Push Back: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller (The Disruption Series Book 2)

by R. E. McDermott

  “READY OR NOT, HERE WE COME!” Kinsey yelled as he and Bertrand stumbled and slid down the muddy riverbank and splashed into the water.

  They were waist deep when they reached the boats, and willing hands reached out to drag them aboard. Kinsey heard the muttering pop of the smaller outboards, but nothing from the fishing boat motor.

  “It’s no use,” he heard Zach say. “I can’t get it going.”

  “Bollinger?” Kinsey said into the dark.

  “Here.” Kinsey turned and was relieved to see Bollinger sitting at the small outboard, glowing green in the NV goggles. He wormed his way down the boat, stepping over people sitting terrified in the darkness, until he was within arm’s reach of Bollinger.

  “Put your hand out. I’m going to hand you the NV gear. Put it on and get us the hell out of here. Where’s Cormier?”

  “Here,” called Cormier. “I’m at the other outboard.”

  “The same for you, but just keep your motor straight ahead and let Bollinger do the steering,” Kinsey said.

  “Do you want me to pass Cormier my glasses?” Bertrand asked.

  “Negative,” Kinsey said. “We might need you to shoot somebody.”

  He looked back toward the levee, a hundred yards away, and watched headlights stream down the slope into the parking lot. With no light to attract the bangers’ attention, and the roar of the bangers’ own cars and motorcycles drowning out the outboards, they had a bit of time. However, it wouldn’t take the bangers long to find the cars on the riverbank and figure out where they should be looking. When that happened, the sound of their outboards would give them away; they needed to get out of range upriver as soon as possible.

  He felt the boat buffeted by ever stronger currents as they moved into the river, and watched impotently as headlights and powerful flashlights cut the night ashore. Then he heard raised voices ashore over the low conversation of his fellow passengers, and the lights began to converge on the riverbank near the cars. The bangers’ vehicles began to die one by one, and he knew it wouldn’t be long before they heard the outboards, if they didn’t already.

  “Can’t you and Cormier get any more juice out of those sewing machines?” Kinsey asked quietly.

  “They’re having all they can do to make any headway at all,” Bollinger responded. “They’re not exactly designed for this.”

  Kinsey said nothing as powerful beams of light began to stab out from shore, motorcycle headlights and handheld spotlights no doubt, dancing across the water in search of what the bangers could hear but not yet pinpoint. One seemed more aggressive than the rest, the beam sweeping toward them.

  “See it, Bertrand?”

  “I got him,” Bertrand replied, and his M4 barked. The beam of light veered off at a crazy angle.

  “Kill those outboards,” Kinsey said abruptly.

  “But what—”

  “DO IT!” Kinsey said, and the two men complied.

  “Let’s hope they didn’t see the muzzle flash,” Bertrand said softly.

  “On the contrary, let’s hope they did. Now everyone be absolutely quiet,” Kinsey said.

  No longer fighting the powerful current, the odd little convoy floated free on the powerful flood, streaking downstream in the dark past the bangers on the riverbank. Kinsey held his breath as they floated by barely fifty yards from the bank and said a silent prayer they wouldn’t be captured by a probing beam. But with no sound to guide them, the bangers were momentarily confused and concentrated their search in the direction they had last heard the sound and seen the flash. Kinsey had no doubt the bangers would eventually put it together, but all he really needed was five minutes on the swift current to put them beyond the range of the bangers’ lights and guns.

  He gave it ten.

  “Okay, boys,” Kinsey said. “Crank up the outboards and let’s find a place on the far bank to get this mess straightened out.”

  Mississippi River

  West Bank

  One Mile South of Port Allen Lock

  Same Day, 11:20 p.m.

  Their temporary refuge was another backwater between a wooded stretch of the west bank and a string of abandoned barges. They pulled into the gap, the empty barges hiding them from Baton Rouge across the river.

  “Okay,” Kinsey said. “Bertrand, get up on that barge and keep watch. The rest of you, get some lights on and get this squared away. We’ve already lost too much time. Bollinger, you’re our mechanical genius, give Zach a hand with his engine.”

  “No genius required,” Bollinger said. “I already told him he’s got bad fuel.”

  Kinsey looked at his brother-in-law. “How old is the gas in your boat, Zach?”

  “We haven’t use the boat since last summer, but I added fuel stabilizer … anyway I THINK I added stabilizer.” He shook his head. “To be honest, I don’t really remember.”

  Kinsey sighed and bit back a rebuke. “All right. Bollinger, help me out here. What are we lookin’ at?”

  “I got no clue until I get into it, boss. At a minimum we have to dump the tank and put in new gas. After that, it depends on what we’re dealin’ with.” Bollinger turned to Zach. “You got a spare fuel filter?”

  Zach shook his head.

  “Tools?” Bollinger asked.

  Zach reached in his pocket and produced a small adjustable wrench and a couple of screwdrivers.

  “Friggin’ lovely,” Bollinger muttered.

  “I got a toolbox,” Cormier volunteered. “It ain’t much, but it’s better than that.”

  Bollinger thanked Cormier and moved over to accept the toolbox the Cajun produced from underneath a seat. He took it and moved back to the big outboard.

  Kinsey worked his way back to where Bollinger and Zach were about to tear into the engine. He spoke softly. “Will we have enough gas to make it now?” he asked Bollinger.

  Bollinger shrugged. “No way of knowing, but it’ll be close, that’s for sure.”

  “Okay,” Kinsey said. “You and Zach do the best you can. I need to talk to Cormier.”

  Bollinger nodded and Kinsey worked his way across the crowded vessels closer to Cormier. “What are your thoughts on our little flotilla?”

  Cormier shook his head. “We’re unbalanced and too heavy. We didn’t have time to rearrange anything before the bangers showed up, but we need to spread stuff out.” Cormier glanced at Connie Duhon. “And get rid of some of it. And we need to think about the outboards. We’re gonna have to run them all now to make any speed against the current with this load, and we can’t have three people steering. We should just tie the tillers of the small boats so the outboards are pushing straight ahead, then steer with the motor on the big boat in the center.”

  “Makes sense,” Kinsey agreed, then looked back at the pair working on the motor and lowered his voice even more. “What if they can’t get the motor going? You think we can make it in the smaller boats?”

  Cormier looked at Kinsey as if he were insane. “Even with just the people we’d be dangerously overloaded. We planned on bringin’ back four or five people, not seventeen. No way we’d make it in less than a full day, if we made it at all. You saw how they was strainin’ against the current. I doubt they could go over five or six miles an hour by themselves, not to mention being unstable like hell in this river. But you know that, I think.”

  Kinsey nodded. “Yeah, I do, but I was hoping you might see something I missed.” He sighed. “Oh well, can you take care of setting up the smaller outboards and getting the gear redistributed?”

  Cormier nodded. “Mais oui.”

  Kinsey turned to his sister-in-law, “Okay, Connie, you can see for yourself we’re overloaded. I’ll let you choose, but I want you to lose at least half of it; then you and the others help Cormier redistribute it between the boats evenly. Are we clear?”

  “Yes, Matt. And I’m sorry.”

  “Not a problem, let’s just get this done.”

  “Don’t throw away them glow sticks,” Cormier said. “I
’m gonna need some of them.”

  “What for?” Kinsey asked.

  “Just an idea,” Cormier said. “It’s easier if I show you than tell you.”

  ***

  The others finished their respective tasks long before the engine was ready, and as they waited, Kinsey watched Cormier implement his idea and smiled as the Cajun explained it to him.

  That was the bright spot; things were going much worse with the engine repair. Kinsey checked the time repeatedly as Bollinger tore into the outboard with Zach’s help. It was over two hours later before they got the motor off to a sputtering start. Bollinger wiped his hands on a greasy rag and looked over at Kinsey and shook his head.

  “I cleaned everything that’s cleanable with the tools at hand. I’m hoping it smooths out when we run it under load. But I doubt she can develop full power.” Bollinger shrugged. “She’ll get better or she won’t, and it’s even money either way. I’m sorry, boss. I did the best I could.”

  “I know you did, Bollinger. We’ll just give it a shot and hope for the best.” Kinsey shot another worried glance at his watch and called Bertrand down from the barge.

  They put the kids and nonswimmers in the fishing boat, along with most of Connie’s much-diminished load of supplies. Adult swimmers were in the aluminum boats on either side. The Coasties took full control of the NV gear again, though Bertrand returned his set with obvious reluctance. Bollinger took the wheel of the larger fishing boat, and Kinsey provided overwatch with his M4 as they moved upriver.

  The big engine sputtered and popped, but overall performed better than expected. But it was almost two in the morning, and they had to cover seventy miles against the current before daylight, a bit over three hours away.

  Presuming they made it at all; the noise from the outboards was significant and if they couldn’t be seen, they could certainly be heard. They still had to get past the bangers and God knew who else.

  “What you think, Kinsey? Time for my toy?” Cormier asked.

  “Do it,” Kinsey said, and Cormier squatted at the back of the fishing boat, working on the two surplus ski belts now festooned with chemical glow sticks. He bent the sticks one by one, his face illuminated by the eerie green glow as they activated; then he stood and tossed the ski belts out the back of the moving boat. The boat raced onward, leaving the glowing ski belts in its wake and with Cormier paying out the line attached to them and coiled at his feet with the end secured to a cleat near the boat’s stern. The line finished paying out and went taut, towing the glowing ski belts in line twenty feet apart, racing along a hundred feet behind the boat.

  “What the hell?” asked Zach Duhon.

  “We killed some of those bangers and they’re pissed off,” Cormier said, “and Kinsey thinks they got radios. So who knows what we’re going to run into. For sure, we ain’t gonna sneak by with these outboards, and if they shoot at the sound, they might even hit somebody, especially if there’s a bunch of ’em. I figure we give ’em something to shoot at that ain’t us, far enough away that even if they’re lousy shots, they won’t hit us.”

  “Think it’ll work?” Zach asked.

  “Don’t know,” Cormier said. “But sound is hard to pinpoint in the dark, and if you heard an outboard in a general direction and saw something speedin’ through the water, what would you shoot at?”

  They hugged the west bank, keeping well out of range of the bangers from the LSU area until they passed under the I-10 bridge and moved back to the center of the river. Suddenly, the bridge erupted in gunfire, with muzzle flashes visible along half its length. Kinsey grinned as the surface of the water near their glowing decoys was peppered with splashes that looked like green pinpricks in his NV glasses.

  “Looks like it’s working, Andrew,” Kinsey said.

  “Let’s just hope we can get through Baton Rouge before they figure it out,” Cormier replied.

  But their luck held. They were fired on three more times, each time with the same result. When they finally passed under the US 190 bridge, Kinsey heaved a sigh of relief and focused on their real enemy, the clock.

  An hour later, the clock gained an ally.

  “We’re sucking fuel like there’s no tomorrow,” Bollinger whispered, worry in his voice.

  “Will we have enough?” Kinsey asked, equally quiet.

  Bollinger shrugged. “No way to tell. The motor’s running flat out. It’s settled down a little, but still not running anywhere near normal efficiency. Throw in the extra resistance of the current on this lash-up we’re pushing, and fuel efficiency is in the toilet anyway.”

  “Suggestions?”

  “Not really,” Bollinger said. “If I slow down to conserve fuel, it’ll take longer to get there and pretty much guarantee we’re limping past the prison in daylight.”

  “Should we lighten the load more?”

  Bollinger shook his head. “I don’t think it matters unless you’re planning on throwing people overboard. Nothing else is heavy enough to make much difference, and we’re pretty well-balanced now; changing things might even make it worse. Avoiding the strongest currents will help. We got nothing but farmland on either side now, so I’ll hug the banks and take every bend on the inside radius. Whether it helps enough is anyone’s guess.”

  “Do what you can,” Kinsey said.

  So they clawed their way upriver through the darkness. Around them the others rode in quiet uncertainty, wives leaning against husbands’ shoulders, and kids sleeping in mothers’ laps. Two hours later, they swept around a long bend and began to head due west as the sky lightened in the east.

  Kinsey glanced back east. “How far you think?” he asked Bollinger softly.

  He almost jumped out of his skin when a voice answered out of the darkness from the seat in front of him. “Let me have the glasses, and I’ll tell you.”

  “Geez! You scared the crap out of me,” Kinsey said.

  Cormier chuckled. “Nervous, Coast Guard?”

  “Hell yes,” Kinsey said, taking off the NV glasses and reaching over to press them against Cormier’s chest so he could accept them by feel.

  The big Cajun put the glasses on and studied the riverbanks. “We’re about five miles from Angola Landing, I think. We ain’t gonna make it past the prison in the dark. Keep to the left bank from now on. The channel to the levee is about two miles beyond the prison landing.”

  They rode in silence under a lightening sky, and Kinsey imagined the outboard was getting louder with the rising sun. People were starting to stir on their seats, and Cormier and Bollinger took off the NV glasses.

  Kinsey strained to see the far bank of the river. “You think there’ll be anybody at the landing, Andrew?”

  Cormier shrugged. “Who knows? I’m hoping all the cons like their beauty sleep. Even if they see us, we’re out of range, so they’ll have to chase us. If they don’t have a boat ready, we might get a big enough lead to slip behind the island and up the channel to the levee without them seeing which way we go.”

  “Your lips to God’s ears,” Kinsey said.

  The landing was clearly visible across the river now, and Kinsey saw boats tied to the dock. He saw no movement and said a silent prayer the cons were all asleep and there was no one to hear the roar of the outboard.

  They were in the swiftest part of the current now, forced to the outside of a sweeping river bend to maintain their distance from the prison landing. Their progress slowed perceptibly, and Kinsey realized the big outboard WAS louder as it strained against the increased load. Just two more miles and they’d be home free. Kinsey turned his attention from the prison dock and stared upriver, willing them forward.

  They’d covered a half mile when Bertrand spoke.

  “Trouble,” he said, and Kinsey turned and followed the man’s pointing finger. Behind them, a boat was leaving the prison dock. Kinsey watched as it cut across the river diagonally to fall into their wake, growing larger with each passing minute.

  “They’re gaining on us,�
� he said.

  Bertrand raised his rifle, but Kinsey reached up and pushed it down, nodding toward the passengers. “Let’s not start a gunfight just yet. We’re a much bigger target and have a lot to lose.”

  Bertrand nodded, and Kinsey turned to Cormier. “Think we can lose them behind the island, Andrew?”

  Cormier shook his head. “Doubtful. They’re already too close and gaining. They’ll be right on our butt when we turn up the channel.”

  Kinsey muttered a curse. “All right,” he said. “It probably won’t help, but let’s start lightening the load.” He tossed one of Connie’s remaining boxes over the side.

  There was some hesitation; then the others began to toss things over as well.

  “How we looking on fuel?” Kinsey asked Bollinger.

  “Running on fumes,” Bollinger replied. “But I think we’ll make it.”

  The words had hardly left his mouth when the big outboard sputtered, coughed three times, and fell silent.

  “Or not,” Bollinger said as their speed dropped dramatically, and the pitch of the two smaller motors changed as they coped with the suddenly increased load.

  “We’re screwed,” Bollinger said.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Mississippi River

  One Mile North of Angola Landing

  Day 30, 5:50 a.m.

  Kinsey looked back. He could make out five convicts in the boat, and he saw one of them point to a jettisoned box as they flashed by it. The con shouted something to the others, and Kinsey saw them all laugh. They knew they had won the race and were enjoying the victory.

  Then it hit him.

  “ZACH! Put that down.”

  Zach looked confused, but set the case of Jack Daniel’s he’d been about to jettison on the deck. Kinsey pushed past the others to get to him at the stern.

  “Take your ski belt off, and buckle it around the booze. Make sure not to cover the markings on the box.”