Then she steered away from the skid, instead of in the same direction.
The van slid violently and went off the road.
It didn’t roll.
It didn’t hit anything.
But it was hopefully stuck.
-45-
Once again, Charlotte began to cry.
One of her friends, sitting behind her, placed a hand upon her shoulder and cried too.
Never in her life had Charlotte felt worse than she did now.
When the boys and staff members were executed a few days before it was one of the worst experiences in her life.
But that was different. She had no control over that. There was absolutely nothing she could have done to prevent it, nothing she could do to save them.
This one was all on her.
She was the driver. She accepted the responsibility of getting them to a place they’d be safe.
And she failed.
For the first time in her life her spirit was completely broken.
And she didn’t know what to do.
Over the next few minutes they took turns trying to get the van unstuck. Someone suggested rocking it back and forth, although she hadn’t a clue where the idea had come from.
“I think I saw somebody do it in a movie or a TV show. I think it worked for them.”
It didn’t work in this case.
All it did was dig the van deeper and deeper into the snow.
At some point the exhaust pipe disappeared beneath the snow line.
“Look, the gas tank… it’s pointing at that little red line. Does that mean it’s getting low?”
Charlotte had never thought to check the fuel gauge. Now she felt doubly stupid. For yes indeed, they were getting low on gas.
Down to an eighth of a tank.
Not a one among them knew how much run time that translated into.
They knew they would run out of gas at some point, but had no clue whether it would be five minutes or five hours.
There were some things they did know, however.
They knew that once the engine died the van would start to get cold.
They knew that within minutes it would be as cold inside the van as it was outside.
They knew that in all the time since the man at the prison turned them away, they hadn’t seen a single soul.
And that odds were no one would happen by.
Lastly, and most importantly, they knew that if they didn’t do something desperate they would all die of hypothermia.
Charlotte felt the need to redeem herself.
Although she had absolutely no reason to feel guilty, she did anyway.
She felt she’d let her friends down.
After all, she was the oldest among them.
And theoretically the wisest.
“I’ll go for help,” she said.
“Charlotte, you will not. You can’t leave us. You’ll freeze out there. It’s probably twenty miles to San Angelo.”
“Don’t be silly, Roxanna. It was twenty miles when we left Eden. It’s probably only half that now.”
“Okay, say it’s ten miles. You still can’t walk that far. Not in weather like this.”
“I have no choice. If I don’t go for help we’ll all die.”
“Then we’ll all go.”
“No. You all stay here. Run the heater to stay warm. I’ll find someone with another vehicle and make them come for you.”
“What if they don’t want to?”
“What part of making them come don’t you understand?”
No one wanted Charlotte to go. Not a single one of them thought it was a good idea to separate.
But her logic was sound. The odds of someone happening by were miniscule.
They were limited on gas.
And if the gas ran out before help arrived they’d all die.
They finally agreed to let Charlotte go. They pinned their hopes on her only when she agreed to one small concession.
She was to wear an extra coat.
Charlotte’s best friend, Mary Helen, insisted on it.
“I can snuggle with everybody else if we run out of gas,” she insisted. They’ll keep me warm, I promise. You’ll need the additional warmth.”
Charlotte argued at first.
“I can’t take it. I won’t.”
“Oh yes you will.”
Oh no I won’t.”
“If you don’t take it, I’ll tell everyone about your crush on John McIntyre.”
“They all know I had a crush on John. So there.”
“Yes, but they don’t know about when I snuck into the hay barn that night two years ago and saw what you and John were doing in there. They don’t know what you did to him and what he did to you. And what you did to each other.”
The other girls’ faces all expressed shock.
Charlotte’s expressed anger.
“I swore you to secrecy forever and a day. You said you’d never tell anybody.”
“That’s right. And I won’t, if you’ll take my coat.”
“You’re evil to the core. You know that?”
“I know. Now take my coat.”
Charlotte took the coat and put it on over her own.
The two hugged and said their goodbyes and I love yous.
And Charlotte set out in the snow.
It wasn’t until she was gone the girls all bowed their heads and Rebecca said a prayer for their friend.
-46-
Brad’s homecoming at the compound was happy but very short lived.
Sami greeted him at the gate.
“I know you’ll tell me a million times in the years ahead what an idiot I was. But for now can I just hold you for two or three weeks?”
“Okay. But I get to tell you one time first.”
He sighed.
“Okay. Go ahead.”
“You’re a boneheaded idiot. If I didn’t love you so much and if I didn’t want to leave our baby without a daddy I’d kill you with my bare hands.”
“I know.”
She smiled.
“Okay,” she said as she wrapped her arms around him. “Let the two or three weeks commence.”
He held her for a couple of minutes and said, “Well, maybe not two or three weeks.”
“Nope. You said. Two or three weeks. Minimum.”
“But I have to help search for Frank.”
“There are plenty of people out there searching for Frank.”
“I know. But he was searching for me when he went missing.”
She looked up, into his eyes, and said “I know. You have to go. You feel you owe it to him. And maybe you do. But you can’t blame me for wanting to be selfish and hang onto you as long as I can.”
“It’s not being selfish. It’s being…”
“In love. I know. But if I let you go, you have to go with somebody else. You’ve lost your traveling alone privileges.”
“You mean I’m on probation? For how long?”
“As long as this damn freeze lasts.”
“Okay, deal.”
Frank’s sudden disappearance caught them all by surprise. For it was Frank who had the most experience in searches and security and such things.
As a former Marine and policeman, he’d have been the last one of them anyone would expect to just disappear without a trace.
Yet he did.
And his disappearance affected them in many other ways as well.
For he’d always been the one everybody turned to in difficult times. He always kept a level head. He always knew what to do when things needed to be done.
It was like trying to carry out Christmas without Santa Claus.
Oh, they were trying. In the daytime all the men left the compound and helped in the search, leaving the women behind to hold down the fort.
When someone suggested the act might be sexist, he was reminded that defending the compound was just as important, just as dangerous as helping in the search.
“People have bee
n killed or wounded defending this compound,” Karen pointed out. “Nobody’s been lost being involved in a search party.”
It was a valid point.
“And let’s make sure it stays that way. Double up, guys. Take lots of first aid supplies and provisions with you. Extra radio batteries, extra ammunition. And do not deviate from your assigned search area unless you get ahold of at least one other team on the radio and report your new destination.”
They’d lost one man in the search of Brad.
By God, they weren’t going to lose anybody else.
It was hard conducting a search under dirty brown skies that even in the daytime let precious little light through.
At night it was darned near impossible.
Every evening, at seventeen hundred hours, all searchers had a standing rule to mark the place they left off and to return to home.
Each team had to report in, and was checked off a roster as they came in.
The volunteers from Eden South were the guests of Mark and Hannah and the others at the Salt Mountain compound. It just made no sense for them to travel ninety miles each morning to meet up with their counterparts and then drive ninety miles back to Eden each evening.
-47-
At the Salt Mountain compound, Eden South volunteers were being put up at the “big house,” and saw first hand how well their new friends had it.
Instead of living in cramped renovated prison cells, they had spacious one bedroom apartments which resembled suites at an upscale hotel. They had showers with hot and cold running water they could use anytime they wanted, as opposed to an occasional public shower at Eden South.
And instead of making Ramen noodles or canned soup in a microwave for their meals they had access to a community kitchen, where Karen and her staff prepared three hot meals a day.
“You guys have it made here,” one of Richard Sears’ militia members remarked to Karen when being handed a plate of meatloaf and mashed potatoes.
“Well, maybe. But that’s only because we’ve been working at this a lot longer. You guys are still rookies when it comes to building and stocking shelters.
“But cheer up,” she winked.
“After the thaw comes you’ll have a chance to regroup and learn from your past experiences and ours. And by the time the next meteorite brings another freeze you’ll all be experts.”
The man groaned.
“You can’t be serious.”
“No. At least I hope not. Two of these are quite enough for me, thank you very much.”
It was a bit after eighteen hundred hours when Mark parked his rig in the mine and walked through the tunnel to the big house.
Sarah and Hannah were working the control desk.
“Is everybody back yet?”
“Everybody except Marty. He’s spending the night in San Angelo.”
“Are you in contact with him?”
“Yes. But just barely. Lots of static and occasionally he cuts out. San Angelo is about a hundred and seventy miles as the crow flies. We’re lucky we can get him at all.”
“Yeah. We wouldn’t be able to if the land didn’t flatten out to the east of us. And he’d got a high powered antenna on his rig. That helps a lot. Who’s with him from Eden?”
“Art Swayzi.”
“Good man. They make a good team. Did they find out anything?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t checked in with them in about an hour.”
“May I?”
“Sure. Go ahead.”
Mark picked up the microphone.
“Marty, this is control. You got your ears on?”
After a few seconds, “This is Marty. How do you read me?”
“Not bad, actually. A lot of static, but I can make out your words. What’s your status?”
“Nothing so far. We’ve asked at least twenty people if they’ve seen a Hummer roll through town, and nobody has. The firemen here are doing a pretty good job of keeping the roads cleared so residents can gather food as long as possible. They commandeered several road graders from the Department of Transportation and they’re shoveling the snow all day every day.
“If anybody’s likely to see Frank and his Hummer it’ll be the firemen.
“They’re asking all their guys, even the ones off duty, whether they’ve seen him. We’re going back by the main fire station in the morning to find out the results. If they saw him, we’ll head in the same direction Frank did. If they didn’t, we’ll consider this lead a bust and head back your way for another assignment.”
“You got a warm place to stay for the night?”
“Oh, yeah. The city has some shelters open. It appears they learned a big lesson from the first blackout and spent a good part of the last two years preparing for another emergency. They said they had no idea it would happen so quickly.
“We’re spending the night as their guests. Warm beds to sleep in. Food to eat. It could be much worse.”
“So you’ll be out of radio contact?”
“Yes. I was getting ready to call Sarah and let her know. We’ll be out of contact for the night and will call in first thing in the morning when we’re back in the truck.”
“Ten-four.”
Mark asked, “Who’s on duty?”
Sarah offered, “I am. Take your wife. She’d been getting on my nerves anyway.”
Mark turned to Hannah and asked, “Hungry? Want to go eat?”
“I thought you’d never ask, Sailor. I’m starving.”
“Where’s Markie?”
“Last I saw him he was in the lobby, playing hide and seek with Angie and Jacob.”
“Good. That’ll keep him busy for awhile. I can have you all to myself.”
The pair went to the dining room, which was already crowded. It seemed searching the highways in brutal weather conditions helped one work up a powerful hunger.
It also helped that, although each of the search teams took packed lunches, very few actually ate them until later, when they became after-dinner or late-night snacks.
To stop and eat lunch would have meant less time they spent on the road searching, and most of them deemed Frank’s rescue far more important than filling the holes in their bellies.
They joined Rusty and Adam at a table near the back corner.
Rusty asked, “Hey, I haven’t seen Marty. He’s not still out there, is he?”
“Yes. He and Art are spending the night at a shelter in San Angelo. If they don’t find anything by morning they’ll head back this way.”
-48-
Standard procedure since Frank went missing was for all adults to gather in the dining room for a briefing each evening.
The previous evening someone asked to move the meeting up an hour so that they could get to bed a bit earlier.
It seemed the all-day searches in horrific weather were wearing them all out.
Although most of the group was still eating, it was time to get the meeting started.
Mark stood and Hannah tapped the side of her drinking glass with a spoon.
“Can I have everybody’s attention please?”
The room stopped buzzing and went suddenly silent.
“I know everybody is exhausted and looking forward to some sack time, so we’ll try to keep this short.
“First of all I want to welcome Brad back. For those of you who’ve worked so hard to find him, let me express my personal appreciation. For those of you who’ve been praying for him, thank you for that. And please continue your prayers for Frank until he’s found.
“We’ve asked Brad to take a few days off, but he’s refused. As much as he’s gone through, he’ll be out there with us first thing in the morning.”
A spontaneous round of applause erupted for Brad. Several people bit their tongues and resisted the urge to tell him he was an idiot.
They would at some point, but now wasn’t the proper time.
“We’ve exhausted the southern corridor. We’ve simply run out of places to look south of here.
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“I’ll get back to the control center in a few minutes. We’ll prepare new assignments for tomorrow, focusing on the roads north and west of here. We’ll also have a couple of teams east, but we’ve examined all roads in Eden east, north and south of the prison. None of them have been traveled much in the last few days. And we’ve examined the few tire tracks there were in the fresh snow. None of them appear to come from Hummers.
“Marty and Art are staying the night in San Angelo. They’ve got the fire department asking around to see if anybody’s spotted any Hummers in the last few days. If that doesn’t play out, they’ll head back this way.
“We’ve also been using our ham radio to call every prepper we know who is similarly equipped. Also, all the cities and townships in this part of Texas which have operating hams.
“We’re basically putting out an all-points bulletin for the vehicle. The problem is that very few people are getting out anymore. We’re getting commitments, though, from those people who are getting out. If they spot Frank they’ll attempt to talk to him to make sure he’s okay. If they can’t speak to him, they’ll at least let us know where they spotted him.
“That’s all I’ve got. Anybody else got anything to add?”
Mark looked around the room. Each table was full of glum faces.
The sadness was palpable. No one would voice it, but most were starting to think Frank was lying dead in a ditch somewhere.
And not a single one of them had anything to add.
-49-
Marty and Art were impressed by the city of San Angelo’s efforts in protecting their Saris 7 survivors.
It seemed the city leaders took their jobs seriously.
When the thaw came the first thing they did was conduct a census to see how many of their citizens were still around. The results were startling. Almost forty percent of their people made it.
As word spread from other cities around the nation, San Angelo realized how lucky they were. The national survival rate was around fourteen percent.
No one knew exactly why the central Texas city had fared so well, but many locals had their guesses.
Some thought it was because San Angelans were so tough by nature. Locked in a location in Texas which made them prone to tornadoes, vicious sandstorms, wildfires, earthquakes and extended droughts had made them resilient.
One of Our Own: Final Dawn: Book 11 Page 15