Land

by Theresa Shaver

  They got to the room and opened the door to a blast of hot, stale, cigarette tainted air. With no air conditioning and being shut up all day the hot California sun had heated the room up. Dara and Alex went in first and pulled all the curtains back and opened the front window and the small window in the back bathroom hoping for a breeze. The only thing that really did was give them some natural light to see the inside of the room. The girls moved the small table and chairs out of the way so there would be room for the bikes and then helped the boys bring them in and squeeze them into the front area of the room. This worked easier once Josh and Quinn unhooked the trailers from their bikes. It was so hot in the room that they were all sweating in minutes. Cooper grabbed a pillow and started fanning it back and forth in front of the door trying to get some hot air out of the room. He kept it up for a few minutes and then gave it up as a lost cause throwing the pillow back onto the bed.

  Quinn went to the door and looked out as everyone slumped down on the beds with aching muscles. “I don’t like the looks of those beer drinkers out there. If we are going to have problems, it will be from them. I think we’ll have to post watches tonight just in case. Can someone make sure the bath tub is clean? I think we should fill it up now with the bucket so we won’t have to go out back later. Once it gets dark, I don’t think we should leave the room. Our bikes are worth gold right now and our supplies even more.”

  “The way those guys were looking at Alex and I, it wasn’t the bikes they will be after.” Dara said with a grimace.

  “Good point. You and Alex should stay inside so they aren’t tempted to start anything.” Quinn said with a frown.

  “Sounds good to me, you big strapping boys can fetch our water and Dara and I’ll stay here and paint our toes!” Alex teased.

  As if planned, the three boys lifted their arms and flexed their biceps in muscle men poses. After the laughter had died down Josh said, “How about you little women make us men some dinner?”

  “Oh yeah, that would be great. I’m starving.” Cooper chimed in.

  Quinn was nodding his head too but then stopped to think, “We can’t have anything hot. The smell would let everyone in this place know what we have. They probably only have snack food and the smell of hot food would draw them right to our door. So it will have to be a cold dinner.” Groans all around answered that. After the work they did getting this far, they all wanted a good hot meal but they wanted a fight even less.

  Quinn and Cooper went out with the bucket, leaving Josh to guard the door. Alex used some of her water bottle and a hand towel to wipe the bath tub out and made sure the plug was pushed in. The toilet still had water in the tank so it was good for at least one flush. They would have to remember not to flush it after every pee or they would go through the water very quickly.

  Of the five one gallon jugs that they had brought from the camping section, half was already gone. They would fill them up in the morning and try to keep them filled every chance they found water. Five people on bikes went through a lot of water and Alex was worried about the next couple of days. The route they had planned would take them past Las Vegas and it was in the middle of desert country so water would be very important and she was worried that they wouldn’t have enough.

  Leaving the bathroom, Alex saw Dara pulling beef jerky and trail mix from the trailer, covering the freeze dried camping food with a sleeping bag so it couldn’t be seen. Alex got out one of the camping stoves and fuel and a pot so she could boil water. Even though they weren’t going to eat a hot meal they could have hot water to clean themselves up with and a hot drink.

  Quinn and Cooper came in with a full bucket of water and went to pour it in the tub. Coming back into the room Quinn said, “This is going to take a lot of trips. That barely covered the bottom of the tub.”

  Alex followed them to the door and saw Quinn approach the table with the older couple and mother and child. After some conversation the man got up and headed to a different room. He came out with a bucket and went into the room beside his and emerged with another bucket. He handed his extra bucket to Cooper and the three disappeared around the back of the hotel. Loud laughter drew Alex’s attention to the other table and she saw the three men still drinking. It seemed the pile of empties had grown and Alex wondered if the men had carried the beer from where ever they had been stranded. She saw that they were looking her way so she quickly backed into the room. She found herself hoping that they would drink so much that they would pass out and not cause any trouble.

  It didn’t take very long for Quinn and the others to come back with three full buckets of water and the tub was filling up faster. After one more trip the tub was half full and they decided it was enough for the night.

  “We’re going to help Mr. Thomas fill his tub up now. They’re going to share their room with the mother and little girl out there. So give us about twenty minutes and we’ll be in for the night.” Quinn told Alex, Dara and Josh.

  While they were waiting Alex and Dara used the steaming water from the camp stove and some hotel soap and wash cloths to clean off the dust and sweat as best they could. It wasn’t a hot shower but after putting on clean shirts, they felt much better. Alex swapped out Josh from the door and he handed her his gun. She made sure the safety was on and tucked it into a pocket of her cargos. She stayed back from the door but had a good view of the drinking table. The older woman and mother and child had gone back into their room so the men were the only people outside that Alex could see.

  On one of their earlier pit stops, Josh had gone over the basics of handguns with her and she felt more confident carrying it. It wasn’t that different from a rifle and Alex was a great shot, having hunted with her Dad and done target shooting with her brother.

  Josh had used the last of the hot water to clean up so Dara refilled the pot and set it on the stove for the other two boys to have hot water. The room only had two coffee cups beside the now useless mini coffee maker but they could take turns having a hot drink after they ate their meagre supper. While waiting for the boys to return, Dara and Alex set up the small table between the two beds for more seating and placed the food and drinks as well as the map on it. It was getting dark outside when Quinn and Cooper finally came in and emptied one last bucket full of water into the tub. Alex was surprised to see the time was almost eight o’clock at night. As the two boys got cleaned up with the hot water she got out the lantern and a fat camping candle from the trailer and lit it. Alex went to the door and took a quick look out, noting that the beer drinkers were gone. She shut and locked the door and then pulled the heavy curtains closed. It wasn’t nearly as hot in the room as when they first opened it up but it was still very warm. Having the door open had helped to keep it cooler but Alex felt safer with it closed and locked now that it was getting dark. By the time she got the lantern lit everyone had gathered at the table to eat.

  “Mm hmm, just what I wanted after a hard day’s work! Beef jerky and trail mix. This sure will hit the spot.” Josh joked sarcastically.

  No one was happy with the supper but they all understood it was better to be cautious about advertising what supplies they had. As they were eating, they discussed what their plan was for the next day. Looking at the map and trying to figure out distances wasn’t all that easy. Alex couldn’t help wishing for Google earth to zoom in and see what was ahead of them.

  She wondered if she would ever see a working computer with internet again, or if someday her future children would. It was those thoughts that finally brought the whole situation home for Alex. She had to quickly leave the table and race for the bathroom, barely making it to the toilet before throwing up what little she had eaten. Alex flushed the toilet and splashed some water on her face. She stood shaking in front of the mirror trying to get herself under control.

  A knock on the door and Dara came in, “Are you alright Alex?”

  Staring at Dara through the mirror Alex let out all she was thinking. “No more Google, no cars, no planes, no grocer
y stores, malls, cell phones, Facebook, new jeans, prom, Glee, no more iTunes and damn it, we will never see the last Twilight movie.” she ended with a half laugh half sob. Dara’s eyes had gotten wider as Alex listed the things that were gone.

  “Oh My God! I think I’m going to puke.” She covered her mouth.

  “Feel free, I already did.” Alex told her. “It just hit me. We’ve been go go going since the moment this happened that I finally realized that it’s done. All the things in our lives that we took for granted everyday are over. If we want music we’ll have to make it. If we want food we’ll have to grow it. It’s like we just got cast in a really bad Pioneer Village reality show.”

  “Oh shit, do you think we’ll end up sister wives, pumping out babies and farming?” Dara exclaimed.

  Alex couldn’t help it. It was all too much to process and she burst out laughing and couldn’t stop, even with tears rolling down her face. Dara started giggling and they both ended up howling with laughter and holding onto each other. The boys must have thought that they had lost it because none of them came to check on them. After they settled down and caught their breath they washed their faces and went back out to the main room.

  All the guys were staring at them, afraid to say anything, and that set the girls off laughing again. The table had been put back and the food cleared away. There were two mugs of steaming hot chocolate sitting on the night stand between the beds and the girls immediately claimed them, sitting back on one bed to drink.

  “Sooo, you guys ok?” Quinn asked. When Alex and Dara only nodded he continued. “Alright, Cooper is taking first watch until midnight, then me until three AM and then Josh until six. You two can have tonight off and take a turn tomorrow night. Josh will wake us in the morning and we should try to be out of here by six thirty. Hopefully the drunks won’t cause any trouble and will be sleeping it off when we get away from here. I say we bike for an hour and then stop and cook a good breakfast. We are aiming for somewhere between the two small towns, Yermo and Baker for the end of the day. That’s only the best guess we can make. It will depend on how the road is and what we run into on the way. It’s going uphill a lot so that will slow us down. We also have to be careful about our water and keep an eye out to fill it up whenever we can. We’re really lucky it’s only April so it’s hot during the day but not scorching. That’s about it. We should get to sleep as soon as we can, tomorrow is going to be even harder than today was.” he finished.

  Alex and Dara made up two more mugs of hot chocolate for Josh and Quinn and Alex put a little more water on the camp stove for Cooper to have his on watch. When Quinn and Josh finished their drinks they laid down on the double bed closest to the door. Alex and Dara climbed on the other bed and settled down to sleep.

  Alex was so tired that she thought she would be asleep in a second. The belly full of warm chocolate and soft bed should have done the trick but she couldn’t stop thinking. Her thoughts were full of her parents and brother. “What was happening at home? Were they all ok or hurt? What if they were driving at the time and had a crash?” After a hundred what ifs Alex couldn’t bear it anymore and switched her thoughts to Emily. “Where was her best friend right now? Did they make it to a boat? Would she be ok with the jerks she was traveling with?” Alex couldn’t stop thinking and didn’t think she would be able to sleep. After tossing and turning she gave up and just stared up at the ceiling.

  She could hear Josh snoring and Quinn’s breathing and Cooper shifting on his chair by the window. Just as she thought she might as well get up and do something like fill the water bottles in the bathroom, she felt her hand being held. Dara gave Alex’s hand a squeeze of comfort and then just held it in the dark. Alex realized that her parents and best friend might be far away but she had a friend right beside her, one that she didn’t even know she had been missing so much. With that thought, Alex fell asleep still holding her friend’s hand.

  Chapter 7

  Everything must have been quiet during the night because when Alex woke up, there was a soft light coming in around the curtains and everyone was still asleep except for Josh by the window. Tilting her watch she saw that it was ten minutes to six and decided to get up. She tried to quietly slide off the bed but as soon as she stood up a groan came out at the pain in her legs and butt. Alex staggered to the bathroom trying not to whimper and it was made harder by Josh’s muffled laughter. He obviously knew just how sore she was because sitting on the bathroom counter was a container of Advil and a bottle of water. Alex imagined that they all would be starting their day with the painkiller. While waiting for the drugs to kick in Alex put the lid down and sat on the toilet seat beside the tub. She started filling up the gallon jugs from the tub and topping up the bike water bottles. Once that was done she limped back out to the main room and grabbed some dried fruit and half a power bar to eat. Having thrown up her supper last night she was starving. The food took the edge off but she was definitely looking forward to a big camping breakfast down the road. They had enough food for all of them to eat for five days and after that they would have to start looking elsewhere. It would be a good idea to stop in a small town today and see if they could still buy some food. Alex still had almost two thousand dollars in her pocket and they might get lucky in a small town.

  The others were all up by then and Quinn was passing out foldable camping toothbrushes that the girls had grabbed at the last minute from the store. It didn’t take long to pack the trailers back up and Dara came out of the bathroom with an extra toilet paper roll and stuffed it into her pack. Then they quietly wheeled the bikes out to the parking lot and hooked up the trailers. Alex went back in and did a quick last check of the room to make sure they didn’t forget anything. The pillows on the beds were tempting but with no extra room she wistfully left them and closed the door. Just as Alex turned from the door to get on her bike the older man that had lent them his bucket came out of his room. He lit a cigarette and walked over to the group.

  In a lowered voice he asked, “Getting an early start, aren’t you?”

  Quinn seemed to think about it and replied, “Sir if I could give you some advice, things are going to get really bad. We came from Disneyland yesterday and nothing’s moving. Planes fell out of the sky and burned with no one trying to put out the fires. We saw two policemen who had been shot. It’s going to be even worse today. People are going to get scared and scared people do stupid things. No one is coming to help. I don’t think anyone can come to help. You need to get out of here. There’s no food here and when those drunken guys realize that there are no cops around, it could get ugly. You should check with the lady that runs this place and see if she has anything with wheels like a stroller, wagon or even a grocery cart and fill it with as much water as you can and then the four of you should head to the closest town.”

  The man puffed on his smoke and then dropped it and ground it out with his shoe before replying, “I think you nailed it son. I didn’t sleep much last night thinking about it. I appreciate you warning me and I’m going to wake up the girls and get moving. Good luck to you kids. I hope you make it to wherever you are headed.” and with that he nodded at the group and went back into his room.

  As they biked out onto the road Josh started singing, “On the road again. Just can’t wait to get on the road again.” which was met by a chorus of “Shut ups.”

  For the first ten minutes it was very slow going. Everyone was feeling the effects in their legs from the day before but once their muscles warmed up it got easier. As they biked down the road Alex asked the group about stopping to buy food.

  “If we stop at the first small town or service station we come to we might still be able to buy more food. Yesterday most people would have been waiting for help to come and still be fairly calm. As time goes by today, people are going to start to panic and make a run to stock up on supplies. If we stop early enough we might get in before the panic.”

  “I think you’re right Alex.” Cooper said and the others agr
eed. “Let’s watch for a small town with a grocery. Service stations will have been overrun yesterday and most only have small amounts of grocery items. They mainly stock junk food. A small town food store will be better.”

  As their muscles warmed up they started making better time. There were lots of dead cars on the road but some had been able to pull off before crashing, leaving space for the bikers to get through. They passed by a few service stations with fast food restaurants and gas stations, but they kept going. Not many people were out and about but it was still fairly early in the morning. About eight o’clock they started seeing road signs for a town ahead, advertising privately owned diners and small businesses with nothing showing for the bigger chain stores. They biked past the exits and stopped about a mile past on a service road.

  Quinn opened the conversation with his ideas, “I don’t think we should all go into the town. Two of us should stay here with the bike trailers and three should go in. One person needs to stay outside the store to guard the bikes and two to go in and get what they can. Dara I think you should stay here with me. It’s hard to say how nervous the people in town are and with your hair they might judge you as a wild child.”

  Dara was pissed off at that but understood that there are a lot of small minded people in the world and her punkish hair colour might make them wary. “Fine, but if it’s going to be a problem then Alex, get me a hair dye kit and we can do camping beauty salon when we stop tonight.” she said in a huff.