Land A Stranded Novel

by Theresa Shaver

  Chapter 15

  Six days later, Alex was happy to see the mountains of Montana after taking so long to get through Idaho. They had left the town and cut through the northwestern corner of Utah with no problems. They tried to stay away from towns as much as possible and Idaho made that easy with its low population. Of the six days they had traveled since leaving the town, two of the days were spent in frustrating backtracking. Some roads had been impossible to get around car crashes and at one point they saw a homemade sign warning travellers to turn back or be shot. They didn’t want to get into another fight so they turned back and searched for another route. Local maps were getting hard to find as it seemed that all the gas stations they stopped at had been looted. The group did see other people but not as many as in the first few days.

  On the second day, they saw a woman pushing a stroller down the side of the road and stopped to offer her a ride. She was very suspicious and clutched a small pistol in her hand. When Dara told her she could ride alone with her, the woman relaxed and was very friendly. Her baby was under a year old and she had been stuck in a bigger town that she had gone shopping at. They had stayed as long as they could with friendly strangers but the food supply was tight and she wanted to go home.

  They gave her fresh baked buns and water and dropped her off outside of her town. The group had discussed helping people, especially people with children when they could but all agreed that avoiding people was better. Not all the people they stopped to help were nice.

  In southern Idaho, they saw a man walking with two boys and they stopped to offer a ride. The two boys were skinny and dirty and didn’t speak. The man took in the three working vehicles with calculation and envy. He accepted the ride and they climbed into the camper.

  Alex was driving with Josh taking a turn keeping watch out of the roof vent. Alex tried to engage the man in conversation but he just answered her questions with grunts. She could see him in the rearview mirror, taking in all the supplies piled up in the rear of the camper. He kept taking quick looks at Josh’s legs braced on the water cases.

  Alex had a bad feeling about the guy and wondered about the silent boys. She’d given them juice boxes and more of the buns that they kept stockpiling. The boys ate in small bites with their heads down. She was getting nervous about the way the man kept checking on Josh’s position. She eased her handgun out of its holster and set it on her lap. They had been driving in silence for twenty minutes when the man made his move.

  He stood up from the dinette table and stretched. As soon as she saw him in the mirror take a step towards her, she tapped the brakes twice and grabbed her gun, keeping it down on her lap. He came in a rush and got right beside her. There was a small revolver in his hand and he pointed it at her side. He was trying to hide what he was doing if Josh came down into the camper.

  In a normal tone of voice, like they were just having a conversation, he told her, “I don’t think it’s really fair that you kids have three working cars. That seems very greedy to me so I think you should give me one. At the next side road, I want you to turn off and give it some gas. We’re going to ditch your friends and then when we are safely away, I’ll let you and your friend go.”

  Alex didn’t know if the man was blind or just stupid. He didn’t seem to remember the assault rifle that Josh had in his hands when he was on the roof or the two guns Alex had strapped to her waist. He was seriously out-gunned.

  “That’s not going to happen, mister. How about I pull over and let you leave my camper alive instead?” and she nodded downwards. With her right hand on the wheel, she had the gun in her left hand and her arm was across her stomach which meant that the gun’s barrel was inches from his ribs.

  The man looked down and paled a bit but his resolve hardened, “Put that away, little girl. You know you aren’t going to shoot me in front of those boys,” he ordered.

  “I wouldn’t mess with her, mister. That “little girl” snapped the neck of a biker with nothing but her thighs and if she doesn’t take care of you, I will!” Josh told him. He had come up behind the stranger, alerted by Alex’s braking pattern.

  The man slumped in defeat when he felt the barrel of Josh’s gun against the back of his head. He whined, “I wasn’t going to hurt you. I just want the camper. It’s not fair that you kids have three vehicles!”

  Josh ignored the whining man and plucked the gun from his hand.

  “Alex, toot the horn twice and put your signal light on. Pull over and we’ll get rid of this trash.”

  Josh grabbed the man by the collar and pulled him back onto his butt, then dragged him back towards the side door. Alex pulled over and put the camper in park. She slid out of her seat and went into the back of the camper. She looked at the two boys and felt bad for them.

  “I’m sorry, boys. You’re going to have to go back to walking with your dad,” she told them.

  Neither boy had even looked up at the commotion but the older boy mumbled something. Alex thought that he looked around eight or nine. She crouched down beside him and asked, “What did you say, sweetie?”

  The boy finally looked up into Alex’s eyes and she was shocked to see that they were full of rage. “I said he’s not our dad! We don’t even know him and he’s an asshole!” the child said with force.

  The pathetic man on the floor yelled at the kid, “Shut up, you ungrateful little shit!”

  Josh poked him with the rifle barrel to shut him up.

  “Tell me what happened, sweetie,” Alex asked the boy gently.

  His eyes welled up and his little brother started to cry. “My mom was driving us to school and we had a crash. I couldn’t wake her up. I tried all day!” he cried out. Then in a whisper, “I think she was dead.”

  “I’m so sorry, honey. There were a lot of car crashes that day.” She gently rubbed his back. “How did you end up with this man?”

  The boy looked over at the man with fierce eyes. “No one came. All day we waited for help and we were hungry and scared. When it was getting dark, he came and made us go with him. He said we had to pretend that he was our dad because people would help us if they thought he had kids. He said he would beat us if we spoke to anyone. And he hit my brother lots of times to make him be quiet. He’s a really bad man. He robbed some people that were going to give us food. And they kicked us out of a shelter when they caught him stealing stuff. Please don’t make us go with him. We will be really good and quiet if we can stay with you guys,” he pleaded.

  The camper door was thrown open just then and Cooper and Quinn were standing outside with their guns pointed in.

  “What’s going on?” Quinn asked, eyeing the snivelling man on the floor.

  “We’re just getting ready to throw out some trash,” Josh joked and shoved the man out the door. Quinn jumped back and the man hit the pavement hard. “Off you go, buddy. We’ll take care of the kids from here.”

  He scrambled to his feet and whined. “My gun, please can I have my gun back. It’s dangerous out here. I need to be able to protect myself.

  “That’s funny. It sounds like you just said something but that can’t be right because dead men don’t talk,” Josh said in an amused tone that turned menacing. “Start walking or I’ll start shooting.” He lifted his gun to his shoulder and took aim.

  “Fine, fine I’ll go! The little brats were too much work anyways. You can keep them.” The man jumped and took off running when Quinn shot the ground at his feet. Josh looked at him with a grin.

  “What?” Quinn asked with a shrug. “I’ve always wanted to do that.”

  Alex rolled her eyes. “Can we go now, please?”

  After getting as much information as they could from the two boys about other family members, they checked the map and found that their grandparents lived in a town that was only forty miles out of the way. They drove the boys to the town and handed them off to the guards at a roadblock with promises from the guards to get the boys to their family.

  Alex and Dara handed ou
t buns to them all. The camper always smelled like fresh baked buns as the girls made them nonstop. They found that the buns made a great goodwill gesture and it smoothed a lot of tension with the people they ran into. Having a good amount of flour and baking supplies from Mr. Peterson’s house, they felt it was more than worth it to give buns away. They each knew how lucky they were to have transportation and supplies and felt it was a small thing to do to give back.

  They were getting closer to the Montana border the next day when they heard gunshots. Quinn was on the roof of the camper and Cooper was in the back of the truck on guard. They couldn’t see where the gunfire was coming from but Quinn caught sight of sparks flying off the top of the van on the driver’s side so he knew they were the target. Quinn let loose with his automatic rifle and poured bullets into the bush on the left-hand side of the road. Cooper followed suit and they kept it up until their clips ran dry. Alex was driving the truck in the lead and she sped up, trying to get out of range. Once they had gone around a few bends and put some distance between themselves and the shooters, she slowed down.

  It was a few hours later that they came upon an old antique school bus parked on the road beside three abandoned cars. They came up slowly and came to a stop fifty feet behind it. With the wrecked cars on one side and the bus in the middle of the road, there wasn’t room to safely go around. Quinn saw an older man stand up from one of the wrecked cars when he heard their engines. He had a shotgun in his hands but it was pointing at the road. He scanned the three vehicles and seemed to make up his mind. He smiled, gave a wave and placed his gun on the top of the car he was standing by.

  The kids were still a little on edge after being shot at earlier so Quinn and Cooper went forward alone with their guns, armed and ready. As they came closer, the man almost seemed to recognize them. He had a big grin on his face when he greeted them.

  “Well, hello! I didn’t think I’d run into you kids out here on the road. It’s good to see you! Can you give me a hand? Some cotton pickin’ yahoos shot at me down the road and thankfully they had really bad aim. All they hit was my spare gas cans. I’m trying to siphon some gas to get these folks to the end of my route,” and waved at the bus.

  Quinn and Cooper looked towards the bus and saw a bunch of faces peering out at them. Turning back to the old man with a frown Quinn asked, “Sir, you seem to think you know us but I don’t think we’ve met. Who are you?”

  “Oh, where did my manners go? I’m Jasper Welch. I’m very pleased to meet you.” He offered his hand in greeting. “You’re those Canadian kids, aren’t you?” he asked while shaking the boys’ hands.

  Quinn and Cooper look at each other in bafflement.

  “Yup, heard all about you kids. I’ve been driving old Gertie back and forth, shuttling people ever since the lights went out so I hear all kinds of news. You kids are almost famous for takin’ out that gang in Nevada. Say, you don’t happen to have any of those buns, do you?”

  Shaking his head in amazement, Cooper headed back to the camper to get buns and tell the others about the new legend they had become. Quinn stayed and helped the man fill up his jerry cans that had been repaired with duct tape.

  They exchanged information about the best roads ahead and told each other their respective stories. After Quinn corrected some of the wilder details of the biker battle that the man had been told, they finished up with the gas cans and strapped them back on the bus.

  “So what made you turn bus driver, Mr. Welch?” Quinn asked.

  “Well, I used to drive old Gertie here in parades and for special functions for fun but after everything quit working, I was worried about getting enough food so I opened me a bussing business. Depending on how far someone wants to go, is how many cans of food I charge. I don’t have a lot of competition.” He laughed and slapped his knee. “And for the first time since I was a young fella gas is real affordable!”

  Quinn couldn’t help laughing with the good humoured man. Alex walked up carrying two grocery bags of buns and with a grin at the man said, “I hear an order has been placed for our famous buns.” She handed them over to the man. “Now you share those out with your passengers, don’t keep them all for yourself,” she teased.

  “Well, aren’t you the sweetest thing! It’s a real pleasure to see such goodness in this new world we’re in. I sure hope you all make it home.” He nodded at Quinn and Alex and made his way back to his old bus.

  They stood there watching the bus drive away. Quinn had to laugh. “No phones, no internet and no TV and we manage to make the news in at least three states. What are the odds?”

  Alex looked at him deadpan and said, “Well, I do make really good buns. Word was bound to spread.” And she walked away.