Cooper called after him, “Okay, but when your car won’t start come on back and I’ll tell you what’s going on.”
The man didn’t even turn around, just headed for his car at a faster pace. The group waited on the sidewalk and watched the store manager get into his car. After a few moments, he got out and stormed his way back to the kids.
“All right. What did you do to my car?” he yelled.
“We didn’t do anything. I tried to tell you but you didn’t want to listen. Come over here and I’ll tell you what we know and what we’ve seen.”
Cooper steered him over to lean against the wall of the store and proceeded to explain to the man what had happened earlier that morning and what they had seen on the trip so far.
The man didn’t want to believe him but after looking over at the standstill traffic and many car crashes, he started to waver. It was when he tried to use his dead cell phone and the kids showed them their dead phones that he finally seemed to believe. As he stood there stunned, Cooper told him what they wanted.
“Look, the best thing for you to do is go stock up on all you can from the store and then get home to your family. That’s what we are trying to do. This place is going to get hit by looters anytime now but that’s not us. We have three thousand dollars to pay you. Let us in and we can stock up, get some bikes and get out of here. So, what do you think? Make some money or watch it all get stolen by the next group that comes by?”
The man just stared at Cooper for what seemed like forever and then finally said, “Do you have cash?”
“Yes, sir!” Cooper smiled.
“Then let’s get busy,” he said as he turned and unlocked the door and held it open for the kids to go on in.
The store was dim, but there were skylights that let in enough light to get around and find what they were looking for. Cooper was telling the manager where they were going and what they needed for bikes and supplies as Alex approached them with the money. The manager counted it and stuffed it in his pocket and told the kids to take whatever they wanted and that he was going to pack his own supplies.
They all headed to the bike section and picked out bikes and helmets. They found saddlebags and storage containers that fit on the bikes in different ways. After that was done, they all headed to the camping section and picked up backpacks and other gear. They grabbed freeze-dried camping food, two small camp stoves, fuel, and three lanterns. Sleeping bags, ground mats, two tarps, and inflatable pillows went into their shopping cart. After the camping gear was taken care of, they all headed into the clothing and footwear departments.
Alex kept thinking that it would be a fun shopping spree if only the world as she knew it wasn’t changed forever. After finding some wet wipes and a change of clothes she headed to the change rooms. She felt sticky and stinky. Her shirt was stained with Jack’s pee and her pants had blood on the knees from kneeling by the bodies of the police officers. Alex quickly stripped down and washed as best as she could with the wet wipes. Feeling much better, she pulled the tags off of her new cargo pants and T-shirt. She had on her favorite low-cut hiking boots and would keep them. A Tilley hat completed her outfit.
When she got back to the others, they had all the bikes and gear close to the front door. It was obvious as they tried to divide the gear up that they couldn’t take it all. They were trying to decide what not to take when the manager pushed his own bike towards the doors. Attached behind the bike was a double child carrier that was packed full of supplies and its clear plastic windshield on the front was zippered closed. Quinn and Josh looked at each other and headed back to the bike area to get one as well.
Cooper was looking thoughtful about something and said, “Be right back.”
Before the girls could say anything, he headed out the front door.
“Where do you think he’s going?” Dara asked Alex.
“I have no idea but if the other guys can rig up a carrier, we could have room to take a couple of tents.”
As the girls got up to head back to the camping section, the manager stopped Alex.
“Here take these,” he said and handed her the store keys. “I’m not waiting around for you guys, so lock the doors when you leave and drop the keys in the mail slot. If looters come for the store, the door locks won’t stop them anyway. Good luck getting back to Canada and thanks for paying me instead of just stealing things.” With that, he was out the door.
Alex dropped the keys by the supplies and she and Dara grabbed another cart and went in search of tents. After finding what they were looking for and a few more things that they thought would come in handy, they went back to the bikes. Quinn and Josh had gotten two child carriers and almost had them installed on the bikes. Cooper came in the front door carrying a few things and when he got to the group he dumped his stuff with the rest.
Seeing that he had been outside Quinn was surprised and asked, “Where did you go, man?”
With a cocky grin, Cooper announced, “Just doing a little looting for the common good. I went over to the home improvement store but there was no one there so I broke a window and grabbed some stuff we might need.” Nodding down at the stuff he brought in, he explained. “We might need to get around roads if they aren’t passable so I got us some wire and bolt cutters as well as two crowbars. I was thinking of chain link fencing and padlocks.” He bowed for applause.
Alex couldn’t help but smile at his cocky attitude and in truth, it was good thinking on his part. The others thought so too and applauded him.
“Great job, that stuff will really save us time if we get stuck,” Quinn praised. “Okay, guys, that’s it. Let’s load everything up and we can spread some of it around the backpacks. Everybody make sure the water bottle holders are full and take an extra bottle in your pack. Also, we have four guns and a can of mace, so let’s figure out who’s going to carry them. Does everybody know how to work a gun?” He looked around to take a poll. All three of the boys had fired handguns before and Alex was surprised when Dara said she had as well.
“I guess that leaves me out of the club,” she said. “I can shoot rifles and shotguns but I’ve never shot a handgun before, so why don’t I carry the mace and you guys take the guns. When we get out in the country we can have target practice.”
“Sounds good,” Quinn said. “You shouldn’t have any problem learning the difference and I know you’re great with a rifle so we can sort that out when we hit the countryside.”
They all got waist packs and stored the weapons and extra clips in them, except for Cooper. He had taken the holster and belt from one of the cops outside. He pulled his shirt closed to cover it and then everybody got busy loading gear up. Within ten minutes, Alex was locking the front door and dropping the keys in the slot.
Well, the shopping spree is over, she thought. Now it’s time to physically pay for it. Hitching her backpack into a more comfortable position and tightening the straps, she climbed onto her bike and followed the others down the road.
Chapter Six
Four hours later Alex was definitely paying the price. Her thighs burned and the skin on her shoulders was rubbed raw from the backpack straps. She had gone through her bike-mounted water bottle for the second time and was in desperate need to relieve her bladder. She was very thankful that her bike wasn’t pulling one of the child carriers and felt bad for the extra weight that Quinn and Josh were hauling.
They had come a long way with only a few issues. The Orange freeway was heavy with car crashes but luckily, except for a few spots, it was a wide five-lane freeway that had open sides and, in some places, even a pathway that ran beside it. In one of the tight spots, they had their first problem.
A man wearing an expensive suit and standing beside a fancy sports car that was across two lanes tried to wave them down. When he realized that the group wasn’t going to stop he jumped out to block the road, forcing the group to come to a halt.
“Hey, kid! I want to buy your bike!” he exclaimed.
“So
rry, mister. It’s not for sale. Can you move out of the way please?” Cooper answered.
“Of course it is,” said the man with a smirk. “Everything has a price, name it and I’ll pay it,” he said while waving a checkbook around.
“Really, we aren’t selling, so please move!” Cooper said again with more force.
“Listen, kid, do you know who I am? I’ve got an important meeting with the star of the next Lethal Action movie and I can’t get my cell working. I need your bike to get to the studio, so how much? You guys have five bikes so you can double up.”
When Cooper just stared at the guy, shaking his head, the man got angry.
“How about I drag you off that bike and just take it, you little shit!” the man spit.
Cooper leaned back on his bike seat and with a calm face swung open his jacket and rested his hand on the gun holstered at his waist.
“Mister, I’m sorry to tell you this but your money doesn’t mean anything to us and whoever you were yesterday, you aren’t anybody today. It’s a new world and it’s not pretty so go back to your worthless pop can of a car and let us pass before you get yourself shot. After we are gone, I would suggest you start walking. Also, I wouldn’t worry. I’m pretty sure your meeting is canceled,” Cooper told him.
The man blustered some more and cursed them all but moved back to his car. Cooper waved the rest of the group forward but stayed facing the man until they were all past and down the road. Only then did he give the angry man a nod and continue after his friends. They had made another hour of riding before their way was blocked again. An eighteen-wheeler had jackknifed across the road and there was no way through.
After backtracking for ten minutes, they found an open space to get off the freeway. Quinn made good use of the wire cutters that Cooper had stolen and cut away the chain link fence. They had to walk the bikes through and carefully down the embankment to the pathway, with one person holding back the fence so they could fit through. They stayed on the pathway paralleling the freeway for half an hour before it started to angle away so they found a way back onto the road and kept going.
Alex was a little surprised at how few people they saw. Most were walking and a few were sitting beside cars, obviously hurt, but most of the freeway was deserted. They did see two different groups that looked like families on bikes. They were loaded down and pulling small bike trailers. Alex guessed that they had the same idea and were getting out of the city as well.
At one point they were in a tight area of the freeway and couldn’t get off when they were forced to bike through a heavy cloud of smoke. On the other side, they all had to stop and clear their smoke-saturated lungs and stinging eyes. When their eyes cleared, they looked over to the west of the freeway and saw a huge mega-mall. It was on fire and burning out of control. It looked like a plane had crashed into it, as the plane’s tail was sticking out of the side of a Bloomingdales. All the jet fuel had ignited and the mall was a tower of flames and smoke.
No one else had tried to stop the group and even having to weave around wrecks they made good time. Every time they came to an area that was undeveloped Alex thought they had finally made it to the outskirts of the city, only to pedal into another suburb with row after row of housing and strip malls. Being from an area that was less populated, it was hard for Alex to wrap her head around so many houses and people living so close together.
They were in an undeveloped area when Alex took a quick look at her watch and saw it was just after five o’clock. Even without her aching body and bladder, Alex knew they needed to stop and discuss a plan for the coming night. She yelled ahead to the others and they all pulled up into an empty area on the side of the road.
“Sorry guys, but I really have to go to the bathroom and we need to talk about the plan for tonight anyway.”
With groans of relief and aching muscles, everybody got off their bikes for a pit stop. Grabbing a roll of toilet paper and some hand sanitizer from her pack Alex headed over to some bushes to do her business. Everyone else took advantage of the break to do the same. When Alex got back to her bike she did some stretches and rubbed some ointment into her shoulders.
“That doesn’t look good. I’ll make some padding for your straps so it doesn’t get any worse.” Cooper commented as he came up to her.
Alex smiled her thanks at him and couldn’t help thinking that he didn’t seem like such a bad boy to her. The way he handled that jerk on the freeway had impressed her and he seemed pretty smart, always thinking ahead for what they would need. She rummaged through her pack, came up with a couple of power bars and handed one to him.
“How far do you think we’ve come?” she asked him.
Cooper thought about it for a minute and finally said, “I would guess about forty-five or fifty miles so far. Not bad considering some of the detours. We were lucky that first freeway was a straight shot in the right direction. We should take a look at the map and see what’s coming up so we have a plan for when we stop for the night.”
He pulled the map out of his inside jacket pocket and moved over to the others.
While the boys were looking over the map, Alex went over to Dara who was searching through her pack and handed her the hand sanitizer.
“Thanks, that’s what I was looking for,” she said and coated her hands. “How are you feeling? My legs feel like wet noodles,” she laughed.
“Tell me about it. I think we’ll be paying for this tomorrow which really sucks as we’ll be biking even farther.” Alex groaned. “I’m not looking forward to sleeping on the ground tonight. Do we have any Advil? Like by the case?” she joked.
Dara laughed. “Yeah, why didn’t we hit a drug store before we started. There’s that first-aid kit we took out of the police car. Let’s hope it has some.”
The boys called them over to the map and explained the game plan.
“We did really well so far and we aren’t that far from being away from the major suburbs,” Quinn said. “So, I think we should try to go another twenty miles, two more hours or so, and call it a night. We need to decide if we should camp-out, off of the road, or try for a hotel.” He scanned the group for opinions and when no one answered he continued, “I think it would be safe for tonight to stay in a hotel. Most people would have been walking and will be tired so there shouldn’t be any problems. It’s tomorrow and the coming days that things are going to get crazy. What do you think?”
Alex and Dara looked at each other and said in unison, “Hotel!”
“Okay, keep your eyes open for something after about an hour. There’s a junction coming up soon that we need to take north again and it’s going to be going uphill more so we’ll really feel the burn. We should try to be settled before it gets dark. With no street lights or business lights, it will be hard to find anything after dark. Let’s fill up the bike water bottles and grab a power bar and hit the road. The longer we aren’t pedaling, the stiffer our legs will get,” Quinn said, standing and folding the map that he handed back to Cooper.
Alex was glad that no one seemed to have an issue with Quinn taking the lead and was again thinking that Cooper was a good guy. Dara still confused her. They had spoken more today than in the past few years and she wondered again what had caused her to leave the group all those years ago. Maybe on this long trip home, she would get a chance to find out.
As Alex was adjusting her pack, Cooper came over with a couple of T-shirts.
“This should help for now but I’ll figure out something better when we stop for the night,” he said while wrapping the shirts around the shoulder straps and padding them to protect Alex’s sore shoulders. He tightened the straps, and in a surprising move, tucked a stray curl up under Alex’s hat. He stepped back and said, “All set. That should help for now.”
Alex could feel the blush rising on her face and ducked down so her hat blocked his view. “Thanks,” was all she could get out. She could see his feet turning away so she risked a quick look to see if anyone had noticed the unexpecte
d move and came face to face with Dara’s raised eyebrows. With her blush even redder, she just shrugged her shoulders and started pedaling.
As the group got up to speed, Alex let her mind wander. What did that mean? Was he just being nice? Was he interested? She felt like a silly girl that had just noticed boys for the first time. She had dated other guys and even made out a few times with them, so what was it about Cooper that made her so unsure and nervous? At that point, Alex almost drove off the road so she shook her head and parked those thoughts for later, especially as she heard a small giggle coming from Dara behind her.
It was soon hard to think about anything except the road ahead and the burn in her thighs. She had lost all feeling in her butt a while back and counted that as a plus. They were definitely climbing higher and the pace they were going was slowing down. No one was talking, needing all their energy just to keep pedaling. It seemed like forever before Alex heard Josh wheeze out something. She hadn’t lifted her head to look around in a long time, concentrating on the road ahead so she wouldn’t run into any stalled cars.
The road they were traveling on must not have been very busy this morning when everything stopped because the cars were spread out and most had just coasted to a stop without crashing, making it fairly easy to navigate. They hadn’t seen any people around for a while but after ten hours, most would have walked away to find help.
As she lifted her head and looked around she spotted what had gotten Josh’s attention. Down the road about half a mile was an old looking motel. It was one story and the doors all faced the parking lot in front. There was an even older looking gas station attached to it and what looked like a mobile home trailer off to the side.
The group pulled up just before the entrance and scanned the building, looking for trouble. At least half of the room doors were open to let the light in and there were some people sitting at picnic tables at one end of the parking lot.
“I’m about done with this bike courier job. So, I think this should be home sweet home for the night,” Josh joked.
STRANDED: Box Set: Books 1-6 Page 5
