“I don’t want to think about mom not making it but I’m not gonna lie, I’m really scared. She’s never sick like this,” Charlie whispered.
Amanda had to quickly rub her eyes to prevent tears from falling. “I know. I wish it was just one of her headaches instead. Thanks for not being a jerk to everyone right now.”
That was the wrong thing to say. Charlie clenched her jaw and was obviously ticked when she turned around and stormed off to the Suburban.
“I wasn’t insulting you,” Amanda muttered under her breath and shook her head in aggravation.
Because she wasn’t eager to start pushing again, she took her time setting up the wagon that had been folded up in the back of the Suburban so Mae could give Tyson a ride while walking the dogs. They were getting restless and were waking up their mother.
Finally, they were back at it, barely making progress down the road. That’s when Charlie decided she was going let loose on everyone. Soon she narrowed her negative attention to Holly and relentlessly nagged on her to push harder.
Holly started to storm off right when the dogs started barking. They were about to take Mae on a run.
“Stop Old Betsy.” Amanda waved at Zoe to hit the brake before she took off to help Mae as she struggled with untangling the leashes from the wagon.
Grabbing Buddy by the collar, Amanda held him back as he pulled and barked at the hillside beside the Suburban. She didn’t see anything at first but then she spotted it. A wolf blended in with the brush in the shadows near the top. She scanned the rest of the hill and spotted another one.
Her heart started to race. Were the wolves tracking them? She held Buddy tight as she reached for the wagon.
“Don’t you dare let go of Mitsi. Pick her up and get her in the Suburban right now. I’ll get Tyson.” Amanda kept looking everywhere for more hidden wolves on the hillside. The two she spotted stood still while both of their dogs were relentless with their protective barking.
“You’re going to wake mom,” Zoe shouted over the dogs.
“You’re going to wake mom.” Amanda pointed at the mountain. None of her sisters saw them at first. “Look, there are wolves. One there and one over there.”
Charlie reached inside the Suburban and grabbed a handgun. She shot at the first one and it ran up and over the hill. The other one hesitated before it did the same.
“What are you shooting at?” Their mom was partially sitting up as she swayed and struggled to open her eyes.
“It was a wolf up on the hillside,” Charlie answered. “I wasn’t trying to shoot it. I was just scaring it off.”
“Get the little dog and Tyson in.” Their mom had to grip the headrest of the seat to steady herself
“We’re behind you already,” Mae said.
“Good.” She nodded with her eyes closed as she eased back down on the seat. “I’m sure they’re still close so keep watching.”
“Why do you say that?” Amanda watched the hilltop.
“I think they smell those broken jars of chicken that are probably getting worse,” her mom replied.
Amanda’s whole back was screaming in pain. But she didn’t like the idea of staying put while there were wolves lurking nearby. She knew what her mom would do and she was going to do the same. “Let’s get this thing rolling.”
Her sisters made sure their misery was known as they took their places. It took a tremendous amount of exhausting effort to get it to move.
“I want to leave this whole thing behind and just start walking,” Holly said.
“You want to leave mom behind? Because she can’t keep up right now if we do that.” Amanda pointed for her to keep at it. “We are pushing this whole thing for all of us so we have plenty to eat at the cabin and we are doing it to save mom too.”
“I just said that’s what I want to do, not what I was going to do.”
Holly wasn’t much help anyway. Amanda could tell the little brat was faking that she was pushing and if Holly had any clue when it came to using the brake and steering the Suburban, she would have put that sister in the driver’s seat instead because Zoe was far better at helping without giving everyone grief.
“I want you to really push. If you don’t, we will be letting you move this whole beast on your own while Charlie and I rest.” Amanda watched her closely until she could tell Holly was finally doing her part.
Amanda was surprised that her sister had actually listened to her. Of course, if Charlie had said the same thing to Holly she wouldn’t have responded as favorably. Charlie smiled at Amanda once Holly was finally cooperating.
They had barely managed to get Old Betsy moving again when they spotted two women and a teenage boy walking down the street heading straight for them.
“Charlie, don’t get trigger happy.” Amanda gave her sister a firm look from the other side of the Suburban. “Close the doors. Zoe, roll up the windows. Hopefully, Mom will stay asleep. Holly, you climb in first and help Mae.” Amanda grabbed the stun stick, a bottle of pepper spray, and moved a handgun to the pocket on the door so she could get to it quickly if she needed it. The guilt she felt from when she shot the man on the motorcycles earlier was still weighing heavily on her. She knew Charlie was already armed and obviously not as nervous as she was when it came to shooting.
“Are you seriously trying to push that whole thing up the road? Don’t you know there’s nothing out here this way?” The woman that spoke to them looked rough. The past few days had been pretty hard on her in particular compared to the other two she was walking with. Her short hair was sticking up in all directions and she probably wasn’t as old as she looked. Her clothes looked like they’d been tossed into a dirt pile when wet and then rolled into a ball to dry.
The other woman wasn’t as rumpled up and her hair was pulled back tightly in a ponytail. It looked like her hair was wet at first but Amanda realized it was actually greasy. She was taller and slimmer than the other woman but she resembled her companion so much that they had to be sisters. The gangly young man with his hunched over back had stuck his hands deep in his pockets as he hovered behind the tall woman’s shoulder and stared at the ground more than he looked at any of them.
“We know where we are going,” Charlie slowly walked over to Amanda.
“You’re fools to push that whole thing anywhere. Our RV is stuck about a half a mile back that way and we haven’t tried to move it at all.”
“Because we can’t,” the young man said.
“Yeah, the system is so fried, we can’t even get it into neutral now once we finally got it in park. We hoped there would be a rescue crew out here by now,” the tall woman said. “We thought that’s who you were for a minute when we heard that noise. Was it a gun?”
Amanda was flooded with fear and anxiety the closer they got. Perhaps she was understanding at that moment why her mother was so rude to the young couple that needed help the day before. Amanda had been so dependent on her mom’s leadership that she didn’t know how she should respond.
“It was a gun,” Charlie was far too eager to answer. “Why are you guys still hanging out here?”
“We didn’t want to leave the RV behind. It’s our home. We had plenty of food so we were anticipating that at some point someone would come this way to rescue us before we ran out of supplies. Now we are almost out.” The taller woman was more forthcoming than the short one.
“No one is coming. All of Boise is in crisis. There’s no power anywhere. There is no time frame when it will come back on either. They have their hands full in town. I’m sure it will be a long time before the military makes it out here. Your best bet is to head south.” Amanda looked at each one of them. Something about them was making Amanda’s arm hairs stand on end. “You need to be careful. There have been wolves stalking us. What you heard was us scaring them off.”
The roughest looking woman just waved and made a face as if it was no big deal to her. “They aren’t out to hurt people.” She leaned to the side as she tried to look in
the windows of the Suburban. “But they might like your little dog. Maybe that’s why they are hanging out around you guys.”
Amanda shrugged and took a few steps to the side so they wouldn’t get any closer to Old Betsy. The dogs were already freaking out and probably already woke up their mom and she needed her rest far more than she needed to deal with another crisis. “If you keep walking, you’ll get to Horseshoe Bend and there are lots of people there that can help you.” Amanda rested her hands on her hips and hoped they would just move on.
“Who needs that when the taco truck comes to you?” The short one made her way over to the trailer. “What do you have in there? Is it loaded with food?” She looked as if she was going to try and lift the back.
Charlie took off and was there in time to stop the woman from opening the rolling door. “No, now that’s not how you go about asking for help.” She was close to reaching for the gun tucked in the elastic holster around her waist that was hidden under her shirt.
The young man made it over to the back of the trailer before Amanda could get there. She wasn’t sure what to make of what was happening and she sure didn’t want Charlie to escalate it with her gun. Amanda wanted to kick herself because she knew she should have her gun on her right then and she didn’t have time to get it. She wasn’t totally unprepared though as she remembered what she still had on her.
The young man was about to push Charlie out of the way to get to the back but she wouldn’t have it. She kicked his hand away and shoved him back before he knew what happened.
“I think you have already worn out your welcome.” Charlie was about to pull out her gun when the boy pulled out a knife and pointed it at her.
Amanda tagged his face with pepper spray before he had a chance to lunge at her sister.
He dropped his knife as he screamed and rubbed his eyes. The short-haired woman went for Charlie right as she pulled out her gun.
The tall one didn’t see what Charlie had when she wrapped an arm around Amanda’s neck. Amanda was able to grab the stun stick from her waistband and shocked the woman’s leg before she choked her. The lady howled and let go as her leg gave way.
All the short-haired woman could do was help the boy as they slowly slinked away while Charlie kept her handgun pointed at them both. Amanda backed up until she felt the trailer against her shoulders. She held up the pepper spray and the stun stick, ready for another round if they were to try and attack again.
Zoe and Holly were both holding shotguns when they slowly made their presence known, one on each side of the trailer. The short-haired woman looked at the four of them totally stunned.
“Shut up, Michael. Quit your sniveling.” She pulled him farther away. “I think the ginger is right. We’ve overstayed our welcome.”
“But I’m starving, Meg,” the boy whined while he rubbed his shirt across his face.
“You’re always starving and you’re the reason we don’t have enough food right now, raiding the pantry day and night.” The tall one finally recovered and was on her feet but she had a significant limp as she went to help the teen. “Come on. Let’s take him to the river to wash it off.”
The invaders acted as if the four of them weren’t even there anymore as they disappeared down the embankment.
“Come on. We have to get moving.” Amanda gave Holly a gentle shove so she’d hurry faster to get to the Suburban.
They held the front doors open as they pushed. Amanda steered and walked while the four of them pushed in unison and they made the most progress they’d made all day. Amazing how fear and adrenaline made all their misery go away. She wanted to get past the RV while the invaders were still nursing their wounds. Fortunately, they were on a slight downhill grade. As soon as they had a good walking pace going, and the upcoming stretch of road had a clear path with no vehicles in the way, she told Holly to get in the Suburban.
“I want you to put a bag together with some of the food we have in the back. Just get enough to tide those three over for a day so they can perhaps get themselves to that town. I think they’ll head there now.” She kept searching for them in the brush all along the road and was hoping they wouldn’t be ambushed as they walked.
Once they were alongside the only RV on the road since they met the potential thieves, Amanda had Holly run the bag to their steps. Amanda had second thoughts once Holly was on her way back. Perhaps they still had plenty of food and were just wanting to make sure they wouldn’t be without. But she knew her mom and dad well enough that they would have left food and water for them anyway. She had to do the same. Anyone else might have thought it was a stupid thing to do for people that wanted to steal and hurt them to take what they had. She was still shaking from the run-in and was still scared they’d catch up and try to do it again. Perhaps the bag of food would come off as a peace offering. Hopefully they would be able to get a lot of distance between them and the RV before nightfall. And hopefully their mom would improve by then as well.
23
Ben
When Ben woke after another disturbing dream about his family in trouble, Nate had several full-sized maps laid out on the tarp along with the printouts Robert gave them.
Ben sat up and turned around when he heard something in the trees behind them.
“I heard it too,” Nate whispered as he slowly got up, scanning the trees.
They could hear sniffing and some grunts while the brush shook and parted to reveal a large black bear.
Ben scrambled back until he could get on his feet. Nate froze when he saw it.
“Either look big and scary or move so he doesn’t head straight for you.” Ben made sure he faced the bear as he took a few steps to reach for Nate. He pulled his friend closer to the trailer.
The bear looked at them but it was more interested in the Ranger as it waddled over the maps on its way to the trailer.
Ben’s head was throbbing but he had to ignore it as he struggled to stay on his feet while everything started to spin. That’s when the bear paused. Ben grabbed Nate’s sleeve and pulled him closer. “Make yourself big, Come on.” Ben raised his arms in the air and growled as loud as he could. He was about to shove Nate behind him when he finally did the same.
The bear startled and backed up a step before he looked like he was unbothered and curiosity had taken over again as he stalked their ride.
Ben clung onto Nate when he felt unsteady and prodded him to head for the front of the Ranger. They did it again, waved their arms high in the air and roared.
The bear was wary as he circled away from them and headed back to their vehicle.
“I bet it can smell the food.” Nate was cautious as he slowly headed for the backseat to look for something.
Ben knew he was pushing his luck trying to scare the bear off on his own with the same move. It obviously wasn’t concerned in the least. There was a toolbox in the trailer. He inched his way closer, still trying to appear menacing so he could get to the box. Nate couldn’t find whatever he was looking for. Ben pulled out a large crescent wrench and banged on the side of the trailer before trying to look big again.
The bear paused and took a step back before calling his bluff. It lunged for him, undeterred by the frantic clanging.
He looked for his gun but he didn’t have it on him. Nate must have taken it after they crashed.
A stream of spray blasted past him and hit the bear’s face. It also instantly made Ben’s eyes and nose water. That did the trick, though. The bear groaned as it turned and ran off. Ben couldn’t see a thing as he yelled at the bear and kept beating the trailer to make sure it kept going.
He desperately needed to find something to clean his eyes. The air was full of the awful spray, even burning his nostrils and his throat which made him cough like crazy. “Bear spray is pretty lethal stuff,” he barely wheezed the words out of his mouth and couldn’t see. He started coughing again which made everything worse.
Nate handed Ben a water bottle. “I’m so sorry! Drink first and pour
the rest on your face.”
Ben did what he could but at the same time, he was panicking when the discomfort wasn’t easing up and it was hard to breathe. He also wanted to know if the bear was nearby but was too debilitated. “I thought they’d be getting their hibernation on by now.”
“It’s not really winter yet, I guess?”
After another bottle of water and soap, Ben had the worst of the burn calmed down but it was still bad. His nose and throat were swollen and he couldn’t stop coughing.
“I didn’t think I sprayed you but you’re reacting like I did.” Nate rested a hand on Ben’s shoulder.
Ben shook his head and struggled to speak. “I just inhaled some of the airborne oil droplets from the overspray. It wasn’t much but it was enough, I guess. That stuff is powerful” He drank more water. “I need some more soap and water. It’s starting to ease up a little.” He took off his coat.
Nate had more soap and water ready. Ben scrubbed his face and his hands. He tolerated the soap irritation to get the awful burning out of his eyes. Nate handed him more water to rinse.
“Watch the strips on your forehead. You don’t want to undo that.” Nate was trying to be helpful, but he was getting on Ben’s already agitated nerves.
Every one of his senses was in overload. He felt as if he was about to go insane from it all. His breathing was so erratic and frantic, he started to hyperventilate which made it all worse. He sunk to his knees struggling to breathe. Everything started to close in and turn black.
“Ben?” Nate shook his shoulder.
Next thing he knew, he was on his back on the ground. He could barely open his eyes. They were so swollen. “I think I’m in hell.” He could finally breathe even though it took some effort because his throat felt like it was on fire.
Nate was vigilant as Ben waited for the worst of his symptoms to subside. Soon enough, he could breathe better, his eyesight was clearing even though he still couldn’t open his eyes much because of the swelling, and the burning sensation wasn’t consuming his face quite so badly.
Endure Series (Book 2): Enduring The Journey: Page 15
