They passed so many fields, some farms, and quite a few houses when they finally made it to town. Some civilization was nice. At the same time, it could mean trouble with their functional vehicle and fully stocked trailer. If she thought they could find help without worrying about what might happen, she would have been willing to stop. But she had already had to fire her gun right after learning how to use it properly and she wasn’t wanting to do that again so soon. Being back on paved roads again was nice though. She slowly drove through town, weaving around the few vehicles that were haphazardly abandoned along the side of the road.
The girls were quiet as they passed by what looked like a ghost town at first.
“You think anyone is here?” Zoe asked.
“I’m sure they are. Maybe they have a place where they are feeding everyone or something. There’s plenty of farming here so they might have enough to provide for the town. At least I hope so.” Tammy kept her eyes open for people. She didn’t see anyone until she crossed the Payette River. She spotted a few people standing in the water fishing and they all watched as she drove by. In her mind, she begged everyone to leave her be as she kept driving. It didn’t help matters when the belt started to squeal and screech right when they drove through the last part of town and of course, that was where all the people were standing around. They still had another hill to climb before they were out of Horseshoe Bend and back to open road.
Some people migrated closer to the street as she went by.
“I don’t like how they’re staring at us, Mom,” Holly said. “Can you stop the squealing?”
“If I could stop it, I would have by now.” She tried speeding up slowly. The road was wider and they had a clearer path with the disabled cars parked mostly out of the way. They were about to approach the last steep hill that was at the edge of town when someone walked out on the road right in front of them.
“No, you don’t belong there. Not right now.” She started to speed up more even though the man was holding up his hand, stepping out farther into her path.
“Girls, time to take cover again.” She was determined to keep going as long as Old Betsy would allow it. The man in the street looked as if he wanted to play a game of chicken. He seemed quite confident he was going to stop her. But she wasn’t going to stop. Several men followed him. She couldn’t let them create a human barricade so she gunned it.
The one thing Old Betsy still had was power, even with the messed-up screeching belt the Suburban pulled the trailer like a champ. As long as the belt stayed put, she was going to do whatever it took to get out of town and she didn’t have time to converse with those people. She honked as he stood his ground with his friends all standing in her way. She held her breath and continued to speed up when at the last second they realized they weren’t going to win. They scattered as they ran out of her way. She exhaled in relief, watching them run after her, trying to grab onto the trailer as she kept going.
Amanda panicked. “Mom!” She pulled on Tammy’s arm.
“They moved, see, I knew they would. They’re fine and we are still headed to the cabin.” She was thankful none of them were hurt. However, those idiots sure got her heart pounding. She prayed hard that the belt would stay put until they were in the clear. She was clenching her jaw so tight that her head hurt as she continued to speed up until she couldn’t see Horseshoe Bend anymore in her side mirrors.
Perhaps she pushed Old Betsy too hard because once they crossed the river again and it was running alongside the road with the start of the mountain range on the other side, that was when the belt came off and the Suburban downshifted hard at the same time slowing them down to a turtle’s pace. Something was very wrong with Old Betsy.
12
Tammy
Tammy kept going, pushing Old Betsy at a turtle’s pace as long as it would keep moving. She hoped they’d get a little bit farther away from town before they had to stop. However, they didn’t get far. There was definitely a bigger problem than a dropped belt. As she hoped for a miracle, she let the Suburban coast until it stopped. She rested her head on the steering wheel begging for it to not be that bad while she waited for the engine to cool down.
When she lifted the hood to fix the belt, she realized that they were in fact stuck. The belt was gone and so was the pulley they had been adjusting to get the belt on.
It wasn’t the heat from the abnormally warm fall day or the engine that caused her face to flush. She was mad, scared, and stumped at what to do. The vehicle catastrophe was the last straw. Tammy crouched down in front of the Suburban, staying out of sight of her daughters while she worked through her panic. Every awful emotion consuming her bubbled to the surface. She almost couldn’t breathe. She struggled to control her breathing, letting the tears fall while she gripped the bumper of Old Betsy. “We’re so close but not close enough,” she muttered. “You could have waited until we made it past Banks.” She rested her head on her hands and tried to control her frantic thoughts. Being exhausted beyond reason was her main issue and she had lost the ability to cope with another crisis. It figured. Every time Dale reassured her that she would be fine, the worst always found her.
Tammy stopped the frantic desperate thoughts by saying a prayer. She had nowhere else to turn. There wasn’t a soul around and if there had been, she wasn’t going to trust anyone she didn’t know. Her daughters were depending on her. As long as they were out in the open with a trailer full of supplies and that they were all female, they would be a target. It was all on her to figure out how to get them to the cabin safely. Rational thoughts seeped in finally. They would keep working on getting closer to the cabin. Old Betsy could still move. The Suburban didn’t need to run. No matter how slow it was to push it along or how many times they stopped, they could make it. It wasn’t that far. Maybe thirty or forty-five minutes of driving time was left if they were having a good day. They were not having one of those.
“Mom?” Amanda called as she leaned out the window. “Where did you go?”
Tammy rubbed her face and tried to stand up. She was reminded of every miserably painful muscle she had and she moaned a little. “I’m still here.”
“If we are going to stay here for a few minutes, can I let Buddy out? He’s acting weird like he has to go.” Zoe yelled from the other side of the Suburban.
“Yes. But you have to take one of your sisters with you and don’t walk far.” Tammy shouted. What she wouldn’t give for five minutes to herself in a closet or a bathroom.
Somehow, she managed to get a handle on her panic attack and kept telling herself that she was tired and sleep was coming. As soon as they were safe at the cabin, she was going to go to bed. She would probably sleep for days even if they hadn’t set up everything. All she wanted was to be somewhere she knew was safe so she could allow herself to relax a little. But she still had so far to go if they had to walk.
All five girls got out while Tammy stared at the engine trying to see if she could figure out by looking why they couldn’t get the beast above twenty miles an hour. Even when the belt was off, she could drive faster than that.
“Oh, the pulley is gone. At least that didn’t break when we were on that trail in the mountains.” Amanda peered in the engine trying to see what Tammy was looking at.
Tammy nodded slowly. “I agree. At least it didn’t happen back there. And now we are on paved roads that I’m familiar with and we aren’t that far from the cabin. We will figure out how to get there.”
Buddy started barking frantically by the side of the road where it dropped down into the river.
“Zoe, why don’t you move him away from there.” The last thing she needed was to rescue Zoe or the dog from the river. Or fight someone. She closed her eyes for a second begging for it to be nothing.
“Mom, there’s a little dog barking over here. Well, somewhere over here. It sounds like it’s inside of something. I can’t tell where though.” Zoe was struggling to get Buddy away from the embankment.
T
ammy hurried over before the dog took them both down into the water. “Buddy, come here.” She slapped her thigh.
Buddy looked at her like he was going to come but instead was distracted again by whatever he was hearing.
The rush of the water and her dog’s barking were making it impossible for her to hear anything else. Tammy had the leash and the girls gathered to see what Buddy was freaking out about.
They had already passed several disabled cars on the road. There weren’t any around where they stopped the Suburban but they were just starting to come around a corner. Tammy quickly realized where those cars disabled cars must have wound up.
A little farther up the river, there were several cars that had nosedived into the river. She bit her lip as she wondered if those people had died and if there could be bodies floating in the brush on the edge of the riverbank. Tammy sure didn’t want to be surprised by anything like that. But her dog was persistent in a way he’d never been before and she felt compelled to follow him.
“I’m going to follow Buddy. You girls step back off the edge of the embankment and walk along the street. Let me know if you see any cars in the water.” Tammy started walking with Buddy and let him lead. She struggled to keep upright and had to use her hand along the bank to keep her balance. Her injured muscles were killing her but she kept on. When they came across brush and grasses that had been flattened, she could distinctly hear the barking of a small dog. Not a coyote or something wild like she assumed the girls had heard at first.
She couldn’t see much, or maybe she didn’t want to. As she neared the place where there were deep tire ruts down to the river, she could see the car. Its backend was still on dry land. But the front half was submerged. The river was deep right there and the running water forced its way over the front of the hood. In the back window was a small dog that barked even more frantically once it saw her.
She wasn’t sure what to do until she heard a cry that nearly made her heart stop. “Oh, please no.” She heard it clearly again. “Amanda!” She pulled Buddy away from the embankment and scrambled up to the street before handing him to Zoe.
“Take him to the car, please. Mae, you go with Zoe. Holly, you too. I need you guys to make some sandwiches. Now is a good time to eat some lunch. Make me one too. I’m starving.” She searched for her oldest daughters while the other three looked at her stunned. She waved the three younger ones off. “Go on, I know you’re hungry.”
When Amanda and Charlie were ready to follow her down the embankment, she motioned for them to wait a minute. She waited to speak until the younger girls were out of earshot.
“What’s wrong, Mom?” Charlie asked.
She wrung her hands. “Umm, there’s a car down there. It looks like the whole front of it is submerged. There’s a little dog stuck in there…” She was afraid to go on but she didn’t have to. They heard the cries. “Yeah, I think there’s a little kiddo in there too. There’s no way I can pretend like I didn’t hear it. We need to see if we can get them out. I want you to know that I suspect the driver must be dead.”
The girls were stunned but willing to assist. They helped each other down the loose gravel and dirt, through the bushes, to get to the car in the river. Tammy made the girls stay near the back of the car. “I don’t know how safe this car is, if it will stay put, or what we are going to see so stay there for a second.” Her foot sunk in the mud when she reached where the back tire was. She could see in the window finally. There in the car seat was a little boy. He looked at her wide-eyed and was crying. He tried to turn away from her while the little dog barked protectively near the window.
She tried to open the door. But it wasn’t moving. There was too much mud. “Charlie, go get the window shatter hammer in the glovebox.”
Charlie wasted no time scrambling up the hill. The front of the car was shaded from the trees and the dark murky water had filled the whole front end of the car. It was so shaded that she could barely see a woman slumped over the steering wheel. Tammy tapped on the window to see if the lady would respond but she already knew. The woman had probably been dead for some time.
Fortunately, the little boy’s car seat was still rear-facing so he hadn’t had to sit there and see his mother like that for however long he’d been in there. Perhaps the mother had been alive but injured severely and couldn’t get out of the car. Because otherwise, after so many days, the fact that the little boy was still alive was a miracle in itself.
Charlie came back with the hammer.
“Okay, this little dog seems fierce. I hope it doesn’t bite any of us while we try to help it and this little boy.”
“I brought treats too.” Charlie pulled out some dog bones from her pocket.
“That’s fantastic. I bet this little dog is starving.” Tammy held the dog treat up in front of the window. The dog kept barking but it wasn’t as frantic. It wagged its tail a little. “Good boy, if you’re a boy.”
“I think it’s a girl,” Amanda said.
“How can you tell? It’s a little black rag mop looking thing. You come closer and get a dog treat ready. I’m giving the mop dog to you and then you can tell me for sure if the little ankle biter is a he or a she.” Tammy pressed the hammer against the window and it shattered on her third try. The smell that came from the car was horrific. She was trying not to breathe it in as she carefully pulled the glass out until there was a hole big enough for her to give the dog its bone. It took the treat happily and settled on the little boy’s lap to eat it.
She gently pulled the rest of the glass outside the car so it didn’t spill on the little guy. He was still crying, totally terrified. The dog started barking all over again.
“You sure inhaled that, didn’t you?” Tammy waved another bone in front of the dog. “Now will you stop barking and let me touch you?” She dangled it in the car and when it was going to take it, she slid her other hand under his damp belly. The urge to gag was hard to subdue. It started barking and wriggled in her arm. She was able to let it have its bone and it settled down. “Good, pup. Now we need to get you taken care of.” Once she started petting it, the dog seemed to know it was safe and let her rub its head. The dog’s fur smelled as awful as the inside of the car.
“It’s a girl for sure.” Charlie let her know. “That smell is so nasty.”
“Okay, puppy rescued. Now I need to help this little boy.”
Tammy leaned closer to the window so he could see her. “Hey, sweetheart. We are going to get you out of this car seat.” She caught another overpowering whiff of the smell inside the car. It was so bad. Probably the decomposing body and it also smelled like poop. She gagged and nearly threw up that time. She had to stand up so she could be far away from the smell to catch her breath. It was a smell that would stay with you, the kind that stuck in your memory bank of horrible smells. She pulled her shirt over her nose and dared not breathe at all when she reached in to undo his car seat. He was pushing her hand away but she didn’t stop. Once his body was free from the shoulder straps, she pulled him out. He had a blanket near him, looked like his favorite and she brought that out with him. The toddler was soaking wet and smelled rank. But she cradled him in her arms for a minute while he arched his back, screaming and reaching for his mama.
Tammy couldn’t wipe the tears that escaped from the corners of her eyes. “Oh, sweet boy. You will be safe now. I promise.” She motioned for Amanda to help her up the hill. It was difficult with the squirming little guy. He stopped fighting and went limp as he sobbed softly against her shoulder.
“He’s so weak and I need to get him cleaned up before I puke.” Tammy was blinking excessively trying to manage her queasy stomach once they reached Old Betsy.
“Let me hold him, Mom.” Amanda held out her arms.
“Yeah, thanks. I need to get something to pry open the trunk. Maybe he has some clothes in there.” Tammy handed him off to her daughter.
“I’ll help you.” Charlie was back. “I put Buddy’s leash on the little dog
and Holly and Mae are happy to tend it for now.”
“Did you guys feed her?” Tammy looked at her shirt. It was gross and smelled nasty from whatever was on the little boy. She would change it after her next round to the car. She dug underneath everything in the backend of the Suburban and found a tire iron.
“Yes. And gave her water too,” Mae kept petting the little dog.
“Good. We’ll be back in a few minutes. We’re going to see if there are any clothes for him in that car.” Tammy waited for Charlie to follow and they both headed down the hill.
“That smell is everywhere now.” Charlie pulled the collar of her t-shirt up over her nose.
“It’s disgusting.” She did the same. After they practically slid down the embankment to the car, Tammy worked on prying the trunk open. It was bending the metal on the car but it wasn’t opening. She thought about taking out the lock but if that didn’t work, she might not be able to open it at all. She stopped and looked at the front of the car. “I could maybe try to pop it if there’s a latch or I could maybe get the key.” Tammy shivered all over.
“There’s a dead person in there,” Charlie whispered.
“I know. That’s why I’m trying to do it this way.” She sighed. Tammy still had the hammer in her pocket. She struggled through the mud to reach the front driver’s side window. The muck swallowed her shoes and didn’t want to give them back. She was about to sigh again and thought better of it. The stink from inside the car had imprinted in her mind permanently already. On the other side of the backseat was a backpack. It took a lot of effort to work her way around the car and her bruised leg was screaming in agony. She had to ignore it as she broke the other backseat window and quickly cleared the glass out with the tire iron. She held her breath as she reached in to grab it and anything else on the seat belonging to the little boy. On the floor was a few toys, a plastic cup with a straw, and his jacket resting on a pile of fast food garbage. It was a struggle to reach it and not breathe but somehow she managed to fish all his things out. She stuffed it all inside the backpack and handed it to Charlie. “Take this and see what else is in this backpack. Hopefully, this isn’t all he has.”
Endure Series (Book 2): Enduring The Journey: Page 9
