by Wood, J N
THE ROAD TRIP AT THE END
BOOK THREE: FARM
J N WOOD
Copyright © 2020 J N Wood
All Rights Reserved
Thanks. You know who you are.
We found Beth and to my surprise, actually made it into Canada.
While travelling through Oregon and Washington, we found some old friends along the way. Ali and the rest of the Rodriguez family were forced to take a similar route across the country as Jack and I.
Our paths crossed in the most violent of ways.
Meeting them again coincided with me getting hit in the face with a woman’s skull fragments.
Not a very pleasant experience.
It wasn’t long before we lost Ali’s uncle Gilberto and her cousin Steve. Both died very heroically saving others.
We were forced to enter one of the refugee camps near the border, where Gee, Shannon and Michael later died. They lost their lives fighting the onslaught of the dead, during a badly organised defence of the camp. Their deaths were a big loss.
We all agreed that we needed to leave, to get across the border a different way.
Miraculously, we made it, although the worst news possible awaited me in Canada. The same virus that decimated America had already infected England.
Contents
Prologue: The Cold War Has Ended
Chapter 1: Not the Same
Chapter 2: Thieves
Chapter 3: Dust Clouds
Chapter 4: Beads of Sweat
Chapter 5: Hand in Hand
Chapter 6: In a Rush
Chapter 7: Crack
Chapter 8: Offers
Chapter 9: Treason
Chapter 10: P…O…E
Chapter 11: Buckets
Chapter 12: Elena
Chapter 13: Homeless
Chapter 14: Coffee Drinkers
Chapter 15: Lady Elena
Chapter 16: Pirates
Chapter 17: Drowning
Chapter 18: Penelope Cruz
Chapter 19: Murder
Chapter 20: Nice Watch
Chapter 21: Not Enough Time
Chapter 22: Graveyard
Chapter 23: Not Empty
Chapter 24: Petrol
Chapter 25: Chickens
Chapter 26: Sorry
Chapter 27: Tunnel
Chapter 28: Florida’s Fault
Chapter 29: Brick
Chapter 30: Stan the Man
Chapter 31: The End of Baseball
Prologue: The Cold War Has Ended
The sound of paper being blown around behind us was getting louder and louder. Just as I turned to look for what was creating the sound, a newspaper hit Beth on the back of the head. It stayed wrapped around her, flapping in the wind.
I laughed, and peeled the sheets away from her hair.
Beth was feeling the back of her head. ‘It hasn’t left anything disgusting in my hair has it?’ she asked.
I glanced at her hair. ‘Nah, I think you’re alright.’
Despite the wind trying to rip the paper out of my hand, I managed to fold it back over and look at the front page.
In big red bold type, the headline read, KILLER VIRUS CONFIRMED IN EUROPE.
I quickly read the first few lines of the story below.
The number of victims has not yet been confirmed, but the south east of England and northern France today reported their first cases of the Florida Virus.
It hit me like a slap in the face. The words on the page began to blur, and I was suddenly unsteady on my feet.
‘No, no, no,’ I said. ‘Fucking no!’
‘What is it?’ Jack asked me. ‘What’s the matter?’
Everyone started to crowd around me, trying to read the newspaper in my trembling hands.
‘Oh no,’ Roy exclaimed. ‘What date was it published?’
I looked up to the top of the page, just about managing to read the date. ‘It’s from two weeks ago.’
DAY TWENTY THREE
Chapter 1: Not the Same
I paced back and forth in the middle of the road. ‘I need to go now,’ I told them. ‘I can’t afford to wait. They’ve had this shit for two weeks back home. Fuck knows what’s happening over there? It’s probably the same as America by now.’ I stopped pacing and desperately looked around at the buildings surrounding us, not really knowing what I was trying to find.
This nightmare is getting worse. What the fuck am I going to do?
‘I understand,’ Sandra said, and pointed to her three boys, sat huddled together on a curb. ‘But we need to rest. It’s getting late. It’s already dark.’
Looking up to rapidly darkening sky, I whispered, ‘I’m not asking anyone to come with me.’
‘Lights,’ Ali hissed, pointing down the road. ‘Flashlights coming this way. Everyone hide.’ She stepped towards the kids, scooping one of them up as Sandra and Pete also reached them.
Several beams of lights flashed across the backs of Ali and Sandra. I turned around to catch one flashing across my face, and lifted my hand to shield my eyes.
‘Don’t move,’ a man’s voice shouted. ‘Stay exactly where you are.’
Fuck’s sake. That didn’t take long. I don’t have time for this.
‘Keep your hands where we can see them,’ a woman called out. ‘If anyone reaches for a weapon, we will shoot you.’
The silhouettes of four people slowly walked towards us, all holding rifles and shining their torches in our faces. The bright lights made it difficult to get a good look at them.
‘Who are you?’ the woman asked. ‘Where did you come from?’
‘We’re from here,’ Ali answered, before hesitating. ‘From…’
‘Lindell Beach,’ Sandra whispered.
‘Yeah, we’re from Lindell Beach,’ Ali said, stumbling over her words. She leaned slightly to her right, pointing behind the four people. ‘Our houses are just down there. We’ve come back to pick up some of our stuff.’
‘Bullshit,’ one of the newcomers said, now directing his torchlight to the road at our feet. ‘They ain’t letting people come back here yet.’
He wasn’t wearing army fatigues or anything official looking, just a heavy coat and jeans. I could see the other three people more clearly now, two women and a man, all wearing thick winter clothing.
‘How long you been here?’ one of the women asked.
‘We live here. We’re Canadian,’ Roy insisted, trying on the accent and failing badly.
The woman stared at him, slowly shaking her head, before saying, ‘We came over the border about a week ago. When did you come over?’
Roy glanced over to us, before returning his attention back to the woman. ‘This morning,’ he reluctantly told her.
The woman stepped back to speak quietly with the other three, too quiet to make out what was being said.
She eventually nodded and turned back to us. ‘The house we’ve been living in for a few days isn’t far from here. It’s on the very edge of town, backing onto the woods.’ She pointed at Jonah, being held protectively by Sandra. ‘Those kids could do with getting wrapped up for the night. It gets real cold. Come back with us.’
None of us said a word, we just exchanged questioning glances.
‘Don’t worry,’ the woman said, noticing our apprehension. ‘It’s safe, safer than spending the night out here.’ She took one step towards us and smiled. ‘I’m Beverley.’ She turned towards her three companions. Pointing at them in turn, she said, ‘This is Emma, Rohan and Jago at the back.’
After being introduced, they one by one lowered their rifles and nodded, or in Emma’s case, said ‘Hi,’ and waved.
‘We do need to get t
he kids inside somewhere,’ Sandra said, looking at Ali.
‘Sandra’s right,’ Ali agreed. ‘We could do with the help, and some information.’
‘We can tell you everything we know,’ Rohan said.
‘For one night only though,’ Jago added. ‘It’s not safe to be running around with this many people.’
Ali raised one hand, still carrying Seth with the other. ‘We’ll leave first thing in the morning.’
‘I’ve got to get going,’ I said to Jack.
‘You need to sleep Chris,’ Beth said. ‘You can’t just keep going non-stop.’
‘Like Ali just said,’ Jack agreed. ‘We’ll set off first thing in the morning.’
Everybody was now looking at me. Beverley pointed up the street to my left and shrugged her shoulders. Ali was nodding her head.
‘Yeah we’ll come with you,’ Jack answered for me. ‘Thanks for the help.’
‘No problem. Follow us,’ Beverley said, turning and walking away.
Fuck’s sake. Can I do this on my own? Probably not.
‘Come on Chris,’ Jack told me.
I grudgingly nodded my head.
We followed the four newcomers, all of us walking down the middle of the road. Pete, Sandra and Ali still carried the kids, who seemed fast asleep. Their heads were buried into their respective carrier’s chests.
I’d guess Beverley and Rohan are in their early forties, Jago and Emma in their late twenties. I couldn’t place any of their accents, just American. I couldn’t imagine the two couples being friends before this, if they were indeed couples.
The lake came into view every time we passed a road on our right, the moonlight glinting on the ripples in the almost black water.
‘Why are you still here if you came over a week ago?’ Ali asked as we walked.
‘In an evacuated town?’ Rohan replied.
‘Yeah,’ Ali said. ‘There’s nobody here.’
‘That’s precisely why we’re here,’ Jago said. ‘It’s not easy surviving in Canada. Not without the right identification.’
‘Jago and Emma managed to sneak into Canada not long after we first crossed over,’ Rohan explained. ‘They came back two days later.’
‘Is there another border or something?’ Jack asked.
‘Yes,’ Emma replied. ‘It’s just a fence. They’re not building a wall, not yet anyway.’
‘Fuck’s sake,’ I muttered. ‘This shit is never ending.’
‘Martial law has been declared over there,’ Jago told us. ‘They have a strict stop and search policy, and they use it constantly. We were lucky we saw them doing it before they saw us. We managed to keep out of the authority’s way and stay hidden the entire time we were over there. If you don’t have a Canadian passport, you need some kind of papers proving you’re allowed to be in the country.’
‘There are two internment camps near here,’ Beverley said. ‘We’ve been watching them to see if it’s worth handing ourselves in. That way we can get the correct papers and hopefully live normal lives.’ She stopped at the end of the road and pointed towards a large house, half hidden by overhanging trees. ‘This is us,’ she said.
We followed her up the short drive to the front door, which was unlocked. Beverley opened it and walked in.
‘Whose house is this?’ Beth asked.
‘The Fraser’s house,’ Jago replied, picking up a letter from just inside the front door and handing it to Beth.
She took the letter and turned it over to look at the addressee. ‘So you don’t know them?’ she asked.
‘No, of course not,’ Rohan replied as he walked past her. ‘They will have been evacuated along with everyone else. They just happened to live in the most ideally situated house.’
‘The living room is just down there,’ Beverley said, pointing down the corridor. ‘Make yourselves at home. Grab some blankets from the cupboard on your left when you pass it. Don’t turn the lights on. Flashlights only please, but keep them to a bare minimum. We don’t want any unwanted visitors in the middle of the night.’
While we were all finding somewhere to sit in the living room, Jack asked, ‘Do you know how long they’re kept in the internment camps?’
‘No, not yet,’ Beverley replied. ‘There is a large army presence around both camps, so it’s difficult to get too close. We don’t watch them all the time, but we haven’t actually seen anyone leave yet. Apart from soldiers and people in yellow suits.’
‘But they must leave if there are people in Canada with the right papers,’ Ali suggested.
‘Yeah that’s what we think,’ Beverley said. ‘We were in Refugee Camp 32 before we snuck over the border. Hundreds of people were sent over every week, or so we were told. The internment camps can’t keep receiving people forever. There must be some kind of quarantine period before they are released into the general population. Any of you got a cell? We haven’t been able to find a computer or phone that didn’t have a password. We really could do with the internet.’
‘Mine just needs charging,’ Jack said.
‘Excellent,’ she said. ‘Just plug it in.’
‘Do the army come through here much?’ Ali asked.
‘Yes, a few times a day,’ Rohan answered. ‘We think they’re patrolling the whole of the restricted area.’
I looked to Jago and Emma. ‘When you were over in Canada, did you hear or read anything about the rest of the world?’
‘I take it from the accent you’re a Brit?’ Emma asked me.
I nodded and she continued. ‘They lost contact with Europe a week ago. The rest of the world went silent at the same time. From the sounds of it, the virus is almost worldwide. I think Australia and Japan are okay, probably some other places as well. Canada is okay, obviously.’
‘The whole world is fucked,’ Jago said.
‘Jay,’ Emma scolded him. ‘No cursing in front of the children.’
‘It’s okay,’ Sandra said. ‘They’re fast asleep. It’s been an eventful day.’
My head was spinning. Everyone was too close to me. I had to get out of there.
I stood up and walked towards the door.
‘You okay?’ Beth asked me.
‘Fine,’ I lied, and left the room.
Picking up my baseball bat from just inside the front door, I walked out of the house and down onto the street. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs but knew I couldn’t, not with the army looking to capture people like us.
I sat down on the curb behind me and placed my head in my hands.
I’m trapped in another fucking no-man’s land.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. I left Joanne alone to fend for herself. I wasn’t there when she needed me the most.
‘You all right?’ Jack asked, sitting down next to me.
I dropped my hands and sat up. ‘Yeah fucking brilliant.’
‘Beth was worried about you. She sent me out here to make sure you weren’t running into the night.’
‘Is that a song? Sounds like it should be.’
‘What? Running into the night? No idea.’
‘I’m still here,’ I said. ‘Still fucking well here.’
‘They had more time,’ Jack said. ‘England that is. They knew what was coming. America didn’t have any notice. That’s why it collapsed so quickly. Canada had more warning and seems to have survived.’
‘Um-hum,’ I grunted.
‘Come back in the house,’ Jack said. ‘It’s freezing out here.’
‘I’ll follow you in,’ I replied. ‘Just give me five minutes.’
Jack got to his feet and walked back up the drive.
If she’s dead, I’ll never forgive myself. I just need to get back to her. Even if I drop dead on the doorstop of our house, I’m getting home, no matter what stands in my way.
Ali and Sandra were arguing with each other as I walked down the corridor towards the living room.
‘Everything here belongs to people,’ Sandra was saying. ‘It’s not like back ho
me, where it was more than likely the owners of those cars were dead.’
‘We can’t walk to Milk River,’ Ali said. ‘It’s seven hundred miles away.’
I walked into the living room. ‘Dunno about you, but I’ve got no problem with stealing a car,’ I told them. ‘I’m gonna do whatever it takes.’
‘Why are you still carrying your bat?’ Jack asked. ‘Are you trying to look menacing?’
I glanced down to The Smasher in my hand. I’d completely forgotten I was still carrying it. ‘Yeah, obviously,’ I said, rolling my eyes. I squeezed back into the gap I’d left on the sofa.
‘It’s not like we’re going to trash the cars,’ Ali said. ‘We’ll leave them as we found them.’
‘But hundreds of miles from where we took them,’ Sandra said.
‘It’ll inconvenience a few people. That’s all,’ Ali said.
‘We’ll have to break into houses,’ Sandra replied.
I shrugged, saying, ‘I don’t care. I’m going home, and if that means I have to steal some shit, I’m stealing it.’
‘Plenty of vehicles have been left behind,’ Rohan told us.
‘What do you recommend? Roy asked. ‘Travelling at night or by day?’
‘We’ve been moving around in the daylight,’ Rohan answered. ‘We thought the vehicle’s headlights at night would give us away before they heard us.’
‘If you’re planning on driving east,’ Jago added. ‘Take the smaller roads through the forests. It’ll be slower, but you’ll avoid the majority of the Canadian army. I can’t guarantee you’ll miss them all, but you’ll have a better chance.’
‘If you do hand yourselves in, how confident are you that the army won’t just throw you back over the border?’ Sandra asked our hosts.
‘Not one hundred percent confident,’ Beverley replied. ‘But we think if we tell them we came over before the wall went up, and have been struggling to survive on scraps for the last few weeks, they might just put us in an internment camp. We’re not going to tell them we destroyed a section of their fence and killed a couple of their soldiers.’
Sandra stared at her sister with wide eyes. Ali looked back and briskly shook her head.
