Wiggins sighed. “Okay, then how do you see that playing out? I damn sure don’t want to be a houseguest or guilted into taking them to Aunt Suzy’s.”
“We figure our closest point of approach to their house. If they’re right, it’s a few miles at most. How much food and gas is there?”
“More than we can possibly carry in two cars,” Wiggins said.
“Okay. We load up the Honda and another car with as much as we can carry. We’ll go heavy on gasoline in our car, but they just need enough gas to get home. We’ll give them all the food and water they can carry and whatever weapons they think they can handle. How many sets of NV gear do we have?”
“Three, if the set of the guy on the bridge wasn’t damaged. Why?” he asked.
“Are you going to give them a set?”
“No way. We’ll be able to drive at night now, with one of us driving and the other as security. I’m not giving that up. Presuming the third set’s working, we’ll keep it for a spare. It’s like Levi says, ‘two is one and one is none.’”
“All right. I’ll drive them in the second car, using the NV glasses and following you. Even going a roundabout way to stay close to the AT, it shouldn’t take more than an hour to reach the point we part company. We find them a side road to hide on and leave them there. They drive the few miles home at first light. By then, we’ll be far away. I hope everything goes well with them, but whether it does or not, it’s no longer our concern. What do you think?”
“Works for me,” Wiggins said. “Let’s get on it. You bring them up to speed and start trying to find a working car. I’m going to look around for a charger for the NV batteries. If we’re lucky, there’ll be a solar-powered one.”
“I’m on it,” Tex said.
I-84 and Mountain Top Road
Near Stormville, New York
Day 33, 3:40 a.m.
They dropped the women off at the intersection of State Route 52 and Mountain Top Road and proceeded on their way after making sure the women’s car was well concealed in the wooded verge. It was clear Fran wanted them to accompany her home, but Wiggins was resolute. They parted company stiffly with a curt nod from Fran and no word of thanks.
Thirty minutes later they sat in the Honda, stopped on the narrow ribbon of blacktop called Mountain Top Road. Wiggins studied the bridge ahead over the broad lanes of I-84, alert for any signs of a trap.
“What do you think?” he asked.
Tex shrugged. “It’s pitch black, with no lights on the interstate or background light at all, and the bridge looks clear. If anyone was using so much as a flashlight down on the interstate or in the woods, the NV would probably show it. I think it’s clear, Bill.”
“Agreed.” Wiggins took his foot off the brake and drove forward. “Let’s see how much mileage we can make by our usual stopping time. I’m starting to feel good about this.”
***
Wiggins’ good feelings soured just across the New York border. River crossings were their greatest challenge, and as the Appalachian Trail wound its way northward through Connecticut, it hopped back and forth across the meandering Housatonic with frustrating regularity. They decided to take the last bridge the trail crossed, north across the Connecticut border in Massachusetts. They stayed to the west of the river, roughly paralleling the trail as it wound from one side of the river to the other.
Wiggins gripped the wheel tightly and peered at the green landscape ahead, the twisting back roads and range of the NV glasses limiting his speed. But as irritating as it was, he reminded himself they were making miles under cover of darkness they couldn’t have made before.
He was driving north on a one-lane gravel track when he noticed his vision improving due to increasing ambient light from the sky in the east. He increased speed.
“It’ll be light soon. How far is the crossing?”
“Less than two miles,” Tex said.
“Think we’ll have any trouble? There seem to be a lot of freelance toll collectors these days.”
“The river’s narrow here, with a lot of crossings,” Tex said. “There are half a dozen just between here and Great Barrington, a few miles north, and they’re all in more built-up areas. There’s not much on either side of the Kellogg Road bridge we’ll be using, so I think anyone going into the toll-collecting business would pick a busier bridge.”
Wiggins sighed. “Let’s hope so. I’ve had about all the conflict I want for a while.”
“Me too. Turn right ahead on Lime Kiln Road. We follow that half a mile, then turn right on US 7—”
“Whoa! US 7 sounds like a major road.”
“Well, ‘major’ for around here maybe,” Tex said. “But relax, we’ll only be on it a few hundred yards before turning on to Kellogg Road anyway. The river looks to be a hundred yards from the last turn, max.”
Five minutes later, Wiggins turned right onto US 7 and went less than fifty feet before stopping. There were two sawhorses in the middle of the road, supporting a sheet of plywood with a hand-painted sign.
“Keep out or face the Lord’s wrath,” Tex read aloud.
“Crap! What now?”
“I’d say the Lord doesn’t want visitors,” Tex said.
“What about the crossings to the north?”
She shook her head. “There are three communities before the first bridge, and we’d have to stay on US 7 the whole way, somewhere between five and ten miles. On the other hand, we’re less than a quarter of a mile from the Kellogg Road bridge. Choose your poison, I guess.”
“Well, it’s still dark, so let’s hope the Lord’s sleeping in.” Wiggins pulled the SUV around the roadblock.
They’d gone less than a hundred yards when Tex pointed. “That’s it on the left ahead.”
A paved side road led left from US 7, turning immediately in front of a large frame building with a sign reading Believers Tabernacle. Wiggins powered through the turn, anxious to get past the area and over the bridge. The road curved sharply back to the right through a cluster of homes, and he had to slow.
“So far, so good,” he said. “But I wouldn’t want to try this in daylight—”
A handheld air horn blasted behind them.
“What is it, Tex? Can you see?”
“Two guys just ran into the road behind us. Both armed, but it doesn’t look like they have NV, so I think we’re all right.”
The road veered sharply to the left, and Wiggins cursed and braked hard. A shot rang out, and the driver side mirror disintegrated.
“Unless, of course, you show them our brake lights,” Tex said as Wiggins accelerated.
The bridge appeared around the bend, a short distance ahead. There was an obstruction in the road, and Wiggins realized it was one of the sawhorse and plywood barricades, no doubt to warn off anyone approaching the community via the bridge. There was no room to swerve, and he punched the accelerator, intent on knocking the barricade aside.
An armed man stepped from the wooded verge beside the road, peering in their direction, hearing the engine but unable to see the vehicle. They were almost upon him when he fired. There was a loud metallic whack at the front of the SUV, and then they were past, smashing through the flimsy roadblock and across the short bridge to race away down Kellogg Road at sixty miles an hour.
“You think he damaged anything?” Tex asked.
“No way of telling, but we need to put some distance between us and them before we stop to check. What’s my next turn?”
“This road dead-ends into another one. You’ll be making a left,” Tex said.
Wiggins made the turn and got two miles up the road before the temperature gauge and the sun began to rise at the same time.
“We have to pull over,” Wiggins said. “Start looking for a hiding spot.”
Just Off East Sheffield Road
Near Great Barrington, Massachusetts
Day 33, 6:10 a.m.
A dirt track across a farmer’s field led to a secluded strip of woods well off the road a
nd bordering the river. In happier times it might well have been someone’s favorite picnic spot; now it was Wiggins’ impromptu repair shop.
Tex watched as he squatted at the front of the car and peered through the grill. Steam rose from under the open hood, and the distinctive and unpleasant smell of engine coolant wafted up from the engine compartment.
“It’s the radiator all right,” Wiggins said.
“Can you fix it?”
Wiggins shrugged. “We don’t have much in the way of tools, but I may be able to patch it. It won’t be pretty, but it will at least get us somewhere to find a ride. No way this baby’s making it to Maine.”
Wiggins sighed and stood up. “Give me a hand unloading the back so I can get at the tire tool.”
“Anything else I can do?” Tex asked a moment later as Wiggins started toward the front of the car with the tire tool.
He stopped and nodded. “Yeah. Find that bag where we dumped all the unused condiment packets from the MREs and pull out those little packages of black pepper. Then go through all that food we just got at the bridge and pull out all the pepper you can find.”
“Pepper? What are we going to do with pepper?”
“Plug the leak, if we can find enough. I’ll explain later. For now just see how much you can round up,” Wiggins said.
Tex looked puzzled, but she nodded and set about the task as Wiggins moved to the front of the Honda. He shoved the chisel-like end of the tire tool into the plastic grill and pried down sharply. The thin plastic of the grill broke with a series of sharp pops, and he moved the tool and repeated the process before reversing the tire tool to hammer at the broken pieces. He examined his work critically then set about enlarging the hole until he could reach the front of the damaged radiator with both hands. He’d just finished when Tex came around the car, holding up a paper bag.
“One pepper plug, as ordered,” she said. “What else?”
“Fill up a bunch of those empty plastic water bottles with the river water, if you will,” Wiggins said. “We need to replace the missing coolant, and I don’t want to waste our drinking water.”
Tex collected the bottles and started for the river as Wiggins went around to their pile of gear and fished the multitool out of the backpack Levi Jenkins had prepared. He folded out the needle-nose pliers and returned to the front of the car.
Working through the hole in the grill to mash the damaged tubes of the radiator flat was difficult. He had to first use the chisel end of the tire tool to flatten the cooling fins before he even had room to get the pliers in around the tubes. Then it took both hands locked around the small pliers and all his strength to mash the damaged tubes flat for two inches on either side of the bullet damage.
By the time Tex returned with an armload of water, Wiggins’ forearms were bleeding from repeated scrapes against the sharp broken plastic of the grill, and his shirt was soaked in sweat. But the damaged tubes were crimped, or at least as close as he could make them.
Minutes later, the ground in front of the SUV was littered with empty water bottles, and the engine was running as Wiggins and Tex tore open packet after packet and dumped pepper directly into the radiator.
“Is this really gonna work, Bill?” Tex asked.
Wiggins shrugged. “Beats me. I read about it once, but I’ve never had to do it before.”
“You READ about it? Who reads about stuff like this?”
Wiggins grinned. “I’m an engineer, remember?”
Tex laughed. “And I’m glad you are. What next?”
“When we get all the pepper in, we put the radiator cap back on and let the pressure build up. The radiator is still seeping, and the pepper grains will all be sucked to the leak. The difference in pressure will force the pepper into the leak and it will clog up and solidify. That’s the theory anyway. If it works, there won’t be any water dripping off the bottom of the radiator.”
“And if it doesn’t?” Tex asked.
“Even if it doesn’t work completely, it should slow the leak,” Wiggins said. “We’ll fill all our empty bottles with river water, and if the engine temp starts to rise, we pull over and let it cool then top off the radiator. Not perfect but it beats walking.”
Chapter Thirty
Just Off East Sheffield Road
Near Great Barrington, Massachusetts
Day 33, 5:20 p.m.
The plug was holding, at least for the moment. They decided to celebrate by pigging out with a big meal from their now ample supply of food, only to discover to their disappointment there wasn’t really anything in their stores tempting enough to warrant overindulgence.
They slept in shifts, Wiggins first for a few fitful hours while Tex stood watch. He relieved her around noon, the growing heat and his own anxieties banishing any hope for further rest. He had a map spread out on the hood of the Honda when she awoke in the late afternoon, with the now battered AT Guide open beside it.
The Honda rocked a bit as she crawled out of the back. Wiggins looked up and smiled.
“Sleep well?” he asked.
Tex yawned. “Better than you, I think. It’s still hours before dark, would you like to try again?”
Wiggins shook his head. “Nah. I’m good.”
She nodded toward the map. “Finding a better route?”
“Well, I don’t know if it’s better, but I’ve definitely come to a conclusion,” he said.
“Which is?”
“Which is, it doesn’t make much sense to stick close to the AT any longer.” He pointed to the map. “The terrain is getting rougher and the roads follow the valleys. Just look at this stretch through the White Mountains; sure, a road parallels the trail five miles away, but the terrain in between is impassable. It might as well be five hundred miles away, and half the trail between here and Maine is like that. There’s no point in sticking close to a trail we can’t possibly access. Access and escape is the whole point, right?”
Tex looked doubtful. “Maybe, but Levi’s plan has worked so far, and I don’t—”
“But Levi said himself this was all theoretical, and he’s not from New England. I know this area, Tex, look at the elevation changes in the guide if you don’t believe me.”
“Of course I believe you. It’s just that every time we come into a populated area, we court trouble, that’s all I’m saying.”
“And I’m saying we have no choice,” Wiggins said. “There are four major river crossings between here and Maine, and they put the bridges where the people are. Those are our points of greatest risk, and there’s nothing we can do to avoid them, so I can’t see wasting time in between. We can run the back roads at night now, with no lights, and that’s an advantage Levi never even considered when he made his plan. We can cover the distance between the rivers in an hour or two at most, then hide the car and scout the crossing on foot during the day. If it looks too dangerous, we can wait until dark and go upriver to the next crossing, and keep checking them out until we find a place to cross.”
Tex sighed. “It sounds reasonable. I just doubt we’re going to find unguarded crossings. It seems to be getting worse the further north we go.”
“It is what it is,” Wiggins said. “One thing for sure, though, we have to get a reliable ride. The plug is holding, but if we have to run for it, it may leave us afoot at the worst possible time.”
Tex snorted. “Reliable ride. At this point I long for a Greyhound or even Amtrak.”
Wiggins smiled wanly. “Yeah, well, I doubt that’s happening anytime soon …”
He stopped mid-sentence and glanced down at the map a moment, then traced a line with his finger. He looked up, his smile genuine now.
“I have an idea,” he said.
Same Day, 9:10 p.m.
With great difficulty, Wiggins forced himself to wait until full dark before they started out. They found what they were looking for less than two miles down the road and pulled in to a weed-choked gravel parking lot. They sat for a minute examining the modest fram
e building. A large sign on the front read The Yogurt Hut and another slightly smaller sign proclaimed Frozen Treats.
“You think this place was even in business before the blackout?” Tex asked. “It looks pretty run-down.”
“Well, if it was, I figure the frozen treats melted long ago,” Wiggins said. “But as long as they have a phone book, I couldn’t care less.”
He pulled the Honda behind the building. The back door had a cheap padlock rather indifferently attached to the wooden door frame. It yielded to the tire tool easily.
Wiggins hopes fell when they entered, and it was obvious the Yogurt Hut hadn’t been a going concern in some time. Hope was restored when Tex found a stack of dusty phone books in a cabinet.
“What’s that thickest one?” Wiggins asked.
Tex shined her light at the cover. “Springfield.”
Wiggins grabbed the book and opened it to the yellow pages, then began flipping pages.
“Track Services, Inc., in Westfield,” he said triumphantly.
“If it’s still there,” Tex said. “That phone book is ten years old.”
Wiggins was carefully tearing the page out of the book. “We’ll find out when we get there, won’t we?”
***
As it turned out, their frustrations weren’t over. Westfield was on the east bank of the Westfield River, a minor tributary of the Connecticut. Their original route paralleling the AT took them west of its headwaters, but going directly to Westfield meant they had to cross the river or travel almost two hundred miles around, not an option given the jury-rigged repair.
There were bridges in the city of Westfield itself and on the Mass Turnpike west of the city: main crossings likely to be controlled by someone, either government or freelance toll collectors. Their maps showed two crossings upstream, one in the center of a tiny hamlet named Woronoco and a second just upstream of the town.
“What do you think?” Tex asked.
Push Back: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller (The Disruption Series Book 2) Page 40
