Emily shook her head in frustration. “I wish I could have told them but I know for a fact my dad would have stood outside my bedroom door with a shotgun to keep me from leaving. I’m sure Alex’s dad would have done the same.” When Alex still didn’t lift her visor to respond she looked back at the boys. “Whatever, it’s done now so let get going.”
Dara pulled off her glove and dug into her pocket before holding her hand out to Josh. When he looked down into her palm and saw the two, extra strength Advils there, his eyes got huge and he dramatically dropped to his knees in the snow with his hand over his heart.
“My God woman, say you’ll marry me, right here, right now!”
The grin on her face dimmed as she slid a quick glance over at Quinn who quickly looked away with a frown. It wasn’t that long ago that he’d asked Alex that same question.
She shook her head and hauled Josh back to his feet. “Take your medicine, fool!”
Dara gave Josh another quick kiss and started to walk back over to the sled Alex was driving. He looked to her and then Quinn in question before asking, “Hey, aren’t you going to ride with me?”
Dara tossed a smug look over her shoulder at him. “Nope, I’m good with Alex. Enjoy your testosterone!”
Josh sent a glower Quinn’s way before waving him onto the back of his sled. He quickly downed the painkillers for his pounding headache and once Quinn was settled, climbed on to the sled and pulled out.
He led the group east under a brightening sky that highlighted the distinctive chinook cloud arch. It was a smooth ride on the flat unplowed road and it seemed to fly by once they reached the main highway that would take them all the way to Red Deer.
Halfway there, Alex couldn’t help but feel like they were the only people left in this area of the province. Even though it was still very early in the day, they hadn’t seen anyone out on the road or in the few homes that dotted the landscape. She figured that would change as they got closer to the city and the temperature continued to rise.
Alex hoped they had success with the military in Red Deer so they could get back home quickly and deliver the lifesaving medicine that so many people in their town needed. At the same time, with every kilometer of distance that they put between themselves and home, she felt a weight lifting off of her shoulders. The guilt at feeling that way came but she pushed it aside. She couldn’t help feeling that way so there was no point in dwelling on it.
As the group came upon the exit to a lake town twenty kilometres from Red Deer, Dara squeezed Alex’s waist to get her attention and pointed to the north where part of the town could be seen from the highway. Alex slowed the sled to get a better look at what she was pointing at.
There were smoke trails coming from a scattering of homes closest to the lake and groups of small, distant figures could be seen out on the ice of the lake. Alex figured they were ice fishing. Dara patted her shoulder and pointed ahead to show her that the other two sleds were pulling away from them so Alex sped back up. She was happy to know that there was life surviving out here.
The highway widened to a divided four-lane at that point, letting the group speed up even more, and the last few kilometers flew by. Josh was in the lead and as they approached the last rise before the city, he slowed his sled and came to a stop right before the crest. The girls pulled in behind him and shut their machines down.
Everyone dismounted and removed their helmets so they could plan their next steps. Josh went to his trailer, unhooked the tarp and hefted out one of the jerry cans of gas while Quinn started to hike up the hill.
“We should fill all the tanks before we go any further. I doubt there will be any problems but just in case we should be ready to run if we have to. Quinn’s going to check if there are any road blocks in place.”
The girls worked on filling their gas tanks with their own jerry cans as they waited for Quinn to report back on what was on the other side of the rise. By the time he made it back down to them, they had all gassed up and were waiting on him.
Emily tossed him a bottle of water before asking, “What did you see?”
He shook his head then took a deep drink before capping it and tossing it back.
“Nothing there. The road’s open all the way into the city. As far as I could tell, most of the city looks empty. There’s a lot of smoke trails coming from the southern end so my guess is they’ve set up camp over there and left the rest empty.” He turned away so Josh took over.
“Makes sense, there’s a lot of hotels and the fairgrounds over there to house them. There’s no way they have enough troops to cover the whole city. I think we should take the number two highway to circle around to the south and put us closer to where they’re set up. There’s lots of industrial buildings along that road. We should pick one, hide the sleds and walk in from there. That way no one will think of getting grabby for our transportation and supplies.”
Alex looked at the girls, avoiding Quinn’s eyes, and nodded.
“We should also leave the rifles behind and only take the handguns. Remember how they confiscated all the AK’s we had handed out to the men after we freed them from the barns? No sense losing any more of them!”
Everyone agreed with the plan so they mounted back up and continued towards the city, taking the exit that looped south. As they passed many deserted oilfield service buildings and yards full of abandoned equipment, Alex wondered if her oil and natural gas rich province would ever recover enough to pump the precious resources from the ground again.
The group followed Josh’s sled off the road when he made a quick turn into a parking lot that housed a huge agricultural farm machinery dealership. Connected to it was a smaller dealership that sold utility and recreation vehicles. They drove around to the back of the building where huge garage doors led into maintenance bays. When he pulled up to the doors and shut his machine down, they all did the same and climbed off.
Alex pulled her helmet and toque off and shook out her long red curls in the much warmer air before turning to Josh.
“What’s up? This is way too far to walk the rest of the way?”
Josh was rummaging around in his sled’s trailer before coming up with a pair of bolt cutters and grinning at her.
“Yeah, we’ll park somewhere closer but I just remembered this place as we were driving up to it. Last spring, Dad and I were here to buy the new baler. While he was doing the paperwork, I wandered over to this side and took a look around. They sell all kinds of snowmobiles and UTV’s. They had a bunch being worked on in the garage. Also, they have their own gas pumps so I thought it would be a good idea to try and top up our jerry cans here and look for anything useful before we went any closer. That way if we strike out and have to head south to Calgary, we’ll be ready to go. I don’t want to miss anything we might be able to use from here if we’re coming back this way after dark or if the weather turns on us.”
Alex nodded and turned to Dara, Emily and Lisa. “Why don’t we grab some breakfast while we wait for the guys to scavenge? I don’t know about you guys but I’m starving!”
The girls agreed and started to rummage around in their own trailers for something easy to eat. None of them had been able to make travel food without their parents knowing what they were up to so it was a real treat when Josh stopped them and tossed a backpack their way.
“Mom to the rescue! She packed a couple thermoses of hot oatmeal, sandwiches and snacks for lunch.”
Dara caught the bag and blew him a kiss.
“Keep it up Green and I just might say yes to that question you asked this morning!”
Josh wiggled his eyebrows at her before he turned and got to work on the bay door locks. Quinn kept his expression blank but his eyes followed Alex as she helped Dara pass out some of the food from the pack. He kept watching her until Josh let out a “whoop” and rolled up one of the doors.
Josh turned to the group and made an exaggerated bow but it turned into a pout when he saw that the girls were too busy eating to n
otice. Instead, he just waved Quinn into the building ahead of him.
Once the boys had disappeared into the dark garage, Emily pinned Alex with a questioning look. “Are you ok?”
Alex glanced over towards the door and let out a sigh. “Yeah, I’m half glad he came and half annoyed. On the one hand, it feels right for him to be with us but on the other, I don’t really appreciate the walking on egg shells around him that everyone has to do. I wish he would just talk to me and get it over with! There’s enough crap going on right now without his man drama!”
Lisa let out a snort. “Funny how he wasn’t coming until Josh brought up Cooper!”
Dara let out a laugh. “Annnnnd, the triangle is back!”
Alex rolled her eyes in annoyance and started shaking her head. “NO. IT’S. NOT! The first time was bad enough. I’m not going there again!”
Dara’s eyes danced with teasing amusement. “Poor Alex, torn between two men. Will she ever find her happy ever after?”
As the other girls burst into laughter, Alex narrowed her eyes and pretended to cock an imaginary shotgun. After she had pretended to shoot each one of her friends, she sent them a sweet smile and a wink. Even with everything going on with the virus and Quinn, she was just so happy to be back together with her friends.
The girls all turned to watch as Josh came back outside and scanned the lot for something. Whatever he was looking for was located in the far back corner of the lot. He let out a deep sigh and started wading through the untouched snow in that direction.
Dara raised her eyebrows in question, but the girls just shook their heads so she yelled over to him. “Hey, where are you going?”
Josh stopped and turned back towards them with a mocking scowl and put his hands on his hips.
“You know, you guys could help scavenge with us. It would speed things up. After all, we DO have places to BE and people to SAVE!”
When none of the girls answered him or moved from where they were sitting, he threw his hands in the air and turned to stomp through more snow.
Dara turned back to her friends and raised her face up to the sky with her eyes closed.
“This is the first time in months that I’ve been able to sit outside and not feel like something important on my body was going to freeze and fall off!” She paused for a few seconds and then got to her feet. “Well, that was nice! I guess I better go rescue him from a snowdrift he’s bound to fall into.”
Alex jumped to her feet. “Yup, I’ll come with you to help pull him out!”
Emily and Lisa rose as well and with smirks on their faces headed towards the open garage door where they could hear Quinn banging around. Emily looked back at Alex over her shoulder and hissed “Chicken!” with a smile.
Alex just nodded in agreement and followed after Dara.
Chapter Eight
“What exactly do you think we need from inside here, Josh?” Dara asked with impatience from down on her knees, where she and Alex were scooping snow with their gloved hands to clear the door of a metal shipping container.
He looked down from where he was trying to use the bolt cutters on multiple locks and grinned. “According to these shipping manifests I found, there are a bunch of Sno-Cobra ski and track attachments in here. They replace the wheels on ATV’s and UTV’s so they work like snowmobiles. If they’re in there then it’s a great find. It’ll give us more vehicles to use in all this snow once we mount them on our machines back home!”
Alex leaned back on her heels and looked up at him. “Ok, that is a great find, but do we really have time to be doing this right now?”
Josh strained to snap through the final lock on the door before answering her. “We left at dawn so I’m guessing it’s no later than eight, eight-thirty, right now. We have the whole day to get the meds and get home but by the time we do all that it might be too late in the day to stop here again and get this stuff. We have to make this trip count in every way possible, so yes, I think doing it now is necessary.”
Alex nodded. “Yes, I agree that getting more resources for home is a good thing, but what if we can’t get the meds from the military? We’ll have to head to Calgary and search the hospitals there. That’s going to take a lot of time.”
Josh looked to Dara and then back to Alex with a resigned frown. “Listen, Red. If we have to go all the way to Calgary for the meds, we won’t be making it home today.” Alex started to interrupt so Josh held up his hand in a hold on gesture before continuing. “I know we figured we could do it in a day when we planned it out but let’s be realistic here. If we leave Red Deer by eleven or noon to head south, it’ll take at least three hours to get to Calgary. That’s if nothing goes sideways. Then, say another three or four hours in the city if we get lucky and find what we need at the first hospital we go to.
“Don’t forget just how spread out everything is in that city! I read once that the land area of that city is over eight hundred square kilometers. Dad told me last night that there are five major hospitals and only two of them are close together. The other three are spread out in the different quadrants. It could take us a whole day of searching if we have to go to each of them. But again, let’s say we get lucky and hit the right one first off. By the time we get in and then out of that city it will be sometime around four or five and that’s when it gets dark now. Do you want to try and drive three or four hours in the dark? The cloud arch won’t let even the moonlight through.” He paused and shook his head. “Sorry Alex, it would be too dangerous. We would have to find somewhere to camp out for the night. SO, think positive and hope we can get the meds from the military here!”
Alex’s shoulders slumped but she nodded so he turned to disengage the last sheared lock on the door and gave a tug to try and open it. The one door swung out about four inches before it stopped against the snow so they all got back to shoveling the deep white stuff out of the way. It only took the three of them five more minutes to clear enough of a path to swing both the doors open enough for them to enter.
Whoever worked at the dealership had already removed quite a bit from it, but there were still boxes on pallets so they hoped that the parts they were looking for would still be inside. The light was dim but Josh had brought a working flashlight that he used to scan the part numbers on the side of the boxes as the girls tore off plastic wrap from some of the stacks. Josh leaned back from the third pallet he had checked and shook his head before going straight to the back of the container. He mumbled as he passed them.
“It’s always the last one you check, so start at the last one.”
The girls ignored him as they moved on to the next pallet. As they pulled the plastic wrap away from the boxes, they both saw the words SNOCOBRA printed on the side.
Just as Josh let out a little kid squeal, Dara called out.
“Found them!”
Alex and Dara moved towards the back of the container to see what had Josh so interested and found him lovingly running his hands over a shiny red UTV. He turned and gave them a sad look like someone had just stolen his puppy.
Dara gave him a pitying look. “That’s a really nice paperweight you got there. Maybe you could push it home and use it as a flower box!”
Josh scowled at her. “You’re so mean! This right here is a fully loaded tricked out Ranger crew XP 1000. Look, it even has the doors, windshield and soft top!” He turned back to it and patted the roof before muttering, “I really wanted one of these.”
Dara shook her head at him as Alex just smirked in amusement.
“Well, I really wanted the latest iPhone but that’s never going to happen now so let’s get the boxes you wanted and get going!”
Josh ignored her, opened the door to the utility vehicle and climbed in behind the steering wheel.
The girls turned away and started to walk back towards the boxes they had found when the sound of the engine starting up had them both whirling around in complete shock.
Josh was pounding on the steering wheel and whooping with the b
iggest grin on his face.
Alex and Dara waved at him to shut the machine down. The noise of the engine was deafening in the enclosed metal unit. As soon as he turned the key to off and they could hear again, Dara and Alex started firing questions at him.
“How did you do that?”
“How is that possible? That thing should be just as dead as everything else!”
Josh just started laughing and threw up his hands.
“Whoa, whoa, ladies! What can I say? It must be my magic touch!”
Dara just laughed but Alex asked,
“Seriously, Josh, how is that still working?”
Josh looked over the dashboard and then up at the ceiling before answering.
“I’m not a hundred percent positive but I think it being inside surrounded by metal protected it from the EMP somehow. It’s up on a pallet so maybe the pulse didn’t get it?” He shook his head and grinned with glee. “Don’t care! I got me a new toy!”
Dara just nodded in amusement and glanced back at the opening of the container before waving him out of the vehicle.
“Well, yay for you! Now get over here and start helping us clear a path so you can drive that thing out of here. Time’s ticking away buddy and we have stuff to do!”
The three of them worked together to move boxes out of the way and stand the wooden pallets up against the walls of the container until there was enough room for Josh to drive the UTV out into the sun and snow. They loaded the cargo bed with the Sno-Cobra parts they would need and then drove back over to the garage. They only had to shovel it out three times when it got stuck in the deeper snow.
Quinn, Lisa and Emily were each carrying a jerry can of gas when they came out of the garage to meet them. The girl’s expressions were filled with surprise but Quinn cracked a rare smile and just shook his head. It had been so long since Alex had seen him smile that her heart lurched painfully in her chest at the reminder of why she loved him.
STRANDED: Box Set: Books 1-6 Page 84
