Josh’s UTV pulled up even with her sled and he pointed to a sign coming up on the southbound lanes. She squinted her eyes and saw that it was announcing the exit they needed in two kilometres. She slowed slightly and let him take the lead as they crept closer to it. It was only minutes later that the UTV started to slow and then came to a stop. Alex pulled up beside it and looked at Josh to see why he stopped. The look on his face was one of amazed horror. She followed his line of sight but couldn’t see what had given him such a reaction so she shut her machine off and pulled off her helmet to get a better look at what was ahead. She stepped up onto the seat of her snowmobile and just gazed in astonishment at what blocked their way.
The overpass bridge ahead of them had been sheared off, leaving jagged concrete ledges on both sides of the highway and a mound of rubble covering all of the southbound and most of the northbound lanes. On the west side, where a four-lane street should have been, was a massive crater. The snow had melted enough for the tail fin of a passenger plane to be seen. Alex shook her head at the destruction. This was the second plane she had seen that had crashed the day of the EMP. The first one had been on their trip out of the LA area and it had crashed into a shopping mall causing a huge, out of control fire.
Cooper’s voice rang out in the stillness. “Hey, Josh? That was our exit, right?”
Alex turned away from the twisted rebar and concrete chunks and looked up at the sky. There was a clock ticking away in her head that got louder with every delay in their trip.
“Yeah, we’ll have to either go around this mess or backtrack. The next exit is Memorial Drive. It skirts around downtown on this side of the river and we can take it all the way to Crowchild Trail then back north to where the Foothills hospital is. If we go back to the last exit we would be traveling on smaller side streets through residential areas.”
The ticking grew a little louder in Alex’s head so she just waved her arm forward.
“Let’s go to the next one. We’re going to run out of daylight soon and I don’t want to be searching an abandoned hospital in the dark!” She didn’t wait for an answer, just pulled her helmet back on, straddled her sled seat and fired it back up.
She let Quinn take the lead this time with Josh following her and Cooper in the rear. As they slowly made their way around the destruction, Alex’s mind went to the conflicting emotions she was feeling. On the one hand, she was happy to be away from the farm and her parent’s questioning looks and the pity that she saw on their faces since she had her outburst. On the other hand, she hated that they were probably frantic with worry over her leaving on what they would think was a too dangerous trip for their little girl. She sighed deeply, causing her helmet visor to fog up and gave a small laugh at herself. She was tired of feeling torn between her parents and her freedom, not to mention the stupid boy issue!
The trapped feeling she had felt over the past few months had eased off since they had made the decision to go on this trip, but it was only a bandage to the problems she faced back home. If she wanted to be treated like an adult, then she would have to buck up and make some adult decisions. As much as she loved her family and Quinn, she had to decide for herself how she was going to go forward from here once they made it home. The EMP had broken more than civilization when it had gone off that day. It broke the mold on how and when children would grow up and the life they would lead.
Her thoughts were interrupted when they were once again forced to stop. They had navigated the destroyed overpass and made it to the next exit and up off the freeway but the street leading into downtown was packed with vehicles that had been caught in the morning rush hour. Alex fumed at yet another delay but shut her machine down as well and waited as Josh and Quinn went on foot ahead to see if they could find a path through the mess blocking them.
Cooper walked over to her and pulled off his helmet. “You doing ok?”
She flipped her visor up and nodded. “Yeah, just frustrated with all this. I don’t know why I thought it would be easy to navigate the city. We saw the aftermath when we biked out of the Los Angeles area. A million people means a lot of dead cars on the road.” She took a sip from a water bottle he handed to her. “I’m just anxious to get the meds our people need.”
Cooper nodded and looked at the view of the many skyscraper buildings that made up the downtown core and sighed.
“I’m sorry I didn’t try and contact you guys before this. Once I was healed, I thought about traveling back to Prairie Springs but I just thought it would be for the best if I stayed away. After what my dad did to the town and with you and Quinn together, well, I just didn’t want to cause any problems.”
Alex scowled. “Cooper, you’re an idiot!” When his face bloomed with surprise, she shook her head in exasperation. “Seriously? You are not your dad! You helped free our town and took a bullet for them. And as for me and Quinn, you being there or not didn’t make any difference to our problems! You crossed the country with us to get home and we are a family, no matter who’s dating who or where you are!” She took a deep breath to continue but the grin on his face had her sputtering, “What are you smiling about?”
He shrugged as his grin got wider. “Just you. I missed your rapid-fire rants against injustice.” He let out a laugh. “I just missed you, period!”
Alex could feel the heat creeping into her cheeks at his words so she looked away and shrugged. “Well, we missed you too. What were you doing in Red Deer anyway?”
He snorted. “Basically, a whole lot of nothing! Once I was healed and I joined up, mostly grunt work. They had these huge scavenging parties go house to house and strip them of everything useful. Right down to the windows for more greenhouses. Then it was just sort and store. Once spring hits, they plan on expanding and bringing in more survivors. They’ll control everything in that area, including the people. I know rebuilding is going to be hard but I honestly didn’t feel like I was helping anyone. It kind of felt like a prison to me. Not that they were abusive to the refugees but it was pretty strict compared to the way things used to be. Lots of rules, schedules and rationing.”
Alex wrinkled her nose. “That sounds awful but at least those people are safe and fed. There are probably a lot of people who would give anything to have that right now.” A thought made her face change to alarm. “Hey! They aren’t going to force people to relocate there, are they?”
Cooper shook his head. “I didn’t hear anything like that. It was just opening the gates for more people to come in this spring. They’ll want as many as they can get to plant crops and build the greenhouses so they can grow year-round. I can’t see them forcing people who have a good set up like Prairie Springs to move.”
Alex huffed out a breath. “Wouldn’t that just take the cake? After everything we been through and all the fighting. Can you imagine having all of it taken away by the one group that’s supposed to protect us?”
Before Cooper could respond, Josh and Quinn came back and the other girls joined them. Josh guzzled water from the bottle Dara handed to him and then passed it to Quinn as he explained their next moves.
“So, this on ramp is right buggered! BUT, all is not lost. In between the east and westbound bridges are the light rail transit train tracks. They look clear as far as the next station. There might be a train sitting in the station but I doubt both sides of the tracks are blocked. We just need to head a little bit east to where the cement barrier ends then hop on the train bridge.” He bit his lip in worry while looking from face to face. “So, slight concern. Each track has its own elevated skinny bridge for about a hundred feet. Not a lot of room for error. Also, with the snow melt, there won’t be a lot of padding between us and the tracks so it might be a bumpy ride. But after that, we’re back on solid ground and we can hopefully make some better time using the tracks to stay away from the congested roads. Any questions?”
Everyone but Quinn stared at him in disbelief so he shrugged and grinned.
“What? I mean, yeah it’s a little
tricky, but it’s doable and there’s what looks like cement guardrails so we should be fine.” When their expressions didn’t change, his shoulders slumped. “We either do it here or we head further away from where we need to be and then backtrack. That’ll add on even more time and we’ll have to cut through the core of downtown.”
Alex looked at her friends and saw their discouraged expressions. It had already been a long day full of obstacles and roadblocks. She wasn’t going to add another one to it.
“Let’s do it! We knew it wouldn’t be easy. So, let’s just take it nice and slow on the train bridge and move on already.”
Emily nodded her agreement. “Alex’s right. We don’t know what we’ll find at the next exit or how bad the core will be. We could spend the rest of the day just trying to get through it. At least here there’s a path forward. We just need to take it slow and be careful.”
Josh looked around at all the others and received nods of agreement so he waved his arm forward. “All right then, onward!”
Chapter Twelve
Everyone climbed back on their machines and started them up. They worked their way slowly through the vehicles until they came to the intersection on top of the overpass that gave them an opening to the train tracks. For the first twenty feet of the tracks they were on the overpass and the snow was piled up almost level with the guardrails but at the start of the train bridge, the snow had melted in places leaving the tracks bare of snow but still icy.
Josh led the way with the UTV. The body of the machine and the Sno-Cobra ski and track attachments were wide enough to straddle the train tracks and avoid the raised metal lines completely. Other than a few bumps from where the wood ties were bare, he had no problem driving over the bridge at all. Everyone else’s snowmobiles would have to navigate inside the metal lines and try not to get hung up on them.
Alex nudged her sled forward on to the tracks and kept a tight grip on her steering. She made it halfway across the bridge before a slight curve in the track had her front left ski scraping against the metal rail. The jolt of it made her overcorrect and caused her right ski to connect on the other side. She squeezed the brakes to come to a stop and took a deep breath before straightening up and moving forward again. She was going so slow that she worried the machine would stall out on her, but she finally made it off the bridge where the tracks leveled out on solid ground. The snow had blown or melted away on this section of track so Josh and the girls helped her lift the front end of the sled to the side and then the back end and trailer off the tracks completely so she could drive on the embankment.
As they watched the other two sleds drive towards them on the bridge, Alex talked to Josh about something she was worried about.
“If the snow is melting all over the city, we won’t be able to drive very far with our sleds. If we have to go on foot it could take us days to walk everywhere we need to go!”
Josh kept his eyes on Quinn and Cooper as they slowly crept towards them over the bridge but nodded his head.
“Yeah, I thought about that too. I’m hoping it won’t come to that. This area’s wide open so that’s probably why the snow melted here faster in places but it shouldn’t be like this all over the city. Worst case scenario? We would have to swap the ski and tracks back to the tires on the UTV and split up. We’d have to find a safe place for half of us to wait with the snowmobiles while four of us use the UTV to get to the hospitals.”
Alex’s frown deepened. “I don’t like the idea of us splitting up at all! There’s too many unknowns with what’s happening in this city. We haven’t even seen any survivors yet. We could be driving into trouble as it is. Splitting up is a really bad idea.”
Josh let out a worried sigh. “I agree so let’s just hope we can find a way through.”
Once Quinn and Cooper had made it over the bridge and joined them, they all worked to lift the guy’s sleds and trailers off the tracks. Alex turned and looked further west down the line towards the downtown core, then looked up at the late afternoon sky. Daylight would be gone soon. That meant things were about to get even harder.
The group started out again and headed towards the station that was less than a kilometer away. Josh took the lead again but there was plenty of room beside and between the two sets of tracks for everyone to stay close together. The snow deepened again as they moved away from the overpass making the sleds ride smoother for everyone. The platforms for the station were outside, exposed to the elements, and no trains blocked the way ahead.
Once they got close enough, Alex could see the signs above the station that read, ZOO. She had a sad pang at the thought of all those animals trapped in their cages and left to die when the lights went out. That thought was quickly followed by the concern that the zookeepers might have let them all out to roam the city. She couldn’t help but scan around the area for a lion ready to pounce on them which is why she saw movement inside the glass station overlooking the platform they were about to reach.
Alex yelled out for them to stop as she spotted more shapes moving behind the glass. They weren’t going very fast so it only took seconds for the group to come to a stop and when they saw Alex jump off her sled and bring her rifle around on its sling they all followed suit. At the same time, four men barrelled out of the glass doors at the end of the station. They each held a weapon pointed at the group of teens. They had come to a stop just past the end of the platform so Alex could clearly see that one man had a shotgun, one had a bolt action rifle and two had handguns pointed at them. Even though the men had the higher ground, the seven assault rifles pointed at them more than evened the playing field.
The older man holding the shotgun had an angry expression and stabbed it towards them as he barked out,
“Get out of here! We told you people what would happen the next time you came around. Did you think we were bluffing?”
Josh spared a quick look at his friends and then took a half step forward. “Yeah, I don’t think we got the memo on that. We live over two hundred klicks north of here and this is the first time we’ve been to the city since lights out. So, if you don’t mind, we’ll just keep on going that-a-way.” He pointed past the station towards downtown.
One of the men pointing a handgun snorted a disbelieving laugh but the older man just scowled at them and shook his head.
“Yeah, nice try. Nobody travels that kind of distance anymore. Especially not in the worst winter we’ve ever seen!”
Alex rolled her eyes and gritted her teeth. This was just one more obstacle in the way of them getting the meds their people needed. She was out of patience. She flipped her visor up.
“Listen, Mister! I’m sorry for whatever troubles you have here with other people but it’s not us! We just need to get past here to find what we’re here for. It’s been a long day of traveling and the sun’s going to be down soon so we need to move on. We have no interest in or fight with you or your people and we’ll leave the city a different way when we get what we came for.”
The man squinted down at her and surprise filled his face. “You’re just a girl!”
Alex let that comment go and his scowl lessened slightly to a frown. “Let’s say I believe you? Where you coming from and what are you after? It’s been a long time since we’ve seen anyone from out of the city so any news would be welcome.”
Alex huffed out an impatient breath. “I don’t care if you believe me or not. We don’t have time for a chat and I’m not the CBC News! In case you didn’t notice, our guns are bigger than yours so…”
Josh interrupted her. “Uh, Alex? We actually should have a chat with these guys. They probably have information we can use to get where we’re going.”
Alex bit the inside of her cheek hard to stop herself from screeching out her frustration. She knew Josh was right but the ticking clock in her head was telling her to keep moving. She clenched her teeth and grunted out, “FINE!”
Josh stared at her in concern until she finally nodded, lowered her weapon and took a
step back. He turned away from her and addressed the men above them.
“So, if we’re going to parley can we all lower the boom boom sticks?”
A grin tugged at the older man’s mouth and he started to nod. “Lower your weapons, men.”
Everyone except Alex relaxed their stance as Josh told a condensed version of their story.
“We come from a small town an hour west of Red Deer. The town’s been hit hard by some kind of sickness and a lot of people have died. We all live on farms outside of the town so none of us has been exposed. When the chinook hit, we decided to make a run to Red Deer with the hope that the military would give us the medicine our doctor said our town needs. When they wouldn’t help, we had no choice but to come here where there are more hospitals and medical clinics to search. Alex is right about it being a long day and we’re all worried about how long it will take to find what we need and get back home. We also don’t know how long the chinook is going to last. It’ll be brutal if we get caught on the road when the temperature drops again.”
The three men started calling out questions as soon as Josh finished speaking but the older man held up his hand to silence them.
“I’d like to hear more about the military. We haven’t seen or heard from anyone in the government since this all began. We also have some firsthand information about the hospitals in this area.” He looked up at the sky and frowned before continuing. “It’ll be dark in less than an hour. You don’t want to be traveling through the city at night. Especially since the warm up.” As if to punctuate his words, a distant gunshot rang out. The man’s face went grim and he nodded.
“There’s a lot of decent people spread out in the city who are just trying to survive but there’s even more savage animals looking to destroy. With the warmer temperatures, they’ll be out in full force tonight. If your group doesn’t know the ins and outs of the city, then you probably won’t make it out alive. Even with your big boom boom sticks, as you call them. I would like to offer your group shelter for the night in exchange for information and news. I can guarantee your safety with us and also provide you the route to take and what the hospitals are like right now. A few of our people traveled to them not that long ago.”
STRANDED: Box Set: Books 1-6 Page 87
