STRANDED: Box Set: Books 1-6

by Theresa Shaver

  They took all the supplies they could find and piled them by the front door. Cooper had been told of the children and he was checking the white van out to see if it would run. They didn’t have room in the truck and camper to take everyone with all the supplies. The van worked and had been used by the bikers to bring the children here from their school bus. Cooper backed it up to the front door and they started to quickly load the loot as fast as they could. They knew the rest of the gang could return at any time. As they finished loading and were getting the kids moving, Josh came running in.

  “You guys aren’t going to believe what I just found in the basement!” he said excitedly.

  They all rushed after him except for Dara who stayed to help the kids into the van. She had gathered all the pillows and blankets from the house and used them to pad the hard metal floor they would be traveling on. After their ordeal, she wanted to try and make them as comfortable as possible.

  Luke had told them what town they were from and after checking the map, they found it was on the highway they had been traveling on before the bikers stopped them. It was an hour’s drive to get there so Dara put in water and easy to eat food for the children. It had been decided that Dara would drive the truck, Alex the camper and Josh the van. Quinn would ride in the back of the truck, armed and ready if they encountered any of the bike gang. Cooper had ripped the roof vent from the top of the camper and was to be another armed lookout.

  They would not be taken again.

  The sight that greeted Alex, Quinn, and Cooper in the basement brought them to a standstill. Two of the walls were covered in racks filled with what looked like assault rifles and cases of ammunition. The bikers had all been carrying sawed-off shotguns or handguns so finding this many rifles was a shock. The other two walls and a few tables in the middle of the room had all kinds of drugs. There were bags filled with the white powder of cocaine, plastic tubs brimming with different colored pills and tablets, huge bags full of marijuana and other things that they didn’t recognize. After a few minutes of shocked silence, while they took in the contents of the room, Quinn sprang into action.

  “Grab as many guns as you can. Stack them in your arms and get them upstairs. Josh, grab that handcart and let’s load up all the ammo cases we can. We’ll do two trips and then we need to get out of here,” he said as he rushed forward and started to pile guns into Cooper’s arms.

  “What do we do about all that stuff?” Alex asked, waving at the drugs.

  Without looking at her, Quinn replied in a cold determined voice, “We burn it. We burn the whole place down.”

  When they brought out the first load, Dara had the children settled in the back of the van with the door still open. She did a double take when Alex walked past her with an armful of guns.

  “Head in and help the guys while I get this stuff loaded up. I’ll keep watch on the kids and the road.” Alex told her over her shoulder.

  They had already packed up the rest of the supplies so it was cramped in all the vehicles. Alex had to shove the guns anywhere she could fit them. The ammo boxes had to go into the van so they covered them with the blankets and pillows for the kids to sit on. After the second load was brought out and packed away, Quinn took two of the gas cans and went back inside. Everyone else loaded into their vehicles and got ready. Before Dara closed the van’s back door she explained to the kids that it would be dark and get hot in there but it would only be for a little while and then they would be home. She told them they could bang on the wall connecting to the driver’s compartment if they needed to and they would stop. The children were either still in shock or very brave because they all just nodded before she rolled the door down.

  Quinn came through the door backward, leaving a trail of gas. He threw the empty gas can back through the door and turned to check if everyone was ready. He caught sight of the motorcycles. One of his friends had trashed them all. They were nothing more than a pile of chrome and rubber, never to be ridden again. He laughed with pleasure and turned to his waiting friends.

  “Alex, Josh, you guys move out to the road and wait. I’m going to light this up and then Dara and I will take the lead. Josh, keep the van and the kids in the middle. Cooper, be ready. If you see a motorcycle just open fire, don’t wait. We’ll get these kids home,” he declared and waved them out.

  He pulled a road flare out of his back pocket, lit it and threw it through the open door. He ran over and hopped into the back of the truck and grabbed a shotgun he had placed there. As soon as Dara saw that he was settled, she pulled out to the road and got in front of the van. They had only gone half a mile when something in the house exploded and they could clearly see a black column of smoke rising. Dara watched the smoke in her side mirror and had a disturbing thought. She had opened the sliding rear window before they left so she could talk to Quinn. She yelled his name through it to get his attention.

  When he came close enough to hear, she asked him, “What about that woman, Sheila? Was she still in there?”

  Quinn shook his head. “I threw her into the shed where the kids were with a couple of bottles of water and a knife to cut herself free,” he answered with indifference and turned back to scanning the road.

  Dara gave a sigh of relief. There was a difference between defending themselves and others and flat out murder. She shook her head. She should have known that Quinn wouldn’t have crossed that line.

  Dara watched the road ahead with apprehension. Before they left the base, the teens had looked at a map of the area and saw that the only town close by was the one they were headed to with the children. Assuming that it was the same town the rest of the bikers had gone to, they had decided that they had a two-and-a-half-hour window before the gang made it back and found the destruction they had left. After discussing what to do if they met them on the road, they had all agreed that with the children riding with them and at risk in a shootout, it would be better to try to avoid them.

  After about fifteen miles, Dara turned down a dusty gravel road and continued on it for a mile. She then did a U-turn to face back the way they had come and shut the engine off. The van and camper had a harder time turning around but after some back and forth they finally got lined up behind the smaller truck. They all got out and Dara rushed to open the rolling door on the van to give the children fresh air. She explained what they were doing and told them to sit tight, stay in the van so they could leave quickly and stay quiet so they could hear when the motorcycles went by. Once again, none of the kids answered her. They just sat blinking owlishly at her in the bright sunlight. Only Luke responded with a thumbs up.

  Dara joined her friends at the front of the truck where Quinn was trying to figure out one of the assault rifles. After turning it over a few times, Cooper stepped forward and took it from his hands. He smoothly and competently ejected the magazine, turned it around and punched it back in. Next, he pulled the cocking handle back. He then calmly handed it back to Quinn.

  His friends were all staring at him in disbelief. “What? It’s not a big deal. My old man always let me go with him to gun shows. They always had a shooting range set up and there was a gun dealer there that he knew. He always demonstrated different types of guns and let me hang out with him. I got pretty good with one of these. I can show you guys what to do if you want,” he explained to them. They were still staring at him so he kept talking. “It might actually be a good idea. If these guys come after us, we don’t want to be in a prolonged gun battle. These babies are really easy to use. You just point and spray. We could annihilate them in seconds. None of them were carrying these, just shotguns and handguns. It would be no contest.”

  By the time he was done, his face was bright red and he was beginning to wish he had kept his mouth shut. Cooper stared at his feet in misery as his friends looked to one another. It was Alex who stepped towards him and took his hand. He looked into her smiling sea-green eyes. “Show me,” she said.

  Cooper spent a few minutes showing them how to reload t
he guns and where the selector and safety was. He explained what the gun dealer had told him about shooting them. The gun barrel tended to rise as you shot it, so start aiming low and keep correcting down. They all wanted to practice firing but knew that they had to stay quiet to hear the motorcycles going by. They had been on the side road for twenty-five minutes when they heard the rumble of engines in the distance.

  Dara ran to the back of the van and looked inside. Most of the kids were slumped down. Some were sleeping and others were sipping water or eating.

  “Okay guys, we’re going to be leaving in a minute. We are taking you all home and we’re going to be going fast, so I want you all on the floor and try and brace yourselves in case we have to swerve around cars,” Dara said with a smile as they started to scramble down onto the padded floor.

  She gave them a cheery wave and pulled the door down, flipping the latch so it wouldn’t open while they were speeding down the road. She ran back to the truck and scanned ahead.

  They couldn’t see the highway from where they were parked but she could hear the engines very well. Dara had to remind herself to breathe as she waited for the noise to fade in the distance. They waited a few more minutes to let the bikers get further down the road and then she jumped in the truck and they all started their vehicles up and slowly made their way back to the main highway. They turned right onto the paved road and quickly started to accelerate. They had to weigh the cost of safely getting around car crashes with the certainty of being chased once the gang discovered the ruins of their home. They all knew without a doubt that the bikers would come after them. The question was whether or not they would make it to town first.

  The three drivers went as fast as they could and tried to move around wrecks without slowing too much. Cooper watched behind them from his perch half out of the air vent on the roof of the camper. He had stacked cases of water and other solid items to stand on. Quinn was watching the front and sides for any trouble. They made good time but the ride felt endless with all of their nerves strung tight waiting for the bikers to catch up to them.

  Quinn was looking back when he felt Dara start to slow the truck. He turned around and saw that they were approaching a roadblock. There were cars pulled across the road three deep and an old bus was in the center of it all. There were men on top of the bus, all armed and pointing their weapons at the lead truck and more behind the cars blocking the road.

  Quinn yelled at Dara through the open window, “Stop about ten feet from the cars!”

  He slung his gun behind his back and got ready to jump out. He hoped the guards weren’t trigger happy and would give them a chance to explain. Quinn vaulted over the side of the truck bed down to the road and raised his hands. He started to walk forward to the front of the truck and stopped just past the driver’s door. He wanted to be able to run back quickly if they started to shoot.

  When no gunshots came and none of the guards made a greeting, he yelled out to them.

  “I’m looking for Sheriff McCormac!”

  There was a brief pause while the guards talked to each other and then one man dropped down and appeared around a car and walked towards Quinn. When he was five feet away he stopped and scanned the three vehicles. He was tall and broad with a face that needed shaving but his uniform and hair were clean.

  “Do I know you, son? I’m the sheriff,” he asked.

  “No, sir, but we have something that belongs to you. My friends and I were attacked on the road by a biker gang and taken prisoner. We managed to escape and we brought a bunch of kids that were there with us. They say this is the town that they live in,” Quinn told him.

  A look of desperate hope crossed the man’s face, “My son, Luke?” he almost begged.

  “Yes, sir, he’s with the others.”

  Before Quinn could explain further, the Sheriff turned and waved at his men. “They’ve found Luke and the other kids! Get out here!” he yelled and turned back to Quinn. “Where are they?” he demanded as four guards rushed up to stand behind him.

  “Sir, we have to get inside. We killed the leader of the gang and some of his people and burned the place down but there were more of them that had left to get friends from your town. We hid on a side road until they passed us, then booked it here. They’ll be after us by now for what we did. We need to get these kids into town before they get here,” he said in desperation. He could feel the minutes slipping by.

  “You killed Skull and burned his place down?” one of the guards asked skeptically.

  A voice from behind him answered, “Yes, we did, as well as two of his men and a woman. Now can we please get behind that roadblock and get the kids to safety?” Dara asked from the open window of the truck.

  Quinn heard the sound of footsteps and turned to see Alex and Josh coming towards him. Cooper was still on the top of the camper scanning back down the road. He turned back to Sheriff McCormac and his men. They all looked doubtful at Dara’s statement. The sheriff looked Alex and Josh over and glanced at Dara with a frown.

  “So, let me get this straight. A bunch of teenagers killed the leader of one of the worst biker gangs in the state, some of his men, rescued some kids and then burned their place to the ground? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?” he asked sarcastically.

  Josh stepped forward, “Yup, they had a basement full of drugs, like millions of dollars worth and we couldn’t leave that for their friends, so we torched the place. Sir, do you want your kids back or not?” he said in exasperation.

  “Too late, they’re here!” Cooper suddenly yelled from the top of the camper.

  Dara jumped out of the truck and joined her friends as they all made their way back down the road towards the oncoming bikers. Over his shoulder, Quinn instructed the sheriff.

  “These guys aren’t coming to talk, Sheriff. Get your men ready!”

  Josh stopped at the van and grabbed extra ammo clips for the rifles that they all were carrying. Cooper stayed up high and braced himself to start shooting. When he saw Dara, Alex, Josh and Quinn line up behind the camper, he called advice down to them.

  “Remember to keep your gun barrel down. It’s going to keep going too high. Just stay calm and aim and spray. Remember what these guys were going to do to us and what they did to Luke and the kids. We’re going to stop them from hurting anyone else.”

  Alex took a deep breath and steadied herself. She was surprised to see that her hands weren’t shaking. She reminded herself how she felt hanging from the hooks and the emptiness in Luke’s eyes. That was all she needed to harden her resolve for what she was about to do.

  There were four bikes that roared up with each one carrying two men. They skidded to a stop twenty feet from the back of the camper and quickly jumped off. The biggest of the bunch roared at them.

  “I’m gonna skin you alive for what you did to my friends!” as he pulled his sawed-off shotgun from behind his back.

  The rest of the gang fanned out in a line and they were all pulling guns when Quinn yelled out, “Fire!”

  There was nothing pretty or accurate about the wave of bullets that swarmed towards the bikers. Many bullets hit the road and ricocheted up from the ground or went flying too high, but enough of the wall of fire hit their marks to completely slaughter the eight men facing the teens. The sound of automatic weapons was amazingly loud and it continued until all of their clips ran dry.

  The silence that followed the shooting was almost as deafening. They all stood there staring at the massacred pile of bodies, it was then that Alex started to shake. It was the sound of a shotgun being cocked that brought them back to the real world.

  Quinn dropped his weapon and raised his hands into the air as he turned to face the sheriff. The other teens followed his lead and did the same. Only Cooper kept his weapon and, in the silence, they could clearly hear a fresh clip being slammed home into his gun. The four teens on the road were facing the sheriff and the shotgun pointed in their direction.

  “Five teenagers with AK-47
’s just opened fire and killed eight men in front of the law and you expect me to believe that you are the good guys?” he asked with shock on his face.

  “Sir…” Quinn began, but Alex cut him off.

  “Eight men who were going to rape and kill me and my friends and who put a dog collar on your son and beat him!” she yelled at him, furious. “Luke! Luke, your dad’s out here and he thinks we are the bad guys!” she yelled toward the van.

  Sudden loud banging came from the inside of the van and a faint voice could be heard yelling, “Dad!” over and over. The look on the sheriff’s face changed from shock to uncertainty.

  His men had come up behind him and he looked over and said, “Cover them while I check this out.”

  He walked over to the van’s rear door and unlatched it. He rolled it up and was immediately hit by a small flying bundle that wrapped itself around him. The sheriff staggered back at the weight of the boy but his arms closed over him in reflex. Before he could speak, Luke started jabbering at him.

  “Dad! Dad, Alex saved me. She saved all of us. She’s a hero, not a bad guy!”

  “Luke? Oh God, Luke! I thought I’d lost you.” He started to sob as he clutched the child to his chest.

  One of the guards looked away from the reunion and lowered his gun. He looked at the kids with disbelief and asked, “Who the hell are you kids?”

  Of course, it was Josh who answered in a pure Josh way.

  “We’re the Maple Leaf Mafia!”

  His friends all groaned and laughed.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The camper was set up in the town’s campground, located in a park in the downtown area. There had been lots of offers given to the group for places to stay but they had all wanted some time alone so they chose the campground. It didn’t stop people from coming by to thank them or just chat but it was away from the bulk of the town’s population. They had had to tell their story again at the roadblock but it was the children that had convinced all the guards that the teens were their saviors. Once the children had seen Sheriff McCormac and men they recognized, they had come to life and all started to talk at once. Once the group’s status as “good guys” was confirmed, they were allowed into the town.