David slung his arm around Emily’s shoulder as they watched them leave. “This is huge, Emily. We will be home in no time now. I figured on at least two or three weeks walking to get there but with ATVs, it will only be days.”
Emily smiled up at him. His face was so full of hope and happiness. She was happy too but she couldn’t get the angry look on Will’s face out of her mind. They would be leaving with him in the morning and she hoped he had a change of heart by then.
“I’m going to grab Lisa and see about washing up our clothes. Everything is still covered in salt and it would be nice to clean them while we can.”
“Good idea! Would you mind doing mine as well? I want to go around and see if anyone is familiar with what’s between here and the border. It would be good to know what we are facing before we get there,” he said.
“Yes, of course. We might as well do Mason’s clothes too but you boys are doing the next load!” she teased him.
Lisa and Emily unpacked their bags and sorted out the salt-encrusted clothes. Once they had the boys’ laundry, they headed to the main building to see what the setup was. They were directed to a fire pit off to the side of the building that had a big barrel of water over it. There were tin washtubs and plastic containers set up in a row. Emily was delighted to see an antique roller wringer on a stand. After washing and rinsing the clothing they took turns feeding each piece through the wringer while the other cranked the handle. There were clotheslines strung between trees and they hung everything to dry in the spring sun.
When they got back to the cabin, David and Mason were gone. She puttered around the small room but couldn’t seem to settle. Lisa was staring out the window with a far off look on her face. Emily knew her friend was still trying to deal with what happened on the boat with Mark. She wished that she could help but knew that Lisa would have to come to terms with it herself. She gave the girl a hug and reminded her that she was there for her if she wanted to talk but Lisa just sadly shook her head.
“I’m going to go for a walk and see what else is around here. Are you sure you don’t want to come?”
“Thanks, Emily, but I just need to have some time to think. Thank you for being such a good friend. It means more to me than you will ever know.”
After another quick hug, Emily slipped out of the cabin. She needed something to occupy herself or she would go crazy waiting to leave in the morning. She saw people carrying boxes and crates into the main building and decided to head over and see if she could help out with anything. When she poked her head in the main doors, she saw that all the tables were empty but she heard voices coming from the kitchen area. When she saw Betty walking by the door, she headed that way. The kitchen was bustling with people prepping for the next meal and when she caught Betty’s eye, she went over to the lady.
“Excuse me, ma’am. I was hoping you could put me to work. I’m pretty good in the kitchen but I could lend a hand with whatever needs doing.”
Betty wiped her hands on a towel and smiled at her. “We can always use extra hands around here. It’s Emily, right? Follow me and I’ll introduce you to these busy ladies. They’ll love the extra help!”
Emily spent the rest of the day hard at work with her mind occupied. They all chatted as they made up sandwiches for lunch and prepped the food that would go into dinner. Her heart felt light in the warm room. It was so much like being at home during the holidays when her mom and all her aunts would work together to prepare the holiday meal. At one point, she felt tears dripping down her face in homesickness. The woman next to her handed her a dish towel and rubbed her back.
“Don’t worry, sweetie. I do that at least three times a day.”
She worked all day helping to make food and clean and wash dishes. When the dinner was being served, Betty handed her a tray and told her to go and eat. She offered to stay and wash dishes but the older woman just shooed her out.
“Go on now, eat with your friends. You’ve done enough today and Joanna says you will be leaving at dawn. I put your name down on the evening shower list. You’ve got a long road ahead of you so take what comforts you can before you leave.”
Emily impulsively threw her arms around Betty. “Thank you for letting me help out today and for everything else you have done for us. I won’t forget you!”
Betty smiled and nodded then pushed Emily towards the dining area where her friends were waiting. When she settled at their table they were talking about tomorrow and what David and Mason had learned from some of the others in the camp.
David was talking about the border crossing. “They said that they tried to cross into B.C. because they have family in the interior but that guards have the border crossings locked down. They aren’t letting anyone across even with Canadian ID. Other people that know that area said it was just a chain link fence and if you go further away from the crossing there would be no one to stop us from just going over it. They said there isn’t even a fence in some places. We shouldn’t have a problem. With the ATVs, we don’t even have to stay on the roads. We can easily go over fields if we have to.” He looked at all of them and grinned. “We will be in Canada tomorrow night!”
They finished their dinners and stacked their trays in the dish area before heading back to the cabin. Emily was happy to see the neat pile of clothing that Lisa had taken down from the lines and folded. After they had repacked their backpacks, they headed to the showers. They all knew that it would probably be the last one they had for a very long time.
Lying in bed, Emily stared at the ceiling and thought about Alex. Where was she? How far had they come and were they all still alive? Her biggest hope after seeing her parents were that Alex and her other friends would already be home or that they would arrive soon after.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The night was barely lightened in the east when Emily and her friends filed out of the cabin and stood on the front porch. The outline of a person was walking towards them from the main road. Emily felt a surge of apprehension. For some reason, she felt that things were not going to go by the plan. She let out the breath she didn’t know she was holding when Joanna stepped into the torchlight and she was smiling in greeting.
“Good morning! I see you are all ready to go. Follow me. The trucks are waiting out on the main road.” She turned back the way she had come and they followed her out of the campground. Waiting on the road were three old pickup trucks and seven different ATVs and Quads. Two of them had supplies strapped to the back but were riderless. Joanna walked them over to them and waved her son, Will, to join them. He was still clearly upset by his Mother’s decision but he didn’t say anything.
“I want you to stay between the trucks at all times. The men will be on guard and they all have weapons. Stay with them until they get to the last drop off and then William will show you the way to go from there. You should try and stay off the interstate. There are a lot of desperate people out there that would kill you for what you have.” She paused and looked at each one of them before continuing. “I will pray that you get home safely. Good luck.” Joanna pulled Will into a tight embrace and spoke softly to him. When they separated, she smiled at the kids again and turned to walk away.
Emily called out to her, “Thank you, Joanna! Thank you for saving us!”
Will stared at her for a moment before barking out at them. “Load up! Stay between the trucks and keep your mouths shut. Once we get to the mainland, anything or anyone could be waiting for us. We need to stay sharp and we can’t be babysitting you bunch.” He practically snarled the last sentence before turning away.
Emily saw Mason’s face darken in anger and she quickly grabbed his arm and shook her head. There was no point in fighting with the jerk. In a few hours, they would be away from him and on their way alone.
David, Mason, and Emily were all experienced riders but they had decided to let the boys drive for the first leg. Once they were on and settled, Emily climbed on behind Mason and Lisa joined David. Lisa had made peace wit
h Mason over their past but she was still uncomfortable being too close to him.
They stayed tucked between the first and second truck. It was still too dark to see any of the scenery so Emily spent the first hour with her head tucked down behind Mason’s back. By the time the sun was up and it was bright enough to see, they had crossed the landbridge and were on the mainland. Emily didn’t know what she expected to see but everything looked fairly normal. There were all types of vehicles that had been pushed off to the side of the road, but that was the only thing out of place. As they got closer to the first town that they would drive through, there were more signs of destruction. Some of the homes were boarded up and had smoke coming out of the chimneys but others had windows smashed out and doors hanging open. There was a block that they drove by that all the houses had burned to the ground. The strangest sight to Emily was a long stretch of road that had every car wide open. Front and back doors and trunks were all open. What she didn’t see was people. No one was out walking around and that coupled with the silence made her shiver.
As they went through the main business district, the damage was much more prevalent. Stores and restaurants had been looted heavily and there weren’t any windows left intact. She was saddened by all the damage around her and then baffled. For some reason, someone had pulled down the golden arches of a McDonald’s sign and it hung from its pole by wires. Shaking her head at the senselessness of it, she heard her belly rumble and images of the restaurant’s famous breakfast came to mind. She groaned at the knowledge that there might never be another one made. A sudden anger came over her. Who had done this? Who had caused the misery all around them? They had been so focused on getting home that none of her friends had even asked that question. They only had what Emily had seen on CNN the day everything stopped to go by. Did anyone even know who had done this terrible thing? At this point, did it even matter?
A shout from ahead pulled her from her dark thoughts and she felt the ATV slow before coming to a stop. With the big truck in front of them, she couldn’t see what was happening but a look at the relaxed guards told her everything was fine. They were moving again in minutes and they passed through an open gate. Chain link fence surrounded a building that Emily recognized as a large hotel. The guards jumped from their machines and dropped the tailgate of the truck that they had been following. David quickly jumped in to help when he saw that they were unloading the boxes and crates and carrying them inside. Will scowled at him but didn’t say anything when David lifted a crate and followed the others. Emily nudged Mason and he joined in as well.
The men made quick work of the unloading and they were heading back through the gate within twenty minutes. Emily was happy when they left the damaged town and got back into the countryside. It was easier to look at the new spring growth on trees and in fields than the destroyed town. That thought ended when she started to see people walking along the sides of the road. They were like zombies. Whole families would stop and stare at them as they drove by with empty eyes. They were filthy and ragged and way too thin. Emily had to sob when they passed a mother and father with their two small children. The mother was holding a toddler and it looked like it was dead. The father held the hand of a little girl in a ragged pink dress and when they passed them she waved her stick-thin arm like it was a parade. Mason reached down and squeezed her arm that was around his waist but they didn’t stop. She wanted to scream at the guards to do something, anything to help, but their blank faces told her that they wouldn’t.
The next time she looked to the side of the road, they were passing a pile of bodies. They had been thrown in a heap like garbage. After that sight, she couldn’t take anymore so she tucked her head down behind Mason’s back and stayed that way until they came to the next stop. Emily didn’t even look up when Mason left her to help unload. She couldn’t face any more of the horror in this new world. Then they were moving again and she tried to distract her broken mind with all the things her parents would have done in the last few weeks.
They had plenty of food in the cellar and with the chickens and cows, food would not be an issue, at least not right away. She tried to remember if there was anyone in their area who had older farm equipment. She knew that Quinn’s grandparents had a few antiques that they displayed at farm fairs so they most likely would have started tilling and planting some of the fields. It was too soon to plant the garden where they lived and it was possible that there had even been a final snow. She could picture all her neighbours gathering for a meeting to plan for getting the fields planted. Her mother’s face popped into her head and Emily could imagine the worry lines between her eyes deepening as she tried to come to terms with her only child’s fate. “I’m coming, mom. I’m coming!” she whispered softly.
The ATV slowed a third time and Emily straightened her shoulders. This was it. They would be leaving the convoy and heading out on their own after this. After the men had unloaded the final truck, this time into a huge community center, they went back out the gate and drove on for another twenty minutes. When they finally stopped they were away from any buildings and there were trees and fields all around them. The guards all dismounted and stood around them. Will came out of the lead truck and walked back towards them. He scanned their faces and set a firm expression on his face.
“Alright, this is as far as we go. Grab your stuff and as much of the supplies as you can carry.” He told them in an even tone.
Mason, David, and Lisa looked at each other in confusion but Emily just stared right at him. David was the first to speak.
“What are you talking about? Why do we have to carry the supplies?”
Will didn’t answer him. He just stared him down with cold resolve. Emily pulled herself from behind Mason and grabbed a pack. As she started to pull things off the back of the machine, she answered David for him.
“He’s not letting us take the ATVs. He was never going to let us go with them.”
Her voice was flat. She had somehow known last night that this would happen. Once the ATV was unloaded, she looked up at David.
“Get your stuff, David. Once they are gone, we will try and spread it out amongst our packs.”
She started to carry things over to the side of the road when Lisa grabbed her own pack and started to help her. Her friend’s face was fierce but she didn’t say anything and she didn’t even look at the men that were waiting for them to finish.
David spun around and shouted at Will. “How can you do this? Your Mother was trying to help us! Jacob was trying to make up for what he did to us!”
Will said nothing. He just waited. Finally, with a yell of frustrated rage, David spun away and started to pull the supplies from the back of the machine that he had been riding. When they were finished, there was a large mound of backpacks and supplies sitting on the side of the road. Two of the men who had been passengers in the trucks jumped onto the machines and moved them back down the road. Will stepped forward and looked at the pile of supplies that his mother had given them and then looked at each one of them.
“There is no way you will be able to carry all of that. I’ll take…” That’s as far as he got before Emily stepped right up to him and yelled in his face.
“YOU will take NOTHING! You went against her wishes with the ATVs but the supplies she gave us are ours! I will stand here and give this food to the starving people you and your men so callously drove past. Unlike YOU we are good decent people and WE will help others if we can! So if you want this food you will have to shoot me to get it!” She stood there with her chest heaving in a rage and met every one of the men’s eyes until they looked down in shame. Emily seared Will with her anger until he, too broke away from her stare and backed away.
“Load ‘em up! I want to be home by supper,” he called out to his men. None of them looked at the kids on the side of the road as they turned their trucks around and drove away.
Emily stared defiantly down the road until the sound of the engines faded. When David stepped up
to her and put his hand on her arm, she turned and stared at him.
“Every time we find good people we get slapped with the bad. David…I…I just want to go home!”
“It’s okay, Em. We’ll get home. I promise. Come on - let’s get this stuff sorted out,” he told her.
She looked down at the pile of supplies and nodded. There was too much for them to carry but they could still take a lot of it. As they divided up the pile, Emily glanced at Lisa. She hadn’t said anything but her face was tense and her eyes were filled with anger. Mason just looked lost. As he latched his pack and swung it onto his shoulder, Emily saw a glimpse of tears in his eyes. He would have to adjust. He had been handed almost everything in his life and now the harsh reality was that he would have to work for it all.
Once they had crammed as much as they could into the six backpacks, there was still a pile on the road. Emily hoped that it would help some poor family make it through another day. David spread the map open on the road and they all crowded around it. He pointed out their location and ran his finger north towards the border.
“We should get off this road. If we take side roads and cut across fields, we should have less of a chance of running into other people. I think we should head northeast. That way we can cross over the border somewhere here.” He pointed out an area that had no towns or official crossing. “Walking is going to take longer but we should still be in Canada within three or four days. The last town we dropped supplies in was only forty miles south of the border. We just need to keep going.”
Stranded Box Set Page 37