by Wood, J N
‘What about the proof or whatever it is that you need over there?’ I asked.
‘Yes I know,’ Roy replied. ‘But I still think it will be easier than this.’ He gestured to our surroundings with both hands.
Jack was already a few steps in front of us. We started walking to catch him up, back in the direction of Merritt and away from the internment camp.
‘Do you think the cash machines will be working?’ I asked. ‘Will you three be able to get your American cash out? Will credit cards still work if they’re from a country that’s vanished?’
‘No idea Chris,’ Jack. ‘Probably not but we’ll have to find out.’
‘So what do you think to my idea?’ Roy asked.
‘Yeah fuck it,’ I said. ‘Let’s try and get into Canada, the Canada with people in it.’
‘I think it will be hard over there,’ Jack said. ‘But it’s hard here as well. Let’s go over.’
‘I agree,’ Beth said.
‘So Merritt first, and then Canada?’ I asked.
‘Merritt and then Canada,’ Roy agreed.
It took us four hours to get back to the site of Ali and Theo’s collision with the jeep. The two smashed vehicles still sat there in the middle of the road. It reminded me how lucky Ali and Theo were to walk away from the crash, with hopefully superficial injuries.
My feet crunched over broken glass on the road. ‘What was she thinking?’ I asked. ‘She could have killed herself, and Theo.’
‘Do you think she’ll be annoyed that her family ended up in the camp with them anyway?’ Roy asked. ‘It’s like she did this for nothing.’
‘No I don’t think so,’ Beth said. ‘She’ll be glad they’re all together. I think she did this for us, well, for you really Chris.’
I looked to Beth, my face involuntarily screwed up. ‘What?’
‘She knew how much you want to get home,’ Beth replied. ‘And how worried you are about Joanne. She didn’t want you to be delayed any more than you needed to be.’
‘That’s not worth people dying for,’ I said.
‘I’m sure she didn’t go in to it expecting to die,’ Beth said. ‘And nobody did die, so it’s fine.’
‘It’s getting dark,’ Jack said, looking up to the sky. ‘We could do with finding somewhere to sleep before it gets too cold.’
‘And get some food,’ Beth added. ‘I’m starving.’
‘We just need to follow the 5A and it’ll lead us to Merritt,’ Jack informed us.
‘First houses we come to then,’ Roy said. ‘We’ll try and get into one.’
‘That visitor centre is just down there,’ I said, pointing to our left. ‘We’ve slept in one before Jack.’
‘We had food and sleeping bags then,’ Jack reminded me.
‘I need more than just vending machine food,’ Beth said. ‘I need some kind of nutrients.’
I looked down at her hand, gently stroking her belly. I couldn’t see a bump. She suddenly whipped her hand away and ran it through her hair. I blinked a few times and looked away, staring down the road towards Merritt.
Bollocks. She probably noticed me looking.
Fuck’s sake. Does it really matter if she knows I know she’s pregnant?
‘Come on then,’ Jack said. ‘Let’s go before it’s too dark to see anything.’
‘There’ll be some kind of army camp there,’ Roy said. ‘That must be where they came from when they found us earlier.’
‘They might have been coming from somewhere else,’ Jack suggested.
‘We’ll keep an eye out,’ I said. ‘Just in case there is one.’
Beth noticed the sign first, not far from the crash site. Just as the 5A crossed over the highway we’d taken to get here from Cultus Lake, a temporary sign sat on the side of the road. An arrow pointed north, with CHECKPOINT 27 – 4 KM underneath.
‘Certainly sounds like that’s some kind of border,’ I said.
Jack was using his fingers to zoom in on his phone. ‘Four kilometres away is only the top end of Merritt.’
‘How big is Merritt?’ Roy asked.
‘Not huge if the top end is only four kilometres away,’ I said.
‘It might be quite wide,’ Roy said, stretching his hands out like he was describing the size of a fish. ‘I’m only asking to make sure we aren’t going to be easily found.’
‘It’s not huge,’ Jack said, screwing his face up. ‘But if we stay at the bottom end, we’re four kilometres away from the border, obviously.’ He looked up at us and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Hopefully that means we’ll be okay.’
‘It’s good news,’ I said. ‘We did say Merritt and then Canada. If Canada is only four kilometres away, it’s good isn’t it?’
‘Starving,’ Beth said, drawing the word out.
‘Yeah let’s just go,’ Jack agreed.
We left the checkpoint sign behind us and carried on walking. Once the road passed through the woodland that blocked the town from sight, we spotted more buildings in the distance. There didn’t seem to be any obvious army bases.
Twenty minutes later and we were at the edge of the town, scanning the buildings as we walked past them. Overgrown fields filled the space behind us. We passed a fenced off area full of massive satellite dishes. Next door was a small, modern church building.
Jack pointed towards the next left turn. ‘Let’s try one of the houses down there,’ he suggested.
‘I know I said I’m starving,’ Beth said. ‘But can we try to avoid breaking in? They’re still people’s homes. Let’s wait until we find one unlocked. Hopefully people were evacuated in a rush.’
‘I’m pretty sure it will have been in a rush,’ I said.
The front door was finally unlocked on the twenty first house we tried.
‘Oh thank god,’ Beth exclaimed. ‘I was all set to throw a brick through the window.’
DAY TWENTY FIVE
Chapter 7: Crack
It felt early when I woke up, but decided to drag myself out of the incredibly comfortable bed I’d found anyway. We had a lot of shit to do.
Leaving the Rodriguez family behind definitely has some perks. Being able to sleep in a bed is so far the best one.
I opened the blinds, just a tiny bit, to find it was still dark outside.
As I walked down the stairs, I remembered Beth almost attacking the kitchen cupboards last night. As soon as we entered the house she went in search of food. She was like a starving wild animal.
I walked into the kitchen to find Jack, Beth and Roy sat around the island in the middle of the large room.
Jack raised the large mug in his hand. ‘Coffee?’
‘Of course,’ I replied.
Roy poured the last of the cafetiere into a mug and pushed it over to me.
‘Thank you very much,’ I said, wrapping my cold hands around the heated mug. ‘Cafetiere coffee at the end of the world. Very posh.’
‘The end of the world hasn’t quite reached us here yet,’ Roy said. ‘Running water and electricity doesn’t scream apocalypse.’
‘Hopefully it never will reach here,’ Beth said.
‘We were just talking about going on a scouting mission to the inner border,’ Jack informed me.
‘Good idea,’ I replied. ‘Best we go as soon as possible really.’
‘Beth and Roy are stopping here,’ Jack said. ‘Beth has got a bit of morning sickness.’
‘Okay,’ I nonchalantly replied, before remembering I wasn’t supposed to know she was pregnant. ‘What?’ I exclaimed. ‘I didn’t know you’
‘Shut up Chris,’ Beth interrupted. ‘Jack told me he told you weeks ago. We thought it best Roy knew as well.’
‘Fair enough,’ I said, relaxing back onto my stool. ‘Congratulations by the way.’
‘Thanks,’ Beth said, giving me a smile and a very quick nod of her head.
‘If it’s anything like the other side of the border in America,’ Jack said, glancing up from his phone to look at me. ‘They’l
l place the inner border on the roads.’ He looked around at us all. ‘Makes sense doesn’t it?’
‘Yeah probably,’ I answered.
Jack pointed to the roads marked 8 and 5A. ‘It will probably be on these roads here then.'
‘I thought we were on the 5A yesterday?’ Beth asked.
‘We were,’ Jack replied. ‘It loops around Merritt and then goes south.’
‘So we wander over and have a look,’ I suggested. ‘Best to go while it’s still a bit dark.’ I looked at the digital clock on the oven. ‘Fuck me. What am I doing up at five forty five?’
‘We went to bed pretty early last night,’ Jack said as he climbed off his high stool. ‘Let’s go then.’
I downed the last of my coffee and picked up my baseball bat from by the front door.
‘You won’t need that,’ Jack said. ‘We’re just going for a look. Stealthy mother fuckers is the word of the day.’
I reluctantly leaned The Smasher back up against the wall. ‘That’s three words.’
‘Okay. Stealthy mother fuckers are the three words of the day,’ Jack corrected.
‘I hope you’re not going to be talking like this in front of our child,’ Beth said.
Jack hugged his wife, saying, ‘Hopefully back in an hour and a half at the most. Don’t panic if we’re not.’
‘Good luck guys,’ Roy said. ‘Bring us back some good news please.’
I thanked Roy and opened the front door. Cold air rushed in, making me turn my face away from the outside world. ‘Is it ever gonna get warmer?’ I asked. ‘Isn’t it spring?’
‘Here,’ Roy said, holding out two coats. ‘The owners left these.’ He handed me a black one and held out a bright orange one for Jack.
‘Are you being serious?’ Jack asked incredulously. ‘Did you not just hear the three words of the day?’
‘It hits the brief for two of the words,’ I said.
‘Hang on a second,’ Roy said, spinning around and heading back to the closet in the hallway. He returned with a brown coat. Jack received it with a smile.
I slipped mine on. It was a little bit small, but it felt like it was going to be warm.
I might have to steal some clothes from the unfortunate owners of this house. Not much, just a few bits and pieces.
Outside the house, Jack turned to me and said, ‘It’s two and a half kilometres to where the 5A meets the 8. Hopefully that’s where we’ll find the border.’
The sound of tyres rolling on tarmac made us both spin around and duck down. One of the military jeeps zipped past on the 5A, its headlights flickering into sight between the houses on the opposite side of the road. Luckily those houses blocked us from the soldiers in the jeep.
‘Did they see us?’ I asked.
‘They’re not stopping,’ Jack replied. ‘So probably not.’
‘Let’s try and stay off that road,’ I suggested.
‘Yeah,’ Jack agreed. ‘We’ll figure out a different way. Just give me one minute.’ He turned around, opened the front door to the house and stepped inside. Twenty seconds later he reappeared. ‘Just telling those two to keep out of sight,’ he explained.
We made our way through back gardens and school playing fields, cutting across roads as quickly as we could. We always made sure the coast was clear before heading out into the open. There hadn’t been any more jeep or yellow people sightings. We walked along the road that would lead us to the junction we were looking for, keeping as close to the buildings as possible. We were two blocks away when we realised the border wasn’t there.
‘I don’t think there’s gonna be a border here,’ I said.
‘Doesn’t look like it,’ Jack said. ‘Keep going though. There are other places it could be.’
Three of the silent jeeps drove across the junction. Luckily, we were both hiding in the doorway of a restaurant, leaning our heads out to try and find this border.
‘Fucking hell they’re quiet,’ I said.
‘They’re going somewhere,’ Jack pointed out.
‘They’ll definitely be going somewhere,’ I said. ‘Otherwise they wouldn’t be moving. We should have followed that sign we saw to the checkpoint.’
‘Thanks prick. I meant they’ll be going to the border. We can go to the checkpoint sign if we don’t find anything around here. I thought there would be more places for us to hide. I hoped the border would go through the middle of the town.’
‘Okay,’ I said, pointing down one of the side streets. ‘Head this way?’
‘Yes,’ Jack agreed.
It didn’t take us long to find out where the jeeps were going. Towards the edge of town we found the border. Jack’s theory was almost right. The border followed some smaller roads around the north of Merritt.
It was the sound of metal clanging against metal and voices that caught our attention. We followed the commotion, leaving the small road we’d found ourselves on and entering someone’s property. We walked up the long drive towards a very nice house, surrounded by trees. After creeping around the house, we kept low and jogged to the end of the back garden. A tall hedge at the back fence gave the house some privacy, and something for us to hide behind. Slowing upon reaching the hedge, we pushed aside branches and forced our way through the small gaps to make them bigger. We peered through to see the road behind. About forty feet away from us, a wire mesh fence ran along the road, before turning at a right angle to go down another road.
‘I’m getting sick of wire mesh fences,’ I whispered.
‘Me too,’ Jack replied.
The scene in front of us was a hive of activity. Just in the thirty seconds we’d been here watching, three jeeps had already come and gone through the gates near the corner of the fence. There were at least twenty soldiers on the other side, all armed, and in what must have been Canadian army uniforms. The only yellow people we saw were driving the jeeps.
‘Well, we found it,’ Jack muttered. He sounded disheartened to say the least.
I too wasn’t feeling great about it. I’d been hoping for a lot fewer soldiers.
‘This looks like some kind of checkpoint,’ I said. ‘It’s gonna be busiest here. Don’t you think?’
Still looking at his phone, Jack pointed to our left. ‘Let’s follow the fence down that road. I think it’s the 8. It leads out of town.’
‘Can you tell on the map if we’ll have things to hide behind?’ I asked.
‘It looks like farmer’s fields just beyond these houses. Oh fuck. Sticky Nicky is going to get in the way.’
‘You what?’ I asked.
‘There’s a river, the Nicola River. The only way to cross it is really close to the fence.’
‘Let’s not go that way then,’ I decided.
‘We’ll have to go through town to check out the other side. We’ve been out for an hour already though.’
‘You did say not to worry if we took a bit longer,’ I reminded him.
‘I think we should go back to the house and tell them what we’ve seen,’ Jack said. ‘I don’t like moving around this close to the guys with guns. If we go to the house first, we can make our way around to the other side of town with a bit of distance between us.’
‘Okay,’ I reluctantly said.
We tried to travel back the way we’d come, assuming that was safest.
‘Jack,’ I whispered, trying to get his attention. He continued to glance in all directions, looking for danger. ‘Jack,’ I called out, slightly louder this time.
He paused to look back at me. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘I think you and Beth should go back and hand yourselves in at that internment camp. Or any internment camp. It doesn’t have to be that one I suppose. You can go to whichever camp you want. It’s completely up to.’
‘You sound like a blabbering idiot Chris. What are you talking about?’
‘Seeing all the soldiers with guns just made me think about it. You two shouldn’t have to risk your lives again trying to get over this new fuckin
g hurdle. You need to do what the Rodriguez’s have done.’
Jack continued walking. ‘Beth and I said we’d help get you to the coast.’
‘If you die doing that I’d never forgive myself,’ I told him, jogging to catch up.
‘I’m not going to die doing it,’ Jack said. ‘I’ll make sure we don’t get to that point.’
‘I think we’re at that point now. We’ve been at that point since entering the evacuation zone.’
‘We’ll find a quieter section of this fence and all get over.’
‘Can you not remember our first border crossing?’ I asked him. ‘We set fire to everything and just hoped for the best.’
‘Yeah but we made it, and I think that was your idea.’
‘I think burning the fields was Roy’s idea,’ I said, trying to recall. ‘I wanted to blow up the brewery. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. It’s a fucking miracle none of us died.’
‘Let’s talk about it if we can’t find a way over.’
‘You’re gonna have to go through this internment thing at some point,’ I told him. ‘Otherwise you’ll never be able to live your life normally. Your child too will never have a normal life. You don’t want that. And I’d much rather you did it before one of you was killed.’
Jack stopped at the next corner and looked at his phone. ‘We’ll talk about it when we get back to the house. Right now I need to figure out how to get back.’
I looked at the shops, seeing if I recognised anything. I pointed to a wooden clad building. ‘That’s the restaurant we hid behind earlier.’
Something cracked me on the back of the head. I stumbled forwards. It was an actual crack, a very loud crack. It felt like it was still echoing through my skull.
In a daze, I noticed the pavement moving closer to me. I stretched my arms out in front of me to stop my face smashing into the ground.
Chapter 8: Offers
What the fuck just happened? All I felt was confusion, and the overwhelming urge to be sick.
My blurred vision cleared slightly. My head felt heavy, like it was dragging me forwards. My hands were in front of my face, fingers splayed out on the ground.
