your phone sitting around and I got the number. It was simple.” Reba was lying but it didn’t matter. Tara believed her and that was good enough.

  “Reba, you can’t! They will kill me! Literally! The big guys will kill me if they think I know who they are and that I threatened to turn them in!”

  “Which is why you are going to lie about my part in this mess. You are going to tell the police that you sold the drugs to the other kids. I had nothing to do with anything. My name had better not come into it at all. If it does, I swear I will call your dealer.”

 
; “Reba, take it easy on the food! We aren’t sharing ours if yours runs out!” Andrea had come out of the woods and was zipping her pants as she approached. She sat next to her daughter and asked how she was feeling.

  Tara glanced dismally at Reba’s smirk and lay down on her side. “Not so good, Mom.”

  **********

  Tara’s agitation grew throughout the day. She complained of nausea and achy leg muscles while she thrashed on the ground to find a comfortable position. By the time her arms began to ache, her bowels were already roiling.

  “How long ago did you take the last pill, Tara?” The first twinges of real terror began to gnaw at Andrea’s gut as she watched her writhing daughter.

  “It was still dark outside,” moaned Tara. “Everyone was still asleep.”

  “You don’t know what time it was?”

  “No!” wailed Tara. “It was before the sun came up, Mom!”

  “What difference does it make, Andrea? It was long enough ago that Tara is feeling withdrawals now.” Reba could barely stand Andrea’s anxious hovering or Tara’s constant moaning and thrashing. Her bond with Tara was completely severed and she had spent the previous hours mulling over how badly Tara had used her. Things had changed.

  “You are a big help!” shouted Andrea. “Poor Tara is over here suffering and you just sit there on your fat ass!”

  “Tara is on her own, Andrea.” Reba made sure she locked eyes with Tara as she said it. She turned a falsely sympathetic face to Andrea. “I’m just stating the facts. There is nothing either one of us can do to help her.”

  By late afternoon, Tara was moaning nonstop at the pain roaring through her arms and legs, and she simply could not lie still. When stomach cramps gripped her, she shot up to a sitting position and clutched at her abdomen. It took both Reba and Andrea to support her as she hobbled towards the trees. They were merely feet from the spring when Tara began to tear at her jeans, pleading that she couldn’t wait. She squatted where she was, gagging and vomiting as her bowels released a flood of diarrhea. Reba and Andrea had barely walked her back to their resting place before the cramping began anew. Tara’s spasms were so constant and so severe that Andrea had to remove her pants and underwear so she wouldn’t soil them.