Sean gave him an odd look, but poured a measure of whiskey in his tumbler. Elly covered her mug and shook her head. When everyone had a refill, Cole cleared his throat. “I have an announcement.” He turned to Elly and smiled. “I’d like to propose a toast…”
15
Cole gripped the railing on the bridge and gazed down at the swollen Mississippi River. They had received plenty of rain but he hadn’t expected the river to be this high. The steady drizzle yesterday while they had cleared a path half-way across the bridge hadn’t seemed hard enough to cause this large of a rise overnight. He searched up river, noting how the riverbanks on either side were basically non-existent. They were gone yesterday in some places, but the water had been a foot or so below today’s levels. Now, the banks were gone and the river spread out like a great flowing lake.
He’d crossed the Mississippi countless times around this area and knew it was wide, but one reason he’d wanted to cross here was because it only grew even wider the farther down the river one went. The only explanation for the flood levels today had to be that there had been a lot of rain north of them in the last few days. For all he knew, there could still be a weather system to the north and the river would continue to rise.
If there was one thing he could bring back from before the virus, not including people, it would be weather forecasts and reports. He had taken them for granted and never realized how big a factor they played even when he didn’t have to make life or death decisions. A low curse behind him made him look over his shoulder to see Sean approaching him.
“Shit!” Sean leaned over the railing. “What a mess.”
“I know. But, we have to cross today.” It wasn’t just spring melt and rains that were causing the flooding, but debris. Everywhere he looked loose boats and barges whirled and spun in the muddy brown water. Even as he watched, one slammed into the pile-up around one of the bridge supports. Some had run aground along the river banks and over the last year, other debris had piled up against them. Large branches and even whole trees had become tangled in the boats. In places, the river was nearly dammed. The current eddied and frothed around the obstacles.
Beneath the bridge only a few narrow channels were open, creating a dangerous current that pulled yet more debris towards the center of the bridge. It was only a matter of time before the entire span beneath the bridge was blocked. When that happened, the water had nowhere to go and pressure would build. Some would spill over the various dikes along the banks, but most would continue the southward journey. The bridge would fail.
Cole waved towards a pile-up of debris against one of the bridge supports. “If another one hits that, it could take out the support beam.” He wasn’t an engineer, but he would bet the support was already weakened. The thought of them being on the bridge if that happened made his stomach clench.
“Maybe we should find another bridge?” Sean raised his hand, shielding his eyes as he squinted downriver.
“You think the next bridge is going to be in better shape than the three before this?” Those had been in worse condition. One was higher above the river, but two overturned semi-trucks made it impassable. One had been hit by a barge and collapsed in the middle. The third was intact, but the river was already lapping across it. They had left it, certain that the next bridge would be better. And it had been—yesterday. Damn it.
“Maybe?” Sean didn’t sound confident and Cole didn’t want to wait. He had a feeling things were only going to get worse the farther downriver they went.
Cole pushed off the rail and shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat. The raw spring air felt even colder when a gust of wind blasted across the bridge. It came from the northwest, and he worried a late spring snowstorm could be headed their way.
“I think the situation is going to be same all up and down the river. With the rain we’ve had over the last week on top of the snow melt, I don’t think that it’s even crested yet. When this bridge goes down, it’s going to add to the debris and pile up against the next bridge, and so on.” He gestured to the dozens of vehicles stranded on the bridge when their drivers either abandoned them or succumbed to the virus mid-crossing. “Every one of these vehicles will add to the problem when they become debris in the river. Besides, the farther south we go, the wider the river becomes and the more vehicles we’d need to clear before we can cross.” The last bit was just a guess. He supposed if they were lucky they might come across a nearly empty bridge, but so far, every one they’d seen had been jammed. Everyone had been trying to escape the virus and most hadn’t made it.
“Okay, well let’s get moving right after breakfast.” Sean slapped his hands down on the railing before turning towards their camp on the eastern bank.
Cole cast a glance north, sighing as the muddy brown water swirled around obstacles and crashed against the bridge pilings along the shore. They didn’t have much time.
Food was being served buffet-style on a couple of boards laid between the tailgates of Steve’s pickup truck and Hunter’s truck. Cole went to the end of the line behind Mike. When the meal was over, the boards would slide back into the covered bed of one of the trucks to be used again.
“You want to go ahead of me?” Mike gestured.
Cole shook his head. “No, that’s okay. I’ll wait.” Ever since Mike and Steve had joined up with them, Mike had acted deferential towards Cole and he didn’t understand why.
Elly joined Cole in line. “How’s it look?”
He shook his head and told her what they’d seen. “It’s going to be a long day.”
“Better eat up then. You’re getting too skinny.” She poked his flat abdomen and winked. He gave her a wry smile. They’d all lost weight they couldn’t afford to lose—she most of all. “You worry about your own weight. Remember, you’re eating for two.”
“As if this baby was going to let me forget.” She pressed a hand to her stomach. “This is my second time through the line.”
“Here, get in front of me.” He wanted to make sure she got enough, but she shook her head.
“No, everyone needs to eat—and how would we manage if our fearless leader up and died of starvation?”
Cole grinned. “I think we’re all pretty safe from that at the moment.” It was the ‘at the moment’ part that worried him. It was true that they had plenty of food right now, but it wasn’t so long ago that he was worried they wouldn’t make it through the winter. They had, but they had all felt the pinch of hunger during the worst of it after the fire— except for the children. Everyone made sure they had their fill. Cole knew it wasn’t so much the lack of food as it was burning calories. That was something he hadn’t factored in to food stores. Before, if he’d consumed as many calories as he now ate daily, he’d have been obese. His daily tasks included hauling and chopping wood, hunting, scavenging and loading or unloading supplies from the trucks. And they were all working just as hard if not harder than he was.
To speed their journey, they were only cooking two meals a day, morning and evening. Lunch consisted of whatever was leftover. He eyed the pile of corncakes, relieved to see there would be plenty for everyone to get a few more later in the day. When people had good food in their stomach with more to look forward to, they worked hard and were less irritable. He took a bite of a cake. After swallowing, he smiled. “These are delicious, Piper.”
“Thanks, Cole. Jake’s the one you can thank for the maple syrup. He found it at that little store everyone else passed up. He walked back last night to see what they had.”
He didn’t know if she was giving him a rebuke, or just pointing out that Jake had been the reason for the treat so he simply nodded. Foraging and scavenging had become second nature to all of them, but if they stopped at every store or house along the way, they would never reach Las Vegas.
Jake had spotted the store set back from the road and had mentioned it at dinner last night. They were all exhausted from clearing the bridge, so Cole had only said that he was too beat to check it ou
t and besides, it was his turn to wash dishes. Hunter had opted to stay with Sophie. She was due in a few months, give or take a week, and was the main reason Cole wanted to get to their destination as quickly as possible. It would be difficult enough to care for an infant in this new world, but trying to do so while traveling through what could be desolate and dangerous country, would be even more difficult.
Jake mumbled a response to Piper about how it was no big deal, but Cole didn’t agree and let Jake know. “Thanks for literally going the extra mile, Jake. You had to have been exhausted from pushing cars out of the way. I know I was.”
Piper beamed and the corners of Jake’s mouth lifted. “It’s just maple syrup. It’s not like we would die without it.”
“True, but I really appreciate it.” Holding the corn cake, he waved it toward the rest of the group chowing down. “From the looks of it, everyone else appreciates it too.” He took a big bite and ambled over to the truck, using the bumper as a seat.
As he balanced his plate on his lap, he felt Lucas watching him, his eyes following the movement of Cole’s fork as he brought a bite of fish to his mouth. At first, he was worried the boy hadn’t had enough to eat and he was going to share what he had, but there had still been plenty left after he’d gone through the line, and only Mike and Elly had been after him. Then he remembered that Lucas had caught the fish in a small pond bordering the bank while the rest of them had been moving vehicles late yesterday. Joe had helped the boy clean the fish and pack them in snow found in the shade of a small hill.
Cole took another bite and made a show of how tasty it was. Lucas had been eager to learn how to fish and constantly quizzed all of them about how to find food. He’d learned how to gut a deer last month, and was rapidly becoming an expert at cleaning fish. Lucas’s months alone with his little sister after their food ran low had affected him deeply. He didn’t hoard food, but he never left anything on his plate and when he wasn’t asking Cole to show him how to hunt, or Elly how to fish, he was in the kitchen with Piper, learning how to cook.
“Did you cook this, Lucas?”
The little boy nodded. “Jenna helped me, but I caught them all by myself.” He had been upset when he’d been told he was too little to help move cars and more to distract him than with any concern of putting food on the table, Cole had given him a fishing pole and pointed him in the direction of the nearby pond. The river was much too dangerous to fish in right now, but the pond was safe enough. He’d been shocked when Lucas had proudly shown him the dozen or so trout on stringers in the pond. Fresh trout was always welcome.
“Man, I don’t know when I’ve had such a good meal. The trout were delicious and the corn cakes are better than anything my grandma made.” His grandmother had never made a corncake that he could recall, but that was beside the point.
Cole looked at the gathering. Everyone pulled their weight. Even little Zoë did what she could to help by scraping plates into a bucket and feeding the scraps to the goats and chickens. Now that they were traveling, she also watched the chickens when they were allowed out in the mornings and evenings to forage.
A speck of blueberry clung to his thumb and he sucked it off. The dried blueberries had made the cakes almost like dessert. The dried fruit were thanks to a large bag of them that Hunter had found in some supplies in the trunk of a sedan. The owner of the car, bless her, had packed all of it in heavy plastic storage bins, and it was still good. The woman must have been somewhat of a prepper because she had a good variety of freeze dried food packed in the bin. They would save that for later.
They still had quite a few vehicles to clear at the far end of the bridge. He had thought they could move ahead and then finish the journey when the last obstacle was cleared, but now he decided that only a few of them would venture on to the bridge at a time. That way, if the bridged did go out, at least most of them would survive. It was morbid thinking, but he didn't know how else to do it. If he could, he'd do it all himself and keep the rest safe, but since he wasn’t gifted with superhuman strength, at least he could be out there all the time and give the others rest spells.
Some vehicles had keys in the ignition, but the corpses of the owners made it impossible to even attempt to start the vehicles. The stench was horrendous from one car they had opened, intending to try to start it. They never tried again. Even though Cole and Elly both thought the bodies were no longer able to transmit the virus, they were too horrible to deal with after nearly a year of rotting in the cars. Instead, they had to do the back-breaking labor of pushing them out of the way. And that was the easy part. The hard part was forgetting what it was they pushed.
“Okay, Hunter. My turn now. Go take a break.”
“Dad. I know what you’re doing.” Hunter felt his spine pop as he pulled his hands off the bumper of a car he and Sean had pushed to the far side of the bridge. He winced and bent backward to work out the kink. They had created a path three quarters of the way across the bridge now that was wide enough for the caravan to pass. By the end of the day, it would be clear, but not if his dad kept sending him and the other men off the bridge to take a break every hour or so.
“Doing?” His dad didn’t meet Hunter’s eyes but looked past him, counting the cars still in their way.
“You’re getting me and the others off the bridge as often as you can—yet I don’t remember the last break you took.” He sat heavily on the bumper of the car he’d just moved.
“I’ve been taking plenty of breaks. You just didn’t see me because you were way down here.” He pointed to a white pickup truck angled across the road. “I think if we move that one, we can squeeze through without having to move the blue Ford to the left of it.”
Hunter nodded but his mind was still on his father’s comment about breaks. He looked back to the east side of the bridge where they all retreated to take their breaks from pushing vehicles. The pavement there was on a long approach on the bridge as it crossed over wetlands but wasn’t actually out over the river. It was safer than the middle of the bridge and must be why his dad kept sending everyone there whenever he could. It was over a brisk five minute walk away. He supposed his father could be telling the truth, but Hunter was sure he would have remembered his dad passing by either coming or going. “What’s going on, Dad?”
“What do you mean?” His father gazed so intently at the white pickup that he appeared to be trying to move it with his mind.
“You seem nervous. Jumpy. I can’t understand why you’re pushing yourself so much to get over this bridge.” Before his dad could reply, Hunter searched his dad’s face, looking for the real answer. “Is something wrong with Elly?” Maybe his dad was just worried about the coming baby and focused all that worry on this problem instead. Hunter could definitely relate.
His eyes wide, his dad shook his head. “Elly? No, she’s fine.” Then he sighed. “Look, son. I’m just worried about crossing the river. That’s it. The water’s rising and we don’t know what’s heading our way. With all the snow in the winter and the rain lately…I’m just worried about the flooding getting worse. If we don’t get this bridge passable today, we may be stuck on this side until waters recede.”
Hunter gazed at the river, nodding. “Yeah, it looks pretty bad, but there’s still plenty of clearance below the bridge. I don’t think the water would get this high.”
“It doesn’t need to be higher than the whole bridge—it only needs to cut off either the east or west side. We don’t want to get stuck in the middle of it.”
Hunter jumped to his feet and shot a look towards each end. His dad was right. While they had been clearing the bridge, the water had crept higher on each bank. When they’d reached the bridge two days ago, the water had seemed safely within the confines of the banks, but now he couldn’t even see the river banks in most places, except a few bluffs down the river.
While they were clearing the bridge, Joe and Elly had gone to search for more supplies. Piper and Sophie were cooking and watching the kids. He ho
ped Sophie wasn’t over-doing it. “I may not have seen you, Dad, but I’ve been hearing you here the whole time. I’m not deaf.”
His dad stared at him for a minute, then shook his head and threw up his hands in defeat. “Fine. I’ll go get a drink. Be back in a few minutes.” He turned to leave, muttering over his shoulder something about raising a bossy son. Hunter grinned and turned to point out the next car to Jake that they needed to move.
Hunter leaned against the last car they’d moved, his muscles quivering with fatigue. It was late afternoon and, finally, they had a lane cleared all the way across the bridge. He just wanted to curl up in his sleeping bag and sleep for about a week, but groaned as he thought of everything they still needed to do today. It would still be hours before he could say hello to his pillow. Tents and supplies needed to be packed and the animals rounded up. Then on the other side, they’d need to unpack it all and set up a new camp.
He looked around for his dad and spotted him heading for the tractor trailer. Dressed in full protective gear, he was going to see if he could get the trailer opened to see if it contained anything they could use. The name of a big box store was emblazoned on the side of the trailer, so they were hopeful, although Hunter wondered where they’d stash more supplies.
Even though they had avoided most vehicle interiors due to the virus, they had checked trunks when they could be opened, finding many useful items and edibles. However, with the tractor trailer, his dad said it appeared the driver had been shot. Bullet holes punctured the driver’s door. Whoever had shot him hadn’t stuck around to get the cargo the trucker was transporting. The way his dad figured it, victims of the virus hadn’t worried about supplies, but were just randomly firing out their car window. In all likelihood the killers were victims in another vehicle traveling in the opposite direction.
The keys weren’t in the ignition, but he found them on the floor of the cab beneath the shoe of the deceased trucker.
Sympatico Syndrome Trilogy Box Set Page 67